Link Roundup March 2021

[wepon]

White House weighs minimum wage negotiations with Republicans

But the White House has, in the past, telegraphed that a final negotiation could mean they don’t hit that mark. And within Biden’s orbit, there is not a strong desire to use the issue as a battering ram against the opposition. “There is zero percent chance the White House is going to shove the minimum wage down Republicans’ throats,” a source close to the White House said.

Jing Fong Couldn’t Survive. Will Manhattan’s Chinatown?

But as restaurants’ most egregious labor violations were being reined in, a larger shift in power was under way. In the 2000s, an explosion in housing speculation turbocharged New York’s luxury real estate, making Chinatown—with its close proximity to some of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods—suddenly an attractive target for developers. As more Chinese restaurants began to close, including ones where other 318 members were employed, the workers realized their jobs wouldn’t last without a defense against high-end development. As Zishun Ning, a staff organizer at CSWA, explained, “When the rent and real-estate tax increase, the landlords shift the burden to the restaurants. The workers have long seen the connection, and the necessity of protecting the community.”

No, the Tuskegee Study Is Not the Top Reason Some Black Americans Question the COVID-19 Vaccine

When she asks the Black seniors she works with in Los Angeles about the vaccine, Tuskegee rarely comes up. People in the community are more interested in talking about contemporary racism and barriers to health care, she says, while it seems to be mainly academics and officials who are preoccupied with the history of Tuskegee. “It's a scapegoat,” Lincoln says. “It’s an excuse. If you continue to use it as a way of explaining why many African Americans are hesitant, it almost absolves you of having to learn more, do more, involve other people – admit that racism is actually a thing today.”

More Americans now say academic concerns should be a top factor in deciding to reopen K-12 schools

As was the case last summer, Black, Hispanic and Asian adults are more likely than White adults to say that the risks to teachers and students of getting or spreading the coronavirus should be given a lot of consideration in deciding whether to reopen schools for in-person instruction. Black adults are particularly likely to say these health risks should be a major factor. And lower-income adults remain more likely than those with middle or upper incomes to say the same, as do Democrats compared with Republicans (including those who lean to each party).

Entire Staff of Nevada Democratic Party Quits After Democratic Socialist Slate Won Every Seat

On March 6, a coalition of progressive candidates backed by the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America took over the leadership of the Nevada Democratic Party, sweeping all five party leadership positions in a contested election that evening. Whitmer, who had been chair of the Clark County Democratic Party, was elected chair. The establishment had prepared for the loss, having recently moved $450,000 out of the party’s coffers and into the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s account. The DSCC will put the money toward the 2022 reelection bid of Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a vulnerable first-term Democrat.

Private equity ownership is killing people at nursing homes

The researchers studied patients who stayed at a skilled nursing facility after an acute episode at a hospital, looking at deaths that fell within the 90-day period after they left the nursing home. They found that going to a private equity-owned nursing home increased mortality for patients by 10 percent against the overall average.

Secret Pontins blacklist prevented people with Irish surnames from booking

A whistleblower who approached the Equality and Human Rights Commission with the policy also revealed the firm had been monitoring calls within its contact centre and refusing bookings made by people with an Irish accent or surname and was using its commercial vehicles policy to exclude Gypsies and Travellers.

For Creators, Everything Is for Sale

One comes in the form of NewNew, a start-up in Los Angeles, that describes its product as creating a “human stock market.” On the app, fans pay to vote in polls to control some of a creator’s day-to-day decisions.

How one employee's exit shook Google and the AI industry

Yet Gebru also described working at Google as "a constant battle, from day one." If she complained about something, for instance, she said she would be told she was "difficult." She recounted one incident where she was told, via email, that she was not being productive and was making demands because she declined an invitation for a meeting that was to be held the next day. Though Gebru does not have documentation of such incidents, Hanna said she heard a number of similar stories like this from Gebru and Mitchell.

Google workers explain why they unionized

Alphabet isn't the only tech giant facing a growing labor movement. In Bessemer, Alabama, a group of Amazon workers are pursuing union ambitions of their own. Workers have until the end of March to cast their votes on whether the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union should represent them. The vote count is set begin on March 30.

Google advised mental health care when workers complained about racism and sexism

So, Cruz sought help from human resources again. The solution? Urge Cruz to take medical leave and tend to their mental health before moving to a new role in the company. Cruz went on medical leave, and hoped to take the company up on its offer for a new position, they said. But Cruz was turned down from every role they applied for, so they were forced to quit. “After I made that complaint, my work started getting pushed out from under me, but my team acted like everything was fine. I wanted to find help,” Cruz said. “When the medical leave was recommended to me, it was like an automatic process.”

Underpaid Workers Are Being Forced to Train Biased AI on Mechanical Turk

While data annotations can themselves be affected by the individual unconscious biases of the workers, majority thinking can be perpetuated by employers or the platforms themselves, with the threat of a ban or rejection looming if peoples’ answers deviate too strongly from the majority. “If your answers just differ a little too much from everybody else, you may get banned,” said Sarah, who labels datasets for the Germany-based platform Clickworker and the Massachusetts-based Lionbridge. Sarah lives in a politically repressive country and finds the income from Clickworker essential to her livelihood.

Alabama Senate votes to make hormone therapy and surgery for trans youth a felony

The bill also requires school staff in the state to disclose to parents that "a minor's perception that his or her gender is inconsistent with his or her sex." Essentially, teachers would be required to "out" transgender students to their guardians — regardless of whether they are ready to do so.

Vatican bars gay union blessing, says God ‘can’t bless sin’

The Vatican holds that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect, but that gay sex is “intrinsically disordered.” Catholic teaching says that marriage is a lifelong union between a man and woman, is part of God’s plan and is intended for the sake of creating new life.

