Judge dismisses fired Amazon worker's lawsuit alleging discrimination

Mon, February 7, 2022,

(Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday sided with Amazon.com Inc in dismissing a discrimination lawsuit that workplace organizer Christian Smalls had filed against his former employer.

U.S. District Judge Rachel Kovner rejected Smalls' claim that Amazon had fired him because he is Black and had opposed discriminatory COVID-19 policies.

Smalls' allegation that Amazon subjected a largely non-white workforce to conditions inferior to that of its mostly white managers, by failing to provide necessary protective gear, failed on the merits as well, Kovner said.

Smalls had no immediate comment. Amazon did not immediately comment.

The online retailer terminated Smalls in March 2020, saying he joined a protest at its warehouse on New York City's Staten Island despite being on paid quarantine from close contact with a person diagnosed with COVID-19.

In the months since, Smalls has led an organizing campaign at the warehouse to create what he and peers call the Amazon Labor Union and demand safer conditions, higher wages and job security. The U.S. National Labor Relations Board said last month that the group could proceed with a union election.

Smalls' firing has remained an issue for New York state Attorney General Letitia James, who wants a court order requiring his reinstatement. Smalls has the option to file an amended complaint within 30 days, as well.

The case is Smalls v Amazon Inc, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, No. 20-05492.

(Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in Palo Alto, California, and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)

BYE BYE KOCH BRO'S, HELLO TRUMPETTES

Heritage Foundation, former powerhouse of GOP policy, adjusts in face of new competition from Trump allies



Jeff Stein and Yeganeh Torbati
Mon, February 7, 2022,

The Heritage Foundation has long shaped mainstream Republican policy in Washington. It drafted much of Ronald Reagan's agenda to slash federal spending and launched a ferocious campaign to repeal Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act.

But in recent months, the venerable think tank in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol has revamped its leadership after its former president, Kay Coles James, was subject to a torrent of criticism from a prominent conservative cable host. Heritage replaced James with a Texas firebrand more determined to fight pandemic restrictions, "critical race theory" in schools, and "teaching transgenderism to kindergartners," bending the institution toward issues that have resonated with former president Donald Trump and his allies.

The leadership changes mark a retreat from traditional but stodgy fiscal and foreign policy issues in favor of the hot-button education and vaccine debates that increasingly defined the Republican Party in the era of Trump. The change also comes as Heritage is struggling to compete for right-wing dollars while new think tanks are cropping up around town, including several launched by such Trump acolytes as former White House budget chief Russ Vought and top domestic policy aide Brooke Rollins.

Under James, who led Heritage until last year, the foundation clashed with Trump allies over the killing of George Floyd, policies toward Big Tech, and the massive explosion of federal spending under Trump. Frequently attacked by Fox News host Tucker Carlson, James announced in March that she soon would be stepping down. The new director, Kevin Roberts, most recently led the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation. He told the Heritage news organization, the Daily Signal, that his top three priorities at Heritage are "education, education, and education."

The leadership change also more closely aligns the leadership of the Heritage Foundation with the views of several members of its board of trustees, who believed that James had not moved aggressively enough to position Heritage as opposed to coronavirus-related government restrictions at the outset of the pandemic, according to four people with direct knowledge of the matter.

"Shouting out Reagan platitudes in 2020 is not what you want to hear, and Kevin gets all that," said one conservative strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to frankly discuss the situation.

In an interview, Roberts strongly disputed that Heritage would be less focused on economic and fiscal issues, pointing to existing and upcoming work with GOP lawmakers on that topic.

Rob Bluey, Heritage's chief spokesman, said James's decision to leave her post in 2021 was "totally her choice." A spokesman for James, who now serves in the Cabinet of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and remains a Heritage trustee, did not respond to requests for comment.

Heritage's sway over the Republican Party has dramatically weakened, in part because of how Trump changed the party.

The coronavirus also proved a divisive force within the building. As the coronavirus pandemic spread in the spring 2020, Heritage leadership under James rejected an article from one of its scholars denouncing government restrictions, two people with knowledge of the matter said. Heritage's offices stayed closed for about three months, and signs urging masking became something of a joke for many conservatives who mocked the concept.

"Heritage came around to opposing the lockdowns later, but at the beginning the idea was, 'Let's not attack lockdowns,' " one person familiar with the matter said. "It was very controversial inside the building."

By contrast, under the leadership of Roberts, the Texas Public Policy Foundation reopened two weeks after the coronavirus first hit. Roberts said he was among the most outspoken members of Gov. Greg Abbott's, R-Texas, pandemic "state strike force" in pushing for an end to coronavirus-related restrictions. By April 3, 2020, the Texas Public Policy Foundation was already warning that the isolation orders were far more dangerous than the pandemic.

"I was among the most outspoken that the shutdowns were awful - that they were worse than the disease itself," Roberts told The Washington Post in an interview. "And I am sorry to report that I was 100% right."

