Media Today

[Rick Plant]

Bill Cosby assault case starts in California



Los Angeles (AFP) - A trial against Bill Cosby began Monday in California, with a civil suit alleging the disgraced comedian se*ually assaulted a teenage girl almost five decades ago.

Judy Huth says the man once known as "America's Dad" attacked her at the Playboy Mansion in the mid-1970s when she was around 15 years old.

Huth says she suffered "psychological damage and mental anguish" as a result of the alleged assault.

The case is the latest in a raft of legal actions against 84-year-old Cosby, who was once one of the most popular performers on US television.

Dozens of women have said they suffered se*ual assault at his hands.

Huth's case was originally filed in 2014, but had been on hold while Cosby faced aggravated indecent assault charges in Pennsylvania.

Cosby was convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman 17 years ago, but freed from his prison sentence after the state's supreme court ruled he had been denied a fair trial.

His release from prison -- he had served more than two years of his three-to-10 year sentence -- infuriated many advocates of the #MeToo movement.

His conviction was the first sexual assault guilty verdict against a celebrity since the advent of the worldwide reckoning against sexual violence and abuse of power.

But the court did not exonerate him, rather it overturned the conviction on a technicality.

Judges wrote that a non-prosecution agreement between a former district attorney and Cosby over evidence he gave in a different civil case meant the actor shouldn't have been criminally charged in the first place.

In the case that local broadcasters reported had started Monday, Huth claims she met Cosby on a film set, and days later was invited to his tennis club.

There, she says, he gave her alcohol and took her to the Playboy Mansion, where he forced her to perform a sex act.

Cosby has denied her version of events.

The defence has leapt on apparent discrepancies in Huth's claim.

The assault was initially alleged to have happened in 1974, when she was 15 years old, but more recently has said it took place a year later.

The case is being heard in Santa Monica, next to Los Angeles, and begins with jury selection.

Opening arguments are set for next week.

© Agence France-Presse

[Rick Plant]

Josh Donaldson suspended for actions vs. White Sox



NEW YORK -- Josh Donaldson received a one-game suspension and an undisclosed fine from Major League Baseball on Monday stemming from what the league said were “inappropriate comments” made to White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson during Saturday’s game.

Donaldson is appealing the punishment, MLB announced. Donaldson would be eligible to play for the Yankees until the appeal process is completed. The Yankees placed Donaldson on the COVID-19 injured list before Monday’s game.

“MLB has completed the process of speaking to the individuals involved in this incident. There is no dispute over what was said on the field,” said Michael Hill, Major League Baseball’s senior vice president for on-field operations.

“Regardless of Mr. Donaldson's intent, the comment he directed toward Mr. Anderson was disrespectful and in poor judgment, particularly when viewed in the context of their prior interactions. In addition, Mr. Donaldson’s remark was a contributing factor in a bench-clearing incident between the teams, and warrants discipline.”

The White Sox and Yankees jostled in the fifth inning on Saturday after Chicago players took offense to Donaldson's comment.

Donaldson acknowledged that he twice referred to Anderson as “Jackie,” claiming that he was referring to a 2019 Sports Illustrated interview in which Anderson -- who is Black -- said that he feels like “today’s Jackie Robinson.”

Anderson took offense, saying: “He made a disrespectful comment. [Donaldson] basically tried to call me Jackie Robinson, like, ‘What’s up, Jackie?’ I don’t play like that. I don’t need to play at all. I wasn’t really bothering [anybody] today, but he made the comment and it was disrespectful.”

Donaldson first made the comment while on base in the second inning; Anderson and Donaldson then exchanged words in the third and were promptly separated. Anderson told his teammates what Donaldson said, which sparked a situation between Donaldson and White Sox catcher Yasmani Grandal when Donaldson came to bat in the fifth.

“This game went through a period of time where a lot of those comments were made, and I think we’re way past that. It’s just unacceptable,” Grandal said. “I thought it was a low blow, and I’m going to make sure I’ve got my team’s back. There’s no way you’re allowed to say something like that. It’s unacceptable.”

Donaldson said he would apologize to Anderson, noting that Saturday was not the first time he referred to Anderson as “Jackie.” Donaldson said that he did so in 2019, when he was a member of the Braves.

