MULTICULTURALISM
Yukon Neighbours Use Pandemic Time To Bust Out Bagpipes, Bhangra
This is pure joy.

HuffPost Canada Staff   April 6, 2020

There are plenty of ways people are coming together during the global coronavirus pandemic, but this cross-cultural collaboration of two neighbours in Canada’s northern wilderness is lifting us all up.

Gurdeep Pandher, a public servant in the technology sector who also teaches bhangra dancing, and Jordan Lincez, a teacher who also plays the bagpipes, joined forces to create this very Canadian video. It was shot outside their cabins near Yukon’s Lake Laberge, about 50 kilometres north of Whitehorse.

Watch the video above.

Pandher said he wanted to “promote how we can connect and do things together with our friends or neighbours while maintaining social distancing and also to showcase the beauty of our Canadian cross-culturism.”

Lincez, who played the song “High Road to Linton,” said cold weather is hard on the bagpipes and makes playing unpredictable. “But what really counts for me was having fun, doing what I love doing in the ‘new normal,’ and bringing smiles and sharing joy with others during this time of crisis,” he told HuffPost Canada via email.

Pandher has a history of making lovely videos to promote cultural unity. He’s taught the mayor of Whitehorse how to tie a Sikh turban, danced with a Paralympian, and choreographed a bhangra dance number with the Canadian military.

During the pandemic, he has continued to teach bhangra, which originated from Punjab folk dancing, through online classes.

Friends, let me teach you an easy and fun bhangra move! pic.twitter.com/jb17xV5Y9Y— Gurdeep Pandher of Yukon (@GurdeepPandher) April 3, 2020

Here are videos/photos of people who tagged me after taking my online class (using with permission). Please add your name in my list at https://t.co/ybfnyOjDQk if you want me to inform you about my upcoming classes! pic.twitter.com/docuwuFvd7— Gurdeep Pandher of Yukon (@GurdeepPandher) March 31, 2020

“I live in a forest on open and big Yukon land, so it is helpful to stay away from the pandemic risks,” Pandher told HuffPost Canada. “But still, I am following all the health guidelines and use precautions if I need to go to town to get groceries. Living on land is so organic, nurturing and so beautiful.”

Lincez, who teaches Grades 4 and 5 at École Whitehorse Elementary, said, “It’s been difficult talking with my family through windows and I miss being able to hug friends, but I’m hopeful that the precautions are giving us an opportunity to slow down, be more present, and refocus on the important things in life: love, community and well-being.”

CANADA 
Coronavirus Is Making Domestic Violence More Severe, Crisis Workers Say

There have been at least three suspected cases of gender-based murder in Canada since COVID-19 broke out, and crisis workers told VICE they expect the abuse to escalate.

By Anya Zoledziowski Apr 13 2020

CRISIS WORKERS TOLD VICE THAT WOMEN'S SHELTERS HAVE BEEN AT CAPACITY SINCE THE PANDEMIC STARTED, SO WOMEN ARE HAVING A HARDER TIME FLEEING DANGEROUS SITUATIONS. PHOTO BY JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES

This article includes graphic details that may be difficult for some readers.

Earlier this month, local police broke into a private home in Brockville, city in eastern Ontario, and found two bodies—a man and a woman—after receiving a tip from a concerned caller.

The discovery of the suspected murder-suicide, first reported by the Ottawa Citizen , followed a disgruntled Facebook post by a suspect who professed his love for the victim before apologizing for the accidental shooting. He referred to his “unborn child” in the post and accused his partner of cheating.

“I should have never been emotional with a gun,” the suspect said, before asking viewers to take care of the 13-month-old girl who police found unharmed at the scene.

In Hammonds Plains, Nova Scotia, Police have charged a man with second-degree murder after they found a woman’s body in a private home two weeks ago. In Sundre, Alberta, RCMP are investigating a suspected murder-suicide after discovering the bodies of a 41-year-old woman and 35-year-old man late last month.

As the world grapples with the ongoing novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, governments have repeatedly called for people to practice physical distancing by staying at home. The point of self-isolating, they say, is to prevent exposure to the virus.

But reports have found that this mandatory physical distancing has resulted in an onslaught of domestic abuse cases internationally. And evidence suggesting that COVID-19 has increased the severity of the violence—and resulted in fewer ways out of dangerous situations—is also starting to emerge.

Argentina has reported at least six femicides (murders of women because of their gender) since the pandemic started. In Turkey, at least 21 women have been killed since early March. And the United Nations has specifically called for concerted efforts to prevent gender-based violence in Central America as physical distancing measures continue.

Each of the crisis workers VICE spoke with said they are expecting the worrisome trend to escalate in Canada, with crisis lines working swiftly since the government first announced physical distancing measures in mid-March. One in ten women are “very or extremely” concerned about the possibility of violence in the home, according to new data released by Statistics Canada on Wednesday.

According to Yvonne Harding, a resource development manager with Toronto’s Assaulted Women’s Helpline (AWH), COVID-19 conditions are “ripe” for abusers.

“It’s hard for good relationships to be in close quarters,” Harding said, adding that non-stop close proximity and COVID-19-related job loss exacerbates household stress that can lead to violence. Plus, abusers feel emboldened because they know their partners can’t access support as readily as they used to, she said.

In the pre-COVID-19 era, many crisis calls detailed aggressive threats of violence, but now, the same threats have turned into action, Harding said.

