But the agreement includes a much-disputed condition: It largely absolves the Sacklers of Purdue’s opioid-related liability. And as such, they will remain among the richest families in the country.
Judge Robert Drain of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y., approved the settlement, saying he wanted modest adjustments. The painstakingly negotiated plan will end thousands of lawsuits brought by state and local governments, tribes, hospitals and individuals to address a public health crisis that led to the deaths of more than 500,000 people nationwide.
The settlement terms have been harshly criticized for shielding the Sacklers. They are receiving protections that are typically given to companies that emerge from bankruptcy, but not necessarily to owners who, like the Sacklers, do not themselves file for bankruptcy.
Several states, including Connecticut and Washington State, have already said they intend to appeal the judge’s ruling.
The Sacklers have disgraced themselves but do not care because they get to keep the billions of dollars they made in profits on the victims of OxyContin.
The ruling was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts siding with the court’s three liberal members.
The majority issued a brief decision saying that, although women’s health groups had raised “serious questions about the constitutionality” of the law, the application failed to “carry the burden” necessary for an injunction while any legal challenges work their way through the courts.
“In particular, this order is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas’ law, and in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law, including in Texas state courts,” the justices wrote. They added that the ruling “in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law.”
The decision came just under a day after the court effectively allowed the Texas abortion ban to go into effect by not taking any action after a coalition of abortion rights groups filed an emergency appeal to halt it.
The new law, Senate Bill 8, effectively bans abortions at six weeks, when many women don’t yet realize they’re pregnant. It also deputizes private citizens who can receive bounties of up to $10,000 for suing anyone accused of “aiding and abetting” patients who seek an abortion in Texas.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor excoriated her conservative colleagues, saying the court had “silently acquiesced in a state’s enactment of a law that flouts nearly 50 years of federal precedents.”
“The court’s order is stunning,” she wrote in her dissent, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan. “Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.”
Roberts, in a separate dissent, said he would have blocked the law while it was before the court, calling it “not only unusual, but unprecedented.”
“Although the Court does not address the constitutionality of this law, it can of course promptly do so when that question is properly presented,” he wrote. “At such time the question could be decided after full briefing and oral argument, with consideration of whether interim relief is appropriate should enforcement of the law be allowed below.”
The Texas law, however, is notable in that it was drafted specifically to be difficult to challenge in court. The bill bars state officials from enforcing the new law but, by deputizing private citizens, it makes it much harder to craft a legal argument against it.
Abortion rights advocates have said the new law will effectively force tens of thousands of people to travel outside the state in order to get an abortion, placing a huge financial and emotional burden on them. Women’s rights advocates have also argued the bill could easily become a blueprint for other states hoping to also deny a woman’s right to choose abortion.
I have just finished reading The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World, a new book by Marie Favereau, an associate professor of history at Paris Nanterre University. I decided to read it because I knew very little about Mongol history and culture and was intrigued by the title. The book met my expectations and filled a gap in my knowledge of the contributions that Chinggus Khan (Genghis Kahn) and his descendants made to Asia, the Middle East, Northern Africa, and Europe. They were much more than just a “horde” of raiders on horseback and had an appreciation for commerce, religious freedom, and building a political organization across vast expanses of the Asian, African and European continents. Favereau makes the case that the Mongols were a force for global development comparable to the more familiar Western and Mediterranean empires of old. Their nomadic way of life unfortunately “left few architectural and lexical markers of their imprint on the world.” There are no great Mongol cities and monuments
I found it an interesting read and recommend it without reservation to anyone wanting to know more about the Mongol people.
Below are excerpts from a number of reviews.
