As the investigation into the mysterious circumstances surrounding Sandra Bland's death in a Texas jail cell continues, a Department of Justice report (PDF) on jail deaths in America provides shocking broader context: Some 73 percent (698 out of 958 total deaths in 2012) of prisoners who die in jail have not been convicted of anything.
Exorbitant bail rates for relatively minor crimes, an issue brought into sharp relief by the 2015 suicide of Kalief Browder, is a primary reason for often lengthy pre-trial detentions during which these deaths occurred. Deaths were most common among older inmates, particularly in the 45-54 age group, and 29 percent of people who died in jail were black, more than twice the national population ratio of African-Americans.
For more on this topic, read The Week's Ryan Cooper on "the national horror of jail suicides," which accounted for 31.3 percent of jail deaths in 2012. Bonnie Kristian
Amazon has fired the organizer of a strike over coronavirus conditions — though the company is claiming it had nothing to do with the walkout.
Chris Smalls was among several employees leading the Monday strike at an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, New York. Two employees at the warehouse had tested positive for COVID-19, and workers walked off the job to demand the warehouse be closed and sanitized while fully paying workers, Vice reports.
Smalls, a management assistant who'd worked for five years at the warehouse, apparently came in "close contact" with one of those employees and was told to stay home for 14 days with full pay, an Amazon spokesperson said. "Despite that instruction to stay home with pay, he came onsite today, March 30, putting the teams at risk," the spokesperson told CNN. The company didn't acknowledge strikers' demands.
Smalls said other employees who'd been around the infected employees more hadn't been quarantined. And while he expected he might be fired over the walkout, Smalls said it reveals how Amazon's leaders "don't care about people." New York Attorney General Letitia James slammed Smalls' firing as "disgraceful."
Also on Tuesday, workers at the Amazon-owned Whole Foods grocery store chain organized a massive "sick-out" to protest their conditions. Employees were set to call in sick to demand paid leave for all workers who call out sick or are quarantining during the pandemic, free COVID-19 testing for all employees, and hazard pay that doubles the current hourly wage for workers. Shoppers for the grocery delivery chain Instacart started a walkout Monday as well to call for similar protections, but Instacart claimed the strike had "no impact" on its operations and has refused to meet any of the strikers' demands. Kathryn Krawczyk
July is still a long way off, but some Democratic strategists are nervous the novel coronavirus pandemic could still affect their party's national convention, where the eventual presidential nominee would normally make a speech.
Even if the United States is relatively successful in suppressing the virus' spread by the time the Democratic National Convention is scheduled to take place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, there could very well still be limits on large crowd gatherings. That leaves the party in a difficult spot, Politico reports.
Right now, committee officials are planning to forge ahead, but some strategists are fearful not only that it won't happen, but of the consequences of a cancellation. "That Thursday night speech by our nominee could be seen by 50 or 60 million Americans, most of whom haven't paid a minute of attention to the primary," said Bob Mulholland, a DNC member from California. "That's the conversation that takes us to winning."
Their worries are amplified by the fact the Republican National Convention isn't scheduled until late August, which likely gives it a better chance of going forward as planned. "If we have to cancel and [President] Trump has a convention with people screaming and yelling ... that's an advantage to Trump," Mulholland said. "Because nobody saw us except some text they got, and then they watched Trump." Read more at Politico. Tim O'Donnell
Dr. Anthony Fauci sees some positive news finally coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fauci, the U.S.'s top infectious disease doctor who's leading its coronavirus response, spoke to CNN's Jim Sciutto on Tuesday about the ongoing crisis. While COVID-19 case numbers are still expanding every day, Fauci suggested "we're starting to see glimmers" of social distancing having its intended "dampening effect."
"You're starting to see that the daily increases are not in that steep incline, they're starting to be able to possibly flatten out," Fauci said of case numbers across the country. But he was cautious and showed no sign he would recommend lifting stay-at-home orders and social distancing guidelines, saying "I don't want to put too much stock on it, because you don't want to get overconfident, you just want to keep pushing in what you're doing."
Fauci also acknowledged America's mass shortage of medical supplies, particularly protective masks. While there aren't enough masks to go around right now, once they are in better supply, "I believe there will be some very serious consideration about more broadening this recommendation of using masks," he said. That topic will be on the table for the White House's coronavirus task force on Tuesday.
And as for chloroquine, the drug that has been used for decades to treat malaria that President Trump touted as a possible treatment, Fauci said there hasn't yet been any "definitive evidence that this works" for treating COVID-19. Kathryn Krawczyk