The United Auto Workers (UAW) union on Friday said members voted overwhelmingly in favor of authorizing a strike at the Detroit Three automakers if agreement is not reached before the current four-year contract expires on Sept. 14.
The authorization was approved by 97% of voting members at General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, said UAW President Shawn Fain, who leads the union that represents about 150,000 workers.
Fain reiterated that the union did not plan to extend the deadline to get a new labor contract. "The deadline is Sept. 14. We have a lot of options that we are looking at but extension on the contract is not one of them."
Separately, President Joe Biden, who met with Fain last month, told reporters in Nevada he is concerned about a potential UAW strike.
"I think that there should be a circumstance where jobs that are being displaced are replaced with new jobs" for UAW members "and the salaries should be commensurate."
Some senators want national UAW agreements to cover jobs at battery joint ventures that currently pay less.
Fain said workers had made numerous concessions over the last two decades including giving up wage hikes, defined benefit pensions and post-retirement health care benefits.
"We're fed up," Fain said, listing a series of demands. "We've sat back for decades while these companies continue to just take and take and take from us."
Fain has outlined an ambitious set of demands, including wage hikes of 46%, an end to the tiered wage system that pays new hires less than veterans, reinstating cost-of-living adjustments and restoring defined-benefit pension plans for new hires that the automakers ended in 2007. At Stellantis, just 30% of hourly U.S. workers are eligible for defined benefit pensions.
Fain said he expected the Detroit Three to come to the bargaining table next week with counter proposals to the UAW demands. He said talks were "still going slow" after opening in July. Analysts estimate a more than 50% chance of a strike.
It was not clear how long it would take a strike to significantly reduce Detroit Three inventories. Through July, Stellantis U.S. Ram, Jeep, Chrysler and Dodge each had more than 100 days’ inventory but many specific popular models have less.
The vote does not guarantee a strike will be called, only that the union has the right to call a strike if there's no agreement by Sept. 14.
GM, Ford and Stellantis have said they want to reach a deal that is fair to workers but also gives the companies flexibility, as the industry shifts to electric models that have fewer parts and require less labor.
Ford shares were up 1%, while General Motors were unchanged in afternoon trade.
The disastrous consequences of the Republican-backed Bipartisan Safer Communities Act keep adding up.
The law, passed last year through a compromise between Democrat Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas, encouraged the Biden administration to pass universal background checks via executive order and more.
Now, the latest gun control comes in the form of funding cuts for school hunting and archery training programs, just in time for the new school year.
The Department of Education cut off this funding due to the agency’s interpretation of a provision in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that bans taxpayer funds from being used towards “training in the use of a dangerous weapon.” The Department of Education seems to think that Hunting and Archery meet that qualification.
Ironically, Senator Cornyn wrote to the Department of Education this month expressing concern over the interpretation of this provision.
While the Republicans who helped introduce and pass this legislation remained confused about the outcome, Gun Owners of America has been diligently warning members of Congress about the consequences of passing new gun control.
When Congress passes ambiguous laws, it allows anti-gun administrations such as the Biden administration to step in and interpret as they please.
According to the International Hunter Education Association, Hunter Education courses certify over half a million students annually. Their website details that hunting-related injuries have decreased drastically because of this education.
It’s obvious that the Biden Administration has a vested interest in cutting these programs from schools. Any program that could create responsible, law-abiding gun owners goes against their anti-gun agenda.
This is why Gun Owners of America is working diligently in Congress to introduce legislation that repeals exactly these type of anti-gun laws.
We worked with Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado to introduce the Shall Not Be Infringed Act. This act specifically repeals the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, as well as other gun control measures passed by the 117th Congress.
Just recently, we secured a major victory for veterans, stopping the VA from disarming veterans simply because they use a fiduciary to manage their finances, overturning a Clinton-era rule.
And that’s just the start. We’re fighting every day for your rights on Capitol Hill and throughout the courts nationwide.
Nursing schools are trying to keep pace with the continued popularity of the nurse practitioner (NP) specialty despite faculty and clinical site shortages. A fresh influx of government funding aims to help schools overcome those barriers, offering incentives to nursing students to pursue advanced practice and nurse educator roles while easing the nursing pipeline bottleneck.