Women who need to escape to a nearby coffee shop or a friends house can’t do that either, Harding said.

That’s because emergency orders issued across the country have shuttered businesses deemed “non-essential,” including dine-in locales and libraries, and officials have repeatedly told people to avoid entering houses that aren’t their own.

“Partners are even telling others they have COVID-19 to keep people in the house,” Harding said.

An AWH counsellor who uses the alias “Suzanna” to protect her privacy told VICE her job has become “more complicated” because victims now call while in close physical proximity to their abusive partners.

“It is awful,” said Suzanna.

She said she has received urgent calls from women whispering while their husbands are in the backyard or asleep in the next room.

Under normal circumstances, Suzanna would tell clients who aren’t in immediate risk to call back from a safe environment. Now, she encourages them to take their children out for a walk or access a relatively private room, so they can chat as safely as possible, as soon as possible.

Suzanna said she feels like a 911 dispatcher now because she has to work very quickly. She works with victims to determine a course of action. If a woman says she’s ready to leave her home, Suzanna has to break the hard news: women’s shelters are at capacity. The AWH connects women to Toronto’s Central Intake, which will likely redirect victims to a homeless shelter, Suzanna said.

“It’s grim and messy and painful, you know, leaving your house with a suitcase and child, and staying in a homeless shelter,” Suzanna said. “But women are doing that over and over again.”

Vancouver’s Battered Women’s Support Services (BWSS) started preparing for a spike in severe domestic violence before the pandemic reached Canada, the organization’s executive director, Angela Marie MacDougall, told VICE.

MacDougall has connections in China who worked on the frontlines of COVID-19-related domestic assault as early as January, and she reached out in February to ask her Chinese counterparts for advice.

Following the tips, the BWSS extended their crisis line’s operating hours to 24/7 service, and only the most experienced counsellors are fielding calls now. MacDougall has also encouraged landlords, strata councils, and building managers to publicly post contact information for crisis lines and supports, so that victims have easy, widespread access to information.

As in Toronto and elsewhere, domestic violence in Vancouver is marred with horror stories unique to COVID-19.

The BWSS has received calls from women fearing for their health after their partners leave for extended periods of time, return home, and refuse to wash their hands. Others can’t access shampoo or soap because abusers are withholding products. Another caller told BWSS that her dad said that members of the family are “probably going to die tonight.”


“A lot of calls we’re getting are really despondent,” MacDougall said. “There’s a lot of depression and loneliness.”

BWSS said they’ve secured an entire floor at a hotel for women fleeing violence, as well as transition houses “here and there.”

The Canadian government has allocated up to $26 million in funding to provide about 575 women’s shelters and up to $4 million will be distributed to sexual assault centres across the country.

But most shelters are full, MacDougall said, calling the funding “completely inadequate.”

The only way to ensure safety for women is to make sure they have sustained access to information throughout the duration of the pandemic, she said, and to secure more safe housing.

“Governments around the world are imposing these lockdowns without making sufficient provisions for domestic violence victims,” MacDougall said.

“We have to do everything we can to prevent domestic violence, whether it’s straight up a man killing a woman or a man killing a woman and then himself.”

If you or someone you know is experiencing abuse in Canada, 24/7 support in your region is available here.

CANADA
Deaths From COVID-19 In Long-Term Care Homes Will Rise, Even As Cases Slow: Theresa Tam

The federal government has released non-binding guidelines for all care homes in the country.

NON BINDING WELL THAT'S AS EFFECTIVE AS SELF
REGULATION
Laura Osman Canadian Press

ADRIAN WYLD/CPChief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam responds to a question during a news conference in Ottawa on April 13, 2020.

OTTAWA — The number of deaths in long-term care facilities is expected to keep rising, even as the growth of overall COVID-19 cases begins to slow, Canada’s top public health official warned Monday.

Dr. Theresa Tam, the chief public health officer, said the spread of the virus in nursing and retirement homes has been at the root of half of the more than 700 deaths across the country.

“Even as the numbers of cases slows down the number of deaths, unfortunately, are expected to increase,” Tam said at a media briefing in Ottawa.

Last week the federal government released its projected trajectory for the outbreak. The total number of deaths projected in Canada — between 4,400 and 44,000 in the best-case scenario — was based on a fatality rate of 1.1 per cent.

On Monday, Tam said that fatality rate is expected to rise given the outbreaks in long-term care homes across the country.

The news follows a gruesome weekend discovery in a private long-term care home in Dorval, Que., where police are investigating the deaths of 31 people since March 13. Five of the deaths have been definitively linked to COVID-19.

Quebec Premier Francois Legault alleged there was “gross negligence,” at Residence Herron.

But Quebec is not alone in its struggle to contain cases in seniors’ and long-term care homes, Tam said.

“Almost all jurisdictions are essentially trying to deal with the outbreaks at long-term care facilities,” she said. “That’s really across the board.”

Twenty-nine residents in a 65-bed nursing home in Bobcaygeon, Ont., have died amid the pandemic. Eighteen deaths at North Vancouver’s Lynn Valley Care Centre have been attributed to COVID-19. Other facilities from coast to coast have had outbreaks and in many cases numerous workers have been sickened as well.

