August, 31 2017, 08:45am EDT

RN Response Network Deploys Nurse Volunteers to Houston to Help Provide Medical Assistance Post-Hurricane Harvey
RNs to Provide Care as Well as Plan For Ongoing Nurse Deployments
WASHINGTON
National Nurses United (NNU)'s Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN), a national network of volunteer nurses, will deploy its first delegation of RN volunteers to Houston, beginning Thursday, August 31, to work with locals on providing medical assistance in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, NNU announced today.
"As nurses, we felt immediately and strongly compelled to assist local communities in their process of healing and recovery from Hurricane Harvey," said RN Response Network director Bonnie Castillo, RN. "This is just the beginning of our assistance, and RNRN will be working with local officials to send ongoing teams of volunteer nurses to areas impacted by the hurricane, in the months to come, given that the initial aftermath of a super storm like this is followed by continuing health challenges.
"RNRN has deployed volunteer nurses post-hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Typhoon Haiyan, as well as in other disaster relief and humanitarian assistance missions around the world, and we know from experience that long past the time when news cameras disappear, disaster-stricken communities still need care. Our nurses will be there to help."
Registered nurse volunteers on the initial RNRN Hurricane Harvey relief deployment will be providing medical assistance at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, where around 9,000 people are seeking shelter from the storm. Over 1,000 registered nurses from 49 states and Puerto Rico have also answered RNRN's call for Hurricane Harvey volunteers--and await possible future assignments.
"Being a nurse, you've sworn to care for people," said RNRN volunteer Robert Enriquez, of El Paso Texas, a Cardio Vascular Intensive Care Unit RN, as well as an Emergency Medical Technician, paramedic and firefighter. "If people [impacted by the hurricane] need help, I feel like it's my duty to help as much as I can."
For Enriquez, the impact has even touched his own family, as a cousin in Houston "lost everything; everything is underwater."
"One of the things I wanted to do with my license, when I got it about eight years ago, was to do volunteer work and to use my license to help people who really needed help," said RN Erik Hoagland, an Intensive Care Unit nurse from Oakland, California, who will be deploying to Houston with RNRN. "I'm really proud to be part of National Nurses United. It's great that RNRN exists and that there's an interest in taking care of the larger community."
National Nurses United represents around 800 Texas registered nurses in communities hit by the storm. To that end, RNRN volunteers will also have the very personal experience of knowing that while they are deploying to provide assistance on the ground, they will be standing in solidarity with their local colleagues, who have been impacted both at work and at home.
"We nurses all just pulled together and got the job done," said NNU member Valerie Gray, RN, a labor and delivery nurse from Houston who spent 97 hours at her hospital, in the aftermath of Harvey, working 12 hours then sleeping 12 hours. "I'm very proud of our team."
"My mother lives in Port Aransas, and ... everything is destroyed there. My mother's house and my sister's business are trashed," said NNU member Kim Smith, RN, of Corpus Christie, who says local nurses are simply pulling together--despite struggles in their personal lives-- to "do the most good for the most people you can; you've just got to go to work and keep going."
Both local and RNRN volunteer nurses say they are concerned not just about immediate negative health impacts, as people face lack of food, shelter, water, power and basic sanitation, and lack of access to necessary medications--but also ongoing concerns ahead, with the potential for infectious diseases and injuries and illnesses in the cleanup effort.
"We understand that local people and first responders are still focused on the search and rescue process, and our nurses are going to be working in a way that will not add to the burden," said Castillo. "We also understand that recovering will take time, and we want to assure local communities that our nurses will be here to help, today, tomorrow and in the months to come."
"As the hurricane raged through Houston, my first thought was signing up to volunteer. I feel I have an ethical obligation to help any way I can in times of need," said volunteer RN Amy Bowen, a flight nurse from Kansas City, Missouri, who will be adding the Houston deployment to her six previous deployments with RNRN.
"As a critical care registered nurse with prior disaster experience I understand the dire situation the people of Texas are facing, and I am compelled to offer any assistance that I can. With the support of National Nurses United, I know nurse volunteers make an impact."
National Nurses United, with close to 185,000 members in every state, is the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in US history.
