Carla Marinucci

Rep Ro Khanna (D-CA), whose Silicon Valley district is home to Apple, Google, Facebook and Tesla, says he’ll travel to Appalachia in March to lend his support to a program that trains young people — including the children of coal miners — for jobs like coding and computer tech.

The March 13 trip to Paintsville (KY) a rural community several hours east of Louisville, was organized with the help of tech giants like Cupertino-based Apple Computers. The plan is to train at least 40 young adults for four months in tech and software development, followed by four-month paid internships, said Khanna, a Democrat. According to Khanna’s office, the program is being funded with $4.5 million from TechHire Eastern Kentucky in cooperation with the Appalachian Regional Commission. It’s part of a 2015 TechHire initiative launched by the Obama administration.

Seven-term Rep Mike Honda (D-CA), challenged by opponent Ro Khanna to take a stand on the impending $45 billion mega-merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable, said that he opposes the deal as “not in the best interests of my constituents.”

“I have long advocated for policies that protect and enhance consumer choice, increase competition, enable innovation and promote network neutrality. This merger has the potential to harm these principles, and I believe it should not be approved. I have always fought for diversity in media ownership, local control over cable franchising, and requiring providers to build out networks to all parts of their service area so that all consumers can benefit from broadband access and competition. I fear that this merger, which would concentrate vast market share in a single company, would result in price increases for customers, would slow the pace of innovation in the equipment market, and would dampen investment in the development of online content.”