Boeing strike: Boeing said Monday it made a “best and final offer” to striking union machinists that includes bigger raises and larger bonuses than a proposed contract that was overwhelmingly rejected.

The company said the offer includes pay raises of 30% over four years, up from the rejected 25% raises.

About 33,000 machinists began their walkout Sept. 13. The company introduced rolling furloughs of thousands of managers and nonunion employees last week to cut costs during the strike.

The strikers face their own financial pressure to return to work. They received their final paychecks last week and will lose company-provided health insurance at the end of the month, Boeing said.

The company said its new offer is contingent on members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers ratifying the contract by late Friday.

The union, which represents factory workers who assemble some of the company’s best-selling planes, said it is reviewing the offer.

New president in Sri Lanka: Marxist politician Anura Kumara Dissanayake was sworn in Monday as Sri Lanka’s ninth president in an election that saw voters reject an old guard accused of leading the country into economic crisis.

Dissanayake, 55, who ran as head of the National People’s Power coalition, defeated President Ranil Wickremesinghe, opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and 35 other candidates in Saturday’s election.

The election came as the country seeks to recover from a severe economic crisis that led to shortages of such essentials as foods, medicines, cooking gas and fuel in 2022, triggering massive protests that forced then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and resign.

In a brief speech after the swearing-in, Dissanayake pledged to work with others to take on the country’s challenges.

His first major challenge will be to act on his campaign promise to ease the crushing austerity measures imposed by Wickremesinghe under a relief agreement with the International Monetary Fund.

2020 ‘Trump Train’ verdict: A federal jury in Texas cleared a group of supporters of Donald Trump supporters and found one driver liable Monday in a civil trial over a convoy that surrounded a Biden-Harris campaign bus days before the 2020 election.

The two-week trial in Austin centered on whether the actions of the “Trump Train” participants amounted to political intimidation. Among those aboard the bus was former Democratic lawmaker Wendy Davis, who testified that she feared for her life while a convoy of Trump supporters boxed in the bus along Interstate 35.

The jury awarded $10,000 to the bus driver.

No criminal charges were filed against the six Trump supporters who were sued by Davis and two others aboard the bus. Civil rights advocates hoped a guilty verdict would send a clear message about what constitutes political violence and intimidation.