Universal childcare | 40k prep to strike | Stuck in the strait

Tuesday, May 12, 2026

LOCAL

► From the Yakima Herald-Republic — Childcare providers rally in Yakima to advocate for universal childcare — Childcare providers from around Central Washington rallied at Larson Park in Yakima to advocate for a universal childcare system. Around 120 providers and supporters from Yakima County, the Tri-Cities area, Wenatchee and Moses Lake joined Monday’s rally. Labor union SEIU 925, Children’s Campaign Fund and Proveedoras Unidas de Eastern Washington organized the event. The rally was part of a larger annual national initiative called Day Without Child Care, meant to highlight the necessity of investment in early childhood education.

► From the Washington State Standard — WA public lands agency confronts operating cash crunch, as logging revenue lags — Amanda Hacker, president of the Washington Public Employees Association, one of the unions that represents Department of Natural Resources employees, believes agency leadership is at fault for the low account balance. “DNR leadership has attempted to attribute this situation to market conditions and external factors, without acknowledging the role of its own decisions,” Hacker said. “When you stop generating revenue for the better part of a year, the outcome is entirely predictable,” Hacker added. “The current shortfall is the direct result of those choices.”…Hacker also emphasized that if the agency falls behind managing forest land due to its budget problems, it could bog down sales and hurt revenue for schools and counties. “This is not just about agency operations,” she said. “It affects trust beneficiaries, rural economies, and the public at large.”

AEROSPACE

► From the Seattle Times — Boeing delivered 47 airplanes in April, keeping pace with March — Boeing delivered 47 airplanes in April, including 34 737 MAXs built in Renton and six 787 Dreamliners built in South Carolina…CEO Kelly Ortberg told analysts in April that Boeing had seen “some impact to deliveries” in the first quarter of the year due to premium seat certification delays. But the company still expects to meet its goal of delivering 90 to 100 787s this year.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From Lookout Santa Cruz — UC workers prepare for systemwide open-ended strike on Thursday, with local impacts to patients, buses, dining services — Workers in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees 3299 (AFSCME) span a range of occupations, such as food service, transportation, electricians, custodians and patient-care workers, like nurse’s aides and radiology technologists. The union says wages simply don’t keep up with rising housing and healthcare costs. “It’s the first time, not only for our union, but also for an open-ended hospital strike in the public sector in California,” AFSCME 3299 Executive Director Liz Perlman told Lookout. “This is really a last resort. After two years, we’ve tried everything else.”

► From Deadline — SAG-AFTRA Board Approves AMPTP Deal — The board “decisively” approved the deal, tentatively sealed earlier this month, on Monday, per the union. SAG-AFTRA did not specify how the vote shook out. Now, the membership will need to vote. Among the provisions in the new TV/Theatrical agreement, the parties agreed to merge the SAG-Producers Pension Plan and AFTRA Retirement Fund with an additional 1% to the contribution rate effective on the target completion date of January 1, 2028. The agreement also bolsters AI protections, specifically around consent and compensation, and establishes minimum rate increases.

NATIONAL

► From NPR — Inflation jumps to its highest level since 2023. Here are 3 things costing a lot more — The U.S. war with Iran has pushed inflation to its highest level in almost three years. Consumer prices in April were up 3.8% from a year ago, according to a report Tuesday from the Labor Department. That was the biggest annual increase since May 2023. Prices rose 0.6% between March and April.

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the Washington State Standard — WA Supreme Court races shape up as income tax case looms — State Supreme Court races often pass by without much attention as incumbent justices sail to reelection. It’ll be different this year, as retirements promise to shake up the high court. Five seats are on the ballot. And the fate of the Democratic-backed income tax on millionaire earners is expected to rest in the justices’ hands.

► From CNBC — Crypto legislation faces another hurdle: Labor unions — In a letter and email first seen by CNBC, the AFL-CIO, as well as the Service Employees International Union, American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees warned senators that the bill could jeopardize retirement accounts for millions of workers. The push from unions comes ahead of the Senate Banking Committee’s vote on the crypto bill scheduled for Thursday.

► From the New York Times — Supreme Court Clears Path for Alabama to Use New Voting Map — The Supreme Court on Monday cleared a path for Alabama to use a new voting map for the midterm elections, a victory for Republicans and another sign of the significance of the court’s recent decision narrowing the Voting Rights Act…In a dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the court’s majority had “unceremoniously” discarded a lower-court ruling “without any sound basis for doing so and without regard for the confusion that will surely ensue.” She asserted that the lower court was free to decide whether the recent Voting Rights Act decision had “any bearing” on its analysis or “if its prior reasoning is unaffected by that decision.”

► From the New York Times — Virginia Officials Ask Supreme Court to Restore Voting Map Drawn by Democrats — In their filing on Monday, Virginia state officials claimed that the ruling by the state’s Supreme Court had amounted to “judicial defiance” of the will of the voters to create a new district map. The officials asserted that the state court was “deeply mistaken” on “critical issues of federal law with profound practical importance to the nation.” That decision, they argued, had “deprived voters, candidates and the commonwealth of their right to the lawfully enacted congressional districts.”

► From Capital & Main — California Could Be the First State to Ban Quartz Countertops — A new state law that took effect Jan. 1 imposes tougher rules on the shops that cut, grind and polish the engineered stone used in kitchen and bathroom countertops. But health experts said it doesn’t go far enough to prevent workers from dying…Workers who fabricate engineered stone slabs can inhale dust containing tiny crystalline silica particles that tear and scar their lungs, making it extremely difficult to breathe. In California, that workforce is made up mostly of young Latino men, many of them undocumented immigrants. There is no cure for silicosis; the only treatment is supplemental oxygen and, eventually, a risky and expensive lung transplantation, which medical experts said may only prolong life by an average of six years.

INTERNATIONAL

► From the Wall Street Journal — Trapped in the Strait: The Sailors Low on Supplies and Stuck in a War Zone — The Persian Gulf has been transformed into a vast nautical prison for low-wage sea workers, collateral damage in the standoff between the U.S. and Tehran…More than 2,000 requests for help have come into the International Transport Workers Federation, a seafarers’ union, half of them over missed pay. About 200 come from ships whose crews are running low on food, fuel or water. “There is absolutely no precedent to what is happening now,” said Mohamed Arrachedi, the union’s Middle East coordinator, who receives 60 to 70 new WhatsApp messages daily from distraught sailors.

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