Judge says release detained migrant children; #FreeThePress says release jailed journalists, Rare CGTN footage shows workers in Wuhan hospitals battle COVID-19; Pelosi pushes for 'vote-by-mail' system
NewsHero - March 31, 2020 - Issue 66
Welcome to today’s edition of NewsHero for March 31, 2020.
For the foreseeable future, our newsletter will be made fully accessible to all readers. We hope you’ll take advantage of the resources provided here as we all do our best to absorb the continually developing information on the coronavirus crisis. Also, we hope you enjoy our usual take on happenings from around the globe, and consider joining up with us in the near future.
At NewsHero we put the heroes in the headlines and give them the attention in our coverage that they deserve. Here you’ll find the same high priority news, but you’ll get it without clickbait and it won’t be driven by ad sales. You’ll also get it with the focus on those who are helping, not causing harm.
We love feedback. Whether it’s about our choice of hero or anything else, feel free to let us know what you think here.
We are a subscription-based outfit and would love for you to think about making us a permanent part of your daily routine. Thank you for your support as we strive to grow as an independent news source so we can offer more for our readers.
Please share us with anyone you think might like what we do—or might need another perspective.
Wishing you health and safety!
NewsHero Notes
NCPE - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
Today is Equal Pay Day 2020, originated by the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) in 1996 as a public awareness event to illustrate the gap between men's and women's wages.
ACLU - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
The ACLU posted on Instagram: “Just hours after filing legal challenges in Ohio and Alabama—federal courts blocked both of the attempts to push abortion out of reach that we sued against today. We will not let politicians use the COVID-19 emergency to block abortion, end of discussion.”
Andy Hunter - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
In January, Andy Hunter launched Bookshop.org, a new online sales outlet for independent booksellers. Hunter says weekly sales at first were around $30,000, but jumped to more than $450,000 by mid-March, as the coronavirus spread and readers could no longer visit their favorite local stores.
Afternoon Brief
Nancy Pelosi - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today the U.S. needs a “vote by mail” system to offer citizens a safe way to vote while the coronavirus makes it dangerous to gather in groups.
“In terms of the elections, I think we’ll probably be moving to vote by mail,” Pelosi said in an interview on MSNBC. “That’s why we wanted to have more resources in this third bill that just was signed by the president, to get those resources to the states to facilitate the reality of life: that we are going to have to have more vote by mail.” Pelosi’s position conflicts with Donald Trump’s, who on Monday commented that a system based on voting by mail could hurt the Republican party.
“The things they had in there were crazy,” Trump said on Fox News, referring to reforms to make voting easier amid the pandemic. “They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
Climate change activists, environmental advocates - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
British bank Barclays has given in to investor pressure over its climate track record and announced plans to shrink its carbon footprint to net zero by 2050, reports The Guardian. The campaign group ShareAction said the net zero commitment was a “milestone announcement” for the lender.
California and 22 other U.S. states plan to challenge the Trump administration’s effort to roll back Obama era vehicle emissions rules. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Andrew Wheeler said on Twitter on Monday that the final rule will raise U.S. fleet fuel economy, reduce air pollution and “make new vehicles more affordable.”
U.S. Senator Tom Carper, the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said, “This legally flawed rule means more uncertainty and more litigation. This rule will not provide regulatory relief to automakers, it will do just the opposite.”
Mike Pompeo - 🦸♀️
After a teleconference of foreign ministers of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations last week, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters the international community must remain united in urging North Korea to return to nuclear talks and in continuing to apply pressure on its nuclear and missile programs.
North Korea said Monday that “reckless remarks” by Pompeo made it clear that Washington has no intention of resuming nuclear talks, and warned that it is now compelled to pay back “the pains the U.S. has imposed on our people.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signed off on waiver extensions on U.S. sanctions against Iran—allowing Russian, European and Chinese companies to continue to work on Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities without drawing American penalties—renewed by the Trump administration on Monday.
Officials familiar with the matter said Pompeo had opposed extending the waivers, which are among the few remaining components of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that the administration has not canceled.
However, the officials said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had prevailed in an internal debate on the subject last week by arguing that the coronavirus pandemic made eliminating the waivers unpalatable at a time when the administration is being criticized for refusing to ease sanctions to deal with the outbreak.
Judge Orders Migrant Children Released From ‘Hotbeds Of Contagion’
CPJ’s #FreeThePress calls for release of all jailed journalists during pandemic
A medical worker wearing protective gear takes a rest as he waits for ambulances carrying patients infected with the COVID-19 coronavirus at an entrance of a hospital in Daegu on Sunday. South Korea has seen a rapid surge in infections since a cluster emerged from a religious sect in the southern city of Daegu last week.
NewsHero is continuing to offer a compilation of stories and resources that best represent the current state of the coronavirus pandemic, centered on those individuals, institutions, and organizations stepping up to end this crisis as quickly and effectively as possible. The public, too, has a duty. This includes staying responsibly informed and taking the situation seriously, while remaining as cool-headed and as isolated as possible. These are strange and difficult times, but we will endure.
Critics are speaking out as photos emerged of parking lots in Las Vegas set up so the homeless could sleep while maintaining social distancing as shelters are forced to close. “After criminalizing homelessness this year, Las Vegas is now packing people into concrete grids out of sight,” tweeted Julián Castro. “There are 150K hotel rooms in Vegas going unused right now. How about public-private cooperation (resources) to temporarily house them there? And fund permanent housing!”
