Month: May 2020

Shirley Egerbeen had only lived at Forest Heights Long Term Care for two and a half months when she died, with no one at her bedside, sometime in the early morning of April 22. 

She had been diagnosed with COVID-19 a couple weeks before.

Her surrogate daughter, Tracy Rowley, received a call at 4:30 a.m. with the news of Egerbeen’s death. She says she was given three hours to arrange for Egerbeen’s body to be moved to a funeral home. 

Rowley told HuffPost Canada her first question that morning was, “Was she alone?”

“The lady said, ‘We went in to check her dressing at four o’clock and she was not breathing.’ Therefore she was alone. How long was she lying there not breathing? I don’t know,” Rowley said.

“It’s painful to think that not only did she die alone, you can’t even tell me how long she might have been dying, like might have been lying there not breathing,” she said through tears.

A total of 45 people have now died as part of a COVID-19 outbreak at Forest Heights, according to numbers published by Revera Inc., the private company that runs the home.

Rowley has other questions for Revera, which runs dozens of long-term care and retirement homes across Canada. Like, how did the deadly novel coronavirus spread from Forest Heights’ second floor, where Rowley says staff told her it first appeared, to Egerbeen’s room on the third? Why did a doctor tell Rowley that Egerbeen would stay in her shared four-person room after she tested positive? And if Revera had isolated residents differently, would the woman she called “Mom” still be alive?

Earlier: Premier Doug Ford says his ‘heart breaks’ for people in long-term care.

 

Revera spokesperson Larry Roberts told HuffPost Canada in a statement that the company cannot comment on any of the details about individual residents in this story “out of respect for the residents’ privacy and the privacy laws under which we operate.”

Rowley had known Egerbeen for more than 10 years. The pair developed a close relationship after Egerbeen hired Rowley to clean her apartment in Kitchener, Ont. Their birthdays were three days apart, so the two Libras always celebrated together with Swiss Chalet takeout and “Law and Order” marathons.

“Shirley is a very feisty, independent woman,” Rowley said. 

“We grew a bond because she did not have a spouse or any children. So she started calling me her adopted daughter, and she kept saying, ‘I have a daughter and I didn’t have to go through the pain, yay!’”

Rowley is the executor of Egerbeen’s estate and a representative plaintiff in a $50-million class action lawsuit against Revera. 

She and family members of other patients, represented by Diamond and Diamond LLP, claim the company was “systemically negligent” in operating its homes and caring for residents, leading to multiple COVID-19-related deaths. 

At least 164 people have died after contracting COVID-19 in 12 of Revera’s long-term care and retirement homes, according to updates posted on the company’s website. There have also been outbreaks at dozens of other Revera homes that have not reported any deaths.

Roberts told HuffPost that Revera is reviewing the lawsuit and will respond through the courts. 

“However, we will not let it distract us from our singular focus at this time, which is to prevent further illness and loss of life,” he said.

A spokesperson from the Ontario’s Ministry of Long-Term Care told HuffPost that what’s happened at Revera homes and others across the province is “tragic.”

The province has provided $243 million in emergency funding to support long-term care homes with needs like hiring and retaining staff, ministry spokesperson Macey Aramburo said in a statement.

In interviews with HuffPost, staff and relatives of those in Revera facilities said residents who tested positive for COVID-19 or who had contact with suspected cases were not isolated, nor did the company provide staff with personal protective equipment (PPE) until the outbreaks were well underway. 

The family members also said Revera has told them very little about the impact of the outbreaks on their loved ones. 

Diamond and Diamond lawyer Darryl Singer said his office has signed up more than 1,000 plaintiffs — residents of Revera-owned homes or their family members — who have joined the class action since it was announced April 30. 

“A lot of what we’re finding is that not just the residents are upset … We’re actually getting calls from workers both past and current who are saying, ‘You guys don’t even know the half of it,’” Singer said.

“My firm has sued Revera in other lawsuits completely unrelated to this and going back a number of years. So this negligence, the lack of preparation, is not surprising.”

Revera is no stranger to lawsuits and accusations of neglect. Last year, there were at least 85 active lawsuits against the company countrywide. Past Diamond and Diamond lawsuits were settled out of court and at least one is still in progress, Singer told HuffPost.

“When we talk about negligent care of the residents, it didn’t start in February, when COVID broke out,” he said. 

Employee says homes were not prepared

But when the breakout hit, Revera was not ready, according to one employee.

Management at Revera’s Carlingview Manor Long Term Care in Ottawa, where 38 residents have died, did not have a plan in place to stop the virus from spreading once it was diagnosed in patients and staff, a worker said in an interview. HuffPost is keeping this person’s identity confidential because they’re afraid of losing their job.

“They weren’t prepared at the beginning for something like this,” the source said.

Some Carlingview Manor employees are refusing to report to work because they’re afraid of bringing the highly contagious virus home to their children or elderly parents, the source said. 

