Relevant text below:

District 19 represents 8,000 machinists who repair locomotives and heavy equipment for freight rail carriers including CSX, BNSF, and Union Pacific.

The Department of Labor and the Machinists entered into an agreement to rerun last year’s election—which Murtaugh lost by just six votes—after the challengers filed charges over irregularities with member addresses. It is extremely rare to have an election redone in this way. Fewer than 0.3 percent of union elections lead to a rerun supervised or ordered by the DOL.

Ballots were cast—or due in the mail—on May 3, but then had to be sealed and shipped to a central location to be counted under DOL direction.

Murtaugh and Rosato campaigned on a platform of increased transparency and a more militant posture toward the employers.

“The members have voted in a working member, because they’re tired of the ways things have been run,” says Murtagh. “I campaigned on having members engaged in the contract negotiations—no more closed doors.”

Negotiations for the next national rail contracts are expected to begin later this year. Contract negotiations under the Railway Labor Act, which covers railroad and airline workers, often take years.

Fixed. Thank you.

Relevant Section on the genetics:

For the study, the researchers took blood from five of the cats, which had been adopted, and conducted a DNA test on four of the felines, which turned up no genetic mutations associated with white fur.

They then performed a whole genome sequencing for two of the cats, and this step turned up a deletion in what’s called the KIT gene, which can encode whether white will turn up in a feline’s coat (scientists have also connected variations in the KIT gene to piebald patterns in various animals like horses and mice.)

“In summary, comparative data from other species and genotype segregation analysis support the newly discovered KIT region deletion as potentially being a cause of salmiak coat color in cats,” the researchers conclude.