Israel never objected to any UNRWA staff member despite being provided with lists since 2011, UN panel reports


Palestinian children who fled with their parents from their houses in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, gather in the backyard of an UNRWA school, in Sidon, Lebanon, September 12, 2023


TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2024

ISRAEL has never expressed concern about anyone employed by the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA despite being provided with staff lists since 2011, a UN panel reported on Monday night.

The revelation undermines Israel’s claim that governments and the UN should stop working with UNRWA because it has supposedly been infiltrated by Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

The panel chaired by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna was appointed to look at the aid agency’s neutrality, after Israel accused 12 of its 30,000 employees of having participated in the October 7 attack.

The panel noted that “Israel made public claims that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organisations. However, Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence.”

Despite the lack of evidence, Israel’s allegation saw several Western countries suspend funding for the aid agency just as famine gripped Gaza because of Israel’s blockade of food supplies and disruption of farming through its ground invasion. The pause in funding, still maintained by Britain among others, has so far cost about $450 million (£360m) in aid that should have reached Palestinians.

MORNING STAR

Norway urges donors to resume aid to UN agency for Palestinians

Published: 23 Apr 2024 - 


AP

Oslo: Norway, which heads the group of donors for Palestine (AHLC), on Tuesday urged donors to resume their aid to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA.

The call came the day after an independent review group said that while it had found some "neutrality-related issues" in its much-anticipated report on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, it noted that "Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence" for its claim that UNRWA employs more than 400 "terrorists."

"I am very pleased that countries like Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Japan and Sweden have already reversed their decisions and resumed funding to UNRWA," Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said in a statement.

"I would now like to call on countries that have still frozen their contributions to UNRWA to resume funding," he said.

According to the local health ministry, over 34,000 people have been killed since the beginning of Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza, whose population is now at risk of famine.

Independent Probe Of UNRWA Finds Israel Never Expressed Concerns About Staff

The review assessing the neutrality of the U.N. agency that helps Palestinians came after Israel alleged a dozen employees were involved in the Oct. 7 attack.

Edith M. Lederer

Apr 23, 2024




UNITED NATIONS (AP) — An independent review of the neutrality of the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees found that Israel never expressed concern about anyone on the staff lists it has received annually since 2011. The review was carried out after Israel alleged that a dozen employees of the agency known as UNRWA had participated in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.

In a wide-ranging 48-page report released Monday, the independent panel said UNRWA has “robust” procedures to uphold the U.N. principle of neutrality, but it cited serious gaps in implementation, including staff publicly expressing political views, textbooks used in schools the agency runs with “problematic content” and staff unions disrupting operations. It makes 50 recommendations to improve UNRWA’s neutrality.

From 2017 to 2022, the report said, the annual number of allegations of neutrality being breached at UNRWA ranged from seven to 55. But between January 2022 and February 2024, U.N. investigators received 151 allegations, most related to social media posts “made public by external sources,” it said.

In a key section on the neutrality of staff, the panel, which was led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, said UNRWA shares lists of staff with host countries for its 32,000 staff, including about 13,000 in Gaza. But it said Israeli officials never expressed concern and informed panel members it did not consider the list “a screening or vetting process” but rather a procedure to register diplomats.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry informed the panel that until March 2024 the staff lists did not include Palestinian identification numbers, the report said.

Apparently based on those numbers, “Israel made public claims that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations,” the panel said. “However, Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of this” to the refugee agency.


An independent review led by French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna and released Monday, April 22, 2023, of the neutrality of the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, has found that Israel never expressed concern about anyone on the UNRWA staff lists it has received annually since 2011. The review was carried out after Israel alleged that a dozen UNRWA employees participated in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
HUSSEIN MALLA VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

Colonna stressed that U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed the independent review panel to review UNRWA’s neutrality — not to investigate Israeli allegations that 12 UNRWA staffers participated in the Oct. 7 attacks. Guterres ordered the U.N. internal watchdog, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, known as OIOS, to conduct a separate investigation into those Israeli allegations.

“It is a separate mission. And it is not in our mandate,” Colonna said. She also said it is not surprising that Israel did not provide evidence of its allegations to the refugee agency “because it doesn’t owe this evidence during the investigation to UNRWA but to the OIOS.”

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Monday the U,N. hopes to have an update from OIOS “in the coming days.” He said its investigators have been in contact with Israeli security services.

Israel’s allegations led to the suspension of contributions to UNRWA by the United States and more than a dozen other countries. That amounted to a pause in funding worth about $450 million, according to Monday’s report, but a number of countries have resumed contributions.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Monday called on donor countries to avoid sending money to the organization.

“The Colonna report ignores the severity of the problem, and offers cosmetic solutions that do not deal with the enormous scope of Hamas’ infiltration of UNRWA,” ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said. “This is not what a genuine and thorough review looks like. This is what an effort to avoid the problem and not address it head on looks like.”

Colonna urged the Israeli government not to discount the independent review. “Of course you will find it is insufficient, but please take it on board. Whatever we recommend, if implemented, will bring good,” she said.

Protesters wave Palestinian flags during a sit-in in solidarity with Gaza in front of the UNRWA office in Beirut, Lebanon, on Thursday, April 18, 2024. An independent probe of the agency found that Israel never expressed concern about the staff.
HASSAN AMMAR VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS


The report stresses the critical importance of UNRWA, calling it “irreplaceable and indispensable to Palestinians’ human and economic development” in the absence of a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and “pivotal in providing life-saving humanitarian aid and essential social services, particularly in health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank.”

Dujarric welcomed this commitment to UNRWA and said the report “lays out clear recommendations, which the secretary-general accepts.” The U.N. hopes to see the return of donors as well as new donors following the report’s release, he said.

Among the recommendations are steps to tackle politicization of UNRWA staff and its staff unions. The report recommends that staff lists with ID numbers be provided to host countries, which would then tell UNRWA the results of their screening and “any red flags.”

The report also calls for stronger oversight of UNRWA’s leadership and operations, “zero-tolerance” of antisemitism or discrimination in textbooks used in its schools, and greater international involvement in supporting the agency as it addresses neutrality issues.

UNRWA’s Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said safeguarding the agency’s neutrality is critical to its work and it is developing a plan to implement the report’s recommendations.

With Israel calling for the breakup of the agency, Lazzarini told the U.N. Security Council last week that dismantling UNRWA would deepen Gaza’s humanitarian crisis and speed up the onset of famine.

International experts have warned of imminent famine in northern Gaza and said half the territory’s 2.3 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation if the Israeli-Hamas war intensifies.

