A federal court on Monday ordered Southwest Airlines to provide back pay to a former flight attendant who was fired after speaking out against her union’s political activism.

The court ruled that Charlene Carter, whom the airline fired in 2017 after she posted pro-life messages and supported a recall effort of her union’s president, also receive maximum punitive damages and reinstatement.

“Bags fly free with Southwest,” U.S. district judge Brantley Starr wrote in the ruling. “But free speech didn’t fly at all with Southwest in this case.”

Carter had objected to political activity by her union, Transportation Workers Union Local 556, including its use of funds to send members to the left-wing Women’s March in Washington, D.C.

“Southwest and TWU union officials made Ms. Carter pay an unconscionable price just because she decided to speak out against the political activities of union officials in accordance with her deeply held religious beliefs,” said National Right to Work Foundation president Mark Mix, whose organization defended Carter in court.

The union and airline attempted to throw the suit out in July 2019. A federal judge rejected the move, saying Carter “sufficiently pleaded enough facts to state a plausible claim for retaliation.”

Carter first joined TWU Local 556 in 1996. She left in 2013 after discovering funds were used to “promote causes that violate her conscience,” according to National Right to Work. She was still required to pay union dues under the federal Railway Labor Act, which permits businesses to fire certain employees for refusing to pay dues.

Carter sent several messages to the union president after finding out about the Women’s March trip, calling the leader “despicable” in one message. Southwest officials then questioned Carter over her pro-life Facebook posts, according to National Right to Work. The airline fired her a week after the meeting.

“Ms. Carter’s victory should prompt nationwide scrutiny of union bosses’ coercive, government-granted powers over workers, especially in the airline and rail industries,” Mix said.

TWU Local 556 did not respond to a request for comment.

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While only one in five Americans say they approve of their representation in Congress, all 29 Senate incumbents won reelection in the midterms—in fact, the 2022 cycle, capped by Sen. Raphael Warnock’s (D., Ga.) victory on Tuesday, marks the first time in a century that not a single Senate incumbent lost.

The lawmakers’ historic showing stands in stark contrast with Americans’ sentiments about Congress as a whole: Only 21 percent of Americans approve of Congress, Gallup reported in October. That rating has not risen above 40 percent since 2005.

Seventy-four percent of Americans, meanwhile, say the country is headed in the wrong direction, according to an August NBC poll. Fifty-eight percent of those polled said they are “more worried that America’s best years may already be behind us.”

The victories, in the face of widespread dissatisfaction with Washington, show the value of incumbency as challengers often confront significant disadvantages in fundraising and name recognition. The results also suggest voters blame the other 98 senators over their own.

In some of the closest watched Senate races—Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire, Alaska, and Wisconsin—incumbents outraised their opponents by large margins. In Arizona, Sen. Mark Kelly (D.) outspent Republican Blake Masters by $70 million. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D., Nev.), meanwhile, beat opponent Adam Laxalt by more than $12 million.

While Democratic opponent Mandela Barnes out-fundraised Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) in direct donations, pro-Johnson PACs spent $30 million more than pro-Barnes organizations.

The cash disadvantages made it more difficult for challengers to overcome incumbents’ positive approval ratings in their respective states. Heading into Election Day, Kelly and Cortez Masto had a +4 net approval, Warnock had +5, Sen. Maggie Hassan (D., N.H.) had +10, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) had 0, according to polling from FiveThirtyEight. Only Johnson, who won reelection by 1 point, had a negative approval rating at -14.

Masters, Laxalt, and Georgia Republican candidate Herschel Walker, meanwhile, all had negative net approval ratings.

Name recognition and cash may have helped incumbents win this cycle, but the 2024 map is more challenging. Three Democratic incumbents are up for reelection in states that voted for former president Donald Trump by more than 8 points: Sens. Jon Tester (D., Mont.), Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio), and Joe Manchin III (D., W.Va.).

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Russian state media are mocking the United States for prioritizing WNBA player Brittney Griner over former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan because of Griner’s race and sexual orientation.

RT editor in chief Margarita Simonyan in a television appearance Thursday said she was “very amused but not surprised” that the Biden administration swapped Griner, rather than Whelan, for notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, as Whelan has “three problems.”

“His first problem is that he is white. His second problem is he is a man. His third problem: He is a heterosexual. This is not something that can be forgiven today,” Simonyan said.

Whelan, a former Marine convicted in 2020 on manufactured espionage charges, has spent two years in a Russian penal colony. “I was arrested for a crime that never occurred,” he told CNN Thursday. “I don’t understand why I’m still sitting here.” During the television segment, Simonyan and the other panelists repeatedly refer to Whelan as a spy and repeat the trumped-up charges against him.

