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Safety

Maine Proposes Major Staffing Increases For Care Facilities

In the first major update to assisted living and residential care regulations in more than 15 years, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services has proposed significantly increasing staffing requirements, among other changes. The proposed updates follow an investigation by The Maine Monitor and ProPublica into the state’s largest residential care facilities. It found dozens of violations of resident rights, including incidents of abuse and neglect, as well as more than 100 cases in which residents wandered away from their facilities and hundreds of medication and treatment violations.

Bike Theft Discourages People From Riding Bikes

In 2019, I rode my bike about one mile to the metro station and locked it to a bike rack out front. Then, I took the train to a friend’s party. When I got back, my bike was gone. I couldn’t afford to buy a new bike, so I went without one for the next two years. It’s a familiar scenario for many bike riders. In a city like L.A., bike theft feels as everyday as sunny skies and fruit carts selling delicious sliced mango and watermelon. One report estimates that a whopping two million bikes are stolen every year in America. Many people don’t replace their bikes, a fact that Brooklyn-based cyclist and entrepreneur Shabazz Stuart often cites. “It’s just the 800-pound gorilla in the room,” he says.

Students, Gaza And A New Vision Of Safety

The sign hanging over the student encampment at Chicago’s DePaul University bore a slogan that has echoed through almost all of the justice movements over the past several years: ​“We Keep Us Safe.” The tents beneath it fragile, just a thin layer of canvas between the students and the rest of the world. A statement of purpose and of solidarity; a reminder of the tents so many Palestinians in Gaza are living in right now as they move, and move again, and move again from homes destroyed by U.S.-made bombs delivered by Israeli planes into supposed safe zones. But is there a safe zone when its safety is declared by the people who have declared war on you?

Shifting Policies Led To One Of The Deadliest Incidents For Immigrants

Stefan Arango, a 31-year-old Venezuelan husband and father, felt immediately nauseated by the smells of sweat, urine and feces when Mexican guards ordered him into the cinder block cell in the border city of Ciudad Juárez. The tile floor was strewn with trash, and several men inside lay on flimsy mats that were incongruously covered in rainbow-colored vinyl. The windows were so small that they didn’t allow in much light or air. And, perhaps mercifully, they were so high that the men couldn’t see they were just a short stroll from El Paso, Texas, the destination they had risked everything to reach.

Profits And Payouts Over Passenger Safety

While the companies responsible for the door plug that blew out of a plane in mid-air last week were cutting corners, outsourcing manufacturing, laying off employees, and working to evade expensive safety upgrades, they paid their top executives $817 million and showered Wall Street investors with $68 billion in dividends and stock buybacks over the past decade. By some estimates, the amount spent on stock buybacks that enriched shareholders was more than the projected cost of making safety upgrades that experts say were necessary. Boeing, manufacturer of the 737 Max 9 jet that suffered the mid-flight rupture last week, laid off tens of thousands of workers in 2020, following the grounding of its entire 737 Max fleet after two catastrophic crashes that together killed 346 people.

Boeing Whistleblower Warns Against Corporation’s ‘Safety Exemptions’

Following another incident involving a Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, a known Boeing whistleblower is sounding the alarm over the multinational corporation’s requests for “safety exemptions.” The Associated Press reported that “a fuselage panel blew out on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 seven minutes after takeoff from Portland, Oregon.” “The rapid loss of cabin pressure pulled the clothes off a child and caused oxygen masks to drop from the ceiling, but miraculously none of the 171 passengers and six members were injured. Pilots made a safe emergency landing,” AP added.

Here’s How Evanston’s Streets Have Become Safer For Cyclists

There’s a wide spectrum of cyclists who take to the streets each week with the Evanston Bicycle Club. Newer, lower-speed riders mostly stay inside Evanston and surrounding suburbs, taking advantage of barrier-protected bike lanes and quieter residential streets. Cyclists with a bit more energy and experience go for longer rides up to Wilmette or Glencoe. But only the more advanced groups venture into the city of Chicago, said Al Cubbage, who last month ended a two-year stint as president of the club, which organizes multiple rides per week. Taking Clark Street down through Rogers Park means “taking your life into your own hands,” said Cubbage, a retiree who considers himself an intermediate rider.

Death At Howard Industries Of Laurel, Mississippi, A Company Showered By Media Love And Political Largesse Despite Its Horrible Record

Controversy still hangs over Howard Industries in Laurel, Mississippi, as the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration continues its investigation into the March 15 death of a 36-year veteran worker at the company. Sixty-three-year-old Larry Moffett died as a result of what the company called a “crush incident” when a heavy piece of equipment fell on him. Details are sketchy beyond that point, but Moffett was a tank regulator and leak tester and only two years away from retirement. In a subsequent blog post on the incident, the Grossman Law Offices in Dallas, Texas...