Chelsea wages war on peace protesters

Ms Clinton, who last month started a two-year course in International Relations at University College, Oxford, wrote in an article for a US magazine that she had been offended by anti-American sentiments from other students and "peace" demonstrators. She claims she now prefers to stay with "Americans - people who I know are thinking about our country as much as I am." But students at Oxford said today that far from people approaching her, Ms Clinton has been looking for an argument. Eight days ago she attended an anti-war rally at Oxford town hall with a group of friends. Not only did they hang an American flag across the wall, the group heckled from the floor, calling out: "How do you catch Osama, then?"

Oregon Hospitals Didn't Have Shortages. So Why Were Disabled People Denied Care?

In the hospital, a medical provider wrote do-not-resuscitate (DNR) and do-not-intubate orders for the woman. Those are medical instructions to health care providers to withhold potentially painful interventions, like a ventilator or CPR, if a patient stops breathing or the patient's heart stops. The woman was alone in the hospital and did not understand what the doctor and medical staff wanted her to agree to.In addition, the hospital staff sent word to the woman's group home: Fill out DNRs in advance for your other residents, in case one of them comes to the hospital.

Tracking the Invisible Killer

Income and race appear to be factors in whether people received attention from the agency to the toxic air they were breathing, according to The Intercept’s analysis of demographic data of impacted areas. Of the communities living near the 25 “high-priority facilities,” those with populations that are at least 60 percent white and have an average per capita income greater than $30,000 per year were nearly three times more likely to have been informed of the dangers of ethylene oxide than communities that are less than 60 percent white and have an average per capita income under $30,000.

9 questions about trans issues you were too embarrassed to ask

According to the National Center for Transgender Equality, 29 percent of US trans people live in poverty, and one in five trans people in the US will be homeless at some point in their lifetime. The numbers are even starker for Black trans people: A 2015 report by two leading think tanks found that 34 percent of Black trans people live in extreme poverty, compared to 9 percent of Black cis people.

CNN and the NYT Are Deliberately Obscuring Who Perpetrated the Afghan Hospital Attack

The article itself repeatedly suggests the same: “The United States said it was investigating what struck the hospital during the night.” It’s a fascinating whodunit and the U.S. is determined to get to the bottom of it. Offering a tantalizing clue, CNN notes that “the circumstances weren’t immediately clear, but the U.S. military was conducting an airstrike in Kunduz at the time the hospital was hit, U.S. Army Col. Brian Tibus said.” So the U.S. commits a repugnant atrocity that, at the very best, was reckless, and CNN can’t bring itself to state clearly who did it.

The anti-Spotify: How online music company Bandcamp became the toast of the COVID age

“It wasn’t actually going to be financially sensible or sustainable for me to release it on mainstream streaming platforms such as Spotify or Apple,” Swift explained. “I was only gonna be able to survive as an artist if I used a platform that would allow me to make money from the record.”

FinCEN Files: All you need to know about the documents leak

The UK is called a "higher risk jurisdiction" and compared to Cyprus, by the intelligence division of FinCEN. That's because of the number of UK registered companies that appear in the SARs. Over 3,000 UK companies are named in the FinCEN files - more than any other country.

2 justices slam court’s 2015 decision in gay marriage case

With Ginsburg’s death and the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2018, only three members of the majority in the gay marriage case remain: Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

How The Fossil Fuel Industry Funds The Police

Oil majors Chevron Corporation and Royal Dutch Shell lavish thousands of dollars in donations on police in Houston and New Orleans each year. Marathon Petroleum, the biggest refinery owner in the U.S., is a notable sponsor of the Detroit Public Safety Foundation’s fundraising events, and the company’s top security official sits on the foundation’s board. Utility giant Exelon backs police foundations in Baltimore, Chicago and Washington, D.C. JPMorgan Chase, the world’s largest financier of fossil fuels, has given millions to police foundations in New York City and New Orleans. In 2018 alone, Goldman Sachs, the world’s 14th-biggest financial backer of fossil fuel, gave $250,000 to the Los Angeles Police Foundation and $15,000 to the New York City Police Foundation’s annual gala.

Coronavirus Pandemic Sidelines California's Inmate Firefighters

California has used inmate firefighters since the 1940s. People like Dixon carry heavy backpacks and perform vital but backbreaking grunt work. They use saws and axes to clear underbrush around a fire. In recent years, 3,500 of the state's 15,500 wildfire fighters were inmates, according to the state's fire agency, Cal Fire.

Herd Immunity Is Not a Strategy

Forman: Right. And by the way, there’s never been a real case of herd immunity through infection.

How Jared Kushner’s Secret Testing Plan “Went Poof Into Thin Air”

Phoenix found itself in a catch-22, which the city’s government relations manager explained to lawyers in an April 21 email obtained by Vanity Fair through a public records request: “On a call with the county last week the Mayor was told that the region has [not] received FEMA funds related to testing because we don’t have bad numbers. The problem with that logic is that the Mayor believes we don’t have bad numbers because [of] a lack of testing.”

The lawyer who took on Chevron – and now marks his 600th day under house arrest

In one of the stranger episodes in this saga, Chevron relocated Alberto Guerra, an Ecuadorian judge, and his family to the US, paid for his health insurance and a car while meeting with him more than 50 times before he provided testimony that Donziger discussed the bribe with him at a Quito restaurant. Guerra has since admitted that his testimony was exaggerated in parts, untrue in others.

Biden administration limits what Border Patrol can share with media about migrant surge at border

Border Patrol officials have been told to deny all media requests for "ride-alongs" with agents along the southern land border; local press officers are instructed to send all information queries, even from local media, to the press office in Washington for approval; and those responsible for cultivating data about the number of migrants in custody have been reminded not to share the information with anyone to prevent leaks, the officials said.