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Saturday, December 05, 2020

Columbia students threaten to withhold tuition fees amid Covid protest

Almost 1,800 students at Columbia University in New York are threatening to withhold tuition fees next year, in the latest signal to US academia of widespread preparedness to act on demands to reduce costs and address social justice issues relating to labor, investments and surrounding communities.

In a letter to trustees and administrators of Columbia, Barnard College and Teachers College, the students said: “The university is acutely failing its students and the local community.”

They accused the university of “inaction” since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March, when students began demonstrating against what they say are exorbitant tuition rates “which constitute a significant source of financial hardship during this economic depression”.

The letter referred to national protests over structural racism, accusing the university of failing to act on demands to address “its own role in upholding racist policing practices, damaging local communities and inadequately supporting Black students”.

Emmaline Bennett, chair of the Columbia-Barnard Young Democratic Socialists of America and a master’s student at Teachers College, told the Guardian the university and other colleges had made no effort to reduce tuition fees as they moved to remote learning models necessitated by pandemic conditions.

“We think it says a lot about the profit motive of higher education, even as the economy is in crisis and millions of people are facing unemployment,” Bennett said. “This is especially true of Columbia, which is one of the most expensive universities in the US.”

Demands outlined in the letter include reducing the cost of attendance by at least 10%, increasing financial aid by the same percentage and replacing fees with grants.

Such reforms, the letter said, should not come at the expense of instructor or worker pay, but rather at the expense of bloated administrative salaries, expansion projects and other expenses that do not directly benefit students and workers.

The university, the letter said, must invest in community safety solutions that prioritise the safety of Black students, and “commit to complete transparency about the University’s investments and respect the democratic votes of the student body regarding investment and divestment decisions – including divestment from companies involved in human rights violations and divesting fully from fossil fuels.

“These issues are united by a shared root cause: a flagrant disregard for initiatives democratically supported within the community. Your administration’s unilateral decision-making process has perpetuated the existence of these injustices in our community despite possessing ample resources to confront them with structural solutions.

“Should the university continue to remain silent in the face of the pressing demands detailed below, we and a thousand of fellow students are prepared to withhold tuition payments for the Spring semester and not to donate to the university at any point in the future.”

A Columbia spokesperson said: “Throughout this difficult year, Columbia has remained focused on preserving the health and safety of our community, fulfilling our commitment to anti-racism, providing the education sought by our students and continuing the scientific and other research needed to overcome society’s serious challenges.”

The university has frozen undergraduate tuition fees and allowed greater flexibility in coursework over three terms. It has also, it said, adopted Covid-related provisions including an off-campus living allowance of $4,000 per semester, to help with living and technology expenses related to remote learning.

Columbia is not alone in facing elevated student demands. In late August, for example, students at the University of Chicago staged a week-long picket of the provost’s house as part of a campaign to disband the university police department, Chicago’s largest private force.

The issue of student debt remains challenging. In a nod to progressives, President-elect Joe Biden last month affirmed his support for a US House measure which would erase up to $10,000 in private, non-federal loan debt for distressed individuals.

Biden highlighted “people … having to make choices between paying their student loan and paying the rent” and said such debt relief “should be done immediately”.

Some Democrats say relief should go further. In September, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren co-authored a resolution which called for the next president to cancel up to $50,000 of outstanding federal loans per borrower.

At Columbia, students say their demands for Covid-related fee reductions are only a starting point.

“In the long-term, we need to reform the educational system entirely,” said Bennett. “We need to make all universities and colleges free, and to cancel all student debt to prevent enduring educational and economic inequalities.”

Biden told this immigrant rights activist 'vote for Trump' in a blunt exchange.

He voted for Biden but is ready to push him hard on immigration reform.

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden speaks to the media after receiving a briefing from the transition COVID-19 advisory board on November 09, 2020 at the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware. Mr. Biden spoke about how his administration would respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

In November 2019, on the campaign trail in South Carolina, then-candidate Joe Biden was asked a question by immigrant rights activist Carlos Rojas Rodriguez and an immigrant community member.

A tense back-and-forth ensued, with Rodriguez and Silvia criticizing the Obama administration's record on deportations and calling for a moratorium on deportations if Biden was elected.

Biden disagreed and told Rodriguez, "You should go vote for Trump."

With the Biden administration set to take office on January 20, 2021, Business Insider spoke with Rodriguez about the work ahead for immigrant rights activists.

Carlos Rojas Rodriguez made headlines in 2019 when a question about the Obama administration's immigration record received a blunt response from then-candidate Joe Biden.

