Flight attendants’ rights | Moms | GOP vs. Latino-majority district

Monday, May 11, 2026

LOCAL

► From KNKX — ‘Runway to Runway’ shows what flight attendants wore while fighting for rights — Ford became a flight attendant in 1978, when airlines were strict about uniforms. At that time, airline companies had weight requirements for attendants and forced women out of the job if they were pregnant. Flight attendants fought to change that and, in turn, helped improve working conditions across other industries as well. Their stories and uniforms are highlighted at the Museum of Flight’s exhibition, Runway to Runway: Styles and Stories of Flight Attendant Fashions.

► From the Olympian — Thurston Co. school board struggles with decision on layoffs, finally votes 3-2 — North Thurston Education Association President Ray Nelson also attended the meeting. “As far as I understand unless there’s money elsewhere, this has to happen,” he said about the reduction in force. “I mean we’re still months from the beginning of the school year, so could other things happen? It’s a possibility, but they made the decision, and we will continue to work with the staff to try to provide them a soft landing, if we can.”

► From the Seattle Medium — Seattle Paraeducators Warn Budget Cuts Will Harm The Most Vulnerable Students — As Seattle Public Schools faces a projected $100 million budget deficit, paraeducators across the district are warning that proposed cuts could dismantle critical support systems for the city’s most vulnerable students…“I feel like it’s an injustice to not look at those positions as just as important as a certified teacher,” said Wheeler. “The relationship building and the crisis response and all the cultural connections, that is the work that we do.”

► From Oregon Live — Oregon teachers protest Nike over tax breaks, factory wages — About two dozen teachers protested Saturday in front of Nike’s downtown Portland store, demanding the sportswear company pay more Oregon taxes to fund public education. The demonstrators called on Nike to pay the state $2 billion — the amount they claim the company has saved through a 30-year tax deal it secured in 2012…The teachers also used the protest to denounce what they described as the low wages of Nike’s contracted factory workers. The campaign said it wants Nike to pay higher wages and support the collective bargaining rights of the unionized workers in its contract factories.“Stitch by stitch, shoe by shoe, a living wage is overdue,” protesters chanted.

► From the Tri-City Herald — What ICE arrest data tells us about Tri-Cities arrests. And what it doesn’t — Immigration arrests are spiking in the Tri-Cities, but the majority of people in the area being arrested by ICE have no significant or violent criminal history, according to the agency’s own data. More immigrants were targeted in Benton and Franklin counties last year than the previous two years combined, according to data on arrests made by field officers and custody requests for people already in a county or state jail.

ORGANIZING

► From Engadget — Workers for Xbox studio Double Fine are forming a union — Double Fine, the first-party Xbox game developer behind Psychonauts, is forming a union. As Aftermath reports, the studio has filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on May 7 to form a union with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) involving all 42 regular part-time and full-time employees. CWA told the publication that the studio made the decision to organize to “preserve and extend [its] commitments to creative excellence, diversity and inclusion, and worker quality of life.” Workers are asking Microsoft for voluntary recognition, in addition to filing an election petition with the NLRB to secure union representation.

► From the Hollywood Reporter — MrBeast’s ’Beast Games’ Voluntarily Recognizes IATSE Union — The YouTuber’s Amazon Prime Video competition show Beast Games has voluntarily recognized an IATSE union and is negotiating a labor contract, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Negotiations are taking place after a group of crew members on the set of the show’s third season began organizing with the crew union. Filming is primarily taking place in the hometown of Mr Beast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson: Greenville, North Carolina.

