The Brief

At 47, Ibrahim Mohamed doesn’t fit the typical image of a college intern. When he arrived in the U.S. from Sudan in 2016, he went online to look for a steady job and decided he wanted to be an electrician at a water treatment facility.

A few years later, he started his internship, which is part of a state program known as a “High Road Training Partnership.” The focus is on training workers for “high road” jobs, defined as those that pay a living wage, provide opportunities for promotion, guarantee safe working conditions, and may offer other benefits, such as a union.

Since 2014, California has put roughly $370 million toward High Road job training, said Erin Hickey, a spokesperson for the California Workforce Development Board, in an email. The board, which administers the program, refused multiple requests for an interview.

In Mohamed’s case, the money went to Jewish Vocational Service, a Bay Area nonprofit organization that worked with local water treatment districts and community colleges to create the internship. The water district is responsible for paying the interns, who work part-time, by way of an intermediary, and at a rate of $27 an hour.

While the internship doesn’t cover all of his bills, Mohamed is committed to it and the future it could hold. In 2019, he moved from West Oakland to settle in Pittsburg, about 45 minutes away, in order to take night classes at Los Medanos College and intern with the Contra Costa Water District two days a week.

The rest of the week he works as a programmer for a Canadian company. He started working there while living in Sudan. “It pays better,” he said, speaking of his programming job, “but it’s not continuous.” Some projects pay as much as $3,000, he said, but other times, the company gives him no work at all.

“I need a stable job. I don’t like moving from place to place,” he said.

The High Road programs vary by industry. In some cases, like Mohamed’s internship, the state is trying to expand access to jobs that are already considered “high road,” even if the supply of jobs is limited or highly technical. In other cases, the money is meant to transform “low road” jobs — those with low pay, poor working conditions, and few opportunities for advancement — into better ones.

The High Road program is an improvement compared to many other workforce programs, which often prioritize training people for jobs regardless of the quality, said Laura Dresser, the associate director of the High Road Strategy Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She helped coin the term “high road” and served as a consultant to California’s workforce programs in 2017.

While other states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have made similar efforts, she said California’s program is larger and more systematic. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has allocated most of the money and tried to focus on jobs that promote sustainability. High Road jobs are also a part of his Master Plan for Career Education, to be released later this year.

However, as the state faces a $38 billion budget deficit for the 2024-25 fiscal year, Newsom recently proposed cutting roughly $100 million from workforce development, most of which comes from High Road Training Partnerships or related programs.

A job program that helps employers, too

The state’s High Road program is designed to be a “partnership,” something that’s mutually beneficial for both employers and workers, said Hickey in the email. As Mohamed looks for a stable job, the water treatment industry is aging, with a higher percentage of skilled workers ready to retire than in other professions across the state, according to a 2023 report.

It’s a “silver tsunami,” said Steven Currie, the workforce development program manager for the Contra Costa Water District. He said the district is also trying to diversify its staff. An internal survey of employees found that the water district is disproportionately white and male, compared to the county population.

Intern Ibrahim Mohamed performs a maintenance check on a temperature sensor inside a Contra Costa Water District plant in Oakley, Jan. 30, 2024.

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Loren Elliott

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CalMatters

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A few decades ago, the district had a pipeline of skilled labor that came from a nearby paper and steel mill and from employees at the oil refineries near Concord and Martinez. The paper mill is gone now, the steel mill is about to close, and many of the oil refineries are shifting to renewable energy. A job posting for an electrician that used to get 25 to 30 applications now sees less than half that, said Matthew Novak, the district’s maintenance manager.

Over the past six years, Jewish Vocational Service has received a series of state grants, totaling just shy of $3 million, to help create a pipeline of new talent for the water and wastewater industry.

While the jobs come with benefits, such as healthcare and a pension, and the wages are good — with the lowest salary starting at around $65,000 a year — these positions require years of specialized training that can be hard to come by, said Elizabeth Toups, a senior manager for the organization.

Mohamed has about two years of experience, but the specific position he wants, known as an instrument technician, requires five years. The Contra Costa Water District has seven employees working in that role, and even if he had the experience, none of those positions are currently open.

In its reports to the state, Jewish Vocational Service said the number of job placements in the water and wastewater industry fell below expectations. Toups said many trainees ultimately find work in other fields that need specialized electricians, such as construction or electric vehicle manufacturing.

“That’s not necessarily a loss, as far as we’re concerned,” she said. “Those people are getting jobs, and they’re getting that valuable experience.”

What’s working in workforce training?

In other cases, however, the outcomes have been mixed.