The review was conducted over nine weeks by Colonna and three Scandinavian research organizations: the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden, the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights. Colonna said the group spoke with more than 200 people, including UNRWA staff in Gaza, and had direct contacts with representatives of 47 countries and organizations.

About 200 bodies recovered from mass grave in Nasser hospital complex, says Gaza official

Gaza's Civil Defence agency said on Monday that health workers had uncovered around 200 bodies over the past three days of people killed and buried by Israeli forces at a hospital in Khan Younis.

The Israeli military did not offer an immediate comment.

"Our civil defence crews are still recovering bodies from inside Nasser Medical Complex, and since Saturday bodies of nearly 200 martyrs have been retrieved," said Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza's Civil Defence.

Bassal said several of the recovered bodies had decomposed. "There is difficulty identifying them, but civil defence efforts are ongoing," he said.

Ismail al-Thawabta, head of the Hamas government media office in the Palestinian territory, gave a higher figure of 283 bodies found at the hospital.

"We discovered mass graves inside Nasser Medical Complex" of people killed by "the occupation (Israeli) army", Thawabta told journalists.

Muhammad al-Mughayyir, a senior official at the civil defence agency, also confirmed the discovery of corpses at the facility and said the work to retrieve the remaining bodies would continue until Thursday.

 (AFP)

Mass Graves In Gaza Show Victims’ Hands Were Tied, Says UN Rights Office

Wednesday, 24 April 2024, 
Press Release: UN News

Disturbing reports continue to emerge about mass graves in Gaza in which Palestinian victims were reportedly found stripped naked with their hands tied, prompting renewed concerns about possible war crimes amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday.

The development follows the recovery of hundreds of bodies “buried deep in the ground and covered with waste” over the weekend at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, central Gaza, and at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in the north. A total of 283 bodies were recovered at Nasser Hospital, of which 42 were identified.

“Among the deceased were allegedly older people, women and wounded, while others were found tied with their hands…tied and stripped of their clothes,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Al-Shifa discovery

Citing the local health authorities in Gaza, Ms. Shamdasani added that more bodies had been found at Al-Shifa Hospital.

The large health complex was the enclave’s main tertiary facility before war erupted on 7 October. It was the focus of an Israeli military incursion to root out Hamas militants allegedly operating inside which ended at the beginning of this month. After two weeks of intense clashes, UN humanitarians assessed the site and confirmed on 5 April that Al-Shifa was “an empty shell”, with most equipment reduced to ashes.

“Reports suggest that there were 30 Palestinian bodies buried in two graves in the courtyard of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City; one in front of the emergency building and the others in front of the dialysis building,” Ms. Shamdasani told journalists in Geneva.

The bodies of 12 Palestinians have now been identified from these locations at Al-Shifa, the OHCHR spokesperson continued, but identification has not yet been possible for the remaining individuals.

“There are reports that the hands of some of these bodies were also tied,” Ms. Shamdasani said, adding that there could be “many more” victims, “despite the claim by the Israeli Defense Forces to have killed 200 Palestinians during the Al-Shifa medical complex operation”.

200 days of horror

Some 200 days since intense Israeli bombardment began in response to Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel, UN human rights chief Volker Türk expressed his horror at the destruction of Nasser and Al-Shifa hospitals and the reported discovery of mass graves.

“The intentional killing of civilians, detainees and others who are hors de combat is a war crime,” Mr. Türk said in a call for independent investigations into the deaths.

Mounting toll

As of 22 April, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including 14,685 children and 9,670 women, the High Commissioner’s office said, citing the enclave’s health authorities. Another 77,084 have been injured, and over 7,000 others are assumed to be under the rubble.

“Every 10 minutes a child is killed or wounded. They are protected under the laws of war, and yet they are ones who are disproportionately paying the ultimate price in this war,” said the High Commissioner.

Türk warning

The UN rights chief also reiterated his warning against a full-scale Israeli incursion of Rafah, where an estimated 1.2 million Gazans “have been forcibly cornered”.

“The world’s leaders stand united on the imperative of protecting the civilian population trapped in Rafah,” the High Commissioner said in a statement, which also condemned Israeli strikes against Rafah in recent days that mainly killed women and children.

This included an attack on an apartment building in the Tal Al Sultan area on 19 April which killed nine Palestinians “including six children and two women”, along with a strike on As Shabora Camp in Rafah a day later that reportedly left four dead, including a girl and a pregnant woman.

“The latest images of a premature child taken from the womb of her dying mother, of the adjacent two houses where 15 children and five women were killed, this is beyond warfare,” said Mr. Türk.

The High Commissioner decried the “unspeakable suffering” caused by months of warfare and appealed once again for “the resulting misery and destruction, starvation and disease and the risk of wider conflict” to end.

Mr. Türk also reiterated his call for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all remaining hostages taken from Israel and those held in arbitrary detention and the unfettered flow of humanitarian aid.

Massive settler attacks in West Bank

Turning to the West Bank, the UN rights chief said that grave human rights violations had continued there “unabated”.

This was despite international condemnation of “massive settler attacks” between 12 and 14 April “that had been facilitated by the Israeli Security Forces (ISF)”.

Settler violence has been organized “with the support, protection, and participation of the ISF”, Mr. Türk insisted, before describing a 50-hour long operation into Nur Shams refugee camp and Tulkarem city starting on 18 April.

“The ISF deployed ground troops, bulldozers and drones and sealed the camp. Fourteen Palestinians were killed, three of them children,” the UN rights chief said, noting that 10 ISF members had been injured.

In a statement, Mr. Türk also highlighted reports that several Palestinians had been unlawfully killed in the Nur Shams operation “and that the ISF used unarmed Palestinians to shield their forces from attack and killed others in apparent extrajudicial executions”.

Dozens were reportedly detained and ill-treated while the ISF “inflicted unprecedented and apparently wanton destruction on the camp and its infrastructure”, the High Commissioner said.

© Scoop Media

UN rights chief 'horrified' by mass grave reports at Gaza hospitals

By David Gritten,

BBC News

Palestinian workers are exhuming bodies at Nasser hospital with 

shovels because they have no heavy machinery

The UN's human rights chief has said he is "horrified" by the destruction of Gaza's Nasser and al-Shifa hospitals and the reports of "mass graves" being found at the sites after Israeli raids.

Volker Türk called for independent investigations into the deaths.

Palestinian officials said they had exhumed the bodies of almost 300 people at Nasser. It is not clear how they died or when they were buried.

Israel's military said claims that it buried bodies there were "baseless".

