Archives: Morning Breakouts

The final tally is being described as a blow to public-sector unions. The state's labor groups sought to recall Walker because of his efforts to eliminate most collective bargaining for public employees.

The House is scheduled to vote on this measure this week. It is one of two repeal-related proposals currently moving in that chamber.

The change from the children's entertainment company got a prominent backer Tuesday as first lady Michelle Obama offered her praise for the move. In the meantime, new reports outline the economic impact of obesity and new nutritional guidelines for children.

News outlets report that House Republican appropriators are working to undo parts of the health law by advancing steep funding cuts.

"The U.S. government aid agency on Tuesday warned that a humanitarian crisis in conflict-ridden Yemen was being 'overlooked' despite escalating to levels seen in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel," Agence France-Presse reports. "Five million people need urgent aid and five million more are facing food insecurity out of a population of 25 million people, [Nancy Lindborg, a USAID assistant administrator, told AFP in Rome after a visit to the country], adding that the crisis had been 'exacerbated' by conflict and a political transition," AFP writes.

"Millions of the world's poorest people could have easier access to life-saving drugs if India introduces an air ticket tax to help fund purchases of cheap medicines for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, a senior U.N. official said," AlertNet/Reuters reports. "UNITAID, a U.N. agency which negotiates for cheap medicines from pharmaceutical manufacturers to treat deadly diseases, is lobbying countries such as India to join its air ticket levy initiative which began in 2006," the news service writes.

"The Economic Community of West African States [ECOWAS] sent a distress call Tuesday to the international community declaring that more than six million people are at risk of hunger in the Sahel region of Africa, including more than a million children exposed to severe malnutrition," CNN reports. "The distress call was issued at the end of a two-day, high-level meeting [in Lome, Togo] to address the issue of food security in the region, especially in Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad," the news service adds.

"Over the past year, 13.3 million people in Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia were thrown into crisis as a result of drought in the Horn of Africa, the worst in 60 years," USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah writes in this Devex opinion piece. "Droughts cannot be prevented, but they can be predicted and mitigated thanks to investments in early warning systems, satellite technology and on-the-ground analysis," he writes, adding, "By identifying those communities facing the gravest risks and strategically focusing our efforts, we can help them withstand crisis."

In this post in The Hill's "Congress Blog," former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and the DuPont Advisory Committee on Agriculture Innovation and Productivity -- a group of experts in global agriculture development, science, policy and economics -- reflect on the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, launched by the Obama Administration last month. "The New Alliance aligns two principles that are critical to global food security -- the need for private sector investment and the importance of empowering smallholder farmers," they write.

"Drug-resistant strains of gonorrhea have spread to countries across the world, the U.N. health agency said on Wednesday, and millions of patients may run out of treatment options unless doctors catch and treat cases earlier," Reuters reports (Kelland, 6/6). "Already several countries, including Australia, France, Japan, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom are reporting cases of resistance to cephalosporin antibiotics -- the last treatment option against gonorrhea," a WHO press release states (6/6).

The former HHS head avoided talk about his involvement in GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's transition team.

Agence France-Presse examines the abortion debate in Morocco, where "voices calling for a repeal of the [country's] ban on abortion are growing louder," according to the news service. "The debate over abortion is just the latest front of an ongoing conflict between conservative supporters of traditional values and more liberal, reform-minded campaigners," the news service writes. "'We are going in all directions. It is difficult to move forward with a conservative government,' [Fauzia Assouli, president of the Federation of the Democratic League of Women's Rights] told AFP," the news service notes. "But at the same time, she said, there was a growing sense of awareness, a sense of momentum among activists," AFP writes. The news service adds, "A national congress will be held on June 12 in Rabat, under the auspices of the Moroccan Association for the Fight against Clandestine Abortion, headed by Professor Chafik Chraibi," a renowned gynecologist in the country (Mamarbachi, 6/4).

"Two newly released UNICEF publications demonstrate that while reaching universal health coverage (UHC) is possible in most countries, this requires a comprehensive social protection system of which health insurance is a crucial component," according to this post on the UHC Forward blog. A recent UNICEF study "finds that even in middle and low-income countries that have adopted a formal policy of universal health coverage ... many socio-economic barriers to access persist," the blog reports, adding, "It is for this reason that the study has been framed in the broader approach recommended by UNICEF's first global Social Protection Strategic Framework, which stresses the importance of developing and strengthening integrated social protection systems" (O'Connell, 6/4).

Aidspan, an independent watchdog of the Global Fund, on Tuesday published Issue 187 of its "Global Fund Observer." The issue includes an article on an Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report on its audit of eight Global Fund grants in Kenya; an article examining how reprogramming existing grants can improve their impact; and commentary from Bernard Rivers, executive director of Aidspan, about the Round 2 grants in Kenya (6/5).