Laid off Shoal Creek Mine workers may be eligible for benefits
Workers and former workers of Peabody Southeast Mining, LLC, Shoal Creek Mine in Oakman, Alabama may be eligible for benefits under the Trade Adjustment Assistance Reauthorization Act of 2015 (TAARA 2015). According to the U.S. Department of Labor website, the act “provides aid to workers who lose their jobs or whose hours of work and wages are reduced as a result of increased imports.” A petition was filed on behalf of the workers and was certified by the U.S. Department of Labor on January 19, 2021, according to Secretary Fitzgerald Washington, Alabama Department of Labor. The Shoal Creek mine, which spans three counties, closed in October 2020. The closing was due to revenue loss and weakening demand for coal, according to Larry Spencer, the district vice president for the union representing the miners. According to the press release, the petition covers periods of unemployment occurring on or after October 30, 2019, through January 19, 2023. Under the TAARA 2015 Act, displaced workers may be eligible for benefits such as training, job search and relocation assistance, and Health Coverage Tax Credit (HCTC). For additional information on the HCTC, they can visit the IRS website at www.irs.gov/HCTC. If workers have used all their cash benefits under other programs, they could be eligible for additional benefits. In order to receive Trade Readjustment Allowance (TRA) benefits, workers “must enroll in training within 26 weeks of the certification date or their last qualifying separation, or a waiver of the training requirement must be granted by the state Employment Service Division of the Alabama Department of Labor.” Additionally, because Peabody Southeast Mining, LLC, Shoal Creek Mine was certified for Reemployment Trade Adjustment Assistance (RTAA), workers 50 years of age and older, who obtain full-time employment after their separation from the affected employer, may be eligible for training and allowances under the RTAA program. Washington stated that potentially eligible individuals will be notified individually as soon as they are identified.
‘Obviously a mistake’: Ted Cruz returns from Cancun after uproar
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said his family vacation to Mexico was “obviously a mistake” as he returned stateside Thursday following an uproar over his disappearance during a deadly winter storm. The Republican senator said he began second-guessing the trip since the moment he first got on the plane Wednesday. “In hindsight, I wouldn’t have done it,” he told reporters. The Associated Press and other media outlets reported that he had traveled out of the country with his family as hundreds of thousands of Texans were still grappling with the fallout of a winter storm that crippled the state’s power grid. The trip drew criticism from leaders in both parties and was seen as potentially damaging to his future political ambitions. Cruz said in an earlier statement Thursday that he accompanied his family to Cancun a day earlier after his daughters asked to go on a trip with friends, given that school was canceled for the week. “Wanting to be a good dad, I flew down with them last night and am flying back this afternoon,” Cruz wrote. “My staff and I are in constant communication with state and local leaders to get to the bottom of what happened in Texas,” he continued. “We want our power back, our water on, and our homes warm.” Cruz told reporters Thursday night that he returned to the U.S. because he realized he needed to be in Texas. He said he had originally been scheduled to stay in Mexico through the weekend. “I didn’t want all the screaming and yelling about this trip to distract even one moment from the real issues that I think Texans care about, which is keeping all of our families safe,” Cruz said. “It was obviously a mistake, and in hindsight, I wouldn’t have done it,” he said. The fierce political backlash comes as Cruz eyes a second presidential run in 2024. He was already one of the most villainized Republicans in Congress, having created adversaries across the political spectrum in a career defined by far-right policies and fights with the establishment. More recently, he emerged as a leader in former President Donald Trump’s push to overturn the results of the November election. Billboards calling for his resignation stood along Texas highways earlier in the month. Even the state Republican Party chair declined to come to Cruz’s defense on Thursday. “That’s something that he has to answer to his constituents about,” Texas GOP Chair Allen West said when asked whether Cruz’s travel was appropriate while Texans are without power and water. “I’m here trying to take care of my family and look after my friends and others that are still without power,” West said. “That’s my focus.” Hundreds of thousands of people in Texas woke up Thursday to a fourth day without power, and a water crisis was unfolding after winter storms wreaked havoc on the state’s power grid and utilities. Texas officials ordered 7 million people — one-quarter of the population of the nation’s second-largest state — to boil tap water before drinking the water, after days of record low temperatures that damaged infrastructure and froze pipes. In Austin, some hospitals faced a loss in water pressure and, in some cases, heat. News of Cruz’s absence quickly rippled across the state. Livia Trevino, a 24-year-old whose Austin home was still without water Thursday, said she felt abandoned by government leaders. “They are taking vacations and leaving the country, so they don’t have to deal with this, and we are freezing