Women at risk in Trump’s migrant camps 

by Sophie Squire SWP

Protesters demanding an end to Trump's regime of deportations in 2019 (Pic: Charles Edward Miller/Flickr)

Are women held in a US immigration detention centre in Georgia being forced to have unnecessary hysterectomies?

That’s the question many are asking after a nurse from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centre blew the whistle about terrible health conditions there.

Dawn Wooten, who worked at the Irwin county detention centre (ICDC), gave evidence to a 27-page report by the Project South organisation.

It details many cases of “jarring medical neglect”.

The part of the report that’s particularly alarmed ­anti‑­racists is the passage that “raises red flags regarding the rate at which hysterectomies are performed on immigrant women under ICE custody at ICDC”.

Project South says hysterectomies were carried out at “high rates” and that women who underwent the procedures “didn’t fully ­understand why they had to get a hysterectomy”.

At the very least this raises a question of whether patients gave “informed consent”.

Wooten’s account is backed by number of women detainees who have come forward to say they were subjected to forced hysterectomies.

Operated

A lawyer representing one of the women operated on spoke to the US news network NBC.

He said his client was told by a doctor that she had an ovarian cyst, but a biopsy to confirm this was never carried out. A hysterectomy was then performed on her. 

In 2019, Pauline Binam began having irregular periods.

She was 29 at the time and had spent the past two years in custody, awaiting deportation to Cameroon.

Resisting the US’s racist president
Read More

The detention centre’s gynaecologist said he would treat a cyst on her ovaries by removing tissue from her uterus, a fairly standard procedure.

But when she woke up from anesthesia, the doctor told her he had removed one of her fallopian tubes due to a clog and that she was now likely infertile.

In this privately-owned detention centre, a large number of hysterectomy procedures are said to have been performed by one doctor, Mehendra Amin.

Some women at the detention centre describe him as the “uterus collector”.

In response to these allegations, a group of angry protesters blocked the road in New York.

In a video shared on social media, the police kettled the 50 to 60 activists and arrested eight of them.

During the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has stepped up his hard line on migration. 

Those inside ICE detention centres report cramped conditions, no access to healthcare and some even say they have no access to water.

Wooten also wrote in her complaint that Irwin county detention centre had purposely under-reported Covid-19 cases, leaving detainees and staff at risk. 

The horrifying treatment of those trapped in ICE detention centres is part of a racist system that seeks to blame migrants for America’s growing economic crisis. 

Article Information International

Mon 21 Sep 2020 Issue No. 2723

Click here to download this weeks paper in PDF format, plain text format

Mexico asks U.S. to "clarify" alleged hysterectomies on migrant women

CBSNews

Whistleblower says ICE detainees were subjected to unwanted medical procedures

Mexico City — Mexico said Monday it had requested more information from the U.S. on medical procedures given to migrants in detention centers, after allegations that detained Mexican women were sterilized without their consent. Rights campaigners alleged two weeks ago that a number of hysterectomies had been carried out at a privately run detention center in Georgia.

The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it sent a diplomatic note, asking the U.S. government "to clarify the situation, requesting information on the medical attention that Mexican citizens receive" at the Irwin County Detention Center.
Nearly 9,000 migrant kids expelled under pandemic border policy

The ministry said that consulate personnel had interviewed 18 Mexican women who are or were detained at the center, none of whom "claimed to have undergone a hysterectomy," an operation involving the removal of all or part of the uterus.

© Provided by CBS News 2020 election to impact U.S. immigration for ... 07:33

The department added that seven of the women interviewed had been treated by the doctor accused of performing the sterilizations. Another of the women said she had undergone a gynecological operation, although there was nothing in her file to support that she consented to the procedure.

The women interviewed did not deny that they had been "victims of bad practices for different reasons," the foreign ministry said.

In an article published Tuesday, The New York Times said it had spoken to 16 women with concerns over gynecological treatment they had received while in custody at the Irwin detention facility and asked five independent gynecologists to review the available medical files on each women.

The Times said the independent doctors concluded that the area gynecologist used by the center, Dr. Mahendra Amin, had "consistently overstated the size or risks associated with cysts or masses attached to his patients' reproductive organs."

The doctors who reviewed the medical files for The Times "noted that Dr. Amin seemed to consistently recommend surgical intervention, even when it did not seem medically necessary at the time and nonsurgical treatment options were available," the newspaper said.

Mexico announced last week it was investigating the allegations of sterilizations, warning that such operations would be "unacceptable."

The allegations came from a whistleblower, a nurse at the center, where some detainees are held under Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. The nurse said that detained women told her they did not fully understand why they had to get a hysterectomy.

Project South, the Georgia Detention Watch, the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights and South Georgia Immigrant Support Network filed a complaint to the government on behalf of detained immigrants and the nurse.

© Provided by CBS News U.S. expels 8,800 migrant kids amid pandemic 

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal has called for an urgent investigation into allegations that at least 17 women were subjected to unnecessary gynecological procedures that she called "the most abhorrent of human rights violations."

ICE said when the lawsuit was filed that it does not comment on matters before the inspector general, but that it takes all allegations seriously.

"That said, in general, anonymous, unproven allegations, made without any fact-checkable specifics, should be treated with the appropriate skepticism they deserve," the agency said in a statement.

Dr. Ada Rivera, the top doctor at the agency, issued a statement saying the whistleblower accusations would be investigated by an independent office, "however, ICE vehemently disputes the implication that detainees are used for experimental medical procedures."

"All female ICE detainees receive routine, age-appropriate gynecological and obstetrical health care, consistent with recognized community guidelines for women's health services," Rivera said. Her statement also said that, according to ICE data, two detainees at Irwin County Detention Center had had hysterectomies since 2018.

 

https://socialistworker.co.uk/archive

QAnon conspiracy theorists are important for Trump—and they’re dangerous

by Simon Basketter SWP

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A QAnon conspiracy theorist supporting Donald Trump (Pic: Marc Nozell/Wikimedia commons)

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Followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory believe a lot of things.

Any apparent crisis or incompetence is actually cover to let Donald Trump expose thousands of paedophiles—including Hillary and Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Tom Hanks. They’ll soon be under arrest, or perhaps they are already.

Their crimes? Torturing and murdering children, then harvesting a chemical from their blood.

Trump said, “I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate.”

He has promoted Twitter accounts pushing QAnon over 216 times.

Asked what he thought about the theory that he is saving the world from a satanic cult Trump replied, “I haven’t heard that, but is it supposed to be a bad thing or a good thing?”

