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☆ Calpers Scrutinizes Blackstone Portfolio Practices Over Child Labor Fine
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-22 | by ( Rod James | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

California Public Employees’ Retirement System ratcheted up its scrutiny of private-equity manager Blackstone in the wake of a child labor scandal at a company the firm owns. During a Tuesday investment committee meeting, Anton Orlich, managing investment director for private equity, said Calpers had demanded that representatives of Blackstone come to the pension’s Sacramento headquarters to discuss how the breach at Packers Sanitation Services happened.

Persons: Blackstone, Anton Orlich, Calpers Organizations: California Public, Packers Sanitation Services Locations: California, Sacramento

☆ More than 100 Viking cruise passengers were hit with bouts of vomiting and diarrhea amid a nasty norovirus outbreak onboard
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-21 | by ( Erin Snodgrass | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

More than 13% of passengers on board the Viking Neptune this month fell ill with norovirus, the CDC said. The health agency has already logged 13 outbreaks of the contagious virus on cruise ships this year. The Viking Neptune transformed into a cross-continental petri dish as more than 100 passengers onboard the cruise ship fell ill with the highly contagious norovirus this month. Gastrointestinal illnesses have long been frequent guests aboard cruise ships, where cramped quarters allow germs to spread easily, and the highly contagious norovirus is the most notorious cruise ship culprit. In March, more than 300 people on board a Princess Cruise ship fell ill with the virus, and another outbreak hit 177 people traveling on a Celebrity Cruise ship earlier this month.

Persons: Viking Organizations: CDC, Morning, Centers for Disease Control, Viking Cruises, Sanitation Locations: Iceland, New York, Greenland, Canada

There, under his calming gaze and soft-spoken reassurances, Sudanese refugees and returning South Sudanese wait as aid workers and local women ladle through steel pots filled with lentils and porridge. Kueaa Darhok fled Khartoum with his family when fighting broke out and is now a community leader at the Renk transit camp near the South Sudan border. CNNSet up a week into the fighting in Sudan, when desperate families arrived seeking shelter, the Renk transit camp near the border of South Sudan and Sudan was not supposed to hold more than 3,000 people. Now at least 800,000 South Sudanese have been driven back by the fighting in Sudan. CNNUN appeal for aidTo respond to the Sudan crisis, the UN needs $253 million, with the South Sudan response alone in need of $96 million.

Persons: Kueaa Darhok, Chinua Achebe, instil, ” Darhok, Darhok, Charlotte Hallqvist, Hallqvist, it’s Organizations: South Sudan CNN, South Sudanese, CNN, Sudanese, CNN Fighting, UN, Sudan’s Armed Forces, Rapid Support Forces, United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, CNN UN, Sudan, United Nations, African Union, European Union Locations: South Sudan, Sudan, Darhok, Khartoum, Republic of Sudan, Renk, Arab Republic of Egypt, Federal Republic of Germany, State, Qatar, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

☆ Choose Wisely, Choose Often: Ranked-Choice Voting Returns to New York
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-16 | by ( Emma G. Fitzsimmons | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Did the voting system help Eric Adams become mayor? Mr. Adams had expressed doubts about ranked-choice voting, but it might have helped him win — even if the process was messy. Initially, early unofficial results showed Mr. Adams with a narrow lead. Under the old system, Mr. Adams would have faced a runoff because he did not receive at least 40 percent of votes. Mr. Adams won the primary by a slim margin: only 7,197 votes.

Persons: Eric Adams, Adams, Maya Wiley, Wiley, Kathryn Garcia, Garcia Organizations: Democratic

CNN —Myanmar’s ruling junta has suspended humanitarian access to western Rakhine state, where more than a million vulnerable people are in urgent need of aid a month after a powerful cyclone devastated the region, the United Nations said. The UN’s humanitarian office (OCHA) said the decision to stop aid access in the already-impoverished state has paralyzed the humanitarian response to Cyclone Mocha and crippled life-saving aid distributions to storm-hit communities. Cyclone Mocha slammed into western Myanmar on May 14 as one of the strongest storms ever to hit the country. Residents on a damaged street after Cyclone Mocha in Kyauktaw, Myanmar's Rakhine state, on May 14. Travel in Rakhine state has long been heavily restricted and aid groups are required to apply for travel authorizations a month in advance, an aid official recently told CNN.

