Tag Archives : Build House

Disney Cruise Line to allow unvaccinated children under 11 years old to travel

Disney Cruise Line is dropping its COVID-19 vaccine requirement for children aged 5 to 11 for sailings departing U.S. and Canadian ports after previously requiring all guests older than 5 to be fully vaccinated. 

Disney Cruise Line’s website states that it will “highly” recommend that guests 11 years old and younger are fully vaccinated, but starting on Sept. 2 it will only require those 12 years and older to have received the shots.

The cruise line continues to require guests to test negative for COVID-19 to sail on its ships leaving U.S. and Canadian ports. 

Guests who are fully vaccinated must show a negative result to a test that was taken one to two days before departure to be exempt from testing at the terminal before leaving. Those who are not fully vaccinated must provide proof of a negative test taken one to three days before departure, followed by a second negative test that is taken at the terminal on the day of departure. 

Guests who test positive, a result which is confirmed with a second test, are denied boarding. 

The policy change comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) loosened its guidance last week to shift responsibility to individuals for assessing their own risk for the virus instead of businesses, governments and schools. CDC officials said the change was driven by recognition that most people have some protection from the virus through vaccination or prior infection and are unlikely to become seriously ill.

Source: TEST FEED1

Demings up by 4 points in challenge to Rubio: poll

Rep. Val Demings (D) leads Sen. Marco Rubio (R) by 4 percentage points in Florida’s Senate race, according to a poll released Tuesday.

The poll released by the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab (PORL) shows Demings with the support of 48 percent of surveyed registered voters who said they would vote in the midterms.

Rubio, in comparison, received 44 percent support while 7 percent said they would choose someone else.

Broken down by party, 89 percent of Republican voters supported Rubio in addition to 36 percent of voters who either had no party affiliation or whose political affiliation was termed “other.” The poll found 94 percent of Democratic voters supported Demmings in addition to 46 percent with no party affiliation.  

Florida’s Senate race is considered one of the most competitive this November and has been rated as “lean Republican” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. 

Demings was among a slew of Senate Democratic challengers who posted impressive fundraising numbers in the last quarter. Demings’s campaign posted more than $12 million for the second quarter while the Florida Republican’s campaign raised more than $4 million, according to Florida Politics. 

The poll was conducted Aug. 8-12 with a total sample of 1,624 registered voters, with an overall margin of error of 3.4 percentage points. The number of voters polled on the Florida Senate race was 1,534.

Source: TEST FEED1

Not one Republican stood up for climate, jobs or lower costs

It’s been some time since Congress spoke as clearly to who we are as a nation, and the kind of future we aspire to create, as with the passage of the sweeping Infrastructure Reduction Act that President Biden plans to sign into law this week.

With the strongest federal climate action ever at its core, the bill also will cut health care costs, especially for seniors and low-income families. It will create jobs, drive innovation and make the country more secure. It will also reduce deficit spending by ensuring that profitable corporations pay their fair share.

If ever a bill cried out for bipartisan support, this is it.

And yet, when the House and Senate passed the bill last week, not a single Republican voted for it. Not one, in either house.

The public is going to wonder why. After all, 61 percent wanted Congress to act on climate. 

Beyond partisanship, the GOP resistance speaks volumes about Big Oil’s outsized influence. 

Flush with cash — a windfall $77 billion in second-quarter profits — the oil and gas industry has spent $1.8 billion in campaign contributions and lobbying efforts over the past decade, trying to defeat climate action and the politicians that support it. Contributions to Republicans out-pace those to Democrats four to one.

While Republicans fail to act on climate, the country pays the price.

Nearly eight in 10 Americans — 78 percent — have already suffered from the kind of drought that’s baking the West; the sort of catastrophic flooding that killed dozens of people in Kentucky; wildfires that have torched enough land this year to cover the state of New Jersey; storms, heat waves and other climate-related disasters that, last year alone, killed 725 people nationwide and did $153 billion in damage.

The perils will mount, the science makes clear, unless we cut climate pollution in half by 2030 and stop adding it to the atmosphere altogether by 2050.

This bill provides more than $360 billion in strategic investment, over 10 years, to help the country achieve those goals.

These are powerful incentives to help us get more clean power from the wind and sun; tax credits to make electric cars, new and used, more affordable for low-income and middle-income drivers; as well as rebates and other incentives to cut the cost of installing home heat pumps and rooftop solar panels.

