NEWS ROUNDUP
Toxic SpaceX | NY nurses strike | Choosing ‘Good’
Monday, January 12, 2026
STRIKES
► From the AP — Thousands of nurses go on strike at several major New York City hospitals — “Nurses on strike! … Fair contract now!” they shouted on a picket line outside NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital’s campus in Upper Manhattan. Others picketed at multiple hospitals in the Mount Sinai and Montefiore systems. About 15,000 nurses are involved in the strike, according to their union, the New York State Nurses Association…The nurses’ demands vary by hospital, but the major issues include staffing levels and workplace safety. The union says hospitals have given nurses unmanageable workloads.
LOCAL
► From Investigate West — A Starlink lab exposed unsuspecting workers to toxic chemicals. Records show SpaceX didn’t act until the state got involved — SpaceX safety managers internally reported concerns with the lab as early as October 2023, flagging that the lab lacked proper ventilation and that workers were leaving the door open to help the circulation. But more than 1,700 pages of public records obtained by InvestigateWest, along with interviews with former workers and others familiar with the situation, reveal how Redmond’s SpaceX site, under pressure to increase production for Starlink, did not take action to protect workers potentially exposed to dangerous chemicals for more than a year until the state got involved, then fired workers who dared to speak up…SpaceX also received more than two dozen other internal complaints from workers who reported headaches, eye irritation and allergic reactions. Altshuler’s complaint said that he was concerned the chemicals caused two women in the customer support office to have miscarriages and another man to have a liver transplant.
► From KUOW — A Seattle fourth-grader and his family self-deport to Guatemala — Tillman Giebel, Diland’s fourth-grade teacher, spoke outside of Seattle Public Schools district office in December. “He’s a 10-year-old child of immigrants whose family is currently looking at being torn apart,” Giebel said. “This is a traumatic and devastating experience for anyone, especially a child.” He and a group of other educators and advocates then spoke at a school board meeting, calling on the district to stand up for migrant families and help stop ICE officers from coming on school grounds. Teachers say that some schools have talked about individual procedures, but they want districtwide guidance. “As a teacher, I am trying my best to navigate the situation, and I would be lying if I said that this didn’t affect me as well,” Giebel said. “It hurts me to think of the effect that this deportation could have on Diland and other students and families.”
► From the Wenatchee World — Enhanced premium tax credit expiration could leave 1,000s uninsured in WA — As federal Enhanced Premium Tax Credits expire, tens of thousands of Washington residents are at risk of losing health insurance, while others face premiums about 21% higher. About 80% of residents in Chelan and Douglas counties receive advance premium tax credits, according to the Washington Health Benefit Exchange…Health Benefit Exchange Chief Communications Officer Tara Lee said revised estimates now project fewer uninsured residents. “The original estimates were 80,000, however, with some mitigation factors, it has now been downgraded to 40,000,” she wrote in an email. “Which is still a tremendous amount of Washingtonians losing their coverage due to costs, but it is better than originally expected and planned for.”
► From the Spokesman Review — Hundreds gather in Coeur d’Alene for vigil for Minneapolis woman killed by ICE — In 2025, 32 people died in ICE detention. It was the agency’s deadliest year since 2004, the Guardian reported. A day after Good’s killing, a Border Patrol agent in Portland shot two people, Luis David Nino-Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, both later identified as Venezuelan nationals who appear to have connections with Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, Portland police said. “Here in North Idaho, we have not experienced much of what we’re seeing in other parts of the country, but that does not give us the right or the permission to sit back and accept what’s happening,” Perretta told the hundreds huddled together around a memorial for Good. “We are still the United States, and we need to act like the United States with justice and liberty for all.”
AEROSPACE
► From AeroTime — FAA controller shortage persists despite record applicants — A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) lays out why these numbers don’t add up. The obvious answer is that interest alone does not translate into certified controllers, and the FAA’s hiring and training pipeline remains slow, restrictive and unforgiving. But the story runs deeper than that. According to the GAO, flight capacity relying on the US air traffic control system has increased by about 10% over the past decade. Staffing, however, has moved in the opposite direction, causing controller shortages at many critical facilities. The pressure became especially visible in 2025, when delays and staffing constraints drew widespread public attention, particularly during the US government shutdown in October.
