NEW YORK (PIX11) — A New York state senator introduced legislation that requires municipalities and school districts to offer a remote learning option if their area meets certain COVID transmission criteria from the CDC

Sen. John Liu, who represents parts of Queens, says the bill is the best long-term solution to the constantly changing information and guidance from New York City’s Department of Education. “City Hall has utterly failed,” he said on Sunday night. “The Department of Education (DOE) has been deaf to thousands of parents who are afraid to send their kids into buildings.”

The proposed bill would force the city’s DOE to offer remote learning within an area if the CDC deems it as a high rate of transmission area. If the proposed bill were already enshrined in law to start this week, the entire New York City public school system would be forced to offer a remote option. The CDC’s map shows all five boroughs with a high virus transmission rate—more than 100 cases per 100,000 people.

Currently, only medically fragile students with certain conditions are allowed a full-remote learning option. But according to a survey commissioned by the student advocacy group Education Trust New York, 79% of New York City parents would like the option for their children to learn remotely.

Liu said his legislation would at least give parents the option of remote learning when COVID transmission is at a dangerously high level. “It’s just an option,” he said. “When things are not totally safe—we are not out of this crisis yet—the city is responsible for providing a remote option.”

The state Legislature does not convene again until a new session begins in January, which is when lawmakers could vote on the bill. However, he suggested lawmakers could be called back to Albany for an emergency session before January. “If it requires an emergency session,” Sen. Liu says, “I will be fighting for that.”

GLENS FALLS, N.Y. (NEWS10) – A recent tradition for the Adirondack Theatre Festival that has brought hundreds of films and thousands of new visitors to the area is returning this year. The hop from stage to screen for the Adirondack Film Festival is happening again.

It was announced on Monday that this year’s festival will be doing things a little differently when it returns on Oct. 14-17, taking a hybrid approach that combines both in-person and virtual attendance, with all films available both ways to facilitate COVID-related social distancing concerns.

“We are pleased to provide Adirondack Film Festival audiences with options to enjoy this great event in whichever way they feel most comfortable,” said Adirondack Theatre Festival Managing Director Tracey Sullivan.

The film festival’s catalogue of showings will be split between Charles R. Wood Theater and the Park Theatre, both in downtown Glens Falls and both past hosts for the festival. Although most showings will be the same whether seen in-person or not, some will vary.

The full lineup features over 70 films, with a lineup set to release on the Adirondack Film Festival website soon.

That list includes full-length feature films, documentaries, short films and music videos, among others. Some featured films include “Language Lessons,” starring Natalie Morales and Mark Duplass, which won an audience award at SxSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas; and “Lie Hard,” a comedy starring Catherine Curtin and Melanie Chandra.

Passes for the Adirondack Film Festival will range from $55 for an individual virtual pass to $140 for an all-access family option, and can be found online. Proof of COVID-19 vaccination is required for all in-person events.

“The range and caliber of this year’s films are very exciting,” said festival Producing Artistic Director Miriam Weisfeld. “One of these features will screen at the Chelsea Film Festival in New York City right after AFF. You can see it first in Glens Falls.” 

ENFIELD, Conn. (WWLP) — The first deadline for Connecticut state workers and teachers to get vaccinated against COVID under an executive order from Gov. Ned Lamont begins Monday.

Governor Lamont’s executive order requires vaccination for all state employees, kindergarten through 12th grade teachers and staff, and all child care workers. Those who have chosen not to get the vaccine must have an approved medical or religious exemption, and those with approved exemptions must submit to weekly testing.

After Monday, state agencies may no longer employ people who do not have the vaccine or an approved exemption. As many as 350 bus drivers across Connecticut are expected to not show up to work, according to the School Transportation Association, in response to the mandate. Currently, 1,500 drivers across the state are unvaccinated. 1,300 have agreed to weekly testing instead of getting the vaccine. The remaining are refusing to get vaccinated or submit to weekly testing.

Connecticut officials encouraged parents to drive their own children to school Monday in anticipation of a massive bus driver walkout in response to the mandate.

GLENDALE, Ky. — Ford and a partner company say they plan to build three major electric-vehicle battery factories and an auto assembly plant by 2025 — a dramatic investment in the future of EV technology that will create an estimated 10,800 jobs and shift the automaker’s future manufacturing footprint toward the South.

