Saturday, August 24

Our Architecture section in Your News Hub Travel is finally out, and we have two fascinating articles about a greener highway coming to Dubai and a massive stadium being built in Morocco. You can check out more on those in the first two expandables below.

New Travel article: Urban design firm URB is planning to build a massive green highway along Dubai's Sheikh Zayed Road, among other sustainability-themed projects.

You can read more into this Travel article here.

New Travel article: Morocco has unveiled their first renderings of a massive new stadium coming near Casablanca for the 2030 FIFA World Cup, and it will be the world's largest soccer stadium once completed.

You can read more into this Travel article here.

Some of Canada's railways are back up and running after a huge stoppage recently due to labor disputes within the country's two largest rail companies.

Both Canadian National (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) suffered from a lockout for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which is one of the largest unions in North America. The companies were forced to temporarily deny employment to those union workers since there was a labor dispute going on, which sent the economy into chaos. On top of that, Teamsters conducted a strike on CPKC, adding to their worries.

The union consists of over 1.4 million employees in the United States and 125,000 others in Canada, all of which do miscellaneous jobs like truck driving and in this case, train conducting. Following the strike, rail operations came to a complete stop, concerning the economies of both Canada and the US over the important goods that would not be arriving. Various industries, such as agriculture, energy, and lumber were all expected to be affected until CN brought all of its 6,000 unionized employees back to work on Friday morning. However, CPKC remained shut down due to the ongoing strike.

Then, to stop the shutdown, the Canadian government stepped in, ordering a mandatory binding arbitration-- meaning that a third-party group would decide the outcome of the incident, not any side of the dispute. In this case, they decided that the third-party group would be the Canadian Industrial Relations Board (CIRB), which was the decision that spurred CN to bring everyone back to work. This tactic is considered unfair by many people, as the third-party can sometimes be biased towards one side or the other. CIRB has been asked by Canada's labor minister to end the strikes and the lockouts, while they have been discussing with the companies and Teamsters to find a solution-- they are yet to make a final decision, though.

On the other hand, Teamsters wanted a fair dispute over the issue to get workers better pay and other benefits for their work, not an order for binding arbitration. In response, they promised to challenge the order and also sent CN a notice that they plan to strike at 10 am ET on Monday-- while CPKC received a strike and a lockout, CN only got a lockout. Teamsters confirmed that they are willing to go to court to challenge the matter while also following the law and doing whatever CIRB determines is right for the time being.

In the meantime, CN has announced that they have an interim plan until CIRB makes a final decision, while CPKC has confirmed that they will resume operations soon. However, the railway company still remains under a lockdown, while CN has an incoming strike to worry about.

Fact of the Day (Reader's Digest): Blonde-haired people have the most hair follicles, with 120,000 to 150,000 hairs on their head. Black and brown-haired people have around 100,000-120,000, while redheads have only 90,000. Also, men have a couple hundred thousand more hair follicles than women.

Quote of the Day (Gracious Quotes): I learn more from the one restaurant that didn’t work than from all the ones that were successes. (Wolfgang Puck)

Word of the Day (Merriam-Webster): Newfangled (adj)- Newfangled describes something that has been recently invented or developed, and usually implies that this new thing is difficult for some to understand.

In a Sentence: The neighbors are always showing off their new gadgets and tools, but I feel no need for those newfangled contraptions.