U.S. News

If you've spent any time in Jackson or Josephine counties, the notion of Grants Pass being a small town is amusing. Still, this is apparently where the fight over human dignity is going to be fought.

Workers at a Whole Foods in Philadelphia are on track to be the first in company history to be represented by a labor union after a majority voted Monday to join the local chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers.

According to the National Labor Relations Board, 130 workers voted to be represented by UFCW, while 100 voted against, out of nearly 300 eligible employees. Now, said NLRB's Teddy Quinn, "The employer must begin bargaining in good faith with the union."

The development comes two months after a majority of workers at the sprawling, flagship location signed cards expressing interest in collectively bargaining. The election was facilitated by the National Labor Relations Board, which under former President Joe Biden adopted a rule expediting such votes, limiting the time employers have to engage in anti-union advocacy; before the vote, workers had accused Whole Foods and its parent company, Amazon, of having turned union-busting into a "science," claiming employees were retaliated against for organizing.

The Climate Superfund Act made Vermont the first state in the nation to adopt a federal superfund model—requiring polluters to pay for damages—and apply the proceeds to costs from climate harms. The lawsuit, filed Dec. 30, came just days after New York state passed its own version of the law. Massachusetts and Maryland legislators have re-introduced similar climate superfund bills for their states’ 2025 legislative sessions, and a Maine state senator has begun exploring a polluters-pay policy for the state.

The timing, so soon after the passage of New York’s law, leads advocates to think that the lawsuit is, at least initially, a scare tactic to discourage more copycat laws.

Jason Riddle says he rejected pardon because ‘it happened. I did those things, and they weren’t pardonable’

Maryland has seen a long battle over OPC. Activists and public health experts have fought hard to get the legislature to act over the years, but OPC bills haven’t gained support as easily as other harm reduction efforts. For example, legislation to decriminalize drug “paraphernalia” cleared both chambers in the General Assembly, though it was vetoed by former Governor Larry Hogan (R) in 2021 (a new bill is back on the table this legislative session).

The OPC bill does not mandate the creation of the sites, which Hettleman said could be a source of misunderstanding. Rather, it permits municipalities to work with community partners to introduce them, subject to approval from the state health department.

What may be most important this time around, Hettleman said, is that Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D), recently sworn in for his second term, named OPC as a “legislative priority” on the same day the bill was introduced.

I posted the text in !politics, and then I found the video. It is questionable to post the same thing twice, just in different formats, but this needs to be seen by as many people as possible. And fuck it, I'm a mod.

THIS is how you speak truth to power. She was evidently aware that this would be the only opportunity for anyone to try to talk some sense into this supposed Christian without interruption, and I'm not entirely willing to rule out divine inspiration for what she delivered.

This will be remembered as a seminal speech.

From the late 1800s through the 1920s, many of the US's railway barons built grand train stations. These palaces not only testify to the "golden age of American railroading", but serve as a reminder of how the rapid growth of rail travel following the US Civil War helped settle the US West and transform the once-largely rural nation to a coast-to-coast collection of cities. As automobiles and, later, planes became more fashionable than trains, many of these railways consolidated or stopped running, leaving these once-bustling centrepieces of urban life empty.

Some stations burned down. Others were demolished. But over the past decade, cities have been finding creative ways to breathe new life into the historic structures, helping them regain their cultural cachet while offering travellers an intriguing glimpse into the past.

A second reason for the reuse boom: location, location, location.

"A lot of towns and cities were built up around their train stations," said Glenn NP Nowak, associate professor of architecture at UNLV School of Architecture in Las Vegas, Nevada. As result, many of the structures are located in highly desirable areas. These stations were designed as a "gateway" to then-burgeoning locales, where travellers would disembark and get their first impressions of the city. As a result, many boast generously arched entryways or tall columns that strategically frame what are now historic downtowns or other attractions.

"You had a sense of arrival," said Diana Melichar, president of Melichar Architects in Lake Forest, Illinois, and who has renovated several train stations in smaller communities. "They were the gateways to these 19th- and 20th-Century cities that were growing. Trains were the mode of transportation [and the message was], this is the grand entry to the town."

Perhaps the most expansive example is the recent transformation of Denver's Union Station into a massive hall encompassing a hotel (The Crawford), restaurants and retail spaces. While trains still whisk passengers from the airport to the hotel and the seasonal Winter Park Express train brings travellers and Denverites up to ski country, Union Station is no longer the robust train hub it was in its heyday.

It is, however, an awe-inspiring space. In addition to its enormous scale, it abounds with restored historic details – antique mirrors; subway tiles; the original ticketing office which has been transformed into a bar; and an old barber shop-turned local ice cream purveyor. Built in 1881 in the wake of the Colorado Gold Rush, the structure was remodelled twice; first by urban preservationist Dana Crawford who spearheaded a $38m revitalisation in 2014, followed by another elegant $11m makeover that was unveiled in July 2024.

I thought the weather was bad enough growing up there.

She's not just a problem for puppies anymore.

