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Two San Diego companies pay $1.1M after fair labor violations

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:14 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- The U.S. Department of Labor (USDL) has recovered $1.1 million for 50 Mexican nationals, some paid as little as $2.43 an hour, from two companies operating in the San Diego area, officials said.Freig Carrillo Forwarding Inc., a custom broker company that provides logistic and transportation services for goods traveling between U.S. and Mexico, was ordered to pay $1 million in back wages and damages to 35 workers, $400,000 of which must be paid within 15 days with monthly payments of $16,928 for three years, USDL stated in a news release. They also owe $26,215 in civil money penalties for its violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the department said."The court’s action follows a division investigation of Freig Carrillo Forwarding’s pay practices from December 2019 through December 2021 that found the employer denied minimum wage and overtime wages to Mexican nationals working at its San Diego warehouses," USDL said. "On average, investigators determined that the co...

Canadian parents still struggling to find consistent supply of baby formulas

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:14 GMT

A little over a year after the closure of a U.S. baby formula plant triggered a widespread shortage in North America, Canadian parents are still struggling to find a steady supply of certain products.“I find a disconnect between perhaps what the Government of Canada is saying and my experience in the stores,” said Toronto mother Christina Marrella.Marella says she typically buys Nestle’s Good Start concentrated liquid formula for her 8-month-old son online. A few weeks ago, she noticed every website displayed as out of stock.When her supply at home began to dwindle last week, she visited several pharmacies and big box retailers only to find their shelves were bare. Some stores limited baby formula purchases to two per customer.Marrella called Nestle’s customer service line. She said they could not definitively answer when new stock would arrive. A representative even suggested she switch brands.“I’m a bit concerned about that because I know with t...

Tennessee House OKs narrow abortion exemption bill

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:14 GMT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee’s GOP-dominant House on Monday advanced legislation that would add a narrow exemption to the state’s strict abortion ban, despite concerns raised by Democrats and medical experts that the bill does not go far enough to protect doctors and pregnant patients.The legislation was drastically reworked from its original version that was introduced just last month after Tennessee’s influential anti-abortion lobbying group came out in opposition. Tennessee Right to Life warned that could face political retribution for voting on a bill that would have allowed doctors to provide abortions based on their “good-faith judgement.” Instead, the legislation advanced Monday allows doctors to use a “reasonable medical judgment” when determining an abortion is necessary to prevent the death of a pregnant patient or to spare her from the irreversible, severe impairment of a major bodily function. Some doctors argue that is a harsher legal standard.“Th...

Biden signs measure nullifying DC criminal code revisions

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:14 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Monday signed into law legislation nullifying the recent overhaul of the District of Columbia criminal code, but the fight between Congress and local lawmakers is continuing.The signature merely marks the end of a raucous first chapter in a saga that has left district lawmakers bitterly nursing their political bruises, harboring fresh resentments against national Democrats and bracing to play defense against an activist Republican-controlled House for at least the next two years.House Speaker Kevin McCarthy hailed the move in a statement, calling it the end of what he labeled a “soft-on-crime criminal code rewrite that treated violent criminals like victims and discarded the views of law enforcement.”But even before the bill was formally sent to sent to Biden, House Republicans were promising a season of direct congressional intervention in local D.C. affairs.“This is just the beginning,” McCarthy, R-Calif., said earlier this month in a celeb...

IMF approves crucial $3B bailout for bankrupt Sri Lanka

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:14 GMT

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — The International Monetary Fund said Monday that its executive board has approved a nearly $3 billion bailout program for Sri Lanka over four years to help salvage the country’s bankrupt economy.About $333 million will be disbursed immediately and the approval will also open up financial support from other institutions, the IMF said.“Sri Lanka has been facing tremendous economic and social challenges with a severe recession amid high inflation, depleted reserves, an unsustainable public debt, and heightened financial sector vulnerabilities,” its statement quoted IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva as saying.“Institutions and governance frameworks require deep reforms. For Sri Lanka to overcome the crisis, swift and timely implementation of the EFF-supported program with strong ownership for the reforms is critical.”The approval will unlock financing of up to $7 billion from the IMF and other international multilateral financial institutio...