Tony
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“Outstanding, original, and revolutionary. Favereau subjects the Mongols to a much-needed reevaluation, showing how they were able not only to conquer but to control a vast empire. A remarkable book.”—Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads
“The Mongols have been ill-served by history, the victims of an unfortunate mixture of prejudice and perplexity… The Horde flourished, in Favereau’s fresh, persuasive telling, precisely because it was not the one-trick homicidal rabble of legend.”—The Wall Street Journal
“In medieval European times, the Mongols ruled a vast area of the Eurasian landmass stretching as far to the west as modern Ukraine. Favereau, a French specialist on nomadic empires, achieves the exceptional feat of writing about this era in a way that is accessible to general readers as well as scholarly.”—Tony Barber, Financial Times
“Fascinating… The Mongols were a sophisticated people with an impressive talent for government and a sensitive relationship with the natural world… An impressively researched and intelligently reasoned book that will be welcomed by historians of the Mongol Empire.”—Gerard DeGroot, The Times
“A major achievement: it is thorough, accurate and complex, yet also accessible to a broad readership. Her blow-by-blow account of Mongol life and politics as one ruler falls and another rises is the most complete we have. Even better, the book is not solely focused on the Mongols. Favereau is an integrative historian committed to showing how the Horde influenced other peoples and shaped world history… Readers will enjoy the richness and clarity of The Horde.”—Timothy Brook, Literary Review
“The Horde is not the first history to challenge the depiction of the Mongol Empire as governed solely by ruthless conquerors and plunderers, but it is the most nuanced and comprehensive history.”—Francis P. Sempa, New York Journal of Books
“The first book to be devoted exclusively to the Golden Horde. It is at once a microhistory, dense with regional politics and war, and a survey of the Horde’s wider influence.”—Colin Thubron, The New York Review of Books
“In The Horde, an ambitiously revisionist account of the Mongol Empire, Favereau presents the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century conquerors of the steppe as sophisticated stewards of globalism, rulers who practiced remarkable tolerance, and stimulated far-reaching economic growth.”—Dinyar Patel, Scroll
“It is far too often forgotten that Asia’s nomadic empires, from the Sogdians and Huns through the Parthians and Seljuks, were key drivers of greater Asia’s rich cultural diversity. This extraordinary book vividly details how the nomadic Mongols operated the largest empire of the premodern world, through practices that continue to shape today’s world.”—Parag Khanna, author of The Future Is Asian
“A deeply compelling, sympathetic, and highly engaging account of how the Horde was created and of its lasting impact on the evolution of what we now call ‘globalization.’ Favereau’s book will transform our understanding of world history.”—Anthony Pagden, author of Worlds at War
“Favereau’s detailed and objective account of the Mongol conquest and rule of Russia rescues the era from dark neglect and prejudice to reveal its powerful positive and negative influences in shaping modern Eurasia. This highly readable and deeply informed work fills in one of history’s important missing chapters.”—Jack Weatherford, author of Genghis Khan and the Quest for God
“Combining material and textual sources, Favereau has written the best book on the Jochid Khanate: the first to see events resolutely from a Jochid perspective, without foreclosing on the vast contexts that bind the history of the Horde to that of Eurasia and the world.”—Felipe Fernández-Armesto, author of Pathfinders
“In this riveting book, Favereau shows how the most enduring descendants of Chinggis Khan’s Mongol imperium—the Western or ‘Golden’ Horde—fashioned an exceptionally resilient imperial system with far-reaching influence in western Eurasia. She has challenged us to think afresh about how mobility and empire can be fused into dynamic political and cultural forms.”—John Darwin, author of After Tamerlane
“Eye-opening… A meaningful corrective to popular misconceptions about Mongols’ role in world history.”—Publishers Weekly
“Rather than being the murderous mob depicted in film and popular history, the Mongol horde, this book reveals, was a complex Euro-Asian culture… [Favereau] dispels the myth that it was just a rampaging mass of warriors; it possessed great governing skills, was adept at social relationships, and remained a major force on the Eurasian landmass until it began to withdraw eastward after the Black Death.”—Kirkus Reviews
Last week at the We Love New York Homecoming Concert and backed by the NY Philharmonic Orchestra, Jennifer Hudson gave a wonderful rendition of Nessun Dorma from Puccini’s Turandot. There were tears in the eyes of people in the audience. This aria was a favorite among a number of major opera singers including Luciano Pavarotti. The lyrics with an English translation are below.
Enjoy!
