Aranda Jr.

Long-time El Paso union leader Juan Aranda Jr., who for years represented workers at the former Asarco copper smelter in El Paso, died recently at age 90 after a long illness.

Texas state Sen. Jose Rodriguez, D-El Paso, in a Facebook post, called Aranda a giant in El Paso's labor movement.

"Better known in our community as 'El General,' (Aranda) was a major force in building El Paso's steelworkers' union," Rodriguez said.

Hector Arellano, 70, a retired electrician and long-time leader of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 583, said Aranda was called "The General because he is the man we (union organizers) would all follow for directions."

He was a tough negotiator who was not afraid to speak his mind, said Arellano, who represented electrical workers at Asarco when Aranda was representing the majority of the smelter's workers.

"He had no college degrees. But he had common sense, and a heart for the working people," Arellano said.

"People seem to have forgotten about him. He helped so many in organized labor," Arellano said. He also was very active in organizing union members to work for political candidates, he said.

Aranda, who was born in Mexico, served in the Army during World War II, and eventually got a job at Asarco, where he worked for 27 years, said his son, David Aranda.

He organized the first union at the Asarco smelter, his son said.

Original post:
El Paso union giant Juan Aranda Jr., remembered as great leader

CORPUS CHRISTI (Kiii News) - This week's Hot Jobs report is courtesy of Workforce Solutions of the Coastal Bend.

Location Alice, Texas Job Number 2763650 Title Lab Assistant Salary $13.00 Hour +Benefits Qualifications Minimum nine (9) months prior experience and a High School Diploma or General Education Development (GED) required. Candidate must be able to perform general lab maintenance and support for a lab specializing in in-vitro biological testing services. Must be available for occasional weekend and holiday work as assigned or directed. Valid Class C - Standard driver's license required. Location Refugio, Texas Job Number 8295943 Title Roustabout Salary $12.00 Hour to Start Qualifications One (1) year prior experience and a High School Diploma or General Education Development (GED) required. Must be able to perform all job-related duties as assigned or directed. Duties to include keeping pipe deck and main deck areas clean, moving pipes to and from trucks, digging drainage ditches around wells and storage tanks, etc. Valid Class C - Standard driver's license required. Location Corpus Christi, Texas Job Number 6952962 Title Experienced Ironworkers Salary $13.00 - $15.00 Hour, Depending on Experience +Benefits Qualifications One (1) year experience required. Candidates must be able to perform the following skills and/or possess the following knowledge: Stick welding, Bold Up Iron, Spreading & Screwing Decking; Work at heights greater than six (6) feet; Work outside; possess own tools. Certified to operate Lifts preferred but not required. Location Bishop, Texas Job Number 6949342 Title Industrial Electrician Salary $85,000.00 - $120,000.00 Year, Depending on Experience Qualifications Eight (8) years prior experience and an Associate's Degree required. Candidate must possess knowledge and/or be able to perform the following: inspections/PMs for UPS systems & station batteries; knowledge of PLC's, be able to perform instrument calibrations & troubleshooting. Must possess computer ability in the use of Microsoft Office and use of SAP. Location Corpus Christi, Texas Job Number 4981943 Title Social Services Coordinator Salary $16.50 Hour Qualifications One (1) year prior experience and an Associate's Degree required. 21 years of age or older due to company/insurance requirements. Candidate must be able to develop and coordinate reentry programs to ensure continuing care for the special needs of each resident. Must be able to develop programs to address the unique reentry needs of female residents. Basic computer skills to include Windows 2000, XP or higher, Word, and Excel. Some weekend work required.

To learn more about these jobs, call Workforce Solutions of the Coastal Bend at 888-860-JOBS.

Hot Jobs is a segment that is found every Tuesday, on 3News at 5 p.m.

Excerpt from:
Hot Jobs: July 1, 2014

Stoke victims in the North East are using robots to help regain use of their arms.

Specialists at Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and Newcastle University are taking part in a programme to use pioneering rehabilitation robots to help stroke sufferers.

The person who has had a stroke sits at a table facing a computer screen and places their arm onto the robotic device. The therapist then asks the patient to undertake some arm exercises such as moving between targets on the computer screen.

If the person is unable to move their arm, then the robot moves the patients limb for them.

If the patient starts to move, the robot provides adjustable levels of assistance to help out, all of which helps the brain and arm to learn to work together again.

Tom Means, from Walkerville, Newcastle, is already taking part in a stroke robot clinical trial at North Tyneside General Hospital.

The self-employed electrician had a stroke in March and spent around two months in hospital. Now back at home, he continues to receive physiotherapy twice a week.

After only a few sessions into the 12-week programme, he is already seeing improvements in his arm and shoulder.

Tom, 61, said: When youve had a stroke, every bit of exercise and movement you can do is a big help. Using the robot alongside my other exercises is ideal for me and whats great about the robot is that it also helps my hand-eye co-ordination.

Ive only had a few sessions so far, however Ive really felt the difference in my arm as Ive got a lot more movement and much more strength. Im under no illusions that its going to be a lot of hard work but its all worthwhile because I know its going to make me better.

