Educators in Dublin, California were on strike on Tuesday after no deal was made between the teachers union and the school district on Monday night.
Teachers union is pushing for a 3.5 per cent salary increase. Teachers also want better health care, smaller class sizes and counsellors at all elementary schools.
The district’s counter proposal is just over 2 per cent in salary increases.
Dublin Unified School District (DUSD) Superintendent Chris Funk said the current offer would require about $7 million (£5.22 million) in budget cuts next year.
DTA President Brad Dobrezenski said: ‘It’s not agreeable because it doesn’t focus on our students. It doesn’t lower their class sizes and it doesn’t increase support for the students with special needs or exceptional needs.’
Meanwhile, in California’s Sacramento district of Natomas, teachers began striking on Tuesday for the first time in district history, as educators push for higher salaries, fully paid family health benefits and smaller class sizes.
Members of the Natomas Teachers’ Association (NTA), the district’s teachers union, had signalled the possibility of a strike earlier this week when educators and some parents gathered outside the Natomas Unified School District headquarters with signs.
Natomas educators say the increases they are seeking would provide more stability for students and help retain teachers in the district. They said more than 100 educators were transferred last year to neighbouring districts.
Natomas Unified Superintendent Dr Robyn Castillo said an independent report determined the district’s proposal – including a 4 per cent salary increase and a 100 per cent district-funded health plan option – is reasonable given the district’s financial situation.
The US Department of Agriculture saw some of the largest workforce reductions of any federal department as the Trump administration set out to downsize the government over the past year.
More than 24,000 people left the USDA since President Donald Trump took office last January, according to US Office of Personnel Management data.
The department saw a nearly 27 per cent reduction in its workforce from September 2024 to December 2025, according to data that’s presented by fiscal year.
Nick Levendofsky, executive director of the Kansas Farmers Union said: ‘The lost staffing means farmers are waiting longer for help applying for financial assistance or special project funds.
‘If you don’t have the folks that are there to do the work that’s needed to be done – whether that’s paperwork or following up with farmers on a project that they are wanting to do – then where do those farmers go for those services?’
Nationwide – and across the Great Plains and Midwest – the Forest Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Agricultural Research Service and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service lost the most employees since September 2024, according to the federal data.
The National Agricultural Statistics Service, which collects and publishes data on livestock and crop production, lost 37 per cent of its staff – the largest percentage of any agency.
And the Food and Nutrition Service – which operates food benefits including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Women, Infants and Children’s programme – saw a 31 per cent reduction from about 1,750 employees to 1,200.
- Several hundred home care workers in the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Democratic State Senator Gustavo Rivera, chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Health, rallied at the New York State Capitol in Albany on Monday to remove Medicaid long-term care from the control of private insurers.
The group pushed for the Home Care Savings and Reinvestment Act to remove for-profit middlemen from the system and save the state $3 billion (£2.24 billion) a year.
The Monday morning rally featured members and leaders of 1199SEIU branch, members of the union representing the state’s home healthcare workforce.
Bill sponsor Rivera argues that the privatised system makes companies rich while shortchanging that workforce.
Over four hundred caregivers, employers, and advocates joined him for the rally, including Lilieth Clacken, a Long Island home health aide with 30 years of experience. She pointed out that many workers in the sector live in poverty and can’t afford health care themselves.
If passed, S2332A/A2018A would have the state government replace the current Medicaid managed long-term home care system with a direct fee-for-service model.
That means New York would directly reimburse healthcare providers to manage home care, sidestepping most payments to private insurance companies.
If the bill were to pass, the commissioner of the New York State Department of Health would also have to create at least two care coordination entities per county.
They would develop individual plans for patients without directly offering any care services, which is supposed to prevent any conflicts of interest.
- A Democrat has won a special election for a state house seat in New Hampshire on Tuesday, flipping a Republican district that Donald Trump carried and marking the latest in a string of 28 Democratic upsets that could usher in a blue wave in the midterms.
Bobbi Boudman beat Republican Dale Fincher in New Hampshire’s Carroll county district 7.
It was Boudman’s third try at the seat – she lost to Republican Glenn Cordelli the last two cycles by several points. Cordelli resigned from the seat after moving, leading to the special election on 10 March.
Polls show Boudman winning with 52 per cent of the vote.
National Democrats pointed to Boudman’s win as part of a pattern of Democrats winning in red and toss-up areas: Democrats have now flipped 28 seats since Trump won in November 2024, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) said. Republicans have not flipped any.
The committee hopes for more wins this year, with a strategy that could deliver the biggest Democratic gains in two decades, Heather Williams, DLCC’s president, said.
Democratic National Committee chair, Ken Martin, praised Boudman for running a campaign that focused on solutions for New Hampshire families being squeezed by Trump’s agenda.
Martin said in statement: ‘This win is yet another warning sign to Republicans across the country, and a new reality is now sinking in: No Republican seat is safe.
‘From now until November, Democrats are keeping our foot on the gas and organising and competing everywhere, including to flip the New Hampshire house and take back power across the country.’
- Fuel shortages in Cuba have triggered a humanitarian crisis with the island nation’s health system approaching a critical point the United Nations said on Tuesday.
Stephane Dujarric, chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: ‘This has triggered an energy crisis. We remain deeply concerned about the deteriorating situation, driven by the inability to import fuel.’
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that hospitals face frequent power outages, shortages of essential medicines, the inability to operate critical equipment, as well as major disruptions to oncology care, dialysis, emergency services, infant and maternal care, cold-chain systems, as well as chronic and non-urgent care.
The office said about 16,000 cancer patients need radiotherapy and more than 12,000 depending on chemotherapy cannot get the treatment needed due to power outages and resource shortages.
Ambulances are struggling to obtain fuel, delaying urgent care.
OCHA said that nearly one million people depend on water delivered by tanker trucks, which require fuel. More than 80 per cent of water-pumping infrastructure relies on electricity, resulting in widespread and prolonged service disruptions.
The OCHA stated: ‘Food supply chains – from production to storage to distribution – are increasingly impacted, with cold-chain systems failing, transport routes increasingly interrupted, and reductions in the availability of basic food items across the country.
The OCHA said its humanitarian partners are working to assist, but the lack of fuel is limiting the operations of food and water trucks, with dozens of aid containers waiting at the port.
The US Trump administration announced last month it was allowing some oil into Cuba, but it can only be sold to the private sector, not to the government. Washington previously banned oil from Venezuela bound for Cuba.
