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AG makes push for powers to crack down on wage theft

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:19 GMT

With up to $1 billion in wages taken from Bay State employees every year, lawmakers are attempting — again — to change the law to help their constituents get the money they’ve worked so hard to earn from unscrupulous employers.A pair of bills filed by Rep. Daniel Donahue and Sen. Sal DiDomenico heard by the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development on Tuesday would empower the Attorney General to take action on behalf of employees seeking lost wages and allow her office to investigate complaints of wage theft and take civil action against employers who steal from their staff.According to AG Andrea Campbell, it’s a problem her office hears about frequently.“Our Fair Labor team continues to receive a high volume of reports of violations. In Fiscal Year 2023, we received 13,000 calls and fielded over 6,600 complaints,” she told the committee.Under consideration are H1868 and S1158, or An Act to prevent wage theft, promote employer accountability, and enhance public enforcement...

Texas prisoner accused of killing 22 older women is slain by cellmate while serving life sentence

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:19 GMT

By JAMIE STENGLE (Associated Press)DALLAS (AP) — A Texas prisoner accused of killing 22 older women over two years, preying on them so he could steal jewelry and other valuables, was slain Tuesday by his cellmate while serving a life sentence, prison officials said.Billy Chemirmir, 50, who was convicted last year in the slayings of two women, was found dead in his cell at a prison in rural East Texas, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesperson Hannah Haney said. He was killed by his cellmate who was also serving a prison sentence for murder, according to Haney.Chemirmir’s death comes about two weeks after Texas’ 100 prisons were placed on a rare statewide lockdown because of a rise in the number of killings inside the facilities, which prisons officials have said were related to drugs.Haney did not release the name of the cellmate, how Chemirmir was killed or what may have led to the slaying.Family members of those he was accused of killing expressed shock a...

California truck drivers ask Gov. Newsom to sign job-saving bill as self-driving big rigs are tested

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:19 GMT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers, union leaders and truck drivers are trying to steer Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom toward signing into law a proposal that could save jobs as self-driving trucks are tested for their safety on the roads.The legislation would ban self-driving trucks weighing more than 10,000 pounds (4,536 kilograms) — which would include vehicles from UPS delivery trucks to massive semi-trucks — from operating on public roads unless a human driver is on board. Proponents of the bill say it would help address concerns about safety and losing truck driving jobs to automation in the future. Under the bill, the rules would be in effect until at least 2029.Republican Assemblymember Tom Lackey, one of the bill’s co-authors, said lawmakers aren’t “against technology,” but they see the bill as a safer way for companies to test self-driving trucks.“We want balance because we believe in people, and we believe in public safety,” Lackey said. “When surpri...

Ohtani has elbow surgery. His doctor expects hitting return by opening day ’24 and pitching by ’25

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:19 GMT

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Los Angeles Angels star Shohei Ohtani had elbow surgery Tuesday, and his doctor said he expects the two-way star will be available as a hitter on opening day next season and will return to the mound as a pitcher in 2025.Ohtani tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow on Aug. 23, ending his pitching season. He continued as a batter through Sept. 3 until an oblique strain.Los Angeles Dodgers head team physician Dr. Neal ElAttrache operated Tuesday at the Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Los Angeles. He said in a statement that the sides decided to “reinforce the healthy ligament in place,” suggesting the UCL wasn’t reconstructed via Tommy John surgery. ElAttrache also performed Tommy John surgery on Ohtani on Oct. 1, 2018.“I had a procedure done on my elbow earlier this morning and everything went very well,” Ohtani said in a post on Instagram. “Thank you very much for everyone’s prayers and kind words. It was very unfort...

Climate, development, India top of mind as Trudeau arrives at UN General Assembly

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:19 GMT

NEW YORK — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrived Tuesday at the UN General Assembly with the planet at a climate crossroads — and Canada facing an ever more fraught relationship with the world’s fastest-growing economy. The day before, Trudeau rocked the House of Commons with “credible allegations” linking agents of India’s government to the deadly shooting this past June of a Sikh leader in Surrey, B.C. At the UN, however — a place where political realities have a way of sabotaging multilateral visions of peace, prosperity and equity — Trudeau was determined to focus on the latter.“The time has come for all of us to step up and understand: the future is expecting us all to meet this moment,” he told a summit taking stock of progress to date on the UN’s sustainable development goals. Those goals, established in 2015 as the UN’s road map for a safe, equitable and peaceful world, include lofty ambitions like eliminating poverty and hunge...

