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Thousands of New York City Police Abuse Allegations Ignored or Downplayed by NYPD
The New York Times reports most serious misconduct charges against New York City police officers were met with lenient punishments as the department constantly ignored or downplayed the need for stricter response. Of nearly 7,000 misconduct charges against officers, the department overruled harsher....
Boy Scouts Sexual Abuse Claims Top 92,000
Back in the United States, nearly 93,000 claims of sexual abuse have been filed against the Boy Scouts of America. Monday was the deadline for victims to submit claims against the now-bankrupt organization. Andrew Van Arsdale, a lawyer with the group Abused in Scouting, said sexual abuse was an “u...
Brazilian Candidates Backed by Jair Bolsonaro Lose in Local Elections
In Brazil, local election results in the country’s main cities show candidates backed by far-right President Jair Bolsonaro have lost across the board. Among the victories is the election of Mônica Benício to the Rio de Janeiro City Council. Benício is the widow of Marielle Franco, a vocal Blac...
Peru Swears In Third President in a Week After “Legislative Coup” That Ousted Martín Vizcarra
Peru’s Congress on Monday selected the country’s third leader in just the past week. Francisco Sagasti’s rise to power came a day after interim President Manuel Merino resigned amid ongoing mass protests in which at least two people were killed. Merino was appointed after what opponents are ca...
Ethiopia Bombs Capital of Tigray as PM Abiy Ahmed Rejects Calls for Mediation
The Ethiopian Air Force bombed the capital of the semi-autonomous northern state of Tigray Monday as part of a new offensive in the nearly two-week conflict. This comes as Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed — who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year — is rejecting calls to de-escalate. Hundreds ...
White House Preparing to Order Troop Withdrawals from Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia
The New York Times is also reporting Trump is expected to soon order the withdrawal of thousands of troops from Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. The proposed plan would leave about 2,000 troops in Afghanistan and 2,500 troops in Iraq. The withdrawal has been opposed by some top military officials. Sho...
Trump Reportedly Proposed Bombing Iranian Nuclear Sites
The New York Times reports President Trump has inquired about bombing Iran’s main nuclear site in the coming weeks. Trump raised the issue during a meeting Thursday with Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and top military officials including Christopher Miller, the new actin...
Georgia Secretary of State Says Fellow Republicans Pressuring Him to Overturn Election Results
Georgia’s Republican secretary of state says members of his own party are pressuring him to exclude legally cast ballots from a hand recount of the November 3 election results. Speaking from quarantine after his wife tested positive for coronavirus, Brad Raffensperger said South Carolina Senator L...
Trump Campaign Drops Election Lawsuits as Trump Continues to Deny Loss
President Trump continues to refuse to concede to President-elect Joe Biden. On Monday, Trump tweeted that Ohio’s next Republican gubernatorial primary would be “hotly contested” after Republican Governor Mike DeWine publicly acknowledged Biden’s victory. On Monday, Trump’s campaign gave u...
Hurricane Iota Strikes Nicaragua as “Extremely Dangerous” Category 4 Storm
Hurricane Iota made landfall Monday afternoon on Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast as an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm. Much of the city of Puerto Cabezas has been left without power, with the roofs of homes and a makeshift hospital ripped off by heavy winds and rain. Iota is the strongest hurric...
Mexico Coronavirus Cases Top 1 Million as Official Death Toll Nears 100,000
In Mexico, confirmed coronavirus cases have topped 1 million — though the true number of infections is likely many times higher. Mexico’s official COVID-19 death toll is nearing 100,000. Pakistan has banned public rallies after a spike in COVID-19 cases. Russia turned an ice rink into a temporar...
As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its ninth month, a new report by National Nurses United, the largest nurses’ union in the U.S., finds hospitals are still failing to provide adequate PPE and are unprepared as the surge is expected to worsen during the flu season. Nurses also report mental health struggles related to the pandemic. The union estimates at least 2,000 frontline healthcare workers have died due to COVID-19, with nurses of color accounting for half of those deaths, even though they’re less than a quarter of the workforce. Jean Ross, president of National Nurses United, says the lack of preparedness is having a devastating toll on healthcare workers. "Things have not gotten better, and in many cases they’ve gotten worse," Ross says.