The first person to go into self-isolation at the Ottawa home was a housekeeper who worked on the seventh floor, according to the employee. His temperature was taken at the end of a shift and it was high. He was asked not to return to work, but the residents on the floor where he worked were allowed to keep moving around the home and go to the dining room, the source said. 

After an outbreak was declared April 2 at Stoneridge Manor in Carleton Place, Ont., a senior Revera staffer went there to help out and then returned to work at Carlingview Manor, which had not yet reported a case of COVID-19, the employee said. Six days later, Carlingview Manor was hit with its own outbreak.

The Ontario government later issued an emergency order restricting long-term care home staff to a single workplace.

‘Very aggressive virus’

Revera’s spokesperson said health-care workers were not initially looking out for pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic spread, but it turned out to be a “significant contributor” to the outbreaks at both Carlingview Manor and Forest Heights. 

“COVID-19 is a very aggressive virus that spreads quickly. We are learning more and more about it every day,” Roberts told HuffPost in an email. 

“In hindsight, Ontario has learned that allowing staff to work at multiple healthcare locations was a contributor to the spread of the disease. This is particularly true of Revera homes, where, since mid-March, we closed all of our residences and long term care homes to all but essential visitors.”

He said limiting staff to one work site was hard to manage because it caused staffing shortages.

“As a result, it was only implemented recently by government directive.”

Roberts also said that the company is grateful for the “heroic” work of its staff. “Our teams have truly exhibited compassion, courage and determination.”

Carlingview Manor staff have more than enough PPE now, the source told HuffPost, but they worked without it in the early days of the outbreak, even after residents had tested positive. And staff still have questions about why some nurses have received N95 masks but PSWs have not. 

Managers give “relaxed, nonchalant” answers when pressed about PPE, and employees have found unopened boxes of N95 masks that were never offered to them, the worker said.

Revera’s spokesperson said all of the company’s homes have had access to “sufficient and appropriate” PPE and that it has complied with Ontario government directives about its usage. 

A May 3 briefing note from Public Health Ontario states that N95 masks only need to be worn during certain procedures. 

The employee said they are still going to work out of concern for the patients. 

“We’re doing the best we can. We’re there for the residents,” the employee said. “It’s beyond a paycheque right now because, honestly, I don’t think Revera cares much about their employees.”

Kitchener Centre MPP Laura Mae Lindo said staff at Forest Heights, where Egerbeen died, have told her Revera refused to let them wear PPE. She spoke with front-line staff in long-term care homes, including Forest Heights, in late April.

“Front-line workers told us that the extent of the crisis could have been prevented if staff had been allowed to wear the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) that they had been fitted for at the beginning of the pandemic,” the NDP MPP wrote in a letter to the premier and Health Minister Christine Elliott that was shared with HuffPost. 

“Staff have shared that PPE was taken away once it was already on the floor, and that the main reason given was that residents, especially those with dementia, would be scared by the masks,” Lindo wrote. 

“PSWs who had tested positive for COVID-19 but were asymptomatic were told that they had to continue showing up for work because staffing shortages plagued the home.”

Forest Heights did ask “a few critical healthcare workers to come in, very early in the emergency outbreak situation, after being asymptomatic for 72 hours following a positive test for COVID-19,” Roberts, the Revera spokesperson, confirmed in his email to HuffPost. 

The practice was consistent with an April 15 government directive that said “in exceptional circumstances,” critical workers who test positive but do not have symptoms can work, Roberts said.

“They were not sick at the time … Furthermore, this was always a very last resort from a staffing perspective,” he said.

‘Rock bottom’

Brenda Shepherd, whose 79-year-old mother caught COVID-19 at Forest Heights, said she was disturbed by the claims in Lindo’s letter, which have also been reported independently by Kitchener media.

“That’s horrendous … That is just appalling,” said Shepherd, a retired registered nurse.

She said her world “went rock bottom” when she received the call with the diagnosis for her mother, Martha Grace. 

The doctor on the phone provided zero information about how Grace would be isolated or cared for now that she had the virus, Shepherd said.

“I asked him on April 22, ‘When will mom be retested?’ And he said to me, ‘We’d have to refer to the public health unit.’ Like, he didn’t even have a plan back [on] April 22.” 

Shepherd said she and other residents’ relatives are relying on the news for updates because Revera isn’t sending them any information.

Revera’s spokesperson did not address HuffPost’s questions about the company’s communication with families.

The ministry of long-term care spokesperson said every licensed long-term care home has been assigned a ministry-support person, and added that provincial inspectors “have been in regular contact with Revera homes to ensure they are getting the support they need related to staff capacity, outbreak status, personal protective equipment supply and other critical needs.”

Bodies moved within three hours

Relatives of Carlingview Manor residents also say the lack of communication has been agonizing.

Debbie Clarke’s brother Bill has been a resident at Carlingview for about 10 years. He tested positive for COVID-19 in late April.

