Bernie Sanders will rally in Philadelphia with labor organizers Saturday to ‘fight against corporate greed’
PHILADELPHIA —Sen. Bernie Sanders will rally with union organizers in Philadelphia on Saturday, part of a multicity tour to advocate for better pay, safer work conditions, and easier organizing for workers across the country.
Sanders told The Philadelphia Inquirer the tour is about bringing “working people together to stand up and fight against corporate greed.”
“We are living in a moment where working families are struggling,” Sanders said. “Most people are not seeing their wages keeping up with inflation. Meanwhile, we have more income inequality and outrageous levels of corporate greed in terms of oil companies having record-breaking profits while gas prices at the pump are soaring.”
The event, which is open to the public starting at 3 p.m. outside the Independence Hall Visitor Center, will be livestreamed on Sanders’ social media accounts. It follows historic labor wins at Starbucks, Amazon, and across dozens of other industries around the country.
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
Vanessa Bryant says sheriff’s deputies violated the dignity of her husband and daughter
LOS ANGELES — A few days after the 2020 memorial for Kobe Bryant, the basketball star’s widow, Vanessa, was home watching TV with family when she learned that Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies had shared gruesome photos of the helicopter crash that killed her husband and the couple’s 13-year-old daughter, Gianna.
“I bolted out of the house,” Vanessa Bryant testified Friday in federal court in Los Angeles. Once she found a spot where her other three daughters could not hear her, she said, “I broke down and cried, and I wanted to run down the block and just scream.”
Bryant, who repeatedly burst into tears on the witness stand, said she felt betrayed by deputies she had trusted to protect her family. “I expected them to have more compassion — respect,” Bryant testified. “My husband and my daughter deserve dignity.”
Bryant’s appearance came on the eighth day of a trial in her federal lawsuit against L.A. County over graphic images of the crash scene that were taken and shared by sheriff’s deputies and firefighters. Chris Chester — whose wife, Sarah, and daughter, Payton, were killed in the crash — has also sued the county. He finished testifying just before Bryant took the stand.
—Los Angeles Times
Mobster auction includes handwritten letter from Al Capone and gift from Bugsy Siegel to Meyer Lansky
Make them an offer they can’t refuse. Julien’s Auction House is fielding bids for hundreds of pieces of gangland memorabilia linked to mobsters including Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, Sam Giancarlo and Bugsy Siegel on Aug. 28.
Perhaps the most noteworthy item in the collection is a letter penned by Al Capone while “Scarface” was serving time in Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, where he wound up in 1934. That letter was addressed to his son, Albert Francis “Sonny” Capone, who died in 2004. It’s expected to bring in up to $50,000.
In that missive, the elder Capone speaks of looking forward to being reunited with his family. He was paroled in 1939 and died eight years later at the age of 48. Julien’s pop culture specialist Trent Kalscheuer calls that personal item one of several pieces that make this collection interesting.
“What’s really unique about this collection is, when you think of mobsters, you usually think of the crimes and the atrocities that they committed,” Kalscheuer tells the Daily News “This is really looking more into their persona lives.”
—New York Daily News
Putin’s war in Ukraine at a standstill, Western officials say
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is at a near-operational standstill, with neither side currently able to launch an offensive that would materially affect the course of the conflict, according to an assessment from Western officials.
With both sides more conscious that they face a marathon rather than a sprint in a war already close to six months old, the tempo of the conflict has slowed, the officials said on condition of anonymity. They said the question now is whether Ukraine can generate a credible counter attack in the fall.
The assessment comes after a period in which officials in Kyiv had been talking up the possibility of an imminent counter offensive to retake Kherson, a river port city of some 290,000 that Russian forces captured as they swept through the south of the country at the start of the war.
The city is on the western bank of the massive Dnipro River, and has become increasingly precarious for Russian forces to defend and supply as Ukrainian artillery has destroyed available bridges.
—Bloomberg News
