A top human rights watchdog in South Korea has released a report confirming that the former mayor of Seoul, who disappeared in July only to later be found dead, had sexually harassed and verbally humiliated a secretary. The National Human Rights Commission led an investigation into the allegations against the former mayor, Park Won-soon, whose […]
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The master tenant of a warehouse that had been converted into a ramshackle artists’ collective in Oakland, Calif., pleaded guilty to 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter on Friday, four years after a fire tore through the building, killing 36 people, court records show. The master tenant, Derick Almena, entered the pleas in Alameda County Superior […]
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WASHINGTON — President Biden will issue an executive order on Friday aimed at steering additional federal aid to families struggling to afford food amid the pandemic and at helping workers stay safe on the job. Mr. Biden, who has vowed to use the power of the presidency to help mitigate economic fallout from the pandemic, […]
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EDISON, N.J. — This is Stephanie Rasimowicz’s daily dilemma: Scattered before her in second-period geometry class at Edison High School are a handful of freshmen, seated at desks many feet apart. Arrayed behind her are nearly 20 small, disembodied faces on a computer screen — her remote students, learning from home. Can the remote students […]
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President Biden directed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Thursday to release new guidance to employers on protecting workers from Covid-19. In one of 10 executive orders that he signed Thursday, the president asked the agency to step up enforcement of existing rules to help stop the spread of the coronavirus in the workplace […]
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Forced labor has been a central part of China’s campaign against the Uighurs for as long as I can remember. I was born in a re-education camp at the height of China’s infamous Cultural Revolution. My father was sent to a separate forced labor camp. I grew up witnessing Uighur villagers forced by Chinese authorities […]
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SAN FRANCISCO — Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, was working remotely on a private island in French Polynesia frequented by celebrities escaping the paparazzi when a phone call interrupted him on Jan. 6. On the line was Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s top lawyer and safety expert, with an update from the real world. She said she […]
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In early January, Nali Gillespie watched her social media feeds fill with vaccine selfies: Photo after photo of her peers at other medical schools around the country posed proudly next to a syringe with their dose of either the Moderna or Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine. But Ms. Gillespie — who is in her third year at […]
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“If that doesn’t get you in line, I don’t know what will,” Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, said last month. At Houston Methodist, a hospital system in Texas with 26,000 employees, workers who take the vaccine will be eligible for a $500 bonus. “Vaccination is not mandatory for our employees yet (but will be eventually),” Dr. […]
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Xiaojing Sun, a senior research analyst at Wood Mackenzie, said solar companies were starting to investigate their exposure to Xinjiang and reconfigure their supply chains to avoid the region if possible. In a note to investors in October, analysts at Roth Capital Partners said the solar sector faced a “heightened risk of disruption” because of […]
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“I was worked to the bone, drained of my love for restaurants, convinced that I was bad at my job, that I wasn’t cool, that I didn’t belong, that I wasn’t a hard worker, that I wasn’t worthy,” she writes. Until recently, when we heard stories like this, they were told by chefs. Screaming and […]
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Most recently, Timnit Gebru, a leading artificial intelligence researcher and one of the few Black women in her field, said she was fired over her work to fight bias. Her offense? Conducting research that was critical of large-scale AI models and being critical of existing diversity and inclusion efforts. In response, thousands of our colleagues […]
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Battered by a wave of coronavirus infections and deaths, local jails and state prison systems around the United States have resorted to a drastic strategy to keep the virus at bay: Shutting down completely and transferring their inmates elsewhere. From California to Missouri to Pennsylvania, state and local officials say that so many guards have […]
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Tony Robbins, the life coach and motivational speaker, discriminated against one of his employees by refusing to grant her the accommodations she needed to work from home after she contracted a debilitating case of Covid-19 in the spring, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday. The lawsuit also charges that Mr. Robbins falsely claimed to have […]
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The incoming administration, he said, is exploring ways to take over the distribution of testing supplies and medical gear. They are also seeking to create financial incentives and “buy American” policies to boost the handful of domestic companies that make P.P.E., he said. Mr. Biden would not hesitate to embrace the Defense Production Act, Dr. […]
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BANGKOK — Day after day, as the pandemic gathered force, Yam Narayan Chaudhary stood sentry for 13.5-hour shifts at Top Glove, the Malaysian company that is the world’s largest disposable glove maker. Thousands of foreign workers, many from Nepal like Mr. Chaudhary, lined up as he checked their temperatures and waved them through to the […]