After phoning for more information about her brother when he tested positive, Clarke received a call back from a nurse who instead asked about Bill’s funeral arrangements. She was told his body would be removed from the home within three hours of his death, and she might not be notified until after his body was moved. 

When Clarke couldn’t get through to anyone at the home in the days following that call, she worried her brother had died and no one told her. Four days later, someone at the home picked up her call and she learned that Bill was still alive.

“For those four days that I couldn’t get anybody, I said, ‘What? I’m waiting for the funeral home to call me?’”

The three-hour policy is not Revera’s, the company’s spokesperson said, but rather a direction from the chief coroner’s office.

“It is a directive we do not enjoy following and that is particularly difficult for our staff,” Revera’s spokesperson said.

Ontario’s chief coroner, Dr. Dirk Huyer, told HuffPost that families need to choose a funeral home within three hours but have more time to make the rest of the arrangements. 

“It’s not a hard rule … it’s a goal to achieve,” he said by phone Monday.

Funeral home staff are available at all hours to pick up the deceased from hospitals and long-term care homes so there isn’t a backlog in the morning, he said. These policies are “horrible” but necessary during the pandemic to avoid overwhelming funeral homes, he said.

Although she occasionally gets to talk to her brother, Clarke said she continues to have trouble getting through on the phone to be connected to the sixth floor, where he lives. 

Clarke said she had been told by a nurse that her brother’s roommate was showing COVID-19 symptoms. When she asked how his self-isolation would work, she said she was told they would still share the bathroom, but there was a curtain separating their spaces. 

Her brother’s girlfriend Jennifer, who also lives at the home, had been her lifeline, texting and calling with information that Clarke couldn’t get from the nurses, or from her brother, who continually lost the cellphones she has given him.

But Jennifer recently stopped responding to messages, and a text sent from her phone revealed she is now in the intensive care unit. Clarke doesn’t know whether or not she’s alive, and because she’s not family, she can’t get any information. 

Still, she said she is grateful for the work the staff are doing. She prays for the nurses and their families. But she’s also worried the home could see a situation like the one in Dorval, Que., where long-term care home staff walked out and 31 residents died. (That home is not owned by Revera.)

“I’d be scared s**tless if I was them, going into a home that’s so bad,” Clarke said through tears. “What’s stopping them from saying, ‘I’m not going into work today?’”

‘Worst nightmare come true’

Christine Collins found out that her brother Peter tested positive for COVID-19 in late April. Peter, who has dementia, has been complaining of a migraine and shortness of breath, but he doesn’t seem to know his test result: either he wasn’t told by staff, or he has forgotten it, Collins said.

She doesn’t want to tell him, to try to keep him in a happy mood.

Peter, 68, is on a secure floor for residents with dementia. He was in self-isolation for 14 days after being transferred from the Ottawa Civic Hospital, where he was treated for non-COVID-19 health issues. When his isolation period ended, Peter was allowed to leave his room and go to communal areas — even though an outbreak had been declared at the home six days earlier. 

Peter likely contracted COVID-19 during that time, Collins said. 

Even when he was in isolation, other residents wandered in and out of his room. Collins said a nurse told her it was Peter’s responsibility to make sure other residents didn’t come in. 

“No one is in isolation on that floor,” Collins said. 

The day her brother tested positive, Collins said she phoned the nursing station multiple times before a resident answered and cracked a joke about expecting a call from a famous singer about their wedding. 

“And so I asked her, ‘Is there somebody there besides you that I can talk to?’”

The resident told her there wasn’t.

Collins calls the situation her “worst nightmare come true.” She keeps detailed notes of her calls to Carlingview. “I’m writing notes all the time, because at the end of the day, something has to happen.” 

Neither Collins nor Clarke is currently part of Diamond and Diamond’s lawsuit against Revera, though Collins said she is considering joining it.

Rowley shares their concerns about how residents with COVID-19 were isolated at Forest Heights, the Kitchener home where Egerbeen died.

Patients isolated with curtains

Egerbeen, who shared a ward room with three other residents because that was what she could afford, was diagnosed with COVID-19 in early April. 

Rowley recalls her conversation with the doctor that day: “I asked, ’OK, going forward, what are we doing to make sure we isolate her because, remember, she’s in a ward. He said, ‘We put the curtain around her.’

“A lot of concerns of mine came up at that point.”

Within a week, Rowley said, two other residents in Egerbeen’s room had confirmed cases of COVID-19. 

“Same thing happened. Their curtains were closed. That was it,” she said. “So they did nothing to prevent this.”

The statement from Revera’s spokesperson did not address questions about how residents were isolated once they tested positive for COVID-19. 

Both Rowley and Shepherd said they had no problems with Revera before the outbreak and described the staff at Forest Heights as upbeat, passionate and caring. 