Bluey said in an email to The Post that the institution "has consistently opposed government lockdowns," pointing to a set of April 2020 recommendations that said state and local leaders should quickly reopen businesses and schools "except in communities where an outbreak is occurring or believed to be imminent." Later Heritage reports criticized a model used to justify coronavirus restrictions and focused on their economic consequences.

Roberts's opinion is widely shared among conservative cable news hosts and many Republican politicians. The pandemic has killed more than 900,000 Americans.

Heritage now finds itself trying to catch up after watching some of its core tenets become shredded during Trump's tenure.

Even as Heritage staffers cycled into the federal government to staff the Trump administration, the think tank found itself repeatedly at odds with then-President Trump's allies. Heritage officials have long decried big government deficits, but Trump added nearly $8 trillion to the national debt, the most by any president. Trump also imposed enormously controversial tariffs on foreign countries, while Heritage has long advocated free trade. Trump took direct aim at the Silicon Valley giants who donate heavily to conservative causes, and Heritage experts criticized Trump's attacks on China.

Carlson, a Trump ally and arguably the most influential conservative voice in the country, often led the charge. In 2019, Carlson said Heritage "no longer represents the interest of conservatives, at least on the question of tech" and criticized a Heritage report that rejected government intervention that would punish tech companies for removing conservative speech.

In 2020, Carlson included James in a roundup of conservative leaders who "joined the left's chorus" in not strongly enough denouncing violence and property destruction at protests of the murder of George Floyd. James, who is Black, wrote an op-ed for Fox News' website in May 2020 saying that she does "not condone the violence spreading across this country in response to Floyd's horrific killing." She also condemned the "ugly racism that stains our nation's history and afflicts us like a cancer of the soul."

Carlson called the op-ed a "long screed denouncing America as an irredeemably racist nation," and he urged Heritage donors to direct their dollars elsewhere.

In August 2021, months after James had announced her resignation, Carlson aired a segment accusing Heritage of taking money from powerful tech companies, a claim the group called "patently false," citing James's rejection of Facebook and Google donations in 2020.

"We agree with Tucker Carlson on many issues, including his concerns about Big Tech," Bluey said, adding that the think tank applauds Carlson "for his pursuit of the truth when so many others are afraid to ask tough questions." Carlson declined to comment.

Heritage's evolution comes after former top Trump aides started rival think tanks competing for conservative dollars.

Vought, the former OMB director, started a group called Center for Renewing America, which is focused on voter fraud, Big Tech and "critical race theory."

Another former senior Trump official, Brooke Rollins, launched America First Policy Institute with former Trump senior aides Larry Kudlow, Chad Wolf and Linda McMahon. Mark Meadows, Trump's former chief of staff, joined the Conservative Partnership Institute started by former Heritage president Jim DeMint, after leaving the administration. One former Trump official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to frankly describe the state of the party, said the "red meat" among Republicans is now issues such as school choice and opposing vaccine mandates, with the economic issues that Heritage used to focus on existing in a second tier.

Heritage's biggest name among former Trump officials is former vice president Mike Pence, now reviled within the Trump wing of the GOP for his refusal to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

"People do not walk around in fear of the Heritage Foundation the way they did 10 years ago," said Avik Roy, a former health-care policy adviser to Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and the president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, a think tank. "Heritage's model, or self-conception, is that it gets to define what is conservative and everyone else has to fall in line. Particularly if you think about how Trump disrupted what it means to be a conservative, Heritage is no longer in a position to be a party-line enforcer."

Added Jane Calderwood, who served as chief of staff to former senator Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, of Heritage: "They were a big player, and anything they said was considered gospel by certain people. … Now it's just whatever Trump wants, he gets."

Roberts, the new Heritage president, downplayed these challenges in an interview and stressed that he and other Heritage officials are in close communication with senior GOP officials in crafting the party's agenda. A spokesman for Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the House GOP minority leader, said Heritage remains involved with McCarthy's office on policy and on oversight measures related to the Biden administration.

The think tank is positioning itself to play a key role in the emerging flash points for the party. Roberts has made clear in several interviews that he views cultural questions - including over education and "critical race theory" - as top priorities. He has talked critically of Silicon Valley, after Carlson chastised James for being allegedly too soft on Big Tech. He has defined a "movement conservative" as someone who opposes same-sex marriage. "There's another group of conservatives who are not movement conservatives, because they are weak and wrong on the social issues. Marriage, transgender stuff," Roberts said.

Roberts insisted that economic policy remains "crucial" to the think tank's mission and said he was personally involved in crafting an economic blueprint likely to be released soon.

"Those are tensions inside the movement, and to the extent that Heritage reflects the movement, yeah, we have those tensions. But there's a whole series of worse situations than the word 'tension,' " Roberts said. "I believe in creative conflict."

Israel’s Bennett vows action on Pegasus after reports of domestic police spying


Israel’s domestic spying scandal widened Monday, with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett vowing government action following new reports that police illegally used the Pegasus malware to hack phones of dozens of prominent figures.

© Mario Goldman, AFP/File

The latest bombshell from business daily Calcalist alleged that Pegasus was used against a son of former premier Benjamin Netanyahu and his advisors, as well as activists, senior government officials, businessmen and others.

