Mercedes-Benz workers cast final votes in high-stakes UAW election
CBSN
After a watershed victory last month in Tennessee, the United Auto Workers is vying for a repeat performance Friday in Alabama.
The final votes have been cast in the election to determine whether more than 5,000 workers at Mercedes-Benz near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, join the UAW, with the National Labor Relations Board expected to announce the results in the afternoon.
David Johnston, 26, an employee at the Mercedes battery plant in Woodstock, said he expected the UAW to prevail. That would mark another major step for the labor group as it seeks make inroads in historically union-averse Southern states, following a vote by Volkswagen workers last month to join the union.
President Joe Biden said France was America's "first friend" at its founding and is one of its closest allies more than two centuries later as he was honored with a state visit Saturday by French President Emmanuel Macron aimed at showing off their partnership on global security issues and easing past trade tensions.
The Consumer Federal Protection Bureau last week launched an inquiry into what the agency is calling "junk fees in mortgage closing costs." These additional fees, involving home appraisal, title insurance and other services, have spiked in recent years and can add thousands of dollars to the final cost of buying a home.
Retired Maj. Gen. William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic "Earthrise" photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90.