NEWS ROUNDUP
Massive voter turnout ● Life/death on the ballot ● More work in Bellingham
Monday, November 5, 2018
ELECTION
ALSO at The Stand — Issues matter. Your voice matters. VOTE! — Tomorrow (Tuesday) is Election Day. That means voters have to drop their ballots in the mail — no postage is necessary — or in local county drop boxes today or tomorrow to be a part of this historic election. (Voters can log into MyVote.com to find drop boxes near them.) No one knows for sure what will happen in these elections — not the pollsters, not the pundits, and not Uncle Walter. But there is one sure bet: there will be some local, state legislative, or possibly even congressional races decided by a relative handful of votes. Make sure you are counted! VOTE!
► In today’s Washington Post — Midterms test whether Republicans not named Trump can win by stoking racial animosity — The fierce battle for control of Congress and the nation’s governorships has turned toward blatant and overtly racial attacks rarely seen since the civil rights era of the 1960s.
► From HuffPost — That racist Trump ad CNN refused to air? NBC just ran it in prime time. — NBC on Sunday aired a controversial political ad paid for by President Donald Trump’s campaign during the prime-time commercial breaks for Sunday Night Football.
► In today’s Washington Post — ‘Full Trumpism’: The president’s apocalyptic attacks reach a new level of falsity — President Trump is painting an astonishingly apocalyptic vision of America under Democratic control in the campaign’s final days, unleashing a torrent of falsehoods and portraying his political opponents as desiring crime, squalor and poverty.
LOCAL
► In today’s Bellingham Herald — The Port of Bellingham is about to get a lot busier — A new three-year contract with Ports America, which has options for two additional three-year terms, will allow international cargo to begin regularly arriving at the Bellingham Shipping Terminal… A spokesman for the Port said, “it will mean a lot more work for our partners, and in particular the Local 7 ILWU… This will mean a dramatic increase of revenue coming through the shipping terminal as opposed to what we’ve had in the past.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — Get paid what you’re worth! Contact a union organizer today and find out how you can join together with your co-workers to negotiate a fair return for your work.
► In today’s Seattle Times — Moses Lake’s high-tech plant is collateral damage in U.S.-China trade war — REC Silicon, a Norwegian company, sees Moses Lake at the center of a high-tech manufacturing revolution. But that vision is likely dead unless Washington and Beijing can settle their differences on trade.
► In the News Tribune — 164 workers to lose jobs as Federal Way health plan company closes — A closure and layoff notice of a Federal Way medical insurer caps Catholic Health Initiatives’ gradual move away from the health insurance business.
► In today’s Bellingham Herald — After a raid in Whatcom County, here’s how the community is helping undocumented workers — Ruby Castaneda and Marisol Chapina were reeling. Hours before, their partners had been arrested as they headed to their jobs at Granite Precast in Bellingham. The undocumented workers were among 16 men arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in what the agency called an “ongoing criminal investigation.” So, here were the women — scared and overwhelmed — at a meeting at Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship, listening to Community to Community Development, a Bellingham immigrant and farmworker rights group, and Bellingham immigration attorney Hannah Stone lay out the details of what had happened and what to expect next.
THIS WASHINGTON
► In today’s Seattle Times — T-Mobile delivers another wake-up call (editorial) — With T-Mobile US considering major expansion away from its hometown of Bellevue, and Amazon’s HQ2 announcement looming, state and regional leaders must remind big employers that the Greater Seattle area still has the right business climate and ample capacity for growth.
NATIONAL
► In today’s LA Times — Blue-collar jobs will survive the rise of artificial intelligence. But the work will change — For all the technical marvels inside Rolls Royce’s jet-engine plant near Petersburg, Va. , a fully automated, 8-year-old facility, the plant manager talks a lot about soft skills such as trouble shooting and intuition. Call it the automation paradox: The infusion of artificial intelligence, robotics and big data into the workplace is elevating the demand for people’s ingenuity, to reinvent a process or rapidly solve problems in an emergency.
The Stand posts links to Washington state and national news of interest every weekday morning by 10 a.m.