Tony
Lyrics of Nessun Dorma
No sleep, no sleep Nessun dorma, nessun dorma
You too, o, Princess Tu pure, o, Principessa
In your cold room Nella tua fredda stanza
Look at the stars that tremble Guardi le stelle che tremano
Of love and hope D’amore e di speranza
But my mystery is closed in me Ma il mio mistero e chiuso in me
No one will know my name Il nome mio nessun saprà
No, no, I’ll say it on your mouth No, no, sulla tua bocca lo dirò
When the light shines Quando la luce splenderà
And my kiss will break the silence Ed il mio bacio scioglierà il silenzio
That makes you mine Che ti fa mia
(No one will know his name) (Il nome suo nessun saprà)
(And we must, alas, die, die) (E noi dovrem, ahimé, morir, morir)
The US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has opened investigations in five states regarding the prohibitions of universal indoor masking.
Chief state school officers in Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah received letters yesterday from the OCR questioning the states’ decisions to not mandate masks in schools. The Education Department maintains that mask-mandate bans discriminate against students with disabilities who are at heightened risk for severe illness from COVID-19 by preventing them from safely accessing in-person education.
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona says that not mandating masks may put students with underlying medical conditions and disabilities at particular risk. As reported by Yahoo News and other media organizations.
“It’s simply unacceptable that state leaders are putting politics over the health and education of the students they took an oath to serve. The Department will fight to protect every student’s right to access in-person learning safely and the rights of local educators to put in place policies that allow all students to return to the classroom full-time in-person safely this fall,” Cardona said in a statement.
The letter also points out that not mandating masks may prevent the schools “from meeting their legal obligations not to discriminate based on disability and from providing an equal educational opportunity to students with disabilities who are at heightened risk of severe illness from COVID-19.”
At the center of the Education Department’s investigation is Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The federal law protects students with disabilities from discrimination. Section 504 guarantees qualified students with disabilities the right to a free and appropriate public education in elementary and secondary school.
The department states that this includes the right of students with disabilities to receive their education in a regular educational environment, alongside peers without disabilities, to the maximum extent appropriate to their needs. The investigation will also explore Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. That federal law prohibits disability discrimination by public entities, including public education systems and institutions.
The department has yet to open investigations in Florida, Texas, Arkansas, or Arizona because masking bans in those states are enforced as a result of court orders or other state actions. However, the Education Department says that it will take action if needed if leaders in those states prevent universal indoor masking in schools.
I give credit to Secretary Cardona and the USDOE for moving forward with these investigations but I am not sure how timely or effective they will be.
The United States completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan yesterday, ending America’s longest war and closing a chapter in military history likely to be remembered for colossal failures, unfulfilled promises and a frantic final exit that cost the lives of 180 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members.
Hours ahead of President Joe Biden’s today’s deadline for shutting down a final airlift, and thus ending the U.S. war, Air Force transport planes carried a remaining contingent of troops from Kabul airport late yesterday. Thousands of troops had spent a harrowing two weeks protecting the airlift of tens of thousands of Afghans, Americans and others seeking to escape a country once again ruled by Taliban militants.
Gen. Frank McKenzie (see video above), head of U.S. Central Command, said the last planes took off from Kabul airport one minute before midnight in Kabul. He said a number of American citizens, likely numbering in “the very low hundreds,” were left behind, and that he believes they will still be able to leave the country.
Biden said military commanders unanimously favored ending the airlift, not extending it. He said the United States would work with international partners in holding the Taliban to their promise of safe passage for Americans and others who want to leave in the days ahead.
The airport had become a U.S.-controlled island, a last stand in a 20-year war that claimed more than 2,400 American lives. As reported by the Associated Press.
“The closing hours of the evacuation were marked by extraordinary drama. American troops faced the daunting task of getting final evacuees onto planes while also getting themselves and some of their equipment out, even as they monitored repeated threats — and at least two actual attacks — by the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate. A suicide bombing on Aug. 26 killed 13 American service members and some 169 Afghans. More died in various incidents during the airport evacuation.
The final pullout fulfilled Biden’s pledge to end what he called a “forever war” that began in response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and rural Pennsylvania. His decision, announced in April, reflected a national weariness of the Afghanistan conflict. Now he faces criticism at home and abroad, not so much for ending the war as for his handling of a final evacuation that unfolded in chaos and raised doubts about U.S. credibility.
