Tag: Americans

Biden or Trump? Survey Reveals Americans’ Views on Future of Social Security

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Just in case it may have somehow slipped your mind amid the barrage of news coverage, ads, and tweets, there’s a political election coming up this November. The differences between the candidates have been well documented, but how are those differences perceived by the voting public?

In the case of how Americans view the candidates’ respective views on Social Security, a new survey by Simplywise, a fintech that provides technology to help people plan and save for retirement, sheds some light. The company’s most recent Retirement Confidence Index, released in September, revealed that 63% of Americans feel confident in the future of Social Security if the Democratic challenger, former Vice president Joe Biden, is elected, while only 44% feel confident if President Donald Trump is reelected. Among people age 60 and over, 59% feel confident in the future of Social Security if Biden wins compared to 43% for Trump.

Trump

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New Nationwide Program Offering Phones to Millions of Low-Income Americans

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Millions of Americans on low-income, including those receiving unemployment benefits amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, may qualify to receive a free smartphone, in addition to free cell service, under a new government partnership with TruConnect, a nationwide wireless service provider.

TruConnect has partnered with Lifeline, a government program offering affordable wireless service to low-income customers launched by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, which most Americans don’t know about, according to the co-founder and chief executive officer of TruConnect, Matthew Johnson.

TruConnect’s free service includes “talk, text, and 3GB of data each month plus free international calling to select countries. You may even qualify for a free 5″ LTE Android smartphone,” the company website states.

Johnson told California’s KTLA: “Currently, there are roughly 30 to 40 million people who don’t have access to high-speed internet and that’s only increased recently with the issues due to COVID-19.

“Across the U.S., the

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IRS under investigation for buying Americans’ smartphone location data

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  • The IRS is under investigation by the US Treasury’s Inspector General for reportedly buying Americans’ smartphone location data in order to track them.
  • Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Elizabeth Warren called for the investigation last month after IRS agents told the senators that the agency bought people’s smartphone location data from a company called Venntel.
  • Venntel sells location data scraped from people’s smartphones that are gathered from normal apps like games, exercise apps, and weather apps.
  • While government agencies typically need to obtain a search warrant before gathering personal information from people’s phones, buying location data directly from private companies like Venntel lets them sidestep that requirement.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

The IRS is under investigation by the US Treasury’s Inspector General over its practice of buying people’s smartphone data from private surveillance companies, according to a letter from the Inspector General obtained by Business Insider.

In

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President Trump may not love following the science but this new survey says Americans do

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President Trump doesn’t appear to be very keen on listening to the science community on COVID-19, but America at large is sure voicing their support for a scientific profession under siege from the Oval Office.

“Science is having a moment in 2020,” 3M Chief scientific advocate Dr. Jayshree Seth told Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade.

New data out of 3M underscores Seth’s point.

Trust in science and scientists is the highest it has been in three years since 3M’s State of Science Index was launched. About 89% of those surveyed trust science, 86% trust scientists and 77% are more likely as a result of the pandemic to agree that science needs more funding. Some of the other findings are equally as compelling, and run counter to the ongoing narrative out of the White House.

More than half (54%) agree that science is very important to their everyday lives, a double-digit

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Under 10 Percent of Americans Have Covid-19 Antibodies, Study Finds

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Officials this week released statistics showing that the positivity rate in some Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods had grown to anywhere from 3 percent to 6 percent, significantly more than the city’s overall rate of between 1 percent and 2 percent. Officials are especially worried about the positivity rates in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Borough Park, Midwood and Gravesend, which they have referred to as the “Ocean Parkway Cluster.”

Mr. de Blasio said on Friday on the Brian Lehrer radio show that the city had closed four yeshivas over violations of social distancing rules. “This is an indicator of something we’ll be fighting for a little while here,” he said.

The uptick in these neighborhoods amounts to the first major virus challenge for the city after months of declining or flat numbers. The concern now is that if the outbreak spreads further in the Orthodox community, it could begin to take hold

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Chinese Americans look to new platforms as WeChat’s future remains uncertain

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Back in April, when New York City was in the grips of COVID-19, Yuan Mingyue relied on WeChat to keep in touch with relatives in China, to check on their health and to share how things were in New York.

The social media app’s video call function, similar to FaceTime, proved especially useful as a lifeline for Yuan, who came to the United States 10 years ago and lives in Queens, once America’s center for Covid-19.

While FaceTime works for Apple customers, not everyone in China owns an iPhone or another Apple device.

So when President Donald Trump’s WeChat ban was to take effect Sunday — even as a federal judge temporarily put the brakes on his order — Yuan began the dizzying task, like so many other Chinese Americans, of figuring out workarounds.

“We can use other Chinese platforms, like Sina Weibo or QQ, or otherwise just make a

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During pandemic, racism puts additional stress on Asian Americans — ScienceDaily

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Many people are feeling anxious during these uncertain times as they navigate the risks associated with COVID-19 and experience the tension from physical distancing or isolation for what can seem like an eternity. But people of Asian ancestry face yet another set of challenges posed by racism and xenophobia which has soared during the COVID-19 pandemic amidst rumors and blame placed on China.

This pandemic-driven rise in anti-Asian racism is so pronounced, that in a commentary recently published in the American Journal of Public Health, psychiatrist Justin A. Chen, MD, MPH, and his coauthors have described it as a “secondary contagion” threatening this population.

Chen is an investigator in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. In addition, he serves as executive director and co-founder of the MGH Center for Cross Cultural Student Emotional Wellness. He is lead author

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How do Americans view the virus? Anthropology professor examines attitudes, perceptions of COVID-19 — ScienceDaily

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In her ongoing research about Americans’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, Northern Arizona University anthropology professor Lisa Hardy and her collaborators have talked to dozens of people. A couple of them stand out to the researchers.

Hardy spoke to a man who had polio as a child and had to live in a home with an iron lung away from his family. He said he was not in good health but he was not afraid of COVID-19 because he has seen all of this. A woman told anthropology lecturer Leah Mundell that she was the only Spanish-speaking contact tracer in her county, and she took on the responsibility of helping clients with much more than their physical health, connecting them with services and translating for them as they struggled to access resources.

Hardy’s research, to which Mundell contributed, was published this week in Medical Anthropology. “Connection, Contagion, and COVID-19”

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