San Francisco

Essential workers in the United States, who have been serving the general public during the COVID-19 shutdown, held a mass strike on May Day to demand hazard pay and better health and safety conditions, writes Barry Sheppard.

United States President Donald Trump has made many stupid remarks in his daily campaign events on TV, writes Barry Sheppard. But suggesting that injecting or ingesting “disinfectants” could be used to combat the virus has created criticism even within his own party.

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a marked impact on the 2020 election campaign in the United States, writes Barry Sheppard.

Barry Sheppard reports on the horrific spread of the pandemic in the United States and the widening chasm in international cooperation.

Barry Sheppard writes that, in another indication of the abject failure of the Donald Trump administration, there is no national plan to confront the pandemic, or even to collect true information.

The United States' healthcare system was already woefully unprepared for the COVID-19 epidemic. Barry Sheppard writes President Donald Trump's flippant attitude has not helped the country deal with the mounting crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic is already having an impact on the Democratic Party primaries in the United States. The Ohio primary was cancelled on March 17, and others will be cancelled in the coming weeks. When, or if, they will be held is not known. Barry Sheppard writes on where the primaries stood as of March 17.

Critics of Trump’s Middle East “Peace Plan” in the capitalist media claim he has given Israel everything it wants. Trump says he is just being realistic, recognising the reality on the ground.

Barry Sheppard explains that Trump is right – he has given Israel nothing it did not already have, except United States official recognition and approval of that reality.

The decision by United States President Donald Trump not to bomb Iran in retaliation for its missile strikes against US military bases in Iraq (themselves retaliation for the assassination of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani) has eased fears that the US would launch another war in the Middle East.

By limiting the impeachment charges against US President Donald Trump, the Democratic establishment has left aside the major crimes Trump has committed — against humanity worldwide as well as the great majority of the US population, writes Barry Sheppard.

Throughout the intense wildfires that gripped California since July, the media barely mentioned their underlying cause — climate change and energy company profiteering, writes Barry Sheppard.

After six days of strikes and mass mobilisations in the streets, Los Angeles teachers, joined on the picket lines and demonstrations by parents and students, won an important victory, Barry Sheppard writes from San Francisco, as they  held the line against further privatisation of the public schools.