In a region known for being among the worst nationally for its air quality, plans are marching briskly forward on a proposed integration project that will combine operations at two sprawling oil refineries near Southern California's Long Beach area, expanding it into the single largest oil refinery by far on the nation's West Coast.
As California voters prepare to vote about legalizing the recreational use of marijuana, promises and omens have become part of the debate over the state’s future if Proposition 64 is passed. Will the traditional small-time pot farmers be replaced by industrial grow operations? Will employees in this newly legalized commerce receive decent pay, working conditions and benefits? Or will the new cannabis worker have more in common with the low-wage, immigrant farm workers?
After Occupy in 2011, and the wave of fast-food strikes the following year in New York City, the movement to raise wages took a new turn and a bolder stance: $15 an hour and a union. When the campaign first began, that pay demand seemed like a pipe dream. Yet the call for $15 resonated. Now, the movement has scored victories in two of the biggest states in the country.
In July, Emeryville, California, passed the highest city-wide minimum wage in the country. Here's how workers' lives changed - and didn't. As the gears of federal government have ground to a halt, a new energy has been rocking the foundations of our urban centers. From Atlanta to Seattle and points in between, cities have begun seizing the initiative, transforming themselves into laboratories for progressive innovation.
Todd Ashker is one of the leaders of the Pelican Bay hunger strikers and the lead plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit Ashker v. Governor of California. Sometime between 2008 and 2009, Ashker managed to get his hands on “Nothing But an Unfinished Song: Bobby Sands, the Irish Hunger Striker Who Inspired a Generation." What does a book have to do with the movement that ended indefinite solitary confinement in California?
[M]inority candidates will, with some frequency, come with unconventional political backgrounds and views as judged from majority perspectives. Regentally imposed political tests which assault the academic freedom of all will fall upon such candidates with unusual severity. (Leon Letwin's letter in defense of Angela Davis in 1969, relevant today as we defend faculty members such as Steven Salaita.)
“We see increasing numbers of these families in our legal aid services throughout the state,” the Western Center on Law and Poverty’s Jessica Bartholow told Capital & Main. “People’s lives are being ruined by these very high, 25 percent garnishments — the national maximum — being taken out of their check before they get it home to make sure their kids have shoes and backpacks, to make sure their kids can stay housed.”
Hopes were high among environmentalists when a bill designed to protect California’s drinking water was introduced in the state Assembly earlier this year. After all, California has passed some of the most far-reaching environmental laws and regulations in the nation, and the state legislature is dominated by the Democratic Party, whose members are generally inclined to vote for tougher environmental standards. It never had a chance.
This is one of a series of articles published by Capital and Main focusing on the systemic dysfunction that plagues the care services provided to the elderly and disabled in California, with a focus on the current battle over funding In-Home Supportive Services.
Spread the word