Standing next to an immigrant mother and local activist named Silvia in Greenwood, South Carolina, Rodriguez translated her question to Biden. Silvia remarked that she worried about Immigration and Customs Enforcement targeting her family next, and she was concerned about Biden's defense of the Obama administration's deportation campaigns. When Silvia asked Biden if he would implement a moratorium on deportations on day one, he responded "No," and defended deportations for individuals with criminal records.

Rodriguez, however, chimed back in, this time with his own thoughts and concerns as a formerly undocumented person, reminding Biden that millions of families were separated under his administration.

In video of the encounter, audience members could be heard yelling "Give him a mic!" asking for Biden's team to give Rodriguez a mic to ask his follow-up. Biden, roaming down the school gymnasium to address Rodriguez, squarely told him: "You should vote for Trump," and proceeds to turn his back and walk away as Rodriguez says, "No, I am not going to do that. But I want to make sure that immigrant families and people like Silvia are not afraid."

"I wanted to make it clear to the public, to Biden, who was a presidential candidate then that if he were to become president at the time, that he has both legislative and also administrative actions that he can do, going through the executive branch, and also obviously through the legislative branch," Rodriguez told Business Insider of his exchange with now President-elect Biden. (And to some extent, with the recently-announced 100-day freeze on deportations, it seems that Rodriguez's message resonated.)

© Meg Kinnard/AP

President-elect Joe Biden talks with Carlos Rojas Rodriguez objecting to his stance on deportations during a town hall at Lander University in Greenwood, S.C., on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2019.

Biden eventually called the 3 million deportations, 1.7 million of which were of people with no criminal record "a big mistake," during a February 2020 interview with Telemundo.

"To be clear I did not vote for Trump," Rodriguez said, stating that at the time he worked for Movimento Cosecha, an immigrants rights organization, and then went on to work for Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign. In 2008, he volunteered for the Obama campaign. Carlos became a citizen in 2017 and voted in his first presidential election in 2020, voting for Biden.

Video: Biden says he will take executive action on immigration (FOX News)

Trump's immigration policies were widely derided by activists as increasingly punitive. Throughout his time in office, he consistently increased the Department of Homeland Security budgets for immigration enforcement efforts, spent over $18 billion on the incomplete border wall, and enacted a series of policies focused on detention and separation, alongside a systematic gutting of the asylum system through the Migrant Protection Protocols.

"The pain that the Latino community is going under, it is so big that we actually need all the approaches. We need executive action. We need administrative action. We need legislative action," Rodriguez added. "Unfortunately, we are dealing and I think we're going to continue to deal with the least effective Congress in modern United States history, where gridlock is what you get every day, and where compromise is seen as a sign of weakness."

At DHS, the undoing Trump policies and implementation Biden policies will be the purview of Alejandro Mayorkas if he's confirmed. Mayorkas came to the US as a refugee from Cuba and was tapped to lead Biden's Department of Homeland Security, and if confirmed he would be the first immigrant and Latino to head the agency.

And Rodriguez, while glad to see the Trump administration go, said his work will continue under a Biden administration. He singled out the addition of Cecilia Munoz, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under Obama, to Biden's transition team as a major cause for concern.

"Munoz was a former immigrant rights advocate who defended mass deportations and family separation under the Obama Administration and de-escalated the immigrant rights movement for eight years," Rodriguez said. "Her presence in the Biden transition team only signals that we could be very well going back to the Obama era of pro-immigrant rhetoric with anti-immigrant practices and policies which led to a record of 3 million deportations."

This tension, of being relieved to have defeated Trump but being worried about returning to Obama-era immigration policies, is playing out in his community, Rodriguez said. He added that the uplifting of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy is welcome but that there must be a pathway to citizenship for all undocumented people in the US.

"[T]he Obama and the Biden administration funded DHS budgets and ICE budgets for them to have the infrastructure to do all the things that Trump did with separating and incarcerating immigrant families," Rodriguez said. "So my biggest fear is that people feel that these cages all of a sudden disappeared, that deportations are not happening, just because you have someone who is speaking on the issue better in rhetoric, but not so much in the practice."

Rodriguez does acknowledge that there were immigration policy wins under the Obama administration, including DACA. (Mayorkas who worked for the agency during the Obama administration has been praised by immigrants rights groups for his work on DACA.)

During that time he said activists "were really catalyzed by mass mobilization, direct action, public confrontation, civil disobedience, led by directly affected folks. The common denominator there has always been public action, pressuring the Democratic Party, challenging them publicly."

Rodriguez added that what he would want to see from Biden is strong administrative relief and executive actions that include DACA and PPS and "also provide a real tangible relief for every undocumented person in the country." Rodriguez mentioned that executive actions reversing the travel ban, abolishing ICE, and enforcing a lasting moratorium on deportations are stances he will push the new administration towards.

