Judge hears arguments in lawsuit over Alabama prison leases
A judge said Friday that he will decide soon whether to let a lawsuit go forward challenging Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey’s plan to lease privately owned prisons. Montgomery Circuit Judge Greg Griffin heard arguments in the state’s request to dismiss the lawsuit that contends the plan violates state law because the massive $3 billion expenditure was not approved by the Alabama Legislature. Griffin indicated he would rule by Monday. Attorney Kenny Mendelson, of Montgomery, filed the lawsuit in Montgomery County Circuit Court on behalf of four plaintiffs – Republican State Auditor Jim Zeigler; Democratic state Rep. John Rogers, of Birmingham; Leslie Ogburn, a homeowner near the proposed prison site outside Tallassee; and prisoner rights activist Rev. Kenny Glasgow of Dothan. “This is a legislative function. It’s up to them to decide whether to fund prisons or not to fund prisons. And what the (prison commissioner) and the governor have attempted to do is say, ‘We are going to go ahead and obligate the state anyway,’” Mendelson said after court. Much of the arguments on Friday centered on whether the state’s financial obligation under the leases is a debt. Assistant Attorney General Jim Davis told Griffin that court rulings have made clear that a lease is not the same as a debt. “It is not a debt as a matter of law,” Davis said. The governor in February agreed to lease two mammoth prisons as a partial solution to the state’s troubled correction system. The two 30-year lease agreements are with separate entities of CoreCivic, one of the nation’s largest private prison companies. The governor’s office is negotiating with another company to build a third prison in Bibb County. Ivey has said new prisons are a crucial first step to overhauling the state’s troubled and aging prison system and that new facilities will be safer and enable more training and rehabilitative efforts. Critics said the $3 billion plan is unnecessarily expensive and does not address critical issues of training, violence, and understaffing. The proposed prisons would be owned by the private companies but staffed and run by the Alabama Department of Corrections. Ogburn said homeowners and businesses in Elmore County have concerns about being near the planned prison that would house about 3,000 inmates. She said the community didn’t know about the proposals until surveyors were on the site. “The biggest concern is the shadiness. They did all of this behind closed doors,” Ogburn said. The governor’s lease plan has been besieged by setbacks including the withdrawal of finance companies. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Desperate for workers, U.S. restaurants and stores raise pay
U.S. restaurants and stores are rapidly raising pay in an urgent effort to attract more applicants and keep up with a flood of customers as the pandemic eases. McDonald’s, Sheetz, and Chipotle are just some of the latest companies to follow Amazon, Walmart, and Costco in boosting wages, in some cases to $15 an hour or higher. The pay gains are, of course, a boon to these employees. Restaurants, bars, hotels, and stores remain the lowest-paying industries, and many of their workers ran the risk of contracting COVID-19 on the job over the past year while white-collar employees were able to work from home. Still, the pay increases could contribute to higher inflation if companies raise prices to cover the additional labor costs. Some businesses, however, could absorb the costs or invest over time in automation to offset higher wages. States and cities are easing business restrictions as COVID-19 deaths and cases plummet, and in places like Florida, Nevada, and Texas, restaurant traffic is above or near pre-pandemic levels, according to OpenTable, a software provider to the industry. Many companies say they are struggling to find workers. “Customers are coming back faster than restaurants can staff up,” said Josh Bivens, research director at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “By raising pay, they are able to get more workers in the door.” In April, even as overall hiring slowed, a category that includes restaurants, hotels, and entertainment venues hired more new workers than it did the previous month, a sign the extra pay is working. McDonald’s on Thursday said it will raise pay for workers in its 650 company-owned stores to an average of $15 an hour by 2024. Entry-level employees will make $11 an hour. The company is urging its 14,000 franchised restaurants to make the same changes. Also on Thursday, Amazon said it will pay new hires $17 an hour, as it seeks to add 75,000 new workers. The online giant said it is offering a $100 bonus for new hires who have been vaccinated. And Sheetz, a mid-Atlantic convenience store chain, said Monday it is giving its 18,000 employees a $2-an-hour raise and an additional $1 an