Capital & Main

10/09/2026

OPINION: Sitting on the governor’s desk is legislation that would increase the minimum wage for many farmworkers to a mandatory $19.75 an hour beginning next year. The bill, already approved by the state Legislature, was written specifically to override a U.S. Department of Labor decision from last fall that dramatically lowered pay for “H-2A” farmworkers — immigrants on temporary or seasonal work visas.

A bill on the California governor’s desk would restore the wage floor for 35,000 seasonal workers, whose pay was slashed by a U.S. Labor Department rule.

09/09/2026

NEWS: In January, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wisconsin) called data centers “exciting new technology” and voted for a federal bill to speed their construction. But by May, as he was running for governor of Wisconsin, he was promising to repeal the state tax breaks that lure them.

Gubernatorial nominee Tom Tiffany flipped on data centers, outflanked his Democratic rival and tied the issue to renewable projects he has opposed for years.

08/09/2026

A Colombian asylum seeker who has spent a year in immigration custody at Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego said that she has a serious infection in her urinary tract and kidneys and is not receiving proper medical treatment.

Hers is yet another case of someone held at a detention facility coming forward about potentially life-threatening medical concerns since President Donald Trump returned to office.

Mother held at San Diego immigration facility says months of delayed and inadequate medical care have left her with serious kidney infection and worsening pain.

08/09/2026

When Sara Ramirez started as an interpreter for Monterey, California-based LanguageLine Solutions, she saw it as “a regular company.” Things began to change quickly after LanguageLine introduced a new AI workforce management program.

Entire shifts were eliminated from her schedule with little notice. The workload also increased, giving her as few as 15 seconds between calls during busy hours.

Employees at LanguageLine Solutions report heavier workloads, erratic schedules and burnout since the $1.1 billion company shifted to AI-powered workforce software.

04/09/2026

A recently published scientific paper ties oil and gas operations in the Permian Basin to radioactive airborne plumes near the small New Mexico town of Loving.

This small town in the Permian Basin is a petri dish for the perils of living amid the oil and gas industry’s most productive oil fields. Hundreds of active oil wells lie within two miles of Loving and another dozen large processing facilities sit within the same sweep.

Small towns in the Permian Basin have become a petri dish for the perils of living amid the nation's largest oil fields.

03/09/2026

Lineage Inc. found elevated levels of ammonia in the area surrounding its Los Angeles warehouse in the weeks after it burned in a massive fire. The readings were buried in fine print on the company’s website.

Reporter: Robin Urevich
Producer: Cerise Castle ()
Camera: Jeremy Lindenfeld
Editor: Jayrol San Jose

03/09/2026

In a countermove to proposed rules changes by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, the state Legislature in August passed and sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom a measure that forbids California housing authorities from imposing either work requirements or limits on how long low-income tenants can receive federal rental assistance.

First-of-its-kind law would prohibit work requirements or time limits on low-income tenants who receive federal assistance.

02/09/2026

The challenges workers are facing offscreen have intensified as the Trump administration has moved to strip collective bargaining rights from federal workers, among other attacks on organized labor. Here are ten impactful films about labor from the last 50 years and where you can watch them.

While the Trump administration attacks workers’ rights, here are some of the most influential films about labor from the last 50 years.

01/09/2026

NEWS: What seemed to be a typical Friday morning for the San Francisco Bay Area family quickly became a nightmare when about a dozen armed and masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents surrounded Ulises Peña Lopez’s truck as he attempted to leave his home and head to work.

Detainee was stripped of his cane, hearing aids and medication; case highlights pattern of mistreatment of those with disabilities, attorney says.

01/09/2026

I’ve heard the argument that it’s better to keep your politics and personal values compartmentalized for the sake of maintaining relationships and community. But it’s exactly that kind of compartmentalizing that has allowed Trump’s hate, racism and cruelty to fester, flourish and now threaten to unravel the entire American social fabric.

The imperative of the moment is clear: We have to live not our politics but our values, or we lose it all.

I dreaded talking politics with a longtime friend whose conservative beliefs are at odds with mine. But I had to.