Calcalist had previously reported that the controversial malware, which can turn a phone into a pocket spying device, was used by police against leaders of an anti-Netanyahu protest movement.

After Monday’s report emerged, Bennett vowed that his government “won’t leave this without a response”.

“The reports apparently describe a very grave situation that is unacceptable in a democracy,” Bennett said.

“These cyber tools were designed to fight terrorism and serious crime, not be used against citizens. We will see to a transparent, in-depth and quick inquiry because all of us—citizens of the State of Israel, government ministers and all establishments—deserve answers.”

As Bennett pledged action, Minister for Public Security Omer Barlev, who oversees the police, said he would seek authorisation for a government commission of inquiry.

Barlev said that, if approved, the probe would be led by a retired judge to uncover “violations of civil rights and privacy”.

‘Shocked’

Pegasus, a malware product made by the Israeli firm NSO, is at the centre of a months-long international scandal following revelations that it was used by governments worldwide to spy on activists, politicians, journalists and even heads of state.

Israel had come under fire for allowing the export of the invasive technology to states with poor human rights records, but the Calcalist reports have unleashed domestic outrage.

President Isaac Herzog suggested the credibility of key Israeli institutions was at stake.

“We must not lose our democracy. We must not lose our police. And we must certainly not lose public trust in them. This requires an in-depth and thorough investigation,” Herzog said.

Calcalist said dozens of people were targeted who were not suspected of criminal conduct, and without police receiving the necessary court approval.

They include senior leaders of the finance, justice and communication ministries, supermarket magnate Rami Levy, mayors, Ethiopian-Israelis who led protests against alleged police misconduct, and former Netanyahu advisors Topaz Luk and Jonatan Urich.

Avner Netanyahu, one of the premier’s sons, was also on the list. “I truly am shocked,” he wrote on Facebook.

In another revelation set to rock Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial, Calcalist reported that key witness Ilan Yeshua, former chief executive of the Walla news site, was a target.

Netanyahu is accused of seeking to trade regulatory favours with media moguls in exchange for favourable coverage, including on Walla. He denies the charges.

The Justice Ministry confirmed to AFP that the Jerusalem District Court cancelled a hearing in Netanyahu’s trial scheduled for Tuesday, and instructed prosecutors to answer questions from the former premier’s lawyers about the extent of the espionage.

The trial also suffered a blow last week when multiple Israeli broadcasters reported that police may have used spyware on Shlomo Filber, a former Netanyahu ally turned state witness.

Those reports, which Netanyahu described as an “earthquake”, did not mention Pegasus.

NSO has consistently denied wrongdoing throughout the multi-stranded Pegasus scandal, stressing that it does not operate the system once sold to clients, and has no access to any of the data collected.

(AFP)

World must work together to tackle plastic ocean threat: WWF

Stéphane ORJOLLET
Mon, 7 February 2022


Much of the plastic pollution in the sea is from single-use items (AFP/Luis ACOSTA)

Plastic has infiltrated all parts of the ocean and is now found "in the smallest plankton up to the largest whale" wildlife group WWF said on Tuesday, calling for urgent efforts to create an international treaty on plastics.

Tiny fragments of plastic have reached even the most remote and seemingly-pristine regions of the planet: it peppers Arctic sea ice and has been found inside fish in the deepest recesses of the ocean, the Mariana Trench.

There is no international agreement in place to address the problem, although delegates meeting in Nairobi for a United Nations environment meeting this month are expected to launch talks on a worldwide plastics treaty.

WWF sought to bolster the case for action in its latest report, which synthesises more than 2,000 separate scientific studies on the impacts of plastic pollution on the oceans, biodiversity and marine ecosystems.

The report acknowledged that there is currently insufficient evidence to estimate the potential repercussions on humans.

But it found that the fossil-fuel derived substance "has reached every part of the ocean, from the sea surface to the deep ocean floor, from the poles to coastlines of the most remote islands and is detectable in the smallest plankton up to the largest whale".

- 'Saturation point' -

According to some estimates, between 19 and 23 million tons of plastic waste is washed into the world's waterways every year, the WWF report said.

This is largely from single-use plastics, which still constitute more than 60 percent of marine pollution, although more and more countries are acting to ban their use.

"In many places (we are) reaching some kind of saturation point for marine ecosystems, where we're approaching levels that pose a significant threat," said Eirik Lindebjerg, Global Plastics Policy Manager at WWF.

In some places there is a risk of "ecosystem collapse", he said.

Many people have seen images of seabirds choking on plastic straws or turtles wrapped in discarded fishing nets, but he said the danger is across the entire marine food web.

It "will affect not only the whale and the seal and the turtle, but huge fish stocks and the animals that depend on those", he added.

In one 2021 study, 386 fish species were found to have ingested plastic, out of 555 tested.

Separate research, looking at the major commercially fished species, found up to 30 percent of cod in a sample caught in the North Sea had microplastics in their stomach.

Once in the water, the plastic begins to degrade, becoming smaller and smaller until it is a "nanoplastic", invisible to the naked eye.