MORE: bit.ly/3nun1u4
Michigan Governor Blasts WH Coronavirus Adviser’s Call to “Rise Up” Against Public Health Measures
Michigan’s Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer is blasting White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Scott Atlas after he called on Michiganders to “rise up” against public health measures aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19. On Sunday, Atlas tweeted, “The only way this stops is if people ris...
Joe Biden Says “More People May Die” Unless Trump Coordinates with Transition Team
In Delaware, President-elect Joe Biden spoke of a “very dark winter” ahead as the U.S. continues to lead the world in coronavirus infections and deaths. Biden was asked what will happen if President Trump continues to prevent Biden’s transition team from coordinating with the outgoing administ...
South Dakota ER Nurse Says Dying Patients Continue to Deny COVID-19
In South Dakota, where the COVID-19 death rate is among the worst in the world, emergency room nurse Jodi Doering says she’s treated many patients who deny that COVID-19 is making them ill even as they’re hospitalized. In a now-viral thread on Twitter, Doering wrote, “These people really think...
California Tightens Coronavirus Restrictions as U.S. Approaches a Quarter-Million Deaths
The United States recorded nearly 167,000 new coronavirus cases on Monday, the third-highest daily toll of the pandemic. The official U.S. death toll, already the highest in the world, is rapidly approaching a quarter-million — with 800 coronavirus deaths over the last 24 hours. In California, Dem...
Hurricane Iota made landfall in Nicaragua Monday as a Category 4 storm, just two weeks after Hurricane Eta devastated communities across Central America and caused widespread destruction. Iota is the strongest November hurricane to ever hit Nicaragua. “It’s caused a lot of damages to the most vulnerable peoples, which tends to be Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendents and Black communities all across Central America,” says researcher Giovanni Batz.
Hurricane Iota made landfall in Nicaragua Monday as a Category 4 storm, just two weeks after Hurricane Eta devastated communities across Central America and caused widespread destruction. Iota is the strongest November hurricane to ever hit Nicaragua. “It’s caused a lot of damages to the most vu...
Jean Ross, president of National Nurses United, says the new wave of coronavirus cases is having a devastating toll on healthcare workers, who still lack adequate protective gear across much of the country. “Hospitals still don’t have a plan in place for a surge — and we’re currently in a surge,” Ross says. “It’s the lack of response, the improper response, that has nurses and other healthcare workers really down.”
As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its ninth month, a new report by National Nurses United, the largest nurses’ union in the United States, finds hospitals are still failing to provide adequate PPE and are unprepared as the surge is expected to get worse during the flu season. Nurses also report ment...
As the U.S. COVID-19 death toll nears 250,000, drugmakers Pfizer and Moderna have both announced promising vaccine trial results showing over 90% effectiveness in preventing illness. But officials and health experts warn widespread distribution of a vaccine for the coronavirus — which has killed 1.2 million people across the globe — will be tremendously difficult to store and distribute.
As the U.S. COVID-19 death toll nears 250,000, drugmakers Pfizer and Moderna have both announced promising vaccine trial results showing over 90% effectiveness in preventing illness. But officials and health experts warn widespread distribution of a vaccine for the coronavirus — which has killed 1...
Michigan Moves to Shut Down Enbridge Line 5 Pipelines
Michigan’s Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer has ordered Enbridge to close decades-old pipelines that carry oil and gas under the Straits of Mackinac, a fragile waterway connecting Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. In a statement, Governor Whitmer said Enbridge’s Line 5 pipelines have repeatedly ...
Trump Pushes Ahead with Drilling Auction in Arctic Wildlife Refuge Before Biden Becomes President
The Trump administration is pushing through plans to auction off drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January. It’s unclear what would happen to any deals made by the Trump administration, since Biden has vowed to block oil explora...
15 Asia Pacific Countries Sign Trade Deal Representing One-Third of World Economy
China, Japan and 13 other countries have signed a deal to set up the world’s largest trading bloc, encompassing nearly a third of the global economy. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, also includes several Southeast Asian countries, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea.
Armenian Villages Burn Their Homes as They Withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh
In the southern Caucasus Mountains, thousands of ethnic Armenians have set their homes on fire as they began a mass exodus from the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, making way for Azerbaijani forces to take control of the region. The civilian withdrawal began as Russian peacekeepers arrived t...
