On March 26, 1912, a donation from Japan arrived in Washington, D.C.―3,020 ornamental cherry trees, sparking one of the biggest springtime annual attractions in the […]

The post Washington, D.C.’s Cherry Trees are Very Good at Planning for the Future appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Muted moans of sadness punctuated the pandemonium that engulfed the Smithsonian’s National Zoo over the weekend as throngs of well-wishing visitors flooded through the Zoo’s […]

The post Bon Voyage Bao Bao! Washington loses its precious treasure appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The first-ever Nobel Prize Summit, Our Planet, Our Future, will bring together Nobel Laureates and other world-renowned experts and leaders to advance new insights into global sustainable development and explore actions that need to be taken to ensure humanity’s future on a prosperous, stable, and resilient planet.

David Rolf, International Vice President of the Service Employees International Union, stands in his downtown Seattle office. Rolf led the campaign to bring a $15 minimum wage to Seatac, Washington in 2013.; Credit: Ben Bergman/KPCC

As Los Angeles mulls a law that would raise the minimum wage above the current California minimum of $9 an hour, it's the latest city to jump on a trend that started as the by-product of a failed labor negotiation in the state of Washington.

The first city to enact a $15-per-hour minimum wage was SeaTac, Wash., — a tiny airport town outside Seattle. "SeaTac will be viewed someday as the vanguard, as the place where the fight started," the lead organizer of SeaTac's $15 campaign, David Rolf, told supporters in November 2013 after a ballot measure there barely passed.

Rolf never set out to raise SeaTac’s minimum wage, much less start a national movement. Speaking from a sparse corner office in downtown Seattle at the Service Employees International Union 775, which he founded in 2002, Rolf told KPCC that his original goal in 2010 was to unionize workers at SeaTac airport.

When employers – led by Alaska Airlines — played hardball, Rolf put the $15 minimum wage on the ballot as leverage. “We had some polling in SeaTac that it could pass, but it was not at all definitive,” Rolf said.

That proved prescient: In a city of just 12,108 registered voters, Rolf's staff signed up around 1,000 new voters, many of them immigrants who had never cast a ballot. The measure won by just 77 votes.

It's an irony that the new law doesn't apply to workers at the center of the minimum wage campaign: The airport workers at SeaTac. That's because the Port of Seattle, which oversees the airport, challenged the initiative, arguing that the city's new minimum wage should not apply to the nearly 5,000 workers at the airport. A county judge agreed. Supporters of the $15 wage have appealed.

Still, Rolf said, "I think people are proud that that’s what happening. There are leaders of the movement in Seattle, including our mayor, that said shortly after the victory, 'Now we have to take it everywhere else.'"

The $15 minimum wage spread to Seattle last June and to San Francisco in November. 

Why $15 an hour?

The $15 figure first came to people’s attention in a series of strikes by fast food workers that started two years ago in New York. 

“I think it’s aspirational, and it provides a clean and easy-to-understand number," Rolf said. "You can debate whether it ought to really be $14.89 or $17.12, and based upon the cost of living in different cities, you could have a different answer. But in the late 19th and early 20th century, American workers didn’t rally for 7.9 or 8.1 hour working day. They rallied for an eight-hour day.”

“What’s really remarkable about social protest movements in American history is that the radical ideas of one group are often the common sense ideas of another group in a matter of a few years," said Peter Dreier, professor of politics at Occidental College.

Rolf is hopeful the $15 minimum wage can spread to every state. But Nelson Lichtenstein, Director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is skeptical.

“I don’t think having high wages in a few cities will mean it will spread to red state America,” he said. 

Lichtenstein said cities like L.A. have become more labor friendly, thanks largely to an influx of immigrants, but that’s not the case in the South. Oklahoma recently banned any city from setting its own minimum wage, joining at least 12 other states with similar laws, according to Paul Sonn, general counsel and program director at the National Employment Law Project.

In November, voters in four Republican-leaning states — Alaska, Arkansas, South Dakota, and Nebraska — approved higher minimum wages, but they weren’t close to $15.

A $15 dollar wage would have a much greater impact in Los Angeles than Seattle or San Francisco because the average income here is much lower than in those cities. Post-recession, income inequality has become much more of a concern for voters, which has made $15 more palatable, Sonn said.

This fall, the Los Angeles City Council enacted a $15.37 minimum wage for hotel workers that takes effect next year. A similar law has been in effect around LAX since 2007. 

But even though California cities have been allowed to set their own minimum wages for more than a decade, L.A. has never come close to doing so.

Until now.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Paleontologists with the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture and the University of Washington have discovered a Tyrannosaurus rex, including a very complete skull. The find, which paleontologists estimate to be about 20 percent of the animal, includes vertebrae, ribs, hips and lower jaw bones.

read more

Climate Chronograph is a memorial that sinks as sea levels rise.

The future looks uncertain for an industry on the brink of making huge gains in Washington this year.

A judge in Okanogan County, Wash. rules that an ill-sited prefab hut must be moved from its landscape-altering perch above the Methow Valley.

Washington has had plenty of chances to do something about the pine beetle problem, but has chosen to do nothing.

In his last scheduled trip to the nation's capital as governor, Dave Freudenthal has some frank discussions with policy makers — and this MNN blogger.

As it turns out, the Swedish retailer's rooftop power plants are also the biggest in several other states.

District of Columbia lawmakers approve legislation that fast-tracks the city's bold clean energy goals.

The District of Columbia had the most LEED-certified square footage per capita in 2011.

The latest assault on ethanol subsidies comes from one of the nation's leading newspapers.

The Detroit and New York auto shows may have the new car introductions, but Washington has the politicians.

