FlyTheNest

Detroit to turn water back on for poor families over Covid-19 fears

Willow904 wrote:https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ssion=true

Detroit to turn water back on for poor families over Covid-19 fears

Inequality threatens everyone's health, not just the poor.

I have never understood why those with money prefer to live in palaces surrounded by squalor rather than in a nice house surrounded by other nice houses.

It's clear from this article that those who have presided over this water policy know it's both wrong and not in the interests of wider society, so why have they let it happen?

At least 141,000 Detroit households have been disconnected since 2014 as part of a widely condemned debt-collection programme, according to records obtained by Bridge, a news magazine. Just last year, taps were turned off in more than 23,000 homes, three-fifths of which were still without water by mid-January 2020.

A nine-month investigation by APM [American Public Media] Reports examined the cost of water in six large cities near the Great Lakes – Chicago, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Detroit, Buffalo and Duluth – over the past 10 years and found that rates have risen alarmingly fast. In Chicago, the cost of water for the average family of four nearly tripled between 2007 and 2018. Cleveland's rates more than doubled – to $1,317 per year for an average family of four. And families in Detroit paid an astounding $1,151 annually. By contrast, that same average family living in Phoenix, which pipes in much of its water from 300 miles away and has been called the least-sustainable city in the country, paid about two-thirds less.

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HindleA wrote:https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/insig ... ter-crisis

HindleA wrote:https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... new-labour

HindleA wrote:It was built on time and on budget

Willow904 wrote:My dad visited the Dome. He didn't say much about it, so I'm not sure what he thought of it, but I quite like the idea you had to be there to really know about it, a unique moment in time.

I miss the optimism that conceived it, that's for sure. We need some of that optimism now, especially in tackling climate change and achieving greater global equality.

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Anybody else just have squirrels?

Jacob Rees-Mogg says parliament will 'open the windows' amid coronavirus outbreak

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Optimism has to be based on something, though. Our PM affects "optimism", but his actual behaviour often contradicts it.

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We’ve written to the UK Government to recommend that the May polls be postponed until the autumn as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. This is due to growing risks to the delivery of the polls & to mitigate the impact on voters, campaigners & electoral administrators.

4:33 PM - 12 Mar 2020

...Trump, his short speech was riddled with errors that had to be rapidly corrected – thereby spreading confusion rather than clarity. One example: he announced that his Europe ban would “apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo” across the Atlantic, prompting the White House to rush out a statement explaining that the president had got it wrong, and that the new policy would, in fact, only apply to people, not goods.
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...the address did not work. The clearest proof came in the metric Trump understands best and that terrifies him most, because he believes it holds the key to his prospects of re-election. The headline this morning: “Stock markets tumble as Trump’s Europe travel ban shocks investors”.

Jonathan Freedland

Ireland school closures reveal stark contrast to UK Covid-19 response

HindleA wrote:https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... e-guidance

The prime minister, Boris Johnson, said: “We have all got to be clear, this is the worst public health crisis for a generation. Some people compare it to seasonal flu. Alas, that is not right. Due to the lack of immunity this disease is more dangerous.

“It is going to spread further and I must level with you, I must level with the British public: many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time.”

Johnson said schools would not close and neither did he join Scotland in banning gatherings of more than 500 people... .

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... virus-plan" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

citizenJA wrote:

HindleA wrote:https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... e-guidance

Cough and a fever. That's it. How are people supposed to know it's Covid-19? Doesn't matter, according to the advice. Stay at home for 7 days.

RogerOThornhill wrote:Our school has sent very clear letters home over the last couple of weeks - in fact I've just looked and the first one was Feb 14th on symptoms and a list of countries affected at that point.

There's been two updates since - Feb 26th and March 2nd.

The problem is that if you're going to close, you'd need to do it for 6-7 weeks. I wouldn't be surprised if, as Easter is coming up, schools get told to close a week before, and then a week after and then let schools decide.