News
Governor DeWine and Health Department Director Dr. Amy Acton failed to include Ohio prisons and jails in their COVID-19 harm reduction plan. Now, inmates, staff members, and their loved ones are paying the price.
Just last night, we learned that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainee at the Morrow County Jail had finally been tested for COVID-19. His results came back positive, days after he first began to show symptoms. This is a jail that had no free soap until very recently, and has continued to accept transfers from other counties and facilitate deportations, spreading the virus in Ohio and beyond.
Alek Nielsen has quietly been advocating for tenants’ rights around Central Ohio for two years – and he’s never witnessed such energy and enthusiasm for a local tenant union than now.
“Five different people from five different properties have reached out to us,” says the 28-year-old Nielsen, co-chair for the Columbus Tenants’ Union (CTU) – the only official tenant union in Central Ohio. “Two of these properties are run by big time slumlords we’ve wanted to organize against for some time.”
The Freep also heard from several groups of tenants, almost all 20-somethings, who live in half-doubles or smaller buildings. Whether some can pay rent or some cannot, they’ve banded together to tell their landlord they will need some sort of compromise.
Nielsen admits though, “it’s one thing to really want to form a tenant union, compared to forming one.”
Progressive friends who are used to gathering on the second Saturday for the Free Press salons met together through Zoom on April 11 from 7-9pm for a "Cyber-Salon." About 37 people were able to tune in to hear speakers, announcements and music. The idea was proposed by Free Press Board President Pete Johnson and our video production/technical support guru Trane DePriest hosted and produced the Zoom event, available here at the Free Press YouTube Network.
After the welcoming remarks and a bit of Free Press history, the first speaker was Torin Jacobs, reporting on his new initiative to give grocery gift cards to people in need now that there is COVID-19 and many of our neighbors and friends are out of work. The local Mutual Aid group will distrbute most of the $50 gift cards and the Free Press will be accepting nominations of people who need them - send an email to: colsfreepress@gmail.com to nominate someone, and put "Gift Card" in the subject line.
For Donald Trump’s GOP followers, the real issue in the 2020 election is democracy itself.
They want it abolished.
Their primary allies are the Coronavirus, state legislatures like those in Ohio and Wisconsin, and the US Supreme Court.
The campaign just hit a new level in Wisconsin. Using the Pandemic, its gerrymandered GOP legislature made voting in the April 7 primary as dangerous as possible. The US Supreme Court, with its usual 5-4 death hammer, has backed them up.
That 5-4 margin selected George W. Bush (Bush v. Gore) in 2000, and cemented the corporate purchase of our elections with Citizens United (2010), Arizona Clean Elections (2011), Shelby County (2013) and McCutcheon (2014).
There’s an array of signs directing you to a makeshift collection depo at the back of the parking lot. At some points during the previous week cars were lined up to hand over whatever Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) they could scrounge up.
This donation site at 610 Ackerman Road is for OSU Hospitals, a bulwark of the healthcare industry, many of its opulent towers not far from here.
The strongest have stumbled, and the littlest of things, a mask with a rubber-band for a strap, are desperately needed by our frontline healthcare workers.
Legend has it a 20-something Rod Serling had drafted future episodes of The Twilight Zone at a North Campus diner, perhaps the precursor to the ole Dube, why not Dick’s Den?
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Board of Obstetrics & Gynecology, together with the American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists, the American Gynecological & Obstetrical Society, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the Society for Academic Specialists in General Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Society of Family Planning, and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, released the following statement:
“As hospital systems, clinics, and communities prepare to meet anticipated increases in demand for the care of people with COVID-19, strategies to mitigate spread of the virus and to maximize health care resources are evolving. Some health systems, at the guidance of the CDC, are implementing plans to cancel elective and non-urgent procedures to expand hospitals’ capacity to provide critical care.
Around 12:15am on Sunday, March 22, a burglar decided to break into a much loved downtown Columbus restaurant, Indian Oven, 427 E. Main Street, Columbus, OH 43215.
The burglar drove to the restaurant and broke the glass door at the side of the restaurant, and proceeded to loot the store of its contents. The suspect took a cash register, bottles of liquor, and numerous additional items while the store was unoccupied. Below, you will see images of the break-in, including the face of the suspect himself. Police arrived at the location quickly and are searching for the suspect.
Other restaurant owners in the area should be aware. Those of us at Indian Oven realize that at this time of crisis, many criminally-minded individuals have taken note of the fact that there are far less people around to witness their crimes and are taking advantage of the opportunity. Yellow Brick Pizza nearby in Old Towne East had its door broken recently too.
The federal government, upon enactment of this Act, will work with all 50 states to ensure safe, fair, and transparent elections; and appropriate all federal funds necessary to the states for an expedited and effective implementation of a safe and easy voting process herein:
Section 1: On Friday, October 1, every registered voter in America will be mailed a paper ballot, as coordinated by the individual state and local election boards.
Section 2: Monday, October 12, every state will open geographically diverse certified voting centers throughout the state in order to ensure a safe, easy, and transparent election process.
Section 3: The addresses of the voting centers will be widely published on the internet and in local newspapers, magazines, and other print, television, radio and social media.
Section 4: The voting centers will be large, and located in safe, well-known, well-lit, easily accessible locations, with ample parking and certified handicapped access.
UFCW Local 1059, the union representing 18,000 grocery and food distribution workers throughout Ohio, is asking Governor Mike DeWine to designate their members as First Responders during the pandemic.
“We have sent a letter to Governor DeWine and want him to reclassify our UFCW members as First Responders,” says Randy Quickel, President of UFCW Local 1059, based in Columbus. “What that would do is give them the ability for free childcare and the ability, if indeed there are gloves and masks, give them gloves and masks. Right now, we don’t have a lot of that accessible.”
Gov. DeWine has said the state will open emergency childcare centers for “essential service” workers. But he hasn’t clarified whether this will include grocery store workers.
Minnesota and Vermont designated grocery store workers “emergency personnel” earlier this week, meaning they will receive free childcare.
Quickel also told the Free Press that Kroger, Meijer, other grocery stores, food processing plants, and food warehouses, should immediately increase wages during this time.