While provinces and territories are ultimately responsible for their own public health response to the pandemic, federal Seniors Minister Deb Schulte highlighted new federal guidelines for all care homes in the country to try to stall the spread of the virus in other facilities that care for vulnerable people.

Coroner Investigating 31 Deaths At Residence Herron Quebec Seniors' Home

Premier Francois Legault said at least five deaths were linked to the coronavirus.


Morgan Lowrie Canadian PressNEWS
04/12/2020

MONTREAL — The Quebec coroner’s office announced Sunday it will investigate the deaths of dozens of seniors at a private long-term care facility west of Montreal linked to what Premier Francois Legault has described as a possible case of “gross negligence.”

The office said in a statement that it will probe the circumstances surrounding the deaths and issue recommendations if needed.

“Remember that coroners intervene in cases of deaths that are violent, obscure or could have occurred following negligence,” the coroner’s office said in a statement.

A police investigation was launched over the weekend after regional health authorities were able to access patient files at the Residence Herron and found that 31 of the residence’s 150 or so seniors had died since March 13. Quebec’s health department is also investigating.

THE CANADIAN PRESS Quebec Premier Francois Legault coughs into his hand as he speaks at a news conference on the COVID-19 pandemic on Saturday.
Legault said at least five of the deaths were due to COVID-19, but that number could rise.

“Quite honestly, I think ... there was gross negligence at Residence Herron,” Legault said on Saturday.

The authorities first inspected Residence Herron on March 29, three days after word of the first death. They found the residence “deserted” as staff had walked off the job.

Lynne McVey, head of the health board, has said her team began assisting the short-staffed workers to feed, wash and change patients, but only learned the full scope of the problem after getting a legal order allowing them to view families’ contact information and patient medical files.
Residences linked to large portion of COVID-19 deaths

Katasa Groupe, which owns the residence and several others, has not answered requests for comment, and the home is now under government trusteeship.

The Residence Herron story is only the latest report into troubling conditions at seniors’ and long-term care homes, which have been linked to a large percentage of the country’s COVID-19 deaths.

That includes another residence in Laval, north of Montreal, where 21 people have died and 115 have tested positive for COVID-19.

The coroner’s office said in its statement that it is not currently investigating other homes, but is watching the situation and could intervene if needed.

In a statement on Sunday, the provincial health department confirmed it would proceed to inspect all the province’s 40 private long-term care centres in the coming days.

“Every effort is being made to protect seniors and avoid tragic situations such as the one observed in the Herron private residential and long-term care centre that is not covered by an agreement,” the statement said.

Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, on Sunday lamented the deaths that COVID-19 has caused in long-term care facilities across the country, which she described in a statement as a “tragic legacy of this pandemic.”

“These heart-breaking events underscored the need for stringent infection prevention and control measures and led to the development of infection prevention and control guidance for long-term care homes,” she added.

That guidance includes strict rules around who can enter such facilities and detailed instructions on how to minimize the chances of an outbreak through proper hygiene and screening.

The Quebec ombudsman launched an investigation into the Residence Herron in 2017 after it received complaints including inadequate nursing care, a poor approach towards patients with cognitive difficulties, complaints over food and a lack communication with families.

The investigation found that the facility was providing adequate care, but the ombudsman cautioned in its report that management needed to ensure there was enough suitably-trained staff, given its intention to increase its number of patients.

In 2019, an inspection by Health and Social Services did not note any particular problems with clinical practices, but issued recommendations including the development of a policy to combat mistreatment, as well as improved communications with residents and their families, particularly in the areas of residents’ rights, end-of-life decisions and palliative care.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 12, 2020

With files from Lee Berthiaume

THAT OTHER EPIDEMIC 

Ebola deaths in Congo halt plan to declare virus eradicated

A worker from the World Health Organization prepares to administer an experimental Ebola vaccination in Mbandaka, Democratic Republic of the Congo, on May 21, 2018. File Photo by STR/EPA-EFE

April 13 (UPI) -- An 11-year-old girl in the Democratic Republic of Congo has died of the Ebola virus, the second in recent days to succumb, concerning experts that the disease may still be lingering in the African country.

Officials reported the girl's death Sunday. A 26-year-old man died of Ebola in Beni on Friday. Both deaths occurred in the nation's northeast.

Congolese authorities had believed the virus was eradicated after going for several weeks without any new cases, but the new deaths have led officials to halt plans to announce the outbreak is officially over.

"[The World Health Organization] has worked side by side with health responders from the DRC for over 18 months and our teams are right now supporting the investigation into this latest case," Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO's regional director for Africa said after the first death.

"Although the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic adds challenges, we will continue this joint effort until we can declare the end of this Ebola outbreak together."

The DRC had been trying to corral the second-worst Ebola outbreak in history since 2018. It's now experienced almost 2,300 deaths and 3,400 confirmed cases from the new outbreak.

An outbreak began in West Africa in 2014 that killed 11,300 people in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Ebola is a tropical fever first detected in Sudan and Congo in 1976.

CANADA, EH
Great, the Anti-Vaxxer Coronavirus Protests Are Here
Children and senior citizens were both present at the rally of 20 people in Vancouver.

IF THEIR CONSPIRACY FEARS WERE TRUE, THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN ARRESTED, DISAPPEARED AND WE WOULD NOT BE READING THIS....JUST SAYING 

By Mack Lamoureux Apr 13 2020,


PHOTO SUPPLIED BY SUSAN STANDFIELD-SPOONER

On Easter Sunday, a group of around fourteen people, led by an anti-vaxxer and documented by a conspiracy vlogger, intentionally broke social distancing and took to the streets of Vancouver.