Conspiracy theories don’t explain society’s problems

  Read More

“The Storm” is the predicted great mass arrest event, in which over 100,000 people from the highest levels of power and entertainment face a day of reckoning. The Texas Republican Party sells “We are the Storm” T-shirts. 

It comes from a dinner in October 2017, which Trump said was “maybe the calm before the storm”.

The same month an anonymous user of online forums claiming to be a high-level government informant emerged.

Various cryptic messages followed. They did some name dropping of real conspiracies such as Operation Mockingbird, a 1970s CIA effort to blackmail journalists. But most of it was untrue, fantastical and right wing.

Some followers believe that Trump is Q—though others think it’s John F Kennedy Jr, who they believe faked his 1999 death (he didn’t).

Actor Tom Hanks is a child abuser because Q used the word “big” in several posts and Hanks starred in the 1988 film Big. It is that bad. QAnon is now an all-encompassing theory, one with dozens of offshoots and side plots.

Reactionary protest says no to Covid-19 safety measures

  Read More

The coronavirus pandemic increased QAnon’s reach. Google searches for QAnon increased ten-fold from January to July. And the social media algorithms meant if you looked up what was wrong with wearing a mask you were going to hit a QAnon forum or video fairly soon.

Real-life wealthy sex abusers such as Jeffrey Epstein are given cover by powerful people.

So a movement focused on unmasking them and bringing them to justice can seem appealing.

That is part of the problem—the rich and the powerful really have covered up child abuse. They do conspire to keep their power and their secrets.

But as with other attempts to mobilise around this, such as paedo-hunting videos, they provide a crowd for fascist recruitment. Importantly many other right wing conspiracy theories fit neatly within QAnon—such as ones about Jewish bankers controlling the world.

Content

This summer saw the SaveOurChildren hashtag flood social media with content by QAnon followers.

It led to small protests around the world. There was one at Buckingham Palace about Prince Andrew.

There have been dozens of instances in the US of people in QAnon-related plots. In April a man with QAnon ties was arrested for derailing a train with the intention of aiming it at a hospital ship in San Pedro, California.

QAnon followers have been egged on by a president who promised them vengeance against their enemies and never followed through. He didn’t “lock her up”. He didn’t “build that wall”.

The dramatic fantasies of Trump’s militant fringe are an attempt to rationalise the duller reality of capitalism and explain why Trump didn’t deliver. And that makes them dangerous.

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Boxer Jack Johnson

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Racist conspiracies and right wing politics—a murky and sordid history

QAnon is not the first conspiracy used by the US right.

In 1909 Woman’s World magazine delivered an expose to two million US households. Then came a best-selling book, written by Chicago’s District Attorney, called War on the White Slave Trade.

White parents were warned their girls were being snatched off the street and sold into sex slavery.

The book warned, “Ice cream parlours and fruit stores largely run by foreigners are the places where scores of girls have taken their first step downward.”

It provided a reactionary outlet for fear and rage at women entering the workforce and the independence that brought—and combined it with brutal racism.

Banned

The result was the White Slave Traffic Act of 1910. Better known as the Mann Act, it banned the transportation of any girl or woman across state lines for any “immoral” purpose.

To enforce the Mann Act, the federal government created the Bureau of Investigation. Nine days after the Act was passed Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion, beat James Jeffries, the “great white hope”.

The bureau arrested Johnson twice under the new law for crossing state lines with his white girlfriend. He fled to Europe but returned in 1920 to go to prison.

Then in 1942 millions of white Americans believed the US president’s wife Eleanor Roosevelt was traveling throughout the former confederate states, organising black women into secret “Eleanor Clubs”.

The club motto was, “A white woman in the kitchen by 1943.” She apparently encouraged black men to stockpile weapons—specifically ice picks.

Rumours 

All nonsense. But the rumours were circulated through newspapers, not just word of mouth.

As the US entered the Second World War, major changes upended traditional racial and gender hierarchies.

Millions of black men joined the armed forces or got jobs in the war manufacturing plants, freeing themselves from the economic dependency of sharecropping.

Black women found new opportunities. Industrial employment almost doubled and wages rose.

The racist conspiracies were a way for reactionary protest against a world in which women and black people demanded rights.

They strengthened rather than weakened those at the top. The same is true today.

 

Trump is escalating an ideological war

by Alex Callinicos SWP

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Will Trump be able to hang on?  (Pic: Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

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It’s always been a mistake to underestimate Donald Trump. This is especially true now, when he’s fighting ferociously to stay in the White House. Not underestimating him means taking him seriously as a political operator, but also as an ideologist.

There are three dimensions to the ideological positions Trump takes. The first is the economic nationalism that helped him win in 2016. It is expressed in the trade wars with China and—at a slower tempo—with the European Union.

Secondly, there is the “culture war” that the unsuccessful right wing presidential candidate Pat Buchanan declared at the 1992 Republican convention. This is about reversing the reforms won thanks to mass struggles in the 1960s and 1970s.

These reforms didn’t seek to overthrow capitalism in the US, but to extend the citizenship rights promised to everyone at the end of the 1861-5 Civil War. An obvious example is the black struggle for Civil Rights in the South. 

The 1973 Roe vs Wade decision by the Supreme Court legalising abortion was also a landmark victory.

Buchanan targeted Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton’s alleged support for “abortion on demand, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat units”. 

These are the issues that particularly motivate the Christian right, whom Trump has been careful to cultivate, particularly by appointing conservatives as federal judges.

The death last Friday of justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal feminist, gives Trump the opportunity to instal a right wing 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court which might then reverse Roe vs Wade.

But we shouldn’t ignore the third ideological dimension to Trump—his war on the anti-capitalist and anti-racist left. This came out most clearly in a speech he made last week at a conference on US history.

“Left wing mobs have torn down statues of our founders, desecrated our memorials, and carried out a campaign of violence and anarchy,” Trump said.

“Far left demonstrators have chanted the words ‘America was never great.’”  He linked this to what he claims is the ideological penetration of the US education system by left wing ideas, naming the Marxist historian Howard Zinn.

“Students in our universities are inundated with critical race theory. This is a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation, that even young children are complicit in oppression, and that our entire society must be radically transformed.” 

Influence

Trump is of course right. Marxists and other anti-racist scholars have for decades been documenting the racist roots of US society. Unfortunately, these scholars’ influence has been limited.

The tweet Trump endorsed denouncing “critical race theory” as “the greatest threat to western civilisation” is way off the mark.