But it did say that during a two-week operation at the hospital in the city of Khan Younis in February, troops "examined" bodies buried by Palestinians "in places where intelligence indicated the possible presence of hostages".

Ten hostages who have now been released have said that they were held at Nasser hospital for long periods during their captivity.

Prior to the Israeli operation at Nasser, staff there had said they were being forced to bury bodies in the hospital's courtyard because nearby fighting prevented access to cemeteries. There were similar reports from al-Shifa before the first Israeli raid on the hospital took place in November.

The Israeli military has said it has raided a number of hospitals in Gaza during the war because Hamas fighters have been operating inside them - a claim Hamas and medical officials have denied.

The war began when Hamas gunmen carried out an unprecedented cross-border attack on southern Israel on 7 October, killing about 1,200 people - mostly civilians - and taking 253 others back to Gaza as hostages.

More than 34,180 people - most of them children and women - have been killed in Gaza since then, the territory's Hamas-run health ministry says.

Gaza medics tell BBC that Israeli troops beat and humiliated them

Trapped by gunfire at Gaza hospital, people risked death to help injured

A spokeswoman for the UN Human Rights Office said it was currently working on corroborating reports from Palestinian officials that 283 bodies had been found in Nasser hospital's grounds, including 42 which had been identified.

"Victims had reportedly been buried deep in the ground and covered with waste," Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.

"Among the deceased were allegedly older people, women and wounded, while others... were found with their hands tied and stripped of their clothes."

Mr Türk called for independent, effective and transparent investigations into the deaths, adding: "Given the prevailing climate of impunity, this should include international investigators."


"Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law. And the intentional killing of civilians, detainees, and others who are hors de combat [not participating in hostilities] is a war crime."

On Monday, a spokesman for the Hamas-run Civil Defense force told BBC Arabic's Gaza Today programme that it had received reports from local Palestinians that the bodies of a "large number" of people who had been killed during the war and buried in a makeshift cemetery in the hospital's courtyard were moved to another location during the Israeli raid.

"After research and investigation, we learned that the occupation [Israeli] army had established a mass grave, pulled out the bodies that were in Nasser hospital, and buried them in this mass grave," Mahmoud Basal said.

Gaza Today also spoke to a man who said he was searching there for the bodies of two male relatives which he alleged had been taken by Israeli troops during Israel's recently concluded offensive in Khan Younis.

"After I had buried them in an apartment, the [Israelis] came and moved their bodies," he said. "Every day we search for their bodies, but we fail to find them."

Hamas has alleged that the bodies include people "executed in cold blood" by Israeli forces, without providing evidence.



Contains some violence and disturbing scenes.
2:11


Contains some violence and disturbing scenes.BBC Verify authenticates video from key moments in the story of Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Tuesday: "The claim that the IDF buried Palestinian bodies is baseless and unfounded."

"During the IDF's operation in the area of Nasser Hospital, in accordance to the effort to locate hostages and missing persons, corpses buried by Palestinians in the area of Nasser hospital were examined.

"The examination was conducted in a careful manner and exclusively in places where intelligence indicated the possible presence of hostages. The examination was carried out respectfully while maintaining the dignity of the deceased. Bodies examined, which did not belong to Israeli hostages, were returned to their place."


The IDF said that its forces had detained "about 200 terrorists who were in the hospital" during the raid, and that they found ammunition as well as unused medicines intended for Israeli hostages.

It also insisted that the raid was carried out "in a targeted manner and without harming the hospital, the patients and the medical staff".

However, three medical staff told the BBC last month that they were humiliated, beaten, doused with cold water, and forced to kneel for hours after being detained during the raid.

Medics who remained at Nasser after the Israeli takeover said they were unable to care for patients and that 13 died because of conditions there, including a lack of water, electricity and other supplies.

ReutersThe UN Human Rights Office said it had received reports that 30 bodies were buried in the courtyard of al-Shifa hospital

On 1 April, Israeli troops withdrew from al-Shifa hospital, which is in Gaza City, following what the IDF said was another "precise" operation carried out in response to intelligence that Hamas had regrouped there.

The IDF said at the time that 200 "terrorists" were killed in and around the hospital during the two-week raid. More than 500 others were detained, and weapons and intelligence were found "throughout the hospital", it added.

After a mission gained access to the facility five days later, the World Health Organization (WHO) said al-Shifa was "now an empty shell", with most of the buildings extensively damaged or destroyed, and the majority of equipment unusable or reduced to ashes.

It also said that "numerous shallow graves" had been dug just outside the emergency department, and the administrative and surgical buildings, and that "many dead bodies were partially buried with their limbs visible".

The IDF also said it had avoided harm to patients at al-Shifa. But the WHO cited the acting hospital director as saying patients were held in abysmal conditions during the siege, and that at least 20 patients reportedly died due to a lack of access to care and limited movement authorised for medics.

Spokeswoman Ms Shamdasani said reports seen by the UN human rights office suggested that a total of 30 bodies were buried in the two graves and that 12 of them had been identified so far.

Gaza's civil defence spokesman told CNN on 9 April that 381 bodies had been recovered from the vicinity of al-Shifa, but that the figure did not include people buried in the hospital's grounds.

The UN human rights chief also deplored as "beyond warfare" a series of Israeli strikes on the southern city of Rafah in the past few days, which he said had killed mostly women and children.

The strikes included one on Saturday night, after which a premature baby was delivered from the womb of her pregnant mother, who was killed along with her husband and other daughter.

Mr Türk also again warned against a full-scale Israeli ground assault on Rafah, where 1.5 million displaced civilians are sheltering, saying it would lead to further breaches of international humanitarian law and human rights law.


In response, the IDF said it was "operating to dismantle Hamas military and administrative capabilities".

"In stark contrast to Hamas' intentional attacks on Israeli men, women and children, the IDF follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm," it added.

Spain approves plan to compensate victims of Catholic Church sex abuse. Church will be asked to pay


A woman prays at the San Ramon Nonato church after an Easter Holy Week procession was cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, April 9, 2020. Spain has approved a plan aimed at making reparation and economic compensation for victims of sex abuses committed by people connected to the Catholic Church.

 (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez, File)

April 23, 2024

MADRID (AP) — Spain on Tuesday approved a plan aimed at making reparation and economic compensation for victims of sex abuse committed by people connected to the Catholic Church.

It also announced the future celebration of a public act of recognition for those affected and their families.

The Minister of the Presidency and Justice, Félix Bolaños, said the plan was based on recommendations in a report by Spain’s Ombudsman last year. From that report, he said it was concluded that some 440,000 adults may have suffered sex abuse in Spain by people linked to the church and that roughly half of those cases were committed by clergy.

