California
A report from United Ways of California titled Struggling to Move Up: The Real Cost Measure in California 2021 found that approximately 608,000 households in the Bay Area and 3.5 million families across the state are not earning enough income to cover the costs of housing, food, medical and childcare, among other daily essentials…
An appeals court Friday, 7/13, ruled that state leaders violated the rights of parents by forcing private schools to stay closed during the COVID-19 pandemic…
Lawmakers have agreed to pay off $2 billion of Californians’ utilities debt, but haven’t extended the shutoff moratoria past 9/30…
Coronavirus
The Biden administration is keeping foreign travel restrictions in place amid concern about rising COVID-19 case levels as the delta variant spreads…
A growing number of public-health experts are urging the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to recommend that even fully vaccinated people wear face masks in public amid the resurgence of virus cases fed by the delta variant…
The White House is directing $100 million of additional spending and deploying dozens of federal health workers to shore up vaccine outreach and COVID-19 tracking in rural and heartland states as the delta variant continues to surge…
Pfizer will supply the U.S. with another 200 million doses of their COVID-19 shot, setting up a stream of vaccine deliveries through next April in a push to protect kids and potentially provide boosters…
Last week, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued the first Surgeon General's Advisory of the Biden administration to warn the Americans about the urgent threat of health misinformation…
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice (ACIP) - a panel of health experts advising the CDC on vaccines - expressed preliminary support for giving COVID-19 boosters to immunocompromised people, but said they were waiting for regulatory action before making a formal recommendation…
Last week, the pediatricians’ group updated guidance because a significant proportion of the student population is not yet eligible for vaccination…
President and Administration
Makers of e-cigarettes would be charged user fees to pay for more Food and Drug Administration oversight under legislation that was reintroduced in Congress…
The White House on Friday, 7/23, announced plans to expand aid for mortgage borrowers who have fallen behind on payments during the pandemic…
States and local jurisdictions, whose disparate programs have been mired in bureaucracy and communications problems, have disbursed just a fraction of the $47 billion in federal funding enacted since December to help struggling renters pay their housing costs and landlords recoup lost revenue…
Federal agencies and critical infrastructure operators such as energy companies and hospitals would have to report cyber intrusions within 24 hours to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or face penalties, under a bipartisan bill unveiled last week…
President Biden will nominate Jonathan Kanter, a frequent critic of tech giants like Google, to head the Justice Department’s antitrust division…
Congress
The House will vote this week on a $900 billion-plus “minibus” as Congress attempts to pass government funding bills before federal coffers run dry on 10/1…
A group of over 100 House Democrats led by Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) are asking for greater housing investments in Democrats’ reconciliation package…
Last week, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) said that “there are a lot of issues” with Biden’s pick to oversee the nation’s firearm regulations…
Education
The Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education released a question-and-answer document Tuesday to provide institutions with resources to comply with the changes made to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 in 2020…
A federal judge sided with Indiana University in a lawsuit filed by eight students who challenged the university’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate and related face-masking and testing requirements…
California Community Colleges chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley will take a temporary position as a special adviser to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, according to an announcement from system leaders last week…
A survey of nearly 7,000 13-25-year-olds Gen Z’ers - the nation’s most ethnically and racially diverse generation ever - by the Springtide Research Institute found a majority want work to be meaningful, don’t have a mentor, are worried about work/life balance, and are concerned their gender or racial identity may prevent them from finding work…
The Council of Chief State School Officers, Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, and American Institutes for Research released a toolkit to support leaders who are interested in explicitly incorporating social and emotional learning within a multi-tiered system of supports framework…
Calls are continuing to grow for the Biden administration to extend the student loan repayment "pause" that expires at the end of September, as recent survey data show that borrowers aren’t prepared for payments to resume, while the Education Department has yet to communicate a decision with the deadline fast approaching…
Last week, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted to advance the Biden administration’s nominations of Elizabeth Brown for general counsel and Roberto Rodríguez for assistant secretary of planning, evaluation, and policy development by voice vote, but delayed a vote on Catherine Lhamon to be assistant secretary for civil rights…