But the Black Lives Matter (BLM) risings this summer changed the situation. A militant movement has emerged that gives the lie to the idea that the US is a “post-racial” society.

Trump has seized on these protests to beat the drum of law and order.

And his ideological assault on the left is linked to his Twitter denunciations of “Antifa” activists and his encouragement of both cops and his own supporters physically to attack BLM activists. This has led to at least three fatal shootings. 

Trump’s tactics are raising the stakes in the election, seeking to brand Biden as a fellow traveller of the “left wing cultural revolution”. But they seem designed also to provide the ideological cement for Trump’s own militant street movement.

Already there are widespread fears being expressed in mainstream circles that, if he looks like losing the election in November, he will mobilise his armed supporters to keep him in the White House.

We’ll see whether Trump is able to hang on, constitutionally or unconstitutionally. 

But for his own opportunistic reasons, he is transforming the scattered, fragmented, incoherent far right into something that could be the beginnings of a real fascist movement. 

This may be the worst part of his legacy.

Aprés Ginsburg, Le Deluge

AFTER GINSBURG,THE DELUGE

Liz Elting Contributor ForbesWomen

29/9/2020

The year is 1993. It’s August, and Bill Clinton has been president for less than a year. During the 1992 campaign, his partner Hillary was facing a sexist public reckoning: was she enough of a wife and mother? After all, she had kept her name throughout her tenure as First Lady of Arkansas and defended her decision to keep outside employment rather than stay at home baking cookies. Remember, this was almost three decades ago, when working women were still regarded with a fair bit of suspicion and Family Circle (then still in circulation) ran a quadrennial cookie recipe contest for potential First and Second Ladies of the United States.

UNITED STATES - JANUARY 20: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg arrives for President Barack Obama CQ-ROLL CALL, INC VIA GETTY IMAGES

In that environment, Bill Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died ten days ago at 87 after 27 years on the high court, where she served as perhaps the primary defender of women’s rights and independence. When she took office, it had been only 12 years since women were released from legal subordination to their husbands, and state-funded schools were still allowed to discriminate on the basis of sex in admissions.

Here in 2020, it may actually come as a bit of a surprise the extent to which women were subordinated by the state. The military could compel pregnant servicewomen to get an abortion or else resign and didn’t stop that until 1972. Women couldn’t apply for credit cards or mortgages in their own right until 1974. Women could be excluded from juries until 1993. Women could be compelled to carry dangerous pregnancies to term until 2007. And circling around each of those decisions, either on the bench or arguing in front of it, is Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

She’s had plaudits aplenty in the days since her death, and rightly so. She’s easy to applaud. Superlatives attach themselves to her like barnacles on a ship at sea. She was a sui generis advocate, attorney, and judge. But I’m not here to praise Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but to speak to where we find ourselves now that she is gone. Because she is gone.

The obvious place to start would be to look at the makeup of the bench if Amy Coney Barrett takes her seat, at her history and public statements, in the big hoary arguments of academic law. That would only be part of the picture, however, because the reality is far more complicated; one complicating factor in particular is the pandemic.

We as women are in the midst of an entire new series of challenges to our rights on a level that I am not sure we could have predicted a few short years ago. COVID-19 has disrupted our ability to live our lives in ways large and small, a disruption that has fallen disproportionately on women, who are bearing the brunt of the economic and emotional damage it’s wreaking. It’s not a secret; every repercussion—from the childcare crisis to the looming eviction disaster—is a heightened threat to women for the same reason we make seventy-nine cents on the dollar: our labor is not valued.

This matrix of events—pandemic-induced economic and social dislocation alongside an increasingly reactionary court—places us in the position of having our social rights (especially in the workplace) challenged and the challenge being upheld.

Where do I begin? Women are being tacitly and even explicitly encouraged to voluntarily resign their positions because they have children to take care of, which ostensibly gets in the way of the unfettered march of capitalism. Even without that pushing force, working moms are spread thinner than ever; they have children to homeschool, jobs to perform, and household chores to carry (responsibilities men are shirking). Women dominate retail work, which means we’re disproportionately affected by closures and lockdowns. We are, more than ever in history since the middle of the twentieth century, being pushed out of the workforce. What worries me more than anything is what happens when those push factors come before the courts, because they’re going to. Of course they’re going to—and under less-than-favorable conditions.

We’re staring down a social landscape that rolls back progress and reaffirms traditional gender roles rather than breaking them down, where millions of women have to leave the workforce long enough to derail their careers. That means fewer women managers hiring fewer women candidates, fewer women reaching the c-suite or boardroom, and therefore fewer women in a position to argue on our behalf. The current choice facing working moms is just another manifestation of the motherhood penalty, or the enforcing of the idea that women don’t really belong in the workforce by holding female applicants to the ridiculous standard of “will never marry or have children.” The losses have already been staggering.

It saddens me deeply to see Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s legacy, what she fought for her entire life, teetering on the precipice. But you and I have it in our power to stop that from happening. It’s not going to come at the ballot box alone, but in the decisions we make every day, in what we communicate to our daughters and sons about the value women hold and offer, in our conduct as business leaders, managers, or hiring officers. These are decisions that we make day by day, you and I, to embody our secular credos. The rollback we’re already seeing didn’t begin in the Supreme Court, the halls of Congress, or the White House. Instead, it took root in millions of daily decisions by people in the position to decide them.

I don’t know what the future holds, and it’s not my place to try and say. We may not have a reliable path to codify our values into law or before a sympathetic court. But we do have our lives, and our choices. Ruth Bader Ginsburg didn’t start on the Supreme Court. She started by organizing, pushing back against arbitrary values, fighting for what she (and all of us) deserved, and forcing others to adapt to her by the sheer power of her brilliant and dedicated mind. But we don’t have to be as notorious as RBG to effect change in the world. If we commit ourselves to the wellbeing and advancement of women in the workplace and beyond, we will be doing our part, small it may be, to build this better world she could see twinkling in the distance.

We can do it.

Follow me on LinkedIn.

Liz Elting
I am a global CEO, entrepreneur, business leader, linguaphile, philanthropist, feminist, and mother. After living, studying, and working in five countries across the globe, and quitting a particularly nightmarish job, I decided it was time to chart my own future. Driven by a passion for language and cultural diversity, and a vision to break down boundaries, forge new paths forward, and connect people and businesses across the globe, I founded my dream company out of an NYU dorm room. Today, that dorm-room startup is the world’s largest privately-owned language solutions company, with over $500 million in revenue, 4,000 employees, 11,000 clients, and offices in more than 90 cities around the globe. As for me, I’m still fueled by a passion for breaking down boundaries – not only geographically, culturally, and technologically – but also in the workplace for other entrepreneurial women working toward their dreams and building a better tomorrow. You can follow me on Twitter @LizElting.

