Governments struggle to enforce “living wage” laws
SEATTLE (AP) — States and cities whose lawmakers proudly passed “living wage” laws are finding it difficult to make sure employers actually pay their workers accordingly.
Seattle and San Francisco, and the states of Oregon, California and New York are phasing in wage increases that will grow to $15 an hour or more.
Evidence of compliance is plain to see in the hours-worked total on most pay stubs, but state and federal laws don’t require employers to routinely provide this crucial detail to the government. Without this data, wage enforcers who are empowered to investigate generally wait until a worker complains.
And many workers — especially those in precarious situations — fear they’ll be fired if they speak up.
“It’s pretty shocking how common the violations are,” said Donna Levitt, director of the labor enforcement office in San Francisco, which began ramping up to $15 an hour last year. Her office has recovered more than $10 million in back wages since 2004.
Apple reports iPhone sales down, 1st revenue drop since 2003
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple says quarterly revenue fell for the first time in more than a decade, as iPhone sales fell compared with a year ago. That’s putting more pressure on the world’s most valuable public company to come up with its next big product.
Apple sold more than 51.2 million iPhones in the first three months of 2016 — while racking up $10.5 billion in quarterly profit. That was more than many analysts expected, but still fewer than the 61 million iPhones sold a year earlier.
The company is battling perceptions that its latest iPhones aren’t dramatically different from previous models, as overall smartphone sales are slowing around the world. Apple also sells iPads, Mac computers and other gadgets, but nearly two-thirds of its $50.6 billion in quarterly revenue came from iPhones.
Revenue was down 13 percent from the January-March quarter of 2015. And the company surprised analysts by forecasting another revenue drop of 13 percent or more in the current quarter. The forecast drove Apple’s stock price down more than 5 percent in extended trading Tuesday, after closing at $104.35.
Despite the decline, Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said in an interview, “we continue to believe the iPhone business is very strong.” But he added that Apple is expanding its other businesses. The January-March quarter includes $6 billion in revenue from online services, apps and other software, which was up 20 percent from a year earlier, but just 10 percent of overall revenue.
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Memories painful on Chernobyl’s 30th anniversary
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — As Ukraine and Belarus on Tuesday marked the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident with solemn words and an angry protest, some of the men who were sent to the site in the first chaotic and frightening days were gripped by painful memories.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko led a ceremony in Chernobyl, where work is underway to complete a 2 billion euro ($2.25 billion) long-term shelter over the building containing Chernobyl’s exploded reactor. Once the structure is in place, work will begin to remove the reactor and its lava-like radioactive waste.
The disaster shone a spotlight on lax safety standards and government secrecy in the former Soviet Union. The explosion on April 26, 1986, was not reported by Soviet authorities for two days, and then only after winds had carried the fallout across Europe and Swedish experts had gone public with their concerns.
“We honor those who lost their health and require a special attention from the government and society,” Poroshenko said. “It’s with an everlasting pain in our hearts that we remember those who lost their lives to fight nuclear death.”
About 600,000 people, often referred to as Chernobyl’s “liquidators,” were sent in to fight the fire at the nuclear plant and clean up the worst of its contamination. Thirty workers died either from the explosion or from acute radiation sickness within several months. The accident exposed millions in the region to dangerous levels of radiation and forced a wide-scale, permanent evacuation of hundreds of towns and villages in Ukraine and Belarus.
Prince’s sister says musician had no known will
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Prince’s sister believes the superstar musician didn’t have a will and has asked a Minnesota court to appoint a special administrator to oversee his multimillion-dollar estate, according to court documents filed Tuesday that could signal a looming fight over Prince’s assets.
Tyka Nelson, Prince’s only surviving full sibling, said in the court filing that immediate action was necessary to manage Prince’s business interests following his death last week.
The documents don’t estimate how much his estate may be worth, but Prince made hundreds of millions of dollars for record companies, concert venues and others during his career.
And estimates of how much licensing his personal brand will generate after his death reach to the purple clouds. In just three days, the outpouring of grief and nostalgia after his death prompted fans to buy 2.3 million of his songs.
Nelson asked that Bremer Trust, a corporate trust company, be named administrator of the estate. The court documents say Bremer Bank provided financial services to Prince for many years.
Jury blames police, clears fans in 1989 soccer disaster
WARRINGTON, England (AP) — The families of 96 Liverpool soccer fans who were crushed to death at a crowded stadium in 1989 declared they had finally won justice Tuesday after a jury found that police and emergency services were to blame for Britain’s worst sports disaster.
The jury exonerated the behavior of the crowd, saying it did not contribute to the tragedy at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England, and that the victims were “unlawfully killed.”
Relatives who had waged a tireless campaign to protect the reputation of their loved ones leapt to their feet outside a specially built courtroom, cheering and weeping, when the verdicts were announced. They chanted, “Justice for the 96!” and sang the Liverpool soccer club’s anthem, “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”
The original inquest recorded verdicts of accidental death, something the families of the victims refused to accept. Those verdicts were overturned in 2012 after a far-reaching inquiry into the disaster that examined previously secret documents and exposed the wrongdoing and mistakes by police.
Hooliganism was rife in English soccer throughout the 1980s, and there were immediate attempts to assign blame on the Liverpool fans and defend the policing operation. A false narrative that blamed drunken, ticketless and rowdy Liverpool fans was created by police and spread by a lawmaker in Sheffield.
