California
Gov. Newsom released his new budget blueprint, some highlights include…
State Senator Dave Cortese is considering legislation that would create a pilot program at select California State University campuses issuing $500 monthly stipends for one year to students whose family income is in the bottom 20 percent of earners in the state…
Gov. Newsom said the executive order would help alleviate the shortage by giving retirees and substitute teachers "more hours of opportunity" and speeding up the hiring process, which he described as "laborious”…
Newsom’s statement is his first public concession that some K-12 schools will likely be forced to temporarily shutter in the coming weeks as COVID-19 cases rapidly increase due to the Omicron variant…
Bay Area counties once again are postponing an important census count of homeless residents as they grapple with staffing and volunteer shortages...
Following an hours-long debate and public discussion on Tuesday night, 1/11, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors voted to ban flavored tobacco sales - candy-flavored e-cigarettes, hookah tobacco, menthol cigarettes, and sweet cigars often used to smoke cannabis will all be banned beginning in July 2022…
About $11.5 million of the direct restitution and $261 million of the private debt cancellation will be for Californians, according to the California attorney general’s office…
Last week, Newsom’s administration announced a plan for addressing extreme heat that includes recommendations on how to monitor deaths caused by heat waves and the possible establishment of temperature limits for residential units…
Coronavirus
On Wednesday, 1/12, the Biden administration announced that they were increasing COVID-19 testing for schools by…
The Biden administration on Wednesday, 1/19, will begin accepting orders for free at-home COVID-19 tests, the latest government response to a record number of infections…
Distrust, misinformation and delays because of the holidays and bad weather have combined to produce what authorities say are alarmingly low COVID-19 vaccination rates in U.S. children ages five to 11…
A study of 53,000 cases from Southern California found that there were about 50 percent fewer hospital admissions, about 75 percent fewer intensive care admissions and a 70 percent reduction in hospital length of stay with Omicron cases as compared with Delta…
Scientists are seeing signals that COVID-19′s alarming omicron wave is about to peak in the U.S., at which point cases may start dropping off dramatically…
On Thursday, 1/13, President Biden announced that the federal government is deploying additional medical teams to six states - New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, Michigan and New Mexico - to help hospitals struggling to respond to the spike in cases of Omicron…
President and Administration
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky is facing criticism from the disability rights community for remarks she made during a recent interview on ABC’s Good Morning America…
The Supreme Court on Thursday, 1/13, blocked the Biden administration from enforcing a vaccine-or-testing mandate for large employers, dealing a blow to a key element of the White House’s plan to address the pandemic…
Prices rose at the fastest pace in four decades in December, increasing seven percent over the same period a year ago, and cementing 2021 as a year marked by soaring inflation wrought by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic…
Water projects meant to quench drought-stricken Western cities’ thirst are set to receive $1 billion over the next five years with infrastructure funding made available through the Interior Department, the agency announced Friday, 1/14…
Last week, Treasury Department officials said that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will face “enormous challenges” during this year’s tax filing season, warning of delays to refunds and other taxpayer services…
Congress
A bill to auto-enroll veterans in the Veterans Affairs Department health-care programs will be taken up by the House this week…
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told reporters early last week that he expects Biden to soon request “substantial sums” through a supplemental appropriations bill to combat COVID-19, possibly including foreign aid…
After preliminary discussions last weekend between Senate leaders and top appropriators about moving omnibus spending legislation before the 2/18 deadline, the group - Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Appropriations Committee Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Appropriations Committee ranking member Richard Shelby (R-AL) - met again on Tuesday, 1/11 and Wednesday, 1/12 - in an attempt to break the logjam…
House Democrats running for reelection in competitive districts have confronted party leaders with demands that they break up President Biden’s sprawling Build Back Better spending bill that has stalled in the Senate amid opposition from Sen. Manchin, and hold votes on a series of politically popular provisions that would appeal to centrist voters and core Democrats…
The Senate is expected to consider a House-passed package that includes the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act today, 1/18…
The 165-member Congressional Gun Violence Prevention Task Force held its first meeting of 2022 on Thursday, 1/13, which included a briefing from 97Percent and Beacon Research on new polling of more than 1,000 gun owners, including the finding that gun owners underestimate support for gun safety policies among their peers…
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) declared Wednesday, 1/12, that he won’t voluntarily undergo an interview with the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attacks…
Education
In Florida’s public school system, school personnel can use handcuffs, zip-ties, straightjackets, or other devices on students who are acting out or misbehaving in a way that poses a threat to themselves or others…
Enrollments continued to fall nationwide despite a full in-person return to campus last semester for many colleges and universities, the latest data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center show…
According to Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Director Mark Schneider’s latest blog post, IES will shortly announce two new prize competitions: one to incentivize innovation in middle school science instruction, and another to improve mathematics achievement for elementary students with disabilities…
Almost nine in 10 college students think campuses are facing a mental health crisis, according to a new survey from TimelyMD, a student-first telehealth provider…
The administration this month plans to start rewriting key parts of its college accountability agenda, drafting new regulations that restrict how and when colleges and universities - particularly for-profit institutions - can access federal funding…
State financial aid totals continued to grow during the 2019–20 academic year, just before state budgets and family incomes were roiled by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the latest report from the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs…
More than half of Americans favor remote learning to protect students and teachers’ “health and safety” as COVID-19 surges, according to a new Harris Poll conducted for Axios…
In a Dear Colleague Letter, Secretary Cardona outlined (1) evidence-based and promising short- and long-term strategies for addressing teacher and staff shortages, which can be acute in STEM fields, that may be funded through American Rescue Plan (ARP) Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund and (2) examples of how ARP and past relief funding are already being used to attract and retain teachers and staff…
Today, 1/18, the U.S. Department of Education announced that every state education agency (SEA) received approval of their American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ARP ESSER) plan before the end of December 2021…