California
Gov. Gavin Newsom lifted stay-at-home orders statewide today, 1/25, allowing restaurants to reopen for outdoor dining and salons to resume appointments indoors…
Los Angeles Unified officials are retracting a school board motion made last week that authorized the district to sue the state over Gov. Gavin Newsom's school reopening plan, saying it was a mistake…
Gov. Gavin Newsom outlined his areas of agreement and places where he hopes to collaborate with the new administration Tuesday, 1/19, in a letter to Biden…
As Kamala Harris stepped into her role as vice president and out of her Senate office last week, Democrat Alex Padilla became the first Latino senator from California, a state where Latino residents make up 40 percent of the population, and will be one of six in the Senate…
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced Tuesday, 1/21, that he is involved in nine new lawsuits against President Donald Trump's environmental rollbacks on Trump's last full day in office…
Coronavirus
Federal health officials and corporate executives agree that it will be impossible to increase the immediate supply of vaccines before April because of lack of manufacturing capacity…
Up to 100 sites run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) could begin offering the COVID-19 vaccine within the next month…
President and Administration
President Joe Biden signed an executive order Thursday, 1/21, directing federal agencies to get schools resources for COVID-19 testing, contact tracing, and vaccination for teachers…
President Biden’s administration on Friday, 1/22, revoked a last-minute memo issued by former President Trump’s Justice Department that sought to limit the scope of a landmark Supreme Court decision on workplace discrimination against the LGBTQ community…
In one of his first acts as president, Biden issued an executive order calling on the Secretary of Homeland Security to take all appropriate actions to “preserve and fortify” the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)…
The U.S. Supreme Court sought the Biden administration’s views on a state-against-state clash over billions of dollars in income taxes paid by people who work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic…
Europe and the U.S. should jointly adopt a carbon tax on imports as a means to promote low-emission production globally, according to the leaders of Germany’s Greens, the country’s No. 2 political force…
President Joe Biden will keep FBI Director Christopher Wray on in that role…
U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Joseph Simons said on Tuesday, 1/19, that he would resign effective Jan. 29, along with members of his senior staff…
After four long years of Donald Trump’s attacks on North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday, 1/21, that the defense alliance had survived the challenge — and that he looked forward to rebuilding the transatlantic relationship with President Biden…
The Kremlin on Friday, 1/22, welcomed the Biden administration’s offer to extend a nuclear disarmament treaty that is set to expire next month, signaling, as had been expected, that Russia intends to cooperate with the United States on nuclear security despite President Biden’s pledges to otherwise pursue a harder line with Moscow than his predecessor…
The Supreme Court declined today, 1/25, to hear a case concerning whether former President Donald Trump violated provisions of the Constitution that bar a president from profiting from a foreign government…
Congress
The Senate will start President Trump's second impeachment trial during the week of 2/8, Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer announced on Friday, 1/22…
Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) warned on Saturday, 1/23, that Donald Trump’s second impeachment could lead to the prosecution of former Democratic presidents if Republicans retake Congress in two years’ time…
Senate Republicans vowed Thursday, 1/21, that President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 relief bill will not get 60 votes…
Senior Democratic lawmakers are moving to fulfill President Biden’s desire to expand the child tax credit by drafting legislation that would direct the Internal Review Service (IRS) to send recurring monthly payments to tens of millions of American families which would amount to $3,600 over the course of the year for young children and $3,000 a year for older children…
Biden still only has two confirmed Cabinet Secretaries - the Defense Secretary and the Director of National Intelligence…
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Friday, 1/15, that lawmakers found to have aided any aspect of the mob violence and insurrection that overran Capitol Hill last week could face prosecution…
A group of seven Senate Democrats filed an ethics complaint Thursday, 1/21, against Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) over their objections to the 1/6 certification of the presidential election results that coincided with the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol…
Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA) Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA), and Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) are the most recent Congressmen to test positive for COVID-19…
Education
President Joe Biden plans to nominate California Labor Secretary Julie Su for the No. 2 position at the U.S. Labor Department (DOL), after a chorus of progressives had called for her to land the agency’s top job, according to three sources briefed on the process…
President Joe Biden took the first steps this week to reverse Trump administration policies on the rights of transgender students…
S&P Global Ratings is keeping in place a negative outlook on the U.S. not-for-profit higher education sector’s bond rating stability for the fourth straight year and also has a negative outlook for universities it rates outside the country according to its annual report on the higher education sector…
U.S. Department of Education Announces Biden-Harris Appointees…