Tens of thousands of Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers in California and Hawaii walked off the job early Tuesday as they urged the nation’s largest not-for-profit medical provider to increase salaries and address staffing shortages.

Up to 31,000 registered nurses, nurse anesthetists, pharmacists, midwives, physician assistants, rehab therapists, speech language pathologists and other specialists are involved in the planned five-day strike.

“We’ve been really clear, our workers are trying to keep up and catch up with the cost of inflation,” said Charmaine Morales, president of United Nurses Assns. of California/Union of Health Care Professionals, known as UNAC/UHCP.

Morales said the union’s request to raise wages a total of 25% over four years was necessary to compensate for the far smaller increases workers received in their 2021 contract negotiations, when they received a 2% raise in the first year. She also said the company neglected to meet with various groups of workers at planned bargaining sessions last week to discuss solutions to short-staffing.

“We need to be able to hire more permanent staff. We’re looking for long-term solutions to staffing burnout,” Morales said.

The union has proposed an internal registry of on-call nurses who are union members, so that the company doesn’t have to rely on contract traveling nurses. Morales said the proposal “didn’t go anywhere.”

As striking workers picketed at facilities across Southern California, Kaiser Permanente called the strike “unnecessary and disruptive” and said the demands would “dramatically increase” its current $6.3-billion annual payroll. The company also insisted that staffing was not central to the union’s demands.

Kaiser spokesperson Candice Lee said in an email that while the union’s “public messaging emphasizes staffing and other concerns, the core issue in this negotiation is wages. That’s the reason for the strike.” Lee said that Kaiser’s staffing ratios meet or exceed all California-mandated nurse-to-patient ratios, and that the company “has been proactive in hiring and retaining staff to ensure we deliver the care our patients expect and deserve.”

The company has called the workers’ request for a 25% salary increase “out of step with today’s economic realities and rising health care costs.” Kaiser’s offer of a 21.5% pay raise would increase payroll by nearly $2 billion by 2029, the company said.

“To support this level of increase, we’re reducing internal costs and optimizing operations. Anything beyond 21.5% will require us to further increase rates for our members and customers, at a time when health care costs are increasingly unaffordable and many of them are having to make the difficult choice to go without coverage,” read a statement on the company’s website.

The company said it has plans to fill in care gaps during the strike, and has hired 7,600 temporary nurses, clinicians and other staff as substitutes. Many of those personnel have worked at Kaiser Permanente before and are familiar with its facilities, Kaiser said. The company also noted that 1,000 of its employees volunteered to be reassigned to work in strike locations.

The union’s collective bargaining agreements with Kaiser Permanente expired Sept. 30. Negotiations between the union and the company over wages and benefits have been ongoing for about three months, although some of the union workers have been in talks since March.

The first day of the strike — which is planned to continue until 7 a.m. Sunday — coincided with the onset of a potent storm that swept across Los Angeles early Tuesday.

Surgical nurse Tonja Sweeney marched with hundreds of others from a nearby park to Kaiser South Bay Medical Center through a downpour early that morning. The crowd of drenched healthcare workers carried signs, and their blue ponchos whipped in the wind.

Sweeney, 54, who has worked at Kaiser Permanente for 20 years, had been on the picket line for hours. “I’m super soaking wet, but it’s OK. We’re advocating for the right things,” Sweeney said.

The Harbor City facility was among 20 sites that were picketed across the state, with most of them concentrated in Southern California. Actions are planned in Hawaii and Oregon later in the week.

Sweeney said she often struggles to manage five patients, particularly if other staff members, such as nutritionists and aides, are tied up. If two patients, for example, are delirious upon waking from surgery, they both need someone to sit by their bedsides, even as a third or fourth patient may need assistance walking to the toilet.

“It’s not easy to walk away from our patients, but if we don’t advocate for them, who will?” Sweeney said. “We’re the people taking care of them. It’s hard but we have to do it.”

Romy Timm, a physical therapist, joined the picket line with other union members on strike.

Timm said problems of short-staffing are prevalent for physical therapists as well, and at least ten of her co-workers in recent years have reduced their work hours to part-time from full-time because it became too exhausting for them to consult with 16 to 20 new patients a week.

“We often work on paperwork through our lunches,” Timm said.

Timm, who for six years worked as an ergonomist for the company, would evaluate workspaces for nurses and pharmacists who had filed requests because they were starting to experience repetitive stress injuries from long hours caring for patients or filling prescriptions, she said.