Bolaños said the compensation would be financed by the church.

But in a statement Tuesday, Spain’s Bishops Conference rejected the plan, saying it discriminated against victims outside of church circles.

No details of how much or when financial compensation would be paid were released. Neither was a date set for any public act of recognition.

Bolaños said the plan aimed to “settle a debt with those victims who for decades were forgotten by everyone and now our democracy aims to repair” that, and make it a central part of government policy.

After years of virtually ignoring the issue, Spain’s bishops apologized for the abuses committed by church members following the Ombudsman’s report but disputed the number of victims involving the church as exaggerated. That report accused the church of widespread negligence.

Bolaños said the government hoped to carry out the plan over the next four years in collaboration with the church.

The project will include free legal assistance for all victims of sexual abuse and it will reinforce the prevention supervision in schools.

Only a handful of countries have had government-initiated or parliamentary inquiries into clergy sex abuse, although some independent groups have carried out their own investigations.

US government agrees to $138.7M settlement over FBI’s botching of Larry Nassar assault allegations


BY ED WHITE
 April 23, 2024


DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department announced a $138.7 million settlement Tuesday with more than 100 people who accused the FBI of grossly mishandling allegations of sexual assault against Larry Nassar in 2015 and 2016, a critical time gap that allowed the sports doctor to continue to prey on victims before his arrest.

When combined with other settlements, $1 billion now has been set aside by various organizations to compensate hundreds of women who said Nassar assaulted them under the guise of treatment for sports injuries.

Nassar worked at Michigan State University and also served as a team doctor at Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics. He’s now serving decades in prison for assaulting female athletes, including medal-winning Olympic gymnasts.

Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin Mizer said Nassar betrayed the trust of those in his care for decades, and that the “allegations should have been taken seriously from the outset.”

“While these settlements won’t undo the harm Nassar inflicted, our hope is that they will help give the victims of his crimes some of the critical support they need to continue healing,” Mizer said of the agreement to settle 139 claims.



Lawyers for Nassar assault survivors have reached $100M deal with Justice Department, AP source says


Liberty University will pay $14 million, the largest fine ever levied under the federal Clery Act

The Justice Department has acknowledged that it failed to step in. For more than a year, FBI agents in Indianapolis and Los Angeles had knowledge of allegations against him but apparently took no action, an internal investigation found.

FBI Director Christopher Wray was contrite — and very blunt — when he spoke to survivors at a Senate hearing in 2021. The assault survivors include decorated Olympians Simone Biles, Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney.

“I’m sorry that so many different people let you down, over and over again,” Wray said. “And I’m especially sorry that there were people at the FBI who had their own chance to stop this monster back in 2015 and failed.”

After a search, investigators said in 2016 that they had found images of child sex abuse and followed up with federal charges against Nassar. Separately, the Michigan attorney general’s office handled the assault charges that ultimately shocked the sports world and led to an extraordinary dayslong sentencing hearing with gripping testimony about his crimes.

“I’m deeply grateful. Accountability with the Justice Department has been a long time in coming,” said Rachael Denhollander of Louisville, Kentucky, who is not part of the latest settlement but was the first person to publicly step forward and detail abuse at the hands of Nassar.

“The unfortunate reality is that what we are seeing today is something that most survivors never see,” Denhollander told The Associated Press. “Most survivors never see accountability. Most survivors never see justice. Most survivors never get restitution.”

Michigan State University, which was also accused of missing chances over many years to stop Nassar, agreed to pay $500 million to more than 300 women and girls who were assaulted. USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee made a $380 million settlement.

Mick Grewal, an attorney who represented 44 people in claims against the government, said the $1 billion in overall settlements speaks to “the travesty that occurred.”
___

Associated Press reporters Mike Householder in Detroit; Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Kentucky; and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington, D.C., contributed to this story.
___

For more updates on the cases against Larry Nasser: https://apnews.com/hub/larry-nassar


by Taboola Suggested For You

Google fires more workers who protested its deal with Israel


A person rides past the Google sign outside the Google offices in Sunnyvale, Calif., on Thursday, April 18, 2024. Google has fired 28 employees who were involved in protests over the tech company’s cloud computing contract with the Israeli government. The workers held sit-ins at the company’s offices in California and New York over Google’s $1.2 billion contract to provide custom tools for Israeli’s military. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

BY KELVIN CHAN AND WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS
, April 23, 2024


Google fired at least 20 more workers in the aftermath of protests over technology the company is supplying the Israeli government amid the Gaza war, bringing the total number of terminated staff to more than 50, a group representing the workers said.

It’s the latest sign of internal turmoil at the tech giant centered on “Project Nimbus,” a $1.2 billion contract signed in 2021 for Google and Amazon to provide the Israeli government with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services.

Workers held sit-in protests last week at Google offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California. The company responded by calling the police, who made arrests.

The group organizing the protests, No Tech For Apartheid, said the company fired 30 workers last week — higher than the initial 28 they had announced.

Then, on Tuesday night, Google fired “over 20” more staffers, “including non-participating bystanders during last week’s protests,” said Jane Chung, a spokeswoman for No Tech For Apartheid, without providing a more specific number.

“Google’s aims are clear: the corporation is attempting to quash dissent, silence its workers, and reassert its power over them,” Chung said in a press release. “In its attempts to do so, Google has decided to unceremoniously, and without due process, upend the livelihoods of over 50 of its own workers.”


Google said it fired the additional workers after its investigation gathered details from coworkers who were “physically disrupted” and it identified employees who used masks and didn’t carry their staff badges to hide their identities. It didn’t specify how many were fired.

The company disputed the group’s claims, saying that it carefully confirmed that “every single one of those whose employment was terminated was personally and definitively involved in disruptive activity inside our buildings.”

The Mountain View, California, company had previously signaled that more people could be fired, with CEO Sundar Pichai indicati ng in a blog post that employees would be on a short leash as the company intensifies its efforts to improve its AI technology.

'FREE PALESTINE' IS NOT ANTISEMITIC

Pro-Palestinian encampments and
protests spread on college campuses across the U.S.

APRIL 23, 2024
By Rachel Treisman

NPR




Students from MIT, Harvard University and others rally at a protest encampment at MIT's Kresge Lawn in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Monday.Scott Eisen/Getty Images

Tensions are growing on U.S. college campuses, as the pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have rocked New York-area schools in recent days — and the ensuing arrests of participants — spread from coast to coast.