"I am going to focus my time on making sure that we're empowering directly-affected people to take action, to be visible," Rodriguez said. "We're not going to let the Biden administration or the Democratic Party frame our fight."

Read the original article on Business Insider

Black Lives Matter movement at a crossroads as Biden prepares to take office

Activist John Sloan III saw the swell of White faces in Black Lives Matter protests after the killing of George Floyd in June and girded for the worst.

Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, speaks during the 2018 Women’s March in Las Vegas.

He acknowledged it was a sign of progress, proof that the Democratic establishment was coming around to his cause. But the 37-year-old lead organizer for the Black Lives Matter chapter in Detroit was worried the increased support would turn a cause anchored in grass-roots uprising into a commercialized, mainstream political movement. He voted for Joe Biden anyway.

“Joe Biden was not my first choice. Not my second choice. He was not my third choice,” Sloan said. “But I’m also a pragmatic individual, and I think Biden is going to be better than the Trump administration for me.”

Sloan’s hesitant support for Biden reflects a divide among racial justice activists about the movement’s strategy under the soon-to-be presidency. Some factions of the Black Lives Matter movement — which spread globally with decentralized leadership and multifaceted goals — worry that Biden embodies the cautious brand of moderate, Washington-centric politics they loathe. The president-elect’s support for the 1994 crime bill, which disproportionately affected Black Americans with mandatory minimum sentences and other tough-on-crime policies, has further fueled their skepticism.

But Biden also campaigned as a supporter of the movement, asserting in a fall campaign ad that “Black lives matter. Period.”

“I am not afraid to say it,” Biden declared.

Some longtime leaders of the movement say that support offers a rare opportunity to achieve lasting policy changes, despite Biden’s reputation for being a cautious politician.

“People went to the polls and said, ‘Let’s solve some problems,’ ” said Alicia Garza, a founder of Black Lives Matter. “Donald Trump was a barrier to that, and we are getting rid of that barrier. And now I think the expectation is that this administration will deliver.”

After networks declared Biden the projected winner of the presidential contest on Nov. 7, the Black Lives Matter Global Network, a national umbrella group for the movement, issued an open letter demanding a meeting with Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris.

“We want to be heard and our agenda to be prioritized,” wrote Patrisse Cullors, a founder of the movement, in the letter. “We issue these expectations not just because Black people are the most consistent and reliable voters for Democrats, but also because Black people are truly living in crisis in a nation that was built on our subjugation.”

Launched after the death of Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012, the Black Lives Matter movement has struggled since Trump’s election to build a national agenda. The movement’s demands for more police accountability were initially overshadowed in 2016 by the outpouring of support for other left-wing causes such as women’s rights, immigration and gun control. Many of the movement’s early leaders launched nonprofit or advocacy organizations at that time or settled into new jobs in academia, with more focus on securing mainstream political power.

Some formulated the Breathe Act this summer, a federal policy proposal that many Black Lives Matter activists hope will become a road map for congressional action. The proposal calls for divesting federal resources from policing and incarceration, greatly expanding funding for low-income schools, creating a universal basic income for poor Americans, overhauling drug laws and ending mandatory minimum sentences, among other things.

Though many of the proposals are unlikely to be supported by Republicans, Garza said activists believe Biden can signal his support for the movement’s goals through budget and spending decisions, including steering more funding to predominantly minority communities as part of any new coronavirus stimulus package.

“There is an opportunity right now to bring people together by really doubling down on what our alleged values are,” said Garza, who now runs the Black Futures Lab, which seeks to bolster African Americans’ political power. “And how you do that is through resource allocation.”

Justin Hansford, who was an activist in Ferguson, Mo., after the police killing of Michael Brown in 2014, said the election presents an opportunity for Biden and activists to work together. But Hansford, now the executive director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University, said the “biggest mistake” Biden could make would be to assume that he can appease today’s generation of activists by repackaging the reform proposals that circulated during the final months of President Barack Obama’s second term.

While activists were then calling for the “demilitarization of the police,’’ Hansford said, today’s generation will settle for nothing less than “reimagining the police.”

The broad Black Lives Matter banner now encompasses those calling to “defund the police” by shifting some law enforcement funding to social services and crime prevention strategies. Biden and other mainline Democratic leaders have distanced themselves from that slogan, though they have backed other changes that activists successfully pushed in states and cities, including bans on police chokeholds, mandated body cameras and the creation of police accountability and review boards.

Although Hansford expects that Biden will continue to be skeptical of far-reaching proposals such as cutting police funding, he said he believes the new administration is open to steering more money to diversion and anti-poverty programs. Hansford also noted that Biden has pledged to rein in qualified immunity, which has been used to shield police from civil lawsuits.