Demands for higher wages come amid rising healthcare costs. Average monthly premiums for families with employer-provided health coverage in California’s private sector nearly doubled in 15 years. Costs rose from just over $1,000 in 2008 to almost $2,000 in 2023, according to an analysis of federal data by KFF Health News, which is not affiliated with Kaiser. That increase is far greater than the rate of inflation.

Some major medical facilities face other financial headwinds, with uncertainty of federal funding due to impending Medicaid cuts. Facilities including Sharp HealthCare, UC San Diego Health and UCSF Health have in recent months announced plans to cut public health services and conduct hundreds of layoffs.

MEXICO CITY — Each September, Mexico’s president appears before a crowd of tens of thousands in the nation’s central square to perform the grito, the shout of independence commemorating the country’s break from colonial rule.

This year, for the first time, a woman will lead the masses in chants of “Long live Mexico!”

Monday’s ceremony in Mexico City’s main plaza will be a historic moment for the nation and for President Claudia Sheinbaum, who, in her first year as the country’s first female leader, has maintained remarkably high marks despite a spate of domestic and international challenges.

Supporters take selfies with the new president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, after her swearing-in ceremony in Congress in 2024.

(Felix Marquez / Picture Alliance / Getty Images)

Sheinbaum, 63, who took office last Oct. 1, boasts approval ratings above 70% and has notched multiple victories: winning passage of major constitutional reforms, overseeing unprecedented judicial elections and deftly negotiating with President Trump, making concessions on immigration and security to avert the worst of his threatened tariffs on Mexican goods.

She has also overseen a 25% drop in homicides, an impressive feat in a country exhausted by drug violence that she chalks up to her administration’s aggressive new crackdown on organized crime.

“We’re doing well and we’ll get better,” Sheinbaum said this month during a speech to Congress, where members of her political party, which controls both houses of the legislature, cheered her with shouts of “Long live Claudia!”

But perhaps Sheinbaum’s biggest feat has been emerging from the long shadow cast by her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a hero among the working class whose support was crucial to her election.

As a candidate for López Obrador’s Morena party, Sheinbaum promised to continue his populist project, which sought to reduce poverty and shift power away from traditional economic and political elites.

Mexicans line up at a polling station in Guadalajara on June 2, 2024, the day voters cast ballots to elect Claudia Sheinbaum the president of Mexico.

(Ulises Ruiz / AFP via Getty Images)

After she won in a landslide, she faced criticism that she would be his “puppet,” a discourse she dismissed as sexist.

Still, there’s no question that Sheinbaum has had to walk a tricky line: defining her presidency on her own terms while also demonstrating loyalty to the political movement that got her there.

As López Obrador has retreated from public life, retiring to his ranch in southern Mexico, Sheinbaum has embraced many of his signature policies, including a popular welfare program that distributes cash to youth, people with disabilities and senior citizens.

She has continued López Obrador’s practice of daily morning news conferences, where she often pays lip service to the former president and repeats his signature phrase: “For the good of all, the poor first.”

Political analyst Jorge Zepeda Patterson said that Sheinbaum has successfully outmaneuvered other Morena party members, including several former political rivals, to be seen as the new voice of López Obrador’s movement.

“She is the heir, she is the interpreter of the entire movement, and that is no small thing,” he said.

Supreme Court President Hugo Aguilar Ortiz receives a traditional purification ceremony from representatives of Indigenous communities during the swearing-in ceremony at the Supreme Court building on Sept. 1 in Mexico City.

(Hector Vivas / Getty Images)

Sheinbaum also muscled across the finish line one of his most controversial undertakings: an overhaul of the judicial system that mandates judges be elected by popular vote. Critics argue the move was designed to concentrate power in the hands of Morena and opens the door to corruption.

“That’s something dictators only invent to control the judiciary,” said Ernesto Zedillo, a former president and leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

But while furthering López Obrador’s agenda, Sheinbaum has also quietly been carving her own path.

While he was combative and highly ideological, railing for hours at his news conferences against neoliberalism and the “power mafia” that he said long controlled Mexico, Sheinbaum has embraced a more diplomatic tone. She says Mexico’s future depends on its entrepreneurs. In her news conferences, she chooses her words carefully, a serene smile on her face.

