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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

McDonald's Workers Strike for Wage Hike

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Thursday, April 14, 2016   

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Fast food workers are on strike in Missouri and across the country today, and they're being joined by child care workers, community organizations and some lawmakers. They want higher wages and more government help with child care.

Kimberly Riley is 22 and works for McDonald's in Florissant. She makes $9.16 an hour and helps her mother support her brothers and sisters. She said even though her mom works and she has a job with the second largest employer in the world, together they can't make ends meet.

"After paying bills, paying the light bill, the gas bill, paying for a rent, paying her car note and after doing everything, it's still not enough," she said.

McDonald's recently raised wages to $1 above the mandated minimum wage for about 90,000 workers, but employees say they need at least $15 an hour in order to survive. The strike is a global, one-day event.

Riley says McDonald's is influencing the wages and working conditions of fast food, child care, and other jobs. She says the goal of a company should be to provide workers with a living, not pay them the lowest wage possible.

"Everybody should be able to make a living wage, whether you're working at McDonald's, you're working for home health care, child care, anything," she added. "Everybody should make a living wage. I mean people have to eat, people need transportation, people want to go to school."

Riley says her dream is to be a nurse but she refuses to quit work or reduce her hours to go to college because she doesn't want her mother to struggle.


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