to death. We don’t have water and we don’t have food,” she said. In his statement, Cruz said that his family had lost heat and power as well. “This has been an infuriating week for Texans,” he said. While the situation will not help Cruz’s political future, the two-term senator is not in any immediate political danger. His current term expires in early 2025, and the unofficial beginning of the next Republican presidential primary election is two years away. Still, Democrats across Washington were eager to talk about the controversy. One of Cruz’s most aggressive critics on the left, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, encouraged her supporters on Thursday to volunteer for a “welfare check phone bank” to help Texans affected by the storm. “So many elected leaders in Texas have failed their constituents,” the New York Democrat wrote in an email. “Instead of focusing on relief, they’ve chosen to go on Fox News to spread lies or to board a plane to Cancun.” Earlier in the day, White House press secretary Jen Psaki leaned into a question about Cruz’s “whereabouts.” “I don’t have any updates on the exact location of Sen. Ted Cruz nor does anyone at the White House,” Psaki said, adding that President Joe Biden’s administration is focused on “working directly with leadership in Texas and surrounding states on addressing the winter storm and the crisis at hand.” Cruz’s office declined to answer specific questions about the family vacation, but his staff reached out to the Houston Police Department on Wednesday afternoon to say the senator would be arriving at the airport, according to department spokesperson Jodi Silva. She said officers “monitored his movements” while Cruz was at the airport. Silva could not say whether such requests are typical for Cruz’s travel or whether his staff had made a similar request for his return flight. U.S. Capitol Police officials and the Senate sergeant-at-arms have encouraged lawmakers and their staff to be conscious of potential threats and to consider advising law enforcement about their travel at airports and other transportation hubs. Cruz’s office did not immediately say whether the senator would self-quarantine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises people who have traveled during the pandemic to get a coronavirus test three to five days after their return and to quarantine for a full week, regardless of the test results. Cruz checked in for his return flight Thursday afternoon in Cancun and walked briskly through the terminal pulling a roller bag to security. He wore a
Alabama virus hospitalizations hit lowest point since fall
The number of people in Alabama hospitals with COVID-19 dipped Thursday to around 1,000, the lowest since late autumn. The decline in hospitalizations, daily new cases and the percent of tests coming back positive — three major barometers of the pandemic’s severity — is an encouraging sign that the state has emerged from the record-setting winter surge, said Dr. Don Williamson, the president of the Alabama Hospital Association. An unknown, however, is if the state will see another spike from the spread of variants. COVID-19 hospitalizations have declined from more than 3,000 on Jan. 11 to 1,003 on Thursday, the lowest level since early November “These are the best numbers we’ve seen certainly since November,” “We are headed in the right direction if we don’t do anything to mess it up,” Williamson said. Williamson attributed the drop in hospitalizations to both a drop in cases and treatment with monoclonal antibodies to lessen the severity of illness. Other states have also seen a drop in cases. Alabama ranked 22nd among U.S. states in the number of new cases per capita in the past 14 days. The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Alabama fell from 2,281 on Feb. 3 to 1,014 on Feb. 17, according to The COVID Tracking Project. Williamson said an unknown is if the state will see another spike from virus variants. At least eight cases of a highly transmissible variant that was first identified in the United Kingdom has been found in the state, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health. The department said many infectious disease experts have indicated that the current vaccines should be effective against the strain, and that the variant has not been definitively linked to worse outcomes. Since the pandemic began, more than 480,000 confirmed and probable virus cases have been reported in Alabama, and 9,424 people have died. Alabama has so far distributed about 685,000 of the 1 million vaccine doses it has received. Early numbers suggest a racial disparity in who is getting the vaccine. Thus far, whites have received about 55% of the doses compared to 12% received by Blacks. The numbers are incomplete, however, because the race of 28% of vaccine recipients was not reported. About 28% of Alabama’s population is Black. Tuskegee University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine have scheduled a town hall for Friday to answer questions about the vaccine and discuss vaccine hesitancy among minority communities. The event will be held via Zoom and is open to the public and the news media. The University of Alabama at Birmingham and UAB Medicine said this week that almost 21% of the 59,167 vaccinations they administered were to individuals who self-identified as Black. “While our early results are better than the national average with Black communities, we are not satisfied and will continue our efforts to increase outreach among underrepresented groups,” Dr. Sarah Nafziger, vice president of clinical operations for UAB Hospital, said in a statement.
