Equal pay bill nears OK in House, faces long odds in Senate
WASHINGTON — House Democrats were poised to pass legislation Thursday that they say would help close the gap between what men and women are paid in the workplace, though the measure faces little chance of overcoming Republican opposition in the Senate.
The bill, which is supported by the Biden administration, is the latest salvo in a long-running debate about equality of pay and the government’s role in ensuring it. Despite their past efforts, including the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 signed into law by President Barack Obama, Democrats say there is still more that needs to be done to close a gap in pay, where white women make on average 82 cents to every dollar earned by white men.
“Sadly, equal pay is not yet a reality in America,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “It’s almost sinful.”
The bill would make it easier to sue employers over pay discrimination, curb the ability of companies to retaliate and beef up enforcement of existing laws, including a new requirement that businesses submit detailed pay data to the federal government for use in policing pay discrimination laws. It would also ban employers from prohibiting employees from discussing their salaries.
Republicans say laws already on the books outlaw pay discrimination. And they counter that the bill would largely be a boon for trial lawyers looking to sue companies while miring employers in burdensome new reporting requirements that would require them to submit detailed pay information to the federal government.
Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, said that “wage discrimination has no place in any society.” But he said the Democrats’ bill wasn’t the right way to go about correcting those wrongs.
“The path Congress must take is to not increase opportunities for trial lawyers, but to continue its focus on strong economic policy that actually expands opportunities for all Americans,” he said.
Democrats counter, however, that existing protections have proved insufficient.
Watchdog testifies: The U.S. Capitol Police force needs “cultural change” after the broad failures of the Jan. 6 insurrection, the top watchdog for the department testified Thursday, pointing to inadequate training and outdated weaponry as among several urgent problems facing the force.
Capitol Police Inspector General Michael Bolton has issued confidential monthly reports on the force’s missteps since the siege, when hundreds of President Donald Trump’s supporters broke into the building and sent lawmakers fleeing for their lives. In a 104-page report, he casts serious doubt on the force’s ability to respond to future threats and another largescale attack.
Bolton told the House Administration Committee that the Capitol Police needs to improve its intelligence gathering, training and operational planning. The way the force views its mission also needs to change, he said.
“A police department is geared to be a reactive force, for the most part,” Bolton said. “Whereas a protective agency is postured, in their training and planning, to be proactive to prevent events such as January 6th.”
Fiery riots in Greece: A protester and a riot police officer catch fire from a gasoline bomb during a protest Thursday in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki. The protester was arrested on suspicion of throwing a gas bomb, authorities said. Clashes broke out at the end of a march to protest a new law allowing the policing of university campuses.
The Capitol Police have so far refused to publicly release Bolton’s report — prepared in March and marked as “law enforcement sensitive.” But lawmakers discussed many of its findings at the hearing and agreed that there need to be improvements.
St. Vincent fears outbreak: Officials in St. Vincent said Thursday that they were extremely worried about a COVID-19 outbreak given the lack of water and more positive cases being reported as thousands of evacuees fleeing the erupting volcano crowd into shelters and private homes.
About a dozen cases have been reported in recent days, with at least five evacuees staying in two homes and one shelter testing positive, exposing at least 20 people to the virus, said Dr. Simone Keizer-Beache, chief medical officer on the Caribbean island.
Keizer-Beache said officials are preparing to do
massive testing as part of contact tracing, a complicated undertaking given that between 16,000 to 20,000 people were evacuated before La Soufriere’s explosive eruptions started Friday. She also urged people to keep wearing masks and asked them to cooperate, noting that some who arrive at shelters do not want to be tested, which is voluntary.
Europe virus deaths: A top official from the World Health Organization says Europe has surpassed 1 million deaths from COVID19 and the situation remains “serious,” with about 1.6 million new cases reported each week in the region.
The comments by Dr. Hans Kluge on Thursday aimed to emphasize that Europe must keep up its guard with social distancing and speed up vaccinations as virus variants drive new infections to record levels in some nations.
Overall, a tally by Johns
Hopkins University shows nearly 3 million deaths have been linked to COVID19 worldwide — with the Americas hardest hit, followed by Europe. The United States, Brazil and Mexico have reported the highest number of deaths, collectively at more than 1.1 million.
Weather delays Gulf search: Families anxiously awaited news of the 12 people missing from a capsized oil industry vessel Thursday while stormy weather delayed divers from reaching the ship to search for survivors.
Rescuers don’t know whether any of the missing might be caught inside the lift boat that flipped over Tuesday in hurricane-force winds and high seas about 8 miles off the coast of Louisiana, Coast Guard spokesmen said.
“There is the potential they are still there, but we don’t know,” Petty Officer 2nd Class Jonathan Lally
said early Thursday. “We’re still searching for 12 people because there are 12 still missing.”
Claims in plane’s downing: A lawyer for relatives of people killed in the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine told a court hearing Thursday in The Hague, Netherlands, that 290 relatives and partners of the victims have filed compensation claims for “emotional distress” against the four suspects charged in the downing.
Lawyer Arlette Schijns was speaking at a preliminary hearing in the long-running legal proceedings against three Russians and a Ukrainian charged with involvement in shooting down the Amsterdamto-Kuala Lumpur flight on July 17, 2014. All 298 people on board the Boeing 777 were killed.
None of the suspects have appeared in court, and the case is proceeding in their absence.