Reacting to the suspension, Yankees manager Aaron Boone said that he felt the league was "thoughtful, looked into it and did their due diligence on it to make a tough call. I don't agree with it; I don't think it warranted a suspension, but I certainly respect their process."

In the May 6, 2019, Sports Illustrated article, Anderson told Stephanie Apstein that he felt a responsibility to help break what he called baseball’s “have-fun barrier.”

“I kind of feel like today’s Jackie Robinson,” Anderson said in the interview. “That’s huge to say. But it’s cool, man, because he changed the game, and I feel like I’m getting to a point where I need to change the game.”

Tensions have been high between Anderson and Donaldson since a game at Chicago’s Guaranteed Rate Field on May 13, when both benches cleared after Anderson shoved Donaldson following a first-inning play at third base. Donaldson said that he intended for his comment to neutralize that animosity.

Anderson and Donaldson did not speak before the conclusion of the series, which ended with the White Sox sweeping the Yankees in Sunday's doubleheader. Anderson was booed by Yankees fans in the second game, then hushed the crowd with an opposite-field, three-run homer in the eighth inning.

"It's a tough one," said Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge, reacting to Donaldson's suspension. "Joke or not, I just don't think it's the right thing to do there -- especially given the history of the series in Chicago, kind of a little bit of beef between Anderson and J.D. Anderson's one of the best shortstops in the game and he's a big part of MLB, what's going on here and how we can grow the game. J.D. made a mistake, owned up to it and now we've got to move on."

https://www.mlb.com/news/josh-donaldson-suspension-may-23-2022

[Rick Plant]

Fly me to the Moon: US, Japan aim for lunar landing



Japan and the United States said Monday they want to put the first Japanese astronaut on the Moon as the allies deepen cooperation on space projects.

No non-American has ever touched down on the lunar surface, and Japan has previously said it hopes to achieve a Moon landing by the end of this decade.

President Joe Biden, after his first face-to-face meeting with Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo, said the nations will work together in the US-led Artemis program to send humans to the Moon, and later to Mars.

Biden said he was "excited" about the collaboration, including on the Gateway facility, which will orbit the Moon and provide support for future missions.

"I'm excited (about) the work we'll do together on the Gateway Station around the Moon, and look forward to the first Japanese astronaut joining us on the mission to the lunar surface under the Artemis program," he said at a joint press conference.

Japan's domestic space program focuses on satellites and probes, so Japanese astronauts have turned to the US and Russia to travel to the International Space Station.

But space agency JAXA is looking to revitalize its ranks, last year launching its first recruitment of new astronauts in 13 years.

It lifted the requirement that applicants have a science degree and urged women to apply, because all seven of the nation's current astronauts are men.

© 2022 AFP

[Rick Plant]

High-tech surveillance in post-Roe America: Chilling new report outlines possible future



Imagine, several months from now, a pregnant woman in Texas traveling to New York to obtain an abortion. When she's about to fly back, a friend phones to warn her there's an arrest warrant waiting for her, because police in her home state used a "keyword warrant" to monitor everyone in their area who'd searched a particular term online — say, "abortion clinics in New York" — and then obtained a "geofence warrant" to track her to a Planned Parenthood facility in Manhattan. The woman becomes part of a population the U.S. hasn't seen in recent history: an internally-displaced person, unable to travel home under threat of arrest and prosecution.

Or imagine a woman in the Deep South, who in her last weeks of pregnancy, delivers a stillborn fetus at home, and, when she's taken to the hospital, encounters a nurse who suspects she'd tried to end the pregnancy herself and calls the police. When prosecutors take on the case, they obtain not just her medical records — evidence of the outcome — but her online search history as well: what they cast as evidence of "intent." Thanks to information handed over by internet providers — that the woman once searched for information about abortion medication and miscarriages — she is charged with second-degree murder, and faces 20 years to life in prison if convicted.

That latter scenario already happened, several years ago in Mississippi. The former, says civil rights attorney Albert Fox Cahn, is not just a potential threat but an imminent reality if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade in the coming weeks, as forecast in Justice Samuel Alito's leaked draft majority opinion earlier this month.

