At least 131 employees at five D.C. restaurants have left their jobs or been terminated after their establishments received letters from HSI claiming some employees “appear unauthorized to work in the United States.”
Immigration lawyers say restaurateurs should brace for much worse.
Many workers have missed shifts without jobs being destroyed making it challenging to measure labor impacts with conventional sources.
We use real-time daily data from Homebase to measure impacts. Thanks to UChicago and Homebase for making the data available.
#EconSky #NumbersDay
New research with @aaronsojourner.org of the @upjohninstitute.bsky.social posted on @northstarpolicy.org's blog. We find that Operation Metro Surge caused declines in employees working, hours worked, and businesses open, leading to an estimated $106 million wage loss for Twin Cities workers.
When faced with a shockingly exploitative new employment contract that would’ve forced them to sign away their IP, their likeness rights, and their power of attorney, Jupiter Jetson and her coworkers at Sheri’s fought back—fast.
They organized a union in SIX DAYS. www.thenation.com/article/econ...
Most renters — including those earning six figures — doubt they could afford a home in the foreseeable future wapo.st/4aG3YIT
Health care, new cars and new homes feel unaffordable to most Americans, a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos finds. Story by @laurenkaorigurley.bsky.social & Isabelle Gibson. Gift link -> wapo.st/4aG3YIT
NEW: Guards have taken away crayons, colored pencils & paper during recent room searches at Dilley, according to detainees and others. After one inspection, the children just “cried and cried and cried,” a mother said. The facility denies the claims.
By @mckenziefunk.com @micarosenberg.bsky.social
Trump's Labor Department just proposed a pro-business rule would make it easier for companies to classify more workers as independent contractors rather than employees
-Rescinds Biden era definition
-Implications for gig workers, construction, truck drivers & many more
new: The Labor Secretary's husband remains banned from the DOL HQ, although local police closed an investigation.
Three female labor staffers, all political appointees, complained internally that Shawn DeRemer touched them inappropriately.
www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
🚨 SCOOP: The IRS improperly disclosed confidential immigrant tax information to DHS, per sources.
It opens up HUGE liability for the US government.
Trump is suing the IRS over substantially the same disclosures -- for $10 billion.
🎁 Gift link:
Private sector union elections fell by nearly 30 percent in 2025, via @jaureliaglass.bsky.social @americanprogress.bsky.social www.americanprogress.org/shareable/the-number-of-national-labor-relations-board-nlrb-private-sector-union-elections-fell-by-nearly-30-percent-in-2025/?r=148214&l=6
Here's who the Washington Post just laid off.
I was laid off from the Washington Post today, along with hundreds (!!!) of incredible colleagues. If you need a data journalist, chart designer, or wacky-idea-specialist, give me a shout!
After 8 years writing the tech column
@washingtonpost.com, I am among folks who were laid off today. I’m grateful for the stories I got to tell and the impact we made on privacy, sustainability & AI.
You can keep following my work on my new (free) Substack geoffreyafowler.substack.com
cover of The Washington Post on Wednesday Feb 4, 2026. Headline on bottom, right: Musk wanted to hook users; his chatbot got more sexual
My story on Elon Musk cutting safeguards at xAI is on the front page of today's @washingtonpost.com. I’m also among 100’s of reporters laid off. I absolutely loved my job my brilliant coworkers & the thrill of reporting @ the center of forces upending the world: AI & Silicon Valley’s political power
After 20 years, I've been laid off at The Washington Post.
substack.com/home/post/p-...
So many incredible journalists got laid off today. Heroes, mentors, friends. Just an absolutely devastating day. Starting a thread here with some of their incredible work, and how to follow and support them.
The Washington Post laid off hundreds of the country's most dogged reporters today, who did indispensable work holding the powerful accountable at home & abroad. We are heartbroken.
Please share with anyone who cares about the future of journalism:
www.gofundme.com/f/standing-t...
I expected the cuts would be bad but I'm honestly stunned and sickened seeing how many great journalists the Washington Post just lost. People who nailed huge investigations, documented war zones, exposed horrific crimes, dropped all at once for failures they did not cause.
For nearly a century, the @washingtonpost’s foreign correspondents have been on the ground for the world’s most pressing stories. Now, our desk is facing potential steep cuts. Washington needs us. The world needs us. If you read us and need us, please watch this video and share.
New from 404 Media: here is the user guide for ELITE, the tool Palantir made for ICE. A map shows people on a map; ICE clicks them, brings up their dossier. ICE uses to find which neighborhoods to target. We obtained it, you can now read the document for yourself: www.404media.co/here-is-the-...
Vigil for Alex Pretti in S. Minneapolis - changing “Who keeps us safe? We keep us safe!”
Scene blocks from Minneapolis shooting getting very hot — ICE setting off grenades and tear gas on protestors at many intersections. Giant clouds of smoke with little visibility. Armored trucks with FBI and Minn national guard rolling down street. Medics carrying out injured protestor on stretcher
Many thousands of protestors called out of work, school, refused to spent their money here in Minneapolis today where the high was -7 with windchill.
Lake St, the commercial thoroughfare in S Minneapolis, was a ghost town.
Closest thing to a general strike in my lifetime.
The Washington Post Guild is alarmed and appalled by federal law enforcement’s search and seizure of reporter Hannah Natanson’s property and personal devices. Hannah is a valued member of our union whose work covering the federal workforce has been essential (1/3)
For the first time in at least half a century, more immigrants left the United States than entered last year, according to new estimates released Tuesday. @laurenkaorigurley.bsky.social
Clearest angle yet of the ICE officer fatally shooting a woman in Minneapolis. DHS said a "violent [rioter] weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them." Is that what this shows?
Wednesday, January 7, 2026 Post-Gazette to Publish Final Edition and Cease Operations May 3, 2026 Block Communications, Inc. and the Block family are saddened to announce that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette plans to publish its final edition and cease operations on May 3, 2026. Over the past 20 years, Block Communications has lost more than $350 million in cash operating the Post-Gazette. Despite those efforts, the realities facing local journalism make continued cash losses at this scale no longer sustainable. Recent court decisions would require the Post-Gazette to operate under a 2014 labor contract that imposes on the Post-Gazette outdated and inflexible operational practices unsuited for today’s local journalism. We deeply regret the impact this decision will have on Pittsburgh and the surrounding region. The Block family is proud of the service the Post-Gazette has provided to Pittsburgh for nearly a century and will exit with their dignity intact. ###
NEW: Publishers of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announce they are shutting down the newspaper on May 3, 2026.
Hours ago, the Supreme Court of the US declined to extend a stay on a court order for the paper to pay its journalists following the end of a 3-year strike.
NEW: Stephen Miller has been the public face of the Trump's unprecedented immigration crackdown, but George Borjas, a Cuba-born Harvard economist provided the intellectual underpinnings until he left the White House last Friday.
My profile of Borjas:
wapo.st/3NwJbhs