CONTRACT FIGHTS
► From the Hollywood Reporter — SAG-AFTRA’s Likely Strategy: Make AI Performers as Expensive as Humans — Here’s the thinking: A lack of cost savings could dissuade employers from using AI-generated performers instead of real actors like Emma Stone or Viola Davis. “In my opinion, if synthetics cost the same as a human, they’re going to choose a human every time,” Crabtree-Ireland said. The national executive director and chief negotiator of the actors union SAG-AFTRA enumerated on his dollars-and-cents approach to what the labor group calls “synthetic performers” in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show on Thursday. His remarks previewed the tack that the union may take when its negotiations with studios and streamers begin on Feb. 9, where AI is again expected to be a top issue.
► From CBS Sports — WNBA players union blasts league for ‘running out the clock’ as CBA expires — “At midnight, the 2020 WNBA-WNBPA Collective Bargaining Agreement will expire. Despite demonstrating our willingness to compromise in order to get a deal done, the WNBA and its teams have failed to meet us at the table with the same spirit and seriousness. Instead, they have remained committed to undervaluing player contributions, dismissing player concerns, and running out the clock,” the [union’s] statement read. The WNBPA still has not received a counter offer to a proposal it sent the WNBA more than two weeks ago, sources familiar with the situation confirmed to CBS Sports.
NATIONAL
► From Labor Notes — Renee Good, Killed by ICE, Was Standing in Solidarity with Her Neighbors — We are what we do. If the choice we face is between Good and ICE, the people of Minneapolis are choosing Good. An estimated 10,000 people attended a candlelight vigil January 7 to honor her life. One of those people was Daniel Mendez-Moore, a union organizer with SEIU Local 26 in the Twin Cities. “The only reason why this isn’t a picture of my blood is pure luck,” he said in a Facebook post, sharing a photo of the bloody seat of Good’s SUV. “I too live 3 blocks away from the murder site. I too bring my kids to school in the morning. I too stop my car to observe federal agents when they are in my neighborhood. “I share this horrendous picture to urge any of you on the fence right now, that if you love me, the only way to protect my life is to get active,” he wrote. “It doesn’t even matter what you do… just take 2 steps more than what you are currently doing to stop this creeping [fascism]. This is in fact the only way to keep ourselves alive.”
► From People’s World — Labor unions condemn ICE shooting of Renee Nicole Good — From nurses and teachers to farm workers and construction crews, unions are condemning the unjustified killing as part of a broader pattern of terror under the Trump administration. Taken together, the trade unions argued that the presence of masked, militarized ICE agents instills terror and fear, disrupts daily life and work, and makes America’s neighborhoods and workplaces less safe.
► From Reuters — US factory headcount falling despite Trump’s promised manufacturing boom — U.S. manufacturing jobs in December continued an eight-month skid that began last spring after President Donald Trump rolled out aggressive import taxes that he pledged would lead to a resurgence of blue-collar jobs by reshuffling world trade to favor U.S. workers…But the blue-collar jobs boom hasn’t materialized, adding to the soured sentiment about Trump’s economic policies among households concerned about still-rising prices and uncertainty about the labor market.
POLITICS & POLICY
► From the New York Times — Billions at Stake in the Ocean as Trump Throttles Offshore Wind Farms — Mr. Crowley, the president of the Rhode Island A.F.L.-C.I.O., learned that the Trump administration had halted construction on Revolution Wind, a nearly completed $6.2 billion wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island that employed hundreds of his members. Again…Businesses around the world have been roiled by President Trump’s sudden policy shifts. But few have had it worse than offshore wind companies. In its abrupt Dec. 22 announcement, the Trump administration halted work on all five wind farms currently under construction off the East Coast. They are collectively worth $25 billion and were expected to power more than 2.5 million buildings and create around 10,000 jobs.