Videos show the group—which featured both older people and a child—holding a sign featuring an illustration of the coronavirus and the words “Fake News” l. The rally even featured one grey-haired person wearing a Guy Fawkes mask with sunglasses over it. In photos and videos, the protesters seem to pay no heed to the six feet rule experts have recommended to avoid the spread of COVID-19


Organizer Susan Standfield-Spooner told VICE that the quarantine measures put in place by the government have caused her to lose about 80% of the income she and her husband made from a consulting company. She said that she believes the deaths and homelessness that come from the financial strife brought about by the closures of business are far worse than the health impact of COVID-19, which has killed 735 Canadians as of Monday.

Social distancing measures are in place in an attempt to flatten the curve to slow the spread of COVID-19 so hospitals don’t become overwhelmed and cause an even larger loss of life.

A PHOTO OF THE RALLY WALKING IN DOWNTOWN VANCOUVER. PHOTO VIA STANDFIELD-SPOONER

Standfield-Spooner said she didn’t even know most of the people at the rally—a 70-year-old woman helped organize the event. The senior woman was present at the rally. Experts warn that those 70 years and older are the most at risk for dying from the disease. Standfield-Spooner said she believes the virus is real but the death tally has been exaggerated and that it was intentionally released upon the world. She also thinks the disease is infectious but not deadly, “like herpes.” Standfield-Spooner also has said that she believes the pandemic is an attempt by elites to strip citizens of their rights and vaccinate them. Social media posts show that she’s held anti-vaccinations beliefs for several years.

In British Columbia, like the majority of the rest of the country, non-essential businesses are closed and public gatherings are banned.

“Personally, my life has been destroyed,” said Standfield-Spooner. “I'm not sitting around enjoying it. I'm screwed. People would be surprised because I grew up, you know, in the status quo world of opportunity. I'm educated, have a wealthy background, whatever, but not right now. Right now, personally, I'm in the loser group.”

“(Chief Public Health Officer of Canada) Teresa Tam, I don’t know how she's sleeping at night,” Standfield-Spooner said.


Standfield-Spooner said this march was just a trial run and bigger rallies are on the way.

Stanfield-Spooner was only able to get a small group out in Vancouver but did inspire a similar rally in Vernon B.C. at the same time. At the Vernon rally attendees—even those who described the virus as a hoax—stood six feet apart. The Vernon rally's organizer told a local publication that, like Standfield-Spooner, they believe social distancing for healthy people is "tyranny."

"Waiting in lines outside of stores is not normal—we don't want it anymore, and it needs to stop," Sylvia Herchen told Castanet.

The march was attended and promoted by Dan Dicks, a bit player in the Canadian conspiracy scene. Dicks sent a tweet out from the rally—showing him in aviators talking about how people are fighting back—that went viral.

“Vancouverites aren’t drinking the kool-aid,” Dicks said in the video. “They’re getting out and getting together here to show the world that we’re not OK with unlawful orders and quarantines and lockdowns.”

Dicks had originally posted a longer video of the rally but it was removed by YouTube, which is cracking down on conspiracy videos. Dicks boasts a YouTube channel called Press for Truth with over 260,000 subscribers in which he posts mishmash of videos ranging from his more conspiracy-centric videos about globalists, wireless technology, and Trudeau’s evil plans; to more far-right videos like an endorsement of alt-right figure Faith Goldy during her Toronto mayoral campaigns, and videos railing against the irregular migrants at Roxham Road.


Recently Dicks has turned his eye to COVID-19 and conspiracies surrounding that, with a focus on the “tyranny” of self-isolation. Experts have warned that during a pandemic conspiracies can do real damage to real people. As for the 70-year-old organizer who helped organize the anti-lockdown rally,Standfield-Spooner said it was her choice to come out.

“People participate in life by choice,” said Standfield-Spooner. “It's more likely there's a woman there who was 70, I think she was the oldest… I think she’s more likely to die from a car accident in Canada.”


There were 160 car accident fatalities per month in Canada in 2018, roughly 600 less than the amount of people who have died due to coronavirus over the last month.

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.

Walmart hid that it was under criminal investigation for opioid sales: report

Published  April 13, 2020 By Pro Publica

by Jesse Eisinger

Walmart, a defendant in the massive lawsuit brought by states and municipalities around the country that accuses a broad range of companies of lax controls over opioid sales, failed to reveal that it had been under criminal investigation for similar conduct, according to plaintiffs in the case.

Linda Singer, a partner at Motley Rice, which represents multiple states, counties and municipalities in the litigation, alleges that the giant retailer engaged in “pervasive obstruction,” according to a letter sent late last month to the special master in charge of wrangling the evidence in the case, which is being heard in federal court in Cleveland.

The plaintiffs will seek to have the court sanction Walmart for its behavior.

In her letter to Special Master David Cohen, Singer cited a recent ProPublica article that revealed that the U.S. attorney of the Eastern District of Texas sought to charge the company criminally for its opioid dispensing practices. Walmart, which denies any criminality, avoided the charges by appealing to Trump appointees at the Justice Department, who repeatedly overruled the Texas prosecutors.

