RAICES represented man who died at ICE camp; LGBTQ+ under fire in Idaho; Two American prisoners freed; 'Chinese Virus' fuels racism, AAJC says 'Words Matter' + 'Quick Fix'
NewsHero - March 20, 2020 - Issue 59
Welcome to today’s edition of NewsHero for March 20, 2020.
For the next two weeks, 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.
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.
We love feedback. Whether it’s about our choice of hero or anything else, feel free to let us know what you think here.
As always, 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
Donald Trump - 🦸♀️
Donald Trump has invoked the Defense Production Act to get needed medical supplies on the front lines of the coronavirus outbreak and the private sector mobilized against it. Trump had said earlier this week he would call on the act as needed. He said today he has put that “in gear.”
Anti-government protesters - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
Protests from anti-government demonstrators in Hong Kong have garnered enough attention that officers from China’s top internal security force—the People’s Armed Police (PAP)—joined Hong Kong police on the frontlines to observe protests that peaked last year, according to a senior foreign diplomat and an opposition politician.
Afternoon Brief
RAICES - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) legal group says it was representing a 27-year-old Honduran man who died by apparent suicide at one of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) family detention centers. The man was pronounced dead Wednesday after being found unresponsive at the Karnes County Residential Center in South Texas, which detains about 700 parents and children.
“We anticipate that this won’t be the last death at Karnes unless ICE immediately releases all those detained at this detention center and in custody around the country,” Lucia Allain, a spokeswoman for RAICES, said in a statement. “A dirty and cramped detention center in the face of a pandemic is unsafe and inhumane.”
Already, illnesses spread quickly in Karnes and other detention centers, said Andrea Meza, director of family detention services for RAICES. “When you’re there, all the kids are coughing,” she said. “Everybody has a runny nose and a sore throat and diarrhea.”
LGBTQ+ rights supporters - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
Transgender people in Idaho could be banned from changing the sex listed on their birth certificates—despite a federal court ruling declaring such a law unconstitutional—if Republican Gov. Brad Little signs the legislation headed to his desk.
A federal judge in March 2018 ruled that Idaho’s law barring transgender people from making the birth certificate change violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The judge scrapped the ban and warned against new rules.
“It is unconstitutional and will cost the state a lot of money in court because it could go to the US Supreme Court,” said Idaho Senate Democratic Minority Leader Michelle Stennett, adding the bill “was inconsistent with” the 2018 court order.
“Idaho lawmakers might as well try to tear down the federal courthouse if they have this much contempt for the rule of law,” Lambda Legal Counsel Peter Renn, a member of the legal team that obtained the court ruling in 2018, said in a statement immediately after the Senate vote.
Ohio and Tennessee are the only other states in the country where transgender people cannot change their birth certificates, Lambda Legal says.
Countries releasing those unnecessarily imprisoned - 🦸♀️
An American jailed for months in Lebanon was released from custody Thursday, while a Navy veteran was granted medical furlough from an Iran prison as the country struggles to curb the spread of coronavirus, U.S. officials said.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Michael White, imprisoned more than a year ago for insulting Iran's supreme leader, was released to the Swiss Embassy as part of a furlough that will require him to remain in Iran. The U.S. will work for his full release, Pompeo said.
The other American was Amer Fakhoury, a New Hampshire restaurant owner who had faced decades-old murder and torture charges in Lebanon that he denies. He was ordered released by a judge because more than 10 years had passed since the crimes he was accused of committing.
Critics Say Trump’s ‘Chinese Virus’ Is Racist, Dangerous
Asian Americans Advancing Justice: ‘Words Matter’
A close-up of President Trump’s notes shows where “Corona” was crossed out and replaced with “Chinese.” (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
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 say Donald Trump is blatantly attacking China and the global Asian community with racist language by insisting the novel coronavirus first detected in Wuhan, China be called the “Chinese Virus.”
“Words Matter,” as pointed out by John Yang, Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC) president. “Calling it that…presents physical harm to the Asian American community.”
The Guardian has assembled a sensible list of ways we can all help our communities during this time of crisis.
New research shows that nearly half of coronavirus patients have digestive symptoms. “Clinicians must bear in mind that digestive symptoms, such as diarrhea, may be a presenting feature of COVID-19, and that the index of suspicion may need to be raised earlier in these cases rather than waiting for respiratory symptoms to emerge,” wrote investigators from the Wuhan Medical Treatment Expert Group for COVID-19.
A post on Medium from Dr. Raj Panjabi, Associate Physician in the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham & Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, asks: What If Jobless U.S. Workers Were Hired to Fight Coronavirus?