Poll: Majority of adults don't support overturning Roe v. Wade

Sixty-six percent of adults say they don't think the Supreme Court should overturn Roe v. Wade, according to an NBC News|SurveyMonkey Weekly Tracking poll.

Abortion rights activists protest outside the Supreme Court on March 4.

Saul Loeb / AFP - Getty Images

TRUMP SUPPORTERS DENY THIS RIGHT TO WOMEN

Sept. 29, 2020, 2:33 AM MDT

By Melissa Holzberg and Ben Kamisar

WASHINGTON — A majority of American adults say they don't support the Supreme Court's completely overturning Roe v. Wade, according to new data from the NBC News|SurveyMonkey Weekly Tracking Poll.

Sixty-six percent of adults say they don't believe the Supreme Court should completely overturn the decision that established a woman's right to an abortion nationwide in at least the first three months of a pregnancy. Twenty-nine percent of adults say they do want the court to completely overturn the ruling.

The landmark 1973 decision found that a woman's constitutional right to privacy protected her choice of whether to have an abortion, although it also allowed states to more heavily regulate access to abortion after the first trimester. Before Roe v. Wade, states were largely unrestricted in regulating access to abortion at any point in a pregnancy.


Democrats are overwhelmingly in favor of preserving the decision — 86 percent say it shouldn't be overturned, while 12 percent believe it should be overturned.

Independents feel similarly — 71 percent want to preserve the ruling, while 25 percent want to see it overturned.

Republicans are virtually split, with 50 percent supporting overturning Roe and 47 percent saying it shouldn't be overturned.

President Donald Trump nominated federal appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court seat left vacant after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The nomination has sparked questions about whether a more conservative-leaning court could re-examine issues like abortion — Trump has said he would nominate only anti-abortion rights judges to sit on the court.

In a 2013 article in the Texas Law Review, Barrett cited Roe v. Wade when she wrote, "If anything, the public response to controversial cases like Roe reflects public rejection of the proposition that [precedent] can declare a permanent victor in a divisive constitutional struggle rather than desire that precedent remain forever unchanging."

Barrett, however, has said that she doesn't believe the Supreme Court would ever fully overturn abortion rights — rather that the court may change how much power states have to regulate abortions.

In a speech at the University of Notre Dame in 2013, Barrett said, "The fundamental element, that the woman has a right to choose abortion, will probably stand." And in 2016, she said: "I don't think abortion or the right to abortion would change. I think some of the restrictions would change."

After he nominated her, Trump said in a "Fox and Friends" interview that with Barrett on the court, overturning Roe v. Wade was "certainly possible."

"And maybe they do it in a different way. Maybe they'd give it back to the states. You just don't know what's going to happen," he said.

Many conservatives have pushed for the court to re-examine Roe — Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., tweeted this month that he would vote only for Supreme Court nominees who believe "Roe was wrongly decided."

The new data tracks with other polls that show that the majority of Americans don't want to see Roe v. Wade completely overturned and generally agree with a women's right to have an abortion with certain restrictions.

The timing of Barrett's nomination is also controversial. Last week, a Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 57 percent of Americans thought the candidate who wins the Nov. 3 election should fill the vacant seat. And two NBC News/Marist College polls showed that a majority of likely voters in Michigan and Wisconsin agreed that the election winner should make the nomination.

The chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., announced that Barrett's confirmation hearings would begin Oct. 12 — just 22 days before the election. Democrats have criticized Republicans for moving forward with the nomination and the confirmation process so close to the election after having blocked President Barack Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland in March 2016.

While Democrats have promised to try to block Barrett's confirmation, only two Republican senators — Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — have joined with them to say a nominee shouldn't be confirmed until after the election, so there's little that Democrats can do to delay the process.

Data come from a set of SurveyMonkey online polls conducted Sept. 21-27, 2020, among a national sample of 48,241 adults in the U.S. Respondents were selected from the more than 2 million people who take surveys on the SurveyMonkey platform each day. The modeled error estimate for this survey is plus or minus 1.0 percentage points. Data have been weighted for age, race, sex, education and geography using the Census Bureau's American Community Survey to reflect the demographic composition of the United States ages 18 and over.

Blondie’s Chris Stein and William S. Burroughs discuss the nature of war in a rare clip from 1987

Credit: Noah/Anna Hanks

Jack Whatley·September 29, 2020

There are some striking similarities between the attitude and ethos that the beat novelist and cult icon William S. Burroughs put into his work such as Junky and Naked Lunch that the punks of New York City could and likely still can identify with. His no-holds-barred approach and visceral storytelling made him a hit with musicians across the city in the seventies, including Blondie’s own Chris Stein.

The other ventricle in the beating heart of Blondie, Stein’s contribution to punk’s movement into popular music is undoubted but what has always impressed about the somewhat more reserved member of the band is his wide range of artistic endeavours. Whether through photography or producing films, Stein has always appeared as a composed curator of the arts. It’s fitting then that he should find such favour with a similarly well-mannered man such as Burroughs.

We’re revisiting the moment when Burroughs and Stein sat down for a vintage piece of television—discussing the nature of war. It’s not exactly your everyday piece of footage, but the people being recorded aren’t exactly everyday people. The clip comes from 1987 and is just before the grunge generation, led by Kurt Cobain, cottoned onto Burroughs’ work and the man himself—it catches the writer at a philosophical moment.

“What’s your favourite war, Bill?” asks Stein. The informality is to be expected, the two men have crossed paths many times before. They shared dinner back in 1978, an experience captured by Victor Bockris which saw Stein, Burroughs and Debbie Harry wax lyrically about everything from the French’s efficiency to haunted Bowery apartments. Stein also enjoyed an experience which greeted many of Burroughs’ guests—target practice.

“I was lucky I got to hang out with Burroughs,” Stein remembered in a recent interview with The Guardian in 2018. “He became a mentor. I had a long illness and didn’t leave Manhattan for three years, so the first place I went afterwards was to go stay with Burroughs in Kansas. It was like the old days of hosting a salon. Me, Mick Jagger and various others would go visit.”