Conflict Escalates in Ethiopia After Tigray Forces Fire Missiles in Eritrea & 10,000s Flee to Sudan
In Ethiopia, forces from the country’s northern Tigray region fired missiles at Eritrea’s capital Asmara Saturday, marking a major new escalation in the conflict which erupted when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched a military offensive in Tigray earlier this month. Meanwhile, the U.N....
Unrest Mounts in Peru After at Least 2 Killed in Protests, Interim President Resigns
Peru is facing another leadership vacuum after interim President Manuel Merino resigned just days after being appointed and following days of mass protests, in which at least two protesters were killed. Over 100 others have been injured, and at least 41 people are missing, as police violently crack....
DACA Nearly Fully Restored After Judge Rules Chad Wolf Not Lawfully Serving as Head of DHS
In a victory for young undocumented people, DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, has been restored to near-full operation, after another federal judge ruled acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf was not appointed to serve in his role, and therefore did not have the authority to is...
MAGA Rally Ends in Two Stabbings, 20+ Arrests
On Saturday, tens of thousands of Trump supporters rallied in Washington, D.C. At least 20 people were arrested as the pro-Trump protesters clashed with counterprotesters, resulting in a hospitalization for a stabbing. An independent journalist also reported being stabbed Saturday by someone who app...
Biden Transition Team Shut Out of Key Funding and Access as Trump Refuses to Concede
Over one week after all major networks projected Joe Biden won the presidential election, his team remains shut out of key funding and access normally granted to incoming administrations. On Friday, the two remaining states to project a winner were called, with North Carolina going to Trump and Bide...
Boris Johnson in Self-Isolation After Possible COVID-19 Exposure
In international news, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in self-isolation after coming into contact with a lawmaker who tested positive for COVID-19. Johnson was hospitalized in April as he battled his own infection.
130+ Secret Service Ordered to Isolate or Quarantine, Some After Working Trump Rallies
The Washington Post reports over 130 Secret Service officers have been ordered to self-isolate or quarantine. The coronavirus has sidelined around 10% of the agency’s security team and is partially linked to working on the campaign trail at Trump’s many rallies.
Moderna Vaccine Is 95% Effective at Preventing COVID-19 During Trial
The drugmaker Moderna says early results from a large clinical trial show its coronavirus vaccine is nearly 95% effective at preventing COVID-19. Researchers caution that Moderna’s finding is not yet peer-reviewed and that it could be months before the company’s vaccine might be widely available...
A 29-year ceasefire ended on Friday as Moroccan forces crossed into restricted Western Sahara territory under Sahrawi sovereignty, an area controlled by the Sahrawi liberation movement's Polisario Front. Morocco's military had reportedly been dispatched to disperse pro-Polisario protesters blocking Moroccan trade in the region. The Sahrawi people have been resisting colonial occupation since at least 1975, when Spain ceded control over Western Sahara to Morocco and Mauritania. Historians say the major Sahrawi uprising in 2010 was the first of many that would erupt across the Arab world over the next two years in what has since become known as the Arab Spring. "The blockade at El Guergarat was one of the most significant acts of civil disobedience we have seen from Sahrawis in about a decade," says Colgate University's Jacob Mundy. "It was significant enough to trigger Moroccan military incursion that in turn triggered a Polisario response that has now led to war."
MORE: bit.ly/2IzuIAy
El Paso Prisoners Paid $2/Hour to Help Move Bodies of COVID-19 Victims
In other prison-related news, in El Paso, Texas, prisoners are being paid just $2 an hour to move the bodies of people who have died of COVID-19 to mobile morgues, as the number of cases and deaths has completely overwhelmed local hospitals.
