2020-06-28: News Headlines

Stephen Lendman (2020-06-28). What Happens if Congress and the White House Let Unemployment Benefits Expire? globalresearch.ca According to Labor Department figures, over 47 million US workers filed for unemployment benefits. | The true number is likely much higher as countless numbers of unemployed US workers haven't been able to file so far — many more to come …

The Lancet (2020-06-27). [Editorial] Generation coronavirus? thelancet.com The catastrophic elements that have perpetuated the COVID-19 pandemic—global interconnectedness, climate change due to human activity, vast economic inequality, and deep veins of antiscience—have resulted in more than 9 million infections and almost 500‚Äà000 deaths worldwide. Although children might be less susceptible to infection by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 and generally have better outcomes than adults, COVID-19 as a phenomenon weighs heavily on their health and wellbeing.

RT (2020-06-27). Zuckerberg loses $7.2 BILLION after corporate ad boycott pressing Facebook to police 'hate speech'. rt.com Plummeting Facebook shares have wiped out billions of founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg's personal wealth. The impetus? Corporations such as Coca-Cola and Verizon have pulled their ads, demanding that Facebook censor hate speech. | Zuckerberg lost $7.2 billion, after Facebook's shares fell by 8.3 percent on Friday, Bloomberg reported. The dive in value happened after Unilever, one of the largest advertisers in the world, joined the list of major companies that suspended their ad campaigns on Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram. At around the same time, Coca-Cola said it was also pulling all its social-media ad…

Fight Back (2020-06-27). Economic crisis deepens as pandemic surges. fightbacknews.org San José, CA – For the second week in a row, new applications for state unemployment insurance or UI did not drop by much, despite economists' expectations. New claims for the week ending June 20 were 1.48 million, down only 28,000 from last week's initial estimate. New applications for the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA, fell by 42,000 to 728,000 last week. Together the PUA and state unemployment insurance applications topped 2.2 million, only slightly lower than the 2.27 million total for the week before. | Continuing claims for state unemployment insurance, PUA, the Federal Pandemic Emergency…

Natasha Lennard (2020-06-26). Fireworks Crackdown Is Same Policing That Got Us Here in the First Place. zcomm.org When a politician invokes "quality of life" as a grounds for a policing initiative, he calls upon the violent "broken windows" strategies that have informed the brutal criminalization of poverty and Blackness.

WSWS (2020-06-26). As COVID-19 cases triple in a month, Latin American elites press ahead with back-to-work campaign. wsws.org The ruling classes in the most unequal region of the world have based their response to the pandemic and the economic crisis it spurred on protecting their wealth and privileges at all costs.

WSWS (2020-06-26). Another 1.5 million US workers file for jobless benefits. wsws.org The US Labor Department recorded a record fourteenth week in a row in which the number applying for unemployment aid topped one million.

Staff (2020-06-26). Colonized Loyalty: Asian American Anti-Blackness and Complicity. truthout.org "Capitalism requires inequality and racism enshrines it." — In the United States, racism against Asian Americans, whether in a public rally, in the public space or in the classroom, has become routine. | In March 2020 Donald Trump called the coronavirus "Chinese Virus." On June 20, 2020, at an anemically attended rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Trump named the deadly coronavirus "Kung Flu…

Jessica Corbett, staff writer (2020-06-26). 'Huge Win': Court Orders DeVos to Cancel Loans for Mass. Students Defrauded by Corinthian Colleges. commondreams.org Advocates for students joined Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey in celebration Friday after a federal court in Boston ordered U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to cancel the loans of 7,200 people in the commonwealth who were defrauded by Corinthian Colleges, a for-profit education company that closed its U.S. campuses in 2015. | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/betsy_devos_3_0_0.jpg

Staff (2020-06-25). Repair & Revive: Rev. William Barber on Fighting Racism, Poverty, Climate Change, War & Nationalism. democracynow.org The Poor People's Campaign offered a counterpoint to President Trump's sparsely attended Tulsa campaign rally with a mass digital gathering that unveiled a policy platform to spur "transformative action" on five key issues of systemic racism, systemic poverty, ecological devastation, the war economy and the threat of religious nationalism. "We have to repair and revive," says Rev. Dr. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign. "That has to be a part of if we're truly going to ever be the democracy we claim to be on paper."

WSWS (2020-06-25). Hundreds of thousands of Illinois workers forced to risk health for profits under "Phase 4" of economic reopening. wsws.org A real answer to mass unemployment does not require putting hundreds of thousands of more workers' lives at risk.

_____ (2020-06-25). Rebuilding After Recession: A Plan For Jobs. popularresistance.org Government investment in green technology and infrastructure is needed to create thousands of jobs and prevent a recession. | Working with unions and employers, the government has put in place the Job Retention Scheme and self-employed income support schemes, protecting the jobs and incomes of millions of workers during the coronavirus crisis. | But more is needed, and fast. Without further bold action from the government, we risk huge losses of jobs and livelihoods and possibly the deepest recession since the 1930s. The OECD estimates that unemployment could hit 11 per cent this year. But this is not inevitable,…

yenisafak (2020-06-25). Global drug use soars 30% in 10 years: UN. yenisafak.com Around 269 million people used drugs worldwide in 2018, 30% more than in 2009, while over 35 million people suffer from drug use disorders, a UN report said on Thursday.The report released by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna also analyses the impact of COVID-19 on the drugs markets.While the pandemic effects are not yet fully known, the report said that border and other restrictions linked to the pandemic have already caused shortages of drugs on the street, leading to increased prices and reduced purity.The report noted that rising unemployment and reduced opportunities caused by the pandemic a…

sputniknews (2020-06-25). Norway Paves Way for Big Expansion of Arctic Oil Exploration Amid 'Challenging' Developments. sputniknews.com Norway is western Europe's biggest oil producer and has built the world's biggest sovereign wealth fund worth over $1 trillion on the back of its oil wealth. In the words of Norwegian Energy Minister Tina Bru new discoveries are needed to uphold employment and value creation.

Dennis Broe (2020-06-24). Serial TV and the global drug pandemic. peoplesworld.org Three new series deal variously with the drug pandemic, that byproduct of the despair that follows in the neoliberal wake. As opportunities shrink because of a global upward redistribution of wealth away from both the working and middle classes and the socially responsible agencies of the state, more people turn to the powerful opioid fentanyl—it's …