California regulators order Arrowhead bottled water to stop drawing from some mountain springs

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:19 GMT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California regulators on Tuesday ordered the company that owns Arrowhead bottled water to stop using some of the natural springs it has relied on for more than a century, a victory for community groups who have said for years that the practice has drained an important creek that is a habitat for wildlife and helps protect the area from wildfires.Arrowhead bottled water traces its roots to a hotel at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains that first opened in 1885 and began selling bottled spring water from its basement in 1906. But environmental and community groups say the company has never had permission to take water from the springs, which flow through the San Bernardino National Forest on public lands.On Tuesday, after eight years of wrangling that included dozens of hearings, the State Water Resources Control Board agreed that BlueTriton — the company that owns the Arrowhead brand — does not have permission to use the water and ordered them to stop....

Chicago Symphony Orchestra musicians get 3% annual raises in 3-year labor contract

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:19 GMT

CHICAGO (AP) — The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and members of the Chicago Federation of Musicians voted Tuesday to ratify a three-year labor contract that incudes 3% annual salary raises.The deal was announced Sunday and replaces a five-year contract expiring this month. The orchestra said health care, insurance and retirement benefits will be retained. The CSO said the deal includes cost reductions, managerial efficiencies, increased revenue opportunities and improved working conditions.CSO musicians struck for two days in September 2012 and for seven weeks in March and April 2019 before agreeing to a contract calling for a 13.25% wage increase over five years.Music director emeritus for life Riccardo Muti will lead the CSO season-opening concert Sept. 21 at Orchestra Hall and take the orchestra to New York to open Carnegie Hall’s season Oct. 4.The Associated Press

Actor Bijou Phillips files for divorce from Danny Masterson after rape convictions

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:19 GMT

Bijou Phillips has filed for divorce from Danny Masterson, days after the former “That ’70s Show” star was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison for two rape convictions.Phillips, a 43-year-old actor, filed a petition in Santa Barbara Superior Court on Monday to end her nearly 12-year marriage to the 47-year-old Masterson, according to the court’s website. The couple has a 9-year-old daughter. No further details were immediately available.An attorney for Phillips did not respond to emails, and a representative for Masterson declined to comment. Masterson maintains his innocence and his attorneys have said they plan to appeal, contending there were problems with evidence and constitutional issues with his conviction.Phillips sat with other Masterson family members in court throughout two long trials, the first of which ended in a mistrial, the second of which ended in a conviction on two of three rape counts from 2003.She wept when in court when the guilty v...

Arguments to free FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried get rough reception from federal appeals panel

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:19 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court in Manhattan seemed unreceptive Tuesday to arguments that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried should be released on bail before his trial starts in two weeks so he can better prepare for trial.The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in Manhattan, and all three judges were dismissive of his lawyer’s claims that the First Amendment protects him from a judge’s conclusion that his actions while confined to his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California, for eight months violated the conditions of his $250 million bail.Bankman-Fried, 31, was extradited to the United States last December from the Bahamas to face charges that he stole billions of dollars in FTX customer deposits, spending tens of millions on his businesses, speculative investments, charitable donations and campaign contributions meant to influence cryptocurrency regulation in Washington.Bankman-Fried, who has pleaded not guilty, was jailed Aug. 11. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan con...

Indiana US Senate candidate files suit challenging law that may keep him off the ballot

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:11:19 GMT

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An egg farmer seeking the Republican nomination for Indiana’s open U.S. Senate seat in 2024 filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the constitutionality of a state law that could prevent him from getting on the ballot. John Rust, the chair of Seymour-based Rose Acre Farms, filed the lawsuit against Secretary of State Diego Morales, the Indiana Election Commission and Jackson County Republican Party Chair Amanda Lowery. Rust told The Indianapolis Star he hopes the lawsuit will allow Indiana residents that identify with their party to run for office without following requirements in Indiana law on political party affiliation.The law says a candidate’s past two primary elections must be cast with the party the candidate is affiliated with or a county party chair must approve the candidacy. In the lawsuit filed in Marion Superior Court in Indianapolis, Rust states that this statute “should be struck down as being unconstitutionally vague and overly broad.” Rust voted as...