Students have launched protests and encampments at more than a dozen schools across the country, from Massachusetts to Michigan to California. They are calling for an end both to the Israel-Hamas war and their universities' investment in companies that profit from it or, more broadly, do business with Israel.

It's the latest wave of protests to sweep college campuses since the Oct. 7 attack Hamas-led attack on Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and roughly 240 others taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities, who say more than 130 remain captive in Gaza. Israel's ensuing military response in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, some two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.



EDUCATION
Columbia University shifts classes to remote-only after a wave of protests on campus

College-age Americans are more likely to sympathize with Palestinians than Israelis, according to recent polling by the Pew Research Center.

And the Israel-Hamas war has become a major flashpoint at institutions of higher education, many of which are now grappling with how to balance free speech protections with student safety at a moment of rising antisemitism and Islamophobia.

When asked about the protests on Monday — the first night of the Jewish holiday of Passover — President Biden said he condemned "the antisemitic protests" as well as "those who don't understand what's going on with the Palestinians."

Here's where things stand with the demonstrations:

Law enforcement break up protests from New York to California

NYPD officers face pro-Palestinian protesters on Monday night after clearing an encampment on NYU's campus.Alex Kent/AFP via Getty Images

On Monday morning, police arrested nearly 50 protesters at Yale University while Columbia University, which has seen rising tensions since over 100 demonstrators were arrested last week, shifted classes online — a move it has since extended through the end of the semester. (Classes end on April 29 and finals end on May 10, according to the school's academic calendar.)

Later Monday night, New York police cleared an encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters outside New York University's Gould Plaza, taking an unspecified number of them into custody after they refused to leave.


RELIGION
Concerns over antisemitism rise as Jews begin observing Passover

An NYU faculty group tweeted that the school had authorized police to "arrest its own students, faculty, staff and anyone who dares to stand in solidarity with Palestine."

NYU spokesperson John Beckman said in a statement that after some 50 demonstrators assembled that morning, the university closed the plaza to prevent additional people from joining.

He said more protesters — "many of whom we believe were not affiliated with NYU" — breached the barriers in the afternoon, changing the dynamic with their "disorderly, disruptive, and antagonizing behavior," and noted reports of "intimidating chants and several antisemitic incidents.

"Given the foregoing and the safety issues raised by the breach, we asked for assistance from the NYPD," he added. "The police urged those on the plaza to leave peacefully, but ultimately made a number of arrests.

Meanwhile, across the country at California State Polytechnic University, a group of students waving Palestinian flags and signs occupied Siemens Hall, an academic and administrative building on the Humboldt campus.

They barricaded the front entrance with chairs, desks, trash cans and other pieces of furniture, according to reports from ABC affiliate KRCR and an image posted to social media by the organization National Students for Justice in Palestine.

Around 8:30 p.m. local time, school officials urged people to stay away from the building, calling it "a dangerous and volatile situation." They said they were concerned about the safety of the protesters barricaded inside and called on them to heed law enforcement's directive to leave peacefully.

Several hours later, they said campus will remain closed through Wednesday for the safety of the community.

"Buildings are locked down and key cards will not work," they said, adding that "In-person classes and activities are transitioning to remote where possible."
Solidarity encampments emerge at over a dozen schools


Pro-Palestinian students protest at a tent encampment in front of Sproul Hall on the UC Berkeley campus on Monday.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Pro-Palestinian students at colleges in multiple states are now launching movements of their own, many as a direct response to the recent events at Columbia.

Students at Northwestern University, Ohio State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Temple University, Princeton University, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and others held walkouts and rallies in support of Columbia students last week after their arrest.

And others have followed suit this week.

A Pro-Palestinian student group at the University of Minnesota tweeted that they were joining with Columbia students by setting up an encampment on their own campus lawn at 4 a.m. on Tuesday, in solidarity "with the people of Palestine and with students standing up for Palestine across the country."

Students at the University of Pittsburgh also set up tents on Tuesday morning outside its central Cathedral of Learning, which they said in a news release was done in solidarity with students at a list of other schools.


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Some 300 students staged a "solidarity walkout" at Stanford University on Monday to show support for Palestinians in Gaza and their pro-Palestinian peers at other colleges, according to the Stanford Daily.

Students have also put up encampments at several Boston-area schools, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Emerson College and Tufts University. Harvard University has closed Harvard Yard to the public through Friday, in apparent anticipation of potential protests.

At the University of Michigan, student groups erected some two dozen tents in the middle of campus on Monday. Michigan Public reports that some 100 people gathered for a rally that afternoon, chanting "Disclose! Divest! We will not stop, we will not rest!" as police looked on.

Students at the University of California, Berkeley also set up a "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" on Monday. Organizers told ABC7 that they want school leaders to end what they're calling their "silence" over the situation in Gaza and to provide better protection for Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students.

Questions loom about protections for students and speech

Protestors occupy an encampment on the grounds of Columbia University in New York City on Monday.David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

The recent turmoil has raised even more questions about the responsibility of universities when it comes to balancing student safety with freedom of expression.

Some pro-Palestinian activists have publicly said they are protesting Israel, not Jews, and noted that their ranks include many Jewish students. At Columbia and Yale, some came together for Passover seders mid-protest.

Debbie Becher, a sociology professor at Barnard College (which is part of Columbia), told Morning Edition Tuesday that campus feels relatively safe and peaceful, unlike the portrayals of it on social media. She described the pro-Palestinian encampment as a "place of sharing and community building."

"Students have watched movies there, they hold teach-ins, they study, they eat together," she said.

But the demonstrations have left other Jewish students feeling unsafe, particularly due to reports of antisemitic rhetoric and harassment on several campuses.

The Anti-Defamation League has tracked several instances of protesters expressing support for Hamas and the Oct. 7 attack. A protester at Columbia, for example, held up a sign reading "Al-Qasam's next targets" with an arrow pointing towards nearby pro-Israel counter-protesters (referring to Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas).


MIDDLE EAST CRISIS — EXPLAINED
The war in Gaza is a big story on campus. These student reporters aren't shying away

It says students at various schools have also waved signs glorifying figures associated with U.S.-designated terror groups, used pro-Intifada slogans and called for destroying Zionism and either hounding or getting rid of Zionists altogether.

Tensions reached such a boiling point at Columbia that a university-affiliated rabbi urged Jewish students over the weekend to return home for their own safety.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams spoke out against antisemitic incidents and hate speech at Columbia in a statement that referenced specific incidents, including a woman yelling "We are Hamas" and student groups chanting "We don't want no Zionists here."

The White House also released a statement on Sunday condemning the "calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students," saying they have "have absolutely no place on any college campus, or anywhere in the United States of America."