What would await the rock stars was a writer with a keen wit and wicked sense of gun ownership. “Bill was a peaceful guy but a big proponent of firearms,” Stein continued. “It was ironic that he had that accident and killed his wife [Burroughs accidentally killed his wife in a tragic ‘William Tell’ skit, gone wrong]. Everyone who went there would go out and shoot with him. You’d do target practice, then he’d take the target down and sign it for you as a souvenir.” By the time he was sat across from Burroughs in quite possibly one of the worst TV sets we’ve ever seen, the two were on more than first name terms.

Back to ‘Bill’s’ favourite war and the extraordinary writer replied with a typical twist, paraphrasing a Hindu spirit he says: “She said this is a war universe. It’s always war.” Instantly, Stein’s ears prick up, “If there wasn’t any war, people would have nothing to do with themselves,” summarises Burroughs.

“Do you think war is a natural lifeforce like earthquakes or something like that?” he asks. “There’s a very interesting theory that earth is an organism like Gaia [from Greek mythology], the Earth Goddess,” at this point, for no apparent reason, an extra breaks the camera line and walks straight through the middle of the interview. Whether it’s for comic effect or artistic edge or was a genuine accident is unknown but it’s pretty bizarre.

“Nature’s always in this tremendous flux, constantly,” continues Stein after a reset. “Destroying itself, eating itself up—y’know the ocean eats the land away. So maybe war is just a natural version.” Burroughs can’t help but interject, exclaiming: “It is. It is change, change, war is change. Or rather, you should say, you can’t have change without war on some level. It doesn’t have to be going out with guns and clubs or anything else. There’s biologic war, psychological war—there are weapons that take generations to get there.”

The irreverence of this conversation’s setting and soundtrack, despite its intrinsically destructive content, is what is so enjoyable to watch. Two very esteemed artists sit across from one another in what looks like a back corridor, discussing some incredibly philosophical notions and the entire interview feels like a dream. For that reason alone it’s one minute and forty-seven seconds of joy.

Chadwick Boseman took money out of his own salary to boost Sienna Miller’s pay on ’21 Bridges’

(Credit: STXfilms) Far Out Staff·September 29, 2020

Sienna Miller has revealed that her co-star Chadwick Boseman took money out of his own salary in order to boost her pay in an eye-opening glimpse into the pay disparity within Hollywood.

Miller, who worked alongside Boseman on Brian Kirk’s 2019 film 21 Bridges, has been reflecting on her friend’s generosity following his tragic death. Boseman recently passed away at the young age of 43 having lost his battle with colon cancer. The Black Panther actor died in his Los Angeles home alongside his wife and family in a tragic story which rocked the film industry.

Remembering Boseman, Miller explained how his extreme drive to create a genuine balance emerged during the filming of 21 Bridges, a project which would be one of the actor’s final ever roles. “He produced 21 Bridges, and had been really active in trying to get me to do it,” she told Empire. “He was a fan of my work, which was thrilling, because it was reciprocated from me to him, tenfold.

Miller added: “So he approached me to do it, he offered me this film, and it was at a time when I really didn’t want to work anymore. I’d been working non-stop and I was exhausted, but then I wanted to work with him.”

While the film also starred the likes of Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, Mike Larocca, Robert Simonds and more, Boseman—who was secretly battling cancer at the time—went out of his way to try and ensure iller received a better pay for her work: “I didn’t know whether or not to tell this story, and I haven’t yet. But I am going to tell it, because I think it’s a testament to who he was,” she explained.


“This was a pretty big budget film, and I know that everybody understands about the pay disparity in Hollywood, but I asked for a number that the studio wouldn’t get to. And because I was hesitant to go back to work and my daughter was starting school and it was an inconvenient time, I said, ‘I’ll do it if I’m compensated in the right way’. And Chadwick ended up donating some of his salary to get me to the number that I had asked for. He said that that was what I deserved to be paid.”

Miller continued: “It was about the most astounding thing that I’ve experienced. That kind of thing just doesn’t happen. He said, ‘You’re getting paid what you deserve, and what you’re worth.’

“It’s just unfathomable to imagine another man in that town behaving that graciously or respectfully. In the aftermath of this I’ve told other male actor friends of mine that story and they all go very very quiet and go home and probably have to sit and think about things for a while. But there was no showiness, it was, ‘Of course I’ll get you to that number, because that’s what you should be paid.’

Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, the man sentenced to death for a Whatsapp voice note

#ENDBLASPHEMYLAWS

By Eoin McSweeney and Stephanie Busari, CNN
1 hour ago

© Photo Illustration/Alberto Mier

An intense argument recorded and posted in a WhatsApp group has led to a death penalty sentence and a family torn apart over allegations of insulting Prophet Mohammed, according to lawyers for the defendant.

Music studio assistant Yahaya Sharif-Aminu was sentenced to death by hanging on August 10 after being convicted of blasphemy by an Islamic court in northern Nigeria.

The judgment document states that Sharif-Aminu, 22, was convicted for making "a blasphemous statement against Prophet Mohammed in a WhatsApp Group," which is contrary to the Kano State Sharia Penal Code and is an offence which carries the death sentence.© Photo Illustration/Alberto Mier

The recording was shared widely, causing mass outrage in the highly conservative, majority Muslim, state, according to various reports.

"Whoever insults, defames or utters words or acts which are capable of bringing into disrespect ... such a person has committed a serious crime which is punishable by death," according to a translation of court documents provided to CNN by his lawyers.

Sharif-Aminu, described by his friend Kabiru Ibrahim, as "kind, religious and dutiful," admitted charges of blasphemy during his trial, but said he had made a mistake.

No legal representation

Under Sharia law, a voluntary confession is binding, according to court papers.

Sharif-Aminu's lawyers, who became involved in the case only after his conviction, say he was not allowed legal representation before or during his trial -- in contravention of Nigerian citizens' constitutional right to legal representation.

According to the lawyers, the Sharia court adjourned his case four times because no lawyer came forth from the Legal Aid Council to represent him, likely because of the sensitivity of the case. The Sharia court is, however, statute-bound to provide legal representation.

Advocates from the Foundation for Religious Freedom (FRF), a not-for-profit aimed at protecting religious freedom in Nigeria, which is representing Sharif-Aminu, told CNN he has also not been permitted access to legal advice to prepare an appeal against his conviction.

The FRF says it has lodged an appeal on his behalf in Kano's high court, a common-law court with constitutional powers.

"The state laws he is accused of breaking are in gross conflict with the Nigerian constitution," said his counsel, Kola Alapinni.