Her most significant departure from her mentor has been on matters of security.

As part of his “hugs not bullets” policy, López Obrador scaled back security cooperation with the U.S., ordered soldiers to stop confronting cartels and put an emphasis on new social programs. Throughout his six-year term, homicides hovered near record highs and criminal groups expanded their control.

Sheinbaum, under pressure from Trump to clamp down on drug trafficking, has changed tack, dismantling fentanyl labs, carrying out major drug busts and sending dozens of accused cartel leaders to the U.S. to face justice.

Despite those wins, major challenges loom.

The biggest one is Trump.

Trucks queue near the Mexico-U.S. border before crossing the border at Tijuana on March 4.

(Guillermo Arias / AFP via Getty Images)

Mexico’s economy was already on the rocks when the U.S. president began issuing tariff threats, spooking overseas investors who once viewed Mexico as a pipeline to move products into the U.S. tax-free. As a result, growth has slowed.

Sheinbaum and Trump have yet to meet, but have spoken several times in phone conversations both leaders have described as successful. “More and more, we are getting to know and understand each other,” Trump said in August.

For Sheinbaum one constant pressure is the threat of U.S. military action in Mexico.

Trump recently signed an order allowing the Defense Department to use force against Latin American drug cartels, which he has designated as foreign terrorist groups. The U.S. military recently destroyed a Venezuelan boat it said was trafficking drugs, killing 11.

President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador attend a ceremony on Sept. 19, 2024, commemorating lives lost during major earthquakes that have hit Mexico on Sept. 19 in 1985, 2017 and 2022.

(Guillermo Arias / AFP via Getty Images)

Carlos Bravo Regidor, a Mexican political analyst, said much of Sheinbaum’s first year has been dominated by two men: Trump and López Obrador, who is commonly known by his initials, AMLO.

“She’s trapped between the legacy of AMLO and the reality of Donald Trump,” he said.

Sheinbaum’s posture on possible U.S. military action embodies how she’s dealt with Trump. She’ll speak plainly — “There will be no invasion” and Mexico is “not a colony of anyone” — but resists engaging in tit-for-tat remarks to stoke Trump’s ire.

More than once, when asked to respond to Trump’s latest hyperbolic comment, she’s replied: “President Trump has his own way of communicating.”

President Sheinbaum speaks during the first State of the Union report of her tenure at Palacio Nacional on Sept. 1 in Mexico City, Mexico.

(Manuel Velasquez / Getty Images)

Still, there’s little doubt that Sheinbaum has benefited from the wave of nationalism that has surged here in the face of an American president who persecuted Mexican migrants living in the U.S. and threatened drone strikes on Mexican territory. That sentiment is likely to be on display on Monday, when Mexicans don the red, white and green of their flag and convene in the Zócalo for the independence celebrations.

There will also be a strong current of feminism.

Sheinbaum has often repeated the mantra she first spoke the night she won office: “I didn’t arrive alone, I arrived with all Mexican women.”

For many Mexicans across party lines, her presidency has been transformative.

Mexico City resident Esther Ramos, 40, said she planned to take her young daughters to see Sheinbaum deliver the grito, not as a lesson in politics, per se, but as a lesson in what is possible.

“My two daughters will see that a woman is capable of achieving whatever they want,” she said.

Hundreds of workers at a Las Vegas hotel and casino who have been on strike for more than two months will go back to work after agreeing to a new contract Wednesday.

The Culinary Workers Union and an affiliated bartenders union, which together represented about 700 striking workers at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, announced the employees had unanimously approved a five-year deal.

The unions and the hotel said in a joint statement that they are “pleased to be moving past their contract negotiations as each looks forward to fostering a positive and collaborative working relationship for the benefit of all team members at the property.”

Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, which is part of Hilton’s portfolio of hotels, had been a hold out, refusing to agree to robust wage increases that other casinos in the area had consented to last year.

During negotiations owners of the hotel initially rebuffed the 32% raise workers had demanded, which was in line with other contracts in the area, but ultimately agreed to the boost, said Bethany Khan, a spokesperson for the union.

Workers will see a 10% wage hike in the first year with the rest of the pay increases coming over the remaining years of the contract, Khan said. The average culinary union member earns about $28 per hour — including benefits — and by the end of the contract that average will rise to $37 per hour.

The hotel had contended that the union’s demands were unrealistic, calling its proposal “not financially sustainable” in a statement in November.