On Tuesday morning, Cahn's organization, the nonprofit privacy organization Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), released a new report, "The Handmaid's Trail: Abortion Surveillance After Roe," laying out in blunt terms how digital and other surveillance technologies could be employed if the coming SCOTUS ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health makes abortion immediately illegal in numerous states.

"Repealing a half century of reproductive rights won't transport Americans back to 1973," Cahn and his co-author on the report, Eleni Manis, write. Rather, "it will take us to a far darker future, one where antiquated abortion laws are enforced with cutting edge technology." What they envision is that the computers and smartphones of anyone who's pregnant and seeking an abortion — or who suffers a miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy or stillbirth — could be turned into repositories of evidence for police, prosecutors and even individual bounty-hunters hoping to collect a cash reward for proving someone has had an illegal abortion.

For years, pregnant patients have been subjected to a wide array of surveillance through both routine and novel means by government, corporate and private entities. Pregnant patients at hospitals face "suspicionless" drug testing when they go for prenatal checkups while patients of clinics that offer abortion services may encounter anti-abortion activists who photograph them and license plates. These days, they also face the prospect of anti-abortion geofencing: when activists pair cell phone location data with commercial advertising databanks to text them anti-abortion messages while they're sitting in abortion clinic waiting rooms. If they seek out or stumble upon one of the anti-abortion pseudo-clinics known as crisis pregnancy centers, in person or online, chances are anything they say will be added to the massive database CPC networks maintain.

Outside of such medical (or "medical") settings, commercial retailers and big tech companies have already fine-tuned their predictive capabilities so well that they can figure out an internet user is pregnant before they've even told their family. And while the goal of that sophisticated technology is financial — to target expectant parents just when they're about to start spending a lot of money — Cahn and Manis warn that "such commercial lists now will become evidence for those individuals whose pregnancies don't come to term."

There's already precedent for that. As civil rights attorney Cynthia Conti-Cook wrote in a 2020 article in the University of Baltimore Law Review, "Digital evidence fills a gap for prosecutors keen on prosecuting women for their pregnancy outcomes. When medical theories fail to explain why some outcomes happen, prosecutors can now sift through an accused person's most personal thoughts, feelings, movements and medically-related purchases during their pregnancy, even if there is little evidence supporting the conclusion that their conduct caused the pregnancy to end."

But the re-criminalization of abortion, say Cahn and Manis, will lead to even wider use of digital technologies to prosecute both abortion seekers and those who help them.

Some of the technology is familiar: obtaining people's search histories, shopping records, emails, chats or texts to prove they were discussing or seeking information about abortion, or even just that they were pregnant. "When purchasers pay with a credit card, an online account, or with an in-store loyalty card," the report notes, "everyday purchases — medication, pregnancy tests, prenatal vitamins, menstrual products — can become circumstantial evidence."

Others are less well-known. Law enforcement can use "keyword warrants" that would "cast digital dragnets, identifying large numbers of potential abortion seekers" by requiring technology companies to turn over information about anyone in a geographic area who has searched online for particular terms. They can also obtain "geofence warrants" that require those same companies to give information about all people who were in a particular place at a particular time. Both types of warrants have already been used in other contexts.

"Geofence warrants were first introduced in 2018 and since then have expanded so dramatically that they are now the majority of all warrants that Google receives in the U.S.," said Cahn. A 2021 advocacy campaign by a coalition of civil rights groups, including S.T.O.P., compelled Google to release information that shows that this type of inquiry accounted for more than 10,000 warrants the company responded to in 2020.

To date, keyword warrants are less common, but Cahn says they were used in one case where police demanded that Google identify everyone who had searched for a particular address, using that information as part of their investigation.

Broadly speaking, these types of warrants, as well as technology like facial recognition software, says Cahn, have been justified as a necessity for addressing threats like terrorism. But their application has not been neutral. "We've found that facial recognition was used more to target Black Lives Matter protesters than to target those responsible for the insurrection on Jan. 6," said Cahn. "There's profound discrimination in how these tools are deployed."

What's more, Cahn said, geofence warrants simply aren't effective for most police work — they're good at casting "broad digital dragnets" but bad at identifying whether someone actually is a likely suspect. However, he said, they could easily prove to be a "terrifying tool" that enable "authoritarian efforts to target health care, to target protest, to target houses of worship. It's very easy to see the potential for abuse."