NYPD officers detain a person as pro-Palestinian protesters gather outside of Columbia University on Thursday.Kena Bentacur/AFP via Getty Images

Meanwhile, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik is facing criticism for her response to the protests.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., is leading New York Republicans' charge to get her to resign, a seeming repeat of the situation in December, when the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania resigned after widely-panned Congressional testimony.

Shafik testified before Congress about the school's response to antisemitism last Wednesday, the day students set up the encampment. In her testimony, Shafik told lawmakers that antisemitism "is not tolerated and it is not acceptable."
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The next day, she called in the NYPD to break up the demonstration, which she said violated university policies and posed a "clear and present danger" to its functioning.


MIDDLE EAST CRISIS — EXPLAINED
Lawmakers grill the presidents of Harvard, MIT and Penn over antisemitism on campus

Her decision has been widely criticized by groups including the university's own Knight First Amendment Institute and the American Association of University Professors. Its Columbia and Barnard chapter plans to submit a "resolution of censure" against her and other administration officials, the Columbia Spectator reported Tuesday.

"President Shafik's violation of the fundamental requirements of academic freedom and shared governance, and her unprecedented assault on students' rights, warrants unequivocal and emphatic condemnation," it reads.

In a Monday note to the Columbia community, Shafik said administrators, deans and faculty were working to resolve the situation, including by discussing with protesters what actions the community can take to "peacefully complete the term and return to respectful engagement with each other."

She added that she is aware of the debate around "whether or not we should use the police on campus" and happy to participate in those discussions.

"But I do know that better adherence to our rules and effective enforcement mechanisms would obviate the need for relying on anyone else to keep our community safe," she said. "We should be able to do this ourselves."

Becher, the Barnard professor, said "the actual crisis here is the university leadership's failure to stand up to right-wing actors."

"Our president has, over the past six months and at Congress last week, abandoned our institutions of academic freedom, freedom of expression and turned our campus into a police state," she added. "And now other campuses around the country are following suit."

In a Monday statement, the civil liberties group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) called on universities to protect peaceful protest but "ensure the swift arrest" of anyone engaging in violence on campus. But it acknowledged the extra challenges posed by this "extraordinarily difficult" moment.

"Tensions are high and nerves are raw," it said. "The charity and grace necessary for productive dialogue are in vanishingly short supply, and it can be difficult to separate protected expression from its opposite. Amidst this intense pressure, our nation's institutions of higher education must lead the way."

Protests roiling US colleges escalate with arrests, new encampments and closures

 Police in Riot gear stand guard as demonstrators chant slogans outside the Columbia University campus, Thursday, April 18, 2024, in New York. U.S. colleges and universities are preparing for end-of-year commencement ceremonies with a unique challenge: providing safety for graduates while honoring the free speech rights of students involved in protests over the Israel-Hamas war. 

A sign sits erected at the pro-Palestinian demonstration encampment at Columbia University in New York, Monday, April 22, 2024. U.S. colleges and universities are preparing for end-of-year commencement ceremonies with a unique challenge: providing safety for graduates while honoring the free speech rights of students involved in protests over the Israel-Hamas war. 

NYPD officers from the Strategic Response Group form a wall of protection around Deputy Commissioner of Legal Matters Michael Gerber and Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kay Daughtry, not in the picture, during a press conference regarding the ongoing pro-Palestinians protest encampment at Columbia University in New York on Monday, April 22, 2024. U.S. colleges and universities are preparing for end-of-year commencement ceremonies with a unique challenge: providing safety for graduates while honoring the free speech rights of students involved in protests over the Israel-Hamas war.

 (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)

BY KAREN MATTHEWS AND NICK PERRY
April 23, 2024

NEW YORK (AP) — The student protests of Israel’s war with Hamas that have been creating friction at U.S. universities escalated Tuesday as new encampments sprouted and some colleges encouraged students to stay home and learn online, after dozens of arrests across the country.

The protests had been bubbling for months but kicked into a higher gear after more than 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had camped out on Columbia University’s upper Manhattan campus were arrested last week.

With tensions at Columbia continuing to run high and some students afraid to set foot on the campus, officials said the university will switch to hybrid learning for the rest of the semester.

Protests have been spreading elsewhere in New York and nationwide. Many universities have about two weeks of classes left before the semester ends and have been grappling with how to handle protests.

Police said 133 protesters were taken into custody late Monday after a protest at New York University and all had been released with summonses to appear in court on disorderly conduct charges.

University spokesperson John Beckman said NYU was carrying on with classes Tuesday.

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Pro-Palestinian protests sweep US college campuses following mass arrests at Columbia

California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, announced that its campus will be closed through Wednesday after demonstrators occupied a building Monday night. Classes were to be conducted remotely, the school said on its website.

At the University of Michigan, protesters had set up more than 30 tents on the central part of the Ann Arbor campus called the Diag.

In Connecticut, police on Monday arrested 60 protesters at Yale University, including 47 Yale students, after they refused to leave an encampment on Beinecke Plaza.

Yale President Peter Salovey said protesters had declined an offer to end the demonstration and meet with trustees, and after several warnings, school officials determined “the situation was no longer safe” and police cleared the encampment and made arrests.

At the University of Minnesota, nine anti-war protesters were arrested Tuesday morning after police took down an encampment a couple of hours after it was set up in front of the library.

Since the war began, colleges and universities have struggled to balance safety with free speech rights. Many long tolerated protests but are now doling out more heavy-handed discipline.

The protests have pitted students against one another, with pro-Palestinian students demanding that their schools condemn Israel’s assault on Gaza and divest from companies that sell weapons to Israel. Some Jewish students, meanwhile, say much of the criticism of Israel has veered into antisemitism.

As Donald Trump walked into a Manhattan courtroom Tuesday morning to attend his historic hush money trial, he spoke briefly to reporters and focused on the turmoil at college campuses, blaming President Joe Biden.

“What’s going on is a disgrace to our country and it’s all Biden’s fault,” Trump said.

A day earlier, when asked whether he condemned “the antisemitic protests,” Biden said he did.

“I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians,” Biden said after an Earth Day event outside Washington.

Columbia University President Minouche Shafik said in a message to the school community Monday that she was “deeply saddened” by what was happening on the campus.

Robert Kraft, who owns the New England Patriots football team and funded the Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life across from Columbia’s campus, said he was suspending donations to the university.

“I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff and I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken,” he said in a statement.

