COVID Corruption News ArticlesExcerpts of key news articles on
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Confidence levels jumped in Sweden as consumers and businesses started to leave the worst of the Covid-19 crisis behind them. The overall economic tendency survey rose to 75.2 in June, from a revised 64.4 in May, the National Institute of Economic Research said Wednesday. Sentiment had plunged to an all-time low in April, and despite June’s jump remains depressed, as values below 90 are equivalent to a much weaker than normal economy. The reading comes as economists and policy makers revise up their forecasts in light of better-than-expected consumer spending and unemployment data. According to Manuel Oliveri, an FX strategist at Credit Agricole, the rebound in confidence levels “continues to keep the risk for additional policy action low, irrespective of Riksbank members leaving all options open.” But Bloomberg economist Johanna Jeansson was less sanguine, while agreeing that “the most acute phase of the crisis has abated.” “Today’s survey is yet another sign that the most acute phase of the crisis has abated. But with both demand and supply below pre-pandemic levels, we expect the Riksbank and the Ministry of Finance will have to do more,” [said] Johanna Jeansson. Unlike its neighbors, Sweden avoided a strict lockdown as the coronavirus spread, keeping shops, schools and restaurants open. The lax strategy appears to have mitigated some of the economic damage caused by the pandemic, but at the cost of a relatively high death toll.
Note: Meanwhile the IMF states that worldwide, economic contraction and soaring debt levels and unemployment are worse than earlier predicted. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
A third of Americans are showing signs of clinical anxiety or depression, Census Bureau data shows, the most definitive and alarming sign yet of the psychological toll exacted by the coronavirus pandemic. When asked questions normally used to screen patients for mental health problems, 24 percent showed clinically significant symptoms of major depressive disorder and 30 percent showed symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder. The findings suggest a huge jump from before the pandemic. For example, on one question about depressed mood, the percentage reporting such symptoms was double that found in a 2014 national survey. The troubling statistics were released last week in a tranche of data from the Census Bureau. The agency launched an emergency weekly survey of U.S. households at the end of April to measure the pandemic’s effects on employment, housing, finances, education and health. In the most recent data release, 1 million households were contacted between May 7 and 12, and more than 42,000 responded. Buried within that 20-minute survey, U.S. officials included four questions taken nearly word-for-word from a form used by doctors to screen patients for depression and anxiety. Those answers provide a real-time window into the country’s collective mental health after three months of fear, isolation, soaring unemployment and continuing uncertainty. Those results reflect a deepening of existing trends: rising depression, stress and suicide among young adults.
Note: Read also a Washington Post article titled "A massive wave of evictions is coming." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and health from reliable major media sources.
With large parts of Europe in lockdown in response to the covid-19 pandemic, one country stands out: Sweden has no mandatory quarantines and few limitations on free movement. Elementary schools remain open; malls, gyms and shopping streets are far from empty. Some sidewalk cafes are still bustling with life. Prime Minister Stefan Löfven has urged Swedes to apply “common sense.” While this soft approach stunned the rest of Europe, Sweden maintained that it will turn out to be more effective. In the past few weeks, the country has experienced a bizarre nationalistic wave dubbed “public health nationalism” ... which celebrates Sweden as an island of common sense in a sea of panic and resistance to science. According to this narrative promulgated by authorities and media alike, cultural exceptionalism — such as high public trust –– makes Sweden particularly well-equipped to manage the pandemic. Sweden’s influential former state epidemiologist Johan Giesecke [stated] ”I think we will manage the epidemic without destroying the economy more than necessary. The absolutely most important thing is to protect the elderly from getting infected. I think we succeed quite well in that. The public has been assured that Sweden will outperform other countries. Indeed, Sweden ranks among the lowest of 26 surveyed countries when it comes to fear of the coronavirus in a recent YouGov poll –– even though the country ranks fifth-highest in per capita deaths of the countries surveyed. Time will tell.