Revera was warned by inspectors

Inspection reports from the Ontario Ministry of Long-Term Care, however, show that Revera was warned in the months leading up to the pandemic that it was not following ministry requirements to protect residents from abuse and neglect. 

In May 2019, a provincial inspection found that Forest Heights had failed to protect residents from physical and sexual abuse. 

That fall, Revera was warned about failures to protect residents at Forest Heights from staff neglect. The ministry inspector noted: 

• Residents with wet beds, 
• Staff sometimes forgot to brush residents’ teeth and change their diapers,
• Protocol had not been followed after a resident fell and hit their head. 

Carlingview Manor, where Clarke and Collins’ brothers both live, was warned in February that resident’s rooms were not being cleaned properly. An inspector found dead cockroaches, cockroach feces, and furniture so “degraded” it was impossible to keep clean in rooms at the Ottawa home.

Ontario’s government has said it knows the long-term care sector needs an overhaul. 

“Our main focus is to make sure it’s all hands on deck at long-term care,” Ford told reporters last Thursday. “We know the system’s broken.”

Minister of Long-Term Care Merrilee Fullerton has promised to review the system after the pandemic passes. 

“Long-term care has endured years of neglect. Once we emerge from this pandemic, we will get to the bottom of this,” she said on Twitter last week.

Aramburo, the ministry spokesperson, said “all forms of review” are on the table. 

“There will come a time to discuss the scale, scope, and terms of a review, but our priority now must be to protect people’s lives and continue to bend the curve,” her statement said.

As for Rowley, she spent a difficult weekend without Egerbeen. 

“This Mother’s Day will be very hard, because I would buy her cards, I would call her,” she said last week. “But this year, I’m going to have to put flowers on her grave.”

No service or graveside visit will make up for not being there the morning her mom died, Rowley said. 

“I didn’t get to hold her hand. I didn’t get to stroke her hair. I didn’t get to tell her … ‘I’m here. Don’t worry.’”

Are you an employee or relative of a resident at a long-term care home where there’s an outbreak of COVID-19? Tell us your story. Contact reporters Emma Paling and Sherina Harris at [email protected] and [email protected].

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly said a nurse answered a phone and made a joke. It has been updated to say it was a resident who answered the phone.

 

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Canadian consumer debt was already near record levels before COVID-19 hit, but the economic shock from the shutdowns will push it to its highest levels ever, a new TD Bank report says.

The warning came the same day as the Bank of Canada’s latest financial system review, which said the longer the pandemic’s economic shock lasts, the higher the risk that Canadian households will become insolvent. 

Watch: Keep accepting cash, Bank of Canada urges retailers. Story continues below.

 

Canadians will pull back on new borrowing this year, putting the retail economy at risk, TD Bank economist Ksenia Bushmeneva predicted in a report issued Thursday.

But many households are seeing shrinking incomes, even as their debt levels remain the same, or grow. Household debt, as a share of income, will rise to an all time high of $1.85 in debt for every dollar of disposable income. Its previous high was around $1.78.

That debt will come down quickly as Canadians pull back on spending, Bushmeneva predicted, but it will still remain above last year’s already elevated levels for some time.

“We expect it will take until at least the second half of 2021 for the unemployment rate to return to its pre-crisis level, suggesting that the economic pain will linger for some time to come,” she wrote.

In its review, the Bank of Canada raised concerns that household debt levels are likely to rise and become acute for those whose incomes don’t fully recover from the pandemic.

“We entered this global health crisis with a strong economy and resilient financial system. This will support the recovery,” bank governor Stephen Poloz is quoted as saying in the review.

“But we know that debt levels are going to rise, so the right combination of economic policies will be important too.”

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The Bank also said there are signs in the country’s financial markets that suggest concern about the ability of companies to weather the COVID-19 economic crisis.

The central bank has spent the last two months making a flurry of policy decisions that has seen it slash its target interest rate and embark on an unprecedented bond-buying program to ease the flow of credit.

The report suggests these measures have helped ease liquidity strains and provide easy access to short-term credit for companies and households.

But it warned Thursday morning that a cash-flow problem for businesses seeing sharp revenue declines during the crisis could soon develop into a solvency issue.

Market prices point to a concern that business defaults are likely to rise, the review said.

Emergency measures

Aside from what is now approaching $150 billion in direct federal aid, the central bank over the course of March alone slashed its target interest rate to 0.25 per cent from 1.75 per cent.

It has also snapped up federal bonds to effectively provide low-cost financing to Ottawa to cover a massive spike in spending.

But the longer the economic shock from COVID-19 lasts, the more it drives up the risks of consumer insolvencies, the central bank says.

The number of vulnerable households ― those putting more than 40 per cent of their income to cover debt payments ― “is likely to rise,” the bank says, and fall behind on loan payments even with deferrals to some 700,000 households so far.

A temporary hit to wealth

TD’s Bushmeneva also predicted Canadian consumers’ wealth would take a short-term hit from the crisis.