The plaintiff’s allegations echo prosecutors’ contentions that Walmart was flouting evidence requests during the federal investigation. Last fall, the Eastern District’s civil chief resigned in protest, accusing the company of failing to comply with a subpoena demanding information from the company.

Singer, a former attorney general for Washington, D.C., wrote that the company and Jones Day — the same law firm that represented Walmart in the federal investigation — have produced only 18,466 documents totaling less than 110,000 pages in a period of over two years in the litigation, compared with the company’s production of about 1 million pages of documents and over 6 million prescriptions in the Justice Department investigation, which began in late 2016.

Singer also faulted the company for not giving over information about Brad Nelson, the Walmart opioid compliance manager who became a criminal target in the federal investigation, despite the fact that plaintiffs had specifically requested information about him.

Last Thursday, the special master ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on claims relating to Nelson. He ordered the company to produce the documents. The special master did not indicate when he might rule on the other claims in Singer’s letter.

Walmart declined to respond in detail to Singer’s claims. In a two-sentence statement, spokesman Randy Hargrove wrote: “These allegations by the plaintiffs in the ongoing Opioid MDL litigation are without merit and are part of an ongoing discovery dispute. Walmart will respond to these claims under the process set forth by the Special Master.” Jones Day’s lead partner representing Walmart, Karen Hewitt, did not respond to a request for comment.

Walmart’s alleged lapses are “unusual and noteworthy,” said A. Benjamin Spencer, a law professor and expert on civil procedure at the University of Virginia School of Law. “Obfuscating or misleading adversaries and the court with respect to the existence of responsive material is sanctionable discovery misconduct.

In an interview with ProPublica before he ruled on the dispute relating to Nelson, Cohen, the special master, declined to address the specific allegations. “In a litigation of this size,” he said, such evidentiary disputes are “within the range of normal. It’s called an adversarial process and it’s been adversarial.” He said that the plaintiff’s allegations were not “frivolous,” but hastened to add he was not saying they were meritorious either.

Courts have repeatedly punished Walmart for evidence abuses. In 2018, a federal judge in the U.S. District of Puerto Rico sanctioned the company for intentionally destroying important evidence, according to Bloomberg Law. The judge cited 18 other cases where the company had hidden evidence. One 1999 opinion by a Texas District Court judge found that Walmart “has chosen extreme discovery abuse as a litigation strategy” and concluded that “it seems Wal-Mart has yet to learn a lesson from the repeated imposition of sanctions.” Throughout the 1990s, the company had at least seven different sanctions for discovery and evidence violations. As recently as February, a Nueces County Court in Texas fined the company $35,000 for similar behavior.

In an email follow-up responding to this history, Walmart’s Hargrove wrote: “We take our discovery obligations seriously and the instances raised by ProPublica, some of which are more than 20 years old, do not reflect our high ethical standards or the careful and reasonable approach we take in litigation. As with any large company, Walmart has a substantial litigation portfolio. The number of cases involving litigated discovery disputes, and certainly those in which Walmart has been sanctioned, is miniscule compared to the number of cases Walmart litigates.”

In the multidistrict litigation, whose defendants include numerous opioid manufacturers and distributors as well as other pharmacy chains, the plaintiffs say they repeatedly requested that Walmart produce files on Nelson. Nelson was a manager in charge of informing the company’s pharmacists of opioid law and the company’s compliance policies. He also kept the Drug Enforcement Agency informed of instances where Walmart pharmacists refused to fill suspicious opioid prescriptions, as part of its compliance with a secret memorandum of agreement the company had reached with the DEA after earlier problems in Walmart’s painkiller distribution.

As ProPublica previously detailed, some of the Texas prosecutors at one point pushed to indict Nelson because of his role overseeing opioid compliance. Prosecutors uncovered an email Nelson wrote to a sales manager saying Walmart employee time was better spent “driving sales” than focusing on opioid compliance. (Nelson’s lawyer did not return multiple requests for comment for ProPublica’s initial article on the case.)

Walmart’s own account puts Nelson at the center of its opioid compliance efforts. The company said he was a vigilant compliance official who urged pharmacists to alert the company when they had refused to fill opioid prescriptions. It depicted him as a popular middle manager who was the first in the office every morning. He’d come in at 4:30 or 5 a.m. and spend the next three hours faxing refusals to fill to the DEA, the company said. After the effort, Walmart said, he would make morning popcorn for his colleagues.

Initially, in August 2018, the plaintiffs asked for records from Walmart’s “Health & Wellness Director of Controlled Substances.” A couple of months later, they requested files for the “Director, Health & Wellness Practice Compliance: 2006 – 2016.”

Jones Day responded that the title “Director, Health & Wellness Practice Compliance” “either did not exist or w[as] not held by individuals with relevant roles during [2006-2016],” according to the letter.

Yet those descriptions seemed to fit Nelson. He eventually held the title of Director of U.S. Ethics and Compliance within Walmart’s Health and Wellness Practice Compliance group.

On Feb. 17, 2020, the plaintiffs specifically requested Nelson’s documents. Walmart did not comply with the request. On Friday, Motley Rice requested Nelson’s materials again.

