U.S. News

As a part of a bill critics have dubbed the “Death Star” bill—an expansive law that preempts legislation in eight key areas of local government—the Legislature has overridden local ordinances that require giving workers water breaks. Otherwise known as House Bill 2127, it was signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott on June 6.

Since then, 11 people between the ages of 60 and 80 have died of heat-related illness in Webb County, the Associated Press reported. Most did not have air-conditioning in their homes. A teen and stepfather died while hiking in extreme heat at Big Bend National Park, per a National Park Service release.

According to the Texas Tribune, at least nine inmates, including two men in their 30s, died in Texas prisons that lack air conditioning. And at least four workers have died after collapsing while laboring in triple-digit heat: a post office worker in Dallas, a utility lineman in East Texas, and construction workers in Houston and San Antonio.

> Yusef Salaam ... has won a Democratic primary for a seat on the New York City Council, all but assuring him of eventual victory.

> His outsider campaign prevailed over two political veterans — New York Assembly members Inez Dickens, 73, and Al Taylor, 65 ... Democratic socialist Kristin Richardson Jordan, the incumbent council member, dropped out of the race in May ...

> While all three candidates focused on promoting affordable housing, controlling gentrification and easing poverty in Harlem, Salaam capitalized on his celebrity ...

> Salaam moved to Georgia shortly after he was released [in 2002] and became an activist, a motivational speaker, an author and a poet. He returned only in December to launch his campaign.

> The ruling by [National Labor Relations Board] Judge Robert A. Ringler found that the company and local store managers in Pittsburgh abused their power and unlawfully targeted workers organizing with Pittsburgh Starbucks Workers United.

> Three of the fired workers were part of the union’s 5-member bargaining unit, a fact that Ringler suggested was not a coincidence.

> As workers at Starbucks stores nationwide have racked up organizing victories, the company has been hit numerous times with NLRB rulings that found unlawful labor practices.

It should be self-evident that issuing an emergency stay on the Fourth of July is unusual. The most charitable view I can apply is the judge wanted to be an answer to a trivia question — anything beyond that is misconduct.

There's also nothing in the story that points to a need for an emergency order in the first place. Now, if holiday news were a parade of mass shootings, maybe that would be a reason to just churn something out into the news cycle to distract.

“I strongly suspect that this person doesn’t exist,” said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto who studies online disinformation. “It’s as if she dropped from the moon and arrived fully formed with this narrative that makes liberals look like idiots.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ninja/post/49635

> Book vendors selling to Texas public schools, ranging from national sellers like Amazon to local bookstores with eight employees, must now rate all the books they sell based on sexual content, according to new legislation signed into law on June 12. > > If the book vendor fails to comply with state library standards that will be in place by January 1, 2024, they’d be barred from selling to Texas public schools.

It is nice to see someone being welcoming to asylum seekers.

> According to the criminal complaint, surveillance video shows Rodgers carrying a blue flag attached to a wooden flagpole as he approaches a line of law enforcement officers guarding the entrance to the East Rotunda Door. Investigators said Rodgers used his flagpole to strike a U.S. Capitol police officer three times on the helmet and then swung the flagpole twice more in the direction of officers.

> More than 1,000 people have been arrested in nearly all 50 states for alleged crimes related to the Capitol breach, according to officials. More than 350 people have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.

"Along with eliminating permanent alimony, the measure will set up a process for ex-spouses who make alimony payments to seek modifications to alimony agreements when they want to retire.

It will allow judges to reduce or terminate alimony, support or maintenance payments after considering a number of factors, such as “the age and health” of the person who makes payments; the customary retirement age of that person’s occupation; “the economic impact” a reduction in alimony would have on the recipient of the payments; and the “motivation for retirement and likelihood of returning to work” for the person making the payments.

Supporters said it will codify into law a court decision in a 1992 divorce case that judges use as a guidepost when making decisions about retirement.

But, as with previous versions, opponents remained concerned that the bill would apply to existing permanent alimony agreements, which many ex-spouses accept in exchange for giving up other assets as part of divorce settlements."

> It’s official: Colorado has the country’s most generous electric vehicle tax credit available to all residents. On July 1, the state’s incentive jumps from $2,000 to $5,000 for any electric vehicle with a starting price of less than $80,000. Data from the U.S. Department of Energy show that’s larger than any state-level discount on battery-powered cars.

excerpts from: https://www.newsweek.com/baltimore-mass-shooting-multiple-injured-deaths-brooklyn-police-1810337

...The shooting happened in the 800 block of Gretna Court in Baltimore's Brooklyn neighborhood early Sunday, a Baltimore Police spokesperson confirmed to Newsweek...

...Rebecca Pryor, a reporter for Fox Baltimore, tweeted that hundreds of people had gathered in the area for an annual celebration called "Brooklyn Day."