The U.S. war effort at times seemed to grind on with no endgame in mind, little hope for victory and minimal care by Congress for the way tens of billions of dollars were spent for two decades. The human cost piled up — tens of thousands of Americans injured in addition to the dead.
More than 1,100 troops from coalition countries and more than 100,000 Afghan forces and civilians died, according to Brown University’s Costs of War project.
In Biden’s view the war could have ended 10 years ago with the U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden, whose al-Qaida extremist network planned and executed the 9/11 plot from an Afghanistan sanctuary. Al-Qaida has been vastly diminished, preventing it thus far from again attacking the United States.
Congressional committees, whose interest in the war waned over the years, are expected to hold public hearings on what went wrong in the final months of the U.S. withdrawal. Why, for example, did the administration not begin earlier the evacuation of American citizens as well as Afghans who had helped the U.S. war effort and felt vulnerable to retribution by the Taliban?
It was not supposed to end this way. The administration’s plan, after declaring its intention to withdraw all combat troops, was to keep the U.S. Embassy in Kabul open, protected by a force of about 650 U.S. troops, including a contingent that would secure the airport along with partner countries. Washington planned to give the now-defunct Afghan government billions more to prop up its army.
Biden now faces doubts about his plan to prevent al-Qaida from regenerating in Afghanistan and of suppressing threats posed by other extremist groups such as the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate. The Taliban are enemies of the Islamic State group but retain links to a diminished al-Qaida.
The final U.S. exit included the withdrawal of its diplomats, although the State Department has left open the possibility of resuming some level of diplomacy with the Taliban depending on how they conduct themselves in establishing a government and adhering to international pleas for the protection of human rights.
The speed with which the Taliban captured Kabul on Aug. 15 caught the Biden administration by surprise. It forced the U.S. to empty its embassy and frantically accelerate an evacuation effort that featured an extraordinary airlift executed mainly by the U.S. Air Force, with American ground forces protecting the airfield. The airlift began in such chaos that a number of Afghans died on the airfield, including at least one who attempted to cling to the airframe of a C-17 transport plane as it sped down the runway.
Speaking shortly after that attack, Biden stuck to his view that ending the war was the right move. He said it was past time for the United States to focus on threats emanating from elsewhere in the world.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “it was time to end a 20-year war.”
The war’s start was an echo of a promise President George W. Bush made while standing atop of the rubble in New York City three days after hijacked airliners slammed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
“The people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!” he declared through a bullhorn.
Less than a month later, on Oct. 7, Bush launched the war. The Taliban’s forces were overwhelmed and Kabul fell in a matter of weeks. A U.S.-installed government led by Hamid Karzai took over and bin Laden and his al-Qaida cohort escaped across the border into Pakistan.
The initial plan was to extinguish bin Laden’s al-Qaida, which had used Afghanistan as a staging base for its attack on the United States. The grander ambition was to fight a “Global War on Terrorism” based on the belief that military force could somehow defeat Islamic extremism. Afghanistan was but the first round of that fight. Bush chose to make Iraq the next, invading in 2003 and getting mired in an even deadlier conflict that made Afghanistan a secondary priority until Barack Obama assumed the White House in 2009 and later that year decided to escalate in Afghanistan.
Obama pushed U.S. troop levels to 100,000, but the war dragged on though bin Laden was killed in Pakistan in 2011.
When Donald Trump entered the White House in 2017 he wanted to withdraw from Afghanistan but was persuaded not only to stay but to add several thousand U.S. troops and escalate attacks on the Taliban. Two years later his administration was looking for a deal with the Taliban, and in February 2020 the two sides signed an agreement that called for a complete U.S. withdrawal by May 2021. In exchange, the Taliban made a number of promises including a pledge not to attack U.S. troops.
Biden weighed advice from members of his national security team who argued for retaining the 2,500 troops who were in Afghanistan by the time he took office in January. But in mid-April he announced his decision to fully withdraw.”
I am glad that the United States has ended this war and I thank President Biden for having the courage and resolve to stop wasting American lives, time, and financial resources in Afghanistan.
Dr. Anthony Fauci attacked a fundraising website for Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that is selling merchandise mocking COVID-19 vaccines and other health measures amid the state’s deadly COVID crisis.