In light of that threat, S.T.O.P.'s report calls for a number of measures to address these issues, primarily in "rights-protective" states unlikely to outlaw abortion. Some states offer limited protections already. Massachusetts, for instance, bans geofencing near abortion clinics, but is the only state in the country to have done so. Illinois prohibits the sharing of some biometric data, although data related to abortion is not yet included in its provisions.

But more, the report holds, is needed. First, from companies like Google or Apple, which may voice public support for abortion rights but nonetheless could be key to undermining those rights through their information collection and warehousing practices.

"If a company doesn't have individualized locations in a database that can be searched by a geofence, one can get all the warrants they want and you're not going to give over any data," said Cahn. "It's a design choice whether Google wants to put their users at risk of this type of search."

Likewise, he said, states must act. "This is already happening. We already see electronic surveillance being used to target pregnant people. The only question is how quickly anti-abortion policing ramps up to these search tactics."

Two first-in-the-nation bills are currently under consideration in New York that could offer substantially more protection. One would ban both geofence and keyword warrants as well as prohibiting law enforcement from buying geolocation data from commercial companies. A second would prohibit police from creating fake social media accounts that allow them to pose as friends or medical providers in order to trick people seeking abortions into identifying or incriminating themselves.

Law enforcement agencies must also reassess their participation in inter-agency information sharing agreements, Cahn said. Current data sharing agreements require local police to share information with their counterparts in other states, which could easily enable the tracking and prosecution of abortion seekers from red states who travel to other parts of the country to get an abortion.

Such agreements have always caused tension, Cahn said, "because it's meant that so-called immigration sanctuary jurisdictions are actually giving information to ICE in some cases. But now, if you're part of an inter-agency information sharing agreement, and you are honestly a pro-choice jurisdiction, you can't in good faith remain when you know the people receiving that data are going to use it to arrest pregnant people."

For years, Cahn said, civil rights groups have fought the use of surveillance technologies like geofence warrants, arguing that certain types of information should be off-limits as policing tools. For just as long, he said, many lawmakers have been "comfortable enabling these types of abuses when different communities were being targeted."

"Now we know the targets will include pregnant people," he said, and "we'll see people who once felt very far removed from the threat of mass surveillance being intimately targeted."

"It is very much that incremental expansion of government authority," he said. "We ignore it and we ignore it. And then suddenly, we and our families and those dearest to us are in the crosshairs."

https://www.rawstory.com/roe-v-wade-2657377668/

[Rick Plant]

Outside court, hardcore Depp fans want 'Justice for Johnny'



Fairfax (United States) (AFP) - The early morning sun has barely poked through the clouds, but Luz-Hazel Walrath and Pam Cuddapah have already been huddled outside a courthouse in the suburbs of Washington for nine hours -- determined to show their support for Johnny Depp.

The two substitute teachers, both 23, drove five hours from their homes in North Carolina to Fairfax, Virginia, arriving at 10:00 pm on Monday evening to try to snag one of the 100 public seats for the next day's hearing.

They were among scores who gather each day -- and night -- at the court, hoping to catch a glimpse of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" star as he battles ex-wife Amber Heard in a blockbuster defamation case.

"We just wanted to support Johnny," Walrath said, explaining she had grown up watching movies featuring the actor.

Walrath and Cuddapah may be biased, but they say they are not convinced by evidence presented by Heard's legal team, who allege the actress suffered "rampant physical violence and abuse" from Depp.

"I usually believe victims, but in this specific case... I just don't really fully believe her," Cuddapah said.

She says she came to her conclusion based on research via social media, while adding "also he's a great actor."

Almost all those waiting in the queue are loyal to Depp, who says Heard is actually the one who was violent toward him.

A few carry signs, some calling for "#JusticeforJohnny." One group has come with a bouquet of heart-shaped balloons and a poster declaring their love for the troubled former pinup.

Card games, and makeup

In the small hours of Tuesday, many waited under the building's colonnade to shelter from the rain.

They passed the time trying to sleep -- wrapped up in blankets on the ground -- playing cards, or chatting with new friends.

Early arrivals bided their time across the street before rushing across the courthouse lawn to secure a place in line when the Fairfax County Sheriff's Department finally allowed them on the premises.

