Wednesday, May 27, 2020
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Click here to read their biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
The Indian Health Service acknowledged on Wednesday that 1 million respirator masks it purchased from a former Trump White House official do not meet Food and Drug Administration standards for “use in healthcare settings by health care providers.”
The IHS statement calls into question why the agency purchased expensive medical gear that it now cannot use as intended. The masks were purchased as part of a frantic agency push to supply Navajo hospitals with desperately needed protective equipment in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
ProPublica revealed last week that Zach Fuentes, President Donald Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, formed a company in early April and 11 days later won a $3 million contract with IHS to provide specialized respirator masks to the agency for use in Navajo hospitals. The contract was granted with limited competitive bidding.
The Indian Health Service acknowledged on Wednesday that 1 million respirator masks it purchased from a former Trump White House official do not meet Food and Drug Administration standards for “use in healthcare settings by health care providers.”
The IHS statement calls into question why the agency purchased expensive medical gear that it now cannot use as intended. The masks were purchased as part of a frantic agency push to supply Navajo hospitals with desperately needed protective equipment in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
ProPublica revealed last week that Zach Fuentes, President Donald Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, formed a company in early April and 11 days later won a $3 million contract with IHS to provide specialized respirator masks to the agency for use in Navajo hospitals. The contract was granted with limited competitive bidding.
Monday, May 18, 2020
TEMPE – As if fighting fires wasn’t dangerous enough, firefighters now have to worry about COVID-19 while they’re on the job, making for what fire officials say will be the “most challenging season we’re going to have.”
Strategies to check the spread of the disease include everything from avoiding eating together in large mess halls to splitting the regular 10-person fire crew into two teams of five. But officials said they still expect challenges in a job that relies on constant face-to-face communication.
All of which comes in a year in which conditions are ripe for intense wildfires in the state.
“This is going to be one of the most challenging seasons we’re going to have, with the added complexity of trying to deal with the COVID-19 protocols from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention),” State Fire Management Officer John Truett said during a recent briefing.
Jayson Coil, Wildland Committee Chair for the Arizona Fire Chiefs, said new precautions include avoiding eating at mess halls and installing refrigerators so firefighters can grab a meal while maintaining distance.
He said personnel will be encouraged to stay away from firefighters before a blaze, to ensure the strength of the workforce, and to maintain distances as best they can when in the field. In some cases, he said, it is possible to alter actions during firefighting to maintain social distancing, but that it all depends on time and resources available.
“It’s argued … that we can minimize the time of exposure and the proximity to other people that may potentially be COVID-19 positive, then we reduce likelihood of spreading,” Coil said.
Strategies to check the spread of the disease include everything from avoiding eating together in large mess halls to splitting the regular 10-person fire crew into two teams of five. But officials said they still expect challenges in a job that relies on constant face-to-face communication.
All of which comes in a year in which conditions are ripe for intense wildfires in the state.
“This is going to be one of the most challenging seasons we’re going to have, with the added complexity of trying to deal with the COVID-19 protocols from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention),” State Fire Management Officer John Truett said during a recent briefing.
Jayson Coil, Wildland Committee Chair for the Arizona Fire Chiefs, said new precautions include avoiding eating at mess halls and installing refrigerators so firefighters can grab a meal while maintaining distance.
He said personnel will be encouraged to stay away from firefighters before a blaze, to ensure the strength of the workforce, and to maintain distances as best they can when in the field. In some cases, he said, it is possible to alter actions during firefighting to maintain social distancing, but that it all depends on time and resources available.
“It’s argued … that we can minimize the time of exposure and the proximity to other people that may potentially be COVID-19 positive, then we reduce likelihood of spreading,” Coil said.
PHOENIX – If there’s any doubt that wildfire poses a high risk to property in Arizona, the U.S. Forest Service would like to paint a different picture – in blazing reds and flaming yellows.
