California health care workers get a pay bump under a new minimum wage law

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California health care workers get a pay bump under a new minimum wage law

2024-10-16 18:54 Last Updated At：19:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Some of the lowest-paid health care workers in California will get a pay bump Wednesday under a state law gradually increasing their wages to at least $25 an hour.

Workers at rural, independent health care facilities will start making a minimum of $18 an hour, while others at hospitals with at least 10,000 full-time employees will begin getting paid at least $23 an hour this week. The law will increase workers' pay over the next decade, with the $25 hourly rate kicking in sooner for some than others.

About 350,000 workers will have to be paid more under the law starting Wednesday, according to the University of California, Berkeley Labor Center.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the law last year, and workers were slated to get raises in June. Lawmakers and the governor agreed this year to delay the law to help close an estimated $46.8 billion budget shortfall.

Carmela Coyle, president and CEO of the California Hospital Association, said last year that the legislation will support workers and protect access to health care services.

"SB 525 strikes the right balance between significantly improving wages while protecting jobs and safeguarding care at community hospitals throughout the state,” she said in a statement.

California's minimum wage for most workers in the state is $16 an hour. Voters will decide in November whether to increase the rate gradually to $18 an hour by 2026, which would be the highest statewide minimum wage in the U.S. Fast food workers in California now have to be paid at least $20 hourly under a law Newsom signed last year.

Some health care providers raised concerns when the law was passed last year that it would pose a financial burden on hospitals as they tried to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The law could lead providers to cut hours and jobs, critics said.

Many hospitals in the state have already begun implementing wage increases under the law's original timeline, said Sarah Bridge, vice president of advocacy and strategy with the Association of California Healthcare Districts.

“It obviously does create financial pressures that weren’t there before," Bridge said of the law. "But our members are all poised and ready to enact the change.”

Austin is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on Twitter: @ sophieadanna

Middle East latest: Israeli jets pummel southern Lebanon and Beirut's suburbs

2024-10-16 18:57 Last Updated At：19:00

Israeli jets struck southern Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs on Wednesday, killing at least 20 people including a city mayor, Lebanese officials said.

Hezbollah acting leader Sheikh Naim Kassem declared Tuesday that the Lebanese militant group will ramp up attacks on Israel in response to an Israeli airstrike Monday on an apartment building in northern Lebanon that killed at least 22 people. Israel said it struck a target belonging to Hezbollah, but the United Nations called Tuesday for an independent investigation.

Israel has escalated its campaign against Hezbollah in recent weeks, after a year of near-daily exchanges of cross-border fire.

It’s been more than a year since Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish combatants from civilians. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.

In northern Gaza, Israel has been waging an air and ground campaign in Jabaliya for more than a week, leaving families trapped in their shelters.

United States President Joe Biden’s administration warned Israel that it must increase the amount of humanitarian aid it allows into Gaza within the next 30 days or risk losing access to American weapons funding.

Here's the latest:

BERLIN — The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees has called for access of international media organizations to Gaza to report about the situation on the ground.

UNRWA's Philippe Lazzarini told a news conference in Berlin on Wednesday that “most of the information that we are receiving is either by (...) local journalists or by organizations operating in Gaza.”

Lazzarini said because there are so many different types of narratives on the conflict, “it is of utmost importance ... that we continue to ask for the presence and all the access of international journalists.”

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian urged Muslim countries to be united against Israel during a phone conversation with the ruler of Oman, the president's website reported Wednesday.

The report quoted Pezeshkian as saying, “If we, Islamic countries, are united with each other, the Zionist regime will not dare to commit crimes so easily," and the U.S. and Western countries also could not support it.

Pezeshkian praised Oman’s stance regarding “Israeli crimes” in Gaza and Lebanon and demanded more pressure on those who are supporting Israel, the report said.

There was no immediate report in Omani state media on the call between Pezeshkian and Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq. Oman long has served as an interlocutor between Iran and the West.

JERUSALEM — Israeli authorities say they have arrested a man who was involved in an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate an Israeli scientist.

In a statement released Wednesday, the Shin Bet internal security agency said Iran paid 35-year-old Vladimir Verhovski $100,000 to kill an Israeli scientist. It did not provide evidence or name the target of the alleged plot.

Iran has accused Israel of being behind the targeted killing of scientists involved in its nuclear program.

The Shin Bet said Verhovski had acquired a gun, cartridge and bullets, and agreed to flee to Russia afterwards. It said he had also gathered information at the direction of Iran.

It’s one of several alleged plots the Shin Bet says it has foiled in recent months that involved Israelis accused of having been recruited by Iran.

Israel and Iran have waged a shadow war for years that burst to the surface after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack triggered the war in Gaza. Israel and Iran exchanged fire directly for the first time in April, and Israel has vowed to retaliate after an Iranian ballistic missile attack earlier this month.