Note: Check out an informative graph showing deaths per million population from the coronavirus in 10 major countries. Note that Sweden is in the middle of the pack, even though they are not in lockdown. Could it be the the lockdown policies don't have much effect on death rates? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
The updated Covid vaccine boosters, a reformulated version targeting the BA.5 omicron subvariant [will] be the first Covid shots distributed without results from human trials. Because the Biden administration has pushed for a fall booster campaign to begin in September, the mRNA vaccine-makers Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have only had time to test the reformulated shots in mice, not people. That means the Food and Drug Administration is relying on the mice trial data – plus human trial results from a similar vaccine that targets the original omicron strain, called BA.1 – to evaluate the new shots. Federal health officials hope that the new vaccines will provide stronger protection over the existing booster shots, which still target the original coronavirus strain. But the lack of data in humans means officials likely won't know how much better the new shots are – if at all – until the fall booster campaign is well underway. The FDA's decision to move forward without data from human trials is a gamble, experts say, threatening to further lower public trust in the vaccines should the new boosters not work as intended. The U.S. is still on its first iteration of the Covid vaccines, and the mRNA technology has only been in widespread use since late 2020. The agency is making "huge assumptions" in its consideration of the new Covid boosters, [Dr. Paul] Offit said, adding that it's possible the new shots may not be any more effective than the existing vaccines.
Note: Read a revealing article with critical information about the new mRNA boosters. To further inquire into this complex topic, explore concise summaries of news articles on coronavirus vaccines and Big Pharma corruption from reliable major media sources.
They waved signs that read "Defeat the mandates" and "No vaccines." They chanted "Protect our kids" and "Our kids, our choice." "I wish I'd woken up to this cause sooner," said one protester, Lisa Longnecker, 54. "But I can't think of a single more important issue. It's going to decide how I vote." Longnecker and her fellow objectors are part of a potentially destabilizing new movement: parents who joined the anti-vaccine and anti-mask cause during the pandemic, narrowing their political beliefs to a single-minded obsession over those issues. Their thinking hardened even as Covid-19 restrictions and mandates were eased and lifted, cementing in some cases into a skepticism of all vaccines. Nearly half of Americans oppose masking and a similar share is against vaccine mandates for schoolchildren, polls show. But what is obscured in those numbers is the intensity with which some parents have embraced these views. While they once described themselves as Republicans or Democrats, they now identify as independents who plan to vote based solely on vaccine policies. The extent of activity is evident on Facebook. Since 2020, more than 200 Facebook groups aimed at reopening schools or opposing closings have been created in states including Texas, Florida and Ohio, with more than 300,000 members. Another 100 anti-mask Facebook groups dedicated to ending masking in schools have also sprung up in states including New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, some with tens of thousands of members.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
In general, we rely on organizations like the CDC to conduct surveillance and monitoring of diseases in the United States. Unfortunately, case reporting, which we are relying on now to understand COVID-19 in the United States is the weakest type of surveillance for an ongoing pandemic. Case counts meant something very early on in the epidemic when each case reliably was associated with a certain risk of severe disease, hospitalization or death. Once there was a substantial number of people with immunity to severe outcomes due to recovery or vaccination those case counts became disconnected from expected outcomes. Test positivity also used to be a reliable measure of the community burden of infection with increased positivity correlating with increased spread of infection and hospitalization. But because now many only seek medical testing to confirm a home-based positive test for employment sick-leave or other purposes, the frequency of those testing positive through medical testing is artificially high. Remember the days of "flatten the curve," the idea that we had to preserve hospital capacity through efforts to reduce the spread of infection? That curve was the number of hospital admissions due to COVID-19 and reasonably reflected the number of people admitted to hospitals severely ill with COVID-19. Now, however, due to the continued universal screening of all hospital admissions, a majority of reported COVID-19 hospitalizations are not hospitalized "for" COVID-19 but "with" COVID-19.
Note: The author of this article, Jeffrey D. Klausner, MD, MPH, is a clinical professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the the University of Southern California. He is a also a former U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control medical officer. For more along these lines, visit our coronavirus news articles collection from reliable major media sources. Then explore the resources provided in our Coronavirus Information Center.
