California
On Thursday, 9/16, state auditor Elaine Howle said in a report that delays in the rent relief program and uncertainty over the federal rules raised concerns about the ability of the state Department of Housing and Community Development to distribute the first $1.8 billion in federal funds by a 9/30 deadline…
California’s home visiting programs for parents and children will receive a $19.2-million federal funding boost, U.S. officials announced Friday, 9/17…
The California Legislature passed a measure Thursday, 9/16, that would extend federal food assistance benefits to more college students in the state…
Gov. Newsom signed two major housing bills last week that could boost the state's housing supply by adding density to neighborhoods where single-family homes have long reigned…
A federal appeals court in California heard oral arguments last week from the California Department of Justice (DOJ) and the telecom industry…
California no longer has a ‘high’ level of community COVID-19 transmission, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)…
California has been adding new jobs faster this year than other states, with 44 percent of all new positions added nationwide last month in the Golden State…
Gov. Newsom's comprehensive defeat of the recall against him has vaulted him into his strongest political position to date, boosting his national profile and setting him up for a far simpler reelection race next year…
Coronavirus
A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel voted unanimously on Friday, 9/17, in favor of a booster dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for people 65 and older and for individuals at high risk for severe disease, with the shot given at least six months after their initial vaccination…
A new breed of fast, cheap, and, in most cases, accurate new COVID-19 tests could remake the fraught debate over virus outbreaks at school this fall…
The CDC recently issued a toolkit for K- 12 school administrators responding to COVID-19 cases…
According to a new Israeli study, 11.2 percent of children had symptoms after recovery…
As the nation’s COVID-19 death toll exceeded 663,000 last week, it meant roughly one in every 500 Americans had succumbed to the disease…
President and Administration
People living in poverty in the U.S. fell to a record low last year…
President Biden warned on Tuesday, 9/14, that the United States had only a decade left to confront a global climate crisis…
The Senate confirmed several Biden administration nominees last week, including James Kvaal’s nomination to be undersecretary of Education…
Congress
Today, 9/20, the House Rules Committee will meet to consider the continuing resolution (CR) to continue programs when the fiscal year ends on 9/30…
Senate appropriators aim to inch forward on their work on annual spending bills, even as lawmakers prepare for a stopgap funding measure to avert an 10/1 shutdown…
House Democrats could initially hold off on sending a $550 billion infrastructure bill to President Biden for signature to help keep the party united and his economic agenda on track…
The House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced measures for a clean electricity performance program and an electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure plan as part of Democrats’ reconciliation plan last week…
Senate Democratic centrists are calling on President Joe Biden to nominate another director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms a week after lukewarm support from those same lawmakers prompted Biden to pull his initial pick…
House Democrats are working with the Biden administration to add bank account reporting requirements to their tax bill, a measure that could be used to pay for a modification of the cap on the federal deduction of state and local taxes (SALT)…
The U.S. child-care system fails to adequately serve many families due to insufficient supply and high cost, holding back parents’ ability to contribute to the economy, according to a new report from the U.S. Treasury Department released Wednesday, 9/15…
Senate Democrats have reached a deal on revised voting rights legislation…
Education
Fifty-nine members of the House sent a letter last week to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Suzanne Goldberg, urging the Department of Education to issue proposed changes to the Trump administration's Title IX rules in October…
Doubling the maximum Pell Grant to $13,000 would result in substantial reductions in future student loan debt, according to a new report from the Gender Equity Policy Institute…
Around 60 percent of undergraduates used some form of federal financial aid to pay for their postsecondary education during the 2017-18 academic year, according to the latest data released by the National Center for Education Statistics…
About 1.5 million students in the high school Class of 2021 took the SAT at least once - down 700,000 from the Class of 2020…
The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released two resource collections to assist schools and institutions in supporting a successful and equitable school year…
As part of its interactive Return to School Roadmap, the Education Department released “Maximizing In-Person Learning and Implementing Effective Practices for Students in Quarantine and Isolation”…
The 2022-23 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form and FAFSA on the Web worksheet are available in English and Spanish, in PDF, as resources that may be used as a training tool or for financial aid presentations…
Last week, the Biden Administration celebrated the 2021 National Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) Week…