“We have an extraordinary problem that’s killing people in the United States — killing us and putting us in the hospital,” the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases told Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” yesterday (see video above). “There’s no place” for “that kind of politicization” when “you’re dealing with a public health crisis,” he added.
The DeSantis campaign team website raising funds for the governor is currently selling T-shirts and drink coolers featuring the phrase “Don’t Fauci My Florida.” Vaccines against COVID-19 are often referred to as the “Fauci-ouchie” in a humorous nod to the man who has relentlessly encouraged them — as well as other COVID-19 safety precautions like social distancing and masks.
One of the beverage coolers for sale features DeSantis’ photo and his own quip: “How the hell am I going to be able to drink a beer with a mask on?”
After the merchandise triggered an uproar last month, an unrepentant DeSantis declared: “Florida chose freedom over Fauci-ism. I wasn’t about to let the state get Fauci’d.”
Helen Aguirre Ferre, executive director of the Republican Party of Florida, called the merchandise — particularly callous in the face of Florida’s skyrocketing COVID-19 cases — “lighthearted fun,” in a statement to Newsweek.
“While this isn’t an official campaign website, as Gov. DeSantis hasn’t filed papers for his re-election, we view it as a great opportunity to have some lighthearted fun and give his supporters a chance to feel even more connected with his message of keeping Florida free,” she said.
She insisted that DeSantis’ “official staff” wasn’t involved with the site, Newsweek reported.
Hospitals are running out of ICU beds and are now being overwhelmed with bodies. Fourteen portable morgues have been sent to hospitals in central Florida to help, and some have already rented refrigerated units to store the dead.
Tapper asked Fauci about the DeSantis merchandise in light of his state’s COVID crisis.
“Just in the six weeks since the governor’s reelection campaign launched those products, more than 5,000 Floridians have died of coronavirus,” Tapper stated. “What do you make of the way some of these governors and politicians are attacking you?”
Fauci said he’s attacked because he’s highly “visible,” but emphasized that he’s “merely articulating the proper public health practices that are recommended” by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“They like to pick out a certain person because they can make that person the personification of political divides, which is so unfortunate. We should put all of that aside,” Fauci said.
Just over 52% of Floridians have been fully vaccinated. DeSantis has instead been pushing the monoclonal antibody treatment Regeneron, which can only be used once people are sick with COVID-19. He also issued an executive order banning mask mandates in schools which were intended to protect children who can’t yet be vaccinated.
A Florida judge on Friday blocked his ban, ruling that DeSantis had overstepped his authority and violated the state constitution.
In his interview, Fauci also discussed COVID-19 boosters and vaccines for schoolchildren on the horizon. He supports mandating COVID vaccines for children in schools, just as other vaccines are required before they can attend.
He also warned people not to take ivermectin — a drug commonly used to deworm livestock and is currently being peddled on Fox News — to fight COVID-19. Some poison control centers are being overwhelmed with concerned calls about dangerous effects from the drug.
Fauci rocks while DeSantis has become the poster boy for dereliction in dealing with the pandemic.
A COVID-19 crisis is gripping Hawaii as hospitals are overflowing with a record number of patients, vaccinations are stagnating and Hawaiians are experiencing a disproportionate share of the suffering. As reported by the Associated Press.
Hawaii was once seen as a beacon of safety during the pandemic because of stringent travel and quarantine restrictions and overall vaccine acceptance that made it one of the most inoculated states in the country. But the highly contagious delta variant exploited weaknesses as residents let down their guard and attended family gatherings after months of restrictions and vaccine hesitancy lingered in some Hawaiian communities.
On Friday, the state reported a record high 1,035 newly confirmed cases. There was a higher amount reported earlier this month, but it included cases from multiple days because of lab reporting delays.
Now, the governor is urging tourists to stay away and residents to limit travel, and leaders are re-imposing caps on sizes of social gatherings. And in an effort to address vaccine hesitancy, a group of businesses and nonprofits launched a public service campaign Thursday aimed at Native Hawaiians, many of whom harbor a deep distrust of the government dating back to the U.S.-supported overthrow of the monarchy in 1893.
