Articles by Steven Gilchrist

According to the United States Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, there are approximately 1.6 million Americans living in housing units that do not have “complete plumbing facilities.”   The definition for a lack of complete plumbing facilities can range from not having a bathtub or shower, a working flush toilet, or running hot and cold water.   In a March 22, 2018 Los Angeles Times Op-Ed, George McGraw explains that having a lack of access for complete plumbing facilities is an invisible crisis for over 1 million Americans.   McGraw, who is the founder of the nonprofit organization Dig Deep, writes: “Impoverished rural communities in Appalachia face water-borne diseases at rates rarely seen in developed nations.   Even here in California more than 1 million people rely on public drinking water systems that have violated state safety standards, threatening their health. The invisible crisis for Americans who lack complete access to modern plumbing systems is concentra

Over the past seventy years Japan and Russia have been locked in one of the longest-running unresolved international disputes.  The two nations have not resolved a territorial dispute over the Kuril Islands – which are located off the coast of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. The disputed territory includes 4 islands: Kunashir, Iturup, Shikotan, and Habomai.  The island chain stretches 810 miles from Hokkaido, Japan to Kamchatka, Russia.  The islands are located in Russia’s Sakhalin Oblast region and they separate the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean.  There are 56 islands that compose the Kuril Island chain.  Today, approximately 30,000 people live on the islands.  The islands serve as a vital resource for fishing and offshore reserves of gas & oil.     Japan refers to the islands as the Northern Territories and Russia refers to the islands as the Southern Kurils.   Originally, the islands were under Japanese control.   During the 18 th & 19 th centuries, p