“I don’t think it will come down to Biden coming up with these answers,” Hansford said. “It’s going to take his courage to bring the right people to the discussion table . . . because you cannot expect people who have been moderate or establishment their entire careers to suddenly start implementing the Black Lives Matter movement ideas overnight.”

Biden may struggle to get some of the movement’s most vocal local leaders to sit at a table with him, if they are asked.

After leading street demonstrations this summer, the leaders of some of the most active chapters of Black Lives Matter say they are wary of hasty efforts to form ties with the incoming administration. They helped globalize a diffuse, grass-roots movement in the aftermath of Floyd’s death in May, while focusing demands on local law enforcement in Minneapolis, Portland, Ore., and other communities nationwide.

Chanelle Helm, a leader of the Black Lives Matter chapter in Louisville, where members have spent months protesting the police shooting of Breonna Taylor, said local chapter organizers fear that Biden will rush to form relationships with national leaders, while glossing over local activists’ chief priority — upending how policing is practiced in their communities.

“If I wanted to sit around and listen to a bumbling White man talk about Black people, I live in Kentucky, and I can do that on any corner out here in any rural bar stool,” Helm said. “I just don’t know what we would even get by meeting with him.”

Even so, Helm said organizers for more than 30 Black Lives Matter chapters — including Nashville, Memphis, Indianapolis, Chicago and Philadelphia — have formed a discussion group to consider their own sets of demands from a Biden administration. She expects the agenda to focus heavily on building national support for dismantling traditional policing strategies, also known as the police “abolition movement.”

Biden will have to navigate tensions over the movement’s message after Democrats suffered unexpected losses in congressional and state legislative elections amid attacks from Republicans over cutting aid for police departments.

“People want to feel safe,” said Christy Clark, a Democratic North Carolina state legislator from suburban Charlotte, who lost her bid for reelection after her GOP opponent falsely accused her of wanting to cut police funding. “And when they think we talk about taking away their police departments, and people become afraid, that is a powerful message to overcome.”

Both Helm and Sloan said, for them, the movement’s chief focus should remain on ways to change policy locally, where they think they can have the most impact.

“The more that we as a movement can focus on what is right in front of us, the better off we’re going to be,” said Sloan, a writer and artistic director who got involved in the movement in 2016.

“The presidential election has very little to do with the work we do on a day-to-day basis,” he said. “Unless Joe Biden is going to walk in here and fundamentally change the way our city government works, then whether he’s elected or not doesn’t affect that.”

Some local leaders of the movement also worry that Biden’s election will make it harder for them to maintain public support for their demonstrations and subsequent political action.

Nikki Archuleta, a Black Lives Matter organizer in Albuquerque, said the protests this summer had been infused by support from people who viewed their participation as a broader rejection of President Trump and his policies.

“And now people are going to get comfortable and say we have Biden, we have Harris. Everyone’s going to go back to the normalcy of America before Trump, and that’s what terrifies me,” Archuleta said.

Scholars who study protest social movements say it would be common for Black Lives Matter to keep evolving, at times struggling to maintain its focus and public support for its priorities.

Candis Watts Smith, an associate professor of political science and African American studies at Penn State, noted that the civil rights movement really began to form after World War II, but it still took decades for activists to achieve historic judicial and legislative achievements.

“Americans have, on average, a short attention span, especially on hard issues,” Watts Smith said. “Historically, Americans get riled up and then they pull back, and sometimes there is backlash. And I would not be surprised if we didn’t see a similar trend” with Black Lives Matter.

A protester holds a Black Lives Matter flag in front of the White House last August.

GREEN CAPITALI$M

Aurora Cannabis is pausing operations at its Medicine Hat facility “indefinitely.”

GOING GOING GONE

© Provided by Calgary Herald File photo.

In a statement emailed to Postmedia, the Edmonton-based cannabis producer said it is making the move “in response to recent shifts in the industry and our strategic imperatives.”

About 30 staff will be impacted by the facility’s closure, Aurora said in an email to Postmedia.

Aurora Sun, located in Medicine Hat, was planned to be a large-scale cannabis growing facility, with 850,000 square feet “of flowering space.” When Aurora announced the facility in 2018, the firm said it would add 450 full-time jobs to the local economy.

The facility was only built out to just over a quarter of that growing space when construction was halted partway through in 2019, after Aurora failed to meet revenue projections.

In February, Aurora laid off 500 workers and CEO Terry Booth stepped down. The company made a second round of cuts in June, including 25 per cent of general and administrative staff and 30 per cent of its production staff.

China's #MeToo movement gets its moment in court

A sexual harassment case against a powerful Chinese media figure began in Beijing on Wednesday, with his accuser calling it a major moment in the country's still-young #MeToo movement.

