The "15 Now" campaign for a minimum wage of $15 an hour, which won a victory in SeaTac, Washington, is now spreading to Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Tampa Bay, Philadelphia, Portland OR, and several other cities and regions. In Washington state, opponents of the local minimum wage increase are backing a statewide ballot initiative that would mean the state, rather than individual cities or towns, would set a "uniform and consistent" minimum wage that would apply statewide. That ballot initiative may create some head-scratching conflicts for free-market types, who generally oppose minimum wages but who also favor local decision-making to accommodate regional differences.

An effort by the California legislature to seize, by eminent domain, property of a Silicon Valley venture capitalist is a subject of a dispatch in the New York Times:

Vinod Khosla, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, paid $37.5 million in 2008 for a 53-acre parcel of ocean land that includes the beach and the road — and proceeded to close the gate, posting armed guards and signaling that he was prepared to spend what it takes to keep the public off what he contends is private land....Last month, the California Senate approved a bill that would permit the state to use the power of eminent domain to seize enough land to provide a public passageway to the beach. Next, the bill will be considered by the Assembly...

The drama over the ouster of the president and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis, health care expert John Goodman, is the topic of two articles in the Dallas Morning News (here and here). The Center is based in Dallas.

Meanwhile, Alvin Rabushka has an update on the search for a new director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

The American Interest has details on how the Air Line Pilots Association and established U.S. airlines got the House of Representatives, on a voice vote on "an arcane budget amendment," to block Norwegian Air from operating cut-rate transatlantic flights:

Under pressure from Delta, US Air, United, and the pilots' union, however, the House voted to forbid the Federal Aviation Administration from issuing Norwegian the necessary air operator certificate.

The charge these corporate interests level against Norwegian Air is that it hires Thai pilots and American flight attendants to circumvent high union prices—in other words, it cuts costs like any other business. Only in air travel is this unusual, as Norwegian Air itself pointed out recently. Noting that their safety and labor records are on par with industry standards, it cut to the heart of the issue:

The New York Observer asked for a piece from me on the "Did Eric Cantor Lose Because He Is Jewish?" question. If you are interested in Southern identity politics, or in my take on the answer, please check out the article here.

At National Review Online, Room to Grow editors Ramesh Ponnuru and Yuval Levin respond in detail to criticism of the book, including points I made in my column this week.

Eighty-eight individuals have been charged in connection with buying and selling food stamps and WIC (Women, Infant, and Children) benefits for cash, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia:

USA Today has an illuminating update on the search for a site for the Gigafactory, a planned battery manufacturing plant for Tesla motors that is touted to create 6,500 jobs on the basis of an investment of $4 billion to $5 billion. The two top contenders are reportedly San Antonio, Texas and Reno, Nevada, which have advantages over New Mexico and Arizona:

both are right-to-work states, Boyd said. Tesla has firsthand experience with the higher labor costs associated with manufacturing in California, which is not a right-to-work state. You can bet that this is one lesson Tesla CEO Elon Musk would rather not repeat — making it bad news for New Mexico, Boyd said.

Just how cumbersome are New York City's laws governing rental properties? DNAinfo reports that both the city's public advocate, Letitia James, and the mayor, Bill de Blasio, both elected officials from the Democratic Party, have failed to register the rental properties they own with the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development. From DNAInfo:

In the past five months, Mayor Bill de Blasio has twice applied for a DOB document that would verify that the century-old two-family Park Slope rowhouse that he and his wife own but rent out is being used legally. Both times the DOB rejected the de Blasios' application because it lacked the proper paperwork.

Here is the immigration ad that the Brat campaign used against Eric Cantor.

The House Majority leader, Eric Cantor, has earned a reservoir of affection around here with his book Young Guns, which we reviewed here, and with his constructive tone in his remarks at Washington and Lee University, his remarks at Wharton, and his comments on school choice.

The New York Sun, in an editorial on Dave Brat's victory over Eric Cantor in a Republican primary for a congressional seat in Virginia, writes, "How in the world can Congress address the immigration question before it addresses the lack of economic growth?"

Bloomberg has a valuable account based on Hillary Clinton's new book about how, as Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton went to bat for General Electric and Boeing on specific business deals:

One example she offers in the book is lobbying Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika on behalf of GE, which was seeking a $2.5 billion contract to help build six natural gas plants in the Northern African nation....Clinton, 66, writes about an October 2009 trip to Moscow where she pushed the Russians to pick the U.S. airline manufacturer for a $4 billion contract.

"I made the case that Boeing's jets set the global gold standard," Clinton writes....Shortly after the Moscow meeting, Boeing donated $2 million to help fund an American pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo, a world fair that attracted displays from roughly 250 countries and international groups. The American exhibition had a $60 million price tag, and Clinton had to finance it with private funds since Congress had barred U.S. taxpayer dollars from being used on such projects.

NPR has details on President Obama's plan for student loans:

He said he'll use his executive power to expand a program called Pay As You Earn, which limits borrowers' monthly debt payments to 10 percent of their discretionary income. Under the program, loans don't just get less expensive; they can actually disappear. The balance of a loan is forgiven after 20 years — 10 years if the borrower works in public service (for government or a nonprofit).

A book of "reform conservative" domestic policy ideas, Room to Grow, is the subject of my column this week. Please check it out at Reason (here) and Newsmax (here). David Brooks (here) and Paul Krugman (here) wrote about the same thing, for those interested in comparing.