wsws.org Media Bias for Past 90 Days

Concerns rise over impact of Texas power failure on spread of COVID-19

disaster and accident

Concerns are spreading over the potential for the disaster caused by last month’s winter storm—which forced people across Texas to huddle together in homes, cars and warming shelters and wait in long lines for food and water—to lead to an increase in COVID-19 infections.
wsws.org     Mar 01, 2021

After two weeks much of Jackson, Mississippi still without running water

environment, weather and energy

Nearly half of the residents of Jackson, Mississippi have now been without water for nearly two weeks following the severe winter storm that froze pipes and burst water mains all over the city. The same storm knocked out power and water service for millions of people in Texas and impacted neighboring Louisiana.
wsws.org     Feb 28, 2021

The Lancet reveals impact of COVID-19 on health care workers

labour

The British medical journal the Lancet recently published an article describing the heavy emotional and physical toll that the coronavirus pandemic has had on frontline health care workers all around the world.
wsws.org     Feb 19, 2021

Washingtons Lüge vom Corona-Ursprung im Wuhan-Labor ...

Trotz des wissenschaftlichen Konsenses über den natürlichen Ursprung der Pandemie verbreiten die Biden-Regierung und die US-Medien weiter die Lüge, dass das Coronavirus aus einem chinesischen Labor en
wsws.org     Feb 17, 2021

Australia’s Telstra imposes 1,400 more sackings as restructure resumes

Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications company, has recommenced its drive to eliminate 8,000 jobs by June 30, suddenly informing 1,425 workers at the beginning of January that they are being retrenched.
wsws.org     Feb 16, 2021

Hundreds of artists denounce Spanish rapper Pablo Hasél’s imminent jailing

Spain’s Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government is preparing to incarcerate rapper Pablo Hasél over tweets and a song supposedly “glorifying terrorism,” “inciting violence” and “insulting the Spanish crown and state institutions.” He would become the first musician imprisoned in Spain since the end of Francisco Franco’s fascist dictatorship in 1978. He faces up to two decades in prison.
wsws.org     Feb 14, 2021

Austrian government ends lockdown despite spread of coronavirus variant

On February 8, Austria’s black-green (conservative-green) coalition government ended entirely what had only been mild lockdown measures. This means that schools and commerce will be fully open despite the fact that infection and death rates remain high and very contagious viral variants are rapidly spreading in the country.
wsws.org     Feb 14, 2021

Despite mass deaths, Poland ends lockdown

social issue

Museums, art galleries and shopping centres have been allowed to reopen since 1 February. Even before that, face-to-face classes for the first to third grade were resumed. As of 12 February, hotels, cinemas, theatres, philharmonic halls and opera houses can reopen at 50 percent capacity, as well as sports fields, ski slopes and swimming pools.
wsws.org     Feb 14, 2021

Amid deadly pandemic, Canada deported record number of refugees in 2020

social issue

The working class must reject the nationalist poison of the ruling elite and defend the right of workers of all origins to work and live in the country of their choice, without fear of discrimination
wsws.org     Feb 12, 2021

Right-wing US Supreme Court majority again exempts large religious gatherings from COVID-19 safety measures

crime, law and justice

Late Friday night, the right-wing Supreme Court majority enjoined California from prohibiting indoor church services in “Tier 1” counties where coronavirus infection rates and COVID-19 deaths are highest. The fractured 6–3 ruling expands the exception from public health measures first carved out for religious services last November.
wsws.org     Feb 09, 2021

UK: Johnson government orders review of “left wing extremism”, targeting Socialist Workers Party and “far-left entryism”

politics

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government has announced a review into “left-wing extremism”. The review will be led by former Labour MP John Woodcock, now Baron Walney, in his post as UK Special Envoy for Countering Violent Extremism, and will spearhead efforts to criminalise left-wing and socialist activity in Britain.
wsws.org     Feb 09, 2021

Coalition government in New Caledonia collapses

The fragile political arrangements between the pro-and anti-independence factions in the French Pacific territory have shattered amid a deepening economic crisis and rising anger in the working class.
wsws.org     Feb 07, 2021

Nevada’s Clark County School District presses ahead with deadly school reopenings

education

Clark County School District (CCSD)—the fifth largest in the US, which serves over 325,000 students in the Las Vegas metro region—is scheduled to resume in-person learning in the coming weeks. Teachers and support staff are slated to return on February 22 and Pre-K through 3rd grade students are set to return on March 1. The plan includes mandatory COVID-19 screenings for all employees but does not include any requirements or provisions for students to be tested at all, much less on a regular basis.
wsws.org     Feb 05, 2021

Biden discusses Republican demands to drastically cut stimulus spending

Democratic President Joe Biden met with 10 Republican senators Monday in his first public engagement in the effort to pass an emergency COVID-19 rescue package through Congress. The 10 Republicans, headed by Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah, sought the meeting in a letter to Biden sent on Sunday, which produced an immediate invitation to the White House.
wsws.org     Feb 01, 2021

Leading German columnist Heribert Prantl denounces coronavirus lockdown measures

Prantl’s current invocation of basic rights has degenerated into mendacious hollow phrases that serve to protect the privileges of a rich minority and are directed against the democratic rights of the
wsws.org     Jan 31, 2021

Spanish fascists vote to save Podemos party’s bank and corporate bailouts

economy and finances

Spain’s minority Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government has passed a bailout handing billions of euros to the banks and corporations thanks to support from the fascist Vox party. The vote sharply exposes the class policy that is pursued. While Vox and Podemos are routinely presented as different anti-system populists—one right and another, supposedly, “left”—both are in the service of the financial aristocracy.
wsws.org     Jan 31, 2021

Modi launches mass repression against two-month-long farmer agitation

unrest, conflicts and war

India’s far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has seized upon the “violence” and “anarchy” that erupted in Delhi during a Jan. 26 Republic Day protest against its pro-agri-business laws to launch a long-prepared campaign to repress the farmers’ agitation through state intimidation and violence.
wsws.org     Jan 29, 2021

French government determined to keep schools open as virus spreads

education

As the spread of more infectious and dangerous variants of the coronavirus strain French hospitals, the Macron government is doubling down on its efforts to keep schools open. His policy is driven by the interests of the capitalist class, which is demanding that schools be kept open as holding pens for children so that their parents can continue to work.
wsws.org     Jan 26, 2021