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Pioneering scheme in North East offers hope to stroke victims

Annette Cary Tri-City Herald

RICHLAND, Wash. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee supports the Hanford tank farm approach of allowing workers to opt for increased levels of personal protection such as different respirators to guard against chemical vapors until a new independent assessment is completed.

Inslee and state Attorney General Bob Ferguson sent a letter on Hanford vapor issues Friday to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. That was followed by an announcement Monday of the team picked by Savannah River National Laboratory to perform the assessment.

The repeated complaints from workers about exposure to tank vapors that may be causing harm requires a comprehensive response, the letter said.

This spring about 37 Hanford workers have received medical evaluations after either reporting a suspicious odor or in some cases developing symptoms consistent with exposure to chemical vapors. All were cleared to return to work, but workers are concerned about developing serious health issues long-term from chemical exposure.

Workers sometimes report a smell of ammonia, which is one of the chemicals in the head space of underground tanks.

Washington River Protection Solutions, the Department of Energy contractor at the tank farms, requires a minimum of half-face respirators when there is an increased risk for tank vapors.

Those include when waste is being disturbed, such as when waste is pumped from a tank or transferred between tanks, or when workers will be in an area where suspicious odors have been reported in the past.

Workers can instead opt for a full-face respirator or a supplied-air respirator, according to the contractor.

There was one instance about a year ago when a request for a supplied-air respirator was denied and that worker was reassigned to other tank farm work, said contractor spokesman John Britton. Washington River Protection Solutions concluded that it would be unsafe for the electrician to have a steel tank on his back while working in a confined area with high-voltage electricity.

See more here:
Officials: Stay the course on Hanford vapors until study done

Aaron Glantz, reporter, Center for Investigative Reporting

Robert Muth, law professor and supervising attorney for Veterans Legal Clinic, University of San Diego

Mark Brenner, Apollo Group, University of Phoenix parent company

Midday Edition airs weekdays at noon on KPBS Radio

This story will run on KPBS 98.5 FM on Saturday at 1 p.m. and Monday at 11 a.m.

KPBS Livestream

Over the past five years, more than $600 million in college assistance for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans has been spent on California schools so substandard that they have failed to qualify for state financial aid.

As a result, the GI Bill designed to help veterans live the American dream is supporting for-profit companies that spend lavishly on marketing but can leave veterans with worthless degrees and few job prospects, The Center for Investigative Reporting found.

Its not education. I think its just greed, said David Pace, a 20-year Navy veteran who used the GI Bill to obtain a business degree from the University of Phoenixs San Diego campus.

Although taxpayers spent an estimated $50,000 on Paces education, he has the same blue-collar job he landed right after he left the service: running electrical cable for a defense contractor.

More:
GI Bill Funds Flow To For-Profit Colleges That Fail State Aid Standards

The U.S. Postal Service has lost about $2.5 billion since the early 1980s delivering goods to Alaskas remote villages. The program, called the Alaska Bypass, was created in part to help curb the otherwise high cost of shipping groceries to Alaska Natives. Critics say the savings are not passed on to customers and are pressing for a lower postal subsidy.

HOOPER BAY, Alaska In the soggy, unforgiving tundra on the shores of the Bering Sea, Royala Bell defrosts a rack of beef ribs for dinner in a kitchen that doubles as a bedroom for six of her seven children.

A dead owl lies on the floor, ready for her husband, Carlton, to defeather it for a headdress. Fish dry on a line out back, for the larder in winter. On a small counter are some of the groceries the Bells consume from the Lower 48: Sailor Boy Pilot Bread, potatoes, Kool-Aid, Aunt Jemima pancake mix and a can of Coca-Cola.

The U.S. Postal Service paid to ship the items on a turboprop bush plane to this small settlement of Yupik Indians on Alaskas western edge. The Bells brought them home on the back of their all-terrain vehicle from Hooper Bays only grocery store. The 12-pack of Coke alone cost the Postal Service $21 to get here.

Under a federal program exclusive to Alaska, the Postal Service is responsible for shipping more than 100million pounds a year of apples, frozen meat, dog food, diapers and countless other consumer items to off-road villages in the sparsely populated outposts known as the bush. Over three decades acting as freight forwarder, the agency has lost $2.5billion.

In many ways, the Alaska Bypass, as its called, keeps Hooper Bay and 100 other isolated villages in rural Alaska afloat. But groceries do not come cheap for Royala Bell, 43, and her neighbors, most of whom, like her family, survive on food stamps and federal subsidies.

I think the food is too, too high, the slight Yupik woman said of the prices at the Alaska Commercial store here, stretching her hands wide like an accordion. It takes about $200 for a little tiny amount of groceries.

Rural Alaskans are not the only ones paying a steep price. The system cost the Postal Service $77.5million last year, agency officials said, with ordinary stamp-buying customers covering the tab, while a long line of commercial interests here benefited, from the airline and shipping industries to rural grocery chains.

Retailers pay the Postal Service about half of what it would cost them to ship the goods commercially; the subsidy allows them to charge a hefty markup on a can of Coke, for example, in some cases 30percent or more. The agency, by law, must pay private air carriers well above market rates in the only corner of the country where airline prices are still regulated.

