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Thousands of workers, retirees and unemployed people attended the annual Free Health Expo for the uninsured held Tuesday at Cobo Convention Center in Detroit. The event, sponsored by the Wayne County Department of Health and Human Services, offered health screenings for a number of conditions including blood pressure, cholesterol, cancer, diabetes, dental, HIV/AIDS and vision.

Part of the crowd waiting for services at the Free Health Expo

Edith Killins, Wayne County director of health and human services, told the WSWS that she expected no fewer than 3,000 to turn out for the event. She indicated there were more than 350,000 residents of Wayne County, which encompasses the city of Detroit and its western suburbs, without health insurance. Approximately 1 million people statewide live without health insurance.

The report Monday that the CIA regularly hands over sacks filled with hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai is only the latest episode in Afghanistan’s long and tragic encounter with US imperialism.

According to the New York Times, “For more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month at the offices of the president.”

Following their White House meeting earlier this year, President Barack Obama and Karzai issued a joint statement declaring their intention to maintain US military forces in Afghanistan into the indefinite future under a Strategic Partnership Agreement. The two also proclaimed their respect for Afghan “sovereignty” and stated that their economic strategy for the country was “focused on investing in its human capital to lead the country’s institutions and to create an enabling environment for inclusive economic growth and investment.”

Residents of the Henry Street apartments, located in Detroit’s Cass Corridor, held a tenants meeting on Sunday to fight the eviction from their homes, slated for May 20.

On April 19, without any warning, residents of the complex were sent a sent a three-sentence letter informing them that the property had been sold and to vacate the premises. They were also given a state of Michigan document to vacate, which is the step prior to eviction. The owner of the buildings, Peter Mercier, told the residents that he had signed an option to sell the buildings a year ago.

There is speculation that the new owner is Little Caesar’s billionaire owner Mike Ilitch, and that the buying up of properties in this area of downtown Detroit is part of plans for a $650 million shopping district and a new arena for his hockey team, the Detroit Red Wings.

In preparation for a US war against Syria, Washington’s political establishment and the corporate media are steadily escalating a campaign of lies and propaganda about the alleged use of chemical weapons.

The propaganda about Syrian chemical warfare is completely unsubstantiated and based on assertions that have about as much credibility as the propaganda used by the Nazi regime in Germany to portray its invasions of Poland and Czechoslovakia as acts of self-defense and humanitarianism.

Typical is an editorial in the Financial Times, the voice of the City of London’s financial oligarchy. After first acknowledging that “there is no firm proof” that any chemical weapons have been employed by Syrian government forces, the editorial goes on to affirm that “if, as close observers of the Syrian conflict believe, the claims are true, then only concerted action now can hope to prevent atrocities in the future such as that of Halabja, where in 1988 the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq gassed to death 5,000 of its rebellious Kurdish citizens.”