“Given the drop in equity prices in the first quarter and the collapse of oil prices, household wealth contracted sharply in the first quarter of this year. In addition to this, the deferral of mortgage payments and lower home prices will also weigh on wealth in the first half of the year,” she wrote.

Because mortgage deferrals slow down the rate at which people accumulate wealth, Bushmeneva estimates Canada’s wealth fell $300 million behind as a result in the first quarter. For the same reason, Canadians will miss out on another $1.2 billion in wealth in the second quarter of this year, Bushmeneva wrote.

― HuffPost Canada with a file from The Canadian Press

WASHINGTON — Alberta Premier Jason Kenney added his voice to the anti-China chorus Wednesday, savaging the communist republic’s handling of the earliest days of the COVID-19 outbreak and urging Canada and the United States to join forces in bringing manufacturing capacity back to North America.

The country will soon face a “great reckoning” for its efforts to play down, obfuscate and cover up the dangers posed by the novel coronavirus when it first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan, Kenney told a virtual roundtable hosted by the Washington-based Canadian American Business Council.

It also sought to sway the World Health Organization to prevent travel bans to and from outbreak hotspots and has refused to co-operate with the rest of the world’s efforts to get to the bottom of what happened, Kenney said.

Watch: Scheer raises concerns about China’s relationship with WHO

 

“I think the Chinese government played a significant role in the devastating public health and economic damage that is being experienced by the entire world,” he said.

“And I do not think we should just forget this and walk past it. There must be some kind of a reckoning, there must be some accountability.”

The White House and legislators on Capitol Hill are reportedly exploring ways to punish China for what they consider a coverup, refusing to co-operate with the WHO and keeping the virus, as well as evidence of dangerous human-to-human transmission, under wraps for nearly a week after COVID-19 was first detected — allegations China strenuously denies.

Trump has indicated he intends to seek damages and impose retaliatory measures, even as his administration tries to preserve its efforts to secure a long-term trade deal — something long seen as critical to the president’s re-election hopes.

Kenney, for his part, said China’s refusal to co-operate should be a cue for both Canada and the U.S. to start “reshoring” important manufacturing capacity from the country, particularly for all-important medical supplies like face masks, respirators and ventilators, all of which were in short supply around the world at the height of the crisis.

“Western countries, including Canada and the United States, must have a reset in their relationship with China — and part of that reset, in my judgment, must be a deliberate effort to onshore production, particularly on critical supplies.”

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Alberta’s petrochemical industry could be instrumental in helping to produce reagents, key elements in diagnostic testing, he added, “so we are not dependent on a country whose strategic interests are not completely aligned with our own.”

Indeed, Kenney made it clear that as the province reels from the one-two punch of an economic shutdown and historically low oil prices, he intends to make the United States a linchpin in his recovery plan.

Despite the state of the energy market, the Alberta government is proceeding with plans to resurrect the Keystone XL pipeline project, which is designed to move oilsands bitumen from the northern part of the province through the U.S. to refineries on the Gulf Coast.

In a post-pandemic world where Canada and the U.S. are part of a single trading and security bloc, cross-border energy infrastructure will play a central role, he said.

“I think we have an opportunity now — Americans generally, like Canadians, are going to be more focused on economic growth and issues like energy security,” Kenney said.

“I think public opinion is going to be swinging more strongly in favour of critical energy infrastructure, and this is an opportunity for us to solidify political support in the United States, going into this election season, for Canada-U.S. energy infrastructure.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 13, 2020.

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MIAMI, FL — A Chicago cellist was playing the blues last week after she and her cello were mistakenly given the hook from an American Airlines flight at Miami International Airport. To add insult to injury, the DePaul University music student said she paid for an entire seat to accommodate her awkward travel companion. Jingjing Hu’s return flight ended on even more of a sour note as she struggled to get the pricey instrument off the airplane.

“I purchased two roundtrip tickets for her and her cello on April 2 on the phone directly from AA and told them specifically that one ticket is for the cello as cabin baggage,” Hu’s husband, Jay Tang penned on Facebook. “I was told it is absolutely allowed and she won’t have any problem.”

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American Airlines, however, was playing a different tune when Hu strapped herself and the cello into their adjoining seats. Tang noted that the airline gave his wife a special seat restraint prior to asking her to get off the plane.

Alexis Aran Coello of American Airlines in Miami told Patch that the flight crew made a mistake and the airline plans to make it up to Hu when they get in touch with her.

Coello, whose name includes “cello,” said that the flight crew thought Hu was traveling with a double bass rather than a cello. Double bass instruments are not allowed on the plane that Hu was traveling on while cellos are welcome.

“One of our team members deemed it a double bass and that’s where the confusion began,” Coello explained. “That is why they told her that she could not fly because they improperly deemed it too big to fly. That’s really the bottom line.”

