On Thursday morning, rail companies and union leaders reached a tentative deal that will avert a strike or lockout that could have begun as soon as Friday. The question now is whether union members will accept the deal when it is put to a vote.

As I reported yesterday, the sticking point in negotiations has not been pay. Instead, workers have been fighting for sick days and increased freedom from punitive attendance policies adopted by rail companies. Engineer Ross Grooters described it to me as a fight “for the basic right to be able to be people outside of the railroad.”

In a joint statement, the leaders of the SMART Transportation Division and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, which together represent about half the workforce, said the tentative agreement would provide workers with “voluntary assigned days off,” as well the ability to take unpaid time off for medical care. In another win for workers, union leaders said healthcare costs would remain unchanged under the plan. Workers would still receive $5,000 of bonus payments and a 24 percent pay increase over five years under the most recent deal.

The tentative deal will now be voted on by union members. There are no guarantees it will be approved. Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers rejected an earlier agreement on Wednesday, and authorized a strike later this month. On social media, the reaction from workers to the most recent deal has been mixed with some expressing cautious optimism and others a sense that union leaders failed them. 

It’s baffling how many pundits and politicos want to weight in on this railroad deal before the rank-and-file have been able to see the details and decide if it’s acceptable.

It’s an Italian feast this week! Dotun and Andy – live from Warsaw – are joined by Nicky Bandini to discuss Juventus’ woes after a shock defeat to Benfica.

Plus, we discuss if the Milan clubs bring the glory days back in Europe, Robert Lewandowski’s Bayern homecoming, and why all is not as it seems with Kylian Mbappé’s contract at PSG!

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Just hours after federal agents entered Mar-a-Lago on August 8 to seize highly classified national security documents, Rep. Paul Gosar urged a fight to the finish. “The FBI raid on Trump’s home tells us one thing,” the far-right Arizona congressman tweeted. “Failure is not an option. We must destroy the FBI.”

Three days later, an Ohio man named Ricky Shiffer donned tactical gear, armed himself with an AR-15, and went to the FBI field office in Cincinnati. After failing to breach the facility, he fled and later died in a shootout with law enforcement. Shiffer was a frequent user of Trump’s Truth Social site, where the ex-president has kept up steady attacks on political opponents and the Justice Department and FBI. Shiffer had posted about imminent violence, telling fellow Trump supporters to be ready “to jump into civil war.”

“People, this is it,” Shiffer wrote shortly after the Mar-a-Lago news broke. A Navy veteran who claimed he was also at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, he called for stocking up at gun stores with “whatever you need to be ready for combat.” He also said “patriots are heading to Palm Beach” and should kill any federal agents who try to stop them.

Was Shiffer spurred to attack the FBI by the statements from Trump and Gosar? It’s hard to know, and that’s no accident. Shiffer’s actions point to a rhetorical method experts call “stochastic terrorism,” whereby a leader vilifies a person or group in ways likely to instigate random supporters to attack those targets, while the instigator maintains a veneer of plausible deniability. Trump made this form of incitement a hallmark of his presidency, galvanizing extremists by railing against and dehumanizing his “enemies.” The country saw the devastating consequences when his supporters stormed Congress to obstruct certification of the presidential election. And now a growing number of Republicans are emulating Trump’s technique.

“While these attacks may defy specific predictability,” threat assessment experts Molly Amman and Reid Meloy wrote in a 2021 study in the journal Perspectives on Terrorism, “their likelihood is greatly increased by the public demon­ization process.” Repetition and saturation through social media and news coverage further amplifies the effect, they observed.

Union Berlin sit top of the Bundesliga and last week, Andy travelled there to witness European football history in their first Europa League game against Belgium's history-makers, Union Saint-Gilloise. 

After UEFA announced a trial for safe standing, Union Berlin were at last able to bring European football home – just three years after securing their first ever promotion to the Bundesliga.

Andy takes in Union’s legendary atmosphere and speaks to fans on both sides on what was a truly special night for two clubs championing the little guy.

Where should Andy head to next? Tweet us @FootballRamble and email us here: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. 

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The inner sanctums of artists through the centuries are shown in a new book

In a letter sent to the president on Wednesday, nearly half of American governors—all Republican—voiced their opposition to Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, announced last month.

