News

Dear members and friends,

Support the Yu Family

Tiansheng Yu and his 27-year-old son were shopping in Oakland when they were brutally attacked on the 1800 block of Telegraph Avenue at about 3 p.m. on Friday, April 16. Tiansheng Yu was on life support and later died at Highland Hospital on Tuesday, April 20.

Mrs. Yu thanked the Oakland Police Department, the heroic people trying to stop the attack for her husband and her son, the media, the wonderful people of Highland Hospital, and the entire community, including the African American and the Asian community.

"I will be strong!," she said. "I love my husband and he loved me and our son. Financially, it will be very difficult without my husband. I have to be strong! I may need another job. But now, I only wish that my family would be the last family to lose a loved one. No more crying from any family. I wish we have a harmonious community and no more violence!"

According to Mrs. Yu, Tiansheng Yu was a happy man with a good sense of humor. He liked to help people and he loved his family. The only wish he had was to provide the best education for his son to become a doctor so that he can save people's lives. But now, he has to work to support the family.

Please donate to the Yu Family Foundation at: The Yu Family Foundation, c/o Metropolitan Bank, 250 E.18^th St., Oakland, CA 94606.

Unpaid internships

California's Labor Department has issued updated guidelines on whether internships should be paid or unpaid, with the new rules giving employers slightly more latitude not to pay them. In an advisory letter to a program that teaches information technology, the department's top lawyer reinterpreted the criteria on compensation for internships, and, in a nod to employers, said interns need not always be paid when they do some of the same work as regular employees.

Many wage and hour regulators maintain that interns must be paid if their work is of "immediate advantage" to the employer, but the California agency's top lawyer advised that such an advantage can be offset - and the intern not be paid - if the employer provides close supervision and lays out money for training.

In the meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Labor recently released a statement on the subject that clarifies employers' and colleges' roles under federal law.

The document applies a six-part test from the Fair Labor Standards Act, which derives from a 1947 Supreme Court decision involving railroad company trainees to modern-day interns without compensation.

Should you wish to hire an intern, consider contacting one of the many local universities and collages for more information.

God Bless America!