California
Nearly all of Orange County’s coastline is at risk after more than a hundred thousand gallons of crude oil spilled just five miles off the coast…
As state and federal laws meant to bring ghost guns into compliance with traditional firearm laws await implementation, local officials and prosecutors across California are increasingly resorting to bans and lawsuits to regulate the weapons in their cities, as the do-it-yourself weapons appear with increasing frequency at homicide scenes, traffic stops and community gun buybacks…
California’s statewide eviction moratorium is officially over, although some local measures endure…
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday, 10/1, that California will mandate student COVID-19 vaccines once federal officials fully approve the immunizations, becoming the first state to mandate vaccinations…
California’s temporary transition to universal mail voting became permanent last week, as Gov. Newsom signed legislation directing county elections officials to mail ballots to every registered, active voter in future elections…
Experts who study these trends say there are several factors at play, including California’s declining birth rate, families moving out of the state and a leveling-off of immigration - all of which appear to have been amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic…
Health experts have long credited California’s success to the state’s higher than average vaccination rates and thoughtful virus mitigation measures, including mask and vaccine mandates…
The San Jose City Council voted last week to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products, deeming it the largest city in the state to do so…
Coronavirus
Pfizer has submitted initial data to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that its COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective for 5- to 11-year olds, the pharmaceutical company announced last week…
The FDA’s independent vaccine advisory committee will hold three meetings in October to discuss COVID-19 booster shots, mix-and-match boosters and vaccines for children aged 5 to 11, the agency announced Friday, 10/1…
Forty-five percent of parents say they would not have their children inoculated against COVID-19 if a vaccine were approved for those under 12…
New study of schools in Maricopa and Pima Counties, Arizona, found that schools without a mask requirement were 3.5 times more likely to have outbreaks than schools that started the year requiring masks…
An unvaccinated 10-year-old, who may look like the very picture of COVID-19 vulnerability heading into the school year, faces a lower mortality risk than a vaccinated 25-year-old…
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report found that the side effects of a COVID-19 booster dose are similar to those of a second dose of vaccine, with no new serious unexpected patterns emerging…
Rural Americans are dying of COVID-19 at more than twice the rate of their urban counterparts - a divide that health experts say is likely to widen as access to medical care shrinks for a population that tends to be older, sicker, heavier, poorer and less vaccinated…
On Friday, 10/1, Merck announced that they will seek authorization for the first antiviral pill for COVID-19…
As California’s requirement that all healthcare workers be vaccinated against COVID-19 took effect on Thursday, 9/30, major health systems reported that the mandate had helped boost their vaccination rates to 90 percent or higher…
A group of lawsuit plaintiffs, including four Air Force officers and a Secret Service agent, have asked a federal court to block the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccination mandates, declaring, “Americans have remained idle for far too long as our nation’s elected officials continue to satisfy their voracious appetites for power”…
President and Administration
President Joe Biden is set to speak about the federal debt limit today, 10/4, as the Treasury Department gets closer to a payments default amid a partisan showdown between Republicans and Democrats on the issue…
When the Supreme Court decided to strike down the CDC moratorium on evictions in August, lawmakers and housing experts warned of a national eviction crisis…
On 9/15, the Education Department announced the formation of the Puerto Rico Education Sustainability (PRES) Team…
The White House will convene a 30-country meeting this month to try to ramp up global efforts to address the threat of ransomware to economic and national security…
A new Morning Consult poll found that 44 percent of U.S. adults believe the rules around voting are not strict enough to prevent votes from being cast illegally, a rarity in modern American elections, compared with 33 percent who say the rules make it too difficult for eligible citizens to cast their ballots…
President Biden on Thursday, 9/30, named 10 nominees to the federal bench, continuing his efforts to diversify the judicial branch with picks who would notch demographic firsts on their respective courts…
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is launching an Office of Recovery, within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use, to advance the agency’s commitment to, and support of, recovery…
Congress
The Senate is set for another showdown over the federal debt limit this week, as Democrats again will press Republicans for help suspending the limit…
Democrats will regroup this week to salvage two pillars of their agenda, after gridlock between the party’s two flanks scuttled passage of an infrastructure bill and threatens to drag on for weeks…
Biden on Saturday, 10/2, signed into law a 30-day extension of federal surface transport programs that ended brief furloughs for some 3,700 Department of Transportation employees…
Democrats risk settling for a less generous expansion of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction than previously hoped after Biden conceded that lawmakers will have to scale back his economic agenda to get it enacted…
Education
The Biden administration must act to combat a surge in threats and violence toward education leaders amid volatile tensions over schools’ pandemic response and lessons on systemic racism, the 90,000-member National School Boards Association wrote in a letter Wednesday, 9/29…
The 2022-23 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) launched on Friday, 10/1…
On Thursday, 9/30, the Education Department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) released a Q&A entitled the Return to School Roadmap: Development and Implementation of Individualized Education Programs in the Least Restrictive Environment under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act…
Congressional Democrats and the Biden administration are looking into adding a means test to the free community college provision of the Build Back Better Act…
The University of California is planning to add 20,000 students to its system by 2030…
Federal student loan servicer Navient announced last week that it is requesting to transfer its loan servicing contract with the Department of Education to Maximus, the current servicer for defaulted student loans…