California
About one in five local school districts that received COVID-19 relief money through two federal funds had spent 20 percent or less of their initial money by the end of June, a state auditor found…
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday, 10/20, signed an executive order to address supply chain congestion at shipping ports in California…
Gov. Newsom on Thursday, 10/21, announced a crackdown on oil and gas wells, a long-awaited move to protect public health that sets up a fight between environmentalists and labor unions allied with industry…
California is now tied with Nevada for the highest unemployment rate in the country at 7.5% after adding just 47,400 new jobs last month…
Last week, Gov. Newsom issued a proclamation extending the drought emergency statewide and asked residents to redouble their water conservation efforts amid an exceptionally dry year when wildfires have ravaged large swaths of the state…
California, which has some of the strictest mask and vaccination mandates in the country, has improved to a ‘moderate’ rate of transmission for COVID-19, the only one of the 50 states to drop to that level, according to the latest CDC data…
Coronavirus
Pfizer said its COVID-19 shot was 90.7 percent effective against symptomatic cases in children ages 5 to 11, according to a briefing document posted on the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) website…
The CDC said it is considering a COVID-19 ‘test-to-stay’ program in schools instead of quarantine…
On Wednesday, 10/20, the FDA authorized booster shots of Moderna and Johnson & Johnson's (J&J) COVID-19 vaccines, a move that makes boosters available for all three vaccines in the U.S…
In July, news of a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all eligible public and private school students broke quietly in Puerto Rico…
The new U.S. travel policy will block entry to foreign nationals who have recovered from COVID-19 and then gotten one dose of two-dose vaccines - a standard that France and the European Commission consider full vaccination…
A new CDC study found that the Pfizer vaccine was 93 percent effective in preventing hospitalizations among those aged 12 to 18…
President and Administration
The Biden administration is developing plans for how it will restart federal student loan payments early next year when the pandemic pause on monthly payments for tens of millions of Americans ends…
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she still expects the U.S. economy to return to full employment “next year,” even after a slowdown in the pace of hiring…
As the United States and nations around the world struggle to blunt the effects of rising temperatures and extreme weather, sweeping assessments released Thursday, 10/21, by the White House, the U.S. intelligence community and the Pentagon conclude that climate change will exacerbate long-standing threats to global security…
Congress
Congressional Democrats are down to a handful of key disputes in their frenetic effort to draft President Joe Biden’s roughly $2 trillion social spending package by the end of the week…
Last week the Senate Appropriations Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) released the nine remaining fiscal 2022 spending bills…
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee plans to vote tomorrow, 10/26, on whether to advance nominees to head the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration and Office of Inspector General…
Senior Democrats are discussing another short-term Highway Trust Fund extension until 12/3, another patch that would avert program authorizations on track to expire Sunday, 10/31…
Education
Last week, the Senate Appropriations Committee released a draft of its funding bill for federal higher education programs that mirrors the priorities of the House’s version, though with slightly lower investments. The legislation for fiscal year 2022 provides:..
Biden’s Build Back Better plan is setting up a conflict between Hispanic-serving colleges and historically Black institutions - with both vying for the same resources to address inequities for underserved populations…
New research suggests that adolescents who take remedial classes are better prepared for academic success in high school and college…
Catherine Lhamon was confirmed by the Senate to serve as assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education in a 51-to-50 vote held Wednesday, 10/20…
A long-COVID task force has published a workbook to help schools dealing with students who have long-COVID…
U.S. school enrollment dropped by 2.9 million from 2019 to 2020, with enrollment among the under-35 population dipping to its lowest level (52.4 percent of the total population) in over 20 years, according to data tables released last week by the Census Bureau…
The U.S. Senate recently confirmed Roberto Rodríguez, in the role of Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development (OPEPD) at the Department…
Mental Health
Across the country, 4,612 teens and children have been victims of shootings, with 1,215 killed this year - surpassing past years’ numbers and comparable to 2020’s record-high stats…
The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Children’s Hospital Association have declared a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health…