A Look at Washington State’s ‘Strippers’ Bill of Rights’

[ad_1] Washington State recently enacted a law that includes wide-ranging workplace protections for adult dancers, who have long fought for such measures across the country. The law, known as the Strippers’ Bill of Rights, was signed by Gov. Jay Inslee on March 25. It includes anti-discrimination provisions and mandatory club employee training. Supporters of the law say that it includes incentives for establishments to comply, as it carves a path for them to obtain liquor licenses. The state traditionally has prohibited venues that allow sexual performances to sell alcohol. “It…

Trump Shares Video Featuring Image of a Hog-Tied Biden

[ad_1] Former President Donald J. Trump posted a video on Friday to his social media website that features an image of President Biden with his hands and feet tied together. Mr. Trump posted the video to Truth Social early Friday afternoon with a line that said it was filmed on Long Island on Thursday, when Mr. Trump attended the wake of a slain New York City police officer in Massapequa Park, N.Y. The video shows two moving trucks decorated with flags and decals supporting Mr. Trump. The tailgate of the…

Chicago Democrats Pick Former Judge to Replace Kim Foxx as Top Prosecutor

[ad_1] Eileen O’Neill Burke, a Democrat and retired appellate judge, defeated a more liberal candidate in last week’s primary election for the job of top prosecutor in Cook County, Ill., according to The Associated Press. The result came after more than a week of counting ballots, including mail-in votes, that were not able to be reported on Election Day. Justice O’Neill Burke is expected to succeed Kim Foxx, the state’s attorney for the county, who arrived in office in 2016 promising to change the criminal justice system with a progressive…

Woman Who Received 5-Year Sentence in Voter Fraud Case Is Acquitted

[ad_1] In a case that has prompted outrage from voting-rights activists for years, a Texas appeals court reversed itself on Thursday and acquitted a woman who had been sentenced to five years in prison for illegally casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election. The decision came two years after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, ruled that the lower appeals court, the Second Court of Criminal Appeals, had misconstrued the illegal voting statute under which Crystal Mason was found guilty in 2018. Ms. Mason,…

Georgia Lawmakers Approve Tougher Rules on Immigration After Student’s Killing

[ad_1] Georgia lawmakers voted on Thursday to tighten the state’s already strict immigration laws in response to the killing of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, whose death became ensnared in the broader fight over immigration policy after a man from Venezuela who entered the country illegally was charged with her murder. In the frenzied final hours of the legislative session, the state’s House of Representatives gave final approval to a measure that would require local law enforcement agencies to scrutinize the immigration status of people in their custody and…

U.S. Officials Order Better Tracking of a Political Flashpoint: America’s Diversity

[ad_1] The Biden administration ordered changes to a range of federal surveys on Thursday to gather more detailed information about the nation’s ethnic and racial makeup. The changes — the first in decades to standard questions that the government asks about race and ethnicity — would produce by far the most detailed portrait of the nation’s ancestral palette ever compiled. And a new option will be available for the first time allowing respondents to identify as part of a new category, Middle Eastern or North African ancestry. But the changes…

Key Bridge Was Also Hit by a Ship in 1980, With Limited Damage

[ad_1] The massive cargo ship that lost control and slammed into a major Baltimore Key Bridge  on Tuesday was not the first to do so. The same bridge was also hit by a wayward cargo vessel in 1980. On Aug. 29 of that year, a container ship named the Blue Nagoya drifted into a pier that supported the structure, the Francis Scott Key Bridge, after losing control about 1,800 feet away, according to a 1983 report by the U.S. National Research Council. When the Blue Nagoya hit the Key Bridge,…

Deciphering Disaster: The Key Bridge Catastrophe and the Five Minutes That Shook the City

[ad_1] “Hold all traffic on the Key Bridge.” The terse command from an officer in Baltimore’s busy commercial shipping port was one of the first warnings of a disaster that experts now predict will transform shipping on the Eastern Seaboard and change how ships and Key  bridges function around the world. But after the cargo ship Dali lost power early Tuesday, there were precious few minutes to act. In those minutes, many people — from the ship’s crew, who sent out a mayday signal, to the transportation authority police officers,…

What We Know About the Francis Scott Key Bridge Collapse in Baltimore

[ad_1] Follow our live coverage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore. A giant container ship struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore at about 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday. Most of the bridge collapsed into the Patapsco River. Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland declared a state of emergency shortly after the ship hit the Francis Scott Key bridge, a part of Interstate 695 and a critical transportation link on the Eastern Seaboard to one of the largest ports in the country. Vessel traffic has since been stopped.…

Desperate Rescue Mission Shifts to Grim Search for 6 Workers’ Bodies on the Bridge

Rescue Mission Descends into Tragedy: Cargo Ship Collides with Bridge, Leaving Six Workers Presumed Dead. [ad_1] As a spring tide rushed out of Baltimore harbor just after midnight on Tuesday, the hulking outlines of a cargo ship nearly three football fields long and stacked high with thousands of containers sliced through frigid waters toward the Francis Scott Key Baltimore harbor Bridge. The vessel, the Dali, was a half-hour into its 27-day journey from Baltimore to Colombo, Sri Lanka. Then the lights on the Dali went dark. The crew urgently reported…