Kano's State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje told clerics in Kano that he would sign Sharif-Aminu's death warrant as soon as the singer had exhausted the appeals process, local media reports say.

"I assure you that immediately the Supreme Court affirms the judgment, I will sign it without any hesitation," Ganduje said, according to Nigeria's Daily Post newspaper. CNN contacted a spokesman for Governor Ganduje several times for comment but did not receive a response.

Islamic scholar and cleric Bashir Aliyu Umar, who is not connected to the case, but said he had read the transcript of the court proceedings, told CNN, "No Muslim will condone it. People hold Prophet Mohammed higher than their parents, and when things like this happen, it will lead to a breakdown of peace because of mob action and attacks against the accused."

When news of Sharif-Aminu's alleged crime broke earlier this year, protesters marched to his family home and destroyed it, prompting his father to flee to a neighboring town, his lawyers told CNN. Sharif-Aminu went into hiding, according to Amnesty and his lawyers, but in March he was arrested by the Hisbah Corps, the religious police force that enforces Sharia law in Kano state.


'A travesty of justice'

Human rights organization Amnesty International has described Sharif-Aminu's trial as a "travesty of justice," and called on Kano state authorities to quash his conviction and death sentence.

"There are serious concerns about the fairness of his trial and the framing of the charges against him based on his Whatsapp messages," said Amnesty's Nigeria director Osai Ojigho. "Furthermore, the imposition of the death penalty following an unfair trial violates the right to life," she added.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has also condemned Sharif-Aminu's death sentence. It said Nigeria's blasphemy laws were inconsistent with universal human rights standards.

"It is unconscionable that Sharif-Aminu is facing a death sentence merely for expressing his beliefs artistically through music," said the organization's commissioner, Frederick A. Davie, in a statement.

The organization released a follow-up statement saying it had adopted Aminu-Sharif as "a religious prisoner of conscience."


Atheism frowned upon

Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation and religion permeates every facet of life here, with prayers routinely said in schools and public offices. In addition to blasphemy, atheism is frowned upon by many in the majority Muslim north as well as in parts of the mostly Christian south.

Human rights groups have expressed concern over a crackdown on freedom of speech and expression, particularly when it comes to religion.

On April 28 this year, Mubarak Bala, president of the Nigerian humanist association, was arrested in Kaduna, another northern state, after allegedly posting a message on his Facebook page claiming that a Nigerian evangelical preacher was better than the Prophet Mohammed.

His family and lawyers told Human Rights Watch they have not seen or heard from him since. Bala remains detained without charge and has not been allowed to communicate with his lawyers or his family, according to USCIRF.

Nigerian playwright and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka is among those who recently sent a message of solidarity to Bala, following his 100th day in confinement on August 6.

"As a child, I remember living in a state of harmonious coexistence all but forgotten in the Nigeria of today, as the plague of religious extremism has encroached," Soyinka, a former political prisoner, wrote, "I write today to tell you that you are not alone, there is a whole community across the globe that stands beside you and will fight for you."


Stoning, amputations, flogging

Sharia law has been practiced alongside secular law in many northern Nigerian states since they were reintroduced in 1999. Nigeria's Sharia courts can also sentence those convicted of offenses to stoning, amputations, and flogging; while the former two are no longer carried out, "flogging is a quite common punishment for many crimes, particularly theft," according to the USCIRF.

Only one death sentence passed by Sharia courts has been carried out, according to Human Rights Watch. Sani Yakubu Rodi was hanged in 2002 for the murder of a woman, her four-year-old son, and baby daughter.

In 2015 and 2016 nine men and one woman were sentenced to death by hanging for insulting the Prophet Mohammed in Kano state, according to a 2019 research paper by the USCIRF. The sentences were not carried out.

In 2000, a Muslim man in the northern state of Zamfara had his hand amputated for stealing a cow. A year later, another man had his hand cut off after he was convicted of stealing bicycles, according to the same USCIRF research paper.


A constitutional violation?

In the eyes of many Nigerians, the adoption of Sharia law is a violation of the country's constitution, because Article 10 guarantees religious freedom when it states that "the Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any religion as State Religion."

"This issue of blasphemy is incompatible with the Nigerian constitution," Leo Igwe, chair of the board of trustees for the Humanist Association of Nigeria, told CNN.

"We hope this case will help Nigeria confront the biggest constitutional challenge since independence. What should take precedence, Sharia law, or the Nigerian constitution?"

Governors of the northern states, where Sharia law is practiced, argue that it applies only to Muslims, and not to citizens of other faiths. The FRF says it is working on six other constitutional cases which will challenge what it sees as government interference in Nigerian citizens' right to religious freedom.



One of these, on behalf of the Atheist Society of Nigeria (ASN), is against the state government of Akwa Ibom, in the country's southeast, for its involvement in the construction of an 8,500-seat worship center at its High Court.

The ASN says millions of dollars in state funding have been spent on the center, which it says amounts to government interference in freedom of religion.

"The government has no business legislating on religions. End of story," Ebenezer Odubule, a founding member of the FRF told CNN.

The FRF says it has had to put some of its other cases on hold, to focus on Sharif-Aminu's case. It is also hampered by a lack of funding to fight new cases.

BLACK AND BROWN

Neighborhoods at risk for Covid see disproportionately high eviction rates

By Casey Tolan and Kyung Lah, CNN
29/9/2020

© CNN Falling ill to Covid-19 over the summer left Umu Conteh, of Columbus, Ohio, out of work for two months. Now she's facing eviction.

When Umu Conteh first learned she had tested positive for Covid-19 this summer, the nursing assistant was terrified for her two young daughters.

But the virus was only the start of her troubles: Her illness left her out of work for two months, forcing her to cut back on food and clothing purchases. The $922 monthly rent for their cramped two-bedroom apartment next to a highway interchange started to pile up. And a few weeks ago, she opened her door to see a court notice telling her she was facing eviction.

"I try hard to keep up my rent. I never joke with my rent," Conteh, an immigrant from Sierra Leone, told CNN as she waited for her case to be called at the Columbus, Ohio, eviction court last week. But now, she added through tears, "I don't have food to give them -- the baby's begging for food."

Conteh and her 1- and 4-year-old daughters were among the 118 families who faced eviction cases Wednesday at a temporary courtroom set up at the local convention center. That's a fraction of the eviction proceedings moving forward around the country, despite the Trump administration's moratorium in effect until the end of the year.

