The Brief

Gov. Gavin Newsom is cutting it close. He signed a law last fall that phases in a $25 minimum wage for California’s lowest-paid health care workers. Just two months later, he said he wanted to delay it because of its potential to exacerbate the severe state budget shortfall.

But two weeks before the deadline for employers to start paying more to their employees, many health workers are still waiting to hear whether they will in fact see a raise on June 1.

Some health workers remain hopeful. Others have already been notified by their employers of their upcoming raise or have already started to see increased pay.

When Newsom presented his latest budget proposal last week, the governor said negotiations around potential changes to the health worker minimum wage law, Senate Bill 525, are still taking place. He promised a deal between his administration, the Legislature and proponents of the law would be hashed out in the upcoming weeks.

“This budget will not be signed without that deal that we committed to being addressed,” Newsom said. He usually signs a budget for the next fiscal year in late June.

Meanwhile the union that advocated for the health care pay increase has launched an advertising campaign that aims to hold Newsom to the law he signed.

One ad by Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West on the social media site X shows a dialysis worker named Alice and it reads, “The dialysis care Alice provides is lifesaving. Yet, with caregivers at her facility starting out at only $18/hr, it’s no wonder there’s a short staffing crisis.

A $25/hr minimum wage for healthcare workers will help ensure patients get the care they need.”

Nathan Selzer, communications director for SEIU-UHW, said his union posted the messages because, “Our workers were concerned and remain concerned. What we saw in conversations earlier this year was folks really focusing only on money and only on dollars and cents, and not on what those dollars and cents are used for.”

SEIU-UHW is an affiliate of SEIU California, which sponsored the law.

“We made a decision that we’ve got to make sure we’re reminding people why this was made into law to begin with,” he said.

Selzer said he is not directly involved in conversations with the governor’s office and legislators, but that confusion among many workers rings true. “We’ve heard June 1, we’ve heard July 1. It remains to be seen what actually happens here,” he said.

Deadline to postpone minimum wage hike

What exactly is holding up the negotiations is unclear. Lawmakers and Newsom would have to pass and sign legislation that would push back the start date within two weeks to delay it effectively.

Newsom said he wanted to postpone the wage increase when he released his initial budget proposal in January. He asked the Legislature for an annual “trigger” that would tie the minimum wage increases to the state’s budget outlook. His administration projects the state is facing a $27.6 billion deficit in 2024-25.

The state has estimated the minimum wage increase could cost the state around $4 billion a year. That’s because the state would have to pay for the wage increases for its own employees at state health facilities and because the state may be forced to increase what it reimburses facilities for services provided to patients on Medi-Cal, its insurance program for low-income people, as a way to partially cover the pay raises.

The UC Berkeley Labor Center estimates the cost to the state to be much lower. Total health spending in California would increase by about $2.7 billion because of the law, but the state would be responsible only for a fraction of that, according to the Labor Center’s analysis.

Laurel Lucia, director of the Health Care Program at the Labor Center, said that there is no requirement in the law that directs the state to raise Medi-Cal payments to hospitals and clinics as a way to make up for the costs of higher wages, but the law could play a role in Medi-Cal rate negotiations.

“When the rates were set for 2024, there was recognition in the (rates) report that there might need to be changes to those rates due to” the minimum wage increase, Lucia said.

California hospitals, dialysis clinics raising pay

Absent any confirmed changes to the law, some employers and associations representing health employers say they are moving forward with the raises as scheduled.

“As far as we know, the minimum wage for health care workers will be going up as of June 1. We have no information that would indicate otherwise,” Jan Emerson-Shea, a spokesperson for the California Hospitals Association, said in an email this week.

The California Kidney Care Alliance, a trade association representing dialysis providers and clinics, said members are following the wage requirements as laid out by the law. “In fact, many providers have already increased wages well ahead of the requirements of the bill,” Jaycob Bytel, a spokesperson for the alliance, said in a statement.

Depending on where they work, employees are scheduled to receive from $18 to $23 an hour starting next month. That’s compared to the current statewide minimum wage of $16.

The wage hike will phase in over the years until workers reach $25 an hour.

Some health systems have already notified employees of the upcoming pay boost, including the University of California Health system. In a post on its website, UC Health said it would be moving forward with their scheduled wage hike of $23 an hour “meeting the most ambitious timeline” of June 1.