[...]Even though Florida initially tried to block major national insurers from leaving, they left eventually, and they have continued to exit. Smaller, less solvent, more entrepreneurial insurers have taken their place. The national names you've heard of, State Farm, Progressive, and Allstate, all have puny market shares in Florida ranging from 3 to 7 percent as of 2023, according to S&P Global.

Similarly, now California will likely do what it can to keep insurers around, but they may leave anyway—or be replaced by less-desirable players. The California Department of Insurance reports that between 2020 and 2022 insurance companies declined to renew 2.8 million homeowner policies in the state, over half a million of which were in LA County, and that's a trend that will be very difficult to slow. In the long run, both national and regional insurers will likely reshape their approach to the California market after they limp through the immediate claims-paying process (one that researchers for the Federal Reserve predict will include systematic underpayments on the scale of hundreds of thousands of dollars per household). To the extent nationally-known home insurance remains available, it may be expensive and provided in ways designed to evade state oversight—Bloomberg's Leslie Kaufman has done extensive work explaining this phenomenon. Or it may be provided by smaller, lightly capitalized insurers willing to take short-term high risks in exchange for high premiums—the story in Florida.

I don't really have words for this...

The bill, HB267, is aimed at banning collective bargaining across all of Utah’s public sectors. The bill would not prevent public employees from joining or forming unions, but it would prohibit government employers from “recognizing a labor organization as a bargaining agent.”

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, said rather than “silencing” public workers, as Pinkney put it, his proposed legislation “will enable more participation in the negotiation process and provide better benefits for our public employees.”

It would do that, Teuscher explained, by “opening up the free market” and allowing other people and organizations to have a seat at the negotiating table.

A) "Reporting Highlights

A Freelance Vigilante: A wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover, climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn’t tell police or the FBI. He didn’t tell his family or friends. The Future of Militias: He penetrated a new generation of militia leaders, which included doctors and government attorneys. Experts say that militias could have a renaissance under Donald Trump. A Secret Trove: He sent ProPublica a massive trove of documents. The conversations that he secretly recorded give a unique, startling window into the militia movement."

B) There's also an audio version of the article for those who need vision asst or time asst.

C) The reason I shared this was William's record dump was just shared on ddosecrets this month - https://ddosecrets.com/article/paramilitary-leaks

“People are scared. Kids are scared. This is the time to push back hard,” said Milwaukee Common Council President José Pérez at the news conference. “Whether here or somewhere else in the city, my role as council president is to assure that the laws are followed, and those laws are to protect our families, our most vulnerable.”

Milwaukee County Board Supervisor Juan Miguel Martínez announced the formation of a coalition to oppose an ICE facility at this District 9 location.

The coalition is currently solidifying support and mulling its options, said Eddie Cullen, spokesperson for the county board.

“The mayor has not publicly opined about a plan to replace the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility currently located at Broadway and Knapp Street,” said Jeff Fleming, spokesperson for Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson. “The contact the city has had about the proposed northwest side location has come only from private sector building owners.”

Attorneys general from Colorado and 21 other states filed lawsuits Tuesday to block President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship, a principle enshrined in the U.S. Constitution that guarantees that U.S.-born children are citizens regardless of their parents’ immigration status.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser called the president’s move a violation of the constitutional rights that children born in the U.S. are entitled to.

“The idea that a president could override the Constitution with the stroke of a pen is a flagrant assault on the rule of law and our constitutional republic,” Weiser said in a news release Tuesday announcing the lawsuit.

“The executive order cannot be allowed to stand, and I will fight to ensure that all who are born in the United States keep their right to fully and fairly be a part of American society as a citizen with all its benefits and privileges.”

Archived

Attorneys general from 22 states sued Tuesday to block President Donald Trump’s move to end a century-old immigration practice known as birthright citizenship guaranteeing that U.S.-born children are citizens regardless of their parents’ status.

Trump’s roughly 700-word executive order, issued late Monday, amounts to a fulfillment of something he’s talked about during the presidential campaign. But whether it succeeds is far from certain amid what is likely to be a lengthy legal battle over the president’s immigration policies and a constitutional right to citizenship.

The Democratic attorneys general and immigrant rights advocates say the question of birthright citizenship is settled law and that while presidents have broad authority, they are not kings.

“The president cannot, with a stroke of a pen, write the 14th Amendment out of existence, period,” New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin said.

[...]

At issue in these cases is the right to citizenship granted to anyone born in the U.S., regardless of their parents’ immigration status. People in the United States on a tourist or other visa or in the country illegally can become the parents of a citizen if their child is born here.

It’s enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, supporters say. But Trump and allies dispute the reading of the amendment and say there need to be tougher standards on becoming a citizen.

The U.S. is among about 30 countries where birthright citizenship — the principle of jus soli or “right of the soil” — is applied. Most are in the Americas, and Canada and Mexico are among them. Most other countries confer citizenship based on whether at least one parent — jus sanguinis, or “right of blood” — is a citizen, or have a modified form of birthright citizenship that may restrict automatic citizenship to children of parents who are on their territory legally.

[...]