Weekly Update 8/24/20

California

Today, 8/24, California reported 4,946 new COVID-19 cases, a 0.7% increase and well below the 14-day average of 7,622…

After several legal victories, California's Attorney General Xavier Becerra says he will take the Trump Administration back to court over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program…

Ford Motor Co., Honda Motor Co., Volkswagen, BMW, and Volvo legally finalized agreements with California on Monday, 8/17, that would see them cut tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions more than under federal rules…

Coronavirus

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its guidance for reopening schools on Friday, 8/21, to include advice on what to do with students who come down with COVID-19, filling a gap that left administrators on their own to determine the best approach…

The Trump Administration on Monday, 8/24, gave American Airlines Group Inc. emergency approval to deploy a new weapon against COVID-19: a surface coating that kills coronaviruses for as many as seven days…

President and Administration 

A first wave of states has lined up to administer the latest federal boost in unemployment benefits, but there’s little sign they plan to fund their share of the expanded assistance…

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is moving to carry out President Trump’s August 8th executive order to pause student loan payments for tens of millions of Americans through year's end…

Uber Technologies Inc., Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc. and 13 other companies are seeking to join a court fight against President Trump’s order barring undocumented immigrants from being counted in the 2020 Census…

Judge Frederick Block of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York halted the Department of Health and Human Services from enforcing a rule that stripped gender identity and sex stereotyping from anti-discrimination protections under the Affordable Care Act…

Education

Colleges and universities can soon work under new rules governing distance learning, according to federal regulations issued today, 8/24, by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos…

The Education Department is “actively considering” making changes to its rule that restricts emergency pandemic assistance only to college students who qualify for federal financial aid, the Trump Administration disclosed in a court filing on Thursday, 8/20…

Despite pressure from anti-hunger groups, education organizations and lawmakers on both sides, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it will not extend a key waiver from federal school meal requirements that has given schools and community groups more flexibility to feed students during the coronavirus pandemic…

U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein in Washington state on Friday, 8/21, blocked Education Secretary DeVos from enforcing her policy to force public school districts to send a greater share of coronavirus relief funding to private school students than is typically required under federal law…

Congress

Senate Republicans plan to introduce a scaled-back stimulus bill amid the standoff over a new virus relief plan that’s dragged on for weeks, according to two Senate Republican aides…

On Saturday, 8/22, the House passed a bill aimed at rolling back service cuts at the U.S. Postal Service that Democrats say could harm the ability of Americans to vote by mail in the November presidential election…

Weekly Update 8/3/20

California

California recorded its first coronavirus-related death of someone younger than 18 on Friday…

Missteps by corrections officials handling releases from state prisons are fueling fears in some California counties that thousands of inmates eligible for early release will spread the coronavirus in their communities…

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s drive to obtain 10,000 ventilators to help California hospitals treat COVID-19 patients has fallen well behind schedule as coronavirus infections surge…

Coronavirus

Employers across the country are being sued by families of workers who contend their loved ones contracted lethal cases of COVID-19 on the job, a new legal from that shows the risk of reopening workplaces…

Dr. Deborah Birx stated that the US has entered a "new phase" of the coronavirus pandemic…

 Dr. Fauci said a vaccine may not immediately be available to everyone once it’s available, but that “over a period of time in 2021” the public would be able to access a vaccine, assuming one is authorized…

President and Administration 

The Trump administration will reject new applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as it seeks new avenues to dismantle parts of the program, the administration announced Tuesday, 7/28…

Education

As the start of the fall semester approaches, students enrolled at various colleges across the country are being prompted by their institutions to sign liability waivers and "informed consent" agreements acknowledging, and in some cases even assuming, all the risks of returning to campus…

A new modeling study published Friday, 7/31, by researchers at Harvard and Yale Universities concluded that a safe way to bring college students back to campus this fall would be to test them for COVID-19 every two days using "a rapid, inexpensive, and even poorly sensitive" test, and to couple this testing with strict behavioral strategies to keep the virus’s rate of transmission (Rt) - the average number of individuals infected by a single contagious person - below 2.5…

Most college students plan to return to school in the fall, and they feel comfortable doing so, according to a report from Sallie Mae and Ipsos, a market research company…

Congress

Talks on a new coronavirus aid package turned serious over the weekend, but negotiators made clear they weren't close to a deal but keep meeting...