Those colors blanket the state in a tool the service released last month that attempts to show wildfire risk to communities across the nation, using wildfire data from recent years to project the risk to homes, exposure types, vulnerable population statistics and wildfire likelihood.
The Forest Service said the interactive website “provides a starting point for community leaders and fire experts when assessing and taking steps to reduce risk to homes, businesses and community resources.”
In Arizona, the map shows not just a high likelihood of wildfire across the state, but a high risk of wildfire damage to many Arizona homes and communities.
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Click here to read their biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
He joined Walgreens around a decade ago, fresh out of pharmacy school and eager to learn. Like many new grads, he started as a floater — a substitute for employees who call out sick or take vacation — and he was floated as far as he was willing to go. Sometimes he would drive hours east of the Dallas area, where he lived, to pick up shifts in rural Texas, sleeping in hotels for days at a time.
The pharmacist, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, eventually worked his way up to become a full-time manager at a store in Dallas. But recently he’s returned to floating, this time at CVS, preferring its flexible hours. In the past three months, he’s traveled between 10 stores.
As the pandemic rages on, though, he wonders if he’s made a terrible mistake. When he shows up at a store, he said, he’s not told whether any employees have shown symptoms or tested positive, so he doesn’t know if he’s at risk. On two occasions, the Dallas floater said, he only heard from colleagues after he started his shift that they had just been working alongside someone who was self-isolating with COVID-19 symptoms. Because his temporary co-workers had not shown symptoms, they were not advised to quarantine.
"There’s no heads-up," he said. "It’s terrifying to learn about it after you show up, if at all." Even more terrifying, he added, is the possibility that he and other floaters are catching the virus and unwittingly spreading it to other stores.
He joined Walgreens around a decade ago, fresh out of pharmacy school and eager to learn. Like many new grads, he started as a floater — a substitute for employees who call out sick or take vacation — and he was floated as far as he was willing to go. Sometimes he would drive hours east of the Dallas area, where he lived, to pick up shifts in rural Texas, sleeping in hotels for days at a time.
The pharmacist, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, eventually worked his way up to become a full-time manager at a store in Dallas. But recently he’s returned to floating, this time at CVS, preferring its flexible hours. In the past three months, he’s traveled between 10 stores.
As the pandemic rages on, though, he wonders if he’s made a terrible mistake. When he shows up at a store, he said, he’s not told whether any employees have shown symptoms or tested positive, so he doesn’t know if he’s at risk. On two occasions, the Dallas floater said, he only heard from colleagues after he started his shift that they had just been working alongside someone who was self-isolating with COVID-19 symptoms. Because his temporary co-workers had not shown symptoms, they were not advised to quarantine.
"There’s no heads-up," he said. "It’s terrifying to learn about it after you show up, if at all." Even more terrifying, he added, is the possibility that he and other floaters are catching the virus and unwittingly spreading it to other stores.
Monday, May 11, 2020
Homeland Security Investigations, a division of ICE, describes human trafficking as a “top investigative priority.” But its handling of recent sex-trafficking investigations in Arizona and beyond has raised questions about the agency’s undercover techniques.
CHAPTER 1
‘Investigative techniques’
By Mackenzie Shuman, Molly Duerig, Grace Oldham, Rachel Gold and Meagan Sainz-Pasley
Howard Center for Investigative Journalism
The women were forced to live and work in filth and near darkness, the federal agent said, surviving on only the tips they received from performing massages and sexual favors.
Lon Weigand, the deputy special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Arizona, described them as “Asian females” who may be sex-trafficking victims. He praised the joint operation between federal agents and local police in western Arizona that led to their rescue and credited the “investigative techniques” that helped crack a “transnational criminal organization.”
Weigand assured those at a press conference called to announce the investigation’s successful conclusion that HSI had followed a “victim-based approach.” While he wouldn’t reveal anything more about the women, he added, “Know that they are now safe and being cared for.”
