MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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In the News
Leading scientist ‘80 per cent’ sure drug will work
BEHIND PAYWALL, PASTING WHAT I COULD GET IN COMMENT.
"Do It for Your Big Mama"
By Anne Branigin @ TheRoot.com, April 10 Filed to: EXCUSE ME WHAT
It didn’t take long for U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams to dip into personal responsibility talking points—and some other questionable rhetoric—in remarks given to the press today about the disproportionate impact the novel coronavirus has had on black communities and other communities of color.
Adams’ comments were shared by PBS White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor on her Twitter account Friday afternoon. Adams told reporters more details would be “forthcoming” on the Trump administration’s plan to prevent further deaths from black and Latinx Americans [....]
By Tracy Connor @ TheDailyBeast.com, April 10
Federal prosecutors have now opened an investigation into the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke, Massachusetts, where 32 veterans have died during a coronavirus outbreak. The civil rights probe follows the announcement of two other investigations [....]
News analysis by Reid J. Epstein & Stephanie Saul @ NYTimes.com, April 10
Even some Republican officials, disagreeing with president, say that vote-by-mail has not hurt the G.O.P. in elections.
Analysis at length, with numerous studies and examples cited. Also of interest: the boost to turnout is surprisingly minor.
The coronavirus is tearing across the largest Native American reservation in the United States. Facing a spike in deaths, Navajo officials are scrambling to respond.
By Simon Romero from Window Rock, Arizona, @ NYTimes.com, April 9
[....] The Navajo Nation’s casualty count is eclipsing that of states with much larger populations, placing the rookie cop on the front lines.“My job is to tell our people to take this virus seriously or face the consequences,” Officer Yazzie, 24, said as he set up a police roadblock outside the town of Window Rock to enforce the tribal nation’s 8 p.m. curfew.
Faced with an alarming spike in deaths from what the tribal health department calls Dikos Ntsaaígíí-19 — or Covid-19 — Navajo officials are putting up checkpoints, assembling field hospitals and threatening curfew violators with 30 days in jail or a $1,000 fine.
The measures are part of a scramble to protect more than 150,000 people on the vast Navajo reservation, which stretches 27,000 square miles across Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, and tens of thousands of others who live in towns bordering the Navajo Nation. As of Wednesday night, the virus had killed 20 people on the reservation, compared with 16 in the entire state of New Mexico, which has a population 13 times larger [....]
Jobless claims now exceed 16 million as shutdowns from the coronavirus pandemic widen and problems with getting benefits persist.
By Patricia Cohen & Tiffany Hsu @ NYTimes.com, April 9
With the coronavirus outbreak shutting businesses in every state, fresh evidence of the economic devastation was delivered Thursday as a government report showed that 6.6 million more workers had lost their jobs.
The Labor Department announcement, reflecting last week’s filings for unemployment benefits, meant that more than 16 million people had been put out of work in just three weeks, an unheard-of figure. Two years of job losses from the last recession produced barely half that total.
Many economists say the actual job losses so far are almost certainly greater, and there is wide agreement that they will continue to mount.It’s as if “the economy as a whole has fallen into some sudden black hole,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief U.S. financial economist at Oxford Economics
The Federal Reserve redoubled its effort to break that fall on Thursday with an ambitious plan to help companies and state and local governments gain access to funding. The Fed said its new and expanded programs could pump $2.3 trillion into the economy.
The central bank’s intervention was welcomed in financial markets, with the S&P 500 stock index ending the day with a gain of almost 1.5 percent.
But additional relief from Washington hit a Senate roadblock over what to include. Republicans have proposed $250 billion to replenish a loan program for distressed small businesses, while Democrats want $250 billion more to assist hospitals and state and local governments dealing with coronavirus-related expenses and revenue shortfalls [....]
Two weeks after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo promised to release 400 Rikers inmates held on minor parole violations, only half have been freed.