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This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

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WEST


JURY AWARDS $207 MILLION TO WAL-MART WORKERS DENIED LUNCH BREAKS


OAKLAND, Calif. – A California jury awarded $207 million yesterday to thousands of employees at Wal-Mart Stores Incorporated who claimed they were illegally denied lunch breaks.


The world’s largest retailer was ordered to pay $57 million in general damages and $150 million in punitive damages to about 116,000 current and former California employees for violating a 2001 state law that requires employers to give 30-minute, unpaid lunch breaks to employees who work at least six hours.


The class-action lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court is one of about 40 nationwide alleging workplace violations by Wal-Mart, and the first to go to trial. The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer, which earned $10 billion last year, settled a similar lawsuit in Colorado for $50 million.


In the California suit, Wal-Mart had claimed that workers did not demand penalty wages on a timely basis. Under the law, the company must pay workers a full hour’s wages for every missed lunch.


– Associated Press


WASHINGTON


CONGRESS GIVES $29 BILLION IN HURRICANE AID TO GULF COAST


The House cleared the way yesterday for a defense spending bill that funnels $29 billion in new hurricane aid to the Gulf Coast and $50 billion more for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The action came on the heels of a move to give one month more life to the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism powers under the Patriot Act.


The House passed the two bills in a year-end scramble to finish its work, complicated by standoffs with Democrats and disagreements among Republicans.


– Associated Press


JUSTICE DEPT. DEFENDS SPYING IN LETTER TO CONGRESS


The Bush administration formally defended its wire-tapping program in a letter to Congress late yesterday saying the nation’s security outweighs privacy concerns of individuals who are monitored.


In a letter to the chairs of the House and Senate intelligence committees, the Justice Department said President Bush authorized electronic surveillance without first obtaining a warrant in an effort to thwart terrorist acts against America.


“There is undeniably an important and legitimate privacy interest at stake with respect to the activities described by the president,” wrote Assistant Attorney General William Moschella. “That must be balanced, however, against the government’s compelling interest in the security of the nation.”


– Associated Press


DASCHLE SAYS CONGRESS DENIED BUSH WAR POWERS IN AMERICA


The Bush administration requested, and Congress rejected, war-making authority “in the United States” in negotiations over the joint resolution passed days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, according to an opinion article by former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, a Democrat of South Dakota, in Friday’s Washington Post.


Mr. Daschle’s disclosure challenges a central legal argument offered by the White House in defense of the National Security Agency’s warrantless wire-tapping of American citizens and permanent residents. It suggests that Congress refused explicitly to grant authority that the Bush administration now asserts is implicit in the resolution.


– The Washington Post


SOUTH


MIAMI SUSPECT HAD HELP ESCAPING, POLICE SAY


MIAMI – An accused serial rapist who brazenly escaped from jail using bed sheets for a rope had sawlike tools that may have been smuggled in, and he had apparently plotted the breakout for months, police said yesterday.


“This is a conspiracy. This was hatched over about three months,” Chief John Timoney said.


Reynaldo Rapalo, 34, and another inmate broke out of a Miami-Dade County jail Tuesday night by crawling through a vent in the ceiling of a sixth-floor cell, officials said. The vent was supposed to be locked, but its door had been pried off. And bars blocking the vent’s opening to the roof were cut.


– Associated Press

NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.


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