NEWS ROUNDUP
Nurses mourn Pretti | Healthcare strike, pickets | Carpenter Media
Tuesday, January 27, 2026
STRIKES
► From the Yakima Herald-Republic — More negotiations planned between MultiCare and Teamsters union in Yakima — A strike by technical and technologist employees at MultiCare Yakima Memorial Hospital continues, with another bargaining session planned Wednesday. The Teamsters 760 union began its strike on Jan. 17 by picketing outside the hospital on Tieton Drive. Union and the hospital’s representatives had their first bargaining session Friday with a federal mediator…Friday’s negotiations took less than four hours, and resulted in no movement from MultiCare, according to union representative Dave Simmons. “They basically took three and a half hours to reject (our proposal) and resubmit the same one they gave us a month ago,” he said.
LOCAL
► From the Spokesman-Review — ‘One of our own’: Employees, patients at Spokane veterans’ hospital honor Alex Pretti, the VA nurse slain in Minneapolis — Employees at Spokane’s veterans’ hospital observed a moment of silence on Monday morning, and some affixed photos of Alex Pretti to their own ID badges in a show of solidarity with the VA nurse shot dead by Customs and Border Protection agents while being restrained in Minneapolis two days earlier. Link Miles, a registered nurse and president of National Federation of Federal Employees, Local 1641, said he saw and heard a mix of “anger, horror, heartache and some general solemness” from his colleagues at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center on Monday. He hoped that national VA leaders would send a message to Department of Veterans Affairs’ employees after one of their colleagues was killed in such a high-profile incident, but as of Monday afternoon they hadn’t received one, he said.
Editor’s note: a vigil for Pretti is planned for this afternoon outside the VA hospital in Seattle. More info.
► From KUOW — Seattle hospital workers mourn Alex Pretti, nurse killed by Border Patrol in Minneapolis — Nurses stood silently in the frigid air Monday evening, many in their scrubs, surgical masks, and caps. Some slipped out of work during a break or at the end of a long shift to gather at Harborview Park, a grassy spot a few feet from the entrance of the hospital. A large banner that read “In Memory of Alex Pretti” hung on a wall overlooking downtown Seattle and Elliott Bay…The memorial to Pretti will stay up at Harborview, volunteers said, to give everyone there a chance to pay their respects. “It’s hard to walk away from patient care from your job or to take a break to deal with something that’s so emotionally heavy,” Haggith said. “I’m proud of the people that came out and sat in their feelings with us and showed up and stood up in any way that they can.”
► From KING 5 — Anti-ICE rally draws hundreds to downtown Seattle — Roxana Norouzi, executive director of OneAmerica, said the demonstration reflected both anger and grief over the impact of immigration enforcement. “I feel angry, I feel heartbroken that this is what we have to be here doing,” Norouzi said. “Not only lives lost, but families separated because of this cruelty.” Norouzi said the group’s primary demand was that senators oppose funding for ICE and push for greater accountability. “We want Senator Murray and Cantwell to not only vote no, but use the power they have to refuse to give even one more dollar to ICE or Customs and Border Patrol,” she said.
► From the Olympian — Hundreds gather in downtown Olympia to protest ICE. ‘We want our country back’ — With Good and Pretti in mind, Olympia resident Kiki Jones said she was inspired “to come down and show up for the people that can’t defend themselves, and I know they’re just two people of many, many victims of this dictatorship, the Trump administration.” “Like, I spent all weekend just wondering, like, what could I do? How can I show up? And I saw this event (the protest) posted on Instagram, and I thought the time is now,” Jones said. “The time to show up is now.”
► From the Spokesman Review — ‘Tell me what crime this 10-year-old committed’: Governor, local leaders and parents react to immigration detention of Spokane student and her father — Logan Elementary has a higher proportion of Hispanic and Latino students than the Spokane Public Schools district average and nearly twice as many English Language Learners at a little over 18%. Several Latino families approached at Logan Elementary on Friday said they felt too nervous about the political climate to talk or be named for this story. “I think this is absolutely horrible and traumatizing the child it happened to and the children here who have to witness it,” said one mother who declined to be named. “I think the schools should definitely be a safe zone, and no parent should feel like they’re going to be targeted for taking their child to school and doing the right thing.”
