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Vegas-to-LA rail project lands $3B in federal funds
Brightline West has been awarded $3 billion in federal funds to go toward its planned $12 billion Las Vegas-to-Los Angeles high-speed rail system.
It is expected that President Joe Biden will make an official announcement about the grant award Friday in Las Vegas. Congress has been notified of the grant award, a source told the Las Vegas Review...Read more

Former Wells Fargo CEO sues bank for $34 million, says he was a sales scandal scapegoat
Tim Sloan, a former Wells Fargo CEO, is suing the bank for more than $34 million for allegedly withholding pay after he retired in 2019, according to a lawsuit filed last Friday in California state court.
The San Francisco-based institution, which has its largest employment hub in Charlotte, North Carolina, saw Sloan retire following a major ...Read more

Back to the future: Fiat revives the 500e with a new version to be sold across the US
Stellantis NV's first battery-electric vehicle available for retail customers across North America goes on sale in the first quarter of 2024 with a starting price of $32,500 plus a $1,595 destination fee.
It's the Fiat 500e, a previous version of which was sold in California and Oregon last decade, and this time the company actually wants ...Read more

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer directs state government vehicle fleet to go electric
LANSING, Michigan — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive directive Tuesday requiring the state government to convert its fleet of cars and trucks to zero-emission vehicles by 2040.
The move would mark a significant change for Michigan departments, which have more than 8,000 vehicles. Currently, only three of them are electric ...Read more

Nurse shortages are set to get even worse with mass US visa delays
Erica DeBoer, the chief nurse at America’s largest rural health network, thought she could finally offer some relief for her overworked staff and thousands of patients. More than 160 reinforcement nurses were supposed to arrive over the coming months across Sanford Health’s Midwest facilities from as far away as Manila and Lagos, Nigeria.
...Read more

Motormouth: Can I use new oil in an old car?
Q: I have retained the old family Buick LeSabre that my father bought new in 1973. It's been a garage queen and has only 44,000 miles. I've been told that engines made prior to 1992 require additives that are no longer in today's motor oil and these were taken out because they didn't react well with catalytic converters. Running the old engines ...Read more

Inside Amazon warehouses, workers worry about risk of unsafe chemicals
At 4 a.m. in a sprawling Amazon warehouse south of Tacoma, Washington, Ellie Zingg noticed a jug of mold remover was leaking.
While sitting in the warehouse, awaiting Amazon associates who would unpack and send the product back out of the facility, chemicals in the mold remover were eating through a plastic container. Zingg, who had less than ...Read more

Breastfeeding at work is 'mentally and physically taxing' even in the best conditions
PHILADELPHIA — Breastfeeding has been a major part of psychiatrist Johanna Beck’s life for most of the last three years. It’s required careful planning, persistence, and three different kinds of breast pumps so she can express milk while continuing her work tasks and seeing patients.
“There is a big burden of pumping at work,” Beck ...Read more

This LA firm hired kids to debone poultry with sharp knives, drive fork lifts, Labor Department says
A Southern California poultry processor illegally employed children as young as 14 to debone meat with sharp knives and move pallets with power-driven lifts, the Labor Department said.
The poultry processor, which supplies grocery stores including Ralphs and Aldi, must pay nearly $3.8 million in fines and back wages after an investigation found...Read more

People are flocking from California to Vegas -- and not just to visit
Las Vegas remains a top destination nationwide for people looking to relocate, and Los Angeles is the prime city they are moving from, according to Redfin, an online real estate brokerage.
The Las Vegas Valley ranked second in the nation for people relocating from other states, behind Sacramento, which topped the list with approximately 5,000 ...Read more

Q&A: UAW's Fain on targeting non-union auto plants, foreign transplants, EV startups after 'record contracts' with Detroit 3
DETROIT — United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain has become one of the nation's highest-profile labor leaders since becoming the Detroit-based union's top official in March. Fain, 55, took office after narrowly defeating incumbent Ray Curry in a runoff election. Fain, who was an international administrative representative in the Stellantis ...Read more