The bill will add hundreds of thousands of jobs, in red states and blue, to a clean energy sector that already employs 3.2 million workers nationwide. These jobs are growing in every state — with some of the strongest gains in states with at least one Republican senator. This bill will spur even more growth, positioning our workers and businesses for success in a global clean energy market worth more than $920 billion a year — and growing.

It will make the country more secure, by helping to break our dependence on the fossil fuels that fund belligerent petro states like Russia. 

It will help the United States meet its responsibility, as the world’s largest cumulative emitter of carbon pollution over time, to cut those emissions. That’s critical, and is coupled with our obligation to increase support for vulnerable countries and communities on the front lines of climate hazard and harm worldwide.

Yes, the bill is going to fight inflation, by reducing the deficit; driving down the cost of prescription drugs for seniors and health care for low-income people; reducing household electricity bills 8 percent or so; and curbing our reliance on fossil fuels — the single largest driver of inflation today.

Not surprisingly, the public likes these measures, too. Two-thirds, for example, including 54 percent of Republicans, support incentives to lower the costs of wind and solar power. 

And people really like the way the bill pays for itself: 61 percent, including 53 percent of Republicans, support a 15-percent minimum tax on businesses with $1 billion or more a year in profits; and 71 percent, including 68 percent of Republicans, want the government to negotiate the price of prescription drugs to lower costs for seniors on Medicare. The bill does both.

This is not the climate bill we would have written. It includes provisions that support fossil fuels in ways that conflict with our climate aims and perpetuate inequities that inflict disproportionate hazard and harm on low-income communities and people of color. There’s no place for such measures when the goal must be to break our dependence on fossil fuels, reduce unjust impacts on overburdened communities and strengthen, not weaken, the commonsense safeguards our families depend on to prosper and thrive.

For far too long, though, Congress has failed to confront the climate crisis, as if the existential environmental crisis of our time didn’t quite rise to the level of national attention. This week, that changes, with a bill ready to be signed into law that marks, not the end, but the beginning of the climate progress we need.

As we move forward, protecting the environment and public health shouldn’t divide us by party. It must unite us, as a nation.

Manish Bapna is president and CEO of the NRDC Action Fund, an affiliate of NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council).

Source: TEST FEED1

Young people want to work for companies that support access to abortion: survey

The issue of abortion is on the minds of American workers, with a new survey revealing an overwhelming majority of young people want to work for a company that supports abortion access. 

Lean In, a policy group advocating for women in the workplace, published survey results from an online poll of nearly 3,200 U.S. workers. It found that among working women under the age of 40, 81 percent believe supporting access to reproductive healthcare demonstrates an organization’s commitment to supporting and advancing women. 

Another 76 percent of women said they are more likely to want to work for a company that supports abortion access and 78 percent think their employer should take action to protect abortion access in response to the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe. 

The June decision that overturned the nearly 50-year precedent set by Roe v. Wade, which affirmed the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S., had immediate ramifications. 

America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news. 

Nearly a dozen states enacted laws that ban or place strict restrictions on abortion. Many companies responded by pledging to cover any employee’s abortion treatment, including any travel-related expenses—including Amazon, Citigroup, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Disney and Netflix. 

Lean In also found that abortion rights matter to men too, with 74 percent of male respondents under the age of 40 indicating they are more likely to want to work for a company that supports access to abortion. Seventy-three percent thought their employer should take action to protect abortion access in response to the Supreme Court overturning Roe.  

The risks of not taking any action at all is high, as Lean In found 34 percent of women and men under the age of 40 are considering switching jobs in light over Roe being overturned, either to work for a company that offers generous reproductive health care benefits or one that publicly supports access to abortion. 

Women and men of color were about twice as likely as white women and men to be considering switching jobs— which could potentially risk companies’ diversity and inclusion efforts. 

Notably, Lean In also found that a majority of Republicans, 68 percent, and Democrats, 86 percent, under the age of 40 think their employer should take action to protect abortion access in response to the overturning of Roe.  

Some Americans had their chance to make their stance on abortion clear, like in Kansas where residents overwhelmingly voted to retain their state’s constitution’s protection of a right to abortion. It was the first vote centered on abortion rights since the Supreme Court overturned Roe. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Virtual museum visits improve well-being for elderly, study finds

Weekly online museum visits can help improve quality of life for seniors who are at increased risk of poor health outcomes due to social isolation, a new study suggests.  

