California
According to an estimate by researchers at Stanford University, the historically bad concentrations of wildfire smoke in California between Aug. 1 and Sept. 10 were responsible for at least 1,200 and possibly up to 3,000 deaths that otherwise would not have occurred…
California reported 3,400 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, 9/25, which marks a slight uptick from recent lows, but the more concerning number is the 14-day rolling average of new cases which has begun to climb ever so slightly in the past few days, which is up by 100 or so daily cases…
President and Administration
Twice in the last 15 months, federal courts have scrutinized rationales offered by the Trump administration for trying to upend key parts of the 2020 census, and twice judges have found them wanting…
The Trump administration is moving to impose two- and four-year limits on visas for international students, who are now allowed to stay in the U.S. for as long as it takes to complete their programs…
On Saturday, 9/26, President Trump announced that he has selected Judge Amy Coney Barrett, the favorite candidate of conservatives, to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and will try to force Senate confirmation before Election Day in a move that would significantly alter the ideological makeup of the Supreme Court for years…
New guidance from the CDC for the upcoming holiday season warns that hosts and attendees at holiday celebrations will need to take steps to limit the risk of contracting and spreading the novel coronavirus…
Education
Undergraduate enrollments are down 2.5 percent compared to last fall, with the biggest losses being at community colleges, where enrollments declined by 7.5 percent, according to preliminary data on fall enrollments from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center…
An extensive review of county-level COVID-19 case data in the United States reveals a complicated picture that in some ways challenges popular narratives about the role colleges and universities played in the pandemic’s spread, and in other ways reinforces them…
Congress
On 9/21, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed the bipartisan S. 2661, the National Suicide Hotline Designation Act…
On 9/24 the House Education Committee cleared the National Apprenticeship Act of 2020 through markup on a party line vote, with all Democrats voting in favor of the bill…
Presidential Election
President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will debate each other for the first time Tuesday evening, 9/29, in the first of three presidential debates…