Spotify cuts 17% of its global workforce in the latest round of cuts
Spotify on Monday said it is laying off 17% of its global workforce, marking the third round of cuts this year for the Swedish audio giant as it tries to reduce costs amid an economic slowdown.
The layoffs will affect about 1,500 people at many of the company's locations, including in Los Angeles, according to a person familiar with the ...Read more

Ford sales down year-over-year in November as EV sales hit record
Ford Motor Co.'s U.S. sales fell 0.5% in November, though electric vehicle sales hit a record high.
Ford on Monday reported selling 145,559 vehicles last month, down from 146,364 in November 2022. Sales of EVs were up 43% to almost 9,000 vehicles with Ford No. 2 behind Tesla Inc. Hybrid vehicle sales, meanwhile, rose 75%.
The record high EV ...Read more

EV tax credit rules tighten restrictions on foreign-made batteries
The Treasury and Energy departments on Friday proposed rules that would establish which electric vehicles will qualify for tax credits under new thresholds aimed to limit battery ingredients that are made in or sourced from adversaries like China.
The proposal falls short of a strict interpretation of last year’s climate spending law, which ...Read more
Inflation has depleted pandemic-era savings for many Americans
Inflation has sapped 40% of Americans of their pandemic savings, making consumer spending even more reliant on the job market.
Generous government stimulus payments and lock-downs that kept people at home led to “windfall” savings, Stephen Stanley, chief U.S. economist at Santander U.S. Capital Markets, said in a research note Monday. How ...Read more

Starbucks suffers record 11-day rout as sales concerns build
Starbucks Corp. shares suffered a record run of losses as concern builds that sales trends at the coffee giant have cooled in recent weeks.
The stock dropped 1.6% on Monday, declining for a 11th consecutive session in what is the longest rout since Starbucks’ public debut in 1992. In total, the slump has erased 9.4% of Starbucks’ market ...Read more

DeSantis' Disney chief tells employees they owe $2 million in back taxes, but he's working on a fix
Employees at Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Disney World oversight district owe the Internal Revenue Service more than $2 million in back taxes, according to an internal memo obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.
The issue stems from free Disney passes employees and retirees received for years as part of their benefits, district administrator Glen Gilzean ...Read more

Solar power is growing. Now Georgia wants to store more of its energy
A decade ago, Georgia Power, the state’s largest electric utility, took its first major step toward a future powered by the sun when it installed thousands of solar panels on 150 acres outside the town of Social Circle.
The project was the utility’s first large-scale solar installation. And though Georgia still relies heavily on fossil ...Read more

Port Canaveral head says it's getting Royal Caribbean's next new world's largest cruise ship
With less than two months before the world’s largest cruise ship Icon of the Seas debuts in Miami, the CEO of Port Canaveral confirmed Royal Caribbean will be sending sister ship Star of the Seas to Central Florida when it debuts in 2025.
In an email statement, Capt. John Murray reacted to news of the ship’s homeport assignment, although ...Read more
Tesla: UAW seeks to unionize car maker, battle expected with CEO Elon Musk
The United Auto Workers, freshly victorious against the Big Three U.S. auto companies, now has set its sights on Tesla.
The powerful labor union announced a campaign this week to unionize the pioneering electric car maker, and a dozen other non-unionized car companies, to boost wages, benefits and workers’ rights. It emerged this fall from ...Read more
Popular Stories
- Inside Amazon warehouses, workers worry about risk of unsafe chemicals
- Q&A: UAW's Fain on targeting non-union auto plants, foreign transplants, EV startups after 'record contracts' with Detroit 3
- Breastfeeding at work is 'mentally and physically taxing' even in the best conditions
- This LA firm hired kids to debone poultry with sharp knives, drive fork lifts, Labor Department says
- Motormouth: Can I use new oil in an old car?