Persons: CNN — Myanmar’s, Cyclone, Ramanathan Balakrishnan, Balakrishnan, “, Sai Aung, UN OCHA, ” Balakrishnan, Nargis, “ We’ve, we’re, Khine, Thurein, Sittwe, ” Organizations: CNN, United Nations, UN, Cyclone, Residents, Getty, Administration Council, Sans Frontieres, Twitter, SAC, Arakan Civil Society Network Locations: Rakhine, Myanmar, Kyauktaw, Myanmar's Rakhine, Sai, AFP, UN, Travel, Naypyidaw, Chin, Arakan, Rohingya

☆ Sudanese refugees in Chad risk losing aid as rainy season looms, says MSF
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

N'DJAMENA, June 12 (Reuters) - Thousands of Sudanese refugees who fled to Chad to escape fighting in their country could be cut off from humanitarian and medical aid during the approaching rainy season, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Monday. Rains will also bring a higher risk of waterborne and infectious diseases given poor access to clean water and sanitation, she said. Nearly 30,000 refugees are in Sila, where they lack shelter, water and food due to deficiencies in humanitarian assistance. One of the poorest countries in the world, Chad was already hosting close to 600,000 refugees before the latest Sudanese crisis. This has caused food and commodity prices to soar in areas already suffering from high levels of malnutrition, MSF said.

Persons: MSF's, Audrey van der Schoot, Rains, Chad, Mahamat, Sofia Christensen, Mark Heinrich Our Organizations: United Nations, MSF, UNHCR, Thomson Locations: N'DJAMENA, Chad, Sudan, Sila, Central

☆ WHO rushes supplies to Ukraine, readies to tackle disease in flood areas
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/3] Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gives a statement with German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (not pictured) in Geneva, Switzerland, February 2, 2023. REUTERS/Denis BalibouseGENEVA, June 8 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization has rushed emergency supplies to flood-hit parts of Ukraine and are preparing to respond to an array of health risks including trauma, drowning and waterborne diseases like cholera, officials said on Thursday. "The WHO has rushed in to support the authorities and health care workers in preventive measures against waterborne diseases and to improve disease surveillance." The huge Kakhovka Dam on the Dnipro River separates Russian and Ukrainian forces and people have been affected on both sides of its banks. He said Russian authorities had given them assurances that people living in areas it occupies were being "well monitored, well cared for, well fed (and) well supported".

Persons: Tedros, Karl Lauterbach, Denis Balibouse GENEVA, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Teresa Zakaria, Mike Ryan, Emma Farge, Leroy Leo, William Maclean Organizations: World Health Organisation, WHO, German Health, REUTERS, World Health Organization, WHO's, Thomson Locations: Geneva, Switzerland, Ukraine, Russia, Dnipro, Russian, Ukrainian

☆ New York City Residents Will Soon Have to Compost Their Food Scraps
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Dana Rubinstein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It is unclear if Mr. Adams will sign the bill, but it appears to have enough support to override a mayoral veto. “We have a supermajority on all of the bills,” said Sandy Nurse, the councilwoman who chairs the Sanitation Committee and is one of three lead sponsors of the legislative package. “Whether or not the administration wants these bills to happen is irrelevant. The success of the Council’s mandate will depend on the Sanitation Department’s effective delivery of the program. That mandate does not apply to food scraps.

Persons: Adams, “, ”, Sandy Nurse, Jessica Tisch Organizations: Sanitation Locations: Queens

The average May temperature in Hanoi is 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit). “Which is why a humid heat wave is more dangerous than a dry heat wave,” she told CNN. This is above a threshold considered dangerous, especially for people with health problems or those not used to extreme heat. In Thailand, 20 days in April and at least 10 days in May reached feels-like temperatures above 46 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit). Throughout April and May, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Malaysia all had several days with potential to cause extreme heat stress.

