St. Louis - MetroLink, buses running on time today

Metro's buses and light-rail trains were running on normal timetables today despite fears that labor strife would interrupt service on the region's largest transit system.

Leaders of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 788 promised last week that operators, mechanics and clerical staff would not walk off the job early this week. The union has authorized a strike.

Metro and the Amalgamated Transit Union are meeting with an arbitrator. Metro wants to make changes to retirement benefits for new hires. The union objects to the changes and has also expressed concern about salary and medical benefits.

Metro President John Nations said there was a slight uptick in absences among MetroLink operators this morning. While there might be one or two absences under normal conditions, five operators called in with absences. Metro supervisors filled in for the absent operators.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/traffic/along-for-the-ride/d62a9eb1-418e-58e1-aafe-8e83d0e662b3.html

July 1: National Gingersnap Day

Pittsburgh Apprentices Rescue Seniors from Major Blaze

Pittsburgh Local 5 members are being credited with saving dozens of local senior citizens from a fire that tore through a nursing home June 25.

Community College of Allegheny County instructor Tammy Miller was teaching a class of 24 IBEW members when some of the students spotted trouble at the senior living facility next door.

“We were on break and some of students were standing outside when they noticed smoke coming from the neighboring building,” Miller said. “I then said ‘oh my God, that’s a nursing home’ and they made off like a swarm of bees for the building.”

The fire had started on the roof, so no alarms or sprinklers were set off. Most of the residents were not even aware there was a fire.

http://www.ibew.org/articles/13daily/1306/130628_PAfire.htm

June 29, 1776 Mission San Francisco de Asís is established

Mission San Francisco de Asís, or Mission Dolores, is the oldest surviving structure in San Francisco and the sixth religious settlement established as part of the California chain of missions. The Mission was founded on June 29, 1776, by Lieutenant José Joaquin Moraga and Father Francisco Palóu (a companion of Father Junipero Serra), both members of the de Anza Expedition, which had been charged with bringing Spanish settlers to Alta (upper) California, and evangelizing the local Natives, the Ohlone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_San_Francisco_de_Asis

June 29, 1956 The Federal Aid Highway Act is Signed into law

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, popularly known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act (Public Law 84-627), was enacted on June 29, 1956, when Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the bill into law. With an original authorization of 25 billion dollars for the construction of 41,000 miles (66,000 km) of the Interstate Highway System supposedly over a 10-year period, it was the largest public works project in American history through that time.[1]

The money for the Interstate Highway and Defense Highways was handled in a Highway Trust Fund that paid for 90 percent of highway construction costs with the states required to pay the remaining 10 percent. It was expected that the money would be generated through new taxes on fuel, automobiles, trucks, and tires. As a matter of practice, the Federal portion of the cost of the Interstate Highway System has been paid for by taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal-Aid_Highway_Act_of_1956

June 29, 1776 Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet (Cape May County) takes place.

The Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet (June 29, 1776) was an important, early naval victory for the Continental Navy and the future "Father of the American Navy", Captain John Barry.[3] It was the first privateer battle of the American Revolutionary War.[1] The battle resulted in the first American casualty of the war in New Jersey, Lieutenant Richard Wickes, brother of Captain Lambert Wickes.[4][5] It was the only revolutionary war battle fought in Cape May County.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Turtle_Gut_Inlet

June 29: National Almond Buttercrunch Day

East Wing Of St. Louis Art Museum Opens This Weekend

ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI)– The much anticipated east wing of the St. Louis Art Museum opens Saturday. Work on the 200,000 square foot expansion began in 2010 and was designed by award winning British architect David Chipperfield.

The very modern building features a dark polished concrete facade, floor to ceiling windows and skylights in the galleries. It’s a stark contrast to the main building built in 1904 for the World’s Fair.

“An architectural building which is completely of the moment and plays very nicely with the main building,” says museum’s Contemporary Art Curator Simon Kelly.

The east building will house all of the museum’s contemporary art and its temporary exhibitions. It will allow the museum to showcase its vast modern collection, displaying artwork that hasn’t been seen in more than a decade.

http://fox2now.com/2013/06/27/east-wing-of-st-louis-art-museum-opens-this-weekend/

June 28, 1896 – 58 die in the Newton Coal Company's Twin Shaft Mine in Pittston City, PA explosion

At 3 o'clock in the morning on Sunday, June 28, 1896, ninety miners were at work in the Red Ash Vein of the Newton Coal Company's Twin Shaft Mine in Pittston when the roof quickly caved in. It was believed at the time that all of the men perished.

The concussion from the explosion was so great that it was heard for miles around. The foundation of nearly every building in Pittston was shaken and windows and doors were rattled as in a tornado. In the houses nearer to the mine, persons were thrown from their beds, thinking an earthquake had occurred. Immediately after the boom, the dreaded colliery whistle and town fire alarms sounded. Families ran to the mine works. Newspapers reported "havoc everywhere," from grief-stricken wives to frantic efforts at impenetrable tunnels of collapsed top rock and crushed timbers.

Two rescue tunnels were attempted, though volunteers sometimes removed only 20 feet (6.1 m) feet a day. Hope faded for the victims of the disaster, most of whom were Irish and Lithuanian immigrants. Their names were compiled later because the list of those working was underground too.

There were 58 men and boys who died during the terrible cave-in, buried 434 feet (132 m) below ground. In their wake, they left 31 widows and 101 orphans. None of their bodies were ever recovered. It was one of the largest coal mining disasters in Pennsylvania history (even larger than the Knox Mine Disaster many decades later in nearby Port Griffith).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Shaft_Disaster

June 28, 1894 – Labor Day becomes an official US holiday.

In 1882, Matthew Maguire, a machinist, first proposed the holiday while serving as secretary of the CLU (Central Labor Union) of New York.[1] Others argue that it was first proposed by Peter J. McGuire of the American Federation of Labor in May 1882,[2] after witnessing the annual labour festival held in Toronto, Canada.[3]

Oregon was the first state to make it a holiday on February 21, 1887. By the time it became a federal holiday in 1894, thirty states officially celebrated Labor Day.[2] Following the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the U.S. military and U.S. Marshals during the Pullman Strike, the United States Congress unanimously voted to approve rush legislation that made Labor Day a national holiday;
President Grover Cleveland signed it into law a mere six days after the end of the strike.[4] The September date originally chosen by the CLU of New York and observed by many of the nation's trade unions for the past several years was selected rather than the more widespread International Workers' Day because Cleveland was concerned that observance of the latter would be associated with the nascent Communist, Syndicalist and Anarchist movements that, though distinct from one another, had rallied to commemorate the Haymarket Affair in International Workers' Day.[5] All U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and the territories have made it a statutory holiday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day