The Portland Medium

1 week ago | theportlandmedium.com | Anissa Durham

by Anissa DurhamThe statistics are grim — and tragically familiar: Black women in the United States are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. And systemic racism, gaps in healthcare access, and the toll of stress and chronic disease all play a part in the health of a birthing person and baby. But the data also shows something else: there are improvements being made in maternal health care.

1 week ago | theportlandmedium.com | Willy Blackmore

by Willy BlackmoreIt’s no mystery what happens when some poor, Black residents in rural Lowndes County, Alabama, flush the toilet: raw sewage flows into their yards, collecting in a fetid pool. The end result — disease-bearing mosquitoes, hookworm and other parasites are drawn to the sewage, then prey on children and adults — is just as obvious.

2 weeks ago | theportlandmedium.com | Anissa Durham |Josiah Scott

by Anissa DurhamYou probably don’t notice, but every time you inhale, you are breathing in plastic.  The production of plastic has exponentially increased in the last two decades. So much so that, globally, 400 million tons of plastic waste are produced every year. Because , all plastic that has ever been made is still present in the environment today.  For example,  used to make beverage bottles, like water bottles.

2 weeks ago | theportlandmedium.com | Anissa Durham |Josiah Scott

by Anissa DurhamIn the 1980s, it was a death sentence.  Now, with advancements in medicine, living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) doesn’t mean your life will end. Prevention efforts show improvements in HIV infection rates, with a 12% drop between 2018 to 2022. Still, the rates of HIV infection are increasing in certain regions and communities. And it doesn’t help that stigma, misinformation, and shame continue to burden Black folks who are overwhelmingly vulnerable to the virus.

3 weeks ago | theportlandmedium.com | Morgan Rimmer |Manu Raju |Clare Foran |Ted Barrett

By Morgan Rimmer, Manu Raju, Clare Foran and Ted Barrett, CNN(CNN) — Democratic Sen. Cory Booker mounted a historic protest on the Senate floor across two days, warning against the harms he said President Donald Trump’s administration is inflicting on the American public. The New Jersey Democrat spoke for 25 hours and 5 minutes, according to his office, breaking the record for the longest floor speech in modern history of the chamber. Booker, 55, surpassed the late Sen.