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced awards of more than $100 million to expand the nursing workforce. More than half of the funds will help train advanced practice nurses.
The federal funding announcement comes after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the nurse practitioner occupation continues to be the fastest-growing occupation in the US. It is expected to increase by 46% by 2031 with 112,000 additional positions.
Nearly $35 million will bolster the Advanced Nursing Education Workforce (ANEW) Program, which will help 56 nursing programs develop clinical partnerships for advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) specializing in primary care, mental health, substance abuse disorders, and maternal health.
An additional $30 million will support residency and fellowship training programs for advanced practice nurses in primary care. To offset a shortage of nursing school educators, $26.5 million will fund the Nurse Faculty Loan Program, which helps 88 nursing programs provide low-interest loans to those pursuing faculty positions. In some cases, loan cancellations of up to 85% will be offered.
Nursing programs have some flexibility to increase enrollment to meet the demand, said Joan Stanley, NP, FAAN, FAANP, chief academic officer for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN).
Last year, master's level NP programs had close to 11,000 unfilled admissions slots, she said. Despite the open spots, nursing schools turned away 10,000 qualified applicants from master's and doctoral nursing programs ― including nearly 2500 NP program applicants ― because of the shortage of faculty and clinical space, AACN reported.
Stanley said government funding may help schools that are already at or near capacity to move beyond the budget and faculty constraints and expand their admissions.
For example, nursing schools at the University of Tennessee and Michigan's Grand Valley State University received ANEW grants this year and will use the money to expand academic and clinical partnerships to train APRN students who plan to work with rural and underserved communities. Between the two schools, among almost five dozen HHS funding recipients, this round of funding will help nearly 60 Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) students.
In 2019, Grand Valley State used HHS grants to train 20 DNP students who eventually worked in rural and underserved communities.
Nine Maryland nursing programs, including Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore, will use state grants to help launch a PhD in nursing education program, develop clinical opportunities for NP students, and build an existing nurse educator certificate program.
Despite ongoing debates between doctors and advanced practice providers over scope creep, NPs in primary care help offset physician shortages and care for an aging population, particularly in rural areas. NPs represent 1 in 4 primary care providers in rural practices, according to the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. Stanley predicts that the demand for NPs in rural areas will continue to grow.
NPs perform some duties that are similar to those of physicians, but for less money ― a draw for health systems trying to reduce costs and provide affordable care, according to Deb Nevins, chief strategy officer for POCN, a networking organization for NPs and physician assistants.
NPs can prescribe independently in 27 states and the District of Columbia. Many NPs manage their own patient panels without physician supervision, Nevins said, adding that she expects more states will pursue broader scopes of practice for APRNs.
On a federal level, the Improving Care and Access to Nurses Act, currently in the US Senate, could remove even more APRN practice barriers. If passed, the bill could drive greater demand for NPs with schools again seeking ways to expand enrollment.
The FDA is urging the public to avoid buying or using two different kinds of eye drops because of possible bacterial or fungal contamination.
The warning is for "Dr. Berne's MSM Drops 5% Solution" and "LightEyez MSM Eye Drops–Eye Repair." Possible infections could threaten vision and life. The FDA says it does not know of anyone who has reported a problem because of using the products.
The FDA's testing of the two products found that they were contaminated with microbes and were not sterile, as federal law requires. Both products contain contain methylsulfonylmethane (MSM) as an active ingredient, which is not approved in eye drop products, the agency said.
"Using contaminated eye drops could result in minor to serious vision-threatening infection which could possibly progress to a life-threatening infection," the FDA said.
It advises anyone with signs or symptoms of an eye infection to seek medical care immediately.
If you have these products, the FDA urges you to dispose of them right away.
Earlier this year, the FDA warned against other eye drop brands linked to an outbreak of drug-resistant bacteria, CBS News reported. "The outbreak is linked to at least four deaths across 18 states and dozens of infections," CBS said.
About 103 million Americans had COVID-19, and about a third of those led to long COVID, Stat News reported. The condition ranges in severity and can be debilitating.
