


A judge has ordered Starbucks to pay an additional $2.7 million in lost wages and tax damages to a former regional manager who was earlier awarded more than $25 million after alleging she and other white employees were unfairly punished following the high-profile arrests of two Black men at a store in 2018.
In June, Shannon Phillips won $600,000 in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages after a jury in New Jersey found that race was a determinative factor in Phillips’ firing, in violation of federal and state anti-discrimination laws.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that U.S. district judge Wednesday ordered Starbucks to pay Phillips another $2.73 million in past and future lost earnings and benefits as well as compensation for tax disadvantages due to the lump sum, according to court documents. The company opposed paying any amount, saying Philipps had not proven she couldn’t have earned the same or more in the future.
General Motors’ Cruise autonomous vehicle unit has agreed to cut its fleet of San Francisco robotaxis in half as authorities investigate two recent crashes in the city.
The state Department of Motor Vehicles asked for the reduction after a Cruise vehicle without a human driver collided with an unspecified emergency vehiclelast week.
The DMV said Cruise will have no more than 50 driverless vehicles in operation during the day and 150 in operation at night. The development comes just over a week after regulators allowed Cruise and Google spinoff Waymo to operate autonomous robotaxis throughout San Francisco at all hours. Cruise said its vehicle identified the emergency vehicle and braked at an intersection with limited visibility, but it couldn’t avoid a crash.