The segment suggests that Russia’s propaganda machine plans to weaponize the Biden administration’s controversial decision to swap Bout for Griner, who was arrested at a Moscow airport in February for possessing less than a gram of marijuana.

“American voters were given a choice: a hero who suffered while serving his fatherland … or a black lesbian, hooked on drugs, who suffered for a vape with hashish,” Simonyan said.

“And well-known, for the sake of PR!” adds another unidentified panelist.

Bout, a former Soviet military translator known as the “Merchant of Death,” was convicted in 2011 of selling weapons to a Colombian terrorist cell that planned to kill American soldiers. Simonyan, whom the State Department calls “Vladimir Putin’s loyal propagandist,” said Bout’s release is “the first good news” for Russia.

“The second good news is that [the United States] spits on its heroes to the extent that it considers it significantly more important to free a rightfully charged, well-known athlete,” the Russian propaganda chief said, adding that “this says a lot about the state of this society, of these intelligence agencies, and everything related to geopolitical confrontation.”

Griner since her arrest has become a cause célèbre, which likely informed the Biden administration’s decision to prioritize her release over other Americans imprisoned abroad. President Joe Biden has met with Griner’s wife Cherelle several times, inviting her to the Oval Office on Thursday to personally share the news of Griner’s release.

According to CNN, “senior U.S. government officials” visited Whelan’s sister to “share and talk through the news” that her brother was not being released.

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More than 70 lawmakers including Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday urged President Joe Biden to take executive action to guarantee rail workers paid sick days.

On Dec. 2, Biden signed legislation to block a national U.S. railroad strike that could have devastated the American economy after some unions voted against the deal over a lack of paid sick leave. The White House did not immediately comment on the lawmakers’ letter, signed by 72 Democratic lawmakers and Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.

Senate Banking Committee chair Sherrod Brown, Senate Finance chair Ron Wyden and Representative Donald Payne who chairs a railroad subcommittee also signed the letter that noted that then President Barack Obama signed a 2015 executive order establishing paid sick leave for federal contractors.

But Obama’s order ultimately did not cover rail carriers “despite the fact that the Federal Government has hundreds of contracts with freight rail carriers. You can and you must expand this executive order,” the lawmakers told Biden.

Railroads slashed labor and other costs to bolster profits in recent years, and have been fiercely against adding paid sick time that would require them to hire more staff.

Railroad workers have no paid short-term sick days after unions representing 115,000 workers asked for 15 days and railroads settled on one personal day.

The contract includes a 24% compounded pay increase over five years and five annual $1,000 lump-sum payments.

“That fight isn’t over,” Biden said of the push for sick leave.

The letter said the Labor Department can set mandatory occupational safety and health standards for businesses affecting interstate commerce that could cover paid sick time, while the Transportation Department must promote safe railroad operations.

“Guaranteeing that workers are not operating trains or inspecting rail signals while sick or tired would fundamentally improve the safety of our national rail operations,” the letter said.

A rail strike could have frozen almost 30% of U.S. cargo shipments by weight, stoked already surging inflation, cost the American economy as much as $2 billion a day and stranded millions of rail passengers.

Congress invoked its sweeping powers to block strikes involving transportation – authority it does not have in other labor disputes.

The contracts cover workers at carriers including Union Pacific (UNP.N), Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s BNSF, CSX (CSX.O), Norfolk Southern Corp (NSC.N) and Kansas City Southern. A railroad trade group did not immediately comment on the letter.

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Russia is attempting to obtain more weapons from Iran, including hundreds of ballistic missiles, and offering Tehran an unprecedented level of military and technical support in return, Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward said on Friday.

Since August Iran has transferred hundreds of drones – also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – to Russia, which had used them to “kill civilians and illegally target civilian infrastructure” in Ukraine, Woodward said.

“Russia is now attempting to obtain more weapons, including hundreds of ballistic missiles,” Woodward told reporters.

“In return, Russia is offering Iran an unprecedented level of military and technical support. We’re concerned that Russia intends to provide Iran with more advanced military components, which will allow Iran to strengthen their weapons capability,” she said.

She also said Britain was “almost certain that Russia is seeking to source weaponry from North Korea (and) other heavily sanctioned states, as their own stocks palpably dwindle.”

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council later on Friday that Moscow had already refuted “on many occasions” the accusations that Russia was receiving military supplies from Iran.

“The military industrial complex in Russia can work perfectly fine and doesn’t need anyone’s assistance, whereas the Ukrainian military industry does not basically exist and is being assisted by the Western industry,” he said.

The Iranian and North Korean missions to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Woodward’s remarks

Woodward spoke ahead of the Security Council meeting on Friday, requested by Russia, on weapons from the Ukraine conflict that Russia says are “falling into the hands of bandits and terrorists” elsewhere in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Iran last month acknowledged it had supplied Moscow with drones, but said they were sent before the war in Ukraine. Russia has denied its forces used Iranian drones to attack Ukraine.