The campaign reminds Hawaiians that they were nearly wiped out by disease in the 1800s and that the kingdom’s rulers at the time pushed people to get vaccinated against smallpox.
About 20 Hawaiian leaders stood in rows 6 feet (1.8 meters) apart Thursday at a statue of Queen Liliʻuokalani, the kingdom’s last monarch, imploring people to wear masks and get vaccinated to ensure the survival of the Indigenous people of Hawaii.
“Not only was I afraid of the needles and just putting it off, putting it off, but I didn’t have enough information about the vaccine and that distrust was just very real,” said Perreira-Keawekane.
She now plans to get vaccinated. Still, she doesn’t consider herself pro-vaccine, or anti-vaccine.
“Having to choose one or the other is the root of trauma for native people,” she said. “You can shout data at the top of your lungs, but if it has nothing to do with people we know, it’s not real.”
Overall, 62.1% of Hawaii is fully vaccinated. But Native Hawaiians have among the lowest rates; estimates show it’s at about 40%.
Native Hawaiians make up about 21% of the state’s population, and from the start of the pandemic until July 10, 2021, they accounted for 21% of cases as well. But from July 11, 2021, to Aug. 16, 2021, that figured increased to 28%, according to state data.
Honolulu Emergency Services Department Director Jim Ireland said that on a recent morning, there were four COVID-19 patient 911 calls in a row for Nanakuli, a community that’s home to many Native Hawaiians. He noted that vaccination rates are lower on the west side of Oahu.
The thought behind the campaign focusing on increasing Hawaiian vaccination rates is that messages to the public so far haven’t been adequate, said Nāʻālehu Anthony, director of COVID Pau, a collaborative of businesses and nonprofit organizations delivering public health messages during the pandemic.
“We’re telling people to get the vaccine ’til we’re blue in the face,” Anthony said. “But that’s not necessarily all of the story as to why it’s important to get a vaccine. And part of that is the relationship to who’s asking you to do it.”
At a Monday news conference, Gov. David Ige, who is not Hawaiian, acknowledged he’s not the ideal messenger: “We do know that sometimes my making statements are not the most motivational for many others.”
Earlier in the pandemic, Native Hawaiians had among the lowest rates of infection and embraced safety measures such as trading honi, a traditional forehead-to-forehead greeting, for elbow bumps or shakas from a distance.
That changed around May during the time of year when people celebrate graduations and weddings.
The irony is not lost on some that a popular reason for Hawaii family parties today originated during a time when Hawaiians would hold big celebrations for a baby’s first birthday, which was a real feat in the face of measles until a vaccine was available.
“I do think that it’s sad and kind of a little bit ironic that luau, in a lot of cases, have become places where people get sick,” said state Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole.
Andria Tupola, a Hawaiian city councilwoman who represents west Oahu, said one way government leaders are out of touch with her constituents is not respecting people who want to make their own decisions.
She recently disclosed that she wasn’t vaccinated because she had tested positive while visiting Utah, but felt healthy enough to go running every day. She has also been instrumental in organizing vaccination clinics.
The backlash she faced over her vaccination status isn’t helping convince people in her community to get vaccinated, she said.
“If you have to crucify me and make an example out of me in front of my community … if you think somehow that’s going to make people want to do it, it’s like that’s the opposite because people trust others and they respect others in our community,” she said.
Keaweʻaimoku Kaholokula, chair of the Department of Native Hawaiian Health at the University of Hawaii’s medical school, said he didn’t expect some Hawaiians to shun the vaccine. “It’s very American, which is ironic — very individualistic — to behave this way,” he said.
“I think our people need to remember that a part of our culture is protecting each other over our own self-interest,” he said.
We need to protect each other all over the country. Get the shot!
New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman, has an essay today entitled, The Gentrification of Blue America, in which he analyzes the economics of housing in the country especially as it has played out in California and other blue states that employ large numbers of high-paid tech and service workers. Here is summary.
“The result is that there are now, in effect, two Americas: the America of high-tech, high-income enclaves that are unaffordable for the less affluent, and the rest of the country.
And this economic divergence goes along with political divergence, mainly because education has become a prime driver of political affiliation.