So even if all plastic pollution stopped completely, the volume of microplastics in the oceans could still double by 2050.

But plastic production continues to rise, potentially doubling by 2040, according to projections cited by WWF, with ocean plastic pollution expected to triple during the same period.

- Enduring risk -

Lindebjerg compares the situation to the climate crisis -- and the concept of a "carbon budget", that caps the maximum amount of CO2 that can be released into the atmosphere before a global warming cap is exceeded.

"There is actually a limit to how much plastic pollution our marine ecosystems can absorb," he said.

Those limits have already been reached for microplastics in several parts of the world, according to WWF, particularly in the Mediterranean, the Yellow and East China Seas (between China, Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula) and in the Arctic sea ice.

"We need to treat it as a fixed system that doesn't absorb plastic, and that's why we need to go towards zero emissions, zero pollution as fast as possible," said Lindebjerg.

WWF is calling for talks aimed at drawing up an international agreement on plastics at the UN environment meeting, from February 28 to March 2 in Nairobi.

It wants any treaty to lead to global standards of production and real "recyclability".

Trying to clean up the oceans is "extremely difficult and extremely expensive", Lindebjerg said, adding that it was better on all metrics not to pollute in the first place.

so/klm/mh/cdw

Spinal cord implant helps paralysed patients walk again


New research helps patients with lower body paralysis walk again thanks to a spinal cord implant that stimulates muscles 

(AFP/Philippe LOPEZ)

Sara HUSSEIN
Mon, February 7, 2022

In 2017, Michel Roccati was in a motorbike accident that left his lower body completely paralysed. In 2020, he walked again, thanks to a breakthrough new spinal cord implant.

The implant sends electrical pulses to his muscles, mimicking the action of the brain, and could one day help people with severe spinal injuries stand, walk and exercise.

It builds on long-running research using electrical pulses to improve the quality of life for people with spinal cord injuries, including a 2018 study by the same team that helped people with partial lower-body paralysis walk again.

"It was a very emotional experience," Roccati told journalists of the first time the electrical pulses were activated and he took a step.

He was one of three patients involved in the study, published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, all of them unable to move their lower bodies after accidents.

The three were able to take steps shortly after the six-centimetre implant was inserted and its pulses were fine-tuned.

"These electrodes were longer and larger than the ones we had previously implanted, and we could access more muscles thanks to this new technology," said Jocelyne Bloch, a neurosurgeon at the Lausanne University Hospital who helped lead the trial.

Those initial steps, while breathtaking for the researchers and their patients, were difficult and required support bars and significant upper body strength.

But the patients could start rehabilitation immediately, and within four months Roccati could walk with only a frame for balance.

"It's not that it's a miracle right away, not by far," cautioned Gregoire Courtine, a neuroscientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology who led the research with Bloch.

But with practice, Roccati can now stand for several hours and walk nearly a kilometre. The Italian described being able to look clients in the eye, have a drink at a standing table and take a shower standing up thanks to the implant.

He and others in the trial were also able to climb stairs, swim and canoe.

- 'I see the improvement' -

The improvements depend on the electrical stimulation, which is triggered via a computer carried by the patient that activates a pattern of pulses.

Two of the patients can now activate their muscles slightly without electrical pulses, but only minimally.

By comparison, some patients with partial lower body paralysis treated in an earlier study are able to move their previously immobile legs and stand without stimulation.

The three men in the new trial were all injured at least a year before the implant and Bloch hopes to trial the technology sooner after an accident.

"What we all think is that if you try earlier it will have more effect," she said.

There are challenges: in early recovery, a patient's capacity is still in flux, making it hard to set a baseline from which to measure progress, and ongoing medical treatment and pain could hamper rehabilitation.

So far, the implants are also only suitable for those with an injury above the lower thoracic spinal cord, the section running from the base of the neck to the abdomen, because six centimetres of healthy spinal cord is needed.

The idea of using electrical pulses to address paralysis stemmed from technology used to regulate pain, and the researchers said they see scope for further applications.

They have also shown it can regulate low blood pressure in spinal cord injury patients and plan to soon release a study on its use for severe Parkinson's disease.

The team cautioned that significant work remains before the implant is available for treatment outside clinical studies, but said they receive around five messages a day from patients seeking help.

They next plan to miniaturise the computer controlling the pulses so it can be implanted in patients and controlled with a smartphone.

They expect this to be possible this year, and have plans for large-scale trials involving 50-100 patients in the United States and then Europe.

Roccati said he activates the implant daily at home and continues to get stronger.

"I see the improvement every day," he said.

"I feel better when I use it."

sah/qan

'Is this really happening?' Nurses say they were fired for raising safety concerns


Jean Lee
Sun, February 6, 2022, 10:37 AM·9 min read

Marian Weber says she wanted to make Ketchikan, Alaska, her forever home. With its widespread greenery and rainy days, and waterfront crowded by houses, it was a long-awaited dream. And staying for good seemed like a real possibility.