And communities at high risk of complications from Covid-19 have been especially affected by evictions -- a perfect storm for danger during the pandemic.

In a dozen large cities around the country, neighborhoods with elevated rates of medical conditions that put people at risk for serious illness from Covid-19 have seen disproportionately high rates of eviction filings over the last six months, according to a CNN analysis of data from The Eviction Lab, a Princeton University research institute.

That means that thousands of people evicted over the last six months were living in areas with the highest health risks from the coronavirus.

The trend is "very troubling," said Peter Hepburn, acassistant professor and research fellow at the Eviction Lab. People evicted during the pandemic may be forced to live with friends or relatives in more densely packed housing or left in homeless shelters, situations that make social distancing difficult or impossible, he said.

"Getting evicted is bad for the individual facing these problems," Hepburn said, "but also bad for the community and for public health generally."

Tenant advocates and experts say that the national moratorium put in place this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should be strengthened, and Congress should pass rental assistance, to protect vulnerable families and prevent evictions from spreading the virus further.

"You can't stay at home and avoid people when you don't have a home to be in," said Melissa Benson, a legal aid attorney who represents Columbus tenants facing eviction.


Eviction moratorium 'kicked the can down the road'

© CNN Magistrate Judge Kirk Lindsey hears evictions cases at a temporary courtroom set up at a convention center in Columbus, Ohio, on September 23.

When the CDC abruptly released its unprecedented eviction moratorium this month, the agency declared that "housing stability helps protect public health."

The order from the federal agency prevents landlords from kicking tenants out for not paying rent -- as long as the renter declares in writing that she has lost income or been forced to pay unexpected medical bills, has done her best to get government assistance, and would be left homeless or stuck in a crowded living situation if evicted.

But landlords can still add late fees and interest on unpaid rent to tenants' bills, and they can evict tenants for reasons beyond failing to pay rent, such as a lease ending. The order also only applies to tenants earning less than $99,000 a year -- or people who received a stimulus check or earn less than $198,000 and file joint married tax returns -- although that covers most renters in the country.

© CNN

Advocates say that without major rental assistance money from Congress or states, there's a potential for a huge wave of evictions on January 1, the day after the moratorium expires.

"We kicked the can down the road," Hepburn said. "Come the first of the year, there are going to be a lot of people who owe pretty significant amounts of money and will be set up for failure."

Since the moratorium went into effect September 4, new eviction court filings have markedly declined. Eviction Lab has complete data for 14 cities. New cases in them dropped by almost half from the week of August 30 to the week of September 6, according to a CNN analysis, before rising slightly the week of September 13.

Still, in those 14 cities alone, more than 2,800 new evictions were filed in the two weeks after the moratorium went into effect, the data showed. And thousands of earlier cases are still working their way through the system in places like Columbus -- where landlords filed 427 new eviction cases last week, the highest weekly number since the beginning of the pandemic, according to court officials.

The county's eviction court moved to the local convention center in June for better social distancing.

Before the pandemic, the convention center had been scheduled to host events like the annual conference of the Association of Zoos & Aquariums this month. Instead, it has become the new home of Courtroom 11B, where dozens of tenants facing eviction -- nearly all of them Black or Latino -- gathered Wednesday to plead their case.

Shaylynn Webb and Rodney Turner, a young couple who owed thousands of dollars in rent after losing their jobs processing car insurance claims because of the pandemic, kept their 8-month-old daughter in her stroller out of fear of exposing her to coronavirus in the waiting area outside the courtroom.

"It's just really overwhelming and scary because we don't know what's going to happen in there," Webb, 21, said as they waited for their case to be called. "We would have never thought we'd be in this situation." Their Legal Aid lawyer said later that they were negotiating with the landlord to set up a payment plan.

In the cavernous convention hall, cases were handled quickly to keep up with the huge docket, while renters sat in chairs spaced apart as they waited. Kirk Lindsey, the magistrate judge presiding over the hearings, worked to comfort the tenants who stood before him in tears -- even as he spoke through an industrial respirator-style mask.

"We try so hard to get the parties to work together, to see if they can come up with some sort of mutually satisfactory arrangement to resolve their cases," Lindsey said. "But it is hard."

Pro bono legal groups and nonprofits set up tables outside the convention hall to help explain the process to tenants.

Benson, the managing attorney on the housing team of the Legal Aid Society of Columbus, said the CDC moratorium didn't go far enough. Most tenants that her group has represented don't realize they have to send their landlord a declaration form in order to benefit from the moratorium, she said. And around the country, most of the people facing eviction don't have a lawyer to guide them through the process.

"A moratorium alone is never going to solve this problem," Benson said. "There's a massive, massive need for substantial rental assistance for tenants across this country."


CDC order creates confusion in eviction courts

The CDC order replaced an earlier national eviction moratorium included in the CARES Act that only applied to properties that participated in federal housing assistance programs or had mortgage loans backed by the federal government -- a fraction of the housing units covered by the new moratorium. The CARES Act ban expired in July.

Now, the CDC's moratorium is leading to a legal patchwork of eviction procedures around the country. In some cities and counties, housing rights lawyers say, courts are requiring some tenants to prove they meet all the requirements in the moratorium, while elsewhere, judges have found that just sending the declaration form is enough.

In Kansas City, Missouri, for example, the local court issued an order allowing landlords to continue filing eviction cases and letting them request evidentiary hearings to challenge tenants who file declarations.

"In every case now where we have exercised the tenants' rights under the CDC moratorium, the landlord's attorney has filed an objection and demanded a hearing and invasive documentation," said Gina Chiala, a tenants rights lawyer in the city who's represented dozens of people facing eviction during the pandemic. "They want six months of payroll records, tax records, bank roll records, any requests the tenants have made of government aid."

"What we're potentially seeing is a process that could be abusive and traumatizing to tenants who are already going through a very hard time," she said. Chiala argued that federal officials should put in place "a real moratorium" that more broadly blocks all evictions from being carried out until Covid-19 is vanquished.

Landlords, on the other hand, have accused the CDC of overstepping its legal authority. The moratorium unfairly forces mom-and-pop landlords to subsidize renters even as they have to pay their own mortgages, argued Bob Pinnegar, the president of the National Apartment Association, which represents 85,000 landlords around the country and has joined a lawsuit against the CDC over its rule.

The CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comment.

The landlord group agrees with tenant advocates that Congress should pass new funding for renters who can't afford their bills.

