Hospital pays back fees, admits no wrongdoing
Albany Medical Center has agreed to pay $90,229 in restitution to seven former nurses, most from the Philippines, after forcing them to pay illegal fees and threatening them with immigration enforcement, the Albany Business Journal is reporting. The state Attorney General’s office says that the nurses Albany Med has collected $82,000 in illegal fees, which the hospital is paying back with interest. The fees were levied if the employees left their jobs in under three years. The hospital denies wrongdoing, but is paying in order to put the matter behind them, the story says.
Sewage spill in Lake George, tributary
A construction problem on Route 9N near Hearthstone Point Campground just north of Lake George Village, released an unknown amount of sewage into the lake and closed a nearby swimming area, the Post-Star is reporting. A road crew installing a guardrail accidentally punched through a sewer line and releasing the sewage into a tributary of the lake, the story says. The state Department of Environmental Conservation found the levels of E. coli were under state maximums.
Juneteenth, the newest federal holiday
Today is a holiday. It became one yesterday when President Joe Biden signed a bill turning June 19, or Juneteenth, into a national holiday. Although Saturday is the actual day, the day off for federal workers is today. Juneteenth recognizes the day when slaves held in Texas were finally told of their emancipation, 2.5 years after the Emancipation Proclamation had freed them during the Civil War and two months after the Confederacy fell, the Times-Union is reporting.
“This is a day of profound weight and profound power, a day in which we remember the moral stain, the terrible toll that slavery took on the country and continues to take,” Biden said.