By James Preston Allen, Publisher
[See Open Up, p. 10]
A Silent Killer Behind Bars
Activists take to the streets, courts to protect the incarcerated from COVID-19 By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor
Family members of inmates at Terminal Island prison in San Pedro demonstrate outside the facility Sunday, May 3. Photo by David Rosenfeld/SCNG
Long Beach Opera's fiery soprano
By Greggory Moore p. 11
By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor
Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Laurie Garrett, author of The Coming Plague and similarly-themed books, made two attention-grabbing comments the first week in May. Appearing on Pacifica’s Democracy Now! on May 6, she warned that the COVID-19 pandemic could last 36 months as a best-case scenario. “36 months is my best-case scenario,” Garrett told host Amy Goodman. “Worst case is that it becomes a new permanent feature on the landscape for generations to come.” Then, on MSNBC’s The Last Word, she warned that we don’t have a national strategy to deal with COVID-19, in part because we’ve lost the distinction between strategy and tactics.
May 14 - 27, 2020
[See Terminal Island, p. 6]
There’s a strategy for beating COVID-19 but America isn’t following it
Few know it, but San Pedro is home to one of the hottest COVID-19 hotspots in the nation. That’s why a week before Mother’s Day, more than a dozen family members and friends of inmates at the Terminal Island Federal prison picketed outside the facility’s gates, to demand better treatment for their loved ones. Few local residents know that this prison exists right across the main channel from the rest of the town, nor that terminal Island
Fighting For Our Lives
Real News, Real People, Really Effective
Cars and motorcycles jammed Pacific Avenue May 8, the first day the stay-at-home orders were eased. Photo by Chris Villanueva.
SAN PEDRO — At about 6 p.m. May 8, several dozen cars and motorcycles started to gather and cruise along Pacific avenue between 17th Street and 6th Street. It was the very first day that the COVID-19 Stay-at-Home orders were starting to be lifted, allowing flower shops, book and record shops and clothing stores to provide “curbside pickup” like restaurants have been doing since March 19. This however looked like a celebration. But it was a protest. Social distancing and masks were not prevalent. They were greeted by several patrol cars and motor units from the Los Angeles Police Department and at least one California Highway Patrol unit. The street was blocked off between 9th and 11th Streets forcing the lowrider crowds to park at the Bank of America and the AutoZone lots, where the gathering continued without the cruising. The parade of classic cars, souped up Chevys and other hot rods made for a traffic jamb of noise and exhaust that
[See Fighting, p. 16]
TRUMPDEMIC Anti-dope for truth
By James Preston Allen p. 8
Life in quarantine: Happy hour on wheels
By Gretchen Williams p. 13
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