The new study looked at just 29 patients. "But it offers unique insights into how many cases of long Covid may go unidentified because the patient's Covid-19 infection wasn't detected," Stat News wrote.
"We estimated that there were approximately 10 million people in the first year of the pandemic in the U.S. who are in this predicament: who got Covid, got long Covid, but tested negative for Covid," said Igor Koralnik, who led the study and is the chief of the division of neuroinfectious diseases and global neurology at Northwestern Medicine.
The study means that a positive diagnosis for COVID-19 shouldn't be required to get treatment for people who have symptoms of long COVID, said Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, who was not involved with the study.
Some people live in areas where testing isn't widely available or have other issues accessing testing, he said.
"Restricting access to care [for] long Covid to people who had established disease will disenfranchise and really marginalize people who are actually likely the most vulnerable among us," said Al-Aly.
These so-called "negative long-haulers" should be included in trials and studies on long COVID, Koralnik said. They currently are not.
Sources
Neurology, Neuroimmunology & Neuroinflammation: "SARS-CoV-2–Specific Immune Responses in Patients With Postviral Syndrome After Suspected COVID-19."
Stat News: "New study suggests people who tested negative for Covid-19 can still develop long Covid."
A section of Dr. Colleen Huber’s introduction to her very important book, “Neither Safe Nor Effective 2nd Edition: The Evidence Against the COVID Vaccines,” is worth quoting before looking at the book as a whole:
“Dr. Peter McCullough, an American cardiologist, called the COVID vaccines, ‘the worst pharmaceutical development idea in the history of mankind.’”
“It often comes as a surprise to people that mRNA-type medical interventions and coronavirus vaccines had plenty of red flags through their history prior to December 2020. The ingredients used were already known to be toxic: Cationic lipids injure the nervous system, lungs and liver, as well as cell membranes throughout the body. Polyethylene glycol was never used for injections, due to safety concerns. mRNA had already been shown to change DNA. Previous attempts at coronavirus vaccines had all failed and killed the test animals. So inflicting the world’s population with a new, mostly untested vaccine for which its components already had so many safety warnings was the most widespread reckless experiment in human history.”
Dr. Huber exposes the deaths, injuries, and the lack of desired results left in the wake of the COVID vaccines. She backs up her words with over 700 references to medical studies and government webpages.
A Little Background
Dr. Colleen Huber’s clinic in Tempe, Arizona, has provided cancer care by naturopathic physicians for its 16 years of existence. In 2014, Dr. Huber authored the largest and longest study in medical history on sugar intake in cancer patients.
Since the spring of 2020, Dr. Huber’s research interests have focused on the health hazards of masks and the COVID vaccines, as well as early treatments for COVID. As a medical expert in court cases related to vaccine safety concerns, she has, to prepare testimony for trials, compiled vital statistics, data from vaccine manufacturers, and other data from the United States and governments from around the world.
While parts of Dr. Huber’s book are quite technical and others unpleasant (to say the least), without access to a book with data such as this, the health of those receiving vaccines could be further jeopardized and lives lost. The documentation is complete and comprehensive, supporting Dr. Huber’s intention to expose the truth about the COVID vaccinations.
Dr. Huber discusses how the naïve public was required to allow Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson to inject substances on pure faith—without any scientific results backing up the company’s products.
Each of the manufacturers were inadequately scrutinized by the public prior to widespread use of the vaccines. Yet there was reason to thoroughly examine these companies. Pfizer had the distinction of paying the largest criminal fine in history for fraud, and Moderna had never produced anything before, much less a medical treatment. Johnson and Johnson had recently been convicted of asbestos contamination in its talcum powder. Thus, the three main manufacturers of the COVID vaccines each had a history that should have alarmed people.
There was also an assumption by the public that the vaccines would be better than the disease. Perhaps, in part, this assumption was due to a heavily financed and carefully choreographed COVID fear campaign.
Dr. Huber says that an emergency experimental vaccine cannot be assumed to be safer than a virus with a very high survival rate such as COVID.
Vaccine Side Effects
Dr. Huber documents the effects of COVID vaccinations. For example, the vaccine may cause blood clotting which can cause strokes, heart attacks, and pulmonary embolisms.