Office manager Glenna Bobb, who drove three hours from Philadelphia, described the scene as a "mad dash." "Honestly, it was chaos," she said.

By the time the sun comes up, the crowd is ready for breakfast and coffee ordered via delivery apps.

Some, still in their sweatpants, do their makeup as 7:00 am approaches -- the moment when sheriff's deputies hand out the wristbands that are the fans' prized tickets into the courtroom.

Bobb, 44, started following the trial when it began back in April, when she was in isolation recovering from Covid.

"I had nothing else to do," she said. "And then it was just like a train wreck."

After all the wristbands are distributed, those who didn't get in traipse to the back of the courthouse, hoping for the next best thing: a glimpse of Depp as he drives in through a rear entrance.

Barricades are erected as the street corner quickly fills with spectators, baby strollers and dogs -- one wearing its own "Justice for Johnny Depp" sign.

A lone pro-Heard voice, Christina Taft holds up her sign blasting what she calls a social media "operation" against the "Aquaman" star.

Facing down the Depp crowd is "really hard," the 28-year-old from Los Angeles said.

She uses a bullhorn to shout "Go Amber Heard!" as the actress's car rolls through the parking lot gates, but she is drowned out by boos and taunts.

A few minutes later, Depp drives past, waving and smiling through the car's open window at his cheering fans.

© Agence France-Presse

[Rick Plant]

Johnny Depp’s team is denied dismissal of Amber Heard’s $100M counterclaim as her lawyers rest case



Johnny Depp’s legal team was unsuccessful in an attempt to get Amber Heard’s $100 million counterclaim dismissed Tuesday as Heard’s lawyers rested their case in the defamation trial.

Judge Penney Azcarate said at the Fairfax County Circuit Courthouse in Virginia that it’s not her role “to measure the veracity or weight of the evidence” after lawyers for Depp and Heard both presented arguments about the countersuit.

Depp is suing his ex-wife Heard for $50 million over a 2018 op-ed published by the Washington Post in which Heard called herself a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” Depp isn’t named in the piece, but Heard had previously accused the actor of abusing her, which he denies.

Heard filed a $100 million counterclaim in response to statements made by Depp lawyer Adam Waldman describing the actress’ abuse allegations as a hoax.

“There was no hoax perpetrated,” Heard attorney Ben Rottenborn said Tuesday. “Mr. Depp is an abuser who abused Ms. Heard. She did not conspire with her friends to create a hoax. She did not create a hoax herself.”

"There was no hoax perpetrated,” Heard attorney Ben Rottenborn said Tuesday. “Mr. Depp is an abuser who abused Ms. Heard. She did not conspire with her friends to create a hoax. She did not create a hoax herself.”

Rottenborn’s defense came after Depp attorney Benjamin Chew opened Tuesday’s proceedings with a motion to strike the counterclaim.

“The evidence shows that Ms. Heard cannot prevail on her claim because she cannot and did not establish that Mr. Waldman made the statements with actual malice,” Chew said. “Mr. Waldman testified that he conducted extensive investigation and reasonably believed that the three statements he made were true.”

Depp testified for four days last month, claiming he never struck Heard while accusing her of often becoming physically violent toward him. He claimed to suffer a severed middle finger after Heard threw a bottle at him in Australia in 2015.

Heard concluded her four-day testimony last week, saying she never abused Depp and claiming the actor injured his finger by smashing a telephone. She described multiple incidents in which Depp allegedly abused her, including accusing him of se*ually assaulting her with a bottle in Australia.

Her team rested its case Tuesday without recalling Depp to the witness stand.

Closing arguments in the trial are expected to take place Friday.

Depp, 58, and Heard, 36, met while making the 2011 movie “The Rum Diary” and married in 2015. Heard filed for divorce the following year and was granted a temporary restraining order against Depp after accusing him of domestic violence.

Depp previously lost a libel lawsuit in the United Kingdom against the publisher of British tabloid The Sun over an article that painted the actor as a “wife beater,” with a High Court judge ruling the claims were “substantially true.”

© New York Daily News

[Rick Plant]

Nearly 1 in 5 Amazon delivery drivers get hurt on the job each year, new report says

One in five delivery drivers working for Amazon was injured on the job in 2021, a new report says.