Canadian researchers, partnering with Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, found adults over 65 who attended virtual guided tours each week over a three-month period experienced significant improvements in their well-being.  

For the study, researchers recruited 106 people aged 65 and older living in the Montreal metro area. Half of participants attended guided tours online once a week, while the other half did not participate in cultural activities during the same three-month period. 

The weekly 45-minute guided tour was followed by a 15-minute questing and answer period with a guide. 

Researchers said the greatest benefit for seniors discovered in the study was related to frailty – a “vulnerable condition exposing individuals to incident adverse health events and disabilities that negatively impact their quality of life and increase health and social costs.”  

“Our study showed that art-based activity may be an effective intervention,” the study’s lead author Olivier Beauchet, a professor at the University of Montreal, said in a media release. “On a global scale, this participatory art-based activity could become a model that could be offered in museums and arts institutions worldwide to promote active and healthy aging. 

“Health and social systems need to address the challenge of limiting frailty and its related adverse consequences in the aging population,” Beauchet said.  

America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news. 

Previous research shows viewing art online for three minutes can have a significant positive impact on one’s mental health. 

The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, found that even briefly viewing digital art can lead to lower negative mood, anxiety, and loneliness, as well as higher personal view of well-being.

Source: TEST FEED1

Education Dept. discharges $3.9 billion of student debt for ITT Tech borrowers

The Education Department on Tuesday announced plans to discharge $3.9 billion in federal student loans for 208,000 borrowers in its latest round of relief.

The office said the discharge would apply to any remaining federal student loans that the borrowers received to attend ITT Technical Institute (ITT), which closed in September 2016, from January 2005 and on.

“This includes borrowers who have not yet applied for a borrower defense to repayment discharge. These borrowers will have the federal student loans they received to attend ITT discharged without any additional action on their part,” the agency announced on Tuesday morning.

The move follows previous decisions by the administration to approve loan discharges for borrowers to attend ITT, after the office said the institute was found to have “engaged in widespread and pervasive misrepresentations related to the ability of students to get a job or transfer credits.”

The department also charged the institute with “lying about the programmatic accreditation of ITT’s associate degree in nursing,” citing extensive internal records, testimony from staff and first-hand accounts from borrowers.

“It is time for student borrowers to stop shouldering the burden from ITT’s years of lies and false promises,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “The evidence shows that for years, ITT’s leaders intentionally misled students about the quality of their programs in order to profit off federal student loan programs, with no regard for the hardship this would cause.”

“The Biden-Harris Administration will continue to stand up for borrowers who’ve been cheated by their colleges, while working to strengthen oversight and enforcement to protect today’s students from similar deception and abuse,” he added.

Overall, the Biden administration has approved nearly $32 billion in student loan relief for more than 1.6 million borrowers. However, that relief has been greenlit only for certain borrowers, including those participating in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, borrowers with total and permanent disabilities and those found to have been misled by their institutions.

The Biden administration has fielded pressure from progressives and student loans advocates for broader relief, particularly as a current pause on federal student loan repayments is scheduled to lapse at the end of August.

The White House has indicated that another decision on student loans could come later this month, after reports emerged earlier this year that President Biden was weighing a plan to provide $10,000 in student debt forgiveness for some borrowers.  

But officials have kept mum when it comes to publicly sharing details about its plans.

Source: TEST FEED1

‘May the best woman win’

For at least a millisecond, let’s put politics aside: History is afoot in 2022, and when it happens, we should all take a bow for becoming something bigger than we were.

For the first time, in any state, the elected governor and lt. governor (only 45 states HAVE an LG) will be women. In Massachusetts and Rhode Island, Democrats may stake this claim; in Arkansas, Republicans have all but assured it.

In three other states — Michigan, Arizona and Iowa — the major finalists for governor are women. That’s also one for the books. It means 2022 will at least tie the current record for women simultaneously serving as governor, needing only one more win (among the three incumbents in Maine, Kansas, and New Mexico, plus a competitive challenger in Georgia) to break it.

These aren’t pebbles being hurled at the glass ceiling, but political meteors that ensure, evermore, that equality of merit has dispelled the prerogative of gender. The once unthinkable that became the near improbable has now become the norm.

Oh, would Nellie Ross be so proud!

Nearly a century ago, Ross — a one-time piano and kindergarten teacher from Wyoming — became the nation’s first elected female governor, handily winning a special election to replace her husband who’d been felled by an appendectomy gone bad.

