AP adding 14 statehouse reporters

(AP) — The Associated Press is adding 14 statehouse reporters, including in Minnesota, for 18-month jobs through a collaboration with Report for America, a group dedicated to local reporting.

Report for America is part of a growing effort to help local media. In rural areas and even many cities, papers are shrinking and shutting down while coverage peters out. The media group GroundTruth Project, which supports younger journalists globally, launched the initiative in 2017.

Report for America recruits reporters and pays part of their salaries, putting them to work at existing news organizations. It has funded reporters at newspapers, online publications, radio and TV outlets, and other news organizations such as the AP.

The initiative is one of many designed to support local news. Other efforts to fund local reporting have come from journalism foundations; tech companies like Google, which has a partnership with newspaper publisher McClatchy; and media organizations like the investigatory nonprofit website ProPublica.

Reporters’ stories will be available to AP’s customers and other news outlets in those states. AP will also distribute stories by other Report for America journalists.

McDonald’s agrees to settlement

LOS ANGELES (AP) — McDonald’s has agreed to a $26 million settlement of a long-running class-action lawsuit over wages and work conditions at corporate-run locations in California, the parties said Monday.

The agreement, which estimates the settlement covers about 38,000 individuals, requires the approval of a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge.

The lawsuit filed nearly seven years ago against McDonald’s Restaurants of California Inc. made an array of claims including failure to pay minimum and overtime wages and to provide required meal and rest breaks.

One aspect involved overnight shifts that began on one day and ended the next day but had all hours attributed to the day the shift started, avoiding overtime payments.

Initially there was one plaintiff and eventually three others joined to represent the class of cooks and cashiers.

McDonald’s Corp. said in a statement that it takes its responsibility as an employer seriously and is committed to fair treatment of all employees.