One witness told Pryor that she heard at least 20 to 30 shots fired from around 12:30 a.m. "They just kept going off," the witness said.

Pryor tweeted that police at the scene said there were at least 29 victims—10 who were transported to hospital by police and 10 who took them themselves to area hospitals.

Archived

Personally, I married pretty late. I was 17 years older than my parents when I married.

In light of the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) highlighted stories of physicians who have made the tough decision to leave the red states where they built careers for years, sometimes decades.

https://www.acog.org/education-and-events/awareness-and-observances/reflections-on-care-and-advocacy-one-year-after-dobbs

Archive Link from archive.today

Original link from The New York Times

> Insurers’ denial rates — a critical measure of how reliably they pay for customers’ care — remain mostly secret to the public. Federal and state regulators have done little to change that.

---

> [...]how often insurance companies say no is a closely held secret. There’s nowhere that a consumer or an employer can go to look up all insurers’ denial rates — let alone whether a particular company is likely to decline to pay for procedures or drugs that its plans appear to cover. > > The national group for state insurance commissioners gathers a more detailed, reliable trove of information. Yet, even though commissioners’ primary duty is to protect consumers, they withhold nearly all of these details from the public. ProPublica requested the data from every state’s insurance department, but none provided it. > > Two states collect their own information on denials and make it public, but their data covers only a tiny subset of health plans serving a small number of people.

Eight months after Maryland voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum to legalize recreational cannabis, a new law kicks in on Saturday that allows adults 21 and up to purchase the federally banned drug, possess small amounts of it and even grow it.

The legal sale of recreational cannabis is one of a slew of new laws taking effect this weekend in Maryland, including a 5-cent hike in the state’s gas tax and tax breaks for military veterans.

Meanwhile, in the District, the minimum wage will increase from $16.10 per hour to $17.00 per hour for all workers beginning July 1. The minimum wage for tipped workers will also increase, jumping from $6 per hour to $8 per hour, thanks to Initiative 82, a city ballot measure approved in November. In Virginia, solitary confinement will be all but eliminated in state prisons, new restrictions will limit drone activity, dentists will receive new powers to fight wrinkles and police will have more authority to combat civil arrest, among other laws that take effect Saturday.

How much to tip after D.C. raised the minimum wage for tipped workers

Maryland joins the District and Virginia to become the 20th state in the country to legalize recreational cannabis for adult use. But unlike in the region, Maryland has set up a market that allows people 21 years old and older to purchase cannabis from medical cannabis businesses that have paid a conversion fee to participate in the new recreational market.

Under the rules, adults can possess up to 1.5 ounces and grow up to two marijuana plants out of public view. Penalties for smoking marijuana in public are increased to $250 for the first offense and $500 for the second, but under a measure designed to ensure that marijuana use does not continue to be criminalized among Black and Brown people, police officers cannot initiate a search based solely on the smell of cannabis. The new law passed at voters’ behest also allows for the state to collect a 9 percent tax on cannabis sales, which is the amount levied for alcohol.

Also in Maryland, starting this weekend, drivers will pay 47 cents on a gallon of gas — up from 42.7 cents — as part of a 2013 bill that tied the gas tax to inflation. This year’s increase amounts to a 10 percent jump.

While Marylanders will pay more at the gas pump, military veterans will pony up a little less in taxes, and some members of the U.S. National Guard will get small reimbursements for health care costs under a handful of bills proposed by Gov. Wes Moore (D) in his first legislative session.

Military retirees who are 55 or older can exempt the first $20,000 of military income, up from $15,000, and some National Guard members can be repaid up to $60 for monthly health care premiums.

Moore’s other bills that take effect Saturday provide incentives to address the teacher shortage, and target so-called banking deserts in low- and moderate-income communities where residents do not have access to banks and credit unions.

Maryland’s next budget, as a result of several new laws, will allocate $12 million for the state’s suicide helpline, $5 million to help beef up security at nonprofit organizations, including faith-based facilities, to protect against hate crimes, and increase the pot for film tax credits to $15 million — up from $12 million — in an attempt to lure more television and film productions to the state.

In the District, an emergency measure passed by the D.C. Council that caps new rent increases in rent-stabilized apartments also takes effect Saturday. Rather than a nearly 9 percent increase, the council moved to limit property owners from raising rents by more than 6 percent starting July 1 and 12 percent cumulatively over the next two years. Those caps would be lower for seniors and for those with disabilities, at 4 percent this year and 8 percent total over the next two years.

And starting July 1, Good Hope Road SE, between Anacostia Drive SE, and Alabama Avenue SE, will be named Marion Barry Avenue SE — after the four-term former mayor, as a result of legislation the D.C. Council passed in April. D.C. will reissue business licenses, driver’s licenses and professional licenses free to residents and businesses impacted by the change, starting Saturday.

In Virginia, the Democratic-controlled Senate and Republican-led House put a host of new, relatively modest laws on the books but failed to advance far-reaching goals on contentious issues such as abortion and gun rights.