NATIONAL

► From 19th News — Mothers are stretching every dollar — and still finding ways to care for their families — Recent survey data from No Kid Hungry, which works to end childhood hunger, shows that more than 2 in 5 mothers (43 percent) say they worry about whether they can consistently provide their children with healthy meals…In Washington state, Ashleigh Ligon is trying to stretch her dollar. But it’s hard…Ligon receives assistance through the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps 1 in 8 low-income Americans feed themselves and their families. Last year, Republicans in Congress cut $186 billion from the program over 10 years — the largest cut in its 60-year existence. Emerging data on the impact of new work requirements shows a drop in enrollment across the country. “It is overwhelming. I think after what happened at the end of last year, where benefits were cut off, I think it’s really built a lot of uncertainty about it,” Ligon, 42, said…Ligon, who is disabled, does advocacy work in her community. She said she gets joy from helping other parents learn to advocate for themselves through parent leadership workshops.

► From Wired — I Work in Hollywood. Everyone Who Used to Make TV Is Now Secretly Training AI — In the reddit groups dedicated to people who work for AI contractor companies, an atmosphere of fear and paranoia pervades. I sought out these forums soon after my first encounters with the industry, because I felt it was my responsibility to incite others with the rage, disappointment, and betrayal I had experienced waiting for work that often never appeared. Turns out I did not need to incite anything. People were pissed…The wages were dropping week by week. When I first started scrolling the contractor jobs in early 2025, companies like Mercor, Handshake, Turing, Task-ify and Outlier were offering $150 an hour for “experts,” $35 to $75 an hour for “generalists.” Today, Mercor says the average hourly rate on its platform is $105. But in my searches across the industry near the start of 2026, the experts were often getting $50 an hour, and the entry-level grunt workers were getting as low as $16 —less than California minimum wage.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Tri-City Herald — Redistricting shakeup? GOP targets Eastern WA map favoring Latino voters — A group of Republican intervenors in the federal case that redrew the state’s legislative district boundaries in 2024 are now asking a federal court to quickly throw the map out for the 2026 primary and general elections. The request, filed Monday, comes just days after a pivotal U.S. Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais weakened Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which had allowed voters to challenge racially discriminatory maps that break apart communities of similar interest.

► From the Washington State Standard — Legislative races to watch as Washington’s election season revs up — Democrats currently hold a 59-39 majority in the state House and 30-19 in the Senate. Across the state, over 1,000 candidates are running for 600-plus federal, state and local offices. This year’s primary is Aug. 4, with the top two candidates advancing to the general election. Election Day is Nov. 3. Here’s a look at some of the notable legislative races taking shape.

► From the Washington State Standard — Let’s Go Washington prepares to gather signatures for income tax repeal effort — But the group said it remains undecided on whether it will pursue a ballot measure this fall, or an initiative to the Legislature, which would be likely to end up on the ballot in 2027. A spokesperson for the group initially confirmed to the Standard on Friday morning that the group would go for the ballot initiative this year, but then backtracked.

► From the New York Times — Lawmakers May Continue to Inspect ICE Detention Centers, Appeals Court Rules — A federal appeals court on Friday required the Trump administration to continue allowing lawmakers to inspect immigration detention facilities without advance notice, ruling unanimously that the impromptu visits posed minimal problems for the government…One of the three judges, Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee, wrote in a 10-page concurring opinion that the government had not shown that it would be substantially harmed by allowing periodic oversight visits from members of Congress, beyond the “administrative inconvenience.”

► From Editor & Publisher — WGAE, SAG-AFTRA, DGA and NewsGuild rally Albany to pass the NY FAIR News Act — “Perhaps one of the industries at most risk from the use of artificial intelligence is journalism and as a result, the public’s trust and confidence in accurate news reporting,” said Senator Patricia Fahy. “According to the National Broadcasters Association, more than 76% of Americans report being concerned about AI stealing or reproducing journalism and local news stories, as AI continues to reshape our daily lives and careers across industries. To protect the public’s trust in reporting and the news they read every day and the journalists who do the work, I’m proud to sponsor the NY FAIR News Act with Assemblymember Rozic, and I look forward to working with my colleagues in the State Senate to enact common sense guidelines that protect New Yorkers from the unintended consequences of AI.”

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