Weekly Update 12/12/22

California

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday, 12/2, unveiled an outline of his plan to place a cap on oil refinery profits in California, a proposal he’s asking lawmakers to approve to limit future spikes on gasoline prices…

There has been a troubling spike in COVID-positive hospital admissions among seniors in California, rising to levels not seen since the summer Omicron surge…

A bipartisan group of 15 senators, including Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA), are calling on Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to divert appropriate resources to the massive drought wreaking havoc on the western United States…

Coronavirus

Difficulty getting care for COVID-19 has become an increasingly common problem for poor, uninsured Americans…

According to a study published in the Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science, stress stemming as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns has prematurely aged the brains of teenagers by at least three years…

The FDA on Thursday, 12/9, authorized emergency use of updated bivalent COVID-19 vaccines for children as young as six months old…

President and Administration

Included in the bipartisan industrial policy legislation that President Biden signed into law this summer is $10 billion to jump-start economically sputtering regions across the country: a series of “innovation hubs” across 20 metropolitan areas…

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released a draft of the National Broadband Map that will be used by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to allocate $42.5 billion in Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment grants next summer…

United Health Foundation’s annual ranking of Americans’ health is out, offering a look into how the pandemic impacted a range of health factors…

More than 180,000 nonfatal opioid overdoses were reported by emergency services in the U.S. during the past 12 months, according to new data from the Biden administration…

The nation’s hospitals remain under critical strain as COVID-19 cases are back on the rise, RSV remains high and flu hospitalization rates are the highest for this time of year that they’ve been in a decade, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said on last week…

On 12/7, the Department of Education hosted the YOU Belong in STEM National Coordinating Conference as a key initiative for the Biden-Harris Administration…

Congress

The Senate Finance Committee released draft bill language on Monday, 12/2, to ensure Medicare and Medicaid patients receive mental health coverage on par with physical health services…

On Tuesday, 12/3, the House passed the Data Mapping to Save Moms’ Lives Act, which would mandate that the FCC create maps showing where poor maternal health outcomes coincide with broadband services gaps…

The House overwhelmingly passed defense policy legislation on Thursday, 12/8, that would repeal the Pentagon's mandate that troops receive the COVID-19 vaccine or be forced out of the military…

Education

A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) blasted most colleges for failing to tell students how much the education will actually cost them…

According to a report released by the National Institute for Early Education Research, the COVID-19 pandemic has reduced access to Head Start programs funded by the federal government for children living in poverty, which has exacerbated inequities in enrollment, staff salaries and quality of services…

Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) Director Valerie Williams introduced a blog series that will explain topics of interest related to the discipline and behavior guidance package released by her office this past summer…

Researchers saw promising signs of a slow-moving rebound in student achievement this fall, more than a year after a dire spring where performance “bottomed out”…

After the 2012 school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, parents of murdered children set out to implement tougher federal gun laws…

Depression and anxiety continue to plague an overwhelming number of America’s middle and high school students, particularly LGBTQ and students of color, hampering efforts to boost learning from pandemic losses…

A coalition of higher ed organizations is launching a campaign called California Reconnect, to re-enroll adult learners who stopped out of college in the state…

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…

Weekly Update 11/28/22

President and Administration

The White House announced last week that student loan payments will be turned off for at least another six months to give the federal courts time to consider the many lawsuits challenging his administration’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loans for eligible Americans…

As of June 2022, more than a quarter million Americans under 18 had lost a primary caregiver to COVID-19, according to a tracker maintained by the Imperial College of London…

A record high of nearly 40 million children missed a measles vaccine dose in 2021, putting them at risk for one of the world’s most contagious deadly diseases…

Congress

Democrats on the House and Senate Appropriations committees have quietly started to put together FY 2023 spending bills, even though there’s no bipartisan agreement on a topline figure for overall spending…

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the incoming Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee ranking member, is leading a bipartisan effort to write legislation next year to improve health care coverage for the 12.2 million people who are dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid…

Education

The tight labor market is prompting more employers to eliminate one of the most significant requirements for many higher-paying jobs: the need for a college degree…

Public Safety & Justice Update 11/22/22

So far this year there have been more than 600 mass shootings — defined as a shooting when four or more people die or are injured in a single incident — in the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA)...