Pilots Sue Boeing For Putting Profits Over Safety

Boeing's 737 MAX series— first announced in 2011 and put to service in 2017 — is the fourth generation of its 737 aircraft, a widely popular narrow-body aircraft model that has been a mainstay of short-haul aircraft routes across the globe. By March 2019, the entire global fleet was suspended by a US presidential decree, following the second fatal crash involving a 737 MAX that killed 157 people in Ethiopia. The first crash involving the 737 MAX jet happened off the coast of Indonesia in October 2018, killing 189 people. In the time since the two fatal crashes, some of the families of the 346 people killed have sought compensation, while aircraft carriers — such as Norwegian Air...

Health And Safety Tests Are Needed Before Rolling Out 5G Technology

We are in the midst of a 5G wireless technology rollout, and politicians have yet to address safety concerns. I recently used Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as an example, but it's happening worldwide. It's one of many examples that illustrates how large corporations completely control politics. I also recently wrote about Robert F. Kennedy explaining how this came to be, and how they've been able to completely compromise government, big media, and our federal regulatory agencies that are supposed to be protecting and informing us.

Accident At Compressor Station Fuels More Pipeline Concerns

By Reverend Mac Legerton of the North Carolina Alliance To Protect Our People and the Places We Live. Prospect, North Carolina - As reported in the ROBESONIAN, Jennifer Sharpe, a communication specialist with Piedmont Natural Gas, stated that the accidental leak caused by a malfunctioning valve at the Prospect Compressor Station in Robeson County was detected at about 3:40 AM on Tuesday at the Natural Gas Control Room at the company’s headquarters in Charlotte. She stated that the situation was never unsafe and no local emergency personnel were called to the Compressor Station. The leak was finally stopped at 5:00 am.

Dakota Pipeline Is Ready for Oil, Without Spill Response Plan For Standing Rock

By Phil Mckenna for Inside Climate News - Without a complete emergency plan or equipment, a spill at the Missouri River crossing could cause tremendous damage to the environment and the tribe's water. Oil is set to flow through the controversial Dakota Access pipeline, but there is still no oil spill response plan in place for the section of pipe that crosses the Missouri River just upstream from the Standing Rock reservation. The company won't be required to have emergency response cleanup equipment stored near the river crossing for another year, either. The lack of rigorous safety measures for the crude oil pipeline is raising concerns from lawyers and pipeline consultants for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, whose protests and legal fight against the Dakota Access pipeline became a flashpoint for environmental justice and indigenous rights last year. Despite the prolonged resistance, the pipeline is scheduled to begin operating on June 1 after President Donald Trump issued an order expediting its approval. Dakota Access LLC, the company building the pipeline, is required by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) to submit a general emergency plan for the entire half-million-barrel-a-day project before oil shipments begin.

How D.C. Drivers Put The Brakes On Unsafe Buses

By Samantha Winslow for Labor Notes - How can you force city leaders to confront the effects of privatization? Subcontracted bus drivers in Washington, D.C., did it through their contract campaign. D.C. Circulator drivers who had been making $8 an hour less than their public sector counterparts came up to par after they shamed their employer for sending out unsafe buses.

Black Lives Matter Activists March For Safety Of Women

By Alex Garland for The Dignity Virus - Weeks after a lawsuit was filed against Jared Williams, a Tacoma police officer, by 17 year old Monique Tillman, approximately 100 activists marched in protest of police violence. The “Black Girls Matter” rally and march was was attended by a spectrum of races and cultures. Security was provided by armed and unarmed members of the New Black Panthers. Family members of Jacqueline Salyers, a Puyallup Tribal member who was shot and killed by Tacoma Police in January were also in attendance

Eight Large Corporations Penalized $1 Billion Or More

By Editor of Corporate Crime Reporter - Eight large corporations and their subsidiaries have each been penalized more than $1 billion for environmental, health and safety cases brought by federal regulatory agencies since 2010. The corporations with the most penalties are: BP ($25.4 billion), Anadarko Petroleum ($5.2 billion), GlaxoSmithKline ($3.8 billion), Johnson & Johnson ($2.4 billion), Abbott Laboratories ($1.5 billion), Transocean ($1.4 billion), Toyota ($1.3 billion) and Alliant Energy ($1.0 billion). The penalty total of all entries in Violation Tracker is about $60 billion.

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