hour for the summer. Across the restaurant industry, the pay gains have largely returned overall wages to the same growth trend they were on before the pandemic, Bivens said. He expects the increases to climb above that trend in the coming months. Consumer prices rose 0.3% at restaurants in April, far less than their labor costs that month. That suggests many restaurants are accepting smaller profits rather than passing on the costs to customers, Bivens said. Restaurant prices have risen 3.8% in the past year, which is above pre-pandemic levels. Worries about higher inflation have dominated financial markets after consumer prices jumped 4.2% in April compared with a year earlier, the biggest gain in 13 years. But the rise was driven largely by soaring used car prices and more expensive airline tickets, not higher labor costs. In a sign that companies, in general, are struggling to add workers, the number of available jobs in the U.S. shot to 8.2 million at the end of March. Yet employers added just 266,000 jobs in April, far fewer than the previous month. Some of the unemployed are reluctant to return to work for fear of contracting COVID-19, while many women have left the workforce to take care of children who are still in online school. Because of an extra $300 in unemployment aid, some of the jobless are receiving more in benefits than they earned at their old jobs. Gad Levanon, a labor economist at the Conference Board, a business research group, said labor shortages will probably be temporary, which suggests pay won’t necessarily keep rising at the same pace. “The fear of COVID is probably going to decline, schools are probably going to open in September, the extra unemployment benefits will end in September,” he said. “So we will see some easing in labor shortages.” Even with the recent wage gains, weekly pay averaged just $477.40 in April in a category that includes restaurants, bars, hotels, amusement parks, and other entertainment venues. That partly reflects the many part-time workers in the industry, some of whom prefer shorter schedules. But others would probably work more if they could. Fight for $15 and a Union, a labor group that is trying to unionize fast-food workers, said that the increases aren’t enough and that it will continue to demand a starting wage of $15 per hour for all McDonald’s workers. “Clearly, McDonald’s understands that in order to hire and retain talented workers, something needs to change,” McDonald’s employee and union organizer Doneshia Babbitt said in a statement. “Now, they’re raising pay for some of us and using fancy math tricks to gloss over the fact that they’re selling most of us short.” Fight for $15 is planning strikes in 15 cities next Wednesday ahead of the fast-food giant’s annual shareholder meeting. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Israel threatens Gaza ground invasion despite truce efforts
Israel on Thursday said it was massing troops along the Gaza frontier and calling up 9,000 reservists ahead of a possible ground invasion of the Hamas-ruled territory, as the two bitter enemies plunged closer to all-out war. Egyptian mediators rushed to Israel for cease-fire efforts but showed no signs of progress. The stepped-up fighting came as communal violence in Israel erupted for a fourth night, with Jewish and Arab mobs clashing in the flashpoint town of Lod. The fighting took place despite a bolstered police presence ordered by the nation’s leaders. The four-day burst of violence has pushed Israel into uncharted territory — dealing with the most intense fighting it has ever had with Hamas while simultaneously coping with the worst Jewish-Arab violence inside Israel in decades. A late-night barrage of rocket fire from Lebanon that landed in the sea threatened to open a new front along Israel’s northern border. Saleh Aruri, an exiled senior Hamas leader, told London-based satellite channel Al Araby early Friday that his group has turned down a proposal for a three-hour lull to allow for more negotiations toward a full cease-fire. He said Egypt, Qatar, and the United Nations were leading the truce efforts. Also early Friday, the Israeli military said air and ground troops struck Gaza in what appeared to be the heaviest attacks yet. Masses of red flames illuminated the skies as the deafening blasts from the outskirts of Gaza City jolted people awake. The strikes were so strong that screams of fear could be heard from people inside the city, several kilometers away. “I said we would extract a very heavy price from Hamas,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a videotaped statement. “We are doing that, and we will continue to do that with heavy force.” The fighting broke out late Monday when Hamas, claiming to be the defender of Jerusalem, fired a barrage of long-range rockets toward the city in response to what it said were Israeli provocations. Israel quickly responded with a series of airstrikes. Since