Meanwhile, some hospitals have already raised wages because of competition in the labor market. As an independent hospital that serves a high rate of low-income Medi-Cal patients, the wage law requires Kaweah Health Medical Center in Visalia to raise wages starting at $18 an hour.

“We are already seeing competitive changes in the market that have forced us to implement pay increases now, so we have not waited for June 1st,” Gary Herbst, chief executive of Kaweah Health, said in an email. “We are exceeding the state required $18 to remain competitive, and to continue recruiting and retaining great employees.”

Herbst said he rolled out increases beginning in February, and “will continue to evaluate it as time goes on.” He expects the law to cost his hospital about $30 million a year.

A Superior Court judge has found that the city of Los Angeles violated public open records laws nearly two years ago by taking action on matters related to its homelessness response and failing to report it.

That decision could be a factor in an ongoing hearing in federal court where a different judge is considering whether to hold the city in contempt of court.

In a ruling last week, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Curtis A. Kin found that the city violated the Brown Act on two occasions in January and May 2024 when it took action in closed session on the following:

— approving an encampment reduction plan;

— approving a memorandum of understanding with the county for support on interim housing beds and other issues.

Afterward, the city did not report those approvals in open session.

The city argued its actions were allowed under the Brown Act because they stemmed from the ongoing settlement between the city and the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, a group of business owners and residents who sued the city over its response to the homelessness crisis.

But Kin disagreed with that argument, saying what the city had done in closed session did not fall within the Brown Act exemptions because they were policy decisions, not litigation decisions concerning the L.A. Alliance settlement.

In federal court, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter has been overseeing the city’s compliance with the settlement. Carter has said he’s concerned “the city has demonstrated a continuous pattern of delay” in meeting its obligations.

Carter has been hearing testimony since November from city officials and others in an ongoing contempt-of-court hearing. This week, the judge said in court documents that he would consider Kin’s ruling as the contempt hearing proceeds.

The parties were last in federal court earlier this week. It’s not yet clear when that hearing will resume.

Sidewalk vendors can now apply to receive a free, health-code-compliant food vending cart through a new program launched in a partnership between the county and the city of Los Angeles.

Who can apply

To receive a cart, applicants must be at least 18 years old, live in LA County, be self-employed as a sidewalk vendor, and earn less than $75,000 annually from vending, according to a news release. Applicants must operate within unincorporated LA County or the city of LA, and commit to full compliance with public health and safety regulations.

You can find the application here.

Permits to secure

Vendors who are awarded carts will have to secure required permits in order to begin operating as fully permitted businesses. This includes obtaining the Compact Mobile Food Operation (CMFO) certificate from the LA County Department of Public Health and any Sidewalk Vending Registration Certifications or permits required to comply with the county and city sidewalk vending programs.

Applications will be selected by lottery, will be reviewed on a monthly basis, and will be prioritized based on “compliance readiness.” Priority will also be given to those who are based in the county’s “highest-need areas,” as according to the county equity explorer map.

Eligible applicants will be connected to partner organizations like Inclusive Action for the City to help navigate the permitting process and to provide business business support and language assistance.

What kind of carts?

Carts offered through the program include:

• Integrated grill carts for precooked meat for tacos, hot dogs, and hamburgers that are assembled on a cart
• Hot-holding carts for pre-portioned cooked tamales, corn, quesadillas, gyros, pupusas
• Cut fruit carts for fruits, bionicos, and acai bowls
• Cold-hold ice cream carts that store prepackaged ice cream items

Currently, the county and city have 50 hot-holding and 30 cold-holding carts for the first round of awards with 40 integrated grill carts underway.

More about the program

The launch of the Sidewalk Vending Cart Program – which invests $2.8 million in more than 280 carts – follows the passage of state legislation that decriminalized street vendors and that streamlined the permitting process.

“The program aims to help vendors meet new legal requirements, overcome financial barriers to formalization, and operate safely and legally in their communities,” according to the news release.

Los Angeles County Board Chair Hilda Solis said the program can help ensure a “permitted pathway” toward entrepreneurship.
“Many vendors are navigating increasingly difficult and uncertain times due to cruel federal immigration actions, and we know vendors play an essential role in the economic and cultural vitality of Los Angeles County,” Solis said in a statement. “This is more than a program — this is a chance to support small business growth, economic stability, and even generational wealth.”