In her initial letter, Singer contends that “the only reasonable inference is that Jones Day deliberately failed to identify Mr. Nelson as a person with knowledge of the claims at issue in this case and deliberately refused to produce Mr. Nelson’s documents in order to conceal damaging information.” She concludes that “Walmart’s and Jones Day’s conduct with respect to the production of Mr. Nelson’s documents raises serious questions as to the candor of their representations to Plaintiffs and to the Court.”

The plaintiffs make other claims as well. While the company told the government that it had investigated its practices and culled information from its “Investigative Risk Operations Center,” when the plaintiffs searched documents that Walmart had given over in discovery for any reference to that center, the search came back empty.

And while Jones Day told the federal government, in a letter on Aug. 10, 2018, about Walmart revenue and profit contribution from opioids, the law firm told plaintiffs that such data did not exist, the plaintiffs allege.

Doris Burke contributed reporting.

Hospital floors, staff's shoes test positive for COVID-19

THE NEED FOR HOSPITAL CUSTODIANS IS ESSENTIAL

A healthcare worker reacts while taking a break outside at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center on April 6 in New York City. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

April 13 (UPI) -- The new coronavirus survives on the floors of hospitals treating infected patients and on the shoes of medical staff caring for them, according to new data released Monday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The report, based on findings from Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, China, where the global COVID-19 pandemic began, notes that 94 percent of samples taken from floors in the facility's intensive care unit -- and 100 percent of those taken from one of the general wards used to treat patients with severe symptoms -- tested positive for coronavirus during the height of the outbreak in the city.

Researchers also found that half of the samples from the soles of the ICU medical staff shoes tested positive for the virus, suggesting that "the soles of medical staff shoes might function as carriers." They cited this as a likely reason for why the floors of the hospital's pharmacy tested positive for the virus, despite the fact that COVID-19 patients were not allowed in that area.


RELATED Cheap ventilator made from ambulance resuscitation bags


In general, the authors believe that respiratory droplets falling to the floor were moved by both gravity and airflow, leading to distribution of the virus.

They also documented that the virus' presence lingered on "objects that were frequently touched by medical staff or patients." Six of eight computer mice tested positive, as did three of five trash cans in the ICU, six of 14 sickbed handrails and a doorknob in the general ward. Sporadic positive results were also obtained from sleeve cuffs and gloves of medical staff.
"These results suggest that medical staff should perform hand hygiene practices immediately after patient contact," the authors wrote.

The findings are significant because a study out of Italy, published last month by The Lancet, found that as many as one of five healthcare workers treating patients with COVID-19 may get infected with the virus. Although there is no complete count of how many U.S. healthcare workers have been sickened, estimates suggest several thousand have so far tested positive.because a study out of Italy, published last month by The Lancet, found that as many as one of five healthcare workers treating patients with COVID-19 may get infected with the virus. Although there is no complete count of how many U.S. healthcare workers have been sickened, estimates suggest several thousand have so far tested positive.

USA
Millions of renters face hardship once back payments come due

A sign is pictured on March 28 near a self-testing coronavirus site in Los Angeles, calling for a rent moratorium. Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

April 13 (UPI) -- Although the federal government has ordered several safeguards for the U.S. economy and Americans facing hardship, one segment of the population feels its facing a serious problem that hasn't been fully addressed -- no money for rent.

The coronavirus emergency has cost millions of workers their jobs, and millions more are expected to join them in the coming weeks. Amid those mass layoffs, rent came due last week for the first time since the crisis caused nationwide closures and restrictions.


State and local officials have moved to provide some help, like barring landlords from evicting tenants. Under the varying rules, some states barred evictions for a few weeks while others are in place for the duration of the lockdowns.

Similarly, some governors have banned all evictions and others suspended them strictly for renters with coronavirus-related hardship.

Nowhere, though, are there measures that require landlords to cancel or forgive missed rent payments. That means, in most cases, many will be responsible for several months of back rent once the emergency moratoriums are lifted.

A growing national movement is calling for more help. Tags on social media, such as #CancelRent and #RentZero, are becoming more popular, and "rent strikes" are being organized from coast to coast, asking elected officials to step in.

In New York City, for example, tenants at a Brooklyn apartment building began a strike after many lost their jobs. The 1234 Pacific Street Tenant Association said it staged the protest in hopes that it would persuade property owners to share their renters' burden of responsibility.

"Everyone is aware of the inevitable choice that will result: Do I pay for my rent or my groceries?" the group said.

New York "Gov. [Andrew] Cuomo is advising us to stay inside, but many of us can no longer afford our homes," the association added. "He has provided no plan for what happens after the pandemic ends and the eviction moratorium is lifted, other than 'We'll see.'"

The tenants support a bill in the New York Legislature that seeks outright rent forgiveness for 90 days for residential and small business tenants. It also would provide some relief for small property owners.

RELATED Mortgage forbearance surges amid coronavirus pandemic

"We believe that housing is a human right," the tenants' association said. "Too often, it is treated as a particularly lucrative commodity to be traded on the market. We are now in a moment where most New Yorkers are experiencing the housing insecurity many of us were already living with before this crisis.

"We refuse to go hungry or without medical care in order to pay rent."

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders have called for rent forgiveness in New York and California. Biden advocates three months of forgiveness, while Sanders, who left the presidential race Wednesday, had favored the proposed New York law.

Further, advocacy groups on the West Coast are urging California Gov. Gavin Newsom to include rent cancellation as part of a forbearance period he has negotiated with major banks.