Persons: ”, ” Phong, Dinh Van Hung, ” Dinh, Nhac Nguyen, Maximiliano Herrera, Herrera, Mariam Zachariah, Cyclone Mocha, ” Zachariah, Chaya Vaddhanaphuti, ” Emmanuel Raju, ” Raju, Madaree Tohlala, “ Nui, “, ” Nui, Andre Malerba, Chaya, –, Chintanaphone, Boua Seng, Lobia Yaw, Thongsouk, hasn’t Organizations: Hong Kong CNN, CNN, Getty, ” Workers, Imperial College London, WWA, Chiang Mai University, Copenhagen Center for Disaster Research, Labour Organization, Farmers, Weather, Lao Farmer Network Locations: Hong Kong, Hanoi, Vietnam, Dong Da district, “, Hanoi , Vietnam, AFP, Dinh, Southeast Asia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Asia, Thai, Narathiwat, Bangkok, ”

☆ Thousands are living in RVs on Los Angeles’ streets. Leaders want to shrink the number, but the solution is elusive
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-05 | by ( Nick Watt | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

Los Angeles CNN —Early one recent Friday morning, sanitation workers, homeless-outreach workers and LAPD officers arrived on a little street in the west of Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, you are allowed to sleep in a vehicle on some streets. She was elected last year on a platform dripping with intent to handle the various homelessness issues plaguing Los Angeles. “We have not resolved the RV issue yet,” Mayor Karen Bass told The Los Angeles Times in March. And for now, for thousands of people, an RV’s roof over their heads is all they can afford in Los Angeles.

Persons: Anderson Cooper, Jasmine, ’ ”, LaTonya Smith, Traci Park, Joseph, ”, Smith, “ I’m, “ vanlords, “, ” Park’s, “ It’s, Dmitry Korikov, ” Korikov, Karen Bass, Bass, Joseph Center, ” Bass, RVs, ” Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez, ” Smith Organizations: Los, Los Angeles CNN, LAPD, Catholic Church, Joseph Center, “, CNN, “ Staff, Angeles County, American National Standards Institute, Fire Protection Association, ” CNN, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Homeless Services Locations: Los Angeles, Jasmine, RVs, Los Angeles County, St, Angeles, City, California, Russia, Ukraine, Venice

☆ From teachers to waiters: The industries that haven’t bounced back from the pandemic
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-03 | by ( Elisabeth Buchwald | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

At the height of the pandemic, leisure and hospitality workers suffered the most layoffs across all industries as venues shuttered during lockdowns. Many of these workers found jobs working remotely for call centers and have stuck with the jobs ever since, he added. But within that industry, the bulk of the worker shortage is coming from public school teachers. There were 118,000 fewer public school teachers across the country last month compared to February 2020, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Despite the shortage, public education jobs were much slower to raise wages than other industries, likely due to state and local budget constraints.

Persons: it’s, Jim McCoy, “, ” McCoy, “ We’re, that’s Organizations: New, New York CNN, Employers, Industries, of Labor Statistics, CNN Locations: New York, lockdowns

☆ The Venice Architecture Biennale puts Africa center stage
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-30 | by ( Marianna Cerini | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

Venice, Italy CNN —Until recently, the Venice Architecture Biennale — arguably the world’s largest architecture exhibition — has drawn crowds for its (mainly Western) star appeal. In a May 20 Facebook post titled “Venice Biennale Blues,” Zaha Hadid Architects’ principal, Patrik Schumacher, wrote that “the ‘Architecture’ Biennale is mislabeled and should stop laying claim to the title of architecture. The German pavilion, which is displaying construction waste produced by 2022’s Venice Art Biennale is a case in point. The German Pavilion at the 18th Architecture Biennale is displaying and repurposing constuction waste from the city's Art Biennale last year. The British Pavilion curators Meneesha Kellay, Joseph Henry, Jayden Ali and Sumitra Upham, with commissioner Sevra Davis, photographed in London.

☆ To Fight Rats, N.Y.C. Restaurants Will Have to Put Trash in Containers
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Emma G. Fitzsimmons | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In the latest front in New York City’s fight against the proliferation of trash and rats, city officials plan to require restaurants and bodegas to set out trash in containers instead of bags. The move would address one of New York’s ubiquitous, age-old eyesores: the heaps of smelly trash bags filled with restaurant food scraps and liquids that remain at curbside for hours at night, providing easy targets for rats until commercial haulers arrive. “We want people to understand that bags on the street attract rats, and we need everyone to do their part — residents, businesses and the city — to get the black bags of rat food off the streets,” Ms. Tisch said. The rule would apply to a wide range of businesses that produce most of the city’s food waste: catering companies, food manufacturers, restaurants, food wholesalers and retail food stores. They would be required to put trash at the curb in “rigid receptacles with tight-fitting lids.”