Iran has promised to provide Russia with surface-to-surface missiles, in addition to more drones, two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats told Reuters in October.

The United States said on Wednesday that it has seen the continued provision of Iranian drones to Russia, but that Washington had not seen evidence that Iran has transferred ballistic missiles to Russia for use against Ukraine.

The United Nations is examining “available information” about accusations that Iran supplied Russia with drones, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council in a report earlier this week in the face of Western pressure to send experts to Ukraine to inspect downed drones.

Britain, France, Germany, the United States and Ukraine say the supply of Iranian-made drones to Russia violates a 2015 U.N. Security Council resolution enshrining the Iran nuclear deal.

Russia argues that there is no mandate for Guterres to send U.N. experts to Ukraine to investigate the origin of the drones.

Guterres said in the latest report that the transfer of drones or ballistic missiles – with a range of more than 186 miles (300 km) – from Iran to another country would require prior approval from the Security Council.

Treasury yields rose and Wall Street stocks fell on Friday after data on U.S. producer prices raised conflicting views, stirring hope of moderating inflation but also fears the Federal Reserve will need to keep interest rates higher for longer

The producer price index (PPI) for final demand rose 0.3% last month and increased 7.4% in the 12 months through November, while the PPI for October was revised up to 0.3% from 0.2% as previously reported, the U.S. Labor Department said.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast monthly PPI climbing 0.2% and rising 7.2% year-on-year.

While the data showed inflation slowing over the last 12 months, the monthly rise fueled concerns that next week’s report on the consumer price index may indicate inflation is sticky and lead the Fed to not cut rates as soon as many anticipate.

Fed policymakers are expected to raise rates by 50 basis points next Wednesday at their last meeting of the year, to a range of 4.25% to 4.50%, which would mark a slower pace of rate increases.

“The markets are overly optimistic that at some point between June and December (next year) the Fed is going to be willing to cut,” said Anthony Saglimbene, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial in Troy, Michigan.

“Today’s data shows that inflation is coming down, but it’s lingering and is stickier than most assume,” he said. “The Fed is going to have to raise interest rates a little bit more.”

Futures show the terminal rate peaking at 4.948% next May, and then declining to 4.488% by December 2023.

U.S. stocks earlier pared losses after the University of Michigan’s preliminary reading on consumer sentiment showed an improvement to 59.1 in December from 56.8 the prior month.

But enthusiasm over the UMich surveys soon waned and stocks on Wall Street closed decisively lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) fell 0.9%, while the S&P 500 (.SPX) lost 0.73% and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) dropped 0.7%.

For the week, the Dow lost 2.78%, the S&P 500 3.38% and the Nasdaq 3.99%.

“The Fed has made it abundantly clear that it’s not in the business of repeating mistakes of the past,” Johan Grahn, head of ETFs at Allianz Investment Management in Minneapolis, said in a reference to halting rate hikes too soon.

“Time just needs to run its course before we know we’re on the right path toward the Fed’s goal, a softish landing that’s been talked about,” Grahn said. “It will take time for inflation to work its way down.”

MSCI’s U.S. centric gauge of stocks across the globe (.MIWD00000PUS) fell 0.14%, while in Europe the broad STOXX 600 index (.STOXX) rose 0.84%. But recession worries dragged the pan-European index to a weekly loss after a seven-week rally.

Treasury yields rose, suggesting higher rates ahead for the long term, with the benchmarket 10-year yield up 10.2 basis points to 3.595%.

The two-year note , which often moves in step with rate expectations, rose 3.2 basis points to 4.344%.

The yield curve measuring the gap between yields on two- and 10-year notes , a recession harbinger, was at -75.5 basis points.

The Fed’s summary of economic projections is likely to show rates will stay higher currently priced into futures, said Cliff Hodge, chief investment officer at Cornerstone Wealth in Charlotte, North Carolina in a note.

“The markets are too sanguine on rates after the first quarter and we expect Powell to take a more hawkish tone,” Hodge said, referring to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.

The dollar was broadly weaker overnight, but reversed some of its losses after the PPI report.

The euro fell 0.27% to $1.0528 and the yen was flat to 136.68 per dollar.

The world’s largest investment banks expect global economic growth to slow further in 2023 following a year roiled by the Ukraine conflict and soaring inflation, which triggered one of the fastest monetary policy tightening cycles in recent times.

In addition to the Fed, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England are also set to announce rate hikes next week as policymakers continue to brake the economy to curb inflation.

Oil prices rose but both benchmarks were set for a weekly loss as worries over a weak economic outlook in China, Europe and the United States weighed on oil demand.

U.S. crude futures fell 44 cents to settle at $71.02 a barrel. Brent settled down 5 cents at $76.10.