Weber, 47, was a travel nurse contracted to work at the city-owned Ketchikan Hospital, run by PeaceHealth, a not-for-profit health care system. She says she arrived in April 2021, and the hospital renewed her contract in August before promptly terminating it within the same month.

“They thanked me for extending, they were excited that I was going to stay through the winter, and then a few hours later, they rounded back just asking if we had anything we wanted to discuss,” said Weber. “I escalated a problem.”

The problem Weber said she escalated was a patient safety concern. She explained that two intensive care level Covid-19 patients — one who was intubated and one who required continuous BiPAP (ventilator) support — needed the central monitoring system and transparent doors an ICU room provides.

Instead, Weber said the patients in need of critical care had been placed in the medical-surgical unit with opaque doors and without a central monitoring system, making continuous observation difficult. She says she was worried that nurses might miss something, potentially leading to “catastrophic consequences.” Weber said there were available ICU beds at the time and that the hospital’s possible solution of keeping a nurse in the room for 12 hours, “for prolonged exposure” to Covid-19, didn’t seem sustainable to her.

“I worked my shift Saturday, I had Sunday off, and then I worked Monday,” said Weber. “And then Tuesday morning, my phone is blowing up at 4:30 in the morning, and I wake up and see all these missed calls. I call back, and that’s when my agency said that PeaceHealth has terminated my contract immediately. And that I was not to go to work that day.”

Days before she was terminated, Weber filed an internal complaint after she said she was afraid of retaliation for reporting a safety concern.

“It’s our job to advocate for safety,” she said. “We should be doing this stuff. That’s what we’re supposed to do.”

Following her termination for what PeaceHealth said was “creating an unsafe hostile environment,” she filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

“Then the NLRB started their investigation of her charge quickly,” said Robert Liu, Weber’s attorney. “After that, they investigated this claim by interviewing some of the key witnesses provided by Marian. After a series of interviews, the NLRB found Marian’s charge was credible.”

PeaceHealth said that it has “carefully listened to and evaluated concerns about levels of care required for patients” at Peace Health Ketchikan. “After independent review by medical staff, we determined that appropriate standards were in place and adhered to,” said PeaceHealth Chief Physician Executive, Doug Koekkoek.

Careworn health care workers, burned out after nearly two years of fighting the pandemic, are duty-bound to speak up for their patients but some fear risking retribution from their employers for doing so. Five nurses at hospitals either owned or operated by PeaceHealth spoke to NBC News about the consequences they say they faced when trying to advocate for patient and nurse safety.

“Nurses have to speak up in order to make sure the patient doesn’t have a bad outcome,” said Donna Phillips, Alaska Nurses Association’s labor council chair and a former nurse.

The issue of ignored safety reports and fear of retribution for bringing up safety concerns isn’t unique to Covid-19, said Phillips, who added that she feels as if hospitals sometimes used the pandemic as a scapegoat for longtime problems.

“In my 42 years as a nurse, not once did I receive a response when reporting a safety concern,” said Phillips. According to Phillips, Weber’s consequences were severe but her contract termination was not a stand-alone case.

Sarah Collins, who was fired from PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center after raising safety concerns. (Courtesy Sarah Collins)

Sarah Collins said she was fired from her staff nurse position at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center in Washington state after raising safety concerns.

“I just feel like, ‘Is this really happening?’ Because I’ve always just really prided myself on being a nurse,” said Collins, 41. “That’s part of my personality, being a nurse and making sure that I take really great care of my patients. And so it’s been a huge blow to my sense of worth.”

Collins, who worked at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center since 2016, rented a separate apartment in the early days of Covid-19.

“I was terrified of bringing it home to my family,” she said.

She said she worked 12-hour shifts with almost no breaks and spent every free moment during that time having brief, socially distanced visits with her family in their yard. Collins said she was concerned about nurse and patient safety, specifically nurse-to-patient ratios.

She brought the issue, along with other concerns, to news outlets and started a Facebook group for nurses after trying to raise her concerns with PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center.

“Nurses need to have everything that they need in order to promote healing,” Collins said. “Staffing is a challenge. People have needs.”

The problem of nurses being overworked, even in unionized hospitals, has been an issue for at least a decade, said Ruth Milkman, a sociologist of labor and professor at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, but Covid has made the problem even worse.

“If nurses and other health care workers are overworked, the probability of medical errors goes up, and care is compromised,” Milkman said. “So patients and their families have a lot at stake here.”

In mid-September, Collins gave an interview to the local news interview set up by her union and was put on a three-month administrative leave for violating the company’s media policy. When she returned from her administrative leave, the hospital had a list of reasons for her job termination that included “operating outside her scope of practice” and “failing to follow policy,” she said.

Following her termination she filed complaints with the NLRB and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Those complaints are still pending.

With regard to staffing ratios Koekkoek said, “Across all our facilities, in Washington and elsewhere, PeaceHealth consistently meets or exceeds all regulatory requirements for staffing and the provision of safe, effective care.”

