California
Although 87% of California’s traditional public schools have reopened for some form of in-person instruction, fewer than half of students have returned either full time or part time in a hybrid model…
On Wednesday, 5/5, the Secretary of State’s office released the final tally of verified signatures for the California recall election - 1,719,943…
In an effort to accelerate vaccination of teens, California health officials say they will allow pediatricians to obtain doses without going through the state’s problematic registration site MyTurn…
Coronavirus
This afternoon, 5/10, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Pfizer and BioNTech’s request to allow their COVID-19 vaccine to be given to kids ages 12 to 15 on an emergency use basis, allowing states to get middle school students vaccinated before the fall…
President and Administration
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced that eligible households can begin applying for the Emergency Broadband Benefit on 5/12…
On Friday, 5/7, the Justice Department released a proposed rule that would broaden the definition of a firearm, requiring some gun-making kits to include a serial number as the Biden administration moves forward to combat so-called “ghost guns”…
President Biden signed legislation Tuesday, 5/4, extending a ban on addictive fentanyl-like substances into October, which comes two days before the previous ban was set to expire…
On Wednesday, 5/5, President Biden announced that he is open to compromise on his proposal to raise the corporate tax rate to pay for this American Jobs Plan, but clarified that he was not willing to deficit spend…
On Wednesday, 5/5, the Biden administration released a report that outlines how it plans to achieve its goal of conserving 30 percent of American’s lands and waters by 2030…
Congress, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are working to combat ransomware attacks which have skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic…
The Biden administration announced their plans to withdraw the Independent Contractor rule that allowed businesses to classify workers as independent contractors rather than employees on Wednesday, 5/5…
Last week, The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) moved to sharply reduce the use and production of powerful greenhouse gases central to refrigeration and air-conditioning…
A Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll released last week showed that 59 percent of voters say they approve of President Biden’s job in office…
Congress
Yesterday, 5/9, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the price range he is willing to accept is between $600 billion and $800 billion for an infrastructure bill…
House lawmakers will mark up fiscal 2022 spending bills in June ahead of July floor votes…
Thirteen House Democrats sent a letter on Thursday, 5/6, to leadership voicing concern that the Biden administration’s plan to tax some individuals’ unrealized capital tax gains when they die could create an “unintended burden” on farms and family businesses…
In an interview over the weekend, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) came out against restoring the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction saying that it would send a terrible, terrible message - “You can't be on the side of the wealthy and the powerful if you're gonna really fight for working families”…
Last week, the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs began preparing to send a large collection of bills to the House floor ahead of Memorial Day weekend…
As the Biden administration debates how much student loan debt to cancel through executive action, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wants President Biden to see the plight of one particular group as a reason to go big: veterans…
Congressional Democrats have tweaked the For the People Act, their voting-rights, campaign-finance and ethics bill, ahead of a Senate committee vote this week, addressing concerns raised by elections administrators but forgoing a more radical rewrite of the legislation…
The first 2020 U.S. census results showed a population of more than 331 million people, or more than 761,000 per congressional district - a constituent-to-representative ratio much higher than in the legislatures of other developed countries…
Education
The Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights will hold a virtual public hearing on improving Title IX enforcement beginning 6/7…
Four bipartisan bills were recently introduced in Congress that aim to increase the transparency of information that students receive about the cost of and payment for college throughout their postsecondary education - a change that experts and advocates say would be helpful but still wouldn’t solve the student debt crisis…
Last week, Arizona became the 24th state in the country to allow community colleges to offer bachelor's degrees…
Last week, the Education Department announced that it had selected Richard Cordray as the Chief Operating Officer of Federal Student Aid…
Mental Health
While young people, on the whole, have fared better physically than adults during the pandemic, researchers say isolation — such as that caused by school closures and quarantining - is leading to a “mental health tsunami”…
Last week Boston University’s Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation released two guides - one for students and their families and one for administrators, faculty and staff members - about best practices for leaves of absence from college…
Walmart said on Thursday, 5/6, that it purchased telehealth provider MeMD and plans to offer nationwide virtual health care services, another sign of the retail behemoth’s healthcare ambitions…