However, all efforts to provide such full protection for renters have met with little success. Without it, some fear, a substantial wave of homelessness in the United States is expected once accumulated back rents come due.

In Minnesota, the state Legislature has approved a $500 million coronavirus relief bill, but lawmakers omitted a request to include $100 million in direct rent subsidies to landlords.

Without such assistance, housing advocates say, a cascade of evictions will likely come in a few months -- and will affect not only low-income renters, but the mostly "mom-and-pop" landlords who serve them.

Anne Mavity, executive director of the Minnesota Housing Partnership, projects the crisis will sock landlords with $173 million in lost rent and potentially displace 85,000 renters in the state.

The $2 trillion relief package from Congress will include at least $1,200 stimulus payments to most Americans without children -- plus $500 per child to those who do -- but Mavity said that's a short-term measure for a longer-term crisis.

"The entire economy is not just going to turn back on a like a light switch. It will take time, and so I think the horizon for how long folks will need support to pay their rent is going to be a lot longer than we might be prepared for right now."

Mavity cautions, however, that "rent forgiveness" is not the magic answer, because ripple effects from millions of dollars in missed rent payments would impact the entire housing and financial infrastructure. She instead proposes subsidies for landlords.

"What we really need is a way to get those rents paid," she said.

Ocasio-Cortez: Biden needs a ‘real’ health care plan

In this July 26, 2019 file photo, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., attends a House Oversight Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Ocasio-Cortez says she wants to hear Democratic hopeful Joe Biden speak in detail on how to provide health care for everyone. The freshman congresswoman from Queens, New York tells The Associated Press that Biden is “struggling” with millennials and people of color and needs to describe how he'd preserve Medicare, for example, for people who won't need it for decades. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden should “at a bare minimum” talk specifics about providing health care for everyone if he hopes to build enthusiasm for his campaign against President Donald Trump, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told The Associated Press.

The freshman Democrat from Queens, New York, was a supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders and is closely aligned with his progressive platform, making her an influential voice as Biden tries to consolidate Democratic Party support behind his nomination. She spoke about two hours before Sanders endorsed Biden in a joint online appearance on Monday. Afterward, she declined further comment through a spokeswoman. 



Ocasio-Cortez said she understands some of the progressive ideas that Sanders championed during his unsuccessful bid — and that she supports — may have to take a back seat as Biden tries to appeal to a broader section of voters. But any platform of pragmatism, she suggested, must include a plan to win over millennials and people of color who might otherwise choose not to vote.

“This is not just about Donald Trump. It’s about a systemic structure in this country that is set up to fail working class people, the young and people of color,” she said. “We need a real plan and not just gestures.”

The coronavirus pandemic, which has ravaged Ocasio-Cortez’s diverse and densely populated district, makes Biden’s words on extending health care benefits for all especially urgent, she said.

“What I’d like to see at a bare minimum is a health care plan that helps extend health care to young people,” Ocasio-Cortez, widely known by the shorthand AOC, said via video conference from New York.

Ocasio-Cortez has not endorsed Biden, but she said she expects to do so eventually. And in the interview, she didn’t rule out someday campaigning for the former vice president. The congresswoman said she was not aware that Biden’s team had reached out to her. 



Biden has shown an awareness of the task ahead.

A day after Sanders ended his presidential campaign, the relatively centrist Biden moved quickly to appeal to the Vermont senator’s backers. Biden backed lowering the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 60 while also pledging to cancel student debt for many low- and middle-income borrowers. Biden also said he is launching a search for a presidential running mate and committed to finding a woman for the role.

But Biden also faces some difficult choices at a critical juncture, when Trump is holding near-daily briefings on the administration’s coronavirus response.

If Biden gives too much to progressives, he could be portrayed as too far left, an argument the Trump campaign is already trying to make. But if he doesn’t bring Democrats together, he risks going into the fall with the same vulnerabilities as Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Ocasio-Cortez, who at 30 has clout with young people and was a bartender before the 2018 election, said Monday that Biden’s moves so far aren’t enough.

“Dropping Medicare to (age) 60 is not going to help Millennials, is not going to help this electorate that Biden is struggling with,” she said.

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Far-right US politicians label lockdowns anti-constitutional

WOULD IT BE IMPOLITIC TO SAY; 'GET SICK AND DIE'

 In this Friday, Feb. 15, 2019 file photo, Washington state Rep. Matt Shea, R-Spokane Valley, gestures as he gives a speech in front of the liberty state flag at the Capitol in Olympia, Wash., during a rally held by people advocating splitting Washington state into two separate states and questioning the legality of Washington's I-1639 gun-control measure. Prominent state lawmaker Shea says the coronavirus is a foreign bio-weapon and claims Marxists are using the pandemic to advance totalitarianism. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)


SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — In deeply conservative eastern Washington state, a prominent state lawmaker kicked out of his Republican Party caucus labels the coronavirus as a foreign bio-weapon, accuses Marxists of using the pandemic to advance totalitarianism and rails against lockdown restrictions imposed by the Democratic governor.

A California teleconference last week to consider sport fishing limits in rural areas unprepared to handle influxes of anglers descended into chaos — with callers branding state officials as “fascists” and declaring it was time to “make fishing great again.”

Across the U.S., elected officials from Pennsylvania to Oklahoma suspicious of big government and outraged with orders to close churches, gun stores and other businesses deemed non-essential insist that the public health response is being used as an excuse to trample constitutional rights.