In U-turn, feds defend including undocumented in House count
In a reversal of policy under then-President Donald Trump, Biden administration attorneys are arguing that the state of Alabama has no standing in trying to stop the U.S. Census Bureau from including people in the country illegally from the numbers used for divvying up congressional seats. A federal judge should dismiss a lawsuit from Alabama and Republican U.S. Rep. Morris “Mo” Brooks seeking the exclusion of people in the country illegally from the apportionment numbers, attorneys for President Joe Biden’s administration said in court papers Wednesday. At the very least, the judge should put the court case on hold until the Census Bureau releases apportionment figures by the end of April that will show whether Alabama keeps seven congressional seats or drops to six, they said. “The possibility that Alabama might receive only six House seats is, by definition, contingent and speculative,” Biden administration attorneys said. “After all, Alabama might well retain seven House seats regardless of whether undocumented immigrants are included in the apportionment base.” A lot has happened since Alabama first filed the lawsuit in 2018 in a preemptive move to save the state from losing a congressional seat during the process in which the House of Representatives’ 435 voting seats are divided up among the states based on a population count conducted during the once-a-decade census. Last year, Trump issued a memorandum that aligned his administration’s position with Alabama’s efforts to exclude people in the country illegally from the apportionment count. After the memorandum was challenged in multiple lawsuits, the Supreme Court ruled it was premature to decide on its legality because it wasn’t yet clear how many people would be excluded and whether the division of House seats would be affected. Finally, on his first day in office last month, Biden rescinded Trump’s memorandum, as well as a Trump order directing the Census Bureau to produce citizenship data. With all that going on, the judge in the Alabama case wanted an update this week on how to proceed from all sides, including several states and civil rights groups that are fighting Alabama’s efforts and say any harm to the Cotton State is too speculative at this point. The Alabama case is the last one pending over whether people in the U.S. illegally can be excluded from the apportionment count. The Justice Department asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit two years ago. But it was well before Trump issued his memorandum on apportionment, putting Department of Justice attorneys in the awkward spot of defending a position in opposition to administration policy. But U.S. District Judge David Proctor allowed the case to proceed. After Trump issued his memo last July, the Alabama case was placed on hold until the Supreme Court could rule on the memo’s challenges in other lawsuits. Biden’s order has nullified Alabama’s challenge to a Census Bureau rule that says people should be counted where they live and sleep most of the time since the new president’s directive requires the apportionment count to include the total number of people living in each state regardless of immigration status, Biden administration attorneys said. If Alabama wants to continue the case, a three-judge panel needs to be appointed since it will present a challenge to the constitutionality of the apportionment process, they said. Alabama said in court papers this month that Biden’s order puts the state at risk of losing political representation. Rather than challenging the apportionment process, Alabama is merely challenging Census Bureau operations, so it’s unlike the earlier case in which the Supreme Court ruled a challenge was premature, attorneys for Alabama said. “What is more, the States holding disproportionately more illegal aliens than Alabama are the very states threatening Alabama’s representation,” attorneys for Alabama said. Any ruling would only affect the numbers used for dividing up congressional seats among the seats and not affect other ways the 2020 census figures are used, such as the distribution of $1.5 trillion in federal funding each year. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