Since the start of the pandemic, childcare costs have gone through the roof. Across the U.S., parents are seeing an average annual cost increase of 41% for center-based childcare providers, and spending an average of $14,117 annually, up from $9,977 pre-pandemic, according to data from a recent LendingTree report. Households with children younger than 5 were hit hardest by these increases, the report found. Since the pandemic began, center-based care providers for 3- and 4-year-olds have seen their annual costs increase by 57%. Costs for center-based care providers for kids under 2 grew by 37%. Care providers for 3- and 4-year-olds in Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana saw the biggest jump in expenses, with an annual average increase of at least 144%. As for the direct impact on households, Indiana families with kids under 5 put the biggest chunk of their income–20%–toward childcare, with the average family spending $11,212 a year. Vermont families are close behind, with 19% of their paycheck–an average of $13,538 annually–going toward childcare. Families in New Jersey, Mississippi, Kentucky, Texas, and North Dakota pay the lowest portion, at 11%. But they may also be seeing a jump in their costs in the near future; in each of those states, the average care center saw its expenses increase by over 50% during the pandemic. The bulk of the increased costs stems from staffing, which the Center for American Progress says makes up 70% of a childcare provider's total budget.
Note: Note that this major increase in childcare cost was caused not directly by the pandemic, but more by the isolation of the lockdown measures instituted. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
When the coronavirus first emerged last year, health officials feared the pandemic would sweep across Africa, killing millions. Although it's still unclear what COVID-19's ultimate toll will be, that catastrophic scenario has yet to materialize in Zimbabwe or much of the continent. Scientists emphasize that obtaining accurate COVID-19 data, particularly in African countries with patchy surveillance, is extremely difficult. But there is something "mysterious" going on in Africa that is puzzling scientists, said Wafaa El-Sadr, chair of global health at Columbia University. "Africa doesn't have the vaccines and the resources to fight COVID-19 that they have in Europe and the U.S., but somehow they seem to be doing better," she said. Fewer than 6% of people in Africa are vaccinated. For months, the WHO has described Africa as "one of the least affected regions in the world" in its weekly pandemic reports. Some researchers say the continent's younger population - the average age is 20 versus about 43 in Western Europe - in addition to their lower rates of urbanization and tendency to spend time outdoors, may have spared it the more lethal effects of the virus so far. Several studies are probing whether there might be other explanations. WHO data show that deaths in Africa make up just 3% of the global total.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Drug overdose deaths in the United States surpassed 100,000 in a 12-month period for the first time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday, a troubling milestone amid an already devastating period for the country. The number of overdose deaths rose 29 percent, from 78,056 from April 2019 to April 2020, to 100,306 in the following 12 months. The data, from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, is considered provisional but is a good indication of what the final numbers will show. "It's a staggering increase for one year," said Bob Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch at the NCHS. Vermont saw the biggest rise, with a nearly 70 percent increase. Large increases were also observed in West Virginia (62 percent), Kentucky (55 percent), Louisiana (52 percent) and Tennessee (50 percent). Drug overdose deaths went down in just four states: Delaware, New Hampshire, New Jersey and South Dakota. South Dakota had a nearly 20 percent decrease in overdose deaths, the greatest by far. Just how much of a role the stress and isolation of the pandemic played in the rising overdose deaths remains to be seen. "Opioid addiction is a chronic, relapsing condition such that the stress or the social isolation and the inability to access support groups could have resulted in relapses in people with opioid addiction, and Covid could have made it harder for people with opioid addiction to access treatment, as well," [Dr. Andrew] Kolodny said.
Note: Yet another tragic consequence of the lockdowns and fear-mongering. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and health from reliable major media sources.
Children's Health Defense's board chair and lead counsel Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s highly anticipated book, The Real Anthony Fauci, is available today in bookstores throughout the U.S. and Canada. The New York Times bestselling author's latest work "details how Fauci, Gates and their cohorts used their control of media outlets, scientific journals, key government and quasi-governmental agencies, and influential scientists and physicians to flood the public with fearful propaganda about COVID-19 virulence and pathogenesis, and to muzzle debate and ruthlessly censor dissent," said Kennedy. The Real Anthony Fauci exposes a side of Dr. Fauci that has thus far been shielded from the public by the ongoing media blackout of any information that counters the Pharma/government narrative. "Fauci's gargantuan yearly disbursements allow him to dictate the subject, content and outcome of scientific health research across the globe," said Kennedy. "These annual disbursements also allow Fauci to exercise dictatorial control over the army of â€knowledge-and-innovation' leaders who populate the â€independent' federal panels that approve and mandate drugs and vaccines – including the committees that allowed the Emergency Use Authorization of COVID-19 vaccines." "Fauci's COVID policies also spawned new insidious authoritarianism – and propelled America down a slippery slope toward a grim future as a dark totalitarian security and surveillance state," said Kennedy.