Anderson Lee Aldrich was arrested and charged with murder and hate crimes for the murder of five people and wounding of 18 others inside a Colorado Spring’s LGBTQ club on 11/19…

The Colorado LGBTQ nightclub shooting by a suspected gunman who was arrested last year in connection with a bomb threat has renewed questions about "red flag" laws that are used irregularly across the U.S…

Christopher Jones Jr. is accused of shooting University of Virginia football players, killing three and injuring two others, on a bus that had returned from a field trip Sunday, 11/13…

Threat assessment has become an increasingly vital task during the past two decades at colleges and universities across the country…

Mental health professionals are riding along with officers to deal with the rise in mental health cases, but some critics question how safe this is…

Los Angeles police had been trained for decades in pretextual stops: Pull over a driver for a minor infraction such as broken taillight, use something vaguely suspicious — a shaking hand, a whiff of pot — to justify a search, hope to find drugs or weapons…

Police have killed more than 1,000 Americans this year – more than any other point in the past decade, according to recent data from Mapping Police Violence…

A panel of three appeals court judges appeared skeptical Tuesday, 11/22, that the federal government violated former president Donald Trump’s rights when it searched Mar-a-Lago in August, questioning whether a lower court judge erred in appointing an outside expert to review documents seized from the property…

The families of nine people killed last year by a coworker at a Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) rail yard will receive $8 million to settle damage claims filed last November, officials said…

Weekly Update 11/21/22

Coronavirus

Two new studies offer compelling views into how two basic mitigation measures— vaccination and masking — could keep students and their families dramatically safer if a winter surge materializes…

California

California could expand the use of controlled burns in the wilderness to reduce the danger from larger, more destructive wildfires, the non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) said last week…

California not long ago was reveling in a record budget surplus…

Gov. Newsom has agreed to restore local homelessness funding that he recently pulled back — but only if municipal leaders set more aggressive goals for mitigating one of California’s most pressing crises…

President and Administration

Children’s health groups are asking the Biden administration to declare a public health emergency over surging hospitalizations from RSV and the flu and the continuing mental health crisis…

November has been designated as the National Family Caregivers Month to recognize and honor family caregivers across the nation…

Suicide rates have declined in recent years among white Americans, while rates among Black and Hispanic Americans have risen, according to new data released by the CDC on Wednesday, 11/16…

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) released the National Guidelines for Child and Youth Behavioral Health Crisis Care…

Drug overdose deaths have declined in the U.S. for three consecutive months, according to provisional data released Wednesday, 11/16, by the CDC…

The Biden administration has begun notifying millions of federal student loan borrowers it had approved their applications for debt relief — even as the program remains in legal limbo…

Congress

One of Congress’s main responsibilities is to allocate funding for the federal government’s services and programs, such as Social Security, the military and scientific research…

As the GOP prepares to take the House, top Senate Democrats are desperately proclaiming that the post-election session is the best…

House Armed Services Chair Adam Smith (D-WA) and ranking member Mike Rogers (R-AL) predicted a final version of the National Defense Authorization Act could be ready for a vote as early as the first week of December…

The Senate took yet another step forward on Thursday, 11/17, to making the right to same-sex marriage the law of the land…

 Education

 The application period for the White House Internship Program’s Summer 2023 session is now open…

 A record 1,835 colleges will conduct admissions this year without considering test scores, according to the National Center for Fair & Open Testing…

On Thursday, 11/15, the Common Application released its first information on the totals for fall 2023…

There were 174 Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) in California as of the 2020-21 school year, more than in any other state…

A new report offers guidance to community college leaders seeking to re-enroll adult learners who earned academic credits but left college without a degree or credential…

New data show enrollment in California community colleges is at its lowest point in 30 years, the Los Angeles Times reported…

Teachers were far more likely than other workers to experience anxiety during the first year of the pandemic, a newly released study has found…

In the earliest weeks of the pandemic, researchers predicted that school closures would lead to lower math and reading scores and that the already broad range of academic levels within classrooms would yawn wider…

Education Department Undersecretary James Kvaal said in a court filing that “there could be an historically large increase,” in student loan default rates if the president’s student loan relief program gets blocked…

 The best lever to accelerate learning in America is to use the science of how children learn to read, comprehensively outlined by the National Reading Panel more than 20 years ago, in the year 2000…

 An estimated one out of every five requests for substitute teachers typically went unfilled pre-pandemic…

On Monday, 11/14, the Department of Education announced the launch of Raise the Bar: Unlocking Career Success…