They approved measures that expand what costs can be counted toward child-support obligations, nudge gun owners to store their firearms in safes and ban foreign adversaries from buying farmland that, at least in the past decade, they haven’t actually been buying.

The new law that will prohibit the use of solitary confinement in Virginia prisons comes with exceptions. The Corrections Department had already banned solitary confinement, but it still uses “restorative” confinement in cases when inmates need to be kept apart from the general population, at times for the safety of the inmate or others. The new law requires that every inmate be offered at least four hours a day outside the cell. It also sets out requirements for checking on the health of such inmates and transferring them back to a regular cell.

Another new law allows local police chiefs or other top law-enforcement officials to enact a curfew during a civil disturbance. The curfew cannot be extended or renewed after 24 hours unless by order of the local governing body or a judge.

While there was no appetite in the House or governor’s mansion to enact gun control, Republicans went along with a Democrat’s bill to encourage gun owners to purchase safes for their firearms. The law provides a tax credit for up to $300 for the buyer. Democrats, meanwhile, agreed to a measure to allow the owners of switchblades to carry them in a concealed fashion. But at the same time, stiletto knives were added to the list of prohibited concealed weapons.

Another new law will prohibit foreign adversaries from buying agricultural land. The legislature passed the measure at the behest of Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), a potential 2024 presidential candidate who claimed early this year that China was trying to buy farmland near the state’s military bases.

Similar warnings have been made by leading GOP White House candidates, including former president Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The only major purchase in Virginia was a decade ago, when the Hong Kong-based conglomerate WH Group, which is not owned by the Chinese government, bought Smithfield Foods. Youngkin accepted a $30,000 Smithfield donation in January 2022 for his inaugural committee.

The governor had less success with another measure popular with the GOP base: abortion. Even in the Republican-led House, Youngkin’s bill seeking to ban the procedure after 15 weeks, with exceptions, never got a hearing in an election year that will put all 100 seats in the House and all 40 in the Senate on the ballot this fall. But both parties got behind a measure meant to provide new mothers with better financial support. The new law allows a parent seeking child support to seek help with expenses related to and delivery, not just costs incurred after birth.

Another addition to the code raises the amount jurors are paid from $30 a day to $50. A pair of new laws is intended to rein in the use of drones around homes and prisons. One prohibits the use of drones to spy through the windows or doors of homes. Another prohibits drones from flying over state and local correctional facilities without consent. Officials say the drones have been used to drop contraband.

Virginia dentists will be allowed to treat wrinkles as well as teeth under a new law that lets them administer botulinum toxin injections, commonly known as Botox, for cosmetic purposes. Already permitted to administer the injections for pain relief, dentists will need to complete special training. While the law takes effect July 1, dentists cannot offer cosmetic procedures until the state Board of Dentistry creates related regulations, a process that will take a minimum of 18 months.

Archive Link

Of course they did. If you're rich, you get a bailout. If you're not, then fuck you.

Apologies if this is the wrong community for this! Feel free to delete if it is.

Also, this is a big blow to lgbt anti discrimination but it also is a blow to a lot of others as well The way this decision is going to backfire and the fact it will be able to applied against not just lgbt people has not been thought through, at all.

Over a year since the school shooting in Uvalde, TX, a judge has ordered Texas Dept. of Public Safety to release records related to the response to the incident by the agency. This comes after a lawsuit led by multiple media organizations, claiming DPS was illegally withholding records against the Texas Public Information Act.

>More than 150 years after the Navajo Nation signed treaties with the United States establishing its reservation and recognizing its sovereignty, the country’s largest tribe still struggles to secure the water guaranteed by those agreements.

>In a 5-4 decision, the court denied the Navajo Nation’s request that the federal government be forced to act in a timely manner to help the tribe quantify, settle and access its water rights... ... Writing for the majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the tribe’s treaties do not impose “a duty on the United States to take affirmative steps to secure water for the Tribe.”

Link to the PDF going over the 5-4 SCOTUS decision.

>When the researchers drafted their report, they included a key suggestion: The DOT should craft federal regulations requiring side guards.

>But that recommendation generated intense resistance, both internally, from department officials who challenged their findings, and externally, from trucking industry lobbyists.

> ... the department supervisor overseeing the project had a very direct message for the researchers. “PLEASE delete any mention of a recommendation to develop … any regulation,” he wrote in an email. “An industry standard is acceptable, but no mention of ‘regulation.’”

>The industry objections resulted in a remarkable concession from the department: It allowed trucking company lobbyists to review the researchers’ preliminary report and provide comments on it.

>By the time of its release in 2020, the report had been dramatically rewritten, stripped of its key conclusions — including the need to federally mandate side guards — and cut down by nearly 70 pages.

"Several sources identified the suspect as 37-year-old Taylor Taranto, of Seattle, Washington."