Jill Morrison has seen how the bust of oil and gas production can permanently scar a landscape. Near her land in north-east Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, where drilling started in 1889, more than 2,000 abandoned wells are seeping brine into the groundwater and leaking potent greenhouse gasses. The problem is getting worse. As the oil and gas industry contracts owing to the pandemic, low prices and the rise of renewables, more than 50 major.
Costco to increase its minimum wage to $16 next week, CEO says By Aimee Picchi Rep. Andy Levin on COVID relief, minimum wage
Costco CEO Craig Jelinek said that the retailer will boost its minimum wage to $16 an hour starting next week, up from its current baseline pay of $15 an hour. That will hike Costco s lowest pay rate to $1 an hour above that of many competitors, including Amazon.com and Target.
Jelinek announced the pay boost while speaking at a U.S. Senate Budget Committee hearing on worker wages at large companies such as Costco, Walmart and McDonald s. Costco s philosophy is that higher pay reduces employee turnover, increases loyalty and ultimately improves efficiency and the bottom line, Jelinek said. The company has 180,000 workers in the U.S.
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he shot him with his own gun. It was the same gun, Maddesyn George tells police, that Kristopher Graber kept next to the bed where he raped her the night before. The same gun, she says, that he pulled on her when she tried to escape. She shot him in self-defense, she says. She wasn t going to let him hurt her again, she tells police. So once he fell asleep, she took the gun, along with his drugs and money. Graber came looking and found her a day later in the passenger seat of a car northeast of Omak, just inside the Confederated Tribes of the Colville reservation border. He reached through the window, shouting at her, threatening her and grabbing her. Then, she says, he saw the gun and tried to wrestle it away from her. She pulled the trigger.
Feb 25, 2021 4:37 PM EDT
In the midst of a national shortage of N95 masks, the U.S. government quietly granted an exception to its export ban on protective gear, allowing as many as 5 million of the masks per month to be shipped overseas.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency issued the waiver in the final moments of Donald Trump’s presidency last month, allowing a Texas company to export its products after it failed to secure U.S. customers, according to the FEMA letter obtained by KHN.
National Nurses United president Zenei Triunfo-Cortez called the export waiver “unconscionable” and said N95s remain under lock and key in many hospitals. She said she still has to “beg” for a new N95 if hers gets soiled during a shift caring for COVID-19 patients.
Wanted: More high-tech manufacturing space for a global vaccine push reuters.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from reuters.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.