AEROSPACE
► From the Seattle Times — Boeing’s recovery continues with more MAX deliveries — Boeing reported a $2 billion profit, or $2.48 earnings per share, in 2025, a significant shift from the previous year, when the company was reeling from a midair fuselage blowout at the start of the year, as well as a Machinists strike at its Puget Sound factories, layoffs, and costly defense programs at the end of the year. In 2024, Boeing lost $11.8 billion, or $18.36 per share. In the fourth quarter of 2025, Boeing reported net income of $8.2 billion, or $10.23 earnings per share, compared with a loss of $3.8 billion, or $5.46 per share, in the last three months of 2024.
CONTRACT FIGHTS
► From the Tri-City Herald — Picketing Kadlec nurses report 100+ violent attacks, weapon incidents in hospital — “I’ve been punched in the face, spit on, shoved into walls, kicked and most recently a chair was swung at me,” said one emergency nurse at Kadlec Regional Medical Center in a recent survey, according to the WSNA. All of those incidents caused injuries, some serious enough that the nurse missed work. For years, nurses have been telling management of the hospital that they are not doing enough to protect workers, patients and their families from violence, said emergency department nurse Crystal Rivera during an informational picket Monday morning in front of the Richland hospital.
► From KEPR — Nurses picket at Kadlec Regional Medical Center over safety, staffing and breaks — Alexis Martinez, a cardiac and acute care nurse at Kadlec, said she misses meal breaks on most shifts and frequently stays hours past the end of her scheduled workday to finish charting and patient care. “We’re all drowning in there,” Martinez said. “So, yes, of course, we help each other out but it’s still not okay for other people just to step up and miss everything, like lunches and breaks, just to help out the team member.” Martinez described situations in which nurses absorb additional patients so coworkers can take lunch, sometimes caring for eight or nine patients at once. When certified nursing assistants are also on break, staffing is reduced even further, leaving nurses juggling patient safety, basic care, and documentation.
► From the Tacoma News Tribune — Pickets scheduled at health care facilities across Pierce County. Here’s why — Nearly 300 clinic workers represented by SEIU Healthcare 1199NW plan the action from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m Tuesday (Jan. 27) at seven CHC facilities in Tacoma, Spanaway, Lakewood and Puyallup…The workers contend that the current wage proposal from CHC management is “far below the $25 hourly starting wage that is standard for healthcare workers in the area and necessary to keep up with the cost of living in Tacoma and reduce staff turnover,” according to the release.
NATIONAL
► From Wired — Palantir Defends Work With ICE to Staff Following Killing of Alex Pretti — “Our involvement with ice has been internally swept under the rug under Trump2 too much. We need an understanding of our involvement here,” one person wrote. “Can Palantir put any pressure on ICE at all?” wrote another. “I’ve read stories of folks rounded up who were seeking asylum with no order to leave the country, no criminal record, and consistently check in with authorities. Literally no reason to be rounded up. Surely we aren’t helping do that?” The discussion was held in a company-wide Slack channel dedicated to general world news coverage. The messages viewed by WIRED received dozens of “+1” emoji responses from other workers seemingly backing requests for more information about Palantir’s relationship with ICE.
► From Raw Story — Massive union overseeing Border Patrol demands ouster of Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller — The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 820,000 federal employees, called on Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to either resign or be fired following the death of ICU nurse Alex Pretti. “Our demand is clear: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was responsible for carrying out the policy that led to Alex’s needless killing, and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of that policy, must resign immediately. If they refuse, President Trump must dismiss them,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement.
► From Columbia Journalism Review — Carpenter Media’s Ominous Takeover of Local News — Carpenter Media Group, based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, has grown into a media empire at a rapid clip. When the company bought the Homer News, in March of 2024, it operated just twenty-seven publications in a handful of states. Today, it runs more than two hundred and fifty outlets in the United States and Canada and is America’s fourth-largest newspaper company…Acquisitions have come with widespread layoffs—and that, in turn, has drawn repeated rebukes from the NewsGuild–Communications Workers of America, the national journalists’ union, which argues the company puts profits ahead of journalism. As a private firm not required to reveal financial details, Carpenter Media’s funding and business decisions can be difficult to track. “Where’s this money come from? Is it coming from politicians? We don’t know,” Courtney Scott, the executive officer of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, a local chapter of the NewsGuild, said. “I’m very concerned about freedom of the press with them at the helm of these companies.”