© Noel Celis

Zhou says she has no regrets about launching the case, and that she hopes it will encourage more women to come forward even if it is unsuccessful

Zhou Xiaoxuan, now 27, sparked a social media storm in 2018 after accusing prominent television host Zhu Jun of groping and forcibly kissing her when she was an intern at state broadcaster CCTV.

Zhou said when she first went to the police with her accusation, she was discouraged from speaking out, making her feel her existence was "very insignificant"

China's first-ever civil code -- passed in May -- expanded the definition of sexual harassment, but many women are still reluctant to come forward and it is rare for cases like this to make it to court.

Zhou Xiaoxuan (front) rose to prominence during China's #MeToo movement two years ago after accusing an influential broadcaster of assault

"I'm very nervous," she told AFP on Wednesday ahead of the hearing. "But whether we win or lose the case, it has meaning."

"If we lose, it allows the questions we raised at least to remain in history. Someone will have to give us an answer."

Zhou said she found herself alone in a dressing room with Zhu in 2014, and that he groped her after asking if she wanted to continue to work for the channel after her internship.

Zhu is a former host of the country's annual Spring Festival Gala -- one of the world's most-watched television shows -- and other major broadcast events.

He has denied the allegations, and launched his own court case accusing her of damaging his reputation.

There were around 100 supporters outside the court on Wednesday, some holding banners reading "#MeToo" or "We oppose sexual harassment".

One supporter, Lucy Lu, told AFP: "No matter what happens, we think she is very brave."

Zhou broke down in tears as she addressed her supporters ahead of the trial, telling them: "We may be joyous or we may run into setbacks. But please don't take my setbacks to heart.

"We have to believe that even if history repeats itself, things will definitely progress," she said.

But there were violent scuffles outside the courtroom as supporters protested when police moved in, told the crowd to put down their banners, and dragged away and detained foreign reporters, including AFP.

- High profile allegations -

Zhou's case against Zhu was originally filed under the "personality rights" law -- covering rights relating to an individual's health and body -- but her lawyers have asked for it to be considered under the new legislation.

She was among a wave of people who came forward in 2018 when an emerging #MeToo movement rocked China.

When she initially reported the case to police, she said she was told that speaking out would affect the image of the state broadcaster where Zhu worked and hurt the feelings of those who admired him.

"These (experiences) make you feel like your existence is very insignificant," she told AFP.

"Actual harm inflicted on your body can't even compare with the other party's illusory fame and power."

Many women are reluctant to speak out in China's conservative society where victims can also face blame.

But Zhou has no regrets about launching the case and says that even if it is unsuccessful, she hopes it will encourage more women to speak up.

"Even if I had to experience this all over again, I don't regret it. In this process I developed an emotional connection with many women and men who had similar experiences," she said.

"I think all of this is still meaningful."

Although China's #MeToo movement was restrained by online censorship and tightening state control over civil society, several well-known individuals came under fire over allegations of sexual misconduct, including the former head of the government-run Buddhist association.

Lawyer Lu Xiaoquan told AFP that although disputes over sexual harassment can now be taken to court, "having these laws cannot fundamentally change the difficulties sexual harassment victims face."

bys-dnz/rox/oho

THIRD WORLD USA

Families on the brink fear what's next as pandemic benefits expire

The pandemic has pushed millions of Americans to the cliff’s edge, with the ground crumbling at year’s end without further stimulus action by Congress.

© Provided by NBC News

When federal emergency coronavirus relief protections expire, some as soon as the day after Christmas, 13 million Americans will lose their jobless benefits. Many more face eviction, or will find student debt has come due.

Nine months in to the pandemic, the latest jobs report showed the economy in November gained a paltry 245,000 jobs out of the 10 million yet to be recovered, underscoring the need for swift remedy.

It "confirms we remain in the midst of one of the worst economic and jobs crises in modern history,” President-elect Joe Biden said in a statement released Friday, noting that the "grim" snapshot of the economy comes “before the surge in Covid-19 cases and deaths in December as we head into a dark winter.”

When the CARES Act was signed, there was enough money flowing so that workers could stay home while still paying their bills. It was an unusual sight: Amid the mass layoffs, people were still paying their rent and credit card bills and were protected from losing their home. That’s exactly what the bill’s signers calculated for. They knew how much money it would take to keep the economy on life support.

But with the coronavirus dragging on for longer than anyone had imagined, the appetite for protection measures developed inconsistently across America, and full bipartisan support for further spending withered.

Lawmakers hit an impasse earlier this year when Democrats pushed for $2.2 trillion in aid, while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., sought a smaller package of $550 billion.

“It’s another fiscal cliff when families have already gone over a fiscal cliff,” Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, told NBC News. “It really means we’re allowing the wounds triggered by Covid to fester and become scars.”