☆ Fair access to proper housing can boost economic growth - report
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Marine Strauss | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BRUSSELS, May 15 (Reuters) - Providing equitable access to appropriate housing in slums and other informal settlements could massively increase economic growth and boost life expectancy, a report to be published on Tuesday by home-building charity Habitat for Humanity shows. Proper housing could increase economic growth by up to 10.5%, while life expectancy could go up by 2.4 years on average, the report said. Adequate housing could help up to 41.6 million children who are currently missing education to enroll in school, the report stated. According to the United Nations, more than 1 billion people live in slums or informal settlements, where they have limited access to basic services such as clean water, sanitation, and electricity. Of those, 80% are in East and South-East Asia (370 million people), sub-Saharan Africa (238 million) and Central and South Asia (227 million).

☆ End of Title 42 immigration policy has brought fewer migrants than expected, but overcrowding concerns remain
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-14 | by ( Nouran Salahieh | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +14 min

David Peinado Romero/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Migrants carry a baby in a suitcase across the Rio Grande on May 10. Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images Migrants wait to get paid after washing cars at a gas station in Brownsville on May 10. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images Migrants surrender to US Border Patrol agents after crossing the border in Yuma on May 10. Paul Ratje/Reuters Migrants wait to be processed by US Border Patrol agents in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, on April 26. Hudak warned in the filing that without measures to conditionally release some migrants, Border Patrol could have over 45,000 migrants in custody by the end of the month.

☆ Jay-Z wants New York City to let him open a casino in Times Square
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-13 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Jay-Z's Roc Nation wants New York City to grant it a gaming license for a casino in Times Square. Roc Nation promised $115 million for Broadway theatre programs if it gets the nod. Roc Nation said its plan includes investing in sanitation and security in the Times Square area and vowed to "protect the interests" of the Broadway theater community. Applicants for the gaming license must pay a non-refundable $1 million fee, according to The New York Times, and be prepared to invest $500 million and an additional $500 million in fees. Roc Nation didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider, made outside normal working hours.

A fresh downpour loosened the earth on a hillside above a village in Vuveyi Lac area, burying the victims as they slept in their houses below, said Alain Kiwewa, Lubero's military administrator. Repeated recent downpours have also raised the water table in the broader region, increasing the likelihood of flooding, said meteorology and hydrology engineer Theodore Lokakao Ilemba. "It's everywhere in the Congo and in Rwanda, it worsens (the impact of) the rainfall and all pre-existing problems like water drainage and land use," he said. Rains also triggered flooding and landslides in neighbouring Rwanda last week, killing 130 people and destroying more than 5,000 homes. Writing by Alessandra Prentice; editing by Philippa FletcherOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ MSC cruise ship fails health inspection with the lowest score in years after CDC finds a door handle covered in hamburger blood and yogurt containers with 'black filth residue'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Hannah Towey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The cruise ship MSC Seaside failed its CDC's sanitation inspection on April 27, records show. The vessel received a 67 out of 100 — the lowest score a cruise ship has received in five years. The cruise ship MSC Seaside failed the CDC's vessel sanitation inspection at the end of April with an unusually low score. The vessel received 67 out of 100 points, nearly twenty points below the agency's passing grade. In the past 10 years, only three other cruise ships have received sanitation scores below 70, CDC records show.

☆ Thousands of Afghans escaped the Taliban with the help of private veteran groups. Today, many remain in limbo in the UAE
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-07 | by ( Haley Britzky | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +18 min

Several thousand were brought there by the State Department directly from Kabul and have since been relocated to the US or Canada. Consequently, thousands of Afghans evacuated by private groups were left in a legal limbo with seemingly no clear path to the US – or anywhere else. It was unclear whether that documentation is sufficient for what the State Department has required. The first two groups were evacuated from the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul in August 2021 by both the State Department and private groups working independently. In her responses to CNN, Tekach said the State Department “had limited information” about refugees who came on those separate flights.