Columbia University has a history of protest, most notably in 1968, when hundreds of students angry about racism and the Vietnam War occupied five campus buildings. After a week, a thousand police officers swept in and cleared them out, making 700 arrests. The Associated Press reported at the time that 100 students and 15 police officers were injured.

Campus protests began after Hamas’ deadly attack on southern Israel, when militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. During the ensuing war, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local health ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and noncombatants but says at least two-thirds of the dead are children and women.
___

Perry reported from Meredith, New Hampshire. Associated Press writers Will Weissert in Triangle, Virginia; Larry Lage in Ann Arbor, Michigan; and John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Pro-Palestinian protesters arrested at Yale, NYU; Columbia cancels in-person classes

By Caitlin Ochs and Jonathan Allen

April 23, 2024

NEW YORK, April 22 (Reuters) - Police arrested dozens of people at pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Yale University in Connecticut and New York University in Manhattan on Monday, as the war in Gaza continued to reverberate through U.S. university campuses.
The police crackdowns came after Columbia University canceled in-person classes on Monday in response to protesters setting up tent encampments at its New York City campus last week.

Demonstrators blocked traffic around Yale's campus in New Haven, Connecticut, demanding the school divest from military weapons manufacturers. Police arrested more than 45 protesters, according to the student-run Yale Daily News.
In New York, officers moved on the NYU crowd shortly after nightfall as hundreds of demonstrators for hours had defied university warnings that they faced consequences if they failed to vacate a plaza where they had gathered. Video on social media showed police taking down tents in the protesters' encampment.

As demonstrators tussled with officers and chanted, "We will not stop, we will not rest. Disclose. Divest."

A New York police spokesperson said arrests were made after the university asked police to enforce trespassing violations but the total number of arrests and citations would remain unknown until much later. No immediate injuries were reported.

Protests at Yale, Columbia, NYU and other university campuses across the nation began in response to the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, following the deadly cross-border raid by Hamas militants on Oct. 7 and Israel's fierce response in the Gaza enclave controlled by Hamas.

In an email to Columbia staff and students on Monday, Columbia President Nemat Minouche Shafik said the university was canceling in-person classes and moving to online teaching to "deescalate the rancor and give us all a chance to consider next steps."
Last week, Shafik called in New York Police to clear a tent encampment protesters had set up on Columbia's main lawn to demand the school divest from Israel-related investments, an unusual move condemned by some faculty.

The school said the encampment violated rules. Police arrested more than 100 students from Columbia on Thursday on charges of trespassing. Columbia and the affiliated Barnard College have suspended dozens of students involved in the protests.
"These tensions have been exploited and amplified by individuals who are not affiliated with Columbia who have come to campus to pursue their own agendas," said Shafik, who last week testified before a U.S. House of Representatives committee, defending the school's response to alleged antisemitism by protesters.

 Palestinian flags are placed on a locked fence while students demonstrate outside Columbia University campus, as protests continue inside and outside the university during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in New York City, U.S., April 22, 2024. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

Republicans in the House and the Senate, as well as at least one Democratic senator, demanded Shafik resign.

DONOR THREATENS CUTOFF

Major university donor Robert Kraft was also unsatisfied that Columbia was protecting Jewish students. Kraft, who is Jewish and the owner of the New England Patriots, has donated millions of dollars to Columbia and threatened to cut off further funding, saying in a statement, "I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken."

Amid angry confrontations at Columbia between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel groups, police have received reports of Israeli students having flags snatched from their hands, but no reports "of any physical harm against any student," Tarik Shappard, the chief police spokesperson, told a press conference.

Student protesters spent several nights sleeping in the open on the lawn, and have since set up tents again. Students have organized both Muslim and Jewish prayers at the encampment, and some have given speeches condemning Israel and Zionism and praising Palestinian armed resistance.

More than 100 Columbia faculty joined students on Monday in solidarity at the encampment, where an outdoor seder was planned to mark the first day of the Jewish Passover holiday.

U.S. President Joe Biden, who has been criticized by the protesters for supplying funding and weapons to Israel, said in a statement on Sunday that his administration has put the full force of the federal government behind protecting the Jewish community.

"Even in recent days, we've seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews," Biden said. "This blatant antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous – and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country."

Student organizers from the Columbia encampment criticized the Biden statement, noting that some of the organizers are Jewish and that news outlets had focused on "inflammatory individuals who do not represent us."

"We firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry and stand vigilant against non-students attempting to disrupt the solidarity being forged among students – Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, Black and pro-Palestinian classmates and colleagues," they said in a statement.

"It's very clear to us that people on the outside do not understand what this encampment is about," said Lea Salim, a Barnard sophomore who said she was one of 15 Jewish students arrested on the Columbia lawn last week. Salim said it was not antisemitic to criticize the state of Israel.

Reporting by Caitlin Ochs and Jonathan Allen in New York; Additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Chicago, Kanishka Singh in Washington and Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Bill Berkrot Editing by Michael Perry

Biden rule grants overtime pay to 4 million US workers

By Daniel Wiessner

April 23, 2024

April 23 (Reuters) - The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday unveiled a rule extending mandatory overtime pay to an estimated 4 million salaried workers, going even further than an Obama-era rule that was struck down in court.
The U.S. Department of Labor rule will require employers to pay overtime premiums to workers who earn a salary of less than $1,128 per week, or about $58,600 per year, when they work more than 40 hours in a week.

The current salary threshold of about $35,500 per year was set by the Trump administration in a 2020 rule that worker advocates and many Democrats have said did not go far enough.
The rule does not affect overtime requirements for workers who are paid hourly.
Julie Su, the acting secretary of labor and Biden's nominee to fill the post permanently, said in a statement that the rule ensures that workers either earn more money or are paid the same to work fewer hours.

“Too often, lower-paid salaried workers are doing the same job as their hourly counterparts but are spending more time away from their families for no additional pay," Su said.
Under the rule, the salary threshold will increase to $43,888 on July 1 and to $58,656 on Jan. 1, 2025. And starting in 2027, the threshold will automatically increase every three years to reflect changes in average earnings.

U.S. wage law requires employers to pay eligible workers one and one-half times their regular rate of pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week. Salaried workers who earn above the salary threshold may still be eligible for overtime pay if they do not primarily perform management-related duties.

Workers are generally automatically exempt if they earn a salary of more than $107,432. The new rule will raise that cutoff to about $151,000.

Several states, including California and New York, have salary thresholds for determining overtime eligibility that are higher than the current federal standard.
The Labor Department in 2016 doubled the salary threshold to about $47,000. A federal judge in Texas the following year said that ceiling was so high that it could sweep in some management workers who are exempt from overtime pay protections, and struck it down.

