Weekly Update 1/9/23

California

Research published in December 2022 revealed that the pace of groundwater depletion in California’s Central Valley has accelerated dramatically, which has plagued the Central Valley for decades…

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Vintage 2022 national and state population estimates, 18 states experienced a population decline, compared to 15 and D.C. the prior year…

After a series of storms have slammed California, causing many outages and dangerous floods, Governor Gavin Newsom will ask President Biden to declare a state of emergency…

Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) now show the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on learning…

Coronavirus

According to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey, nearly half of Americans think COVID-19 vaccines may be to blame for many unexplained deaths, and more than a quarter say someone they know could be among the victims…

According to a new study by Stanford economist Eric A. Hanushek, learning loss could drop $70,000 off the lifetime earnings of children who were in school during the pandemic…

President and Administration

Ahead of the Supreme Court hearing on February 28th involving two cases challenging the legality of the Biden administration’s student loan cancellation program, lawyers representing the Education and the Justice Departments and President Biden filed a legal brief arguing that the administration was acting within its executive authority and did not need new congressional authorization for the student loan cancellation program…

On Thursday, 1/5 , President Biden announced new enforcement measures to increase security at the border and reduce the number of individuals crossing unlawfully between ports of entry…

In mid-December, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness released the Biden-Harris Administration’s Federal Strategic Plan to reduce homelessness by 25 percent by January 2025…

According to an analysis from the National Poison Data System, the number of children in the U.S. exposed to cannabis after accidentally eating an edible rose to 1,375 percent in only five years…

According to a Healthy Minds Monthly Poll by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and fielded by Morning Consult between December 7-8, 2022 among 2,212 adults, nearly two out of five (37 percent) Americans rated their mental health as only fair or poor, up from 31 percent a year ago…

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services (SAMHSA) recently released its 2021 National Survey of Drug Use and Health

Congress

On Saturday, 1/7, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) obtained a majority on the 15th ballot and officially became the Speaker of the House after four days of voting…

Education

According to a recent report from the Internet Safety Labs, 96 percent of apps used regularly in schools have data-sharing practices that “are not adequately safe for children”…

A new study found that 13 percent of white students and 16 percent of Asian students display advanced math skills by kindergarten while the percentage for both Black and Hispanic students lags behind at  four percent…

According to a survey of 1,200 students nationwide conducted by the virtual health services provider TimelyMD, 50 percent of college students cited their own mental health struggles as their top stressor going into 2023…

Since the CHIPS and Science Act was signed into law, experts are saying that community colleges can play a major role in fulfilling the vision of the legislation…

On Wednesday, 1/4, the Department of Education announced that it would hold a series of negotiated rulemaking sessions this spring to propose new rules regarding accreditation, distance education, student loan deferments and a range of other topics…

A team of neuroscientists at the University of South Carolina found that children who habitually checked their social media feeds at around age 12 showed a distinct trajectory, with their sensitivity to social rewards from peers heightening over time…