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President Trump has raised massive sums of money in recent months, with more than $60 million going to a new political action committee that he will control after he leaves office — an unprecedented war chest for an outgoing president. "This is entirely unprecedented," says Brendan Fischer, director of federal reform at Campaign Legal Center. "It's a loosely regulated political vehicle that Trump can tap into after he leaves the White House to retain influence in the Republican Party and also to potentially benefit himself and his family financially." MORE: bit.ly/3pfL4xH
The CDC moratorium on evictions is set to expire December 31, putting millions of families at risk of losing housing during the middle of a pandemic. Kansas City tenant organizer Tara Raghuveer says though the lifting of the moratorium would greatly increase households’ vulnerability to evictions, the federal policy, which only applies to nonpayments of rent, did not go far enough to begin with. “ It leaves a lot open to local interpretation, and it puts the burden on tenants to apply for that protection,” Raghuveer says, adding that collective action to shut down all instances of evictions right now is necessary. In Kansas City and in the movement for housing justice across the U.S., activists have been calling for rent cancellation since the beginning of the pandemic. “If a family gets a check, whether it’s for $600 or $1,200, that money goes first to their landlord,” Raghuveer tells Democracy Now! “That does not help their family survive this traumatic moment." MORE: bit.ly/3nrD2RX
As COVID vaccines begin rolling out across the country, the U.S. is still experiencing record-shattering rates of new infections and deaths. Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, says these vaccines are promising, but he is still troubled by government inaction and political divisions over basic public health measures to stop the spread of the virus. "The idea that wearing a mask is a political statement is absurd," says Dr. Jha. Conservative leaders must "speak up and get vaccinated and talk about the fruits of science that really are available to the American people." MORE: bit.ly/3nyeDKw
More than half of ICE’s immigrant jails across the U.S. are reporting COVID-19 outbreaks, as activists and detainees continue to push for a deportation moratorium and protest inhumane, overcrowded conditions. In Tacoma, Washington, activists are reporting that another detainee at the Northwest Detention Center has tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the number of cases at the jail up to at least 22. People being held inside have consistently held hunger strikes throughout the pandemic to demand the release of detainees amid the public health emergency of COVID-19, which is being spread inside the NWDC by ICE guards and employees who come to work despite exposure, says La Resistencia co-founder Maru Mora-Villalpando. Individuals who participate in hunger strikes face the possibility of retaliation and solitary confinement, which is “23 hours a day you are in the cell, just for complaining or protesting for what you believe,” former ICE detainee Manuel Abrego says. “In ICE rules, they say, 'OK, you can protest. You can participate in a hunger strike if you think that your rights are being violated.' They give you the right to do that, but at the same time they take it away from you, because they put you in segregation, and they scare you with that." MORE: https://bit.ly/2LJ4rkr
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who launched the global Fridays for Future youth climate movement, issued a stark warning on the fifth anniversary of the Paris Climate Agreement that the world is not doing enough to keep global heating below 2 degrees Celsius — the target set in the landmark 2015 deal. “The gap between what we need to do and what is actually being done is widening by the minute. We are still speeding in the wrong direction,” Thunberg said in a video message posted on social media.
As the first shipments of a federally approved COVID-19 vaccine arrive across the United States, healthcare workers and residents of nursing homes are receiving the first shipments. Dr. Camara Phyllis Jones, former president of the American Public Health Association, says the disproportionate toll the pandemic has had on communities of color should also qualify those populations for early access, including essential service workers and incarcerated people. She says skepticism about the medical establishment among some Black, Brown and Indigenous people is rooted in historic as well as ongoing medical abuses that communities of color, and particularly Black and Indigenous communities, face. "These are not just in the distant past. They continue today," says Dr. Jones. MORE: bit.ly/381xcjB
Morocco is the fourth Arab country to normalize relations with Israel since August, part of a diplomatic push by the outgoing Trump administration to shore up international support for Israel despite a lack of progress in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinian diplomat and scholar Hanan Ashrawi says this latest agreement is legitimizing land theft, with both Morocco and Israel receiving greater legitimacy for their occupations and dispossession of indigenous populations. "This is part of a whole pattern of behavior, a process whereby the Trump administration has been acting as the errand boy for Israel in order to try to get as many victories, as many benefits, as many privileges for Israel," Ashrawi says. MORE: https://bit.ly/3a9xp6W
The World Food Programme — this year's Nobel Peace Prize recipient — projects 270 million people may be pushed into starvation amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis and conflict. In the U.S., Feeding America predicts that as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, more than 50 million people (roughly the population of the entire country of South Korea) could experience food insecurity before the end of the year, including one in four children. This number is an increase of 16 million people compared to 2019 figures. Ricardo Salvador, director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, says this is in large part because of deliberate choices made by people in positions of power. "The modern food system is a creation of about the last 70 years. It is a business model." MORE: bit.ly/2W2wX2c
