Work resumes on Cincinnati building after fatal partial collapse
Work on a mixed-use development in downtown Cincinnati was set to resume yesterday, eight days after a portion of the building collapsed, trapping and killing a 58-year-old worker and injuring four others. The man’s body was found after a 30-hour search of digging through hardened concrete. Fox 19
Fed-OSHA rules for trucker who refused to drive without tracking device
A UPS Ground driver who was fired for refusing to drive without an electronic logging device will receive more than $47,000 in compensatory and punitive damages, after Labor Department investigators determined the driver refused in good faith to drive a truck without either a permanent ELD or a mounting device for a portable ELD, because he believed doing so would violate Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. The agency also reportedly found the company later modified the driver’s termination to a suspension and engaged in post-reinstatement harassment. Land Line
So far, 19 countertop workers in the US are known to have developed severe lung disease after cutting engineered stone along with other stone. Margaret Phillips, an occupational health expert at the University of Oklahoma has done silica sampling in shops to assess worker exposures and has concluded that even just a few minutes of dry fabrication was enough to put a worker’s exposure over the permissible limit. WAMU (Washington, D.C.)
US life expectancy drops for third straight year
Life expectancy for the average American has fallen for the third year in a row, according to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, with the sharpest declines in the 25 to 64 age group. Fair Warning
Vermont hospital closes OR following another odor incident
For the second time in as many months, a Colchester, Vermont hotel is responding to a mystery odor that caused multiple staff members to seek medical care. The smell reported November 27 is the same odor staff reported on October 9, when 17 staff members were treated for similar symptoms. Hospital officials still have not discovered the cause of the odors. VTDigger
Missouri agency seeking to purchase quake simulator
In Missouri, where small earthquakes are common, state emergency management regulators recently submitted documents seeking a no-bid contract to purchase a nearly $200,000 vehicle that simulates the experience of being in an earthquake, with the goal of helping residents prepare for earthquakes. St. Louis Post-Dispatch