☆ Alabama Discriminated Against Black Residents Over Sewage, Justice Dept. Says
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Linda Qiu | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Justice Department said it had reached an interim agreement with the health departments of Alabama and one of its rural counties over practices found to discriminate against generations of Black residents. Under the agreement announced Thursday, the Alabama Department of Public Health and the Lowndes County Health Department said they would improve wastewater infrastructure, measure the health risks associated with raw sewage exposure, and stop penalizing residents who cannot afford adequate treatment systems. The agreement represents “a new chapter for Black residents of Lowndes County, Ala., who have endured health dangers, indignities and racial injustice for far too long,” said Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Catherine Coleman Flowers, an environmental activist who grew up in Lowndes, said that residents of the county, like those in many other rural communities, use wastewater systems installed on the grounds of homes and businesses rather than a centralized sewage treatment plant operated by a local government. But the county stood alone in penalizing residents for sanitation issues that were outside their control, she added.

☆ US meatpacker JBS opens cleaning unit after outside firm fined for hiring kids
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The new company, JBS Sanitation, will "immediately begin the transition" to cleaning 10 JBS USA facilities, which produce beef and pork, according to a statement issued this week. JBS Sanitation will also do in-house cleaning for Pilgrim's Pride Corp (PPC.O) and create "hundreds of union jobs," the statement said. JBS USA is the North American unit of Brazil's JBS SA (JBSS3.SA), which also owns most of Pilgrim's Pride. JBS USA did not immediately respond to questions about the costs of the launch on Thursday. JBS USA previously said it terminated contracts with PSSI at "numerous" facilities, including three plants where alleged child-labor violations occurred.

Federal worker safety inspections have alleged poor maintenance or a lack of safety training at some Tyson plants where ammonia leaks injured workers. CNN interviewed eleven current or former Tyson workers across three different plants who experienced ammonia leaks. !”A safety sign hangs on a fence at a Tyson plant in Hope, Arkansas, in March 2023. Still, some Tyson workers who lived through ammonia leaks said they wished more had been done to protect them. That means that the data doesn’t necessarily cover Tyson plants or other meat facilities that hold smaller amounts of ammonia.

☆ Why New York’s Giant Trash Bag Piles May Be an Endangered Species
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Emma G. Fitzsimmons | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

New York City, where sidewalks have long been overrun by foul-smelling heaps of garbage bags that force passers-by to yield to oncoming rat traffic, is about to try a not-so-novel idea to solve the problem. The concept, known as trash containerization, seems simple enough: Get trash off the streets and into containers. To do so, however, will require removing 150,000 parking spots, and up to 25 percent of parking spots on some blocks. The report does not address the cost of implementing trash containerization citywide, but it could easily cost hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade. City officials must buy new specialized trash trucks and stationary containers, while also increasing the frequency of trash collection in large swaths of the city.

☆ Title 42: Why the Biden administration expects a surge at the US-Mexico border next week
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Zachary B. Wolf | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

Migrant surge expectedThe surge of migrants is expected because Title 42, the Trump-era policy that allowed the government to quickly turn away certain migrants at the border during the Covid-19 pandemic, is expiring. These deployments are not unprecedented in recent years, but this one is notable since it coincides with an expected surge of border encounters. Biden administration’s plan to discourage border crossingsThe administration has tried to discourage migrants from simply crossing the border and promised that people apprehended will be turned away and potentially barred from reentry. Anger from New York’s mayorTexas has been transporting thousands of migrants to cities like New York, Chicago and Washington, DC. “Governor Abbott sent asylum seekers to NY – Black mayor; to Washington – Black mayor; to Houston – Black mayor; to Los Angeles – Black mayor; to Denver – Black mayor.

☆ Hong Kong: One of the world's most expensive cities raises minimum wage by 32 cents
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Jessie Yeung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

So when the Hong Kong government raised the minimum wage by a measly 32 cents on Monday, activists and community workers were scathing in their response. “It cannot cover basic needs in Hong Kong.”The new minimum wage now stands at 40 Hong Kong dollars ($5.1) per hour, up from the previous 37.5 Hong Kong dollars ($4.78) per hour. But Wong said this new increase will make little difference in Hong Kong, consistently ranked one of the world’s most expensive cities. The city’s median hourly wage last year was 77.4 Hong Kong dollars ($9.86), according to the Census and Statistics Department. A demonstration from the Hong Kong Women Workers Association in front of the Central Government Office on May 1, 2023.

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