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Even so, employers may need to be careful about how they handle the process. Prescreening vaccination questions could violate an A.D.A. provision on disability-related inquiries. Employers administering vaccines, the guidance said, must show that prescreening questions are “job related and consistent with business necessity.” Covid-19 Vaccines › Answers to Your Vaccine Questions With distribution of […]
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Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together. SINGAPORE — For most of this year, I have been a long-distance foreign correspondent. I came home to Singapore in January for a vacation but could not return to Beijing, where I was based as […]
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Research shows medical facilities with lower nurse-to-patient ratios experience fewer deaths and other adverse outcomes. In recent weeks, nurses in New Rochelle have often taken on at least four patients at a time in the hospital’s intensive care unit, seven at a time in the emergency room and nine at a time on the surgical […]
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SEOUL, South Korea — At a logistics depot the size of an airplane hangar in southern Seoul, couriers recently held a ritual at the start of another grueling work day: They stood for a moment of silence to remember 15 fellow couriers who they say died this year from overwork. “We won’t be surprised here […]
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The rooms that make up the Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center at Indiana University are lined wall to wall with identical shelves. Each shelf is filled with uniform racks, and each rack with indistinguishable glass vials. The tens of thousands of fruit fly types within the vials, though, are each magnificently different. Some have eyes that […]
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SAN FRANCISCO — Pinterest on Monday agreed to pay $22.5 million to settle a gender discrimination and retaliation lawsuit from Françoise Brougher, its former chief operating officer, in one of the largest publicly announced individual settlements for gender discrimination. As part of the agreement, Pinterest and Ms. Brougher said they planned to jointly donate $2.5 […]
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“We’re hidden,” said Kenneth Riley, the president of the local longshoremen’s union in Charleston, S.C. “But if you think some of the store shelves were empty as we got into this pandemic, let these ports shut down and see how empty they’ll be.” Longshore work is exhausting, and often requires close contact with others. The […]
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Twitch, the livestreaming platform popular among video game players, unveiled new guidelines on Wednesday aimed at cracking down on hateful conduct and sexual harassment on its site. The site, which is owned by Amazon, said it had broadened its definition of sexual harassment and separated such violations into a new category for the first time […]
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WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice on Thursday filed a lawsuit against Facebook for hiring discrimination against U.S. workers, in the Trump administration’s latest action against large tech companies. In the complaint, the department’s civil rights division said Facebook “refused to recruit, consider or hire qualified and available U.S. workers” for more than 2,600 positions, […]
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The fast-food chain Del Taco has settled a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over its handling of sexual harassment claims, agreeing to pay $1.25 million and accept a consent decree to provide companywide training on anti-discrimination laws to guard against harassment and retaliation. The consent decree, filed on Monday in the […]
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For several months, orange flags printed with “Yes!” have hung from balconies across Switzerland, encouraging the public to vote Sunday in favor of an initiative to make Swiss companies liable for human rights violations and environmental damage committed by their subsidiaries abroad. The proposal, which has been promoted by a coalition of over 130 civil […]
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In excruciating pain with lesions on her face and scalp, Tracey Fine lay for 13 hours on a gurney in an emergency room hallway. All around her, Covid-19 patients filled the beds of a hospital in Madison, Wis. Her nurse was so harried that she could not remember Ms. Fine’s condition, and the staff was […]
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SAN FRANCISCO — One by one, they left. Some quit. Others were fired. All were Black. The 15 people worked at Coinbase, the most valuable U.S. cryptocurrency start-up, where they represented roughly three-quarters of the Black employees at the 600-person company. Before leaving in late 2018 and early 2019, at least 11 of them informed […]
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SEATTLE — Amazon has embarked on an extraordinary hiring binge this year, vacuuming up an average of 1,400 new workers a day and solidifying its power as online shopping becomes more entrenched in the coronavirus pandemic. The hiring has taken place at Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle, at its hundreds of warehouses in rural communities and […]
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A surge of Covid-19 cases this fall has brought reports of new challenges in getting coronavirus tests. But for employers, testing availability and turnaround times do not appear to be the main obstacles. A survey by Arizona State University and the World Economic Forum, with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, has found that companies most […]
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