Speaking of Twitter, Axios reported that the social media company is cracking down on coronavirus misinformation, having deleted certain tweets from Rudy Giuliani and Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.
Three major health insurance providers have now pledged to protect patients from high medical bills if they need treatment for COVID-19, reports NPR. Insurers Cigna and Humana announced Monday that they would waive consumer costs associated with COVID-19 treatment. Last week, CVS Health announced that Aetna would waive costs to patients for hospital admissions related to the coronavirus.
CNN reported that Crocs is donating 10,000 shoes a day to health workers fighting COVID-19, that Ford plans to build 50,000 ventilators in 100 days, and that Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle is cutting his salary to $10,000 to keep his employees paid during the coronavirus crisis.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Public Schools hopes to deliver 100,000 computers to students as it shifts to remote learning, saying longer school closures are a possibility.
Photo: Rare look at medical staff in China’s central city of Wuhan on front lines of the coronavirus fight | South China Morning Post
Chinese state television had rare access to hospitals in Wuhan, offering footage that details the work of frontline medical teams as they fought to save lives and halt the spread of the coronavirus.
Committee to Protect Journalists has launched the #FreeThePress campaign to call for the unconditional release of all jailed journalists to ensure their safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Judge Dolly Gee of the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Saturday found that the Trump administration has not done its part to protect the health of detained migrant children during the coronavirus outbreak, calling detention facilities “hotbeds of contagion.” Citing the “unprecedented threats” posed by the COVID-19 crisis, Gee ordered officials to release detained children “without unnecessary delay.”
IBM, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are teaming with the White House, the U.S. Department of Energy, and other federal agencies to bring a massive amount of supercomputing power and public cloud resources to scientists, engineers and researchers fighting COVID-19, reports The Next Platform.
Substack (which hosts this newsletter) posted on its blog a letter to writers, saying the company is “donating $100,000 in grants to independent writers who are experiencing economic hardship due to the coronavirus pandemic,” and that it’s dropping its “cut of subscription revenue for publications that are donating their earnings to the fight against COVID-19, whether that’s charities, non-profits, or businesses that have been directly impacted.”
Extra! Extra!
In these stressful times it is easy to get caught up worrying about how best to protect oneself when leaving the house is a necessity.
Gloves, masks, hand sanitizer—these are the weapons of choice for most people venturing out. One woman in Britain however took safeguarding herself to a new level when she went shopping inside a giant plastic bubble.
Yes, there’s video to prove it. Bubble lady rolls into a supermarket while inside a life-sized, inflatable sphere, officially known as a zorb ball.
Store staff and other shoppers were not amused, but we must admit we found the lady getting stuck in a canned goods aisle to be rather amusing.
Hey, we all have to keep our social distance, and we’re all for getting creative about how to maintain it—but let’s face it, we humans annoy each other enough as it is right now. Try to keep your creative distancing off peoples’ nerves.
Our heroes are identified as follows:
🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️ - the hero, hands down. - Meaning that it wasn’t even a close call.
🦸♀️🦸♀️ - the hero, but… - Meaning that in this situation the call needed to be looked at in a little more detail. For example, in this case, they did the right thing but there have been some questionable calls in the past.
🦸♀️ - the hero, but only here, and it was a close call. - Meaning that in this instance they did the right thing but it was either out of character or a maddeningly close call.
Sources:
Another win: A federal court has now blocked Alabama’s attacks on abortion providers - ACLU
New online store offers help to shuttered indie booksellers - AP News
Equal Pay Day: March 31, 2020 - US Census Bureau
Trump says Republicans would ‘never’ be elected again if it was easier to vote - The Guardian
Trump just comes out and says it: The GOP is hurt when it’s easier to vote - Washington Post
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the country must move toward vote by mail, setting up a fight with Trump - CNBC
Barclays sets net zero carbon target for 2050 after investor pressure - The Guardian
U.S. to finalize fuel efficiency rewrite through 2026: sources - Reuters
Trump rollback of mileage standards guts climate change push - AP News
North Korea rips Pompeo, says 'if the US bothers us, it will be hurt' - Fox News
North Korea says US clearly doesn’t want nuclear talks - AP News
North Korea says US clearly doesn’t want nuclear talks - AP News
Las Vegas parking lot turned into 'homeless shelter' with social distancing markers - The Guardian
Twitter cracks down on coronavirus misinformation from Giuliani, Bolsonaro - Axios
Some Insurers Waive Patients' Share Of Costs For COVID-19 Treatment - NPR
Columbia Sportswear CEO cuts salary to $10,000 to help support employees during Coronavirus - CNN
Crocs is donating 10,000 shoes a day to health care workers fighting COVID-19 - CNN
Ford to build 50,000 ventilators in 100 days - CNN
Chicago Public Schools aims to deliver 100,000 computers to students as it plans shift to remote learning, won’t rule out longer school closures - Chicago Tribune
Judge says government must justify holding migrant children as coronavirus spreads - CBS News
Judge says government must justify holding migrant children as coronavirus spreads - CBS News
Bringing 330 Petaflops Of Supercomputing To Bear On The Outbreak - The Next Platform
All journalists jailed globally must be freed amid COVID-19 pandemic - CPJ
Rare look at medical staff in China’s central city of Wuhan on front lines of the coronavirus fight - South China Morning Post
A letter to writers - Substack Blog
Woman goes grocery shopping inside giant bubble: 'Someone just pop it' - Yahoo