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Monday's strike bogged down commuters in the San Francisco area. Member station KQED says some 200,000 people looked for alternative ways to get to work.

The annual shareholders' meeting of retailing giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. was marked by protests this week, as striking workers assembled in Arkansas to call for higher wages and better safety rules. A former Bangladeshi garment worker spoke inside the meeting.

Workers on the front lines of the immigration system are raising concerns about the workload that would be created by the proposed changes. Some unions are calling on lawmakers to oppose a bill they say would make things worse, not better.

The opposition from the National CIS Council is a boost to the National ICE Council, which until now had been the lone voice of opposition among enforcement unions.

The United Farm Workers seemed to be all over Washington this week — lobbying members of Congress and gathering for a big immigration rally outside the Capitol. The union has gotten "a huge injection of leverage" from its role in the immigration debate, one analyst says.

Thousands of supporters will descend on the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. This time, as differences are worked out among interested parties, the optimism is more palpable than it was in past attempts.

Fast-food workers in New York City are on strike for the second time in six months, demanding higher wages that they can live on. Workers complain that $7.25 an hour, New York's current minimum wage, is not enough to live in the city.

It's still far too early to know whether Congress will be able to achieve major changes to the nation's immigration laws. All that's certain at this stage is that lawmakers on both sides of the partisan divide, and in both chambers, continue to act as though they think they can.

An agreement between labor and business chiefs clears one of the last — and perhaps largest — hurdles for concrete legislation. Senators from the bipartisan group working to overhaul immigration say a deal is close but not complete.

What was once a local issue is growing into a nationwide concern, as civil rights activists argue that school closings are disproportionately hurting minority communities. But cities are in a bind with budget shortfalls, and closing under-populated schools may offer a way to cut costs.