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News & Views | 4/21/20

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People wait in line, six feet apart to socially distance, to get groceries at a pop-up food pantry hosted by Pan Y Cafe in Chelsea, MA on April 14, 2020.

by Andrea Germanos, staff writer
"We're flat broke. We don't know what's gonna happen."

News...


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) speaks during a news conference with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) at the U.S. Capitol January 25, 2019 in Washington, D.C.

by Eoin Higgins, staff writer
"This isn't good."



by Jake Johnson, staff writer
"The Post Office will likely run out of money sometime between July and September of this year. If they run out of money, then the people lose the service."


The Trump International Hotel on its first day of business September 12, 2016, in Washington, D.C.

by Jessica Corbett, staff writer
"Whoever would have imagined this relationship would prove complicated and fraught? Oh, right, the Founders. Who prohibited it. In the Constitution."

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Flares burning off gas at Belridge Oil Field and hydraulic fracking site, which is the fourth largest oil field in California.

by Jessica Corbett, staff writer
Democratic lawmakers and climate advocates on Tuesday condemned an announcement on Twitter from President Donald Trump that he had directed the U.S. Departments of Energy and the Treasury to make funding available to American oil and gas companies negatively impacted by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.


Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks to the media after the second night of the first Democratic presidential debate on June 27, 2019 in Miami.

by Eoin Higgins, staff writer
"We think this is a power play on the part of the governor."



by Julia Conley, staff writer
Small businesses filed class-action lawsuits against three large banks Monday, accusing them of manipulating the application process for a government program aimed at providing relief for small companies.



by Julia Conley, staff writer
Hundreds of Amazon workers from across the U.S. on Tuesday called in sick to demand better safety standards at the ecommerce giant's warehouses, in the largest coordinated action at the company since the coronavirus pandemic began.



by Jake Johnson, staff writer
"We are here because our colleagues are dying. I think that right now people think of us as heroes, but we're feeling like martyrs. We're feeling like we're being left on the battlefield with nothing."


Soacha's Mayor Juan Carlos Saldarriaga, delivers food to the community during the mandatory quarantine to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus in Soacha, Colombia on April 15, 2020. Colombia extended its national lock down until April 26 to control spread of COVID-19. (Photo: Leonardo Munoz/VIEWpress via Getty Images)

by Julia Conley, staff writer
Top food security experts at the United Nations on Tuesday will present to the U.N. Security Council a new report on how the coronavirus pandemic could double the number of people around the world suffering from acute hunger unless wealthy countries step up humanitarian aid immediately. 


An Italian Carabinieri officer, wearing a respiratory mask, stands guard at a road block on April 10, 2020 in Milan, Italy.

by Jessica Corbett, staff writer
Climate activists from across the globe on Tuesday welcomed an ambitious new plan for Milan that will, according to the Guardian, transform 22 miles of street space currently reserved for cars "with a rapid, experimental citywide expansion of cycling and walking space to protect residents as COVID-19 restrictions are lifted."

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Views...


It took a few days for this latest unpresidential derangement syndrome to seem like it was working itself out, so that by Thursday Bubo-in-Chief was punting the decision back to governors as his transformation of America into the Houston Astrodome circa 2005 pivoted to fresher scapegoats. (Photo: AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

by Pierre Tristam
Arrogance and chaos define the federal response to the pandemic.


As we struggle to emerge from today’s tragic pandemic, more and more Americans are understanding that healing our sick, corrupt political system is the vital key to a healthy and peaceful future.(Photo: Daily Express)

by Medea Benjamin, Nicolas J.S. Davies
A political system that is structurally incapable of acting for the common good, even when millions of lives are at stake, is not just failing to solve our problems. It is the problem.


Prisons and jails are virtual petri dishes for the virus. Social distancing is impossible. Soap and water are often not available. (Photo: Robyn Beck / AFP - Getty Images)

by Jesse Jackson
Prisons should be a priority for supplies, for tests, and for early release of as many inmates as possible, particularly the elderly and the vulnerable.


President Donald Trump, joined by Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General Bill Barr, speaks at the daily coronavirus briefing at the White House on March 23, 2020 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

by Michael Winship
Deprived of rallies to inflate his ego, the president muscles in on sickness and death.


Republican street theater, maybe even (or perhaps especially) when it threatens public safety or human decency, works like catnip to the mainstream media, who invariably trot out their prefabricated clichés about "economic anxiety." (Photo: Ariana Drehsler/AFP via Getty Images)

by Mike Lofgren
Protests against COVID-19 restrictions, like the Tea Party protests, are corporate fronts.


The -$36.63 price for a barrel of oil is already probably overly optimistic. (Photo: Screenshot)

by Juan Cole
The oil companies are likely looking at multi-billion-dollar tort lawsuits because they hid the dangers of the climate emergency and even actively muddied the waters by funding denialism.

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