Cruise wants to test self-driving cars all over California

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:14 GMT

DETROIT (AP) — General Motors’ Cruise autonomous vehicle unit on Monday asked California for permission to test the cars across the entire state.The GM subsidiary already is running an autonomous ride-hailing service in its hometown of San Francisco after testing for more than two years. It doesn’t have specific plans yet to expand testing in California, but applying with the Department of Motor Vehicles is a step toward entering cities such as Los Angeles.“While this application doesn’t represent any immediate change to our testing or operations, we hope to continue working with the California DMV to safely and responsibly test our services in other cities in the future,” Cruise spokesman Drew Pusateri said in a statement.If granted, the test permit won’t allow Cruise to carry non-employee passengers outside of San Francisco. Testing could be done up to 55 miles per hour (88 kilometers per hour) statewide, Cruise said. Cruise also has been testing autonomous Chevr...

New law has Wyoming at forefront of abortion pill bans

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:14 GMT

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Wyoming has pushed to the front of state efforts to prohibit the most common type of abortion by instituting the nation’s first explicit ban on pills that terminate pregnancies. In many states women can get abortion pills prescribed online and delivered to their homes. The ease and availability of pills have made that method the most popular way to end a pregnancy – more than half of all abortions are done with that method, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion access advocacy group.But 13 states now effectively ban abortion pills by prohibiting all forms of abortion, moves made after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling last year.Fifteen states restrict access to the pills. Of those, six — Arizona, Indiana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota and South Carolina — require a doctor to administer them in person. Arizona also bans mailing abortion pills. But before a law signed Friday by Wyoming Republican Gov. Mark Gor...

Russia to hold UN meeting on Ukraine kids taken to Russia

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:14 GMT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia plans to hold an informal meeting of the U.N. Security Council in early April on what it said is “the real situation” of Ukrainian children taken to Russia, an issue that has gained the spotlight following the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes related to their abduction.Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told a news conference Monday that Russia planned the council meeting long before Friday’s announcement by the ICC. Russia holds the rotating presidency of the council in April.The court said it was seeking Putin’s arrest because he “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of (children) and that of unlawful transfer of (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”The announcement of the warrants for Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, was welcom...

Outcry over understaffing across Chicago area nursing homes: 'Families deserve better'

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:14 GMT

CHICAGO — Nursing home workers are sounding the alarm on what they called a matter of public safety: dangerously low staffing levels. "Illinois families deserve better," said Service Employees International Union regional president Greg Kelley about a push for federal legislation regulating nursing homes. City lawmakers have joined the fight, with the SEIU garnering support from Chicago Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky. SEE ALSO | Staffing, quality, funding at center of Illinois nursing home legislation"That is not only good for these over-burdened workers, but it means it will save lives for nursing residents," Schakowsky said.The legislation that has President Joe Biden's backing would mandate an employee-to-resident ratio and one-on-one real-time care for elderly residents.Disproportionately, Schakowsky says Brown and Black residents receive less quality care. “We need to make sure that everyone...everyone has equal care in nursing homes," Schakowsky said.SEIU organizers say better s...

Owners of cheese factory found dead in Wisconsin home, son in custody

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:14 GMT

WOLF RIVER, Wis. (WFRV) — A husband and wife were found dead inside their central Wisconsin home on Saturday morning, and officials say they have the couple's son in custody.As of Monday morning, the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Office has identified the two victims as husband and wife, 72-year-old David A. Metzig and 71-year-old Jan C. Metzig.David and Jan Metzig owned the Union Star Cheese Factory in Fremont, where they lived just minutes away. Offenders in custody after 2nd string of robberies in Rivers Casino, Mariano’s parking lot Deputies responded to the home in Wolf River around 5:15 a.m. on March 18, finding both David and Jan dead, stating that the deaths were 'suspicious in nature.'Not long after David and Jan were discovered, authorities took a person of interest into custody.Officials have yet to disclose how a person of interest was determined, however, the Winnebago County District Attorney's Office told WGN's Green Bay affiliate — WFRV — that the couple's 25-year-old...