Major American airlines want a premature end to the federal transportation mask mandate and the international pre-departure Covid-19 testing requirement. Some public health advocates are promoting a “mask only” section. Abdullah Shihipar weighs in.

MIKE ELK, [email protected], @MikeElk Elk is senior labor reporter at Payday Report. His most recent piece is “Amazon Union Demands Union Reps in Discipline — Want Bargaining to Begin in May — Strike Threat on the Table.” He said today: “The NLRB announced that the independent Amazon Labor Union in Staten Island has won an election to…

Amanda Starbuck, Research Director with Food and Water Watch, said today: “Our corporate-controlled, just-in-time food system does little to buffer us from supply shocks created by events like Russian’s invasion of Ukraine. In fact, it helped create the problem… Agribusinesses stoked fears of food shortages during the pandemic to fatten their bottom lines. We must not…

“Outrage is the appropriate response. And a special onus is on Democrats in Congress, who should be willing to put humanity above party and condemn Biden’s extreme irresponsibility. But prospects for such condemnation look bleak. …

A new statement from the National Priorities Project says that “more spending on militarism can’t address the nation’s or the world’s problems. At $813 billion, the President’s request for the Pentagon exceeds even the $782 billion budget that Congress just passed by $31 billion. The increase alone is twice the amount that Congress refused for…

After a $15.6 billion funding bill collapsed in Congress this month, the purchase and delivery of millions of antiviral pills has been delayed. The pills are a key aspect of the White House’s new Test to Treat initiative. Here, practicing pharmacists and physicians weigh in on the delay and on the potential problems with the…

” Experts suggest that surveillance of US wastewater sites shows a rise in Covid-19 cases in cities across the country. The decline in reliable case counting from reported tests has made community wastewater surveillance increasingly necessary. Dr. Julia Raifman says: “People can shed the virus in their digestive tracts before they become symptomatic. Wastewater tracking…

Author Laurie Calhoun: “How much destruction and how many lives will be sacrificed on behalf of power elites unwilling to undertake meaningful negotiations because they themselves stand to lose nothing, while military industry stands to profit handsomely from the conflict? The ghastly war in Yemen and resultant humanitarian crisis continues to be supported by the…

Experts comment on the lack of funding for Yemen, whose economy is fundamentally affected by the war between Ukraine and Russia. “Since the onset of the Ukraine conflict, we have seen the prices of food skyrocket by more than 150 percent,” said Basheer Al Selwi, a spokesperson for the International Commission of the Red Cross…

Nicolai N. Petro, political science professor and scholar of Ukraine, stresses the importance of Ukrainian identity and international influence in the current war: “This conflict over who gets to define Ukrainian national identity and its future has been going on for at least 150 years and has erupted in serious military hostilities inside Ukraine three…