(240) 235-2000LATEST NEWS
Gaza Mourns Beloved Child Singer Hassan Ayyad, Killed in Israeli Airstrike
The 14-year-old boy was one of numerous children slain by Israeli bombing since Monday in what UNICEF has called "the most dangerous place in the world to be a child."
May 06, 2025
A famed 14-year-old singer was among scores of Palestinians killed by Israel Defense Forces airstrikes across the Gaza Strip since Monday as bombing and starvation fueled by Israel's ongoing siege continued to ravage the coastal enclave.
Hassan Ayyad—who was known for his songs about life and death in Gaza during Israel's genocidal assault and siege—was killed in an IDF airstrike on the Nuseirat refugee camp. Video shared widely on social media showed Ayyad singing in a haunting voice, sometimes accompanied by his father, Alaa Ayyad.
"The child who sang of death has now joined those he mourned."
"Gaza is dying, blind in the eyes of America," Ayyad intones in one clip. "With the warplanes, we tasted the flavor of death, an airstrike from land and sea. They blocked the crossings—people are dying from hunger. Bear witness, world, to what they've done."
Reacting to the boy's killing, Alaa Ayyad told Palestinian journalist Essa Syam that "Hassan was my heat, my soul, my son... my only son."
"What can I tell you about Hassan? Hassan is everything," Ayyad continued. "I ask everyone to pray for mercy for his soul."
Responding to Ayyad's killing, Gaza journalist Mahmoud Bassam wrote Monday on the social media site X that "Hassan was martyred moments ago in an Israeli airstrike, raising the death toll to over 60 since dawn."
"The child who sang of death has now joined those he mourned—his farewell was as noble as his words," Bassam added.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday that at least 22 people including numerous children were killed and more than 50 others wounded when Israeli airstrikes targeted a school-turned-shelter, this one in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.n
"The Bureij massacre is a heinous war crime that requires the prosecution of the occupation's leaders in international courts as war criminals," Hamas, which rules Gaza and led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, said in a statement.
More than 185,000 Palestinians have been killed, wounded, or left missing by Israel's 578-day assault and siege on Gaza. Most of the territory's more than 2 million inhabitants have also been forcibly displaced, often multiple times, while mass starvation is rampant due to Israel's tightened blockade.
Israeli officials said Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump does not object to Operation Gideon's Chariots, a full-scale invasion, conquest, and ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip that Israel is expected to launch after Trump visits the Middle East later this month.
On Tuesday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he envisions Gaza "entirely destroyed" and ethnically cleansed of its more than 2 million inhabitants.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Monday that Israeli forces have killed at least 16,278 children in Gaza since October 2023—a rate of one child killed every 40 minutes. The ministry said it has recorded 57 children who have died from malnutrition amid Israel's "complete siege" of Gaza, which has fueled mass starvation and illness and is part of an International Court of Justice genocide case against Israel led by South Africa.
Last year, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres added Israel to his so-called "List of Shame" of countries that kill and injure children during wars and other armed conflicts. This, after the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) called Gaza the "world's most dangerous place to be a child."
A 2024 survey of more than 500 Gazan children conducted by the Gaza-based Community Training Center for Crisis Management and supported by the War Child Alliance
found that nearly all children in the embattled Palestinian enclave believed their death was imminent—and nearly half said they wanted to die.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Sanders Raises Alarm Over GOP Crypto Bill Designed to 'Enrich Trump and His Billionaire Backers'
"Congress is moving quickly to pass the GENIUS Act, which may make a bad situation much worse," said Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
May 06, 2025
As the Republican Senate majority leader plows ahead with a plan to hold a vote on a cryptocurrency bill, Sen. Bernie Sanders is planning a Wednesday conversation with industry experts regarding the proposed legislation, which his office warns would "enrich Trump and his billionaire backers."
The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act would create a regulatory framework for a type of cryptocurrency called stablecoins. Sanders' (I-Vt.) office said in a Tuesday statement that the bill "threatens the stability of our financial system" and "makes it easier for President [Donald] Trump and his family to continue to engage in corrupt dealmaking enabled through their cryptocurrency, to the great benefit of themselves and their tech oligarch backers."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), another critic of the GENIUS Act, has argued it could facilitate illicit activity and provide little protection for consumer funds.
