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      How the US vaccine effort derailed | First Thing

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      First ThingUS newsFirst Thing: How the US vaccine effort derailedWe shouldn’t be surprised by low vaccine rates, health researchers say. Plus the 21 biggest style tribes of 2021 Nicola SlawsonMon 27 Sep 2021 06.45 EDTLast modified on Mon 27 Sep 2021 07.37 EDTSince the first coronavirus vaccines were approved, the US bought enough to inoculate the entire population, and even potentially embark on a round of booster shots, but health professionals have found an essential element to a successful vaccination campaign has been lacking: trust.That low confidence has garnered the US an unenviable distinction – in mid-September it became the least vaccinated member of the world’s seven most populous and wealthy democracies, or G7, which includes Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.Now, a surge of the Delta Covid-19 variant has killed more than 2,000 Americans a day on average and has taken the US death toll past the symbolic milestone of 675,000 deaths: the estimated number of Americans who died in the 1918 influenza pandemic.The US’s flagging vaccine uptake has flummoxed national health authorities, but researchers say we shouldn’t be surprised.
      How many people are not getting vaccinated? Strategies to promote the vaccine have failed to encourage more than 900,000 Americans a day to get vaccinated in recent weeks.
      What is behind the low uptake? Researchers say it is the predictable outcome of a campaign subject to entrenched social forces that have diminished American health and life expectancy since the 1980s.
      Haiti deportations justified because of Covid, Biden’s homeland secretary saysThe US homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, on Sunday defended the Biden administration’s decision to send thousands of Haitians to a home country they fled because of natural disasters and political turmoil.Mayorkas told NBC’s Meet the Press the removals were justified because of the coronavirus pandemic, a point disputed by advocates and public health experts.“The Centers for Disease Control [and Prevention, or CDC] has a Title 42 authority that we exercise to protect the migrants themselves, to protect the local communities, our personnel and the American public,” Mayorkas said. “The pandemic is not behind us. Title 42 is a public health policy, not an immigration policy.”
      Since Donald Trump’s administration implemented Title 42 in March 2020, advocates and dozens of public health experts have called for its end.
      Under Title 42, people who attempt to cross the border are returned to Mexico or deported to their home countries without an opportunity to test asylum claims.
      In January, Joe Biden stopped the rule from applying to children. Despite that, at least 22 babies and children were deported to Haiti in February.
      Liz Cheney mocks Trump over bizarre insultThe Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney has responded to a bizarre insult from Donald Trump by tweeting a picture of George W Bush with the caption: “I like Republican presidents who win re-election.”Bush beat John Kerry for re-election in 2004. Cheney’s father, Dick Cheney, was vice-president to Bush.Liz Cheney’s tweet was a response to an image released by Trump on Thursday. Under the heading “ICYMI: Must-See Photo”, a Trump-affiliated political action committee sent out a Photoshopped image that spliced Cheney Sr and George W Bush.Trump displayed the image at a rally in Georgia on Saturday but he could not tweet it himself because he remains barred from the platform for inciting the deadly assault on the US Capitol on 6 January.
      Why did Trump use the image? Cheney voted to impeach Trump over his role in the 6 January riot at the US Capitol. She was one of only 10 House Republicans to do so.
      Why is he attacking her now? Cheney is up for re-election and the former president wants to unseat her with a candidate who supports him.
      Five Palestinians shot dead in gun battles with Israeli troops in West BankFive Palestinians have been killed after gun battles erupted when Israeli troops conducted a series of raids against suspected Hamas militants across the occupied West Bank.The fighting on Sunday was the deadliest violence between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants in the West Bank in several weeks. Two Israeli soldiers were seriously wounded.There has been increased fighting in the region in recent months, with tensions fueled by Israeli settlement construction, heightened militant activity in the northern West Bank and the aftermath of a war between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip in May.The Israeli military said it had been tracking the Hamas militants for several weeks and the raids were launched in response to immediate threats.
      Why were there raids? Israel’s prime minister, Naftali Bennett, said the militants were preparing to carry out attacks “in real time”.
      What has the the Palestinian Authority said? It condemned the killings and said the Israeli government was “fully and directly responsible for this bloody morning”.
      Were those killed militants? Hamas confirmed four of the dead, including three killed in Biddu, were members of the Islamic militant group.
      In other news …
      The Alaska department of fish and game has alerted residents to a pack of otters that have attacked dogs, children and adults near creeks, rivers and lakes in Anchorage. Authorities said the otters would be tested for rabies, which could explain their aggression.
      China will reduce the number of abortions performed for “non-medical purposes”, the country’s cabinet has said, in the latest apparent attempt to reverse its declining birthrate, which fell from 1.6 live births per woman in 2016 to 1.3 in 2020.
      Vital UN climate talks, billed as one of the last chances to stave off climate breakdown, will not produce the breakthrough needed to fulfill the aspiration of the Paris agreement, key players in the talks have conceded.
      Staff attrition, high demand for appointments and enraged human clients are straining vet practices across the US. The array of overlapping circumstances has created a cascade of problems powerful enough to threaten the entire delicate ecosystem of veterinary care.
      Stat of the day: Male life expectancy declines in US by 2.2 years because of CovidData from most of 29 countries analysed by scientists – spanning most of Europe, the US and Chile – recorded reductions in life expectancy last year and at a scale that wiped out years of progress. The biggest declines in life expectancy were among males in the US, with a decline of 2.2 years relative to 2019 levels, followed by Lithuanian males (1.7 years). Dr José Manuel Aburto, a co-lead author of the study, said the scale of the life expectancy losses was stark across most of those countries studied, with 22 of them experiencing larger losses than half a year in 2020.Don’t miss this: My father was brutally killed by the Taliban. The US ignored his pleas for helpIn 1992, Muska Najibullah’s father, a former Afghan president, appealed to the US to help Afghanistan become a bulwark against the spread of Islamic fundamentalism. He said: “If fundamentalism comes to Afghanistan, war will continue for many more years. Afghanistan will turn into a centre of world smuggling for narcotic drugs. Afghanistan will be turned into a centre for terrorism.” His warnings were ignored. This is the first time Muska has shared her personal story and she says she is doing so because what is happening to her country now is distressingly similar to what happened then.Children likely to experience more climate disasters than their grandparents, research showsPeople born today will experience many times more extreme heatwaves and other climate disasters over their lifetimes than their grandparents, research has shown. The study is the first to assess the contrasting experience of climate extremes by different age groups and starkly highlights the intergenerational injustice posed by the climate crisis. The analysis shows a child born in 2020 will endure an average of 30 extreme heatwaves in their lifetime, even if countries fulfill their current pledges to cut future carbon emissions. That is seven times more heatwaves than someone born in 1960.Want more environmental stories delivered to your inbox? Sign up to our Green Light newsletter to get the good, bad and essential news on the climate every weekLast thing: the 21 biggest style tribes of 2021 and what they say about the worldOnce upon a time, fashion subcultures were simple: you could see skaters, ravers and goths all milling around shopping malls. But now the style tribes have moved online, and are more likely to be dressing up for TikTok and Instagram than the shops. There has also been a bigger change: a splintering and multiplying, with fantasy and dress-up coming to the fore. It used to be easy to recognise a punk, for example, but now there are forestpunks, icepunks and even lunarpunks. If all this has your head spinning, let us cut through the confusion.Sign upSign up for the US morning briefingFirst Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you’re not already signed up, subscribe now.Get in touchIf you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@theguardian.comTopicsUS newsFirst ThingUS healthcareUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Why corporate social responsibility is BS | Robert Reich