In 2021, the Miguel Contreras Foundation, a nonprofit training partner of the Los Angeles AFL-CIO, received nearly $650,000 to train electric bus mechanics in the San Gabriel Valley. The largest participating employer, Proterra, hired 11 of participants, but the company — once heralded as a leader in electric vehicle technology — filed for bankruptcy not long after.

The same year, the nonprofit organization Equitable Food Initiative submitted a proposal to help “improve the wages and working conditions for more farmworkers in the state” while helping farms mitigate climate change. With a $600,000 state grant, the organization taught several farm operators how to reduce waste and increase recycling and composting.

“It’s helped the workers a little because the fields are cleaner, and we’ve learned how to recycle, how to separate plastic, cardboard, and aluminum,” said Benancio Estrada Martinez, the harvest manager at GoodFarms, which grows strawberries in Santa Maria. It was one of three businesses that participated in the Equitable Food Initiative’s High Road program.

As large retailers face pressure to cut costs and reduce greenhouse gasses, they put that pressure on smaller suppliers like GoodFarms, said Peter O’Driscoll, the executive director of the Equitable Food Initiative. He said this program provided workers and employers an opportunity to jointly decide how their industry could further cut emissions.

By selling its cardboard to a local recycling company, the farm has made at least $7,000, money that the workers decide how to spend. Current ideas include a raffle, a barbecue, or splitting the proceeds evenly between the workers, said Gabriela Gamez, who oversees the project, known as the Green Team.

“Lunches, barbecues, things like that — I don’t think we’re going to pretend that’s a life changing experience for the worker,” said O’Driscoll. Creating a system that yields more benefits for the workers would require reforming the industry. “In an agricultural (sector) that’s driven by low prices, the only place employers have to squeeze is workers.”

In 2021, the UCLA Labor Center released a state-funded evaluation of the High Road programs, which primarily described what programs did, without using any quantitative performance metrics. The team recently received another grant from the state and will release a second evaluation in stages over the next two years. The final piece of that evaluation will include a new method to assess success, one that doesn’t focus on metrics that workforce programs typically use , such as wages and employment rates.

For Mohamed, the most important outcome is getting a full-time job. The nearby East Bay Municipal Utilities District recently lowered the experience level needed for entry-level instrument technicians, and Mohamed said he’d consider applying there if an opportunity arises.

The East Bay Municipal Utilities District has a location in Walnut Creek, which is about 20 minutes from Pittsburg. “Maybe I work in Walnut Creek,” he said. Otherwise, he may need to move again.

“As long as I get my foot in the door, I’m going to do it,” he said. “If I need to move, I’m going to do it. I’m not going to hesitate.”

Financial support for this story was provided by the Smidt Foundation.

Andy Pages drove in two runs with a bases-loaded single in the seventh inning to give Los Angeles the lead, and the Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 4-1 on Wednesday night to clinch their NL Division Series.

The Dodgers won back-to-back games in Atlanta to take the best-of-five matchup 3-1 and advance to the National League Championship Series as they seek to become the first NL team to win three straight World Series.

Pages lined a 3-2 pitch from Robert Suarez up the middle to drive in Teoscar Hernández, who singled off starter Tyler Mahle, and pinch-runner Tommy Edman for a 3-1 lead. Didier Fuentes walked pinch-hitter Josue De Paula and Kyle Tucker to load the bases. Edman ran for De Paula.

Max Muncy’s solo shot off Raisel Iglesias in the ninth padded the lead and gave the slugger 19 postseason homers with the Dodgers, extending his franchise record.

Dodgers right-hander Tyler Glasnow, making his first start since Sept. 24, allowed only one hit but walked five batters in 4 2/3 innings. After he issued two walks in the fifth, left-hander Alex Vesia ended the inning on Matt Olson’s groundout to second base.

The missed opportunity left the Braves with 18 walks in the series, and none scored.

Glasnow and four relievers combined to give up just three hits. Tanner Scott pitched a perfect eighth before Edwin Díaz got three quick outs for the save.

Mahle, a native of Newport Beach, California, who grew up a Dodgers fan, allowed two runs — one earned — in 6 1/3 innings.

Michael Harris II hit Glasnow’s first pitch for a single before stealing second and eventually scoring from third on a wild pitch that bounced off catcher Will Smith’s chest protector.

The Dodgers pulled even in the second with the help of two Atlanta errors. Shohei Ohtani walked, stole second and advanced to third on catcher Sean Murphy’s errant throw into center field. Muncy’s pop fly into shallow left field was dropped by shortstop Mauricio Dubón for another error, allowing Ohtani to score.

