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    Thousands more Covid deaths expected as utilities resume water shutoffs

    Sarah Okeson, DCReport @ RawStory
    March 30, 2021

    Thanks for your support!

    This article was paid for by reader donations to Raw Story Investigates.

    San Jose McDonald's workers strike after their employer fails to ...
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    Sarah Okeson, DCReport @ RawStory

    Thousands of people will likely die in the coming weeks because President Joe Biden's administration has failed to act on pleas by nonprofits and others to help keep water service on to help people avoid Covid infections.

    Michigan, where Covid cases have increased about 77% since mid-February, is scheduled to end its moratorium on water shutoffs tomorrow (March 31). Other states where bans on water shutoffs enacted because of the pandemic are scheduled to end include Hawaii, New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont.

    "Anybody who lives in this country has the right to clean water," said Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.)

    Groups are urging the Biden administration to halt water shutoffs during the pandemic and support a law that would forgive unpaid water bills that accumulated during the pandemic.

    In January, a coalition of 636 groups led by Food & Water Watch sent the Biden White House a draft executive order that would prohibit utility shutoffs. They didn't get a response.

    The nonprofit and other groups are urging the Biden administration to halt water shutoffs during the pandemic and support a law that would forgive unpaid water bills that accumulated during the pandemic.

    Households with water have greater protection against Covid through handwashing and improved sanitation.

    Cornell University Prof. Mildred Warner and post-doctoral associate Xue Zhang analyzed COVID cases and deaths in 2020 and found that states that prevented utilities from shutting water off during the pandemic had significantly lower growth rates of infections and deaths.

    More than 9,000 Covid deaths in our nation last year might have been prevented if utilities hadn't shut off water because of unpaid bills.

    "The pain and suffering caused by [the] Covid pandemic were exacerbated by political leaders who failed to take action to keep the water flowing for struggling families," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, which helped produce the Cornell study.

    Dingell and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) introduced a bill, H.R. 616, that would prohibit residential water shutoffs during the pandemic and create a $1.5 billion fund to help people pay water bills.

    The Cornell researchers found that a nationwide ban on water shutoffs might have prevented nearly half a million people from being infected with Covid last year. Keeping the water on could have reduced Covid cases by almost 4% and Covid deaths by 5.5% in the 41 states without complete bans from April 17, 2020, to Dec. 31, 2020.

    The American Water Works Association, which represents more than 4,300 public water and wastewater utilities, recommended that utilities postpone water shutoffs during the pandemic.

    Unaffordable water bills are a growing problem. A 2017 study found that water bills were unaffordable for about 12% of households. Federal funding for water and sewer systems fell by 77% in real dollars from 1977 to 2017.

    Households have an estimated nearly $9 billion in water and sewer debt that has built up during the pandemic.

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

    Enjoy good journalism?

    … then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has slashed advertising rates, and we need your help. Like you, we here at Raw Story believe in the power of progressive journalism. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. We’ve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and legal efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. And unlike other news outlets, we’ve decided to make our original content free. But we need your support to do what we do.

    Raw Story is independent. Unhinged from corporate overlords, we fight to ensure no one is forgotten.

    We need your support in this difficult time. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click to donate by check.

    Value Raw Story?

    … then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has slashed advertising rates, and we need your help. Like you, we believe in the power of progressive journalism — and we’re investing in investigative reporting as other publications give it the ax. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. We’ve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. We need your support to do what we do.

    Raw Story is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us in the future. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you.

    Report typos and corrections to: corrections@rawstory.com.
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    Should Trump be allowed back on social media?

    Foxconn 'mostly abandons' its Trump-hyped plant that promised tens of thousands of jobs

    Brad Reed
    April 21, 2021

    One of former President Donald Trump's most hyped jobs initiatives has turned out to be a spectacular bust.

    CNBC reports that Taiwan-based manufacturing firm Foxconn has "mostly abandoned" its plans to build a plant in Wisconsin that the former president said would create more than 13,000 new jobs.

    "Under a deal with the state of Wisconsin announced on Tuesday, Foxconn will reduce its planned investment to $672 million from $10 billion and cut the number of new jobs to 1,454 from 13,000," reports CNBC.

    Foxconn's decision to abandon its ambitious plans comes after it received billions of dollars in incentives to open a plant in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin that Trump promised would be the "8th Wonder of the World."

    The Foxconn project was consistently shrouded in controversy, however, as many local residents were furious that their homes were seized and demolished via eminent domain for a manufacturing plant that never came to fruition.

    'That's what animals do': Ben Carson objects to people fighting for 'racial equity'

    David Edwards
    April 21, 2021

    Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson on Wednesday accused people who want racial equity of acting like "animals."

    During an interview on Fox News, Carlson was asked about his recent Washington Post op-ed, which argued that racial equity is "another kind of racism."

    "You know, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spent a lot of time trying to get people to not look at external characteristics, which they cannot change and which they cannot help," Carson told Fox News host Dana Perino, "and instead to look at the things that you can change and the things that you can help, such as your character, what kind of person are you?"

    "Shouldn't we be be paying more attention to that than to external characteristics?" he continued. "You know, that's what animals do. Animals, you know, base a lot of what they do on external characteristics because they don't have the mental capacity to dissect further into what's really important. We do."

    Carson added: "It just infuriates me when I see us acting so immaturely and we have so much more capacity."

    Watch the video below from Fox News.

    GOP gubernatorial candidate in Virginia fumes over Derek Chauvin conviction: It 'makes me sick'

    Matthew Chapman
    April 21, 2021

    In footage posted by American Bridge, Virginia gubernatorial candidate Amanda Chase attacked the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial that saw the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murder and manslaughter for the death of George Floyd.

    "Friends, today's verdict makes me sick," said Chase. "I am so concerned about our law enforcement quitting, and you should be too."

    But police broadly agreed with the verdict. Chauvin's former chief and fellow officers testified against him, and even the president of the nation's largest police union stated the conviction was justified.

    Watch below:

    After justice was served and Derek Chauvin was rightly found guilty of murdering George Floyd, Amanda Chase said "t… https://t.co/FhvmMktkit
    — Virginia Democrats (@Virginia Democrats)1618967720.0

    Chase, a Republican state senator, has a history of inflammatory behavior. She has blamed rape survivors for not carrying guns, called the movement to take down Confederate monuments an effort to "erase the history of white people," and called for "martial law" after President Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election. Her fellow lawmakers have forced her to work inside a plexiglass box because she refuses to wear a mask to comply with COVID-19 safety measures.

     
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    Ohio cops say 'blue lives matter' after colleague shoots and kills teenage girl

    Legal experts on Derek Chauvin conviction: 'You can tell by his eyes that he can’t believe what just happened'

    Ohio police shoot and kill teenage girl who called for help just before Derek Chauvin guilty verdict is handed down

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