The same report, released Tuesday by a coalition of labor unions, found 1 in 7 was injured so severely they had to either change their job or take time off following an injury.

"Amazon's delivery quotas and production pressure are contributing to an escalating injury crisis among workers in every segment of Amazon's delivery system," the Strategic Organizing Center's report read.

"Amazon claims to have taken several steps to promote safety," it continued. "Amazon has refused, however, to address the core issue that fuels injuries in its delivery system: abusive delivery production demands."

Injuries for workers in Amazon's delivery system — including delivery drivers as well as employees at delivery stations and sortation centers — jumped by 38% in the past year, according to the organizing center, which has pushed Amazon to changes workplace policies previously. The same group released a report in April that found injuries at Amazon warehouses increased about 20% from 2020 to 2021.

The rate of serious injuries for drivers jumped 47% in the past year, according to the most recent report.

Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said the report used a small sample of workers and drivers to "intentionally misrepresent the facts."

"Safety is a priority across our network, which is why we've rolled out technology like innovative camera systems that have helped lead to an overall reduction in accident rates of nearly 50%," Nantel said in an emailed statement. "We'll keep investing in new safety tools to try and get better every day."

On the heels of a successful union drive at an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, the company is facing pressure from employees, state and federal regulators, and some shareholders to improve working conditions for its blue-collar workforce. Federal lawmakers have called for an investigation into Amazon's practices after six people died while working at an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois. Washington regulators have issued four citations, alleging the company's pace of work is leading to unsafe working conditions at Amazon facilities.

During some shifts, a delivery driver working with Amazon in Sacramento, California, is expected to make a delivery every minute or two, the Strategic Organizing Center report found.

Injury rates at Amazon's sortation centers, where employees sort orders by final destination, increased 20%, while rates at its delivery stations, where workers prep packages for the delivery to customers doorsteps, went up 15%.

The SOC analyzed data that Amazon and its delivery service partners — independent delivery companies who staff and operate Amazon-branded vans to bring packages from distribution centers to customers' doorsteps — submitted to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. It analyzed data from 201 of Amazon's roughly 2,500 U.S.-based delivery service partners.

Amazon says injury rates at the company are actually going down, citing a $300 million investment in new technologies and new protocols to improve working conditions. Amazon's own analysis found the lost-time incident rate, a measure of the number of injuries that resulted in missed work, improved 43% from 2019 to 2020, according to a report the company released this year. The report did not include an analysis of 2021.

Researchers at the Strategic Organizing Center don't agree. Amazon is relying on outdated numbers, the report said, and is leaving out a large chunk of its workforce by not including contracted delivery service partners who account for about half of all Amazon delivery system workers.

Amazon "cherry picked" the data they chose for their own analysis, said Eric Frumin, the health and safety director with the Strategic Organizing Center. In addition to leaving out contractors, Amazon compared itself only to industry competitors with at least 250 workers, he said, despite the fact that many of Amazon's delivery stations and sortation centers don't fall into that category.

In a letter to shareholders in April, CEO Andy Jassy said Amazon's injury rate was "misunderstood," explaining that Amazon actually split its workforce into two categories when comparing itself to others in the same industries: warehouse workers, and courier and delivery service workers.

By that logic, Amazon's injury rate was higher than its warehouse peers — 6.4 versus 5.5 — but lower than its delivery peers — 7.6 versus 9.1. Amazon is "about average relative to peers," Jassy wrote in his letter. "But we don't seek to be average. We want to be best in class."

Amazon has come under fire for its expected pace of delivery in the past, most notably when some drivers said publicly they had to resort to urinating in bottles, bushes and coffee cups because the number of deliveries expected each shift didn't leave time for a bathroom break.

In April, a delivery company in Wyoming sued Amazon on behalf of the 2,500 delivery service partners working with the company in the U.S., alleging Amazon set unrealistic and unsafe expectations for drivers. Owner Max Whitfield said in the lawsuit he often had to send out a "rescue" driver to help an "overburdened" worker already on the road.

In Colorado, an insurance company found Amazon delivery drivers had a higher rate of animal-related injuries or slip-and-fall incidents than drivers for other companies, the SOC report said.

Drivers "make it crystal clear the source of the problem — it's the production pressure," Frumin said. "These are conditions that the company imposes and the company can take away."

© The Seattle Times