The strike, which began in mid-November, had been the first open-ended work stoppage in more than two decades for Nevada’s largest union. The Culinary Workers Union and the bartenders union together represent some 60,000 workers in Las Vegas and Reno, including at most of the casino resorts on the Las Vegas Strip and in downtown Las Vegas.

Southern California bird watchers saw a new and yet familiar sight in Orange County earlier this month.

The female bald eagle known as La’i was spotted near the Santa Ana River nesting with an adult companion and two eaglets, according to Peter Sharpe, the acting director for the Institute for Wildlife Studies’ Bald Eagle and Peregrine Falcon Restoration Project.

The eaglets are an uplifting sight as news has proliferated of Big Bear bald eagles Jackie and Shadow and their trio of eggs, which are now considered very unlikely to hatch.

“Southern California can be a pretty hard place to raise eaglets because of the environment and potential threats,” Sharpe said, “so the success that [La’i is] having is impressive.”

Sharpe said La’i’s first breeding took place in 2018. Then she hatched two chicks and followed that with two more in 2019.

“I believe she’s had more, but honestly, I’ve lost track,” Sharpe said.

It’s hard to say why La’i’s eggs produced chicks while Jackie’s did not. Biologist Sandy Steers recently told The Times that the Big Bear bald eagle couple battled cold temperatures with winter’s severe mountain snowstorms, as well as high altitude, which means less oxygen for developing chicks. But, she said, “there are all sorts of reasons.”

Only about 50% of bald eagle eggs hatch. And once hatched, they face other threats. Sharpe said two of the biggest are lead poisoning and car accidents.

Bald eagles are largely scavengers in their first year. They can eat animals that died of lead poisoning and then succumb to the same fate, according to Sharpe. He said the scavenging eagles are occasionally hit by cars as they’re feasting on a carcass.

La’i chose the Santa Ana River as her habitat because of the abundance of fish and other prey, such as ducks, geese and seagulls, Sharpe said.

Sharpe noted that La’i was naturally hatched on Santa Rosa Island in 2013 and was banded, or tagged, as a nestling that year.

That tagging system has allowed observers to spot her throughout the years.

The most recent sighting of La’i and two eaglets was first reported by the Orange County Register.

Bald eagles have been known to live as long as 40 years in the wild. And Sharpe noted that they may breed for 20 to 25 years. They may produce, on average, two eaglets per year.

Sharpe said he was pleased to see the number of bald eagles rising in Southern California.

He estimates there are 10 to 15 pairs in the Channel Islands, about 10 pairs on Santa Cruz Island and eight on Santa Catalina Island.

Bald eagles were mainstays in Southern California for centuries until their populations disappeared from the mainland in the 1930s because of harassment and encroaching development, according to the Institute for Wildlife Studies.

The birds remained on the Channel Islands for 30 more years, but no nesting was recorded.

Sharpe and the institute believe the industrial pesticide DDT curtailed breeding on the island.

DDT was eventually banned in the U.S. in 1972, and its removal led to the return of native species around the nation, including pelicans and cormorants.

In 1980, the institute and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began to reintroduce bald eagles to Catalina Island. Since 1989, 38 chicks have been successfully fostered into island nests and 21 eaglets have been born, according to the institute.

WASHINGTON — Congress, which has been setting records for a lack of accomplishments, may be on the verge of actually doing something big: passing a bill that could lift half a million kids out of poverty by next year.

The proposal, which the House could vote on as soon as next week, involves an expanded tax credit for parents of children 16 and younger.

If that rings a bell, congratulations, you’ve been paying attention. The proposed credit is a scaled-down version of a plan that passed during President Biden‘s first year in office but lasted only a year.

Reviving some version of that has been a top priority of congressional Democrats ever since.

Earlier this month, the chairs of Congress’ two tax-writing committees, Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, struck a deal to make it happen.

Their proposal then won approval of the Republican-controlled House Ways and Means Committee, 40-3 — the sort of bipartisan vote that’s now rare in Washington.

This being Congress, it’s possible the deal could fall apart. Some House members threaten to oppose it over an unrelated tax issue. In the Senate, some conservative Republicans don’t like expanding the child tax credit on ideological grounds. But the lopsided vote in the House tax-writing committee indicated the bill has a strong chance of approval. That’s a rare advance in a stalemated Congress.