Weekly Update 12/5/22

California

A nine-member Reparations Task Force has spent months traveling across California to learn about the generational effects of racist policies and actions…

Tax revenue from California’s licensed cannabis market plummeted to below $130 million during the third quarter, a nearly $100 million drop from the same period last year…

R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco and vape companies on Tuesday, 11/29, asked the Supreme Court for an emergency injunction that would stop a flavored-tobacco ban set to go into effect in the state of California no later than 12/21…

California lawmakers plan to introduce legislation to exempt student loan forgiveness from state taxes when the state legislature gavels in today, 12/5…

President and Administration

The Biden administration is asking the Supreme Court to intervene in a second major legal challenge to its student debt relief program and potentially hear it alongside the case the justices already agreed to hear in February or March…

The White House released an updated fact sheet highlighting the impact of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law on Puerto Rico…

The White House released an updated California fact sheet highlighting the impact of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law on California…

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) accidentally posted the names, birthdates, nationalities and detention locations of more than 6,000 immigrants who claimed to be fleeing torture and persecution to its website on Monday 11/28

The Department of Homeland Security is projecting between 9,000 to 14,000 migrants may attempt to cross the U.S. southern border a day when the Trump-era “Title 42” border policy ends in late December, more than double the current number of people crossing…

Less than half of men report being satisfied with their friendships, and only about one in five said they had received emotional support from a friend in the last week, compared with four in ten women, according to a 2021 survey from the Survey Center on American Life

The underlying health of the U.S. economy is quite strong and massive investments being made in manufacturing and infrastructure will help bring inflation down over the longer term, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said on Thursday, 12/1…

Top Democrats in the House and Senate are calling on the Biden administration to crack down on the companies that universities hire to advertise and manage their online courses, including reexamining whether a key part of the industry’s business model is allowed under federal law…

Congress

The Senate passed legislation Tuesday, 11/29, to enshrine same-sex marriage protections in federal law, bringing the bill a critical step closer to President Joe Biden’s desk

The Senate on Thursday, 12/1, voted overwhelmingly to impose a labor agreement between rail companies and their workers who have been locked in a stubborn stalemate, moving with uncommon speed to avert a potential holiday season rail strike that would jeopardize shipping across the country…

A House committee has gained access to six years of former President Trump’s tax returns after the Supreme Court paved the way for the release of records he had long sought to keep secret…

Education

With the nation’s schools facing acute teacher shortages, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) criticized the Department of Education’s strategy for not adequately addressing the crisis and guiding states’ in how to attract and retain more educators…

K-12 teacher shortages are an undeniable reality in some communities, a newly released study indicates…

Districts where students spent the most time in remote learning during the 2020-21 school year lost at least half a million more students than they would have if they’d stayed open, a new report shows…

A new study documents significant gains in college persistence as a result of a student emergency grants program and contains insights to help others implement similar programs…

New America Foundation has released a report, “In Default and Left Behind,” based on focus group interviews with 50 borrowers who went into default on their student loans before the pandemic…

A new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center shows that college completion rates have stagnated, with 62.3 percent of students who enrolled in 2016 completing a degree by June 2022— virtually unchanged from last year’s six-year completion rate of 62.2 percent…

A host of higher education associations, institutional leaders, and advocates are calling on Congress to pass legislation this year to provide protections for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program…