- Associated Press Finance
UAW's push to unionize factories in South faces latest test in vote at 2 Mercedes plants in Alabama
The United Auto Workers union faces the latest test of its ambitious plan to unionize auto plants in the historically nonunion South when a vote ends Friday at two Mercedes-Benz factories near Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The voting at the two Mercedes factories — one an assembly plant, the other a battery-making facility — comes a month after the UAW scored a breakthrough victory at Volkswagen's assembly factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In that election, VW workers voted overwhelmingly to join the UAW, drawn by the prospect of substantially higher wages and other benefits.
- Associated Press
Funeral set for Roger Fortson, the Black U.S. Air Force member killed in his home by Florida deputy
A funeral will be held Friday for a Black U.S. Air Force senior airman who was shot and killed in his Florida home by a sheriff's deputy, a day after the decorated military member's mother vowed during an emotional news conference to get justice for her son. Roger Fortson's service is scheduled to be held at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in the Atlanta suburb of Stonecrest. The 23-year-old was a senior airman who served in overseas combat zones and was stationed at Hurlburt Field in the Florida Panhandle when he was shot to death by the deputy responding to a domestic violence call.
- Associated Press
Vatican updates norms to authenticate visions of Mary, weeping statues and stigmata
The Catholic Church has a long and controversial history of the faithful claiming to have had visions of the Virgin Mary, of statues that purportedly wept blood tears and stigmata that erupted on hands mimicking the wounds of Christ. On Friday, the Vatican will announce new norms to help determine whether and when these seemingly supernatural events are authentic. Church figures who claimed to have experienced the stigmata wounds, including Padre Pio and Pope Francis’ namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, have inspired millions of Catholics.