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      OpinionBiden administrationWhy corporate social responsibility is BSRobert ReichWhile big corporations tell Americans how virtuous they are, they lobby up a storm against Biden’s social policy bill Sun 26 Sep 2021 01.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 27 Sep 2021 09.46 EDTIn recent years, “corporate social responsibility” has been viewed by some as the answer to the multiple failings of capitalism. Chief executives have responded to all sorts of problems – worsening climate change, widening inequality, soaring healthcare costs and so on – by promising their corporations will lead the way to solutions because they’re committed to being “socially responsible”.House Democrats are scared to tax billionaires – that’s a costly mistake | Robert ReichRead moreNinety-eight percent of this is rubbish. CEOs won’t do anything that hurts their bottom lines. They’re in the business of making as much money as possible, not solving social problems.In fact, real social change would prevent them from doing many of the hugely profitable things they now do. Which means they won’t change their ways unless they’re required by law to change (and even then, only when the penalty times the probability of getting caught is higher than the profits from continuing anyway). Their soothing promises of social responsibility are intended to forestall such laws.I’ve seen this repeatedly. When I was secretary of labor, big corporations would violate laws on worker safety, wages and hours and pensions, whenever doing so was cheaper than obeying the laws. And they’d fight like hell against such laws to begin with – all the while telling the public what wonderful citizens they were.You may recall that in August 2019, the Business Roundtable – one of Washington’s most prestigious corporate groups, on whose board sit the CEOs of Apple, Walmart and JPMorgan – issued a widely publicized statement expressing “a fundamental commitment” to the wellbeing of “all of our stakeholders” (emphasis in the original), including their employees, communities and the environment.The statement was widely hailed as marking a new era of corporate social responsibility.Since then, the Roundtable and its members have issued a continuous stream of jejune statements about their dedication to such things as providing childcare, pre-K and affordable healthcare, promoting community college and workforce training, alleviating poverty and reversing climate change.It turns out these are exactly the priorities in Joe Biden’s $3.5tn reconciliation bill. But guess what? The Business Roundtable isn’t lobbying for the bill. It’s lobbying intensely against it.Jessica Boulanger, a spokeswoman, told the Washington Post the Roundtable is engaged in “a significant, multifaceted campaign” to stop tax increases that would finance the bill, and will “continue to ramp up our efforts in the coming weeks”. The group is launching a seven-figure digital advertising campaign to oppose the bill.Hypocrisy? Only if you believed the Roundtable BS about corporate social responsibility. If you know the truth – that corporations will do whatever they can to maximize their profits and share values, social responsibility be damned – there’s nothing surprising here.Why didn’t business groups fight the president’s infrastructure bill? Because government spending on infrastructure helps their bottom lines by lowering their costs of procuring supplies and getting goods to market. Social responsibility had nothing to do with it.It’s tempting to chalk all this up to “corporate greed”. But that makes sense only if you think corporations are capable of emotions, such as greed. They’re not. Corporations aren’t people, no matter what the supreme court says. They’re bundles of contracts.The specific people who enter those contracts (on behalf of big corporations as well as thousands of people who run vast investment funds on behalf of millions of shareholders) are neither greedy nor socially responsible. They’re merely doing what they understand to be their jobs. Greed and social responsibility have been laundered out of these transactions.If we want these transactions to change – to align better with public needs rather than private profits – laws must change. For example, taxes on big corporations must rise in order to fund public investments and safety nets.But such laws won’t change if corporations continue to spend vast sums on politics. Corporate spokespeople like Boulanger of the Business Roundtable – along with platoons of corporate lobbyists and influence peddlers, corporate lawyers and hired-gun economists, corporate political operatives and PR flaks – together form in effect a fourth branch of government, wielding huge and increasing power. About one out of every four people now working in downtown Washington fills one of these roles.US’s wealthiest 1% are failing to pay $160bn a year in taxes, report findsRead moreThe result is clear. The most telling trends over the last three decades have been the growing share of the economy going into corporate profits – generating ever-greater compensation packages for top executives and ever-higher payouts for big investors (all of whom live off shares of stock) – and the declining share going to most Americans as wages and salaries.The meaningless blather over “corporate social responsibility” is intended to mask these trends. Biden’s $3.5tn plan is aimed at reversing them.But big business is doing everything in its power to sabotage Biden’s plan. The only way to stop this sabotage is to ignore all mention of corporate social responsibility and make one hell of a ruckus in support of Biden’s plan, as well as laws to reduce the power of big money in politics.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
      TopicsBiden administrationOpinionUS domestic policyUS politicsUS political financingUS taxationcommentReuse this content More