According to an analysis by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, if the pandemic unemployment insurance benefits were reinstated and the virus was brought under control, over 5 million jobs could be created or saved.

Half of America is working from home and insulated from the sight of wraparound lines at the food banks and growing homeless tent encampments in some parts of the country like Austin, Chicago, and Charlotte, that might normally stir their concern.

“With the vaccine coming, it’s going to be worse before it gets better,” Swonk said. “Anyone waiting for the economy to reopen, you can starve in that period.”

Video: Biden emphasizes urgency for action amid coronavirus pandemic, economic crisis (NBC News)

There have been some signs of support for a new $908 billion stimulus package. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Friday that there is "momentum" on Capitol Hill to reach a deal on coronavirus relief, further optimism that legislation could be approved before the end of the year.

"I am pleased that the tone of our conversation is one that is indicative of the decision to get the job done," Pelosi told reporters Friday.

The deal would provide for additional unemployment payments through March, but would not include another round of stimulus checks.

Relief can’t come soon enough for millions of families.

Rachel Alvarez, 44, a single mother of three in Naples, Florida, was making $6,000 a month as a server. Laid off in March, her unemployment benefits — which expire on Dec. 26 — barely cover her rent. That leaves her scrambling daily in food lines to fill the fridge.

“We need that federal [supplemental unemployment benefit],” Alvarez told NBC News. “Here we are in the pandemic, highest numbers and death rates and no relief before the holidays? It’s crazy. It is not okay.”

Next month, if things don’t improve, Alvarez said she will have to seek restaurant work again, even though she hasn’t fully recovered from a recent bout of pneumonia and one of her sons has a lung condition.

"I’m worried I might be dead” from coronavirus, she said. "But I’d rather work and provide for my family and put myself at risk than not provide.”

Desperate families keep falling down the ladder, uncertain of what comes next, after the fumes they’ve been running on start to dissipate.

Kelly Ann Hotchkin from Hamilton, New Jersey, was out of work for 7 months and went back to work for a month and a half, only to be furloughed again. Her husband is out of work too. They have four kids from ages 2 to 13. She only gets $231 a week in unemployment.

“We've gone through every penny of our savings, my husband is going through the appeals process for unemployment now,” Hotchkin told NBC News in an online message. “I have zero ability to provide even one gift for our kids' Christmas this year and apparently the government’s gift to us is to completely screw us the day after Christmas.”

The nationwide public health eviction moratorium implemented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expires on Dec. 31. However, there has already been a surge of people living in their cars and tents, said Vanessa Brito, 37, a Miami political consultant who has voluntarily been helping thousands of people navigate Florida’s glitchy unemployment filing system. The eviction freeze still requires tenants to attempt to make minimum payments to their full ability using what government benefits they have.

“Imagine what comes Dec. 26. People are already living in their cars,” Brito said. “They’re going to be out on the street.”

Desperation has set in for many families, she said.

“We’ll take $100 extra. We’ll take anything. So please, sign off on something."

Wyoming health official says 'so-called pandemic' a communist plot

Efforts to develop a vaccine is a plot by Russia and China to spread communism worldwide, said department readiness and countermeasures manager Igor Shepherd.

Dec. 4, 2020,
By The Associated Press

CASPER, Wyo. — A Wyoming Department of Health official involved in the state's response to the coronavirus questioned the legitimacy of the pandemic and described a forthcoming vaccine as a biological weapon at a recent event.

The “so-called pandemic” and efforts to develop a vaccine are plots by Russia and China to spread communism worldwide, department readiness and countermeasures manager Igor Shepherd said at the Nov. 10 event held by the group Keep Colorado Free and Open.

Shepherd was introduced as and talked about being a Wyoming Department of Health employee in the hour-plus presentation in Loveland, Colorado.

Shepherd's baseless and unsubstantiated claims undermined Wyoming's public health measures — and public exhortations — to limit the spread of the virus, as well as its plans to distribute Covid-19 vaccines in the months ahead.

Even so, Wyoming officials including Gov. Mark Gordon, who at a recent news conference called people not taking the virus seriously “knuckleheads,” declined to comment.

Department Director Mike Ceballos and State Health Officer Dr. Alexia Harrist did not answer questions Friday, including when they became aware of Shepherd’s talk and what if anything they have done in response.

Phone and social media messages left for Shepherd on Friday weren’t returned.

Shepherd has worked for the health department since 2013 and has been a part of the state’s team responding to Covid-19, though not in a leadership role, department spokeswoman Kim Deti said.