There is an ongoing lawsuit with a certified class of about 9,000 hourly paid health care workers at three PeaceHealth hospitals: PeaceHealth St. Joseph, PeaceHealth St. John and PeaceHealth Southwest, where Collins worked.

The lawsuit, filed in April 2020 in Clark County Superior Court in Washington, claims that the work environment at PeaceHealth Southwest prevented workers from taking all lawfully required meal and rest breaks, and that employees were discouraged from reporting all the breaks they missed.

“I didn’t participate in this suit because I always claimed my breaks,” said Collins. “But I’ve been watching closely and doing my part to encourage nurses.”

In addition to the claim against PeaceHealth Southwest, there was a separate claim on alleged unpaid wages due to time-clock rounding made against PeaceHealth St. Joseph and St. John.

The parties in that case agreed this week on the terms of a settlement and will present them to the Clark County Superior Court in Washington for approval.

“Now more than ever, we recognize the invaluable role health care workers play in our communities,” said Peter Stutheit, one of the lawyers representing health care workers in the case. “I’m pleased that PeaceHealth came to the table and settled on terms I believe to be fair.”

PeaceHealth said it could not comment at this time on the lawsuit as details of the settlement are not yet available.

Ming Lin, an emergency medicine physician, filed a lawsuit to get his job back at St. Joseph Medical Center in Bellingham, Washington, which is owned by PeaceHealth. He says he was fired in March 2020 after critiquing his hospital’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. He posted to Facebook a letter he sent to the hospital’s chief medical officer.

The letter outlined seven safety concerns related to Covid-19, including “waiting for influenza test" before deciding it's the coronavirus. He suggested checking staff temperatures at the start of shifts and triaging patients in the parking lot outside the emergency room to mitigate infection.

“Dr. Lin spoke out about PeaceHealth’s inadequate COVID-19 procedures,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, currently representing Lin, told NBC News. “Instead of being met with gratitude and collaboration, PeaceHealth fired him. People rely on emergency room and medical staff to provide the best health care possible. This is impeded when hospitals silence advice meant to protect workers and the public.”

A representative from the ACLU of Washington told NBC News that his case was currently awaiting a trial date, delayed because of Covid-19.

According to the lawsuit, PeaceHealth Chief Operating Officer Richard DeCarlo said in an interview with ZdoggMD in April 2020 that Lin was terminated because he “created a toxic work environment.” DeCarlo went on to say that Lin posted misinformation on Facebook.

In a statement issued to NPR in May 2020, PeaceHealth said Lin “chose to not use designated safety reporting channels, and his actions were disruptive, compromised collaboration in the midst of a crisis and contributed to the creation of fear and anxiety.”

PeaceHealth said that its Covid-19 protocol has changed throughout the pandemic, saying, “requirements for specific actions, such as temperature checks, have evolved on the basis of best available scientific evidence over the course of the pandemic.”

“Ensuring the safety of our caregivers and the patients we care for is PeaceHealth’s highest priority. We have hardwired safety into all our processes,” Koekkoek said.

Weber and Collins both said they were making every effort to maintain a sense of hope that things would change, looking toward a future where nurses and other health care workers had what they needed to advocate for patients during a crisis. But neither is sure they can maintain this hope.

Weber is still a traveling nurse, working her way through the country as cases rise (they have reached almost 76 million, according to NBC News' tally). She summed up her last year by saying she has no regrets, just a lot of disappointment.

“So that’s my history,” she said. “But here I am wondering if I can keep this up.”

Kuwaiti women protest against ban on ‘indecent’ yoga retreat

By AFP
07 February 2022 | 8:21 pm


Women activists rally in support of their right to exercise activities, outside the National Assembly in Kuwait City on February 7, 2022. – A Kuwaiti women’s yoga retreat that was denounced as “immoral” has been postponed after authorities said it needed a permit, its organiser said, prompting a backlash online and a complaint to parliament. 

(Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat / AFP)

Dozens of Kuwaiti women staged a protest Monday against the suspension of a women’s yoga retreat deemed “indecent” by conservatives — a move that sparked controversy in the small emirate.

Event organiser Eman al-Husseinan announced the suspension of the retreat last Thursday, stating she had not received a permit from the authorities, a day after MP Hamdan al-Azmi tweeted to denounce the retreat as “dangerous”.

“This is not about sports, although that is important,” said activist and university professor Ibtihal al-Khatib, who attended the demonstration in Kuwait City’s Erada Square, in front of the parliament building.

“The important point is that if we give in, we will see much more regression,” she said.

Unlike most Gulf countries, Kuwait is known to have an active political scene, with MPs regularly challenging the ruling authorities.

Women in the square carried placards denouncing the “exploitation of women’s issues” by parliament and government, and rejecting the “regime of fatwas” (religious edicts) and “guardianship of women”.

Rights activist Hadeel Buqrais told AFP: “What we want the government and MPs to understand is that we do not accept the exploitation of women’s issues and their freedoms for the settlement of political scores.”

In a video posted on social media, the event’s organiser decried a smear campaign in local media.

In his tweet, Azmi had called on the interior ministry to put an end to “practices that are alien to our conservative society”.