Photo: LinkedIn
Workers in Lee County, Fla. reminded the public how it can help in fighting the coronavirus. Staff at Lee Health posed for a photo as they held up signs spelling out: “We stay here for you, please stay home for us!” A Facebook post from Lee Health said, “While the community does its part by social distancing and avoiding large gatherings, our frontline health care workers are running toward the fire, so to speak, acting like the professionals they are and doing everything in their power to try to stop the virus in its tracks.”
In the business section of Bloomberg News, we found an article that suggests that ditching Trump administration tariffs could clear the way for access to more ventilators: “The duties are an unnecessary tax on already-strained manufacturers, some of which may be key to helping in the coronavirus fight.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, a massive effort is underway to move the homeless into hotels, motels and shelters within days to protect both them and the healthcare system. State models show that 60,000 homeless people could be hit by the novel coronavirus in the next eight weeks, with up to 20% of them needing hospitalization.
ProPublica shed light on chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Richard Burr and how he, shortly after reassuring the public that the government was prepared to take on the coronavirus, “sold off a significant percentage of his stocks, unloading between $628,000 and $1.72 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 33 separate transactions.”
Supply chain experts say the shortage of toilet paper after a recent buying frenzy isn’t something we should be worried about. “All the grocery stores are going to have pallets of toilet paper sitting in the aisles, and nobody is going to buy it, because who needs to buy toilet paper when you’ve got a year’s worth sitting in your garage?” Daniel Stanton, author of “Supply Chain Management for Dummies,” told CNBC.
Good news for many Americans: NPR reports that amid the COVID-19 crisis, San Francisco and New York have deemed marijuana businesses as “essential.”
And finally we’ll leave you with the latest edition of CoronaDaily, our favorite recent for the latest “news you should know.”
Extra! Extra!
We’ve heard there was a time that people used to have these things called television sets for watching TV shows. Sometimes, we’re told, the screen would go wonky or start “rolling” and then the dismayed viewer would need to address the issue, often solved by banging on the top of the television set.
It seems this ancient method of technological troubleshooting might still have a living relative. A story from CNN tells of an issue that NASA was having with its Mars InSight lander up there. The fix? “Hit it with a shovel.” According to the story, “The trouble started when a heat probe, known as the ‘mole,’ did not manage to dig into the red planet as planned last year.”
Following a few months of frustration, the NASA InSight Twitter account announced that its strategy was “giving it a push with my robotic arm.” It apparently worked. “A bit of good news from #Mars: our new approach of using the robotic arm to push the mole appears to be working!” said a follow-up tweet.
Toaster not working? TV? Lawnmower? Deep space rover? Whatever it is. When it doubt, give it a whack!
Sources:
Man dies at ICE family detention center, ninth death since October - NBC News
Trump moves on invoking powers to spur virus supplies - AP News
Exclusive: China's internal security force on frontlines of Hong Kong protests - Reuters
Man detained in ICE facility dies by apparent suicide - The Hill
An Immigrant Has Killed Himself In An ICE Family Detention Facility - BuzzFeed
Idaho’s legislature hasn’t addressed the coronavirus. But it has passed 2 anti-trans bills this week. - Vox
Idaho bill targets transgender birth certificate changes - NBC News
Idaho Legislature sends bill prohibiting transgender people from altering birth certificates to governor for approval - CNN
Americans Held Overseas in Iran and Lebanon Are Freed - NY Times
2 Americans Imprisoned in Iran, Lebanon Released - US News
Pompeo: US citizens held in Iran, Lebanon released - MEMO
Trump takes direct aim at China as known U.S. infections double and criticism mounts - Washington Post
“Words matter”: Asian Americans Confront President Trump's 'Chinese Virus' Rhetoric - NBC News
How you can help your community during coronavirus - The Guardian
Almost half of coronavirus patients have digestive symptoms, study finds - CBS News
Lee Health workers urge you to stay home during coronavirus pandemic - NBC2
What If Jobless U.S. Workers Were Hired to Fight Coronavirus? - Medium
"No Exit" for now - CoronaDaily
Want More Ventilators? Roll Back Trump’s Tariffs - Bloomberg News
California scrambles to shelter homeless before the coronavirus floods hospitals - LA Times
Senator Dumped Up to $1.7 Million of Stock After Reassuring Public About Coronavirus Preparedness - ProPublica
Senator Richard Burr Sold a Fortune in Stocks as G.O.P. Played Down Coronavirus Threat - NY Times
Why there will soon be tons of toilet paper, and what food may be scarce, according to supply chain experts - CNBC
Amid Coronavirus, San Francisco, New York, Deem Marijuana Businesses 'Essential' - NPR
NASA fixes Mars lander by hitting it with a shovel - CNN