In February, the advocacy group Consumer Reports warned that the bill lacked consumer protections and could inadvertently allow large tech companies to enter the banking space, as in create currencies, without being subject to the same scrutiny that is applied to traditional banks.
"Under the Trump administration, we have seen a coordinated effort to boost the cryptocurrency industry to directly benefit President Trump and his oligarch allies," said Sanders on Tuesday. He also highlighted that Trump this week promoted a scheduled private dinner for the top holders of the $TRUMP meme coin, effectively soliciting purchases of the crypto token that now accounts for a substantial portion of his net worth.
Also, a stablecoin launched by Trump's World Liberty Financial crypto venture is going to be used by an investment firm backed by the government of Abu Dhabi to complete a $2 billion business deal, according to The New York Times.
"If that's not a troubling form of corruption, I don't know what is," said Sanders of the two cases.
The latest revelations regarding Trump and cryptocurrency appear to have diminished the GENIUS Act's chances of passage, according to The American Prospect.
The GENIUS Act had enjoyed support from a handful of Democratic senators, but a number of them backed off from supporting the bill in its current form over the weekend, writing in a statement that they wanted to see stronger provisions on anti-money laundering, national security, and other issues. "But reading between the lines, it was clearly the Trump corruption that soured them," the Prospect reported.
Sanders said that "in the face of this corruption, you might hope that Congress would step in to clamp down on corruption. Instead, Congress is moving quickly to pass the GENIUS Act, which may make a bad situation much worse."
Axiosreported Tuesday afternoon that Warren and another GENIUS Act critic, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), will introduce the End Crypto Corruption Act on Tuesday. The proposal would bar the president, vice president, members of Congress, and their immediate families from issuing digital assets, like stablecoins, perAxios.
Sanders' conversation will be with Sacha Haworth, the executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, a group aimed at reining in Big Tech, and Corey Frayer, the director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America, a consumer research and advocacy organization.
The conversation will be livestreamed on his Facebook, X, and YouTube, and through Act.tv.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Pakistan Retaliates After Indian Missile Strikes Kill Child
"The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan," said a spokesperson for the United Nations secretary-general.
May 06, 2025
This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates...
Pakistan retaliated after Indian missile strikes killed at least three people, including a child, and wounded a dozen others early Wednesday local time—further escalating tensions between the two nuclear-armed nations that have risen since last month's Kashmir massacre.
Karachi-based Geo Newsreported that "Pakistan shot down two Indian Air Force (IAF) jets early Wednesday in retaliatory strikes following Indian missile attacks on cities in Punjab and Azad Kashmir," which is administered by Pakistan.
Citing security sources, the outlet added that Pakistan's military also "destroyed an Indian Army brigade headquarters" and launched a missile strike that "wiped out an enemy post in the Dhundial sector of the Line of Control" in Kashmir.
Pakistan's Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, director general of Inter-Services Public Relations, said that "Pakistani armed forces are giving a befitting response to Indian aggression."
Before the retaliation, the Indian Ministry of Defense said in a statement that "India has launched Operation Sindoor, a precise and restrained response to the barbaric Pahalgam terror attack that claimed 26 lives, including one Nepali citizen."
India has blamed Pakistan for the April 22 attack in which armed militants killed tourists in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, while the Pakistani government has called for a "neutral" probe.
The Indian ministry claimed Wednesday that "focused strikes were carried out on nine terrorist infrastructure sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, targeting the roots of cross-border terror planning."
"Importantly, no Pakistani military facilities were hit, reflecting India's calibrated and nonescalatory approach," the ministry added. "This operation underscores India's resolve to hold perpetrators accountable while avoiding unnecessary provocation."
A spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said that the U.N. chief "is very concerned about the Indian military operations across the Line of Control and international border. He calls for maximum military restraint from both countries."
"The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan," the spokesperson added, according toReuters.
Guterres has repeatedly expressed concern about mounting tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors since last month.
"Now is the time for maximum restraint and stepping back from the brink," he said Monday. "Make no mistake: A military solution is no solution. And I offer my good offices to both governments in the service of peace. The United Nations stands ready to support any initiative that promotes de-escalation, diplomacy, and a renewed commitment to peace."
Asked about the escalation at the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump said: "It's a shame... I just hope it ends very quickly."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular