Today in the News:
– Net firm accused of laundering $6bn
– Oldest Torah found
– NY high court to decide who can tap into Starbucks’ tip jars
According to US authorities, The Liberty Reserve digital money service that was shut down laundered more than $6bn in criminal cash. Weekend police raids in 17 countries scooped up Liberty Reserve’s owners, operators and its computer hardware. The Department of Justice said it was the “largest international money-laundering prosecution in history”. Liberty had about a million users and processed more than 55 million illegal transactions. The raids in the US, Spain, Costa Rica and other countries led to the arrests of five of Liberty Reserve’s principals, including its founder Arthur Budovsky.
The University of Bologna in Italy has found what it says may be the oldest complete scroll of Judaism’s most important text, the Torah. The scroll was in the university library but had been mislabelled, a professor at the university says. It was previously thought the scroll was no more that a few hundred years old. However, after carbon dating tests, the university has said the text may have been written more than 850 years ago. The university’s Professor of Hebrew Mauro Perani says this would make it the oldest complete text of the Torah known to exist, and an object of extraordinary worth.
New York’s top court will give its two cents into the brewing controversy over Starbucks baristas’ tip jars: whether shift supervisors and assistant managers are legally entitled to dip into them. The Court of Appeals was asked by a federal court to interpret New York’s labor law and its definition of an employer’s “agent,” who is prohibited from tip sharing. On one side are low-level baristas who serve customers and share tips weekly based on hours worked. On the other side are assistant managers, who don’t get any gratuities and want some. In between are shift supervisors with limited management responsibilities who serve customers and also share tips. Hospitality industry groups say the state court decision will be felt far beyond Starbucks and affect 42,000 New York businesses statewide and a quarter-million hospitality industry workers in New York City alone.
Today in the News:
– Net firm accused of laundering $6bn
– Oldest Torah found
– NY high court to decide who can tap into Starbucks’ tip jars
According to US authorities, The Liberty Reserve digital money service that was shut down laundered more than $6bn in criminal cash. Weekend police raids in 17 countries scooped up Liberty Reserve’s owners, operators and its computer hardware. The Department of Justice said it was the “largest international money-laundering prosecution in history”. Liberty had about a million users and processed more than 55 million illegal transactions. The raids in the US, Spain, Costa Rica and other countries led to the arrests of five of Liberty Reserve’s principals, including its founder Arthur Budovsky.
The University of Bologna in Italy has found what it says may be the oldest complete scroll of Judaism’s most important text, the Torah. The scroll was in the university library but had been mislabelled, a professor at the university says. It was previously thought the scroll was no more that a few hundred years old. However, after carbon dating tests, the university has said the text may have been written more than 850 years ago. The university’s Professor of Hebrew Mauro Perani says this would make it the oldest complete text of the Torah known to exist, and an object of extraordinary worth.
New York’s top court will give its two cents into the brewing controversy over Starbucks baristas’ tip jars: whether shift supervisors and assistant managers are legally entitled to dip into them. The Court of Appeals was asked by a federal court to interpret New York’s labor law and its definition of an employer’s “agent,” who is prohibited from tip sharing. On one side are low-level baristas who serve customers and share tips weekly based on hours worked. On the other side are assistant managers, who don’t get any gratuities and want some. In between are shift supervisors with limited management responsibilities who serve customers and also share tips. Hospitality industry groups say the state court decision will be felt far beyond Starbucks and affect 42,000 New York businesses statewide and a quarter-million hospitality industry workers in New York City alone.