Ross knew going in that it was going to be tough, that — in her words — “the governorship in the people’s minds was a man’s job.” Yet with wisdom, grace and guts, she traversed fault lines of prejudice to blaze a trail marked by mettle and paved with character. 

Despite concrete accomplishments (tax cuts, assistance for poor farmers, protection for miners), Ross barely lost re-election amid a down-cycle for her party.

That didn’t stop Nellie. Four years later, after this descendent of George Washington received 31 votes for vice president at the Democratic National Convention, she served as Director of the U.S. Mint under three successive presidents.

Ross pioneered a path for women in elective public service. Today, 45 women have served as governor, 50 as attorney general, and scores more in statewide postings from lt. governor to secretary of state. There’s still a long way to go (19 states have not yet elected a woman as governor), yet the trend is inexorable.

For those looking for “female firsts” this fall there will be a bevy of races from which to choose. Arkansas is set to elect its first woman governor AND lt. governor. Rhode Island may opt for the first woman/Hispanic elected governor in New England history.

Massachusetts warrants special attention. Less than a year after Michelle Wu became Boston’s first female mayor in a landslide, a recent poll showed three women are current frontrunners for the top three statewide posts (governor, lt. governor and attorney general).

The closest race could be for lt. governor, where that same poll showed Salem’s first woman mayor, Kim Driscoll, in a tight primary against former Obama staffer Eric Lesser.

Driscoll led Salem (now ranked among America’s “best places to live”) from stories of witchcraft to lessons in statecraft.

Should Driscoll win, she’d join heavy gubernatorial favorite Maura Healy in the winner’s circle; Healy would be the first woman ever elected governor of Massachusetts (Jane Swift served via a vacancy). If attorney general contender Andrea Campbell prevails as well, Massachusetts would score a political first: a gender trifecta.

Refreshingly, this wave of transformation isn’t owned by either Democrats or Republicans, but by all of us. It shimmers as a patch of common ground against the darkness of divisiveness.

America has a new rallying cry: “May the best woman win!”

Adam Goodman, a national Republican media strategist and columnist, is the first Edward R. Murrow senior fellow at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. Follow him on Twitter @adamgoodman3

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump attorney: Inventory list from Mar-a-Lago search ‘borderline worthless’

An attorney for former President Trump said on Monday he and his legal team aren’t sure precisely what items were seized by the FBI during a search of Mar-a-Lago last week, saying that an inventory list provided to them was “worthless.” 

Lindsey Halligan, a Florida-based lawyer who was at the estate during the search, told Fox News’s Sean Hannity that details of what the FBI took remain scant to them and questioned whether some of the material was appropriate for the agency to obtain. 

“We don’t know exactly what they took. We have asked multiple times for a real inventory description of what was taken. But the inventory list they gave us is borderline worthless,” Halligan said. “It doesn’t say where the documents were located, what specifically was taken.” 

Halligan referenced comments made by Trump in which he said agents “stole” three of his passports during the search. Justice Department officials later confirmed to multiple news outlets that the former president’s passports were returned to his attorneys. 

The FBI said in a statement Monday that it “follows search and seizure procedures ordered by courts, then returns items that do not need to be retained for law enforcement purposes.”

Halligan, however, alleged that the Justice Department was not in contact with Trump and his team. 

“We have real concerns in terms of whether they were right to take certain things,” Halligan said. “The Department of Justice is not communicating with us as to what the evidence is and what their intentions are. But we will continue to try to get to the bottom of it.” 

An unsealed search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago made public on Friday revealed that federal authorities are investigating Trump on possible violations of the Espionage Act, among other statutes. A property receipt of items seized by the FBI shows authorities recovered a trove of documents marked top secret and other highly classified material.  

Trump has also alleged that authorities took documents considered to be protected under attorney-client and executive privilege and has called on the FBI to return them. 

The warrant indicates that officials were authorized to seize any documents or records marked classified or ones related to the “transmission of national defense information or classified material.” 

Trump has maintained he had declassified the documents found at the property before he left the White House, but it’s possible that proper protocols for doing so were not followed. 

Source: TEST FEED1

College men say they want to help prevent campus sexual assault, but don’t feel prepared to intervene

Most male college students want to do more to prevent sexual violence and harassment on their campuses, but a majority feel ill-equipped to do so, new research suggests, demonstrating a need for more innovative assault prevention trainings and interventions.