Hernández crashed into the wall while attempting to catch Ozzie Albies’ double off Vesia leading off the sixth. Hernández pointed to his head and neck when talking to an athletic trainer but remained in the game.

Edgardo Henriquez stranded Albies at second. Henriquez allowed one hit in 1 2/3 scoreless innings for the win.

Injury report

Dodgers second baseman Miguel Rojas was held out after leaving Tuesday night’s 3-1 win during an at-bat in the eighth inning with lower back soreness. Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said Rojas would not be available off the bench.

Ronald Acuña Jr. started in right field for Atlanta one day after being moved to designated hitter in a late lineup change due to right knee soreness.

Up next

The Dodgers will face Milwaukee or San Diego in Game 1 of the NLCS on Sunday.

The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday sued President Donald Trump’s administration for recent television advertisements that promoted his political message while costing taxpayers millions of dollars.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda and accuses Trump of personally directing them. It asks the court to declare the ads illegal and stop the use of federal funds to pay for them.

Trump has faced bipartisan backlash for the ads, which glorify him and echo his campaign pitch as voters cast early ballots with the midterm elections less than a month away.

The spots, which began airing in September, already have cost more than $12 million to run, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact, and a total of $20 million in Homeland Security Department funding has been tapped to pay for them.

Responding Monday to the criticism, Trump defended the ads as “positive promotion for our Great U.S.A.” but said he’d pay for them using his MAGA Inc. super PAC going forward.

But on Tuesday, the fifth ad in the campaign began airing with the notice “paid for by the U.S. Government,” promoting Trump’s military actions in Venezuela earlier this year. The same day, Trump made it clear he hasn’t committed to reimbursing any money that has already been spent, telling reporters “we’ll decide.”

DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement that Trump is misusing taxpayer dollars in “a last-ditch attempt to save Republicans in November.”

“Americans deserve better than to have their hard-earned tax dollars used for Trump’s illegal schemes,” he added.

Legal experts have suggested the ads run afoul of a federal statute against congressionally appropriated money being used for “publicity or propaganda,” and potentially other federal laws. The Homeland Security money tapped for the ads comes from a $175 million package Congress gave to the department as part of Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda.

The White House has defended the ads as public service announcements akin to what past administrations have done to promote various policies. Legal experts have said the recent ads differ from many past public service announcements because they aren’t aimed at helping members of the public benefit from specific government programs.

The defendants in the lawsuit — Trump, the White House, DHS and the Office of Management and Budget — didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Fall has only just begun, but it's already time to start thinking about the quintessential winter bug: the flu.

The annual flu season usually starts in October or November. But this year, it looks like the flu started to pick up in early September.

"There are enough signs pointing in the same direction to make me think, 'OK, yes. This is the start of flu season,'" says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The percentage of people testing positive for the flu in the West has been rising steadily since around the beginning of September, she says. And the number of people showing up in emergency departments because of the flu has also been rising for weeks, she adds.

"It's very uncommon to see flu activity rising this early. It's activity that we might normally see more like November or December," she says.

The timing of the flu season isn't the only thing that's odd. It's also unusual that flu activity seems to have started in Western states, such as California, Washington, Hawaii and Alaska.

"It typically starts in the South and then expands from there," Rivers says. "So two uncommon developments there."

Rivers stresses that the amount of flu activity is still very low in most parts of the country. But that's starting to change as the flu picks up nationwide.

It's unclear why flu activity would have started so early, and in such an unusual part of the country. But one clue might be a new variant that evolved a mutation, which appears to make it better at evading existing immunity, especially among teenagers.

"That's our best argument for what's going on right now in terms of this early flu season," says Dr. Alex Greninger, a virologist who heads infectious disease diagnostics at the University of Washington. Doctors there are seeing as much flu right now as they usually would around Christmas, and the mutated variant appears to be common, he says.

So Greninger, Rivers and others are urging people to think about getting their flu shot earlier than usual.

"It's crucial that people get an influenza vaccine," says Scott Hensley, a virologist at the University of Pennsylvania. "And this might be a year that people might want to get a vaccine early."

But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn't been promoting flu shots as it usually does. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the CDC, is a long-time vaccine skeptic.

"It is disappointing that CDC is quiet given that flu kills of hundreds of kids a year and can result in tens of thousands of hospitalizations and tens of thousands of deaths," says Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned last year as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to protest what he called political interference at the agency.

The CDC declined to make an official available to NPR for this story. In a statement, a CDC spokesperson said, "CDC is developing a communications strategy to provide clear, accessible information about influenza vaccination and other critical steps people can take to protect themselves during respiratory virus season. This includes information about the benefits and risks of vaccination to support informed decision-making."
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