What Weigand didn’t say at that September 2018 press conference – although HSI documents show that some supervisors knew – was that federal undercover agents repeatedly paid for and engaged in sexual acts with the suspected victims as part of their investigation.
CHAPTER 1
‘Investigative techniques’
By Mackenzie Shuman, Molly Duerig, Grace Oldham, Rachel Gold and Meagan Sainz-Pasley
Howard Center for Investigative Journalism
The women were forced to live and work in filth and near darkness, the federal agent said, surviving on only the tips they received from performing massages and sexual favors.
Lon Weigand, the deputy special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Arizona, described them as “Asian females” who may be sex-trafficking victims. He praised the joint operation between federal agents and local police in western Arizona that led to their rescue and credited the “investigative techniques” that helped crack a “transnational criminal organization.”
Weigand assured those at a press conference called to announce the investigation’s successful conclusion that HSI had followed a “victim-based approach.” While he wouldn’t reveal anything more about the women, he added, “Know that they are now safe and being cared for.”
What Weigand didn’t say at that September 2018 press conference – although HSI documents show that some supervisors knew – was that federal undercover agents repeatedly paid for and engaged in sexual acts with the suspected victims as part of their investigation.
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Click here to read their biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
On Tuesday, March 31, an emergency room doctor at the main hospital in Grand Island, Nebraska, sent an urgent email to the regional health department: “Numerous patients” from the JBS beef packing plant had tested positive for COVID-19. The plant, he feared, was becoming a coronavirus “hot spot.”
The town’s medical clinics were also reporting a rapid increase in cases among JBS workers. The next day, Dr. Rebecca Steinke, a family medicine doctor at one of the clinics, wrote to the department’s director: “Our message is really that JBS should shut down for 2 weeks and have a solid screening plan before re-opening.”
Teresa Anderson, the regional health director, immediately drafted a letter to the governor.
But during a conference call that Sunday, Gov. Pete Ricketts made it clear that the plant, which produces nearly 1 billion pounds of beef a year and is the town’s largest employer, would not be shut down.
On Tuesday, March 31, an emergency room doctor at the main hospital in Grand Island, Nebraska, sent an urgent email to the regional health department: “Numerous patients” from the JBS beef packing plant had tested positive for COVID-19. The plant, he feared, was becoming a coronavirus “hot spot.”
The town’s medical clinics were also reporting a rapid increase in cases among JBS workers. The next day, Dr. Rebecca Steinke, a family medicine doctor at one of the clinics, wrote to the department’s director: “Our message is really that JBS should shut down for 2 weeks and have a solid screening plan before re-opening.”
Teresa Anderson, the regional health director, immediately drafted a letter to the governor.
But during a conference call that Sunday, Gov. Pete Ricketts made it clear that the plant, which produces nearly 1 billion pounds of beef a year and is the town’s largest employer, would not be shut down.
Monday, April 27, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the county's ongoing efforts to reduce the Pima County jail population.
The average daily population was 1,428 as of last week. Before the pandemic, the jail had an ADP of around 1,900, according to April 25 memo from Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry to the Board of Supervisors.
Huckelberry said there has been a "rapid decline" in daily bookings since around March 11, and he hopes that future bookings will be only for those who are an "actual danger to our community." A coalition of criminal justice agencies in the county have worked to reduce the number people in jail for nonviolent, low level drug offenses for years, with slower progress.
The decline in new bookings, coupled with recent efforts from the Pima County Public Defender's Office to secure the releases of people who were accused of nonviolent crimes and simply couldn't pay their bail, have resulted in a lower jail population, which is crucial in preventing the spread of COVID-19.
"It is ironic that all of our previous actions and activities associated with attempting to reduce our detention populations have been difficult," Huckelberry wrote in his memo. "However, the COVID-19 pandemic has succeeded in what previously has been difficult to accomplish."