Gold prices rose despite an uptick in the dollar and Treasury yields as some investors still expect the Fed will slow the pace of rate hikes from early next year.

U.S. gold futures settled 0.5% higher at $1,810.70 an ounce.

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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro broke his silence on Friday for the first time since his election defeat on Oct. 30 and spoke to supporters calling for a military coup to stop leftist President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva taking office.

Bolsonaro said he had kept silent for almost 40 days, adding, “it hurts my soul.”

“Who decides where I go are you. Who decides which way the armed forces go are you,” Bolsonaro told his supporters at the gates of the presidential residence.

In his ambiguous comments, Bolsonaro did not endorse their call for a military intervention, but said the armed forces would respect Brazil’s Constitution.

He has not recognized Lula’s victory in the October elections and his silence encouraged supporters to continue demonstrations outside army bases.

Lula’s narrow victory over Bolsonaro will be certified by Brazil’s national electoral authority on Monday.

Bolsonaro told his supporters that the armed forces were Brazil’s bulwark to prevent socialism in the country, adding that “nothing is lost” and their cause would prevail one day.

“The Armed Forces are united. They owe loyalty to our people and respect to the constitution, and they are responsible for our freedom”, he said.

“Unlike other people, we are going to win,” he said.

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The effort to remove oil from the largest crude spill in the United States in nearly a decade will extend into next week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday, making it likely that the Keystone pipeline shutdown will last for several more days.

TC Energy (TRP.TO) shut the largest oil pipeline to the United States from Canada on Wednesday after it leaked 14,000 barrels of oil into a Kansas creek. It said on Friday it is still determining when it will be able to return the line to service.

The outage on the Keystone, which carries 622,000 barrels of Canadian crude per day (bpd) to various parts of the United States, could affect inventories at the key Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub and cut crude supplies to two oil refining centers, analysts said.
Crews in Kansas continued clean-up efforts on Friday from the breach, the cause of which remained unknown.

“We’re beginning to get a better sense of the clean up efforts that will need to be undertaken in the longer-term,” said Kellen Ashford, spokesperson for the EPA Region 7, which includes Kansas.

TC Energy aims to restart on Saturday a pipeline segment that sends oil to Illinois, and another portion that brings oil to Cushing on Dec. 20, Bloomberg News reported, citing sources. Reuters has not verified those details.

This is the third spill of several thousand barrels of crude on the pipeline since it first opened in 2010. A previous Keystone spill had caused the pipeline to remain shut for about two weeks.

TC Energy remained on site with around 100 workers leading the clean-up and containment efforts, and the EPA was providing oversight and monitoring, Ashford said. TC is responsible for determining the cause of the leak.

A corrective action order from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration (PHMSA) to TC on Thursday said the company shut the pipeline down seven minutes after receiving a leak detection alarm. The affected segment, 36 inches (91 cm) in diameter, was Keystone’s Phase 2 extension to Cushing built in 2011.

Washington County, a rural area of about 5,500 people, is about 200 miles (320 km) northwest of Kansas City.

The oil spill has not threatened the local water supply or forced local residents to evacuate, Washington County Emergency Management Coordinator Randy Hubbard told Reuters. Workers quickly set up a containment area to restrict oil that had spilled into a creek from flowing downstream.

“There is no human consumption drinking water that would come out of this,” Hubbard said.

Livestock producers in the area have been notified and have taken their own corrective measure to protect their animals, he added.

The EPA is the main federal agency that oversees inland oil spills. If the EPA finds TC Energy liable for the spill, the company would be responsible for the cost of cleanup and repairing any harm to the environment, as well as potential civil and criminal penalties.

Pipeline operators are typically held accountable for breaches by the EPA through the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the related Oil Pollution Act, among others, according to Zygmunt Plater, an environmental law professor at Boston College Law School.

Those federal acts restrict the discharge of pollutants such as oil into waterways and hold pipeline operators responsible for the costs associated with containment, cleanup and damages from spills.

A lengthy shutdown of the pipeline could also lead to Canadian crude getting bottlenecked in Alberta, and drive prices at the Hardisty storage hub lower, although price reaction on Friday was muted.

Western Canada Select (WCS), the benchmark Canadian heavy grade, for December delivery last traded at a discount of $27.70 per barrel to the U.S crude futures benchmark, according to a Calgary-based broker. On Thursday, December WCS traded as low as $33.50 under U.S. crude, before settling at around a $28.45 discount.

PHMSA has to approve the restart of the line. Even once the pipeline starts operating again, the affected area will have to flow at reduced rates pending PHMSA approval.

“The real impact could come if Keystone faces any pressure restrictions from PHMSA, even after the pipeline is allowed to resume operations,” said Ryan Saxton, head of oil data at Wood Mackenzie.