“All of the things we’ve said for months and the thousands of hours of dedicated work from our staff and our local partners on this response effort and our excitement for the hope the vaccine offers make our overall department position on the pandemic clear,” Deti said in identical statements Thursday to the Casper Star-Tribune, which first reported Shepherd's presentation, and the AP on Friday.

Researchers have worried for months that politicized skepticism of COVID-19 vaccines could hurt their efficacy. Vaccines are more effective if most of the population is inoculated.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins and Texas State University wrote a paper in July stressing that concern, the Star-Tribune reported.

“If poorly designed and executed, a Covid-19 vaccination campaign in the U.S. could undermine the increasingly tenuous belief in vaccines and the public health authorities that recommend them — especially among people most at risk of Covid-19 impacts,” the researchers wrote.

AMERICA'S COLD WAR AGAINST CUBA, IS ALL CONJECTURE

'Havana Syndrome' likely caused by microwave energy, government study finds
Exclusive: The report on the neurological symptoms of U.S. diplomats in China and Cuba does not conclude that the directed energy was delivered intentionally, by a weapon.

A car passes the U.S. embassy in Havana on Oct. 3, 2017.

Yamil Lage / AFP-Getty Images file

Dec. 4, 2020, 10:51 PM MST
By Brenda Breslauer, Ken Dilanian and Josh Lederman

The mysterious neurological symptoms experienced by American diplomats in China and Cuba are consistent with the effects of directed microwave energy, according to a long-awaited report by the National Academies of Sciences that cites medical evidence to support the long-held conviction of American intelligence officials.

The report, obtained Friday by NBC News, does not conclude that the directed energy was delivered intentionally, by a weapon, as some U.S. officials have long believed. But it raises that disturbing possibility.

NBC News reported in 2018 that U.S. intelligence officials considered Russia a leading suspect in what some of them assess to have been deliberate attacks on diplomats and CIA officers overseas. But there was not — and is not now — conclusive intelligence pointing in that direction, multiple officials who have been briefed on the matter said.

A team of medical and scientific experts who studied the symptoms of as many as 40 State Department and other government employees concluded that nothing like them had previously been documented in medical literature, according to the National Academies of Sciences report. Many reported hearing a loud sound and feeling pressure in their heads, and then experienced dizziness, unsteady gait and visual disturbances. Many suffered longstanding, debilitating effects.

“The committee felt that many of the distinctive and acute signs, symptoms and observations reported by (government) employees are consistent with the effects of directed, pulsed radio frequency (RF) energy,” the report says. “Studies published in the open literature more than a half-century ago and over the subsequent decades by Western and Soviet sources provide circumstantial support for this possible mechanism.”

While important questions remain, “the mere consideration of such a scenario raises grave concerns about a world with disinhibited malevolent actors and new tools for causing harm to others, as if the U.S. government does not have its hands full already with naturally occurring threats,” says the report, edited by Dr. David Relman, a professor in medicine, microbiolology and immunology at Stanford, and Julie Pavlin, a physician who leads the National Academies of Sciences global health division in Washington.

Aug. 2017: 'Acoustic attack' in US embassy in Cuba blamed for diplomats' hearing loss

AUG. 10, 2017

In the last year, as first reported by GQ Magazine, a number of new incidents have been reported by CIA officers in Europe and Asia, including one involving Marc Polymeropoulos, who retired last year after a long and decorated career as a case officer. He told NBC News he is still suffering the effects of what he believes was a brain injury he sustained on a trip to Moscow.

A source directly familiar with the matter told NBC News the CIA, using mobile phone location data, had determined that some Russian intelligence agents who had worked on microwave weapons programs were present in the same cities at the same time that CIA officers suffered mysterious symptoms. CIA officials consider that a promising lead but not conclusive evidence.

The State Department and the CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Friday. Russia has denied any involvement in the incidents.

The study examined four possibilities to explain the symptoms: Infection, chemicals, psychological factors and microwave energy.

“Overall, directed pulsed RF energy … appears to be the most plausible mechanism in explaining these cases among those that the committee considered. ... The committee cannot rule out other possible mechanisms and considers it likely that a multiplicity of factors explains some cases and the differences between others.”

The report says more investigation is required.

Tourists in a vintage car pass by the U.S. Embassy in Havana on Nov. 1, 2018.

Alexandre Meneghini / Reuters

Electromagnetic energy, including frequencies such as radio and microwave, have been considered a leading possibility since the earliest days of the mystery. Early on, investigators also considered the possibility that sound waves, toxins or other mechanisms could have been involved, although no evidence is known to have emerged to support those theories.

Over the years, the FBI, CIA, U.S. military, State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have investigated the incidents. None has come forward with any conclusions, and the State Department has quietly ceased using the word “attacks” to describe what happened, as then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and other top officials did in the early days after the incidents first came to light publicly in 2017.