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
PHOENIX – Immigration experts and advocates aren’t sure how to assess President Donald Trump’s Monday evening tweet announcing his intention to temporarily suspend immigration, but they reject the idea that immigrants will compete with thousands of Americans thrown out of work because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and they suggest his administration concentrate on making more testing available across the country.
“In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!” the president’s tweet said.
Since the tweet, however, the White House has released few additional details regarding the order, leading to speculation about possible other motives.
President Trump’s announcement seems to mirror widespread fears about what the job market will look like when the stay-at-home orders in most states begin to lift. The U.S. Department of Labor has calculated that at least 22 million people have lost their jobs within the past month.
In a statement, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said, “As President Trump has said, ‘Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens, especially for African-American and Latino workers.’ At a time when Americans are looking to get back to work, action is necessary.”
“In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!” the president’s tweet said.
Since the tweet, however, the White House has released few additional details regarding the order, leading to speculation about possible other motives.
President Trump’s announcement seems to mirror widespread fears about what the job market will look like when the stay-at-home orders in most states begin to lift. The U.S. Department of Labor has calculated that at least 22 million people have lost their jobs within the past month.
In a statement, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said, “As President Trump has said, ‘Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens, especially for African-American and Latino workers.’ At a time when Americans are looking to get back to work, action is necessary.”
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Click here to read their biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
When undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as minors applied for deportation protections and work permits, the forms included a promise: The information would not be shared with immigration enforcement agents.
The pledge was first made by the Obama administration, when it created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, eight years ago. It continued under President Donald Trump. Even after Trump announced that he was ending DACA, his administration assured immigrants that the information on their applications generally wouldn’t be sent to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
But internal administration emails obtained under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Make the Road New York, and shared with ProPublica, show that those assurances — given to Congress under oath and in lawsuits over the program — were incomplete or misleading.
The Trump administration left out the fact that immigration enforcement agencies already had access to databases containing detailed information, such as home addresses, about DACA recipients and millions of other immigrants.
When undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as minors applied for deportation protections and work permits, the forms included a promise: The information would not be shared with immigration enforcement agents.
The pledge was first made by the Obama administration, when it created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, eight years ago. It continued under President Donald Trump. Even after Trump announced that he was ending DACA, his administration assured immigrants that the information on their applications generally wouldn’t be sent to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
But internal administration emails obtained under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Make the Road New York, and shared with ProPublica, show that those assurances — given to Congress under oath and in lawsuits over the program — were incomplete or misleading.
The Trump administration left out the fact that immigration enforcement agencies already had access to databases containing detailed information, such as home addresses, about DACA recipients and millions of other immigrants.
Thursday, April 16, 2020
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Click here to read their biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
The U.S. Postal Service appears to be continuing its checkered response to the coronavirus. Workers across the country say they’re not being informed when colleagues have tested positive for COVID-19, despite a Postal Service policy to do so.
At the end of March, after workers complained, the Postal Service told its employees they would be notified if someone “in your workplace is confirmed to have COVID-19.”
But workers at 11 locations told ProPublica they found out about cases through colleagues or were only told by management days after word had already gotten out.
“People are scared because management has stopped communicating,” said David Denton, a mail handler at a Long Island processing plant. “We have a right to know from management exactly how many cases are confirmed in the building.” Denton said he’s heard of several positive cases at his location, but employees haven’t been told anything by management.
The U.S. Postal Service appears to be continuing its checkered response to the coronavirus. Workers across the country say they’re not being informed when colleagues have tested positive for COVID-19, despite a Postal Service policy to do so.
At the end of March, after workers complained, the Postal Service told its employees they would be notified if someone “in your workplace is confirmed to have COVID-19.”
But workers at 11 locations told ProPublica they found out about cases through colleagues or were only told by management days after word had already gotten out.
“People are scared because management has stopped communicating,” said David Denton, a mail handler at a Long Island processing plant. “We have a right to know from management exactly how many cases are confirmed in the building.” Denton said he’s heard of several positive cases at his location, but employees haven’t been told anything by management.
