1 in 4 unvaccinated people may not comply with CDC guidelines to wear masks indoors, survey suggests

  The revised guidelines on when and when not to wear masks came as a surprise to many Americans. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced May 13, 2021 that people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can safely enter many indoor settings, such as grocery stores and restaurants, without wearing a mask.

  The CDC’s updated guidelines also ask that unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people continue to wear a mask – even in establishments like bars and restaurants, where doing so may no longer be required.

Suit seeks to limit anti-Muslim speech on Facebook but roots of Islamophobia run far deeper

  A civil rights group is suing Facebook and its top executives in federal court over the company’s failure to crack down on hate speech against Muslims.

  Muslim Advocates, a Washington, D.C.-based organization focused on discrimination against American Muslims, alleges in the suit that Facebook has violated a series of local and federal consumer protection laws. The suit points out that the company itself, in a July 2020 internal audit, found that “Facebook has created an atmosphere where ‘Muslims feel under siege’” on the platform.

Why is paper money constitutional?

  The official money of the United States today is paper currency. But that’s clearly not what the U.S. Constitution says. It says that gold and silver coins shall be the nation’s currency. 

  How is that possible? I thought the Constitution was supposed to be the highest law of the land. I also thought that it was the responsibility of the U.S. Supreme Court to enforce the Constitution. Why then are Americans living under a paper-money monetary system rather than the system stipulated in the Constitution?

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - Status of 2022 U.S. Senate race

  When Sen. Richard Shelby announced he would not run for reelection to a sixth six-year term in 2022, speculation immediately began as to who would run for our iconic senior senator’s seat. Numerous names were floated as to who might line up for the coveted seat. It is expected to be a fairly large field.

The typical child care worker in the US earns less than $12 an hour

  The American Families Plan, announced by President Joe Biden in April 2021, aims to make child care more affordable for parents. Importantly, it also seeks to ensure caregivers are paid a living wage – enough to meet basic needs given the local cost of living. If passed, all workers in child care and pre-K programs that receive federal subsidies would earn at least US$15 per hour. Preschool teachers and child care workers with similar qualifications as kindergarten teachers would be paid in line with what kindergarten teachers earn.

  Currently, child care workers who care for infants and toddlers tend to earn much less than those who care for older children.

Employees are feeling burned over broken work-from-home promises and corporate culture ‘BS’ as employers try to bring them back to the office

  As vaccinations and relaxed health guidelines make returning to the office a reality for more companies, there seems to be a disconnect between managers and their workers over remote work.

  A good example of this is a recent op-ed written by the CEO of a Washington, D.C., magazine that suggested workers could lose benefits like health care if they insist on continuing to work remotely as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes. The staff reacted by refusing to publish for a day.

Domestic violence isn’t about just physical violence – and state laws are beginning to recognize that

  Three or more U.S. women are murdered every day by their current or former intimate partner.

  That may in part be due to a failure of state laws to capture the full range of behavior that constitutes domestic abuse. The law continues to treat intimate partner violence like a bar fight – considering only what happened in a given incident and not all the prior abuse history, such as intimidation and entrapment.

  Research shows, however, that domestic abuse is not about arguments, short tempers, and violent tendencies. It’s about domination and control.

Striking a balance between fairness in competition and the rights of transgender athletes

  In a majority of U.S. states, bills aiming to restrict who can compete in women’s sports at public institutions have either been signed into law or are working their way through state legislatures.

  Caught up in this political point-scoring are real people – both trans athletes who want to participate in competitive sports and those competing against them.

Ban paternalistic government

  What is it about paternalists that prevent them from minding their own business? They are obsessed with minding everyone else’s business and, even worse, using the power of government to force people to live their lives the way paternalists want them to live them.

  Look at the war on drugs. For our entire lives, paternalists have used the force of government, at both the federal and state level, to punish people for putting substances into their mouths that haven’t been approved by our federal and state masters. 

Should my child get the COVID-19 vaccine? 7 questions answered by a pediatric infectious disease expert

  The Food and Drug Administration expanded emergency use authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to include adolescents 12 to 15 years of age on May 10, 2021. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention followed with recommendations endorsing use in this age group after their advisory group meeting on May 12. The American Academy of Pediatrics also supports this decision.

  Dr. Debbie-Ann Shirley is an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Virginia specializing in pediatric infectious diseases. Here she addresses some of the concerns parents may have about their teen or preteen getting the COVID-19 vaccine.