Evacuated after 'health attacks' in Cuba and China, diplomats face new ordeals in U.S.

Starting in late 2016, U.S. diplomats and other government workers stationed in Havana began hearing strange sounds and experiencing bizarre physical sensations and then fell ill. The incidents caused hearing, balance and cognitive changes along with mild traumatic brain injury, also known as concussion.

More than two dozen U.S. workers who served in Cuba and a smaller number of Canadians were confirmed to have been affected, in addition to one U.S. government worker in China who was judged in 2018 to have experienced similar symptoms.

For some of the affected employees, those symptoms have resolved and the individuals have eventually been able to return to relatively normal lives. For others, the effects have lingered and posed an ongoing and significant obstacle to their work and well-being, according to NBC News interviews with U.S. officials who were assessed by the government to have been affected.

Sept. 2018: U.S. officials suspect Russia in mystery medical attacks on diplomats in Cuba

Cuba has adamantly and consistently denied any knowledge or involvement in the incidents. In late 2018, NBC News reported that U.S. intelligence agencies investigating the incidents considered Russia to be the main suspect, based on interviews with three U.S. officials and two others briefed on the investigation.

Some outside medical experts uninvolved in the investigation have speculated the workers might have simply suffered from mass hysteria. But doctors who evaluated the patients at the University of Pennsylvania, including through advanced brain imaging, found differences in their brains, including less white matter and connectivity in the areas that control vision and hearing than similar healthy people.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, asked in October about the investigation, indicated there was still no firm conclusion, although he bristled at the allegations that have been raised by many of the affected diplomats that the State Department took insufficient steps to protect them and ensure adequate care after they were injured.

“We've done a lot of work to try and identify how this all took place,” Pompeo said. “And we continue to try and determine precisely the causation of this while doing our best to make sure we're taking care of the health and safety of these people.”

The report recommends that the State Department establish a response mechanism for similar incidents that allows new cases to be studied more quickly and effectively.

Brenda Breslauer is a producer with the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Ken Dilanian is a correspondent covering intelligence and national security

for the NBC News Investigative Unit.

India formally protests to Canada over Trudeau remarks on farm protests

By Sanjeev Miglani

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau listens while wearing a mask at a news conference in Ottawa

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India summoned Canada's ambassador on Friday and said comments made by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over protests by farmers near Delhi were an interference in its domestic affairs and would seriously hurt bilateral ties.

Trudeau, speaking to the Indian community in Canada, said this week that he was concerned about the farmers, most of them from the Sikh-dominated Indian state of Punjab, camped out on the outskirts of Delhi in a protest against farm reforms.

The Indian foreign ministry said in a statement that comments on "issues relating to Indian farmers constitute an unacceptable interference in our internal affairs."

THIS IS AN OLD HINDU NATIONALIST TROPE

India and Canada have warm ties, but in recent years there has been concern in India that some Sikh leaders in Canada have ties to separatist groups hostile to India.

Canada is home to an influential Sikh community and Indian leaders say there are some fringe groups there that are still sympathetic to the cause of an independent Sikh state called Khalistan, carved out of India.

The Indian foreign ministry said comments made by Trudeau and other leaders had emboldened radical groups and they were a risk to its diplomatic staff based in Canada.

"We expect the Canadian Government to ensure the fullest security of Indian diplomatic personnel and its political leaders to refrain from pronouncements that legitimize extremist activism," it said.

There was no comment from the Canadian embassy.

The Indian government has held talks with the farmers to end the impasse and persuade them that farm reforms were in their interest in the long-term.

Stephen Colbert Has An Interesting Theory About The Mystery Monoliths

BECCA LONGMIRE ET DEC 4, 2020

Stephen Colbert offered his thoughts on the monolith debate during Thursday’s “Late Show”.

The host dedicated a bit of his “Quarantinewhile” segment, calling it “mon-while,” to the mystery metal structures after one popped up in the Utah desert, Romania and later on at the top of a California mountain.

Telling viewers the Utah desert monolith was “gone-olith,” he later shared his theory: “Folks, it’s no coincidence that these monoliths appeared just before the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn coming up on Dec. 21.”

“Open your eyes, sheeple! These monoliths are clearly dormant, sub-spacetime energy nodes that will awaken at a specific pitch in the vibration of the inter-planetary matrix to help us make the leap to the next great phase of human evolution, reach beyond imagination, and touch the very face of God!” he said. “Or it’s gonna turn out to be like a viral campaign for Mountain Dew. Either way, I’m here for it.”

Colbert also joked that the U.S. monolith wasn’t able to travel to Europe right now given the current situation, adding he hoped it hadn’t celebrated Thanksgiving last week.