Tang said his wife didn’t have any problems on the flight to Miami on June 19 and she arrived at Miami International Airport three hours prior to her departure for the return flight on Aug. 2.

“Just before the flight attendants were about to close the gate, she was told to get off the plane because ‘the aircraft is too small for the cello,” Tang explained.

“After she got off the plane and trying to find the next flight that was guaranteed, she was told that the next flight was also ‘too small’ for the cello, and they called the police because my wife was ‘not being understandable.'”

Cue Miami-Dade police.

“The passenger became irate at the gate,” explained Coello. “They had to call law enforcement.”

Tang said his wife was “surrounded by three law enforcement officers” who escorted her to the wrong shuttle for the Holiday Inn that American Airlines booked her into.

She finally made it out the next morning on a Boeing 767, which is a larger aircraft than the one she got kicked off.

American paid for her hotel and meal accommodations while also issuing a public apology.

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“Customer relations has reached out to her,” Coello added. “They will make it right.”

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WASHINGTON, DC — President Trump refused to release a statement praising Sen. John McCain after the longtime Arizona Republican died Saturday following a long battle with Glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer, The Washington Post reports. Instead, Trump tweeted his “deepest sympathies and respect” to the McCain family and said “our hearts and prayers are with you.”

The statement would have recognized the late senator’s military service and decades in Congress, and would have called McCain a “hero” — something Trump famously disputed in the 2016 campaign when he said McCain “was only a war hero because he was captured.”

The Trump administration also disrupted long-standing White House protocol, lowering flags above the White House for the minimum amount of time under the U.S. Code — the day of and the day after the death of a member of Congress.

After an uproar, the flags were returned to half-staff and will remain at the lowered position until after Sunday, when McCain will be buried with full military honors at U.S. Naval Academy cemetery in Annapolis, Maryland.

Two days after McCain died, Trump did finally issue his first non-Twitter statement on the senator’s death. He had been under pressure from veterans groups to show more respect for McCain, a Navy pilot who was captured during the Vietnam War and tortured for more than five years.

“The American Legion urges the White House to follow long-established protocol following the death of prominent government officials,” American Legion National Commander Denise Rohan wrote in a letter to Trump.

“Mr. President, just this year, you released presidential proclamations noting the deaths of Barbara Bush and Billy Graham,” Rohan wrote to Trump. “Senator John McCain was an American hero and cherished member of The American Legion. As I’m certain you are aware, he served five and a half years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and retired from the U.S. Navy at the rank of Captain. He then served in the U.S. Congress for more than three decades.”

The AMVETS group, which represents 20 million U.S. veterans, also lambasted the president for his two-sentence condolence tweet.

“It’s outrageous that the White House would mark American hero John McCain’s death with a two-sentence tweet, making no mention of his heroic and inspiring life,” AMVETS National Executive Director Joe Chenelly said in a statement.

Chenelly continued: “And by lowering flags for not one second more than the bare minimum required by law, despite a long-standing tradition of lowering flags until the funeral, the White House is openly showcasing its blatant disrespect for Senator McCain’s many decades of service and sacrifice to our country as well as the service of all his fellow veterans.”

According to The Washington Post’s report on Sunday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and Chief of Staff John Kelly urged Trump issue a statement praising McCain. When the president did finally issue a statement late Monday afternoon, he refused to call McCain a hero, but said he respected his service to the country.

“Despite our differences on policy and politics, I respect Senator John McCain’s service to our country and, in his honor, have signed a proclamation to fly the flag of the United States at half-staff until the day of his interment.”

Trump said he asked Vice President Mike Pence to speak at a ceremony honoring McCain at the U.S. Capitol on Friday. At the request of the McCain family, he authorized military transportation of the senator’s body from Arizona to Washington, D.C., approved military pallbearers and band support, and a horse and caisson transport during the service at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Finally, Trump said, he asked Kelly, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Ambassador John Bolton to represent the administration at McCain’s funeral.

The flag was back at half-staff before the day was over Monday.

Typically, flags over the White House are flown at half-staff until the member of Congress is interred. After Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts died in 2009, for example, Obama ordered flags at the White House be flown at half-staff for five days.

The governors in several states, including Ohio, Maryland and New York, ordered public flags in their states to remain at half-staff to honor McCain.

Trump and McCain’s long-running feud was perhaps no better crystalized than in 2017 when McCain — with a defiant “thumbs down” — cast the deciding vote that killed a Republican proposal that would have repealed Obamacare. Trump fumed for months, and even as the senator was dying at his ranch in Arizona, the acrimony continued. Trump refused in a signing ceremony to name McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a defense spending bill senators had named in his honor.

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SEE ALSO

John McCain, War Hero And Senate Icon, Dead At 81
John McCain Funeral Services: Everything We Know So Far
See Also: Tributes Flow In For Sen. John McCain

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McCain was harsh in his critique of Trump’s presidency in his memoir “The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations.” He also said in his final months that Trump shouldn’t be invited to his funeral, though Vice President Mike Pence has been invited. Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush are expected to speak.