Idaho's Mike Simpson actually sounds reasonable when bringing up the debates of the past.

Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee is about to experience change.

Beautiful cherry blossoms begin to frame the historic buildings in Washington, D.C., signaling spring has sprung.

While cap and trade and the Gulf Oil Spill dominate headlines, congress is taking on issues ranging from Asian Carp to jobs in National Parks.

You don’t have to go to the boondocks to go hiking or horseback riding in deep woods teeming with deer, raccoons and even coyotes. You can do that in Rock Cre

From contacting your representatives to signing petitions, here are 5 ways to make your voice heard, and 2 that aren't worth your time.

The MSI Wealth Management Fund specializes in lucrative real estate acquisitions in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. We are committed to identifying, analyzing and implementing strategies that result in consistent, above-average returns.

The convention will provide an opportunity to participants to understand the spiritual truth at a personal level and the practical application of the Bhagavad Gita message.

Omar Soliman & Nick Friedman Deliver Keynotes for National Small Business Event

The Hear the Music Project hearing health clinic raises awareness and promotes action on hearing loss throughout Washington in September

A top government contractor in the information technology space, Precise Software Solutions, Inc. continues to grow at a fast pace.

Conversion Logix Wins PSBJ's 5th Fastest-Growing Private Company Award

The Evergreen Council on Problem Gambling and Washington Health Care Authority Raise Awareness of this Often-hidden Addiction

Pacific Mayor Leanne Guier and 12 other mayors, councilmembers and a city manager elected to lead the Board of Directors of the Sound Cities Association, which provides a regional voice for more than one million people in King County, Washington.

USMCA treaty passes by the U.S. Senate 89 to 10 on January 16, 2020.

Wheat industry encouraged to submit comments on Environmental Impact Study

Book Becomes Best Seller

An old adage says the TRUTH will set you free. Listen to the song TRUTH and join forces to save the World.

Experts Will Deliver Research-Based Strategies that Build Leadership Practices, Collective Teacher Efficacy and Student Achievement

DIGITALSPEC is proud to be recognized by Washington Technology, for the sixth year in a row, as one of the 2019 50 fastest-growing small businesses in the government market according to five years of revenue growth from 2013 through 2018.

Washington Wheat Welcomes Secretary Perdue

The Washington Post and Chicago Tribune will include special title pages as part of an international campaign to mark the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of WWII

Synensys will collect, analyze, and report critical operational safety data for continuous improvement using the proven LOSA methodology.

The heirs of Nazi victim and Jewish Berlin banker Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy announce that the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC has transferred ownership to them of Pablo Picasso's Blue Period pastel entitled "Head of a Woman"

Mayor Bowser Proclaims 2020 as the Year of Co-ops; Book and Film Celebrate Centennial Year

The 2018 Washington Technology Fast 50 ranked DSPEC as the 35th fastest-growing small business in the government market

WAWG and WGC Calls for an Immediate Short Term Extension, Farmers Need Stability and Certainty

Certification ensures laundering processes effectively remove pathogens from health care textiles

1. Senators Release Water Infrastructure Legislation

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, chaired by Senator John Barrasso (R-Wy.) and Ranking Member Tom Carper (D-Del.), released two NECA-supported water infrastructure bills, the America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2020 (AWIA 2020) and Drinking Water Infrastructure Act of 2020.

NECA’s Look Ahead: These bipartisan bills address the critical need to secure water infrastructure. The are successor bills to the NECA-supported America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018 that easily passed through Congress and was signed into law in 2018. NECA will continue to monitor this important legislation as it moves through Congress.

• Read the section-by-section of the draft AWIA 2020 here.
• Read the section-by-section of the Drinking Water Infrastructure Act here.

2. Senate Returns to Washington Next Week

The Senate is scheduled to return to D.C. on Monday, May 4, 2020, to begin filling judicial vacancies and continue work on new coronavirus legislation. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), released the following statement on this decision. The House has decided to postpone returning until further notice. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) is expected to release an anticipated return date soon.  

NECA’s Look Ahead: NECA looks forward to the Senate being in session to work on additional coronavirus legislation. The government affairs team continues to advocate on behalf of our contractors during this period.

3. Register Today for the Upcoming Government Affairs Webinar

On May 5, 2020 at 2 p.m. EDT, NECA’s Government Affairs team will brief participants on NECA’s requests for Congress in the Phase IV coronavirus response legislation. During this webinar, participants can take action and send a letter to their Member of Congress requesting help for the electrical construction industry to remain viable during this crisis. Participants will also hear messages from key Members of Congress on the current legislative response to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Register Today!

NECA’s Look Ahead: NECA is committed to ensuring the voices of our industry are heard during this time. We continue to advocate for the needs our contractors daily and remain devoted to keeping our members well informed on the policies impacting them.  

The committee will consist of four Democrat and three Republican senators. Democratic senators include David Frockt, Manka Dhingra, Christine Rolfes and Rebecca Saldana and Republicans include senators Randi Becker, Tim Sheldon, while one member is yet to be named.

Washington Post: In the early days of the pandemic, the U.S. government turned down an offer to manufacture millions of N95 masks in America. “It was Jan. 22, a day after the first case of covid-19 was detected in the United States, and orders were pouring into Michael Bowen’s company outside Fort Worth, some from … Continue reading Washington Post: In the early days of the pandemic, the U.S. government turned down an offer to manufacture millions of N95 masks in America

The University of Washington in Seattle is a big place. It includes the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), which has produced a widely-circulated and widely-criticized coronavirus model. As we’ve discussed, the IHME model is essentially a curve-fitting exercise that makes projections using the second derivative of the time trend on the log scale. […]