California
Oral arguments took place in a California court last week over a new regulation that will make it mandatory starting next year for pork sold in the state to come from breeding pigs that have at least 24 square feet of living space…
Growers throughout the state are eligible to apply for emergency federal loans until early November…
Almost $1.2 billion in rental assistance will help low-income tenants in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties pay down rent debt that piled up during the pandemic…
Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) raised $2.1 million this quarter and is sitting on $11 million in cash…
Coronavirus
The head of the powerful American Federation of Teachers blessed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) recent revision of social distancing in schools from six feet to three feet, after initially saying it didn't take into account the unique challenges facing the country's urban schools and was made after mounting pressure from interest groups rushing to reopen schools for in-person learning…
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American College Health Association have launched a new Higher Education COVID-19 Community of Practice aimed at sharing information across campuses about strategies for containing COVID-19…
An Indiana University study about COVID-19 spread in state schools "found a 10 percent increase of in-person school was associated with about a one percent increase in community COVID-19 cases 28 days later”…
The U.S. Treasury said it had formed an office to oversee many of the pandemic-relief programs handled by the department and funded by Congress over the past 13 months…
On 4/15, NIH announced an initiative known as the Safe Return to School Diagnostic Testing Initiative…
Federal health agencies on Tuesday, 4/13, recommended an immediate pause in the use of Johnson & Johnson's (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine after six people developed a rare and severe type of blood clot after receiving the shot…
Stanford began providing COVID-19 vaccine doses to children aged 2 to 5 as part of a larger, three-phase trial of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine that will ultimately include children ages 6 months to 12 years…
Half of all adults in the U.S. have received at least one COVID-19 shot, the government announced yesterday, 4/18…
President and Administration
President Joe Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress will be Wednesday, 4/28 - his 99th day as president…
President Biden’s nominee for under secretary of education, James Kvaal, appears likely to be headed to the full Senate for a vote on his confirmation this week, after a relatively drama-free committee hearing on his nomination…
Major transportation and shipping groups are calling for federal highway funding to transition from the gasoline tax to a national vehicle miles traveled fee, according to a letter sent to congressional transportation leaders…
On Saturday, 4/18, President Biden said that he plans to announce a higher refugee cap for this year, following a swift backlash from allies over a decision to keep the historically low ceiling set by former President Trump…
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is moving to reinstate two Obama-era fair housing rules weakened by the Trump administration, according to notices posted by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) last week…
As President Biden unveils an ambitious target this week to cut the nation’s climate-warming emissions, his administration is also taking steps to refute critics who say it’ll put large numbers of American jobs at risk
President Biden plans to nominate Pentagon veteran Christine Wormuth to be the first female Army secretary…
Congress
Senate Democrats have decided to move forward with earmarks with rules being decided this week…
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) - who Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has deputized to take the lead on gun legislation - says he has spoken to “almost half the Republican conference over the last two weeks” about gun control legislation, although he cautioned that a bipartisan breakthrough is not imminent…
21 Democrat and nine Republican House members are forming a bipartisan group to push for a repeal of the $10,000 cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions, demonstrating a broadening campaign to restore a valuable tax break…
This morning, 4/19, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) unveiled the “Green New Deal for Public Housing” that would provide $172 billion to retrofit existing housing…
House Republicans unveiled their own slate of climate measures last week to counter Democratic proposals as President Biden has made combating global warming a top priority of his administration…
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Michael Bennet (D-CO) are pushing a plan that would make federal unemployment benefits automatically available when jobless rates climb, with additional weeks of benefits…
A provision in the American Rescue Plan (ARP) is causing political strife between the Treasury Department and states across the country over how states can and can’t use the $350 billion of aid allotted to them…
By a vote of 384-38, the House sent to the President legislation that would extend a pause on a statutory two percent reduction in Medicare payments to medical providers through the end of the year amid the COVID-19 pandemic…
Sens. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) are teaming up on a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage - which is currently $7.25 an hour and has not been raised since 2009…
Biden is asking congressional Democrats to vote for a tax increase that will test a long-held liberal belief: that many wealthy Democrats won’t mind paying more in taxes if they can be convinced that it would lead to greater prosperity for everyone…
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Thursday, 4/15, rejected a push from the left wing of the party to swiftly vote on legislation to expand the number of Supreme Court justices to 13 from nine…
The House Judiciary Committee voted 25-17 along party lines to clear the way for the full chamber to vote on legislation to create a commission to study reparations for the descendants of slaves, the first time the proposal has advanced that far since it was originally introduced three decades ago…
The Senate is aiming to wrap up and pass Sen. Mazie Hirono’s (D-HI) legislation addressing the rise in hate crimes against Asian-Americans…
Sponsors of the Endless Frontier Act have delayed reintroducing the bill amid pushback from some senators, including leaders of key committees, who held hearings last week to debate the legislation’s vision for transforming the U.S. research system…
On Friday, 4/16, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) distributed materials calling for a “common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions” and a return to architectural style that “befits the progeny of European architecture”…
Infrastructure Update:
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) said she saw potential bipartisan support for an infrastructure package of $600 billion to $800 billion, less than half the total President Biden has proposed…
Sen Chris Coons (D-DE) has said that he would be open to splitting off a physical infrastructure bill that encompasses transportation, broadband and drinking water infrastructure if Republicans can agree to something “robust”…
House Democrats defended President Biden’s inclusion of $400 billion in support for caregiving to provide seniors and others more medical and long-term care at home…
Education
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released more details about its Emergency Broadband Benefit. ExcelinEd and Education Superhighway have created a new guide about participating in the program…
Enrollment growth in state preschool programs was already slowing down before COVID-19…
President Biden announced Friday, 4/16, that he plans to nominate former Florida Congresswoman Gwen Graham to serve as the assistant secretary for legislation and congressional affairs at the Department of Education…