Rich countries at the World Trade Organization are blocking a proposal to suspend some intellectual property rights that would make more coronavirus vaccines available. The proposal, which intends to increase production of vaccines around the world by temporarily exempting all WTO member countries from an agreement on trade-related property rights, has significant support from developing countries. Achal Prabhala, a coordinator of the AccessIBSA project, which campaigns for access to medicines in India, Brazil and South Africa, says the attempts to stall the proposal reflect a prioritization of profit over people in the midst of a public health emergency. While drug development typically depends upon monopolies "to reward private pharmaceutical corporations for taking big risks with private money," the coronavirus vaccines have also hinged on unprecedented funding from governments, he notes. "I wish, actually, sometimes that people would be honest and upfront and say, 'Look, we actually care about these corporations more than global human life.'" MORE: bit.ly/2LdQ8UA
In California, Proposition 22 has passed, overriding AB 5 — a major labor law passed in California in 2019 that extended employee classification to gig workers. This is in large part due to a massive public misinformation campaign by Uber, Lyft and other corporations who collectively spent over $205 million on ads that led the public to believe that Proposition 22 would expand workers rights, not curtail them. One survey of Californians who voted “yes” to Proposition 22 showed 40% thought they were supporting gig workers’ ability to earn a living wage, but critics say it will actually stop gig workers, who are largely from communities of color, from being eligible for job protections and benefits. "It is such a huge attack on labor," says University of California, Hastings, law professor Veena Dubal. "It dismantles all of the New Deal protections." MORE: https://bit.ly/3mWBmjh
In India, where agriculture is the leading source of income for more than half of India’s 1.3 billion people, hundreds of thousands of farmers are converging on the capital New Delhi to demand the government repeal new laws that deregulate agricultural markets. Farmers say the neoliberal reforms give corporations staggering power to set crop prices far below current rates, devastating their livelihoods. The farmer revolt comes just a few weeks after roughly 250 million workers across the country took part in the largest strike in history against the Modi government’s labor reforms. P. Sainath, journalist and founder of People’s Archive of Rural India, explains that the reason for the record-breaking worker solidarity movement was the “absolutely vicious” new rules that were rammed through Parliament. Protests show no signs of stopping. MORE: bit.ly/3qrwaFW
President-elect Joe Biden has picked two executives from the investment giant BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, to join his economic team — even as progressives are demanding a Cabinet free of Wall Street influence. "BlackRock has very smartly cultivated its reputation as a sort of 'good guy' on Wall Street" that is contradicted by their conduct, notes Kate Aronoff, staff writer at The New Republic. "Time after time, they have sought to shirk regulation and … really greenwashed their image." MORE: bit.ly/3qlRPQ8
Today is World AIDS Day. As the world awaits an effective vaccine for COVID-19, the U.S. is seeing skyrocketing case numbers from coast to coast, in a crisis whose spread advocates have said resembles the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Like HIV, the novel coronavirus has had a devastating impact along lines of race and class, overwhelmingly burdening Black and Latinx communities, LGBTQ communities, and the working class. The coronavirus has also threatened treatment for those living with HIV. Steven Thrasher, professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, published a piece in Scientific American today titled "World AIDS Day Is a Grim Reminder That We Have Many Pandemics Going On," writing "coronavirus is amplifying racial, class and other disparities, just as HIV has been doing for decades." "In a word, the problem is capitalism," says Thrasher. MORE: https://bit.ly/33uwDgH
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Iran's top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated Friday near Tehran. Iran accuses Israel of orchestrating the killing, which is the latest in a string of assassinations targeting scientists involved with Iran's nuclear program. Between 2010 and 2012, four Iranian nuclear scientists were assassinated. "Israel has always denied involvement, but it's really the only country with both the motivation and the capability to conduct such attacks," says Iranian American journalist Negar Mortazavi. She says the assassination could be an attempt "to provoke Iran into a violent retaliation" that could pull it into military conflict with the United States, as well as to complicate future diplomacy between Iranian leaders and the Biden administration. MORE: bit.ly/37kMC23
President-elect Joe Biden has revealed some of the people who will staff his administration in key national security posts, and they primarily come from the establishment wing of the party. "We need people who have compassion, who have accountability to the most vulnerable, who pledge to defend the planet, people who have a clear understanding and commitment to fighting white supremacy and police violence," says author, historian and activist Barbara Ransby. Journalist David Sirota, who served as an adviser and speechwriter for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, says Biden's picks represent "an attempt to restore the old Washington." MORE: bit.ly/33jWTuq
The family of a former meatpacker who died from COVID-19 alleges in a lawsuit that managers at a Tyson Foods plant in Iowa knew working conditions would result in illness, and even placed bets on how many workers would be infected. Since the start of the pandemic, at least six workers have died and more than 1,000 tested positive for COVID-19 at the Iowa facility. “These companies are treating them like animals. They’re treating them as disposable,” says Magaly Licolli, executive director of Venceremos, an advocacy group for poultry plant workers. She is calling for a "bill of rights" in the industry, including paid sick leave, to protect workers from dangerous and exploitative conditions.
