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“We were elected to implement an aggressive reform program. And that is what we are doing now. We now have three years without further elections ahead of us, our performance will be assessed in 2027.”

It almost sounds like a threat from the conservative Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. His centre-right party Nea Dimokratia With 28.3 percent of the vote, it easily took first place in the European elections, almost twice as many as the left-wing opposition party Syriza (14.9 percent). However, it remained far below the 33 percent target set by Mitsotakis.

The reason given was the currently largest It rises of the Greeks: the high Cost of living,According to the Bank of Greece, 27 percent of the Greek population spends more than 40 percent of their income on housing costs.

Mitsotakis wants to counteract this – and focuses on employer-friendly measureswhich, however, causes the unions and left-wing politicians to cry out.

Employees must be informed 24 hours in advance

From 1 July Employers may invite their employees to Six-day week This will make Greece the first country in the EU to introduce a 41-hour working week. Previously, this was only possible in the tourism and food industries, but now the arrangement of a sixth working day is permitted for all private and publicly controlled industries (but not civil servants). The employee must have at least 24 hours before For the sixth working day, a Surcharge von 40 percent of the daily wage; 115 percent if the day falls on a public holiday.

Overtime is not possible. The day must be entered into a system that is to be controlled by the state.

This is intended to ensure that “industrial companies with rotating shift work and highly specialised staff do not have to interrupt their processes,” quotes the HE DOES the Greek Ministry of Labour. Furthermore, every employee also has the right to eleven consecutive hours off work per day or night and to 24 hours every seven days.

Up to two jobs

But critics stress that workers are already under a lot of pressure: wages are too low, and many Greeks are forced to work two jobs to cover the cost of living – about eight hours a day in one job and up to five hours a day in the other.

Also that the Right of termination to be relaxed, will tighten working conditions: employers are to be first year can dismiss the employee at any time. Mitsotakis wants to encourage companies to hire more people: The Unemployment rate in Greece is twice as high as the Eurozone average (2023: 10.9 percent). Social security contributions employers should be reduced. A reduction in the VATwhich is often seen by left-wing economists as an effective measure to combat inflation, the Prime Minister vehemently rules out.

Protest by trade unions in September of last year when the law passed parliament.

Many working hours, but little productivity:

Economists have long complained about the low labour productivity in Greece – one of the lowest in the EU, while Greek workers already have the longest working hours in Europe compared to the EU. The German Federal Statistical Office According to 2022, an average of 41 hours per week, the European average was 37 hours per week. In Austria The average working hours per week were 35.7. The lowest value was reported for the Netherlands at 31.3 hours per week – due to the high proportion of employed people in part-time employment (43.4 percent).

We need to focus on increasing productivity and automating processes, otherwise the competitiveness of the country is not sustainable. This could also be achieved with a Reduction of working hours cites the HE DOES the head of the German-Greek Chamber of Industry and CommerceAthanassios Kelemis.

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BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom under a bill signed into law by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry on Wednesday.

The GOP-drafted legislation mandates that a poster-sized display of the Ten Commandments in “large, easily readable font” be required in all public classrooms, from kindergarten to state-funded universities. Although the bill did not receive final approval from Landry, the time for gubernatorial action — to sign or veto the bill — has lapsed.

Opponents question the law’s constitutionality, warning that lawsuits are likely to follow. Proponents say the purpose of the measure is not solely religious, but that it has historical significance. In the law’s language, the Ten Commandments are described as “foundational documents of our state and national government.”

The displays, which will be paired with a four-paragraph “context statement” describing how the Ten Commandments “were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries,” must be in place in classrooms by the start of 2025.

The posters would be paid for through donations. State funds will not be used to implement the mandate, based on language in the legislation.

The law also “authorizes” — but does not require — the display of the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence and the Northwest Ordinance in K-12 public schools.

Similar bills requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in classrooms have been proposed in other states including Texas, Oklahoma and Utah. However, with threats of legal battles over the constitutionality of such measures, no state besides Louisiana has had success in making the bills law.

Legal battles over the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms are not new.

In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a similar Kentucky law was unconstitutional and violated the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says Congress can “make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The high court found that the law had no secular purpose but rather served a plainly religious purpose.

Louisiana’s controversial law, in a state ensconced in the Bible Belt, comes during a new era of conservative leadership in the state under Landry, who replaced two-term Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards in January.

The GOP also has a two-thirds supermajority in the Legislature, and Republicans hold every statewide elected position, paving the way for lawmakers to push through a conservative agenda during the legislative session that concluded earlier this month.

As of 3:21PM local time the cause remains unknown. There is still no ETA on when 911 will return.

As of 3:48PM local time service has been restored.

Big labor news for those who were afraid the Amazon labor union would affiliate with a union more hesitant to take labor action.

⬅️ link to the tweet

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SpaceX's growing Starlink megaconstellation could be hindering the Earth's atmosphere from healing itself.

In a new study, researchers from the University of Southern California estimated the harmful effects from satellites injecting harmful pollutants such as aluminum oxides into the upper atmosphere as they burn up during reentry.

These dying satellites may even be contributing to "significant ozone depletion," according to the researchers. The ozone layer is the Earth's "sunscreen" that shields us from too much UV radiation from the Sun.

While researchers have largely focused on the pollutants being released by rockets as they launch, we've only begun to understand the implications of having thousands of retired and malfunctioning satellites burn up in the atmosphere.

And that's only becoming more relevant, as SpaceX has already launched almost 6,000 Starlink satellites to date, and is planning to add tens of thousands more — orbital ambitions that are now inspiring competing satellite constellations.

"Only in recent years have people started to think this might become a problem," said coauthor and University of Southern California astronautics researcher Joseph Wang in a statement. "We were one of the first teams to look at what the implication of these facts might be."

#Poking Holes

Since it's practically impossible to get accurate readings from the kind of pollutants satellites release as they scream back through the atmosphere, scientists can only estimate their effects on the surrounding environment.

By studying how common metals used in the construction of satellites interact with each other, the team estimated that the presence of aluminum increased in the atmosphere by almost 30 percent in 2022 alone.

They found that a 550-pound satellite generates roughly 66 pounds of aluminum oxide nanoparticles during reentry, which would take up to 30 years to drift down into the stratosphere.

In total, if constellations from the likes of SpaceX continue to grow as planned, the levels of aluminum oxides in the atmosphere could increase by a staggering 646 percent over natural levels every year.

And that doesn't bode well, considering we've only begun to study the phenomenon.

"The environmental impacts from the reentry of satellites are currently poorly understood," the researchers note in their paper. "As reentry rates increase, it is crucial to further explore the concerns highlighted in this study."

Putin goes on to say

”Our proposal is not to freeze the conflict, like how the west wants it, but to end it. I repeat, this is not to freeze the conflict, but for its final completion.”

Tracking Milei’s Wins:

Huawei does a lot of business in Argentina. As a result of the recent Argentinian currency instability crisis, it has become impossible for Argentina to pay China in RMB or USD, and Huawei really doesn’t want to be stuck holding the hot potato (Argentinian Pesos) in its accounts.

Imagine you have two cows:

Huawei has immediately been taking any payment it receives in pesos, and immediately flipping it by purchasing Argentinian beef, which it then ships to sell back in China. China is the largest importer of beef in the world, and Huawei is now China’s largest importer of beef, which makes it quite possible that Huawei is currently the world’s largest beef importer.

It’s been very difficult to find any English media talking about this, so here is a link to the article