It may seem hard to believe now, but as recently as the early 2000s college graduates leaned Republican. Since then, however, highly educated voters — who have presumably been turned off by the G.O.P.’s embrace of culture wars and its growing anti-intellectualism — have become overwhelmingly Democratic, while non-college-educated whites have gone the other way.
As a result, the two Americas created by the collision of the knowledge economy and NIMBYism correspond fairly closely to the blue-red division: Democratic-voting districts have seen a big rise in incomes, while G.O.P. districts have been left behind.”
His conclusion: “There are hints of movement toward less restrictive housing policy; California’s legislature has just passed a bill that would, in essence, force suburbs to accept some two-unit buildings alongside single-family homes. Even this modest measure would make it possible to add around 700,000 housing units — roughly the same number added in the whole state between 2010 and 2019.
We need much more of this. Restrictive housing policy doesn’t get nearly as much attention in national debates as it deserves. It is, in fact, a major force pulling our nation apart.
The entire essay is worth the read and is available here.
As schools reopen, the concern for COVID infections keeps growing among students, teachers and staff. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Friday that a single unvaccinated teacher at a Northern California school triggered a COVID-19 outbreak in May that infected 26 others, including a total of 18 students.
News of the rapid spread in the school and to students’ families emerged as administrators grappled with vaccine and mask regulations for another school year in the face of Republican governors blocking mask mandates. As reported NBC News and the Huffington Post.
“At least 90,000 students across the nation have already been quarantined at the start of this school year after contracting COVID-19 or being potentially exposed to the coronavirus. Children accounted for more than 1 in 5 new cases last week, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The recent case examined by the CDC involved a Marin County school with 205 students from kindergarten through eighth grade.
Although teachers and students at the school were required to wear masks and maintain social distancing indoors, the unidentified teacher who caused the infections had removed her mask “on occasion” to read aloud in her class, the CDC noted. Student desks were placed six feet apart, windows were left open, and all classrooms had high-efficiency air filters, the study noted.
The teacher worked on May 19 and 20 while experiencing early COVID-19 symptoms before testing positive and taking sick leave. By May 22, students also began experiencing symptoms, the CDC reported.
Of the teacher’s 24 students, 12 tested positive; eight of them were seated in the first two rows of the classroom.
An additional six students in another grade also tested positive. Parents and siblings of students in both grades were also infected. Three of the adults who tested positive were fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
“The introduction of the virus into the classroom by a teacher … while she was both symptomatic and unvaccinated, and who was unmasked when reading aloud to the class, resulted in cases within the classroom, across the school and among families of students,” CDC Director Rochelle Walenksy said at a White House COVID-19 briefing Friday.
“We know how to protect our kids in school,” she added. “We have the tools.”
Dr. Lisa Santora, deputy health officer for Marin County, said officials had been urging teachers to be vaccinated since January, but many had not done it. “We saw firsthand that it wasn’t kids who were going to get teachers sick. It was going to be the reverse,” Santora told CNN.
Among those who tested positive in the outbreak, 81% reported symptoms, including fever, cough, headache and sore throat, the CDC reported. No one was hospitalized.
The outbreak “highlights the importance of vaccinating school staff members who are in close indoor contact with children ineligible for vaccination as schools reopen,” the CDC study warned, as well as the delta variant’s “increased transmissibility and potential for rapid spread, especially in unvaccinated populations.”
In addition to getting vaccinated, “strict adherence to non-pharmaceutical prevention strategies — including masking, routine testing, facility ventilation, and staying home when symptomatic — are important to ensure safe in-person learning in schools,” the study added.
Meanwhile, Republican Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida, among others, have signed executive orders banning mask mandates in schools, even as the number of COVID-19 cases skyrockets in their states.
A court blocked DeSantis’ mask mandate ban on Friday, ruling that he had overstepped his authority. Leon County Circuit Judge John C. Cooper ruled that freedoms — such as not wearing a mask — are restricted when they negatively affect others. People have a right to drink alcohol, for example, but are barred from driving drunk and imperiling others’ lives and safety, he noted.
As the school year progresses, I am afraid that we are going to see outbreaks of COVID throughout the country even in those states that have tried to take precautions to keep everyone safe.
Tony
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