then, Israel has attacked hundreds of targets in Gaza. The strikes set off scores of earth-shaking explosions across the densely populated territory. Gaza militants have fired nearly 2,000 rockets into Israel, bringing life in the southern part of the country to a standstill. Several barrages targeted the seaside metropolis of Tel Aviv, some 70 kilometers (45 miles) away. Gaza’s Health Ministry said the death toll has climbed to 109 Palestinians, including 28 children and 15 women, with 621 people wounded. The Hamas and Islamic Jihad militant groups have confirmed 20 deaths in their ranks, though Israel says that number is much higher. Seven people have been killed in Israel, including a 6-year-old boy. In Washington, President Joe Biden said he spoke with Netanyahu about calming the fighting but also backed the Israeli leader by saying “there has not been a significant overreaction.” He said the goal now is to “get to a point where there is a significant reduction in attacks, particularly rocket attacks that are indiscriminately fired into population centers.” He called the effort “a work in progress.” Thursday’s visit by Egyptian officials marked an important step in the cease-fire efforts. Egypt often serves as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, and it has been a key player in ending past rounds of fighting. The officials met first with Hamas leaders in Gaza before holding talks with Israelis in Tel Aviv, two Egyptian intelligence officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. Hamas’ exiled leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was also in touch with the Egyptians, the group said. Despite those efforts, the fighting only intensified. Israeli aircraft pummeled targets in Gaza throughout the day. And late Thursday, Israel fired tank and artillery shells across the border for the first time, sending scores of terrified residents fleeing for safety. The airstrikes have destroyed scores of buildings, including three high rises. Israel says the buildings housed Hamas militants or facilities, but civilians were inside as well. In the northern Gaza Strip, Rafat Tanani, his pregnant wife, and four children were killed after an Israeli warplane reduced the building to rubble, residents said. Sadallah Tanani, a relative, said the family was “wiped out from the population register” without warning. “It was a massacre. My feelings are indescribable,” he said. Israel has come under heavy international criticism for civilian casualties in Gaza fighting. It says Hamas is responsible for endangering civilians by hiding and launching rockets from civilian areas. Late Thursday, Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz ordered the mobilization of an additional 9,000 reservists. The chief military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Hidai Zilberman said troops were massing along the Gaza border for a possible ground operation. He said tanks, armored vehicles, and artillery were being prepared “for mobilization at any given moment.” Hamas showed no signs of backing down. It launched several intense barrages of rockets throughout the day and fired its most powerful rocket, the Ayyash, nearly 200 kilometers (120 miles) into southern Israel. The rocket landed in the open desert but briefly disrupted flight traffic at the southern Ramon airport. Hamas also launched a drone that Israel said it quickly shot down. Hamas military spokesman Abu Obeida said the group was not afraid of a ground invasion, saying any invasion would be a chance “to increase our catch” of dead or captive soldiers. The fighting cast a pall over the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, normally marked by family gatherings and festive meals. Instead, the streets of Gaza were mostly empty. Hassan Abu Shaaban tried to lighten the mood by passing out candy to passers-by but acknowledged “there is no atmosphere” for celebrating. “It is all airstrikes, destruction, and devastation,” he said. “May God help everyone.” The current eruption of violence began a month ago in Jerusalem, where heavy-handed Israeli police tactics during Ramadan and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers ignited protests and clashes with police. A focal point of clashes was Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, built on
Joe Biden, GOP senators upbeat, plan more infrastructure talks
