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Over 200 Nursing-Home Staff Deaths Reported in Recent Weeks
In the last nine weeks, more than 200 nursing-home staff have died of Covid-19––over three deaths per day on average, despite 41 percent being up to date on their vaccines. Walker Bragman says these workers “deserve very clear warning of the high death rate, and additional workplace safety measures and hazard pay to match.”
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Activists Demand: “Negotiations Not War”
Two protests in opposition to nuclear war will take place on Friday, October 14.
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Medicare Advantage Is a “Cash Monster”
The New York Times recently published an investigative piece on Medicare Advantage, revealing that major health insurers have exploited the program “to inflate their profits by billions of dollars.” Jim Kahn comments here.
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* AFRICOM and Haiti * Drone Killings, Martin Sheen Spot
“Noted actor Martin Sheen has provided the voice-over for two 15-second cable spots critical of U.S. drone warfare, just announced by BanKillerDrones.org, which is seeking an international ban on weaponized drones.”
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Persistence of High Covid Death Rates in Older Americans
Jennifer Nuzzo says waning Covid-19 immunity and low booster uptake have led to a situation in which Americans over the age of 65 are still quite vulnerable to severe illness and death from Covid-19 infections.
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Changing Mask Guidelines: “Awkward Dance” Between CDC and OSHA
A process is now underway for the Occupational Health and Safety Administration to issue a new set of standards. Public health experts fear that the CDC’s newest guidelines on masking––which no longer recommend universal masking in healthcare settings––may weaken OSHA standards.
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Protests in London and D.C. Against Prosecution of WikiLeaks Founder
“Fighting extradition to the United States, Assange has been imprisoned in the UK since his arrest in 2019, when the Trump administration levied 18 counts which would criminalize each step of the reporting process, including soliciting, receiving, possessing, and publishing classified information. Major news outlets and press freedom groups across the board have condemned the indictment as a landmark threat to the First Amendment’s freedom of the press.”
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* Putin’s Annexation * Biden’s Lies About Backing Iraq War 20 Years Ago
Zunes notes that the U.S. government is the “only government to recognize Israel’s illegal annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights and Morocco’s illegal annexation of Western Sahara.” … Biden has claimed: “From the moment ‘shock and awe’ started, from that moment, I was opposed to the effort.” But Zunes notes: “Biden defended the imminent launch of the invasion by saying, ‘I support the president. Diplomacy over avoiding war is dead. … I do not see any alternative. It is not as if we can back away now.’ He added, ‘Let loose the dogs of war. I’m confident we will win.’
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Assessing Early Data on Monkeypox Vaccine’s Effectiveness
The CDC released early analysis that indicates people who were eligible for the Jynneos vaccine but did not receive it were 14 times more likely to contract the virus compared with vaccinated people. But Keletso Makofane, a specialist in intersections of health and human rights concerns, said the public must be careful not to over-interpret the data.
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Israel’s Apartheid: Attacking Those Who Speak Out
Halper quotes Israeli leaders: “In 2007, Israel’s former education minister Shulamit Aloni wrote, ‘the state of Israel practices its own, quite violent, form of apartheid with the native Palestinian population.'”… Tutu, in his last published piece, called on Biden to acknowledge that Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal, writing: “there are few truths more critical to face than a nuclear weapons arsenal in the hands of an apartheid government.”
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“With a tiny staff, it has managed to place on the air and in newspapers, points of view otherwise excluded from the national debate.”
Howard Zinn