Joint Chiefs Chairman Milley tests positive for COVID-19
U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley tested positive on Sunday for COVID-19, according to a statement from the agency.
Milley, who is vaccinated and has received the booster shot, has mild symptoms and is working remotely, said Col. Dave Butler, a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs, in a statement. Milley’s last contact with President Joe Biden was on Jan. 12 at a funeral. He had tested negative prior to attending the funeral and each day after until Sunday, according Butler.
All other of the joint chiefs tested negative besides one, Butler said in the statement. The other person who tested positive wasn’t identified.
—Bloomberg News
Worker's family sues Amazon after deadly tornado hit facility
CHICAGO — A lawsuit against Amazon was filed Monday by the family of a delivery driver who was killed in December after a tornado hit an Amazon warehouse downstate, according to the family's attorneys.
Six people who had been working at an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville died following the Dec. 10 storm, which left dozens dead across multiple states.
Among them was independent contractor Austin McEwen, 26, who, like other workers, was allegedly required to work under conditions management knew to be unsafe, according to the news release.
The facility had inadequate emergency plans and no basement shelter, the lawsuit contends, and McEwen and others who died were told to shelter in a bathroom during the storm.
The suit was e-filed Monday morning in Madison Circuit Court, though the courthouse was closed for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, an attorney for the family said.
Amazon representatives previously have said its emergency response, including in the event of severe weather, is part of training for warehouse employees. Amazon directs employees to shelter during tornadoes, representatives said last month, but the company declined to specifically state when employees at the Edwardsville facility were warned about the threat.
—Chicago Tribune
Oklahoma bill would mirror Texas’ restrictive abortion law
WASHINGTON — As Texas’ restrictive abortion ban remains in effect, leading to Texans having to travel to other states to have access to the procedure, a Republican state lawmaker in Oklahoma plans to push a bill that mirrors the Texas law.
Rep. Sean Roberts, who represents a state House district northwest of Tulsa, said his bill would allow any individual in Oklahoma to sue doctors who perform an abortion after conception that is not to save the mother’s life.
Under the Oklahoma bill, plaintiffs would be able to seek up to $10,000 in damages in civil court against abortion providers or anyone who “aids and abets” such an abortion. The threat of such a hefty payout has proved to be an effective deterrent in Texas, where abortion providers across the state have scaled back services and the number of abortions performed has plummeted.
This aspect of the Texas law, its novel enforcement mechanism intended to shield the law from federal court oversight, seemed to inspire the most concern from Supreme Court justices when they heard arguments on the law’s constitutionality Nov. 1.
Ultimately, justices left the Texas law in place on Dec. 10 and merely referred the fate of SB 8 and access to abortion in Texas back to lower courts for further consideration.
—The Dallas Morning News
Decomposed body of man found in apartment of hoarders
NEW YORK — The badly decomposed body of an 84-year-old man was found in the trash-filled Brooklyn apartment he shared with his wife — who had planned to wait a year before calling authorities, police said Monday.
Police showed up at the home on Coney Island Avenue about 7 p.m. Saturday.
They were met by the couple’s two worried sons, ages 45 and 41. They had called 911 to ask police to check in on their parents, both described as mentally ill.
The sons hadn’t seen the parents since 2019, police said.
The apartment was so full of clutter and trash police had to use the fire escape to get inside the third-floor bedroom, where they found Brent Shapiro’s body about two hours after arriving on the scene.
“Floor to ceiling, classic hoarder situation,” a police source said. “Feces, all sorts of debris. He was found on a pile of garbage.”
An autopsy will determine his cause of death, but police suspect he had a heart attack about two or three months ago.
—New York Daily News