Landlords are "sliding further into financial ruin and foreclosure," Pinnegar said. "We need a solution that will benefit everybody and make sure we don't fall into the financial abyss."


Covid-vulnerable neighborhoods face more evictions

As eviction cases continue to pile up, the communities that have been hardest hit by evictions are also those that are most at risk from coronavirus. 

To better understand the health risks in neighborhoods seeing the greatest levels of evictions, CNN analyzed Eviction Lab data about more than 45,000 eviction filings since mid-March in 14 cities around the country.

CNN used CDC data to identify the neighborhoods with the highest rates of medical conditions that researchers have concluded are major Covid-19 risk factors: cancer, heart disease, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, kidney disease and obesity. Neighborhoods with the highest risk were defined by CNN as the census tracts in the top 25% of their city for at least three of those six conditions.

In 12 of the 14 cities for which Eviction Lab has neighborhood-level data, there was a higher rate of eviction filings in those high-risk census tracts than in others that didn't have the same elevated rates of medical conditions.

In Columbus, for example, only about 21% of renter-occupied housing units are in neighborhoods with the highest rates of Covid-exacerbating conditions. But 37% of the evictions filed since March 15 were for families living in those neighborhoods.

Similar disparities were found in cities including Phoenix, Milwaukee, and Jacksonville. The only two cities in the Eviction Lab database that didn't see a disproportionate rate of evictions among the unhealthiest census tracts were Bridgeport and Hartford in Connecticut -- a state that has a strong state eviction moratorium, Hepburn said.

Experts say the trend reflects that the poorest neighborhoods, many of which are majority people of color, have long faced steep health disparities that put them at risk in the pandemic -- and have borne the brunt of this year's economic devastation. Research has shown that job losses during the pandemic have been concentrated among lower wage workers, and polls have found that Black and Latino workers are almost twice as likely to have been laid off.

"We know that poorer communities, and especially majority Black communities, face an array of disadvantages when it comes to access to health care, and they're also the communities that are disproportionately affected by eviction," Hepburn said.

In some proceedings, clients are forced to attend in person, potentially putting them at risk of exposure. Chiala said she's had clients who believed that if they told the judge about their experience testing positive for Covid-19 or the fact that they have health conditions that put them at risk, they would get a break.

"They go to court thinking if they just explain and tell the court what happened, then surely the court will grant them mercy," Chiala said. "But if the court doesn't have a legal means to do that, then their story doesn't matter."


'Like they want people to fail'

Chiala's clients include special education aide Jamie Thurman and her husband, who had clashed with their landlord for months over the condition of their four-bedroom house in Kansas City's East Side and whether they were allowed to have a dog. In June, Thurman was on a Zoom call with her students when a court process server showed up to hand her an eviction notice.

The couple have five daughters aged 3 to 14. If the family had been evicted, Thurman, 35, said she had no idea what they would have done. Making matters worse, she has struggled with high blood pressure, and her husband -- who was laid off from his job during the pandemic -- uses a CPAP machine to help him breathe, so she said she worried they would be especially vulnerable to the virus.

"We have such a large family, it's hard for us to just hang out on somebody's couch," she said. "I was emotional, I was crying -- like, what are we going to do with the kids?"

A lawyer for Thurman's landlord said that the family had damaged the house and that she was justified in seeking eviction. After going to court, the couple settled with their landlord, agreeing to leave the house by the end of September. Thurman said having an eviction case open in court records made it more difficult for them to find other housing.

"We were already struggling," she said. "This just made everything 10 times worse."

Some renters have faced a triple hit of coronavirus, layoff and eviction. David Wilson, a warehouse worker in Columbus, found a three-day eviction notice on his door while recovering from Covid-19.

Wilson, 50, said he rushed to the hospital last month after waking up gasping for breath. He tested positive for Covid-19, and spent two days in the hospital. While stuck in bed over the next few weeks, Wilson said his employer let him go and refused to pay sick leave. He waited hours on the phone to apply for unemployment and gave up after finding himself cut off again and again. When he saw the eviction notice, he said, "anxiety kicked in, just panic."

Now, he said he's found a new warehouse job that he hopes will allow him to catch up on rent, and his landlord has been willing to negotiate. But he isn't sure how much he'll have to pay in medical bills -- and he still worries about what will happen after the eviction moratorium expires.

If he gets evicted, Wilson said, "I guess I would have to sleep in my SUV."

In Milwaukee, some landlords have been aggressively moving to evict tenants in the mostly Black northwest side, which has some of the city's highest rates of poverty, health issues and evictions.

Valorie Davis, who's rented a small home in the neighborhood for several years, said she fell behind on rent as her work cleaning homes and doing other odd jobs fell off during the pandemic.

She used her stimulus check to pay the rent for July but was still behind on what she owed. Davis said she had been unable to get unemployment benefits and was denied housing assistance for parents because her sons are 18 and 19 -- even though one has autism and the other a weak immune system.

Davis, 47, has found a cheaper house but she's waiting for renovations to finish. She said she had emailed the CDC declaration to her landlord but had just learned from a public aid lawyer that it had to be mailed. "Hopefully that will save me from being put out on the street," she said.

Davis sat on a lawn chair in front of her tidy house as she waited for a friend to pick her up to go mail the form. She shook her head at the hoops she's had to jump through to avoid getting evicted during a pandemic.

"It feels like they want people to fail," she said.


How we reported this story

To better understand the health risks in neighborhoods seeing the greatest levels of evictions, CNN analyzed Eviction Lab data about more than 45,000 eviction filings since mid-March in 14 cities around the country: Boston; Bridgeport and Hartford, Connecticut; Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio; Fort Worth and Houston, Texas; Gainesville and Jacksonville, Florida; St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri; Milwaukee; and Phoenix.

About 2.7% of the total filings were removed from the analysis because the location was not available. And just because a landlord filed for an eviction does not mean the tenant was actually evicted — the information does not specify which filings led to eviction judgments.

CNN used CDC data to identify the neighborhoods with the highest rates of medical conditions that researchers have concluded are major Covid-19 risk factors: cancer, heart disease, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, kidney disease and obesity. We defined neighborhoods with the highest risk as the census tracts in the top 25% of their city for at least three of those six conditions. The analysis was based on crude rates of the health conditions, as age-adjusted data were not available at the census tract level.

© CNN Shaylynn Webb and Rodney Turner, a young couple who owed thousands of dollars in rent after losing their jobs because of the pandemic, speak to their legal aid attorney outside a temporary eviction court in Columbus, Ohio, on September 23.