Note: If you don't have time for the whole book (rated 4.9 stars on amazon.com), you can find an engaging summary of key points on this webpage. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Children born during the coronavirus pandemic have significantly reduced verbal, motor and overall cognitive performance compared with children born before, a US study suggests. The first few years of a child's life are critical to their cognitive development. But with Covid-19 triggering the closure of businesses, nurseries, schools and playgrounds, life for infants changed considerably, with parents stressed and stretched as they tried to balance work and childcare. With limited stimulation at home and less interaction with the world outside, pandemic-era children appear to have scored shockingly low on tests designed to assess cognitive development, said lead study author Sean Deoni. In the decade preceding the pandemic, the mean IQ score on standardised tests for children aged between three months and three years of age hovered around 100, but for children born during the pandemic that number tumbled to 78, according to the analysis, which is yet to be peer-reviewed. "It's not subtle by any stretch," said Deoni. "You don't typically see things like that, outside of major cognitive disorders." The study included 672 children from the state of Rhode Island. Of these, 188 were born after July 2020 and 308 were born prior to January 2019, while 176 were born between January 2019 and March 2020. The children included in the study were born full-term, had no developmental disabilities and were mostly white. Those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds fared worse in the tests.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidance on Tuesday to emphasize that "outdoor visits and activities are safer than indoor activities." After a year in which many of us have learned to dutifully wear masks and look askance at anyone who does not, it's understandable that people remain fearful when they cross paths with the unmasked. So how do you make the right decision about when to wear a mask outside? Whether a mask is needed outdoors depends on the circumstances, including local public health rules and whether you and the people you're with are vaccinated. Brief encounters with an unmasked person passing you on the sidewalk or a hiking trail are very low risk, said Linsey Marr, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech and one of the world's leading experts on viral transmission. Viral particles quickly disperse in outdoor air, and the risk of inhaling aerosolized virus from a jogger or passers-by is negligible, she said. Even if a person coughs or sneezes outside as you walk by, the odds of you getting a large enough dose of virus to become infected remain low, she said. To understand just how low the risk of outdoor transmission is, researchers in Italy used mathematical models to calculate the amount of time it would take for a person to become infected outdoors in Milan. If a person avoided crowds, it would take, on average, 31.5 days of continuous outdoor exposure to inhale a dose of virus sufficient to transmit infection.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Major American cities saw a 33% increase in homicides last year as a pandemic swept across the country, millions of people joined protests against racial injustice and police brutality, and the economy collapsed under the weight of the pandemic – a crime surge that has continued into the first quarter of this year. Sixty-three of the 66 largest police jurisdictions saw increases in at least one category of violent crimes in 2020, which include homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, according to a report produced by the Major Cities Chiefs Association. Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Raleigh, North Carolina, did not report increases in any of the violent crime categories. The increase in homicide rates across the country is both historic and far-reaching, as were the pandemic and social movements that touched every part of society last year. Experts point to a "perfect storm" of factors - economic collapse, social anxiety because of a pandemic, de-policing in major cities after protests that called for abolition of police departments, shifts in police resources from neighborhoods to downtown areas because of those protests, and the release of criminal defendants pretrial or before sentences were completed to reduce risk of Covid-19 spread in jails - all may have contributed to the spike in homicides. Covid-19 seemed to exacerbate everything - officers sometimes had to quarantine because of exposure or cases in their ranks, reducing the number of officers available.