After meeting at the White House, President Joe Biden and a group of Republican senators agreed to talk again early next week as negotiations intensified Thursday over a potentially bipartisan infrastructure package that could become one piece of the administration’s ambitious $4 trillion public investment plan. The GOP senators exited the more than 90-minute meeting “encouraged” about their discussions with the president and prepared to build on the $568 billion proposal they had put forward last month as an alternative to his sweeping American jobs and families plans. “The president asked us to come back and rework an offer so that he could then react to that,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, who is leading the group. “We’re very encouraged,” she told reporters outside the White House. “The attitude the president had in the Oval Office with us was very supportive and desirous of striking a deal.” Biden also emerged upbeat. “I am very optimistic that we can reach a reasonable agreement — and even if we don’t it’s been a good-faith effort,” Biden said in the Rose Garden. Biden is intent on at least trying to strike a deal with Republicans rather than simply going it alone with a Democrats-only bill, which might in some ways be a more politically viable route in a Congress held by the president’s party with only the slimmest of majorities. One strategy that appears to be coming into focus would be for Biden to negotiate a more limited, traditional infrastructure bill of roads, highways, bridges, and broadband as a bipartisan effort. Then, Democrats could try to muscle through the remainder of Biden’s priorities on climate investments and the so-called human infrastructure of child care, education, and hospitals on their own. “I’m willing to negotiate,” Biden said earlier at the White House. But the president has indicated that he’s not about to wait indefinitely for a compromise that may or may not come, and reiterated his view Thursday that “doing nothing is not an option.” The White House said the president stressed that inaction was a “red line for him.” He set a Memorial Day deadline for progress on a bipartisan deal. Those gathered included some of the top-ranking Republicans — Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Mike Crapo of Idaho, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, and Roger Wicker of Mississippi. Joining Biden were Vice President Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. Thursday’s meeting followed a lengthy session at the White House with the congressional leadership the day before. Republican leader Mitch McConnell has said his side will accept spending as much as $800 billion, but Republicans made it clear they would refuse to embrace Biden’s broad proposals or his idea of raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy to pay for the plans. The White House outreach is part political strategy, part practical legislating. Striking a deal with Republicans would give all sides a political win — a rare bipartisan accomplishment — without fully forfeiting the president’s broader goals, which are largely shared by Democrats. It also acknowledges the “red line” that McConnell has drawn agaiTfnst GOP votes for undoing the 2017 tax law by raising taxes on corporations or those earning more than $400,000. “I want to get a bipartisan deal on as much as we can get a bipartisan deal on — and that means roads, bridges, broadband, all infrastructure,” Biden said Wednesday on MSNBC. “And then fight over what’s left and see if I can get it done without Republicans if need be.” Capito has taken the lead for Senate Republicans, keeping in close contact with both the president’s team and McConnell, she said, as she shuttles between the White House and Capitol Hill. The West Virginia senator is no stranger to the legislative process, serving more than a decade in the House and now as the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Public Works Committee. She ushered a $35 billion bipartisan water resources bill to passage in the Senate and is hard at work with the panel’s Democratic chairman, Tom Carper of Delaware, a Biden ally, on a big surface transportation bill. Biden personally reached out to Capito late last week after the water bill cleared the Senate. “The president he expressed on the phone with me, and has with others, that you know he’s anxious to move forward,” she said. “His desire is to define where we have common ground and I think we’ll probably spend the bulk of the time talking about that.” Biden has insisted he doesn’t want working-class Americans to bear the “burden” of paying for all the new infrastructure investments alone, resisting GOP plans for taxes and user fees, like tolls, to fund the projects. One potential new funding source could be the more than $1 trillion in unpaid taxes each year. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has mentioned tapping that potential funding source and she said Biden discussed it at their meeting Wednesday. Republicans have not resisted it. “That’s a big chunk that would go a long way,” she said Thursday. McConnell and House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy have insisted they want the infrastructure bills to go through the committee process, where lawmakers can hammer out the details and take ownership of the proposals, rather than have the package negotiated in their leadership suites. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