Iran supports armed groups across the region, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s Health Ministry says Israeli airstrikes on the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh have killed at least 5 people.

The ministry and the state-run National News Agency said the provincial capital’s municipality building was hit by one of the strikes Wednesday. Huwaida Turk, the governor of Nabatiyeh province, told The Associated Press that Mayor Ahmad Kahil was killed in Wednesday’s strikes on the provincial capital. Local media reported that the mayor of Nabatiyeh and local government staff were in the building. Rescue workers are searching for bodies under the rubble.

The NNA says there were at least seven airstrikes in Nabatiyeh and some nearby villages.

Earlier in the week, Israeli strikes over Nabatiyeh destroyed its historic century-old market district.

The Israeli military said it struck dozens of targets in and around Nabatiyeh linked to the Hezbollah militant group, including command centers and weapons storage facilities that it said were embedded in civilian areas.

BEIRUT — Israeli strikes have killed at least 15 people in the southern Lebanese town of Qana, which has long been associated with civilian deaths after Israeli strikes during previous conflicts with Hezbollah.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strikes in Qana late Tuesday. Lebanon’s Civil Defense said 15 bodies had been recovered from the rubble of a building and that rescue efforts were still underway.

In 1996, Israeli artillery shelling on a United Nations compound housing hundreds of displaced people in Qana killed at least 100 civilians and wounded scores more, including four U.N. peacekeepers. During the 2006 war, an Israeli strike on a residential building killed nearly three dozen people, a third of them children. Israel said at the time that it struck a Hezbollah rocket launcher behind the building.

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron stressed “the absolute necessity of a cease-fire without further delay in Lebanon” and called for Israel to stop operations there in a phone call Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Macron urged Israel “to put an end to this unjustifiable targeting," according to a statement from his office, which also said France would continue to work with troop contributors and alongside the United Nations Secretary-General to ensure the full implementation of the mission of the peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL.

Netanyahu said in a statement after the call that he was opposed to a unilateral cease-fire. He said he would not agree to any arrangement that does not provide security for residents of northern Israel and “does not stop Hezbollah from rearming and regrouping.”

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran is ready for a retaliatory attack from Israel, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

In a phone call Tuesday with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said his country is fully prepared to answer to any kind of “adventure-seeking.”

“Responsibility of consequences of spreading insecurity in the region will be on the regime and the United States as main supporter,” of Israel, he added.

He urged the U.N. to use its entire capacity for stopping “crimes and invasions,” as well as providing humanitarian aid to Lebanon and Gaza.

Iran launched some 180 missiles at Israel on Oct. 1 in retaliation for the deaths of Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Israel has threatened to strike back for the barrage.

Iran is the main backer of Lebanese Hezbollah and supports anti-Israeli groups in the region such as Palestinian Hamas.

BEIRUT — Israeli jets struck the southern suburbs of Beirut early Wednesday for the first time in six days, Lebanese state media reported. The casualty count was not yet clear.

The attack comes just one day after caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the United States government gave him some assurances of Israel easing its strikes in the Lebanese capital.

Israel says it is striking Hezbollah assets in the suburbs, where the militant group has a strong presence, but is also a busy residential and commercial area. The Israeli military said the Wednesday strike hit a weapons warehouse stored under a residential building.

The Israeli military posted an evacuation warning on X, formerly Twitter, saying it is targeting a building in the Haret Hreik neighborhood. An Associated Press photographer saw three airstrikes in the area, the first coming less than an hour after the notice.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8 in solidarity with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, following their surprise attack on southern Israel. Almost one year of low-level fighting has turned into all-out war and displaced some 1.2 million people in Lebanon.

Elsewhere, Israeli strikes late Tuesday in the southern town of Qana killed at least 15 people, according to Lebanese Civil Defense.

MANILA, Philippines — A European Union official expressed regret over the failure so far of efforts to forge a cease-fire in the Middle East, saying that fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah has made it more difficult to work for wide-ranging reforms in Lebanon and create conditions to draw international financial aid in.

EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič told The Associated Press in an interview late Tuesday in Manila that stalled reforms in Lebanon include the election of a new president, the establishment of a working government and the signing of a deal with the International Monetary Fund.

“It’s difficult to see that happening in these circumstances when Lebanon is under such a strain,” said Lenarčič, who flew to Manila to attend an Asia Pacific conference on disaster mitigation.

“That’s one of the reasons why we’re calling for a cease-fire, so as to allow Lebanon to organize itself so that it can benefit from all the funding which is out there,” he said. “I regret that we have not been heard.”

The EU was also extremely concerned over the killings of civilians in the fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group. “This collateral damage is simply unacceptable,” Lenarčič said.