Friday, June 24, 2016

SOUND TRANSIT

► In today’s Seattle Times — Sound Transit puts $54 billion light-rail plan on ballot — Bold. Visionary. Historic. Courageous. Ambitious. Those were some of the adjectives Sound Transit board members used as they voted unanimously to put a $54 billion expansion plan on the November ballot. It would add 62 miles of light rail with stations serving 37 new areas, growing the system to 116 miles between Tacoma, Seattle, Everett and the Eastside.

► In today’s (Everett) Herald — Sound Transit board sends $54B expansion plan to the ballot — Sound Transit’s board of directors approved a plan to extend light rail to Snohomish County and other areas as part of its Sound Transit 3, or ST3, package. About half of the $54 billion plan would be funded by increases in sales, property and motor vehicle excise taxes.

► In today’s News Tribune — Pierce, King, Snohomish residents to be asked to vote on tax package for transit

LOCAL

► From Seattle Weekly — The fight to bring hotel housekeepers out of the shadows — They have some of the highest rates of sexual harassment and injury of any group of workers. A Seattle union is working to change that. Unite Here Local 8 recently launched a signature campaign for Initiative 124, a citywide ballot measure that would require strict protections against harassment and assault of hotel workers and would, if passed, ensure that some of the protections the union has already negotiated for its members extend to all Seattle hotels, including better access to health care, workload limitations, and job security. It’s the latest battle in the ongoing war for labor rights in Seattle — the birthplace of many recent worker-protection firsts, including the $15 minimum wage and the right for Uber and other taxi drivers to unionize.

► In today’s Seattle Times — Feds: Railroad failed to maintain track where oil train derailed, burned — Federal investigators Thursday blamed Union Pacific Railroad for a fiery oil-train derailment along the Oregon-Washington border, saying the company failed to properly maintain its track.

► From The Stranger — Seattle mayor involves FBI in hunt for source in Stranger police union story — A “shocked” Mayor Ed Murray is involving the FBI and threatening to hire a private investigator to uncover the source for our story on contract negotiations between the city and the Seattle Police Officers Guild.

► In today’s Seattle Times — New film brings home plight of young Skagit Valley migrants — The film “Every Row a Path,” which screens in Seattle this weekend, teaches us the difficulty of growing up as a child worker.

STATE GOVERNMENT

► From KUOW — Washington is BOOMING: 5th in nation for population growth — New Census numbers out Thursday reinforce a trend a you’ve probably noticed: The state’s population is booming. Washington ranks fifth for states that added the most new residents in the past year. Since last July, the state added about 107,000 people. That’s roughly the size of Everett.

BOEING

► From AP — Boeing’s historic deal with Iran rests on shaky foundations — Iran Air, now negotiating a Boeing purchase worth up to $25 billion, was dropped from U.S. sanctions in last year’s seven-nation nuclear agreement. The jet deal hinges on expectations Tehran has stopped using the airline to ferry fighters and weapons across the Middle East.

► In today’s NY Times — Boeing offers details on Iran deal, says it was all done legally — In a letter to congressional critics of the politically delicate deal, Boeing said Iran Air, the national airline, intended to buy 80 passenger planes in a variety of models and added, “we have a vigorous compliance mechanism at Boeing with regard to the screening of all parties with which we do business.”

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

► In today’s NY Times — Tears flow and spirits sag, but some immigrants look to November with determination — Many of those parents were angry or sad, but also resigned, because the court’s decision left them with the same uncertainties they had before. Others put on brave faces, saying the setback would spur them to do what they could, even without legal status, to turn out voters in the November elections who would push Congress to give them a pathway to legal status.

ALSO at The Stand — Leaders react as short-handed court puts immigrants in limbo

► In today’s NY Times — Impasse and heartbreak on immigration (editorial) — With a maddening 4-to-4 nondecision announced Thursday, the Supreme Court failed to decide the fate of President Obama’s 2014 executive actions on immigration. The program remains blocked — and there is no realistic way to resuscitate it before Obama leaves office. And so four million to five million people who might have been spared deportation remain stranded, vulnerable to arrest and unable to work legally. The impasse that made Obama’s program necessary — the absolute refusal by congressional Republicans to reform an unjust system — persists.

► In today’s NY Times — Three separate, equal and dysfunctional branches of government — Partisan turmoil is nothing new in Washington. But the cloistered Supreme Court now finds itself disrupted as well by its empty seat, unable to fully function because of a Senate unwilling to act.

► From the DOL blog — Standing up for workers subjected to horrific conditions without pay — After months of working and living in intolerable conditions without pay, Miguel Garcia contacted the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division to complain about his employer. (Read his story.) If you are concerned about your company’s pay practices, learn more on the Wage and Hour Division’s website or by calling 1-866-4-US-WAGE (1-866-487-9243).

BREXIT

► From The Hill — Markets tank following Brexit vote — The U.S. stock market is in freefall Friday after voters in Britain stunned the world and chose to leave the European Union. The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened trading down nearly 500 points in the first minutes of trading, one of the steepest collapses since the financial crisis.

► From AP — European, Asian stock markets crash

► From TPM — British prime minister to resign — British Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to resign after losing the referendum vote on European Union membership will set off an intense Conservative Party leadership battle.

► From Twitter

EDITOR’S NOTE — Are we leaving the European Union?

► In today’s NY Times — Trump celebrates Brexit vote — Trump celebrated Britain’s stunning vote during his visit to Scotland, saying that the people of the United Kingdom have “taken their country back” and musing that it could benefit his Turnberry golf resort.

2016 ELECTIONS

► From TPM — Sanders says he’ll vote for Clinton but still not ready to drop out of race — “Yes, I think the issue right here is I’m going to do everything I can to defeat Donald Trump,” Sanders said when asked if he will vote for Clinton.

► From the Onion — Cash-strapped Trump forced to replace Eric Trump with cheap migrant son

T.G.I.F.

► Because we have previously posted Led Zeppelin’s legally original “Stairway to Heaven” for TGIF (yes, we keep track), The Entire Staff of The Stand™ had no timely music video planned for today. So we decided to pull a lucky song from our iTunes hat. On “Shuffle All,” this is the first song that came up this morning. It was banned from the national airwaves in the former European Union member-nation of Britain due to its sexually suggestive lyrics. As he lip-syncs his way through it on the more progressive American airwaves, try not to be distracted by Raspberries frontman Eric Carmen’s clear struggles with the curling iron, and enjoy!

The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.