In his memoir, McCain took aim squarely at Trump, saying the 45th president is concerned more about the “appearance of toughness” than American values.

“He has declined to distinguish the actions of our government from the crimes of despotic ones,” McCain wrote. “The appearance of toughness, or a reality show facsimile of toughness, seems to matter more than any of our values.”

McCain wrote that he’s “not sure what to make of President Trump’s convictions.”

“He threatened to deliberately kill the spouses and children of terrorists, implying that an atrocity of that magnitude would show the world America’s toughness.”

He also lambasted the president’s stance on refugees: “The way he speaks about them is appalling, as though welfare or terrorism were the only purposes they could have in coming to our country.”

The Associated Press contributed reporting.

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Photo: Skip Siegel places flowers at the Dignity Memorial Mortuary to pay his respects to the late Sen. John McCain on Aug. 26, 2018, in Phoenix, Arizona. McCain died Saturday, Aug. 25, after a long battle with Glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer. (Photo by Ralph Freso/Getty Images)

Les bébés Gap seront Bio. La marque de prêt-à-porter américaine va lancer à la rentrée une nouvelle ligne pour enfants, BabyGap Organic. Une collection de vêtements et accessoires en coton 100% biologique, destinée aux nouveaux nés de 0 à 12 mois.
La nouvelle collection BabyGap Organic est naturelle. Le coton utilisé est cultivé sans engrais synthétiques, sans pesticides, sans herbicides ni défoliants. Les sols et nappes phréatiques sont ainsi respectés et l’air n’est pas pollué.
La marque Gap, très impliquée dans les problèmes de société actuelle, est également engagée dans la lutte contre le Sida en Afrique et participe à des actions en partenariat avec l’organisation Red, crée par le chanteur du groupe U2, Bono.

Jacques Chirac avait lancé le Plan Cancer, Nicolas Sarkozy vient d’annoncer qu’il lancerait avant la fin de l’année le tant attendu Plan Alzheimer. Cette maladie de plus en plus fréquente avec l’allongement de la durée de la vie touche aujourd’hui 800 000 Français. Et 200 000 nouveaux cas sont dénombrés chaque année. Pour les familles, les proches, c’est une charge considérable, une vie bouleversée.
Depuis un centre de gériatrie à Dax, le Président de la République a annoncé qu’il entendait donner un coup d’accélérateur à la recherche médicale, soulignant la nécessité de “donner les moyens à nos médecins de trouver la solution“, en clair un médicament. Parallèlement au volet curatif, ce plan est censé permettre l’amélioration de la détection de cette maladie ainsi que sa prise en charge.
Mais tout cela a un coup que l’ensemble de la société devra supporter notamment à travers les franchises médicales, autre promesse électorale de la campagne présidentielle. Pour Nicolas Sarkozy, ces mesures nouvelles doivent être financées par des recettes nouvelles, et non par un report de la dépense sur les générations futures : “Ces ressources proviendront d’un système de franchises sur les actes, conformément aux principes du programme présidentiel“.
Ces franchises, qui s’appliqueront aux postes de dépense suivants :
– de 0,5 € par boîte de médicaments ;
– de 0,5 € par acte paramédical ;
– de 2 € par recours au transport sanitaire.
Ce dispositif devrait s’accompagner d’au moins trois garanties :
– un plafond global de 50 euros an sera institué, pour protéger les plus malades ;
– les bénéficiaires de la couverture maladie universelle en seront dispensés, de même, que les enfants afin de ne pas pénaliser les familles ;
– la prise en charge par les assurances complémentaires santé restera possible.
Si le plan Alzheimer n’est pas encore bouclé son financement, lui, semble déjà bien ficelé. Le Président espère-t-il ainsi faire passer la pilule des franchises en plein été ? Le débat ne devrait pas manquer de revenir sur le tapis à la rentrée.Source : Communiqué Ministère de la Santé – 31 Juillet 2007Click Here: cd universidad catolica

Du 5 au 12 septembre, c’est show, mode et haute couture à New York. A partir de demain, débute la fashion week new yorkaise, « the place to be » pour les plus férues de mode. Une semaine de glamour, de démesure où tout l’univers de la mode est présent pour nous offrir un avant-goût des collections de l’été 2008.
Et cette année ce ne sont pas moins de 4 people qui ont fait le déplacement pour faire découvrir leur collection. Gwen Stefani, Jennifer Lopez, Nicky Hilton et Chloé Sevigny font partie de ces stars qui se lancent dans le business des lignes de vêtements.
C’est la quatrième fois que la chanteuse Gwen Stefani présente sa collection devant le parterre de connaisseurs à New York.

