Top U.S. & World Headlines — October 15, 2020
VIRTUAL 360 Everest Trek Part 10 Everest Memorial
Join our virtual trek to the south side of Mount Everest and the top of Kala Patthar, in immersive 360 VR video, with this limited series from Jon Miller and The Rest of Everest! In Part 10 we continue the hike up to the village of Lobuche and climb the Thukla Hill up to the Everest Memorial to remember the fallen climbers on Everest and other Himalayan peaks.
TeachKind presents 'Challenging Assumptions'
Watch 'Challenging Assumptions' as part of TeachKind's new social justice curriculum. This powerful video features the firsthand stories of activists of color and explores the ways our everyday language and actions can either reinforce or challenge ideas of power and supremacy. Learn more at TeachKind.org/SocialJustice.
Herd Immunity: Is It a More Compassionate Approach or Will It Lead to Death or Illness for Millions?
As coronavirus cases increase across much of the United States, the Trump administration has reportedly adopted a policy of deliberately letting the virus infect much of the U.S. population in order to attain "herd immunity" — despite warnings from the World Health Organization against such an approach. We host a debate on the contentious issue of herd immunity and how best to confront the virus with two Harvard medical experts: epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff, a professor of medicine at Harvard University and one of the lead signatories of the controversial Great Barrington Declaration arguing for an easing of lockdowns, and Dr. Abraar Karan, an internal medicine doctor at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and at Harvard Medical School who has worked on the COVID-19 public health response in Massachusetts since February.
Amy Coney Barrett Won't Say Climate Change Is Real; Forgets 1st Amendment Protects Right to Protest
We air highlights from the second day of questioning of President Trump's Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, who faced eight hours of questions on Wednesday about her views on issues ranging from climate change to voting rights to gay marriage and abortion, as Republicans race to confirm her ahead of the election and secure a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court for conservatives.
Dahlia Lithwick: Amy Coney Barrett May Claim Neutrality, But Her Record Is “Extremely Conservative”
In the second day of confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, the federal judge’s refusal to answer basic questions on voter intimidation and whether a president can delay elections did her “no favors” and was part of an aim to “present herself as neutral; she’s an open book; whatever she was before, whatever she ruled on the bench before, is immaterial,” says Dahlia Lithwick, senior legal correspondent and Supreme Court reporter for Slate.com. “There are some issues that don’t need to be approached with an open mind. … She could have allayed a lot of fears.”
Gastroenterologist Urges People to Go Vegan to Fight Future Pandemics
PETA has teamed up with gastroenterologist Dr. Angie Sadeghi to break down the link between pandemics and eating animals. She points out that 75% of all recently emerged infectious diseases originated in animals before jumping to humans and urges everyone to go vegan to prevent future pandemics like COVID-19.
Packing the Courts: How Republicans Spent Decades Installing Judges to Cement Minority Rule
Amid Senate confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett, we look at how conservatives have used dark money to push to seat her on the Supreme Court before the November 3 election, following a decades-long project by conservatives to install right-wing judges across the federal judiciary. “There’s no doubt that what we’re facing is increasingly rule by a minority,” says former Senate Judiciary Committee staffer Lisa Graves, executive director of True North Research. “When people say that the court needs to be packed, it really needs to be unpacked.”
Rev. William Barber: Millions Are Struggling. So Why Do the Debates Ignore Poverty?
Rev. William Barber says the 2020 election debates have steadfastly ignored the subject of poverty, even though it affected almost half the United States population before the COVID-19 pandemic and millions more people are struggling since then. “We have to stop saying that things were well before COVID,” Barber says. “The reality is, Wall Street was well.” Barber is co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and president of Repairers of the Breach.
Hundreds protested outside the Senate Monday against the confirmation hearing for President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett. At least 21 were arrested after staging a sit-in to oppose the Senate pushing through Barrett’s nomination in the middle of the presidential election. Senate Democrats warn the federal judge’s record suggests she would overturn the Affordable Care Act and threaten reproductive rights if she takes the seat left vacant by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “Trump and the Republicans are trying to execute a power grab,” says Ana María Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, who joins us from the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of another day of protests. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, she says lawmakers should instead focus on doing “everything they can to provide urgent relief to millions of people.”
“I Feel for Them”: Son of Former White House Butler Says Trump Endangered Health of Residence Staff
O’odham Land Defenders Lead Indigenous Resistance to Trump’s Border Wall as Court Halts Construction
As 14 states and more than 130 cities across the U.S. celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day in place of Columbus Day, we go to Arizona, where Indigenous communities are leading resistance against the construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall near a sacred spring inside the Organ Pipe National Monument. The lives of Indigenous people along the border “have been so severely impacted by not only this border wall, but the complete militarization of our homelands due to this irrational fear of folks on the other side, which are our relatives,” says Nellie Jo David, an O’odham water and land defender.
FBI Foils Right-Wing Plot to Kidnap Michigan Gov. Months After Trump Urged "Liberation" of State
Just months after President Trump tweeted for his supporters to "LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" the FBI has foiled an alleged plot to kidnap and take hostage Democratic Governor of Michigan Gretchen Whitmer. Authorities arrested six men Thursday involved in the kidnapping plot, and seven others who were said to be planning to storm the state Capitol in Lansing with the intent of starting a civil war. "It came as a surprise to many, but not necessarily here in Michigan, because the state has a long history of militia and white nationalist ties," says Russ McNamara, a reporter at WDET, Detroit's NPR affiliate. We also speak with Michigan state Representative Kyra Harris Bolden, who says local Democrats have been warning for months about the threat posed by far-right extremists. "It's very important to note that this could have been prevented," she says.
UN World Food Program Wins Nobel Peace Prize for Tackling Hunger Amid War, Pandemic & Climate Crisis