Note: For why Baltimore fared so well and had a significant decrease in crime last year, see this inspiring CNN article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Back in November, Ajeet Jain felt like he was living a nightmare. The large public hospital where he works in India's capital was full of covid-19 patients, hundreds of them so ill they required intensive care. Three months later, the situation is unrecognizable. The number of coronavirus patients at the hospital can be counted on one hand. Out of 200 ventilators, only two are in use. Hospitals treating covid-19 patients around the country report similar experiences. "It's a big, big relief," Jain said. The apparent retreat of the coronavirus in India, the world's second-most populous nation, is a mystery that is crucial to the future course of the pandemic. Epidemiologists in India say that there is only one likely explanation for the decrease in new cases: The virus is finding it harder to spread because a significant proportion of the population, at least in cities, already has been infected. The results of a nationwide antibody survey ... indicated that more than 1 in 5 Indians – about 270 million people – had been exposed to the virus as of early January. In major cities, infection rates are even higher. A recent study of 28,000 people in India's capital found 56 percent had coronavirus antibodies. By comparison, a study published last month estimated that more than 14 percent of the population in the United States had coronavirus antibodies as of mid-November. India has recorded 155,000 deaths, or about 112 per 1 million of population, compared with 1,362 per million in the United States.
Note: Could it be that India's usage of Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin are also playing a role? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
A nurse who had just received the coronavirus vaccine at a Tennessee hospital told reporters she was feeling dizzy and then fainted. Nurse manager Tiffany Dover received the Pfizer-BioNTech jab at CHI Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga on Thursday and was giving a press briefing when she began to trail off, according to WTVC-9. "All of my staff, you know, we are excited to get the vaccine. We are in the COVID unit, so therefore, you know, my team will be getting first chances to get the vaccine," Dover said. "And I know that it's really "Sorry, I'm feeling really dizzy," she continued. One of the doctors behind her caught her as she passed out about 17 minutes after receiving the shot. "It just hit me all of a sudden, I could feel it coming on. I felt a little disoriented, but I feel fine now, and the pain in my arm is gone," Dover said after recovering. Dover told WTVC-9 she has a condition where she often faints when she feels pain.
Note: A video of this nurse fainting while being interviewed is available here. Read about health care workers who went into anaphylactic shock shortly after receiving the vaccine. One landed in the ICU. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on problems with the coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Coronavirus Information Center.
Eriko Kobayashi has tried to kill herself four times. The first time, she was just 22 years old with a full-time job in publishing that didn't pay enough to cover her rent and grocery bills in Tokyo. "I was really poor," said Kobayashi, who spent three days unconscious in hospital after the incident. Now 43, Kobayashi has written books on her mental health struggles and has a steady job at an NGO. But the coronavirus is bringing back the stress she used to feel. "My salary was cut, and I cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel," she said. "I constantly feel a sense of crisis that I might fall back into poverty." Experts have warned that the pandemic could lead to a mental health crisis. Mass unemployment, social isolation, and anxiety are taking their toll on people globally. In Japan, government statistics show suicide claimed more lives in October than Covid-19 has over the entire year to date. The monthly number of Japanese suicides rose to 2,153 in October. As of Friday, Japan's total Covid-19 toll was 2,087, the health ministry said. Japan is one of the few major economies to disclose timely suicide data -- the most recent national data for the US, for example, is from 2018. The Japanese data could give other countries insights into the impact of pandemic measures on mental health. For the 10 years leading up to 2019, the number of suicides had been decreasing in Japan. The pandemic appears to have reversed that trend.
Note: A CDC survey in the U.S. found that one in four teenagers had "seriously considered" suicide in the past 30 days. So which is more damaging, the virus itself or the results of the lockdown policies instituted because of it? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and health from reliable major media sources.
Since June 19, when new cases in the United States went back over 30,000 in one day, we have been constantly bombarded with stories of how the virus is “spiking” in “record” numbers in many of the states (like California, Texas, Florida and Arizona) that were not hit hard in the “first wave.” Across the country, our number of new cases has indeed exploded to new levels during this time period ... and the news media, both at the national and local levels, have used these statistics to essentially create panic porn. The resulting public anxiety has caused several states to reverse their reopenings. Obviously the “new case” data point is both real and relevant, but it is also now extremely misleading. By incompetently using the same measure of what a “positive” virus test meant in April, to what it now means in July, the news media is in the process of, quite effectively, sabotaging America’s recovery from this crisis. The data ... now makes it overwhelmingly obvious that nowhere near as many people who recently tested positive for the virus are going to die as did when this nightmare began. While the development has gotten scandalously little news coverage, the daily numbers of deaths with/of COVID has been declining with remarkable consistency for well over two months now. Sweden, a country much maligned in the media because they dared to not lock down by government mandate, has “new case” and “death” charts which look remarkably similar to ours. Their daily death rate has recently been down to single digits.
