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    Boeing Workers Go on Strike: What to Know

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    Thousands of Boeing workers in Washington State and Oregon walked off the job on Friday in the first strike at the plane maker in 16 years.Boeing is facing a strike that threatens to disrupt plane production, after workers overwhelmingly voted to reject a tentative contract their unions had reached with the company.Thousands of workers walked off the job in the Seattle and Portland, Ore., regions on Friday, a move that is likely to stall operations at factories where Boeing manufactures most of its commercial planes. While the deal their unions struck with the company on Sunday included double digit pay raises and improvements to benefits, 95 percent of workers rejected the proposed contract, opting instead to leverage a strike to push for more.Here’s what else to know about the company’s first strike since 2008:How many workers are on strike?Boeing, one of the largest exporters in the United States, employs a total of nearly 150,000 people across the country — almost half of them in Washington State — and more than 170,000 people worldwide. The contract that spurred Friday’s strike covers about a fifth of the company’s employees.A vast majority of the 33,000 workers under the contract are represented by District 751 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Boeing’s largest union. Most of that union’s members work on commercial airplanes in the Seattle area. Workers in the Portland, Ore., area, who are represented by the union’s smaller District W24, are also on strike.What prompted them to walk off the job?The leaders of the unions representing the workers on strike reached a tentative deal with Boeing on Sunday that would have secured raises of 25 percent over four years, along with improvements to health care and retirement benefits. The company also committed to building its next commercial plane in the Pacific Northwest.But workers’ overwhelming rejection of that tentative contract reflects their willingness to fight for more, in large part to make up for concessions made in past talks, including the loss of pension benefits a decade ago. The unions started the talks by asking for raises of 40 percent.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Record-Breaking Heat Broils Much of Western U.S.

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      From Oregon to California to Arizona, several cities have seen scorching temperatures in recent days. And there is little relief in sight, forecasters say.Millions of people across the Western United States were broiling under record-breaking heat on Saturday, with little relief in sight over the coming days, according to forecasters.From Oregon to California to the deserts of Arizona, several cities have seen stifling temperatures in recent days. Jacob Asherman, a forecaster for the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center, said the blistering temperatures were being fueled by a ridge of high-pressure air that had parked over much of the West, preventing hot air near the surface from rising higher in the atmosphere.While many of these cities — like Las Vegas, where temperatures were forecast to reach 117 degrees over the weekend — expect triple-digit temperatures every summer, some residents in other regions were caught off guard by what is predicted to be a long stretch of sizzling days.In Portland, Ore., temperatures were forecast to hover around 100 degrees for five straight days starting Friday, conditions that once would have been considered unusual for a region where summers were so mild that people rarely needed air-conditioners. The sweltering temperatures prompted Gov. Tina Kotek to declare a statewide heat emergency, warning that the extreme heat represented a “new normal” of a changing climate.“Both the record-breaking temperatures and the duration of heat present a clear and present danger, particularly for children, elders, people with disabilities and people who work outside,” Ms. Kotek said in a statement.A person cooled off during the Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland, Ore.Jenny Kane/Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Bruce Nordstrom, Who Helped Lead His Family’s Retail Empire, Dies at 90

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      Though he was the company’s president, he opted for joint leadership with family members as they made Nordstrom, starting as a string of shoe stores, into an international fashion retail brand.Bruce Nordstrom, who along with three other members of the Nordstrom family transformed a small chain of Pacific Northwest shoe stores into an international fashion retail giant with more than 150 locations worldwide, died on Saturday at his home in Seattle. He was 90.His death was confirmed by a company spokeswoman.As a grandson of John W. Nordstrom, the company’s Swedish immigrant founder, Mr. Nordstrom was part of the third generation of the family to run the company jointly, sharing power and making decisions by consensus, an unusual but successful Nordstrom tradition that continues to this day.He shared leadership with his cousins John N. Nordstrom and Jim Nordstrom, who were brothers, and Jack McMillan, who was married to their cousin Loyal Nordstrom.Management by committee is considered a business school formula for disaster, but the Nordstrom family, starting with Bruce’s father, Everett, and Everett’s brothers Elmer and Lloyd, decided that they could be more effective as co-leaders of the company, which was founded in 1901 in Seattle.When Lloyd Nordstrom called 30-year-old Bruce into his office in 1963 and named him president of the company, the younger Mr. Nordstrom accepted the post but soon decided that he would emulate his father’s generation and share leadership with his three relatives.“Obviously, the arrangement worked out great,” Bruce Nordstrom wrote in a 2007 autobiography, “Leave It Better Than You Found It.” “It was marvelous for them and it was marvelous for me because it felt like a weight had been taken off my shoulders.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Maps: Track the Latest Atmospheric Rivers to Hit California

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      A pair of atmospheric rivers is expected to hit the Western United States and Canada in the coming days. Follow our coverage here. Atmospheric rivers are essentially moisture streams in the sky and are often visible from space as narrow bands stretching from the West Coast out across the Pacific. As these long, thin storm […] More

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      More Atmospheric Rivers Are on the Way. Here’s What the West Can Expect.

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      A sequence of atmospheric rivers will bring heavy rainfall and snow to the Western U.S. and Canada over the next week.The Western United States and Canada are likely to see excessive rain and heavy snowfall from a sequence of back-to-back atmospheric rivers beginning this weekend and continuing into next week.An atmospheric river is like a powerful fire hose with only one person holding it. It often has a narrow path of the heaviest and strongest precipitation. It can be challenging to pinpoint where the heaviest stream of water will fall. It could be strong in the San Francisco Bay Area, and little might fall in Southern California, or vice versa.This early in the forecast, meteorologists are certain that the weather pattern is set up for a series of atmospheric river events — in some locations likely reaching a three or a four on the Atmospheric River five-point scale developed by the SCRIPPS Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego — along the West Coast. But they are less certain where the heaviest precipitation will fall, especially later in the week. There are at least three atmospheric rivers over the next week, and an additional one beyond that. More