The shutdowns reinforce long-held beliefs by some that governments would eventually use a national emergency to limit civil liberties and the vitriol is particularly strong across the pine forests of eastern Washington state — where conservative Rep. Matt Shea is a co-founder of the Coalition of Western States, a loose federation of politicians suspicious of big government, plus militia supporters.

Its goal is to “stop unconstitutional actions against United States citizens,″ according to a December report into Shea’s activities paid for by the Washington state House issued just before his own caucus exiled him.

After Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee issued the earliest U.S. mandatory closing of schools and businesses, Shea questioned whether Inslee would use the state’s National Guard to enforce his orders and if he would force inoculation of residents after a coronavirus vaccine becomes available.

”Quarantine is only supposed to be for sick people not mandatory for healthy law abiding people,” Shea wrote on Facebook. “Otherwise constitutionally and legally that starts creeping into martial law territory.”

Joining Shea in the vast expanse of eastern Washington, hundreds of miles and political light years away from ultra liberal Seattle, was Republican gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp, who wants to deny Inslee a third term. Culp is the police chief of the town of Republic and author of the book “American Cop: Upholding the Constitution and Defending Your Right to Bear Arms,” praised by rocker Ted Nugent.



In this March 13, 2020 file photo, Idaho Gov. Brad Little speaks at a news conference in Boise, Idaho and proclaims a state of emergency in Idaho in hopes of preventing the spread of the new coronavirus. The lockdown order criticism isn't limited to states led by Democrats. From northern Idaho, where suspicion of government also runs deep, Bonner County Sheriff Daryl Wheeler demanded in a letter that Republican Gov. Little reconsider his statewide stay-home decree. (AP Photo/Keith Ridler, File)

“If I choose to peacefully assemble, go to Church, go to a gun shop, take my family fishing, open my business, enjoy the outdoors, or exercise any of my constitutional rights, I should not be restricted from doing so by a would-be dictator,” Culp told supporters during a recent conference call.

Shea’s efforts were lambasted by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which said in a statement that he was promoting fear mongering and providing “legitimacy for a network of extremists” in western U.S. states “at a time when hundreds of Washingtonians, and thousands more Americans, are dying from coronavirus”

The lockdown order criticism isn’t limited to states led by Democrats. From northern Idaho, where suspicion of government also runs deep, Bonner County Sheriff Daryl Wheeler demanded in a letter that Republican Gov. Brad Little reconsider his statewide stay-home decree.

Wheeler’s letter questioned the reliability of World Health Organization coronavirus information and said “now it is time to reinstate our Constitution.”

“You can request those that are sick to stay home, but, at the same time, you must release the rest of us to go on with our normal business,” Wheeler wrote.

Little allowed restaurants to continue drive-through services and deliveries, but that didn’t appease arch-conservative members of his party, like State Rep. Heather Scott, also from northern Idaho.

She called the governmental response to the virus “a way to chip away at the foundations of our Constitution to push a global, socialistic agenda while in the midst of a national emergency.”


In this March 28, 2020 photo, rifles are offered for sale at Center Target Sports in Post Falls, Idaho. Far-right politicians across the U.S. are warning that state governments are using the coronavirus pandemic to trample on civil liberties. They are railing against efforts by state government leaders to close churches and gun stores and to prevent large public gatherings. (Kathy Plonka/The Spokesman-Review via AP)
The criticism has stretched to Pennsylvania, where Republican State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe blasted Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf for his stay-home order and business closures.

“You were not elected to be our master or dictator but a servant leader in the executive branch,” Metcalfe wrote. “You have no authority to imprison any citizen in their home.’’

North Dakota’s closure of businesses and schools ordered by Republican Gov. Doug Burgum even managed to draw ire from a doctor-politician, Republican Assemblyman Rick Becker.

“Government itself is going to be causing far more damage to America by its reaction to coronavirus than the coronavirus itself,”″ Becker told the conservative One America News Network.

Politicians angry with lockdown orders had a meaningful impact on policy last week after Republican state lawmakers overturned Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s executive order limiting the size of religious gatherings to 10 people. The gathering limit was upheld Saturday by the Kansas Supreme Court.

Even mostly liberal California saw a rebellious sign last week, when angry anglers disrupted a teleconference with state regulators who had planned to discuss a potential limited ban on freshwater sportfishing in several rural countries. Many callers mistakenly thought a statewide ban might be imposed.

Officials ended up canceling the Fish and Game Commission meeting to decide whether emergency powers should be granted to a governor’s Department of Fish and Wildlife appointee because local officials feared visiting anglers could spread the virus.

More than 500 participants jammed the teleconference after a group of conservative politicians, sheriffs and media outlets told social media followers that the administration of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, was planning the statewide ban, the Sacramento Bee reported.

After the teleconference, Republican California U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa wrote on Facebook that “using this quarantine period to advance government control that would never sell otherwise is a breach of trust,” the Bee reported.

The developments across the U.S. worry Eric Ward, executive director of the Portland, Oregon-based Western States Center progressive civil rights group.

He accused the politicians of “performative drama and exaggeration that puts their constituents at more risk.″

—-

Associated Press writers Chris Weber in Los Angeles; Keith Ridler in Boise, Idaho; Dave Kolpack in Fargo, North Dakota.; John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; and Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.