The vaccine turns the body into a spike-protein factory. These spike proteins then damage blood vessels and cells throughout the body, including cells in the heart.
Uveitis, an eye inflammation, is a common complaint within a few days following a COVID vaccination. This manifests as blurred vision, floaters, pain, redness and/or light sensitivity. Injuries to the retina and clouding of the vitreous humor (the clear gel that we see through) have also been reported.
By August 2022, data analyst Raimond Hagemann had compiled information on birth rate changes in 19 European countries and produced an extremely important paper. Nine months after the peak of COVID vaccinations, birth rates sharply declined and stayed down.
Cancers, especially aggressive cancers, have increased enormously since peak COVID vaccine uptake in spring of 2021.
Demyelinating disorders, that is, conditions that damage a layer of cells that protect the nerves, have been reported following the vaccinations. These include multiple sclerosis, Guillain-Barre, seizures, encephalopathies, and encephalitis.
Dr. Huber has a chapter giving a review of the immune system, and another explains why vaccines for respiratory diseases cannot work. There is also a chapter demonstrating with graphs that the more vaccines (boosters) a person receives, the more damage that can occur.
Offering suggestions for healing the vaccine injured, Dr. Huber adds the disclaimer that she cannot guarantee any of her advice will even partially heal the injured but some of it may prove effective in some cases. She mentions Vitamin D with its long and very successful history against viral infections, as well as agmatine, phosphatidyl serine, and nattokinase.
She also advises looking to Africa for solutions. Africa has been a beacon of light against an otherwise bleak global map. The continent has the distinction of having very little incidence and deaths from COVID when compared to the rest of the populated world. Africa also had an extraordinarily low vaccination rate. Instead, of vaccines, ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine have been widely used throughout equatorial Africa for about a half century as they happen to be very useful against endemic parasites.
Dr. Huber includes a chapter on legal cases that are pertinent to bodily autonomy. She includes a link to each case, including some in which she was not involved, with quotes from each ruling judge.
She also talks about how to obtain religious and medical exemptions to COVID vaccines—providing a letter which asserts civil rights and supports bodily autonomy.
Speaking to the Author
Colleen Huber provided some insights as to why she wrote “Neither Safe Nor Effective.”
Fearing a pandemic may happen again, Dr. Huber worried about the almost blind acceptance of COVID vaccines. She hopes her book will help stop mandatory COVID vaccination for all people because one size does not fit all. The bodies of people are different and react in different ways to drugs, vaccines, and even food. Thus, she hopes her book will provoke second thoughts in those who are thinking of getting COVID injections in the future.
She also wants to dispense information that empowers people. By publishing her data now, she shows what happens when a government and social-media companies collude to stifle a free exchange of medical information. It’s become clear that problems with the COVID vaccines would have been easier to prevent before they were administered than to treat the problems they’ve created afterwards.
And, of course, she wants to provide resources to help the vaccine injured.
Dr. Huber’s reasons for her writing the book are the very reasons that you should buy the book. Knowledge is power.
The Federal Trade Commission pulled back one of its efforts to blockAmgen's (AMGN) $28 billion acquisition ofHorizon Therapeutics(HZNP), according to a document released late Friday that sent HZNP stock flying.
In after-hours trading ontoday's stock market, Horizon stock jumped 5.5% near 112.70. Amgen shares remained flat after losing a fraction during the regular session.
According to an FTC document, the regulator withdrew its request for an in-house trial related to its challenge of Amgen's takeover of Horizon. Last month, a judge urged the antitrust regulator and the companies to discuss a settlement.
There's still an evidentiary hearing on deck in three weeks.
"If a resolution of this matter can be achieved, time is of the essence to avoid unnecessary expenditures of resources related to litigation," the FTC's attorneys wrote in their document.
The move is promising for Amgen's plan to buy Horizon. Horizon Therapeutics makes Tepezza and Krystexxa, the only treatments for thyroid eye disease and chronic gout on the market today. The FTC has said it believes Amgen could use its weight to create a strong monopoly for the two products.