Though several Kuwaiti women have previously held government posts and parliament seats, women failed to win any seats in elections to the last parliament, which is dominated by the Islamist opposition.

Danish pension giant dumps shares in Wizz Air over alleged labour abuses


August Graham, PA City Reporter
Mon, 7 February 2022, 



One of Denmark’s biggest pension funds will sell its shares in London-listed Wizz Air over the company’s alleged human and labour rights abuses.

AkademikerPension said it would sell all of its £2.5 million of shares in the Hungarian airline, listing a series of anti-union behaviour.

“Patience ran out,” the pension fund said in a statement on Monday.

“After engaging with the company’s management, we are in no way reassured that they will initiate the changes we have requested with regard to human and labour rights issues. Therefore, we see no other way forward than to exclude the company,” said AkademikerPension chief executive Jens Munch Holst.

The pension fund said Wizz Air repeatedly refused to accept the right of staff to unionise.

It mentioned alleged events in Romania, Ukraine, Norway and Italy.

In 2014, AkademikerPension said Wizz Air dismissed 19 workers in Romania shortly after they told the company they had formed a union.

The airline was fined by the Romanian supreme court.

AkademikerPension also pointed to comments by Wizz Air boss Jozsef Varadi, who two years ago said “unions are killing the business”.

He said Wizz Air would “simply close the base and move on” if “unions try to catch us and to kill us”.

The pension fund’s decision to divest comes around four months after it, and 13 other investors, sent a letter to the airline’s management, raising their concerns.

Wizz Air only agreed to meet with investors after they went public with the allegations, but at that meeting bosses said they would not change their approach.

Mr Munch Holst said: “Exclusion is the last tool in our toolbox. If we are not ready to use it, we have no leverage when as an investor we try to influence companies to change course in these kinds of cases. So now Wizz Air is excluded from our investment universe.”

Shares in Wizz Air had dropped 0.7% on Monday afternoon.

The airline said: “Wizz Air takes the engagement with its employees very seriously and we are confident that our structures and processes that have been in place to support open and transparent engagement are working extremely well, including our People Council, which provides a forum for employees to discuss important issues, frequent employee engagement surveys and a regular ‘Floor Talks’ programme which allows for a regular two-way dialogue with our CEO.”

Canada's Trudeau says anti-vaccine trucker protest 'has to stop'



Issued on: 08/02/2022 -

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau demanded an end Monday to a protest by hundreds of truckers against Covid-19 restrictions that has paralyzed the capital, as Ottawa's mayor called on federal authorities for support.

"It has to stop," Trudeau said during an emergency debate in the House of Commons on his return to parliament after isolating for week due to a positive Covid-19 test.

"This pandemic has sucked for all Canadians," the premier said, visibly frustrated over the protests that have brought Ottawa to a standstill for more than week.

"But Canadians know the way to get through it is continuing to listen to science, continuing to lean on each other," he added.

He pledged federal government support "with whatever resources the province and city need," without elaborating what measures might be planned.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson earlier urged the federal government to send an additional 1,800 police officers and appoint a mediator to work with protesters to "end this siege" that has infuriated local residents with incessant honking and diesel fumes.

On Sunday, Watson declared a state of emergency in the capital, declaring the protests "out of control."

"They don't know what to do with us," said 59-year-old farmer and trucker John Lambert, who was taking part in the protest.

"All they've got to do is come to their senses. It's up to them to resolve it."
Police measures

The "Freedom Convoy" demonstrations began January 9 in western Canada as protests by truckers angry with vaccine requirements when crossing the US-Canadian border.

They have since morphed into broader protests against Covid-19 health restrictions and Trudeau's government.

Protest organizer Tamara Lich said activists were willing to engage with the government to find a way out of the crisis, but insisted that pandemic restrictions be eased.

"What we're trying to do right now is reaching out to all of the federal parties so that we can arrange a sit down," Lich said during a meeting streamed on YouTube.

With the capital's center blocked and businesses forced to close, police have come under fire for the protracted crisis.

To up the pressure on protesters, Ottawa police Sunday announced new measures to tame the demonstrations by banning people from bringing fuel and other supplies to the rallies.

"Anyone attempting to bring material supports (gas, etc) to the demonstrators could be subject to arrest," the police said on Twitter.

Officers have since arrested several people, seized multiple vehicles and issued hundreds of traffic tickets.

Protesters had been raising funds to keep up the protests, but were cut off by fundraising site GoFundMe, which said they had violated its policy against content that "promotes behaviour in support of violence."

Organizers quickly launched a fundraising campaign on Christian crowdfunding site GiveSendGo that had raised more than $5 million as of Monday night.
'Reacted too strongly'

Trudeau last week ruled out deploying the army to disperse the protesters "for now," saying that one must be "very, very cautious before deploying the military in situations against Canadians."

"Trudeau has nothing to gain by going to speak to the demonstrators," Genevieve Tellier, a political scientist at the University of Ottawa, told AFP.

But another political analyst, Frederic Boily of the University of Alberta, said the protests could escalate into a full-blown political crisis.

