Tuesday, October 20, 2020

COVID-19

► LIVE from the Seattle Times — Coronavirus daily news update, Oct. 20 — The latest count of COVID-19 cases in Washington totals 98,661 infections (7-day average of new infections per day: 599) and 2,258 deaths (7-day average of deaths per day: 7)

► From KING 5 — Canada extends US border restrictions through Nov. 21 as coronavirus cases rise

► From the Yakima H-R — 13th District state Rep. Tom Dent has COVID — The Moses Lake Republican broke the news Monday on talk radio. “I got this little, uh, little virus thing going on,” he said. “They call it COVID. I don’t recommend it. You will not like it.”

► From the Washington Post — CDC to passengers and workers: Wear a mask when you are on a plane, train, bus or other public transit — The guidance was issued following pressure from the airline industry and amid surging cases of the coronavirus and strong evidence on the effectiveness of masks in curbing transmission, according to CDC officials. The recommendations fall short of what transportation industry leaders and unions had sought, and come long after evidence in favor of mask-wearing was well established.

► From the NY Times — As the coronavirus surges, a new culprit emerges: pandemic fatigue — Exhaustion and impatience are creating new risks as cases soar in parts of the world. “They have had enough,” one U.S. mayor said of her residents.

► From TPM — Fauci worries about threats his family gets amid Trump’s attacks against him — When asked about how he mentioned during his interview with “60 Minutes” on Sunday that he and his family are under protection due to threats, Fauci replied that he’s worried less about himself than the harassment that his wife and children face.

► From the Washington Post — Trump isn’t even trying to slow the virus’s spread (by Eugene Robinson) — Two of Trump’s personality traits, his impatience and his narcissism, stand between the nation and success against covid-19. He is obviously sick of dealing with the pandemic, which hurts him politically. And since he beat the disease — with the help of experimental treatments not available to the rest of us — he figures everybody else should be able to beat it, too.  With cold weather coming and most Americans having to spend more time indoors, this third wave of covid-19 could be truly horrific. Trump’s tragic legacy will be that he met a crisis — and instead of making it better, he made it worse.

► From the South Seattle Emerald — Washington State Labor Council first to pass resolution calling for U.S.-Cuba COVID collaboration — While the rate of infections and deaths due to COVID-19 continue to grow in the United States, with even the President and his wife now becoming infected, the small country of Cuba is making remarkable strides in combating the virus at home as well as throughout the world. For those reasons, the Washington State Labor Council (WSLC) and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Labor Council (MLK Labor) passed resolutions calling for US-Cuba collaboration in the fight against COVID-19.

EDITOR’S NOTE — Check out all of the WSLC’s 2020 Resolutions.

BOEING

► From the AP — American plans flights with Boeing 737 Max by year-end — Before long, American Airlines might find out how many travelers are reluctant to fly on the Boeing 737 Max. American plans to put the plane back in its schedule by the end of the year, assuming that federal regulators soon approve changes Boeing made after two crashes of Max jets killed 346 people.

► From the PS Business Journal — Airbus wins second October order as Boeing book remains dry — The tiny Athens-based SKY express airline ordered four A320neo (new engine option) single-aisle jets and leased two more, becoming a new Airbus customer after previously operating only regional aircraft.

THIS WASHINGTON

► From the Peninsula Daily News — Leaders unite to prevent ferry cuts — At least three Jefferson County government agencies have joined forces to attempt to prevent cuts to ferry service floated by the state Department of Transportation ahead of next year’s legislative session.

ELECTION

► From Crosscut — 2020 election could affect major WA bridge, road projects — Voters may not be thinking about infrastructure when they fill out their ballots, but the election will determine how many federal dollars come to Washington.

► From the USA Today — Elect Joe Biden. Reject Donald Trump. (editorial endorsement) — In 2016, we broke tradition in urging you not to vote for Trump. Now we’re making our first presidential endorsement. We hope it’s our last.

ALSO at The Stand — Let your voice be heard. VOTE TODAY! (by Cherika Carter)

► From NBC Chicago — United Steelworkers shines ‘Batlight’ style Biden-Harris logo on Trump Tower — It’s part of the United Steelworkers’ multi-state “batlight” tour to turn out the vote on Nov. 3.

► From the AP — Black officers break from unions over Trump endorsements — Police unions nationwide have largely supported Trump’s reelection, amid mass demonstrations over police brutality and accusations of systemic racism — but a number of Black law enforcement officers are speaking out against these endorsements, saying their concerns over entering the 2020 political fray were ignored.

► From The Hill — Supreme Court denies GOP bid to block extended mail ballot due date in Pennsylvania — Pennsylvania Republicans and top officials from the state’s GOP-held legislature had asked the justices to review a state supreme court court ruling that requires election officials to accept ballots postmarked by Election Day, as long as they arrive within three days.

► From Vox — Democrats are cheering a Supreme Court ruling on mail-in ballots. Here’s why it’s worse than it looks. — In the almost certain event that Trump Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed to join the Supreme Court, there could be five votes on the Supreme Court who support the GOP’s effort to toss out many ballots in the state of Pennsylvania. Indeed, it is possible that Republicans will attempt to raise the same issue before the justices after Barrett is confirmed.

► From The Hill — Memphis poll worker fired after telling voters wearing Black Lives Matter shirts to leave

THAT WASHINGTON

► From Reuters — Waiting for aid: U.S. airline workers ‘pawns’ in stimulus relief battle — After so far failing to convince Congress to approve another $25 billion bailout for coronavirus-slammed airlines, the industry is looking to a fresh Tuesday deadline set by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a COVID-19 relief deal with the White House.

► From the New Yorker — Trump’s Labor Secretary is a wrecking ball aimed at workers — As Election Day looms, Eugene Scalia, a cunning lawyer committed to dismantling regulation, is weakening one employee protection after another.

► From Roll Call — Trump fighting history in Supreme Court census case — Trump’s efforts to exclude undocumented immigrants from apportionment will face an uphill battle at the Supreme Court next month, legal experts said.

► From Bloomberg — Google accused of abusing monopoly power in landmark U.S. case — The U.S. Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit against Alphabet Inc.’s Google, accusing it of using anticompetitive practices to maintain and extend its monopoly in search.

EDITOR’S NOTE — If only U.S. labor laws were actually enforced.

TODAY’S MUST-READ

► From the Seattle Times — U.S. report: Much of the world’s chocolate supply relies on more than a million child workers — The world’s chocolate companies depend on cocoa produced with the aid of more than 1 million West African child laborers, according to a new report sponsored by the Labor Department. The findings represent a remarkable failure by leading chocolate companies to fulfill a long-standing promise to eradicate the practice from their supply chains. Under pressure from Congress in 2001, some of the world’s largest chocolatiers — including Nestlé, Hershey and Mars — pledged to eradicate “the worst forms of child labor” from their sources in West Africa, the world’s most important supply. Since then, however, the firms have missed deadlines to eliminate child labor in 2005, 2008 and 2010. Each time, they have promised to do better, but the new report indicates that the incidence of child labor in West African cocoa production has risen.

The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.