Disney embraces $15 minimum wage in negotiations with workers
Disney says that marks the largest increase to starting wages it’s ever offered.
North & Central America
Stockton, CA becomes first U.S. city to test universal basic income
Stockton, Calif., hopes to become an exhibition ground for fighting poverty with a simple yet unorthodox experiment: giving $500 a month in donated cash to perhaps 100 local families, no strings attached.
Rhode Island becomes latest state to pass new gun laws after Parkland
The governor has signed a bill to ban bump stocks and another to implement a “red flag” law.
U.S. federal judge in Missouri grants transgender inmates transition-related health care
Denying transgender prisoners transition-related health care violates their Eighth Amendment rights, according to a final ruling from a federal judge in Missouri, in an important win for transgender people in the prison system.
Vermont passes gender-neutral bathroom bill
Vermont lawmakers have passed a bill that will require all single-user bathrooms in public buildings or places of public accommodation to be marked as gender-neutral.
Americans support of same-sex marriage at all-time high
In each of the past three annual polls, Gallup has recorded three-percentage point increases among Americans who say same-sex marriages should be legally valid.
Premature birth rates drop in California after coal and oil plants shut down, study finds
Within a year of eight coal- and oil-fired power plant retirements, the rate of preterm births in mothers living close by dropped, finds new study on air pollution.
America’s incarceration rate is at a two-decade low
The nation’s incarceration rate has declined every year since 2006 and is now at its lowest point since 1996.
Maryland becomes 11th state to ban ‘gay conversion therapy’ for minors
Maryland Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan, a Republican, signed the Youth Mental Health Protection Act into law on Tuesday, making the state the 11th to ban gay conversion therapy for minors.
Seattle passes new tax on city’s biggest companies to combat housing crisis
The tax will raise $45 million a year over the five-year life of the tax to build more affordable housing and support services for the homeless.