“We fundamentally oppose your plan to force American taxpayers to pay off the student loan debt of an elite few,” they write in the letter.

The main argument is that Biden’s student debt forgiveness will harm lower-income families by forcing their hard-earned dollars to go to repaying the debts of America’s wealthiest, including high-salary lawyers and doctors who hold debt from graduate degrees.

“The top 20 percent of earning households hold $3 in student debt for every $1 held by the bottom quintile, generating a lopsided reality where the wealthy benefit at the expense of the working,” the governors write in their letter. “Simply put, your plan rewards the rich and punishes the poor.”

But this argument misses the fact that Biden’s debt forgiveness project includes two different elements aimed specifically at preventing America’s wealthiest from obtaining debt forgiveness, instead restricting the program to middle- and lower-income families.

Rail workers across the country may be on the verge of going on strike for the first time in three decades—a decision that would immediately cripple supply chains and cause billions in economic losses per day. Workers could walk off the job, or companies could lock them out, as soon as Friday if a deal isn’t reached. 

The dispute is not about pay, but the day-to-day indignities of working in the industry. Rail workers often don’t have weekends, get no sick days, and say that taking the time to care for themselves and their families can lead to being fired. As engineer Ross Grooters puts it, workers are “just fighting for the basic right to be able to be people outside of the railroad.”

The White House has been scrambling to try to avoid a strike that would upend the country’s economy in the lead-up to the midterm elections, and President Joe Biden has been in touch with unions and railroad companies, Politico reports. A shutdown could disrupt shipments of everything from coal and lumber to food and the chlorine used to treat wastewater. Amtrak trains that rely on freight carriers’ tracks are already being canceled.  

A shutdown could disrupt shipments of everything from coal and lumber to food and the chlorine used to treat wastewater.

Failing to reach a deal by Friday does not guarantee a strike, since both sides could agree to extend negotiations. But administration officials are developing contingency plans to try to keep essential goods moving in the event of a shutdown, an outcome that White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has said is “not acceptable.”

Unionized workers and rail companies have been in contract negotiations for more than two years. In July, Biden established a Presidential Emergency Board tasked with providing recommendations on how to end the dispute. Last month, the board proposed pay increases of 24 percent over five years, additional bonuses, and one extra personal day a year. It also called for lifting a cap on workers’ health care premiums, and did not back workers’ calls for sick days and less-punitive attendance policies.

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Republican-led legislatures have passed anti-protest laws drafted by an extreme right corporate lobbying group in a third of all American states since 2018, as part of a backlash against Indigenous communities and environmentalists opposing fossil fuel projects, new research has found.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) helped draft legislation criminalizing grassroots protests against pipelines, gas terminals, and other oil and gas expansion projects in 24 states under the guise of protecting critical infrastructure.

ALEC, which is funded by rightwing state lawmakers, corporate sponsors and trade groups, and wealthy ideologues, creates model legislation on a whole range of conservative issues such as gun control, abortion, education funding and environmental regulations.

“State legislatures have found a new legislative mechanism to oppress frontline communities and cause further harm and destruction to our planet.”

The laws were passed in 17 Republican-controlled states, including Oklahoma, North and South Dakota, Kansas, West Virginia and Indiana, where protesters now face up to 10 years in prison and million-dollar fines, according to a new report from the nonprofit Climate Cabinet.

This story was published in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity.

As she opened her $1,600 property tax bill in February, Edith Baltazar suddenly lost her appetite for the eggs she’d prepared for lunch with her daughter. Her thoughts raced: Would their home be taken away if she couldn’t pay it?

Baltazar’s daughter wept. The family would have to make a difficult decision: the property tax or $2,000 for diabetes medication.

The taxes won.

“Sometimes you have to choose—pay your property taxes instead of paying your water bill and everything else,” said Baltazar, recalling the stressful experience in a July interview.

Marcus, Jim and Vish convene after Liverpool battle past Ajax (and our favourite-named player) to snatch three points and Spurs collapse in the Eric Dier Derby!

Plus, can another Marcus make it into the England squad? Will Atlético mug off Barcelona further still? And while Jurgen Klopp is dishing out truths, we’re firing mistruths out about Marcus’ TV taste. He loves Gervais, really.

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