UnderpantsWeevil

In the Rogers application, the Wage and Hour Division cited a tip from a teacher at a nearby school who reported that one of their 14-year-old students talked about working at the facility with his mother for the summer.

In the Green Forest application, a mother of middle schoolers overheard children between the ages of 11 and 13 talk about their employment at that plant on the night shift, which ran from 11 p.m. to around 7 or 8 a.m. The complainant said they were heard talking about how they did not know how to get money from their paycheck out of an ATM.

Investigators assigned in July conducted observations outside of both plants and watched workers entering and leaving. They found during the observations multiple people who appeared to be “potentially minor employees below the age of 16,” court docs said.

One of the investigators noted the children were believed to have been working in possibly hazardous conditions.

To understand how America is preparing for its nuclear future, follow Melissa Durkee’s fifth-grade students as they shuffle into Room 38 at Preston Veterans’ Memorial School in Preston, Conn. One by one, the children settle in for a six-week course taught by an atypical educator, the defense contractor General Dynamics.

“Does anyone know why we’re here?” a company representative asks. Adalie, 10, shoots her hand into the air. “Um, because you’re building submarines and you, like, need people, and you’re teaching us about it in case we’re interested in working there when we get older,” she ventures.

Adalie is correct. The U.S. Navy has put in an order for General Dynamics to produce 12 nuclear ballistic missile submarines by 2042 — a job that’s projected to cost $130 billion. The industry is struggling to find the tens of thousands of new workers it needs. For the past 18 months, the company has traveled to elementary schools across New England to educate children in the basics of submarine manufacturing and perhaps inspire a student or two to consider one day joining its shipyards.

The following day, after an additional round of Cabinet meetings, this time helmed by both Blinken and Biden, an outline of the decision was publicly announced by Prime Minster’s Netanyahu’s office: “We will not allow humanitarian assistance in the form of food and medicines from our territory to the Gaza Strip” and, in a separate Hebrew version, “In light of President Biden's demand, Israel will not thwart humanitarian supplies from Egypt as long as it is only food, water and medicine for the civilian population located in the southern Gaza Strip or moving there, and as long as these supplies do not reach Hamas. Any supplies that reach Hamas will be thwarted.” The Hebrew word לסכל, “to thwart,” is frequently used by Israel to describe targeted killings and assassinations. The previous policy of "thwarting" all humanitarian supplies from entering Gaza was conveyed to Egypt as an explicit threat to "bomb" aid trucks.

The substance of the Blinken-approved policy was starkly conveyed by Security Cabinet member Bezalel Smotrich, who later told the Israeli media: “We in the cabinet were promised at the outset that there would be monitoring, and that aid trucks hijacked by Hamas and its organizations [sic] would be bombed from the air, and the aid would be halted.”

State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel told Drop Site News: “The suggestion that anyone at the State Department signed off in any way on attacks on humanitarian workers or convoys is absurd. We have always been clear, including in the immediate aftermath of October 7, that Israel has the right to strike Hamas militants. Secretary Blinken has been equally clear that Israel needs to ensure that humanitarian aid is delivered to Gaza and that humanitarian workers inside Gaza are protected.” The State Department did not clarify whether it approved carrying out airstrikes against Hamas militants (or those indiscriminately classified as militants) who secure aid convoys or seize their contents.

At least 13,395 people have been killed by law enforcement officers in the past 10 years nationally, according to one nonprofit that tracks data.

The organization Mapping Police Violence says that means about 7% of homicides between 2013 and last year can be attributed to law enforcement.

Toyota Motor Corp., will refocus DEI programs and halt sponsorship of LGBTQ events, citing “a highly politicized discussion” around corporate commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion.

The Japanese carmaker told employees it will also end participation in notable rankings by LGBTQ advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign and other corporate culture surveys. The company will “narrow our community activities to align with STEM education and workforce readiness,” it said in a memo Thursday to its 50,000 US employees and 1,500 dealers.

The note comes a week after anti-DEI activist Robby Starbuck started a social media campaign against the company, calling for customer boycotts because of its support for LGBTQ events and other initiatives. Toyota said at the time that the LGBTQ programs targeted were led by employee groups, not the company directly.

Thanks to the efforts of conservative lawmakers, a recently passed funding bill did not allocate additional funds to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) despite knowing that the agency’s funds had run low before the peak of hurricane season. Congress is now in recess until November 12, and while Biden had considered calling Congress back into session early to approve more FEMA funding, there has been no progress.

Yet, somehow, conservative leaders and media are attempting to pin the blame of lack of FEMA funding on migrants crossing the US-Mexico border to seek asylum. “Feds say there’s no money left to respond to hurricanes — after FEMA spent $640M on migrants,” read a headline in conservative paper the New York Post following Mayorkas’ announcement.

Communities in the southeast of the country, across the Gulf Coast and from Florida all the way to Virginia, have been forced to fend for themselves with grassroots and mutual aid organizations filling in for the state in terms of relief and aid efforts.

A bipartisan forum in a small Latah County community took a turn when Republican Senate incumbent Dan Foreman stormed out of the event, following a racist outburst directed at a Native American candidate.

On Tuesday, local Democrat and Republican representatives organized a “Meet your candidates” forum in the northern Idaho town of Kendrick.

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In a statement released Wednesday, Democratic candidate for House Seat A and member of the Nez Perce tribe Trish Carter-Goodheart said she pushed back on that idea that discrimination existed in Idaho when it was her turn to speak, pointing to her own experience and the history of white supremacy groups in Northern Idaho.

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Foreman stood up and angrily interjected, using an expletive to criticize what he cast as the liberal bent of the response, according to the release and people present at the forum.

Carter-Goodheart said he then told her she should go back to where she came from, and heatedly stormed off. One event organizer and two other panelists confirmed Carter-Goodheart’s account, adding Foreman appeared very agitated.