In the name of families such as the Bells, the late senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) pushed an earmark through Congress 33 years ago aimed at helping his constituents back home. But today, the Postal Service is going broke. On Capitol Hill, this is the kind of federal spending lawmakers in Washington have said they will swear off in a time of austerity.

Read more from the original source:
U.S. Postal Service losing tens of millions annually subsidizing shipments to Alaska

MT. PLEASANT With the August general election quickly approaching, several local candidates addressed residents about goals for their respective seats.

The Mt. Pleasant Chamber of Commerce hosted a political forum Tuesday at the Community Center at 501 Gray Lane. Moderator Robert Wakefield asked the candidates questions that residents submitted.

Candidates running for the 22nd Judicial District Circuit Court judge (Part I), 22nd Judicial District Attorney General, county clerk, District 10 county commissioner, county trustee and circuit court clerk addressed voters at the meeting.

All those positions will be on the Aug. 7 general election ballot.

22nd Judicial District Circuit Court Judge (Part I)

J. Thomas DuBois cited his experience as a city court judge for the past 14 years and his former duties as a military prosecutor and JAG attorney as qualifications for the position. He is also a former Maury County state representative.

I am running because I feel like it is time for a change, DuBois, who ran unopposed in Maury Countys first Republican primary, said. It has been 32 years since weve had a choice for this position.

Jim T. Hamilton has held the position since 1982 and has plenty of experience, he said. He aims to keep politics out of the courtroom, Hamilton said.

A circuit court judge handles serious matters, he said. Its not a small matter at all to be in that court.

See the rest here:
Residents meet, learn about county candidates

DAGUPAN CITY - Two armed men shot and killed Urbiztondo town Mayor Ernesto Balolong Jr., his police escort and an electrician on Saturday near an area in the town where the mayor was supposed to hold his 25th wedding anniversary party today, Sunday.

Balolong was at the back of the town's convention centre around 8:50 a.m. when armed men in a Toyota Innova drove up and opened fire, police said.

The mayor was inspecting the venue for his wedding anniversary and for the wedding of his son, Urbiztondo Councilor Voltaire Balolong, which were to take place simultaneously.

The gunmen alighted from the Innova and had calmly approached the mayor before they opened fire, according to a witness.

The witness said Balolong managed to scamper away but was felled by another shot. One of the gunmen approached Balolong and shot him at point-blank range, the witness said.

Targets

Police said Balolong and his escort, Police Officer 1 Eliseo Ulanday (not Umanday as earlier reported), were the apparent targets of the attack. Edmund Meneses, a supermarket electrician, was caught in the barrage of the bullets.

The attack also wounded Jose Vigilia, an employee of CSI Supermarket, and Rogelio Esguerra, a soy drink vendor.

Balolong was immediately taken to Elguira General Hospital in San Carlos City. But Dr. Samuel Elguira, owner of the hospital, said the mayor was already dead when he arrived in the hospital about an hour later, 9:55 a.m.

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Filipino mayor killed on eve of anniversary

After twice failing to protect students from the false promises of expensive, for-profit career colleges, California is trying again.

A bill making its way through the Legislature would replace the state's regulatory bureau -- slammed as ineffective in a March state audit -- with an independent board to investigate complaints and monitor the schools.

Industry lobbyists and consumer advocates have staked out their positions. The schools view the proposed changes as unnecessarily disruptive, according to the bill's analysis, but the advocates say it could make the state more responsive to students left in the lurch.

Whatever the state sets up, "I hope that it's a little more user-friendly," said Megan Thompson, a former student who remains unemployed six months after completing a Boston Reed College online program in electronic health records.

The Milpitas woman said she is still awaiting a response to the complaint she filed early this year with the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education.

She said the school charged students for textbooks they never received, gave them a job-board web address instead of promised career counseling and neglected to mail her certificate. (She has since obtained it.) The college appears to be open, but did not respond to requests for comment.

For-profit colleges, many of them national chains, have come under intense scrutiny for soaking up federal student aid and leaving former students jobless and in tremendous debt. A new report last week from the National Consumer Law Center gauged the "gathering storm" of investigations by state attorneys general and federal agencies: 61 since 2007 with a steady increase each year, including 13 through May of this year.

And Thursday, the California-based Corinthian Colleges warned that federal financial sanctions might force it out of business. Its schools include Heald, Everest and Wyotech, which enroll more than 70,000 students nationwide, many of them in California. The U.S. Department of Education said the company failed to address concerns about its practices, "including falsifying job placement data used in marketing claims to prospective students and allegations of altered grades and attendance."

The increasing number of probes "shows that for-profit school abuses continues to be a problem," said Robyn Smith, a former California deputy attorney general who wrote the Consumer Law Center's report.

Californians could benefit from having an independent board watching over the industry -- as long as those with ties to the colleges can't dominate its membership, she said.

Read this article:
California lawmakers setting new regulator over for-profit career colleges

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No one will investigate electrocution of Knoxville man