Note: Don't miss this entire article which pulls back the curtain on media manipulations in these challenging times. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and media manipulation from reliable major media sources.
Moderna set off a frenzy on Wall Street earlier this month when it announced positive, preliminary results from its coronavirus vaccine trial. As the hype grew, the young biotech company and its leading investor wasted no time capitalizing on the briefly surging stock price. Even as critics accused Moderna of overhyping the results released on May 18, a series of transactions were executed before its share price fizzled over the next week. The timing of those deals, former SEC officials said, appear to be "highly problematic" and should be investigated for potential illegal market manipulation. Just hours after revealing the promising vaccine results, Moderna (MRNA) sold 17.6 million shares to the public. That share sale, unveiled after the closing bell on May 18, was priced at $76; Moderna traded at just $48 as recently as May 6. The deal instantly raised $1.3 billion. Two of Moderna's top executives also cashed in on the boom at their company, which had suddenly amassed a $29 billion market value despite the fact it has no marketed products. By the time the selling was disclosed to the public via securities filings, Moderna's stock price had crashed back to Earth. The timing of the transactions - coupled with concerns from some medical experts that Moderna overstated the significance of its Phase 1 vaccine trial - should be investigated by authorities. Thomas Gorman, [a] former SEC official, said the agency should "absolutely" be investigating the situation at Moderna.
Note: Why didn't the media report that the Moderna vaccine trial had a 20% serious injury rate in the high dose group? Learn about this and much more in this revealing article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Pharma corruption from reliable major media sources.
As millions of Americans woke up to $1,200 checks in their bank accounts, some of the nation's richest taxpayers learned they were about to receive a bit of relief as well – about $1.7m each, to be exact. Nearly 43,000 millionaires across the country would soon profit off a loophole adapted from the Republican tax code overhaul of 2017, which allows certain business owners to significantly reduce their tax liability by temporarily suspending the limit of deductions they can place against non-business income. The loophole was included as a provision in the sweeping $2.2tn Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, according to a report published by the Joint Commission on Taxation. Democrats who ordered the report have since accused Republicans of having "wrongly seized on this health emergency to reward ultrarich beneficiaries", and called for the tax break to be immediately repealed. The Joint Commission on Taxation said that a staggering "82 per cent of the benefits of the policy go to about 43,000 taxpayers who earn more than $1m annually". Those 43,000 taxpayers eligible for the loophole would receive an average windfall of nearly $1.7m. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) ... slammed his Republican colleagues over the tax break in a statement alleging the loophole was "so generous that its total cost is more than total new funding for all hospitals in America and more than the total provided to all state and local governments".
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and income inequality from reliable sources.
In recent days, top U.S. government officials have moved to assure Americans that they won't lack for food, despite the coronavirus. In fact, the pandemic has caused entirely different problems: a spike in the number of people who can't afford groceries and a glut of food where it's not needed. Dairy farmers in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Georgia have been forced to dump thousands of gallons of milk that no one will buy. In Florida, vegetable growers are abandoning harvest-ready fields of tomatoes, yellow squash and cucumbers for the same reason. "We cannot pick the produce if we cannot sell it, because we cannot afford the payroll every week," says Kim Jamerson, a vegetable grower. Those crops will be plowed back into the ground. The situation is especially dire for Florida's tomato growers, who sell 80% of their production to restaurants and other food service companies, rather than to supermarkets. Meanwhile, food banks and pantries are having trouble supplying enough food to people who need it, including millions of children who no longer are getting free meals at school and people who've lost jobs in recent weeks. Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, CEO of Feeding America, a network of food banks and charitable meals programs, says that these programs normally receive large donations of unsold food from retail stores. In recent weeks, though, as retailers struggled to keep their shelves stocked, "we're seeing as much as a 35% reduction in that donation stream from retail," Babineaux-Fontenot says.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption and the coronavirus pandemic from reliable major media sources.
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