In a first-of-its kind report published Tuesday by the group It’s On Us, researchers explored how to best engage college men in meaningful discussions about campus sexual assault prevention and reduction through nearly two dozen in-depth interviews with male students across the country.

“Young men want to get involved, but they don’t feel prepared or empowered to intervene,” Tracey Vitchers, the executive director of It’s On Us, an Obama-era initiative designed to combat campus sexual assault, said Tuesday. But while motivation among college men is reportedly high, engagement in training programs intended to expand their assault prevention toolkit is low – a key hurdle to adequately addressing the issue.

America is changing faster than ever! Add Changing America to your Facebook or Twitter feed to stay on top of the news.

Most male students interviewed by It’s On Us said mandated training programs for college and university students are largely viewed as obligatory and part of their enrollment. Several reported spacing out during in-person trainings or while completing online modules, either because they felt they were “good guys” who didn’t need it, or because the trainings were cheesy and not engaging.

“I barely listened and still passed,” one Michigan State University student told It’s On Us. “I didn’t really care.”

Others said their apathy largely mirrored that of their college or university. Higher education institutions that receive federal funding are required under the Clery Act to administer on-campus training programs to prevent and reduce sexual assault and harassment, instances of which they are also required to report each year.

“I kind of get the impression that it’s contractual and really just obligatory,” one George Washington University student said of the prevention trainings offered at his college.

“They just recycle the same stuff,” another student attending Northwestern University told It’s On Us. “It’s online and you just half-ass it because you want to get it over with and it seems like it’s common sense to just not assault someone.”

Both in-person and online training that featured interesting or engaging speakers or that had an interactive component were rated more highly than traditional assault prevention programs, according to the report.

More personalized trainings, like single-gender rather than mixed-gender prevention programs, have seen greater success in improving rape awareness and empathy, as well as in reducing rape-supportive behaviors and acceptance of “rape myths,” or stereotyped beliefs about sexual assault, studies have shown.

College men also reported that having strong non-male friendships or role models have had a big impact on their awareness of campus sexual assault, as well as their willingness to become involved and intervene in situations of gender-based violence.

“Through the track team, I have a big group of sisters who I feel like I have a responsibility to,” one male student at the University of California, Berkeley said Tuesday. “If you’re only surrounded by other guys, then you have a different frame of empathy.”

Those without healthy non-male relationships – and even those with close non-male friends – were generally not aware of the extent of sexual violence on college campuses, according to the report, and often viewed it as a problem limited to Greek life that does not affect them or their school as a whole.

According to statistics from the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), one of the largest anti-sexual assault organizations in the U.S., male college-aged students are 78 percent more likely than non-students of the same age to be a victim of rape or sexual assault. Survey data collected by the Association of American Universities in 2015 found that roughly 20 percent of undergraduate women have experienced sexual assault or misconduct at some point while attending college.

Sexual violence toward transgender, genderqueer or gender non-conforming college or university students is disproportionately high, and more than 23 percent have reported being assaulted on campus, according to RAINN.

Source: TEST FEED1

Dodge discontinuing gas-powered muscle cars

American automobile company Dodge is discontinuing production of its widely popular gas-powered muscle cars. 

Dodge, which is Stellantis’s American performance car brand, on Monday announced both the Charger and Challenger models in their current forms will end with the 2023 model year, as the company follows suit with the rest of the automobile industry and makes large investments to produce electric vehicles. 

The Charger and Challenger models were iconic muscle cars in the 1960s and 1970s and were revived by Dodge in the early 2000s. Production of the muscle cars will end at the Bramptom Assembly Plant in Ontario, Canada in December of 2023. 

“We are celebrating the end of an era — and the start of a bright new electrified future — by staying true to our brand,” Tim Kuniskis, Dodge brand chief executive officer of Dodge parent company Stellantis, said in a statement.  

To give the models a proper send off, Dodge is releasing seven special “heritage-influenced” models for next year. The seventh and “final” 2023 Dodge model will be revealed at the 2022 SEMA Show in Las Vegas in November.

The move by Dodge comes as major automakers are moving away from traditional gas-powered cars to electric vehicles to curb harmful carbon dioxide emissions. Electric vehicles are steadily increasing their market share in the U.S., accounting for about 4 percent of all car sales in 2020 and growing to more than 5 percent in 2021. 

Source: TEST FEED1