The new rule is likely to face legal challenges arguing that like the Obama administration rule, it violates federal wage law by applying to many lower-paid supervisors and professionals who typically would not be eligible for overtime.

Lawsuits could also claim that the Labor Department failed to justify the significant increase in the threshold just four years after the last adjustment.

Many major business groups had called on the department to put off any changes to overtime pay regulations, citing inflation, global supply chain disruptions and worker shortages that have raised companies' operating costs.

US Supreme Court examines firings of pro-union Starbucks workers

By Andrew Chung and John Kruzel

April 23, 2024

WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) - U.S. Supreme Court justices on Tuesday appeared to agree with Starbucks (SBUX.O), opens new tab in the coffee chain's challenge to a judicial order requiring it to rehire seven employees at a Tennessee cafe who were fired as they pursued efforts to unionize.
The justices heard arguments in the company's appeal of a lower court's approval of an injunction sought by the U.S. National Labor Relations Board ordering the reinstatement of the workers. It is a case that could make it harder to bring a quick halt to labor practices challenged as unfair under federal law while the NLRB resolves complaints.

The case centers on the legal standard that federal courts must use to issue a preliminary injunction requested by the NLRB under the a federal law called the National Labor Relations Act. Such orders are intended as an interim tool to halt unfair labor practices while a case is proceeding before the board.
Under section 10(j) of the labor law, a court may grant an injunction if it is deemed "just and proper." Seattle-based Starbucks contends that if the lower courts had applied stricter criteria, similar to the standard used by some other courts and in non-labor legal disputes, the case would have come out differently, opens new tab.

Some justices appeared to agree that courts should have the primary role in determining a "likelihood of success" in the case before issuing an injunction.
Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch told Justice Department lawyer Austin Raynor, who was defending the injunction against Starbucks, that other federal agencies are subject to the stricter standard.
"In all sorts of alphabet soup agencies, we don't do this. District courts apply the 'likelihood of success' test as we normally conceive it. So why is this particular statutory regime different than so many others?" Gorsuch asked.

Raynor told the justices that the NLRB seeks this kind of injunction only in "the cream of the crop cases."
"The board receives 20,000 unfair labor charges every year. It issues 750 complaints. Last year, it authorized 14 petitions and filed seven. That's seven out of 20,000," Raynor said.
"This is an expert agency that has said, 'We think these are the most deserving of relief,'" Raynor added.
But conservative Chief Justice John Roberts said that "I don't know why the inference isn't the exact opposite." Roberts said these could be the cases that the board feels "are the most vulnerable."

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito told Raynor, "I'm a little curious about your statistical argument."
Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson told Lisa Blatt, the lawyer arguing for Starbucks, that the agency has sought this type of injunction "in a very, very small number of cases."
"This is not sounding like a huge problem," Jackson said.
"Whether or not it's a huge problem, what petitioner (Starbucks) wants is just a level playing field, the normal injunctive factors that agencies and private parties should get," Blatt responded.

The company has argued that the judge who granted the injunction should have used a stringent four-factor test to weigh the bid for an injunction, as courts typically do in non-labor disputes. This test includes an assessment of whether the side seeking relief would suffer irreparable harm and is likely to succeed on the merits of the case.
About 400 Starbucks locations in the United States have unionized, opens new tab, involving more than 10,000 employees. Both sides at times have accused the other of unlawful or improper conduct.
Hundreds of complaints have been filed with the NLRB accusing Starbucks of unlawful labor practices such as firing union supporters, spying on workers and closing stores during labor campaigns. Starbucks has denied wrongdoing and said it respects the right of workers to choose whether to unionize.
In a break from the acrimony, both sides in February said they had agreed to create a "framework" to guide organizing and collective bargaining and potentially settle scores of pending legal disputes.
The case began in 2022, when the workers at the Poplar Avenue store in Memphis became among the first to unionize. Early in their efforts, they allowed a television news crew into the Starbucks cafe after hours to talk about the union campaign. Seven workers present that evening were fired, including several who belonged to the union organizing committee.
Despite the dismissals, employees there later voted to join Workers United.
The union filed unfair labor charges with the NLRB over the firings and other discipline by managers. The NLRB sought an injunction, alleging that Starbucks unlawfully fired the workers for supporting the union drive and to send a message to other workers.
U.S. District Judge Sheryl Lipman granted the injunction in 2022, reinstating the workers in order to address the "chilling effect" of the dismissals on the unionization effort while the NLRB resolves the case. The Cincinnati, Ohio-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the injunction in 2023.
The 6th Circuit rejected the company's argument that Lipman should have used a stringent four-factor test.
The Supreme Court's ruling is expected by the end of June.

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Reporting by Andrew Chung and John Kruzel in Washington; Additional reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany; Editing by Will Dunham

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Honda to build major EV plant in Canada: govt source

By AFP
April 22, 2024

Honda hopes to sell only zero-emission vehicles by 2040, with a goal of going carbon-neutral in its own operations by 2050 

- Copyright AFP TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA

Japanese auto giant Honda will open an electric vehicle plant in eastern Canada, a Canadian government source familiar with the multibillion-dollar project told AFP on Monday.

The federal government as well as the province of Ontario, where the plant will be built, will both provide some financial incentives for the deal, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official announcement is due Thursday, though Ontario premier Doug Ford hinted at the deal on Monday.

“This week, we’ve landed a new deal. It will be the largest deal in Canadian history. It’ll be double the size of Volkswagen,” he said, referring to a battery plant announced last year, for which the German automaker pledged Can$7 billion (US$5 billion) in investment.

Canada in recent years has been positioning itself as an attractive destination for electric vehicle investment, touting tax incentives, renewable energy access and its rare mineral deposits.

The Honda plant, to be built an hour outside Toronto, in Alliston, will also produce electric-vehicle batteries, joining existing Volkswagen and Stellantis battery plants.

In January, when news of the deal first bubbled up in the Japanese press, the Nikkei newspaper estimated it would be worth Can$14 billion — numbers backed up by Canadian officials recently.

In the federal budget announced last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government introduced a new business tax credit, granting companies a 10 percent rebate on construction costs for new buildings used in key segments of the electric vehicle supply chain.

Canada’s strategy follows that of the neighboring United States, whose Inflation Reduction Act has provided a host of incentives for green industry.

Honda hopes to sell only zero-emission vehicles by 2040, with a goal of going carbon-neutral in its own operations by 2050.

Honda expected to announce multi-billion dollar deal to assemble EVs in Ontario: sources