The biggest mobile network in the United States, Verizon, experienced a huge outage on Wednesday, leaving at least tens of thousands of customers without cell service for much of the day.

An update on Verizon's website today said the outage had been resolved. "We are sorry for what you experienced and will continue to work hard day and night to provide the outstanding network and service that people expect from Verizon," it said.

What happened?

It's still unclear. Verizon has not posted details nor an explanation of the cause of the outage on its website. In an email to NPR, a company spokesperson wrote that the problem stemmed from "a software issue" and that Verizon is conducting a full review.And while Verizon hasn't released a figure for how many customers were affected, the staff at the Downdetector website — where users go to report service outages — posted on Facebook that they received 2.3 million outage reports for Verizon throughout the day. (That doesn't necessarily translate to 2.3 million affected customers.)

Cell networks experience small outages fairly regularly, though, and sizable ones are not uncommon. Verizon had a disruption across several major cities in September 2024, and competitor AT&T was hit by a large outage in February 2024, affecting more than 125 million registered devices and customers in all 50 states.

Sanjoy Paul, a wireless network expert at Rice University, says telecommunications systems have become more complex over the past decade and a half as they've moved from physical infrastructure — wires and cables — and into the cloud.

"What used to be a completely hardware-dependent network transformed into a complete software-dependent network," he said. That shift has given operators more flexibility to add services or tweak products but, he said, it has come at the expense of reliability.

With a cloud and software-based networks, there are more opportunities for glitches and attacks, he said. Small issues with computer code buried inside these systems can have big consequences.

What have been some consequences of the outage?

Users had no connectivity for much of the day and were only able to access "SOS" mode during the outage.

Verizon, which has styled itself as America's best and most reliable network, has been in damage control mode. The company has issued instructions for customers to restart their devices to reconnect to the network if they are still having problems. It also pledged $20 credits as "a way of acknowledging your time and showing that this matters to us," according to their website.

The Federal Communications Commission said in a statement it was "continuing to actively investigate and monitor the situation to determine next steps."

Could it happen again?

Yep — to Verizon or any of its competitors.

Since the cause of this latest outage remains unclear, it's too early to say whether or not this exact thing could happen again. But Lee McKnight, an associate professor in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, told NPR's Morning Edition outages are "a fact of life these days for major telecommunications firms."

"Modern telecom networks are cloud networks. 5G networks are mainly, like, hundreds of different cloud services," he said. "The telecom companies haven't yet adjusted their training to that reality, that their staff have to be expert not just in cell towers and wireless, like we think about, but about cloud services, like AWS, or Microsoft, or Google."

At the end of the day, experts say, consumers should consider having a "Plan B" for connectivity. That may mean a land line for your house or getting a second phone on a different cell network.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Despite recent Trump administration tariffs and trade policies, the Port of Long Beach set a record high for container volumes over the past year.

Noel Hacegaba, chief operating officer of the Port of Long Beach, said at the annual State of the Port address Thursday that the Long Beach port handled 9.9 million TEUs, or 9.9 million 20-foot equivalent containers.

“Along with our top imports like electronics, furniture and clothing came millions of Disney’s Ultimate Stitch interactive plush doll, the hottest toy from this past Christmas,” he said.

The port imported a record 4.8 million TEUs, Hacegaba said, as importers looked to get ahead of the tariffs. Export numbers were over 1 million TEUs, “not our highest ever, but still strong considering all the retaliatory tariffs imposed on U.S. exports,” Hacegaba said.

Changing trade patterns

The last year saw a global trade war after President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on nearly all imports — “the highest tariffs since the Great Depression” imposed on pretty much every U.S. trading partner, Hacegaba said. And while the tariffs did not affect overall container volumes, he said, they “reshape trade patterns.”

Six years ago, he said, about 70% of cargo volume was tied to China. That has now dropped to 60% with more cargo coming in from Vietnam, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries.

Outlook for 2026

Hacebaga said this year’s key economic indicators show “signs of uncertainty, with unemployment rates higher than they were last year and inflation trending down. Consumer spending showed some signs of slowing down as lower-income groups cut back on spending on nonessential goods.”

“The only certainty is more uncertainty,” he also said, adding that the port is still projecting another 9 million TEUs this year, “making it one of our top five busiest years ever.”