La star du bling bling, Jennifer Lopez n’en est pas à son coup d’essai non plus. Elle s’est lancée dans l’aventure mode en 2001, avec toute la démesure et le coté clinquant qu’on lui connaît.
Alors que sa soeur n’en finit plus de faire la joie des pages people, Nicky Hilton, elle plus sage, lance sa propre griffe : « Chick by Nicky Hilton ». Des vêtements aux couleurs acidulées et très girly en accord parfait avec la cote Ouest, où elle évolue.
Et pour finir, l’actrice de cinéma indépendant Chloé Sévigny présente elle aussi sa première collection sur les podiums new yorkais. Indépendante, la jeune femme l’est jusqu’au bout de ses stilettos. Elle n’hésite pas à s’affranchir des diktats de la mode pour créer son propre code, un style parfois improbable, mais bien à elle.
En attendant de savoir si ces nouvelles collections valent ou non le détour, une chose est sûre : nous ne serons pas déçues avec les collections des valeurs sûres comme Marc Jacobs ou Zac Posen.Click Here: cd universidad catolica

La préfecture du Var a placé le département en niveau 1 de vigilance suite à la découverte de moustique de l’espèce “aedes albopictus“, vecteurs potentiels du virus du chikungunya. Peu courant en France, ce moustique a également été signalé en Corse et dans les Alpes Maritimes.

De l’autre côté des Alpes, la région italienne de Ravenne avait recensé plus d’une centaine de cas de chikungunya. C’est donc cette proximité géographique et la présence du moustique pouvant transmettre le virus, qui a conduit les autorités locales à réagir. Pour que le moustique puisse transmettre la maladie, il faudrait qu’il pique à plusieurs reprises une personne malade avant de devenir un vecteur du virus. Les autorités sanitaires du Var invitent les habitants à se protéger des piqûres de moustiques, en portant des vêtements adaptés ou en utilisant des répulsifs cutanés, mais aussi d’éviter les eaux stagnantes près des maisons, lieux de ponte des moustiques. Par ailleurs, le réseau de santé (médecin, hôpitaux, pharmaciens…) a été alerté.
Au niveau national, un dispositif de lutte contre le risque de dissémination de la dengue et du Chikungunya est en place depuis 2006 et porte en particulier sur :
– Une surveillance entomologique (c’est-à-dire des populations de moustiques) annuelle, renforcée à partir du 1er avril dans les zones où le moustique est présent ou susceptible de s’implanter. Cette surveillance vise à détecter l’activité du moustique afin d’agir pour ralentir la progression de l’implantation de l’espèce ;
– Une surveillance humaine avec déclaration obligatoire du chikungunya et de la dengue. Cette surveillance est renforcée à partir du 1er mai dans les zones où la présence du moustique est avérée et est basée sur le signalement des cas suspects. Ceci permet la mise en place de mesures de lutte anti-vectorielle autour de ces cas ;
– Une sensibilisation des personnes résidant dans les zones où la présence du moustique est avérée, afin de détruire autour et dans leur habitat les gîtes potentiels de reproduction des moustiques (en supprimant tous les récipients contenant de l’eau stagnante : soucoupes, gouttières, détritus…).
Pour mémoire, le chikungunya est une maladie due à un virus transmis par les moustiques. Elle peut passer inaperçue ou se manifester en moyenne 4 à 7 jours après la piqûre infectante, par l’apparition soudaine d’une fièvre élevée associée à des douleurs articulaires qui peuvent persister plusieurs semaines. La maladie, d’évolution spontanée le plus souvent favorable, peut dans certains cas entraîner une fatigue prolongée et des douleurs articulaires récidivantes parfois invalidantes. Le traitement est symptomatique.Source : Préfecture du Var, 12 septembre 2007Click Here: camisetas de futbol baratas

Vous lui avez dit oui pour le meilleur, mais cela risque d’être le pire pour votre santé ! Selon une étude anglaise, un mauvais mariage est très mauvais pour le coeur.
Pour en arriver à cette conclusion, les chercheurs ont étudié plus de 9 000 fonctionnaires dans les années 1980 et ont comparé leur situation familiale et sociale à leurs problèmes cardiovasculaires. Résultat : ceux dont le couple battait de l’aile avaient 35 % de chances supplémentaires d’avoir des problèmes cardiaques. Les chercheurs ont constaté la même augmentation pour les personnes qui ne s’entendaient plus avec leurs amis. L’explication serait simple : une relation tendue, des disputes fréquentes… favorisent la dépression et le stress, qui eux-mêmes augmentent les comportements à risques (tabagisme et autres facteurs de risque).
Attention toutefois, le divorce n’est pas la solution pour préserver sa santé. En effet, la séparation est elle-aussi connue pour augmenter la mortalité… Alors si vos affaires de coeur battent de l’aile, occupez-vous en sérieusement : votre santé en dépend !Source : Arch Intern Med, octobre 2007 ; vol. 167 : p. 1951-7.Click Here: Putters