Technologies to fight climate change by capturing carbon emissions right out of the air will become increasingly cost-effective, Julio Friedmann, a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy, told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday, 7/28…

The House passed a pair of bills Wednesday, 7/29, that together would funnel over $60 billion into the floundering child care sector, setting the stage for what Democrats would like to see come out of the negotiations over the new round of pandemic aid…

Presidential Election

Joe Biden proposed a series of steps Tuesday, 7/28, designed to bridge racial economic gaps in the U.S. and promised he would work toward a more diverse Federal Reserve Board that would help minorities access funds and economic development…

Weekly Update 7/27/20

California

There were 8,259 positive COVID-19 cases on Sunday, 7/26, below both the 14-day average of 9,421 and the 10,666 reported the day before…

Coronavirus

The public will get an early look at recommendations for who should be first in line for a Covid-19 vaccine by late August or early September, the president of the National Academy of Medicine said Friday, 7/24…

President Trump’s administration on Monday , 7/20, pushed to encourage mask-wearing, explicitly endorsing a measure widely seen as crucial to stemming the coronavirus pandemic…

U.S. Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia said the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic has been better than expected so far, and it won’t be necessary to extend an emergency unemployment program that ends this month…

The Federal Reserve isn’t moving quickly enough to get loans to cash-strapped small businesses and only one state government struggling to cope with the coronavirus crisis has been able to tap central bank funds, according to a panel created to monitor billions of dollars in aid approved in response to the pandemic…

President and Administration 

Oregon lost a fight with the Trump administration over federal agents’ detention of anti-racism protesters in Portland…

The U.S. Supreme Court’s legal doctrine that shields public officials from liability in civil cases is getting renewed attention during the national debate over police accountability…

President Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum on Tuesday, 7/21, that would exclude undocumented immigrants from being counted in congressional districts when district lines are redrawn next year…

New York is leading a coalition of 35 U.S. states, cities and counties in suing Trump over his executive order seeking to exclude undocumented immigrants from census data used to determine congressional districts…

Congress

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is expected to release the details of the bills that make up the GOP CARES 2.0 this week…

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows kicked off negotiations on the next virus relief plan, even as Republicans are still hashing out an agreement among themselves…

Economists are warning the nation is in danger of careening off a fiscal cliff unless Congress approves a rescue package to succeed the $2 trillion Cares Act…

A growing body of research shows the $3 trillion approved by Congress since March played an enormous role in preventing the economy from sinking into a depression…

On Friday, 6/24, House lawmakers passed a package of fiscal year 2021 appropriations bills…

Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said he’s introducing the bill, Preparing for the Next Pandemic Act, to provide $15 billion over the next 10 years to prepare for public health emergencies like COVID-19…

H.R. 7608, passed by the House last week, included a measure from California Democrats that would clarify language in the underlying Interior-Environment spending bill regarding a popular EPA water infrastructure loan program…

The Senate voted 51-45 along party lines to confirm Russell Vought as President Donald Trump‘s budget director, a position he has held in an acting capacity since January 2019…

Presidential Election

Joe Biden on Tuesday, 7/21, unveiled a $775 billion plan to bolster child care and care for the elderly that would be financed by taxes on real-estate investors with incomes of more than $400,000 as well increased tax compliance by high-income earners…

Education

Harvard University and the University of Southern California have advised new international students not to come to campus this fall, saying they will not be allowed to enter the U.S. to participate in remote instruction…

Weekly Update: 7/20/20

California

Students across most of California won’t be able to attend school in person this fall, Governor Gavin Newsom announced Friday, 7/17, dealing another setback to efforts at restarting the world’s fifth-largest economy and possibly spurring similar orders nationwide…

Los Angeles County again led the way in new California COVID-19 cases with 2,722 new positive results Saturday, 7/18, for a total of 153,014 cases since the pandemic began…

A California judge on Thursday, 7/16, issued a tentative order that, if solidified, would uphold the state's ban on for-profit prisons…

Coronavirus

U.S. cases rose 2.2%, above the 1.9% daily average over the last week…

Using statistical analysis, a new study by Victor Chernozhukov of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Hiroyuki Kasahara and Paul Schrimpf of the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver School of Economics concludes that 40,000 lives would have been saved in two months if a national mask mandate for employees of public-facing businesses had gone into effect on April 1 and had been strictly obeyed through May…