At least 37 transgender and gender nonconforming people were violently killed in 2020, making it the deadliest year for trans people on record, according to a new Human Rights Campaign report. Of those killed, 29 were Black or Latinx. The epidemic of transphobic violence is disturbing, says Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative at the Human Rights Campaign. She also notes that erasure of trans people means that the figure included in HRC's report is likely an underrepresentation of the true number of deaths. The media often perpetuates systemic discrimination by only covering trans and gender nonconforming people "when we’re celebrities or when we’re dead," says Cooper. "It is important that the media tell our stories in a way that is truthful and accurate." Coverage of trans people in the media must also counteract "the negative imagery around us by telling stories that uplift our community, that provide a more holistic view of who we are," she says. MORE: bit.ly/3pXSJCc
"We are a country of people in debt. The vast majority — 75% of people — are in debt," says Astra Taylor, organizer with the Debt Collective, a group calling on Joe Biden's incoming administration to cancel all student debt. "Biden's role in the student debt crisis goes way back to 1978, when he supported the Middle Income Student Assistance Act, which essentially eliminated restrictions on federal loans," says Taylor, pointing to the possibility that Biden still could be moved towards debt cancellation. "There are some signs that, under pressure, he is doing so. After Joe Biden won the Democratic nomination, he moved and finally formally embraced student debt forgiveness. Of course, Bernie Sanders had a policy of full student debt cancellation. That is what the Debt Collective supports." MORE: bit.ly/36SNlYe
After weeks of waging a failing legal battle to challenge the election results and wipe thousands of ballots from the count, one of Trump's lawyers is calling for legislators in swing states to disregard the popular vote in order to appoint Trump supporters to the Electoral College. "I think it is a very serious threat to democracy. I mean Trump — even if he is not successful — will do incredibly lasting damage," says Astra Taylor, director of the 2018 documentary "What Is Democracy?" She highlights the importance of not only voting access, but also structural reform. "The fact is that the legislatures do appoint electors. And the fact is, the Electoral College is deeply undemocratic." MORE: bit.ly/3pPnKYC
Lawyers for President Trump's re-election campaign alleged Thursday — without evidence — that they've uncovered a vast conspiracy to subvert the will of U.S. voters by manufacturing votes for Joe Biden. Trump attorney and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani led the press conference and began sweating profusely while he spoke, causing dark liquid to stream down both sides of his face in an apparent cosmetic malfunction.
