wepon | Link Roundup June 2022

Google contractors say a recruiting company has been systematically skimming their pay

“I found out they had been paying me $20 an hour, but they were telling Google they were paying me $30.08 an hour,” Mylius says. “That was in the middle of March, and basically they haven’t done anything about it.” Applied over his six-month term at Artech, the discrepancy added up to more than $10,000.

Kiel School District closes Title IX investigation

This comes after the school and city received a series of bomb threats related to the Title IX investigation. Police never found any bombs. Most recently, Kiel police warned of a threat stating they'd target multiple locations in Kiel if the school district didn't drop the Title IX investigation by Friday, June 3.

Uvalde schools police chief: I didn't know I was in charge at the shooting scene

Not all the victims were found dead when officers finally went inside: one teacher died in an ambulance and three children died at nearby hospitals, according to the records obtained by the Times, which included a review of law enforcement documents and video that have been gathered as part of the investigation. The family of Xavier Lopez, 10, said the boy had been shot in the back and lost a lot of blood as he waited for medical attention. "He could have been saved," Leonard Sandoval, the boy's grandfather, told the newspaper. "The police did not go in for more than an hour. He bled out."

Uvalde shooting incident commander says he didn't know he was in charge, ditched his radios on purpose

A Times analysis of surveillance footage in the building found that officers didn’t return to the classroom door for 40 minutes after first arriving and attempting to enter the classroom. By the time the room was breached by law enforcement, 60 officers had assembled at Robb Elementary, according to the Times.

This 'rater' gets paid $10 an hour to teach Google's algorithm — and he's not alone

Raters' working situations are unusual at best. The raters Yahoo Finance spoke to work from home, but they have no clue who their direct boss is, or if they have one boss or many bosses. They don’t even know their boss’ (or bosses’) name. RaterLabs confirmed this is true for many projects, though not all, they say. “There are projects that provide transparency to who the project manager is for each project they select to do work on and are provided with the project managers’ contact information,” a spokesperson for Appen, RaterLabs’ parent company, said. “For other projects, a Quality Team alias is provided for communications.” Across the board, the raters Yahoo Finance spoke to worry about waking up to a pink-slip-email, and two said they know of instances where people haven’t received an email at all — the worker’s account was just deactivated.

US prison workers produce $11B worth of goods and services for ‘little to no pay at all’

Despite producing nearly $11 billion worth of goods and services each year, incarcerated workers in the U.S. earn an average of just between 13 cents and 52 cents per hour across the country, according to a new report.

Research shows slaves remained on Killona plantation until 1970s

“That was the first time I met people in involuntary service or slavery. They didn’t want to go public with it because some of them were still employed by those same people and feared retaliation,” she said. “I promised not to betray their confidence and would not give out their names to anyone.”

Sisters: We Were Modern-Day Slaves

The sisters say that's how it happened them. They were born in the 1930s and '40s into a world where their father, Cain Wall, now believed to be 105 years old, had already been forced into slave labor.

The Last Slaves of Mississippi?

Mae’s father, Cain Wall Sr., she says, was born into peonage in St. Helena Parish, La. Census records place the date around 1902, though the family says he is even older. Now in frail health and bed-bound, he married when he was 17 (his wife died in 1984) and by the mid-1930s, the family says, was living across the Mississippi border in Gillsburg, working the fields for white families who lived near each other or attended the same church—the Walls (a common name in the region), the McDaniels and, mostly, the Gordons.

Dems meddle in Senate primary to advance hardline MAGA Republican

National and statewide GOP operatives were frantically trading texts Tuesday night as ad buys posted from Democratic Colorado, a left-wing super PAC that is spending at least $800,000 this week alone to meddle in the Republican primary. The group is currently running an ad burnishing state Rep. Ron Hanks’ conservative credentials — a spot that GOP strategists say will undoubtedly boost his underfunded effort in the June 28 Republican primary.

South Florida synagogue sues over Florida’s new 15-week abortion ban

A South Florida Jewish congregation has challenged a new state law that blocks abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, contending the measure violates privacy and religious-freedom rights.

The Supreme Court’s Legitimacy Crisis: From Recusal Issues to Blatant Partisanship

In a 2016 presidential debate, Trump plainly stated that his Supreme Court nominees would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. He said, “If we put another two or perhaps three justices on, that is really what will happen. That will happen automatically in my opinion. Because I am putting pro-life justices on the court.” Six years later we are on the precipice of that plan becoming a reality.

Texas official says Uvalde classroom door was unlocked, calls police response an 'abject failure'

A door to a classroom where the Uvalde school shooter was holed up was unlocked while police searched for a key to get in, a top Texas official said Tuesday, describing law enforcement's response to the rampage as an “abject failure.”

Starbucks says it will cover abortion travel and gender-affirming care

On June 15, Starbucks also said all partners who are enrolled in the health care plan would have access to the benefits, including those who are unionizing. But it added that it could not “make promises of guarantees about any benefits” for unionized stores.

Court kills Flint water charges against ex-governor, others

The Michigan Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out charges against former Gov. Rick Snyder and others in the Flint water scandal, saying a judge sitting as a one-person grand jury had no power to issue indictments under rarely used state laws.

Medieval Times Workers Will Vote On Forming The Company’s First Union

The knights, squires, show cast and stablehands of Lyndhurst will vote July 15 on whether or not to unionize under an election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board. Around 40 workers would be included in the union. (Food and administrative workers appear to be employed under a separate corporate entity and would not be part of the bargaining unit.)

Supreme Court limits EPA in curbing power plant emissions

By a 6-3 vote, with conservatives in the majority, the court said that the Clean Air Act does not give the Environmental Protection Agency broad authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that contribute to global warming.