► From the Washington Post — New evidence shows how discrimination shortens lives in Black communities — Researchers analyzed the proteins in the blood in more than 1,500 Black and White adults who were part of an aging study in the St. Louis area spanning 17 years. They found that decades of stress — childhood adversity, trauma, discrimination and economic hardship — were associated with higher levels of inflammation later in life, which correlated with earlier death…Over the course of the study, 25 percent of Black participants died compared with about 12 percent of White participants, the study found, meaning Black participants were more likely to die at younger ages. Researchers found that 49.3 percent of this gap was explained by stress and inflammation.
POLITICS & POLICY
► From CBS News — DHS Secretary Kristi Noem under scrutiny as Bovino exits Minnesota — A day after the demotion of Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino and his expected departure from Minnesota, Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is also under internal scrutiny, sources tell CBS News. Noem is expected to keep her job, but sources said she was at the White House Monday, facing questions about her department’s handling of and response to the killing of Alex Pretti. Her focus is expected to shift from interior enforcement operations to securing the southern border and other priorities. The shifts in DHS also come after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey had conversations with President Trump about ways to scale down the federal immigration operation.
► From the AP — What to know about Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, as he heads to Minneapolis — Homan portrays illegal immigration as black-and-white and has made no apologies for Trump’s policy of targeting everyone in the country without status, not just those with criminal histories, public safety concerns and recent border crossers…He also said, in a separate interview, that worksite immigration enforcement operations — which the Biden administration largely stopped — would be necessary. “I will run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen,” Homan said in 2024.
► From the New York Times — Voters See a Middle-Class Lifestyle as Drifting Out of Reach, Poll Finds — While a majority of people said that they could afford basics like rent, gas and groceries, most said they worry about the costs, and there was a pronounced sense that it has become more difficult, if not nearly impossible, to get ahead in America today…Two-thirds of voters said they now think a middle-class lifestyle is out of reach for most people, and 77 percent say it has gotten harder to achieve than a generation ago. The economic worries persist across geographic, gender and racial lines. The only voters who seem less stressed economically are those over age 65, who express far fewer concerns about costs.
► From Wired — AI-Powered Disinformation Swarms Are Coming for Democracy — These AI swarms, the researchers believe, could deliver society-wide shifts in viewpoint that not only sway elections but ultimately bring about the end of democracy—unless steps are taken now to prevent it. “Advances in artificial intelligence offer the prospect of manipulating beliefs and behaviors on a population-wide level,” the report says. “By adaptively mimicking human social dynamics, they threaten democracy.” The paper was authored by 22 experts from across the globe, drawn from fields including computer science, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity, as well as psychology, computational social science, journalism, and government policy.
► From NW Public Broadcasting — Washington lawmakers consider bills that would give farmworkers a path to unionizing — Lawmakers behind the bills say allowing farmworkers to unionize could improve workplace safety, job opportunities and wages. Octavia Santiago Martinez is a farmworker and elected member of Familias Unidas por la Justicia. That’s one of the only unions representing farmworkers in Washington. She spoke at a hearing for the House bill. “Porque nosotros, los que tenemos un contrato colectivo, hemos notado la diferencia entre tener un contrato y no tener un contrato,” Santiago Martinez said. A professional interpreter translated her comments. “For us, the people that have a contract and that have that privilege, we have seen the difference and have seen firsthand what it means to have a contract and not to have it,” the interpreter said.
► From the Seattle Times — Ferguson, Brown pledge legal action if ICE violates WA residents’ rights — At a news conference Monday morning, Ferguson said state officials cannot stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement from operating here. But he denounced ICE’s tactics — including masked agents snatching people off the streets and breaking into homes without judicial warrants — as “deeply un-American” and “most certainly unconstitutional.” Ferguson and Brown warned that they’ll be ready to file lawsuits and take other actions to hold the Trump administration — and individual ICE agents — accountable if they violate the rights of people in Washington state.
INTERNATIONAL
► From Wired — Revealed: Leaked Chats Expose the Daily Life of a Scam Compound’s Enslaved Workforce — The bizarre reality of daily life in a Southeast Asian scam compound—the tactics, the tone, the mix of cruelty and upbeat corporate prattle—is revealed at an unprecedented level of resolution in a leak of documents to WIRED from a whistleblower inside one such sprawling fraud operation. The facility, known as the Boshang compound, is one of dozens of scam operations across Southeast Asia that have enslaved hundreds of thousands of people. Often lured from the poorest regions of Asia and Africa with fake job offers, these conscripts have become engines of the most lucrative form of cybercrime in the world, coerced into stealing tens of billions of dollars.
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