President Trump has reportedly considered bombing Iran before he leaves office, escalating a years-long "maximum pressure" campaign against the country that has included economic sanctions, cyberattacks, funding for opposition groups and other tactics meant to destabilize Iran's government. "This really is a multipronged attack against Iran," says Middle East scholar Narges Bajoghli. MORE: bit.ly/35KZ8sn
Native American voters saw a massive increase in turnout this year and helped turn key swing states blue, but Indigenous peoples and the role they played in defeating Donald Trump have been largely ignored by mainstream media. Allie Young, a citizen of the Navajo Nation who organized a horseback trail ride to the polls, says it was important to her to motivate Indigenous youth to turn out. “This is our homeland. I called on my People, let's show up. Let's show them we are still here. Let's be represented," she says. "Let's make sure that we have a seat at the table and that our voices are heard." MORE: bit.ly/3kBypTa
As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its ninth month, a new report by National Nurses United, the largest nurses’ union in the U.S., finds hospitals are still failing to provide adequate PPE and are unprepared as the surge is expected to worsen during the flu season. Nurses also report mental health struggles related to the pandemic. The union estimates at least 2,000 frontline healthcare workers have died due to COVID-19, with nurses of color accounting for half of those deaths, even though they’re less than a quarter of the workforce. Jean Ross, president of National Nurses United, says the lack of preparedness is having a devastating toll on healthcare workers. "Things have not gotten better, and in many cases they’ve gotten worse," Ross says. MORE: bit.ly/3nun1u4
A 29-year ceasefire ended on Friday as Moroccan forces crossed into restricted Western Sahara territory under Sahrawi sovereignty, an area controlled by the Sahrawi liberation movement's Polisario Front. Morocco's military had reportedly been dispatched to disperse pro-Polisario protesters blocking Moroccan trade in the region. The Sahrawi people have been resisting colonial occupation since at least 1975, when Spain ceded control over Western Sahara to Morocco and Mauritania. Historians say the major Sahrawi uprising in 2010 was the first of many that would erupt across the Arab world over the next two years in what has since become known as the Arab Spring. "The blockade at El Guergarat was one of the most significant acts of civil disobedience we have seen from Sahrawis in about a decade," says Colgate University's Jacob Mundy. "It was significant enough to trigger Moroccan military incursion that in turn triggered a Polisario response that has now led to war." MORE: bit.ly/2IzuIAy
Lucille Bridges, mother of New Orleans civil rights activist Ruby Bridges, has died at the age of 86. Exactly 60 years ago, on November 14, 1960, Lucille Bridges dropped her daughter Ruby off for first grade at William Frantz Public School in New Orleans, which was under a federal court order to admit its first African American students. U.S. Marshals had to escort 6-year-old Ruby past angry white mobs and hostile local police officers. The incident was immortalized in a 1964 Norman Rockwell painting titled “The Problem We All Live With.” MORE: https://bit.ly/2Ur0qlC
In 2018, Florida activist Desmond Meade was on the frontlines of the successful fight for Amendment 4, which restored voting rights to people with non-violent felonies who have fully completed their sentences. The amendment was met with immediate backlash by Republicans, but still Meade — a returning citizen himself — joined tens of thousands of newly enfranchised Florida voters and went to the polls this month. "That moment was surreal," says Meade. "It has validated me and made me a complete American citizen." Meade says that the highly stigmatized term "ex-felon" ought to be replaced with the more humanizing label "returning citizen," cautioning that "we have to be very careful on how we treat the least among us." MORE: https://bit.ly/38FlxsX
New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer says Trump has a lot at stake due to the litany of lawsuits and criminal investigations he faces once he leaves the White House, which may explain why he refuses to concede the election with baseless allegations of mass voter fraud. "He has many reasons to be concerned," says Mayer, citing hundreds of millions of dollars of loans for which he appears personally liable. "If he had stayed president, he probably would have had the clout to renegotiate these loans somehow. If he is out on the street, it is going to be a lot harder." MORE: https://bit.ly/3nmpEhG
In the Middle East, many are feeling a sense of relief in Trump’s defeat and the decreased threat of a future war with Iran, says Guardian correspondent and Iraqi journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad. However, Joe Biden’s track record has sowed “mistrust” and wariness, particularly around the war in Yemen that began under the Obama administration and historical approaches to foreign policy in Iraq and Iran. Though the Trump administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East has been disastrous, no recent U.S. president has had “an angelic administration in relation to Iraq and the rest of the Middle East,” Abdul-Ahad says. “How will the Biden administration try to disengage Iran from interfering in Iraqi politics, at one hand, and at the same time avoiding the mad policies of the Trump administration by pushing the Iranians into a corner?” MORE: bit.ly/36sJlNY
South African activist Kumi Naidoo is a global ambassador for Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity, former secretary general of Amnesty International and former head of Greenpeace. He says President Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden is good news, but notes that the world lost four crucial years to tackle the climate crisis and other issues because of the Trump administration and missed critical interventions in halting the spread of the novel coronavirus. “As long as the U.S. and Europe doesn't get its act together and doesn't get the pandemic under control, it means normal economic activity will never be able to take place." He adds that world leaders who have successfully navigated their people through the pandemic have something in common: many of them are women. "It is important for us to note that women are suffering disproportionately as a result of this virus … Countries that have done best in responding to the coronavirus, most of them are all led by women." MORE: https://bit.ly/3koeBm0
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