"Justin Trudeau reacted badly initially," Boily said. "He reacted too strongly and too abruptly at the start of the protests when he tried to paint them as a far-right protest."

Boily added that Trudeau "added fuel to the fire" by turning vaccination into a political issue, especially during last summer's election campaign.

But the opposition also finds itself in a bind politically.

The Conservatives, who will soon be voting to elect their new leader, are themselves divided on the issue of the protests.

"They are afraid that part of their supporters will be tempted by the extreme right, but it is a risky bet for them," said political analyst Daniel Beland.

While only about 10 percent of Canadian adults remain unvaccinated, as many as 32 percent of the population support the anti-mandate protests, according to a recent survey.

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino voiced support for vaccines and hit out at the protests, saying, "We cannot allow an angry crowd to reverse a course that continues to save lives in this last stretch" of the pandemic.

"This should never be a precedent for how to make policy in Canada."

(AFP)

PIRACY IS THE ORIGIN OF CAPITALI$M

UN experts: North Korea stealing millions in cyber attacks

By EDITH M. LEDERER

Portraits of late North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il sit in downtown Pyongyang, North Korea on Dec. 19, 2018. North Korea is continuing to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from financial institutions and cryptocurrency firms and exchanges, illicit money that is an important source of funding for its nuclear and missile programs, U.N. experts said in a report quoting cyber specialists. 

(AP Photo/Dita Alangkara, File)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — North Korea is continuing to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from financial institutions and cryptocurrency firms and exchanges, illicit money that is an important source of funding for its nuclear and missile programs, U.N. experts said in a report quoting cyber specialists.

The panel of experts said that according to an unnamed government, North Korean “cyber-actors stole more than $50 million between 2020 and mid-2021 from at least three cryptocurrency exchanges in North America, Europe and Asia, probably reflecting a shift to diversify its cybercrime operations.”

And the experts said in the report’s section on cyber activities obtained Sunday by The Associated Press that an unidentified cybersecurity firm reported that in 2021 the North’s “cyber-actors stole a total of $400 million worth of cryptocurrency through seven intrusions into cryptocurrency exchanges and investment firms.”

These cyberattacks “made use of phishing lures, code exploits, malware, and advanced social engineering to siphon funds out of these organizations’ internet-connected ‘hot’ wallets into DPRK-controlled addresses,” the panel said, using the initials of the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The cryptocurrency funds stolen by the DPRK cyber actors “go through a careful money laundering process in order to be cashed out,”″ the panel of experts monitoring sanctions on North Korea said in the report to the U.N. Security Council.

A year ago, the panel quoted an unidentified country saying North Korea’s “total theft of virtual assets from 2019 to November 2020 is valued at approximately $316.4 million.”

In the executive summary of the new report, the experts said North Korea has continued to develop its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

“Although no nuclear tests or launches of ICBMs were reported, DPRK continued to develop its capability for production of nuclear fissile materials,” the panel said. Those fissile materials — uranium or plutonium — are crucial for a nuclear reaction.

The experts noted “a marked acceleration” of North Korean missile launches through January that used a variety of technology and weapons. The experts said North Korea “continued to seek material, technology and know-how for these programs overseas, including through cyber means and joint scientific research.”

A year ago, the panel said North Korea had modernized its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles by flaunting United Nations sanctions, using cyberattacks to help finance its programs and continuing to seek material and technology overseas for its arsenal including in Iran.

“Cyberattacks, particularly on cryptocurrency assets, remain an important revenue source” for Kim Jong Un’s government, the experts monitoring the implementation of sanctions against the North said in the new report.

In addition to its recent launches, North Korea has threatened to lift its four-year moratorium on more serious weapons tests such as nuclear explosions and launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The Security Council initially imposed sanctions on North Korea after its first nuclear test explosion in 2006 and toughened them in response to further nuclear tests and the country’s increasingly sophisticated nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The panel of experts said North Korea’s blockade aimed at preventing COVID-19 resulted in “historically low levels” of people and goods entering and leaving the country. Legal and illegal trade including in luxury goods “has largely ceased” though cross-border rail traffic resumed in early January, it said.

The panel has previously made clear that North Korea remains able to evade sanctions and to illicitly import refined petroleum, access international banking channels and carry out “malicious cyber activities.”

U.N. sanctions ban North Korean coal exports and the experts said in the new report that although coal exports by sea increased in the second half of 2021, “they were still at relatively low levels.”

“The quantity of illicit imports of refined petroleum increased sharply in the same period, but at a much lower level than in previous years,” the panel said, adding that direct deliveries by non-North Korea tankers has ceased and only tankers from the North delivered oil, “a marked change of methodology” probably in response to COVID-19 measures.

The experts said North Korea also continues to evade maritime sanctions “by deliberately obfuscated financial and ownership networks.”

While the humanitarian situation in the country continues to worsen, the panel said the almost complete lack of information from the country makes it difficult to determine the “unintended humanitarian consequences of U.N. sanctions affecting the civilian population.”