Controversy surrounds Beverly Hill raid
- The FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office allegedly misled a judge who issued a warrant for a raid on a Beverly Hills safety deposit company that revealed $86 million in cash and millions more other assets.
- An FBI agent recently testified that central to the plan was to confiscate the contents of every box that contained at least $5,000 in cash or goods but that was not disclosed to the judge, the Los Angeles Times reported.
- A class-action lawsuit was filed by the owners of U.S. Private Vaults, who claimed the raid violated their rights.
- The FBI justified the seizure by arguing that the goods were somehow tied to unknown crimes, the Times reported.
Mississippi Gov. questioned harshly about COVID deaths.
- CNN’s Jake Tapper berated Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves during “State of the Union” about having the highest COVID death rate in the country.
- Mississippi has a 42% vaccination rate, and about one out of every 320 people in Mississippi have died of coronavirus.
- Reeves has called President Biden’s vaccine mandate a “tyrannical-type move” and a distraction from political setbacks.
- Tapper asked Reeves what better reason is there than that to justify Biden’s mandates under the OSHA Act.
OSHA awards $11.7M in grants for workplace safety
- The U.S. Department of Labor awarded $11,746,992, in grants to support worker and employer education to make workplaces around the nation safer and healthier.
- The Susan Harwood Training Grant Program, administered by OSHA, is making grants to 90 nonprofit organizations in the fiscal year 2022.
- The money will be used for education and training on hazard recognition and injury prevention, workers’ rights, and employers’ legal responsibilities to provide safe and healthful workplaces.
- Named for the late Susan Harwood, former director of OSHA’s Office of Risk Assessment, the grants are awarded in the Targeted Topic Training, Training and Educational Materials Development, and Capacity Building categories.
OSHA approves safety plan
- OSHA approved Massachusetts’ plan for a state-run safety and health plan for state and local government workers.
- The plan covers an estimated 430,000 state and local government employees only. Private sector and federal government employees in the state remain under federal OSHA jurisdiction.
- Massachusetts joins Illinois, Maine, New Jersey, Connecticut, New York and the Virgin Islands as states and territories where administrators have committed to maintaining programs to protect state and local government workers.
- There are 22 states and territories with full state plans that also cover state and local government workers in their states.