Wicked Blue
Wicked Blue's JournalAwww, thanks for the heart!
It's so nice to be given a heart after a day of horrors about the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Volkswagen is exploring flying vehicles in China
CNN Business
by Hanna Ziady, CNN Business
Tue February 9, 2021
Volkswagen (VLKAF) is looking into flying vehicles in China, becoming the latest automaker to probe the possibilities of personal air travel.
Europe's largest automaker said in a statement on Tuesday that "vertical mobility" could be the next step after self-driving technology. "Therefore we are investigating potential concepts and partners in a feasibility study [in China] to identify the possibility to industrialize this approach," it added.
China is the world's largest autos market and is also Volkswagen's single biggest customer. The news comes as the German carmaker makes a big push into electric cars. It delivered more than three times the volume of battery electric vehicles last year than it did in 2019, while plug-in hybrid deliveries surged 175% to 190,500 units.
But "vertical mobility" throws up many more hurdles than electric mobility, including safety and reliability. Flying vehicles would need to operate in crowded airspace, near small drones and traditional airplanes, and would also need a regulatory framework, which could take years.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/09/business/volkswagen-flying-vehicles/index.html
Shooting at health care clinic in Buffalo, Minnesota, leaves 5 injured
Source: CNN
Five people were injured and a suspect is in custody after a shooting Tuesday at the Allina Health Care Clinic in Buffalo, Minnesota, according to Wright County spokesman John Holler.
Three people were critically injured and were airlifted out, he said.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said there was an "active shooter situation and some improvised explosive devices." The FBI and ATF are involved in the investigation because of the explosive devices, he said.
Holler told CNN there were no bombs on scene. However, at about 2:20 p.m., first responders took an item from inside the clinic and placed it into a spherical contraption attached to the back of a Minneapolis Police bomb squad truck, video from CNN affiliate WCCO shows.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/09/us/buffalo-minnesota-shooting/index.html
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Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner Reaped Stunning Amount Of Outside Income At White House
Huffington Post
By Lee Moran
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner tried to portray themselves as selfless public servants making financial sacrifices when they declined to take public paychecks while serving as White House advisers to former President Donald Trump.
But the couple ― who last year reportedly spent $30 million on undeveloped property on a Florida island ― nevertheless raked in between $172 million and $640 million in outside income from their myriad business interests during their four years in the Trump administration, according to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s analysis of financial disclosures released on Monday.
The exact earnings of the ex-president’s daughter and son-in-law are difficult to determine because “the income is sometimes in reported in broad ranges” and covered several months before they joined the White House, according to the group.
But even at the lower end of the estimated scale, the couple’s income works out to around $43 million per year ― or $21.5 million each.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ivanka-trump-jared-kushner-income-during-white-house_n_6022620ec5b6c56a89a42bf0
Maryland Bill Would Give Students Mental Health Days Off, No Need for Doctor's Note
NBC4Washington
By Tom Hindle of Capital News Service
A bill in the Maryland state legislature would grant school students excused absences for mental health reasons.
Under the proposed law, students would be allowed to skip school once every quarter — without needing a doctor’s note.
Sponsored by Del. Alonzo Washington, D-Prince George’s, the legislation aims to alleviate mental health problems exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Right now, we know mental health and mental illness is running rampant, especially among students,” Washington told Capital News Service.
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/maryland-bill-would-give-students-mental-health-days-off-no-need-for-doctors-note/2567316/
Amazon workers begin voting in landmark US union push
Agence France-Presse
February 09, 2021
Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama have begun voting on whether to form the first American union at the e-commerce giant, an effort that could pave the way for further unionization in the United States at one of the world's most powerful companies.
Amazon is the second-largest employer in the US with an 800,000-strong workforce, most of whom are "essential workers" who cannot do their jobs from home during the coronavirus pandemic.
'There have been a series of protests around the United States on safety and working conditions at Amazon, with the pandemic increasing pressure on its distribution network even as profits soar.
Employees at its BHM1 facility in Bessemer, Alabama, notified authorities of their plan to unionize in November.
https://www.rawstory.com/amazon-workers-begin-voting-in-landmark-us-union-push/
Navy Ship Didn't Enforce Social Distancing, Letting COVID Spread: Pentagon Watchdog
NBC News
Feb. 8, 2021, 2:04 PM EST
By Dan De Luce
Commanders of the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier failed to enforce social distancing and withdrew sailors too early from quarantine last year, aggravating an outbreak of COVID-19 among the ship's crew, according to a report from a Pentagon watchdog, NBC News reports.
The Roosevelt leadership also "allowed social gathering areas to remain open" and continued to conduct urine tests for illegal drugs despite the threat posed by the novel coronavirus and procedures outlined by the Navy, the Defense Department's inspector general said in a report released Monday.
The inspector general found that the Navy had appropriate plans in place to counter a potential outbreak of an infectious disease, but the leadership of the Roosevelt did not fully implement the required measures.
The Roosevelt had just completed a port call in Da Nang, Vietnam, when it reported the ship's first Covid case on March 24 last year. Over the course of the outbreak, 1,271 sailors, or about 27 percent of the 4,800-member crew, tested positive for Covid, according to previous statements by the Defense Department. One crew member died.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/aircraft-carrier-failed-enforce-social-distancing-allowing-covid-spread-pentagon-n1257023
Women's Labor Force Participation Rate Hit a 33-Year Low in January, According to New Analysis
NBCWashington
By Courtney Connley, CNBC
In January, another 275,000 women dropped out of the labor force, accounting for nearly 80% of all workers over the age 20 who left the workforce last month, according to a National Women's Law Center analysis of the latest jobs report.
This brings the total number of women who have left the labor force since February 2020 to more than 2.3 million, and it puts women's labor force participate rate at 57%, the lowest it's been since 1988, according to NWLC. By comparison, nearly 1.8 million men have left the labor force during this same time period.
Many of these women, says Emily Martin, VP for education and workplace justice at NWLC, have been forced to leave the workplace due to ongoing closures of schools and day care centers. These women, she explains, are not included in the calculated unemployment rate, which is already disproportionately high for women of color.
"To be counted as unemployed, you have to be looking for work," she tells CNBC Make It. "Those who have left the labor force are no longer working or looking for work so in some ways the unemployment rate is artificially lowered by the fact that it doesn't capture these millions of women."
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/business/money-report/womens-labor-force-participation-rate-hit-a-33-year-low-in-january-according-to-new-analysis/2566818/
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