Advocates pushing to raise California’s minimum wage to $18 an hour heralded a key development Thursday as they began submitting more than one million signatures to get the Living Wage Act on the November ballot, easily surpassing the roughly 623,000 required. “California Voters have been clear: people working full time should be a...
Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Thursday led the introduction of new legislation that would enable federal regulators to forcefully crack down on corporate price gouging, a practice that progressive lawmakers and economists say has played a major role in driving U.S. inflation to a 40-year high. According to a one-page summary released by Warren̵...
On the heels of Senate Republicans and Sen. Joe Manchin blocking federal abortion rights legislation, a reproductive freedom coalition demanded that Democrats stop claiming they are defending women by keeping the filibuster in place. The message from 40 reproductive rights, health, and justice groups came just a day after Manchin (D-W.Va.) joi...
Slamming the current U.S. healthcare system as a morass of waste, dysfunction, and profiteering, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday introduced Medicare for All legislation that would eliminate out-of-pocket insurance costs and provide comprehensive coverage to everyone in the country. “It is not acceptable to me, nor to the American people,...
WASHINGTON (AA) – The US has denounced the killing of a Palestinian-American journalist in the occupied West Bank during an Israeli raid, but did not assign blame for Shireen Abu Akleh’s death. “We are heartbroken by and strongly condemn the killing of American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank,” State Depar...
WASHINGTON (AA) – The US hit a record-breaking number of drug overdose deaths last year, according to preliminary data by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released on Wednesday. The CDC’s provisional estimate of 107,622 overdose deaths represents a dramatic 15% increase from the previous record set in 2020. In a...
WASHINGTON (AA) – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev discussed on Wednesday advances toward peace in the south Caucasus. The officials “discussed recent positive momentum and future concrete steps on the path to peace in the South Caucasus, including border delimitation and demarcation, opening...
HOUSTON, Texas (AA) – A first-of-its-kind federal study of Native American boarding schools has identified at least 53 associated burial sites with 500 deaths reported so far, a number the US government believes could grow exponentially as the research continues. The report by the Interior Department pinpointed more than 400 schools desi...
Employees at two Starbucks locations in Santa Cruz, California won union elections on Wednesday, scoring the rapidly spreading movement’s first victories in the nation’s most populous state even as management intensifies its efforts to stamp out worker organizing. The groundbreaking victories, like many of the Starbucks union’...
WASHINGTON (AA) – Russia’s employment of hypersonic weapons as part of its ongoing military campaign against Ukraine has not fundamentally changed the conflict, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has said. Testifying alongside Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, Austin said the Kremlin’s forces have used hypersonics “seve...