The factories, to be built on sites in Kentucky and Tennessee, will make batteries for the next generation of Ford and Lincoln electric vehicles that will be produced in North America. Combined, they mark the single largest manufacturing investment the 118-year-old company has ever made and are among the largest factory outlays in the world.

Notably, the new factories will provide a vast new supply of jobs that will likely pay solid wages. Most of the new jobs will be full time, with a relatively small percentage having temporary status to fill in for vacations and absent workers.

Together with its battery partner, SK Innovation of South Korea, Ford says it will spend $5.6 billion in rural Stanton, Tennessee, where it will build a factory to produce electric F-Series pickups. A joint venture called BlueOvalSK will construct a battery factory on the same site near Memphis, plus twin battery plants in Glendale, Kentucky, near Louisville. Ford estimated the Kentucky investment at $5.8 billion and said its share of the total would be $7 billion.

With the new spending, Ford is making a significant bet on a future that envisions most drivers eventually making the shift to battery power from internal combustion engines, which have powered vehicles in the United States for more than a century. Should that transition run into disruptions or delays, the gamble could hit the company’s bottom line. Ford predicts 40% to 50% of its U.S. sales will be electric by 2030. For now, only about 1% of vehicles on America’s roads are powered by electricity.

In an interview Monday, CEO Jim Farley said it would be up to the workers at the new plants to decide whether to be represented by the United Auto Workers union. That question could set up an epic battle with union leaders, who want employees of the future to join the union and earn top UAW production wages of around $32 per hour. It represents a high-stakes test for the UAW, which will need jobs for thousands of members who will lose work in the transition away engines and transmissions for petroleum-powered vehicles.

Ford’s move also could put the company at odds with President Joe Biden’s quest to create “good-paying union jobs” in a new, greener economy.

Farley said it’s too early to talk about pay or unionization at the new factories. He stressed that Ford will maintain a geographic manufacturing balance once the company’s investments in Ohio and Michigan are included. Ford and General Motors have UAW-represented plants in Kentucky and Tennessee, states where it is common for political leaders to actively campaign against unionization.

“We love our UAW partners,” Farley said. “They’ve been incredible on this journey of electrification so far. But it’s up to the employees to decide.”

Just four months ago, Ford said it would build two new battery plants in North America. But Farley said demand for the electric Mustang Mach E SUV and over 150,000 orders for the F-150 electric pickup convinced the company to increase battery output.

The Kentucky and Tennessee sites were picked in part because of lower electricity costs, Farley said, as well being less exposed to flooding and hurricanes than other states. Battery factories use five times the electricity of a typical assembly plant to make cells and assemble them into packs, so energy costs were a big factor, Farley said.

The company also needed huge tracts of land for the plants that weren’t available in other states, Farley said.

Both Southern states also have skilled labor forces and are willing to train workers for the new jobs, he said.

“These jobs are very different than the jobs we’ve had in the past,” Farley said. “We want to work with states who are really excited about doing that training and giving you access to that low energy cost.”

The Tennessee Valley Authority, which serves the Memphis-area site, sells industrial electricity at a price that’s lower than 93% of competitors nationwide, said CEO Jeff Lyash. Rates have stayed flat for the past decade and are planned to stay flat for the next 10 years, he said.

Combined, the three new battery plants will be able to supply enough batteries to power 1 million vehicles per year, about 129 gigawatts of power, Ford Chief Operating Officer Lisa Drake said.

Reaction from the union was tempered Monday, with officials seemingly optimistic about organizing the factories.

“We look forward to reaching out and helping develop this new workforce to build these world-class vehicles and battery components,” union President Ray Curry said in a statement.

Kristin Dziczek, a senior vice president at the Center for Automotive Research who follows labor issues, said the union’s future depends largely on organizing the new plants.

“It’s imperative that the UAW organize these if they’re going to have a stake in the electrification of this industry,” she said.

Union representation of the plants could become a contentious issue in the next round of national contract talks with the union in two years.

When General Motors first announced joint venture battery factories over the past few years, its executives said workers would decide on unionization. UAW officials howled in protest. In May, GM said it would support union organizing at the plants.