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed that more guidance for opening schools won’t be released until later this month…

Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC, warned that racial disparities seen in how coronavirus affects more minorities may be replicated in schools as they re-open if not careful…

The Federal Reserve formally unveiled terms Friday, 7/17, that will allow nonprofit organizations to borrow through its $600 billion loan program for small and midsize businesses disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic…

The federal government should weigh forgiving all “small” loans provided under the Paycheck Protection Program during the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has extended its “no-sail order” for cruise ships through the end of September, preventing vessels from sailing in U.S. waters out of concerns over COVID-19…

President and Administration 

House Education and Labor Committee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA) sent Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield a letter last week asking him or a CDC designee to testify at a hearing on how K-12 public schools can reopen for in-person classroom instruction this fall…

President Trump says he will not issue a national mandate requiring Americans to wear masks in order to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus…

President Trump is expected to issue an executive order that would ban undocumented immigrants from being included in the 2020 census…

A U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland ruled Friday, 7/17, that the Trump administration must begin to operate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program again, after the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has continued to not accept new applications for the immigration program despite a Supreme Court ruling last month that reinstated DACA…

President Trump said he will announce a new federal law enforcement initiative this week focused on violence in U.S. cities…

Congress

Senate Republicans are raising the alarm over the country's rapidly growing number of coronavirus cases…

Talks on a new coronavirus stimulus package will start at the White House on today, 7/20, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and others…

Senate Republicans are preparing to offer a five-year shield from coronavirus lawsuits as part of a forthcoming relief proposal…

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) called on the Senate on Thursday, 7/16, to support an amendment to the next coronavirus relief bill that would bar states that do not implement mask mandates from receiving stimulus funding…

Democratic senators called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to honor the legacy of the late Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) and allow the Voting Rights Act to the Senate floor to be passed…

Appropriations Update: 

By a vote of 30-22, on Wednesday, 7/15, the House Appropriations Committee approved the FY 21 Homeland Security bill with the following amendments adopted by voice vote…

Education

The Department of Homeland Security rescinded a July 6 policy directive that would have required international students to take at least some in-person coursework in the fall in order to remain in the U.S…

A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Wednesday, 7/15, on behalf of the attorneys general of 22 states and the District of Columbia, is trying to end Education Secretary DeVos’s new borrower-defense rule, which makes it more difficult for students who have been defrauded, particularly by for-profit colleges, to have their student loans canceled…

Fourteen Republican attorneys general (AGs) filed a brief in defense of the United States Department of Education’s new regulations that dictate how colleges respond to reports of sexual misconduct…

Weekly Update: 7/13/20

California

LAUSD and SDUSD announced on 7/13/20 that they will be providing virtual-only instruction when school resumes…

In recent weeks, LA County has not been able to meet the high demand for COVID-19 testing, while Orange County, which has the third-highest number of coronavirus cases in the state and the fourth-most deaths, is also grappling with a surge in infections and hospitalizations in recent weeks…

Coronavirus

On Sunday several representative from the White House and administrative agencies began raising public doubts or concerns with Dr. Anthony Fauci’s statements…

On 7/13/20 seventeen states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to block the rule change that would prohibit international students taking primarily or fully online classes from entering the country with a student visa…

Congress

House appropriators plowed through all their subcommittee markups and five of their 12 full committee markups last week, but the outlook for funding the government remains murky because of the Senate’s inaction, lawmakers say…

President and Administration

President Trump on Friday, 7/10, said he plans to unveil sometime in the next month an immigration measure that he said would include some protections for DACA — the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that provides for work permits and other protections for people brought to the U.S. as children by undocumented parents…

Education

Sixty percent of college students say the pandemic has made it harder to access mental health care, even as financial stresses and prevalence of depression increased among them, according to a new survey on the impact of COVID-19 on student well-being…

Secretary DeVos said on “Fox News Sunday” that “nothing in the data” suggests children being in school is “in any way dangerous” - an assertion challenged by a top public health official on the same program…

President Donald Trump’s call to investigate the nonprofit status of universities could run into legal problems, including guardrails Congress placed on the IRS after a scandal over the agency’s scrutiny of nonprofit status of conservative political groups…