► From Bloomberg — Trump Says He May Veto Extension of Health Care Subsidies — President Donald Trump said Sunday he may veto a bill to extend Obamacare subsidies if Congress sent one to his desk. Trump’s remark to reporters on Air Force Once comes after nine swing-district House Republicans joined Democrats Wednesday in advancing legislation to revive expired Affordable Care Act subsidies for three years. The Senate has yet to vote on the measure. It’s unlikely that Democrats will be able to overcome Republican opposition in that chamber, but the GOP will face additional pressure following the House vote.
► From the Washington Post — Justice Department opens a criminal investigation of Fed chair — Powell accused the Justice Department of using the threat of criminal prosecution to pressure the central bank to lower interest rates, describing newly issued grand jury subpoenas as an unprecedented challenge to the Fed’s independence. “The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President,” Powell said in a video and statement posted to the central bank’s website Sunday.
► From the Government Executive — Probationary appeal rights under further threat by OPM proposal — The Trump administration last week proposed new rules that would strip newly hired federal employees of their access to the Merit Systems Protection Board and further erode the grounds upon which they can challenge adverse personnel actions. For the first year of federal employment, new hires to the government already generally enjoy fewer removal protections than their tenured counterparts. Despite that, agencies may only terminate a probationary employee over performance or conduct.
► From the Washington Post — Here are the agencies that were cut the most by Trump, new data shows — In total, about 335,000 federal workers left government from January to November 2025, with a vast majority of those people quitting or retiring, according to data released Thursday by the federal government’s human resources arm. While Trump officials and billionaire Elon Musk had vowed to fire many federal employees — accusing the workforce of being bloated and inefficient — a small fraction of workers, approximately 11,000, were laid off.
► From the Washington State Standard — WA’s 2026 legislative session is getting underway — Washington state lawmakers begin a 60-day session today, in which a fiscal reckoning, flood recovery, and their own reelections loom large. They departed Olympia last spring, fingers crossed that a colossus of budget problems had been defeated with a one-two punch of spending cuts and new taxes. It was not. Adding to the difficulties: massive changes foisted upon states in the federal law dubbed “beautiful” by its Republican sponsors and “ugly” by its Democrat detractors. Then came the havoc of December’s heavy rains and flooding. The financial toll for residents and public infrastructure is still being tallied. But it won’t be cheap. And it’s not clear yet that the Trump administration will step in with federal aid.
► From the Washington State Standard — Federal judge blocks Trump election order, siding with Oregon, Washington — A federal judge in Washington state on Friday permanently blocked the Trump administration from enforcing a 2025 executive order that sought to require voters prove citizenship and that all ballots be received by Election Day. Oregon and Washington sued over the order last April, separately from 19 other Democratic states that filed their own lawsuit in Massachusetts. The two northwestern states argued that they faced special harm from President Donald Trump’s executive order because they run elections entirely by mail.
► From KUOW — ‘Enough is enough.’ WA congresswoman pushes to impeach Kristi Noem — U.S. Rep. Emily Randall, a Washington Democrat, says she’s co-sponsoring a measure to impeach and remove Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem from office. In a statement, Randall said she was “horrified” to see the video of an ICE agent fatally shoot Renee Good in Minneapolis on Wednesday — then, a day later, to hear that two people were injured in a U.S. Border Patrol shooting in Portland. “Kristi Noem’s lawless agents are out of control,” Randall wrote. “We cannot have rogue government agencies killing its own people in our communities.”
INTERNATIONAL
► From the Transnational Institute — The Deepening Labor Crisis and Myanmar Election — Myanmar’s workforce currently faces severe challenges across both domestic and foreign sectors. These struggles are defined by wage theft, undignified working conditions, excessive overtime pressure, and the precarious plight of migrant workers. Central to this crisis is the military regime’s activation of the People’s Military Service Law – commonly known as the Conscription Law – in early 2024. This move has created a pervasive climate of fear, particularly among youth who face the threat of forced conscription. These overlapping pressures – wage exploitation, forced labor and the looming threat of the draft – reflect a systemic violation of the rights of Myanmar’s working people, a crisis the upcoming “sham election” is poised to deepen rather than resolve.
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