The Kentucky site is only about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Louisville, where Ford has plants that make SUVs and trucks now powered by internal combustion engines. Ford wouldn’t comment on whether those plants would eventually would make electric vehicles, but Dziczek said converting at least one would make sense. One plant makes the Ford Escape small SUV, in the most popular segment of the U.S market, she said.

Posted: Sep 27, 2021 / 01:32 PM EDT / Updated: Sep 27, 2021 / 01:36 PM EDT

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — Monday marks the first day of the COVID vaccine mandate for health care workers in hospitals and nursing homes. The mandate offers limited exceptions for medical reasons, while a religious exception remains contested legally.

Staff who work in home care, hospice, and adult care facilities are required to be vaccinated by October 7. In preparation for staffing shortages, Gov. Kathy Hochul released a plan that includes signing a state of emergency declaration if needed.

Josh Roberts, a workers compensation attorney at Vincent J Criscuolo and Associates, says that, in the future, there likely will be claims from individuals who receive the COVID vaccine for work—just like he has seen with the flu vaccine.

“I’ve had clients who have actually developed orthopedic injuries as a result of getting a flu vaccine,” Roberts says. “They were encouraged by their employer to get the vaccine and they ended up having that orthopedic injury covered by workers’ compensation.”

Although these instances are very rare, Roberts says that claims may arise from the vaccine itself, or how it was administered. Since the start of the pandemic, he says has seen claims from workers who have proved they contracted serious COVID cases from work. 

“Successful payment would be entitled, to have their medical bills paid by workers compensation, and some portion of their lost wages if those lost wages are related to the injury—in this case contracting COVID,” he says.

Paul Keneally, a labor and employment attorney at Underberg and Kessler, said religious exemptions are one of the most common, but they must be legitimate. “It has to be a sincerely held religious belief. It does not need to be a mainstream or well-known religion,” he says. “It just needs to be a sincerely held religious belief.” This means it can be vetted for by something like a religious leader.

Keneally says there will also likely be lawsuits from unvaccinated individuals who have been fired. “Let’s say there’s someone who doesn’t have a religious or medical exemption. I don’t think those are likely to be successful, but we may see some of those.”

Within the mandate, some perceive discrepancies about who is included, like contractors working in hospitals. “There is some debate over who’s covered by it, because there is language in the FAQs that state construction contractors are not subject to the mandate. But, others disagree,” says Keneally.

MOLINE, Ill. (AP) — An Illinois man unexpectedly won the Quad Cities Marathon this weekend when the two Kenyan runners who had far outpaced him were disqualified after being diverted off the course by a race volunteer bicyclist.

Tyler Pence crossed the finish line in 2 hours, 15 minutes, 6 seconds to become the first U.S. runner since 2001 to win the race through the Quad Cities along the Mississippi River in Illinois and Iowa. Pence, the head track and cross-country coach at the University of Illinois-Springfield, logged his fastest time ever with the win and took the first prize of $3,000.

Pence’s win came after Elijah Mwangangi Saolo and Luke Kibet diverted from the course a little more than halfway to the finish line when the bicycle rider leading them mistakenly went straight when he should have turned, the Quad-City Times reported.

Race director Joe Moreno confirmed that the bicyclist went the wrong way but said the two runners also should have known not to follow him.

“At that intersection where that incident happened, the course was well-marked,” Moreno said. “The signage is well-displayed. The volunteers are there. And the fourth element is those elite runners have a meeting the day before to get familiar with the course.”

Saolo — the grandson of Kenya running great Joseph Nzau — was on a near-record pace before the mishap. He has been training in New Mexico and trying to scrape together enough money to stay in the U.S. with his wife and two children.

Moreno said the race was planning to find a way to compensate Saolo and Kibet.

ST. LOUIS – More than half a billion dollars are at stake for Monday night’s Powerball drawing.

The winning numbers for the Sept. 27 drawing are 21-22-39-44-60, with the Powerball number 12.

The drawing is worth an estimated $545 million. If the winner opts for the lump-sum payout, they will receive $392 million after taxes. Should the winner ask for the annuity payments, they’ll receive 30 payouts over the next 29 years.

If you were to stack $100 bills equal to tonight’s massive jackpot, the stack would be taller than the One World Trade Center in New York City, which is 1,776 feet.

The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million.