Weekly Update 1/22/24

California

During California’s most recent drought, officials worked to safeguard water supplies, issuing emergency regulations to curb use by thousands of farms, utilities and irrigation districts…

California’s top Senate candidates are hours away from taking the stage in Los Angeles, where they’ll make their pitch to voters and fight for viral breakout moments in one of the country’s top-watched races…

President and Administration

Research finds that children of color in the U.S. are less likely than their white peers to get painkillers for a broken arm or leg, for appendicitis or for migraines, according to new findings published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health…

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health's latest program aims to widen access to hospital-level care in rural America…

The Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, in partnership with FHWA, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is offering free technical assistance on the planning…

On Thursday, 1/18, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), is announcing a new model to test approaches for addressing the behavioral and physical health, as well as health-related social needs, of people with Medicaid and Medicare…

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently unveiled proposed regulations aimed at curbing overdraft fees that banks charge on overdrawn deposits…

On Friday, 1/19, the Biden Administration announced another round of student debt relief, forgiving nearly $5 billion in student debt for 73,600 borrowers, the president said in a statement…

On Friday, 1/19, the bipartisan Child Tax Credit expansion in the tax bill negotiated by Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden and House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith passed out of the House Ways and Means Committee in a strong bipartisan vote, while also winning an endorsement from the White House…

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended his Republican presidential campaign on Sunday, 1/21…

Congress

The House Homeland Security Committee plans to vote on January 31 on an impeachment resolution of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas…

A pair of House Republicans are denouncing a Biden administration measure that would require Head Start programs to boost worker wages by 2031…

Education

Small, regular interactions with a reading tutor — about five to seven minutes — are making a big impact on young students’ reading skills…

Brown vs. Board of Education, the pivotal Supreme Court decision that made school segregation unconstitutional, turns 70 years old on May 17, 2024…

Photos show blood splattered across a small bare-walled room in a North Carolina school where a second grader repeatedly punched himself in the face in the fall of 2019, according to the child's mom…

Three weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a case on corporal punishment in schools that questioned whether parents could sue schools under the U.S. Constitution…

Weekly Update 1/16/24

Appropriations

The chief tax writers in Congress have reached a long-awaited deal that would temporarily expand the Child Tax Credit, an office involved in the negotiations said…

California

On Wednesday, 1/10, Governor Gavin Newsom outlined a plan to close a state budget deficit of $38 billion, a projected shortfall that is large by historic standards but a fraction of the record gap that was forecast in December…

Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) and California Senate candidate is calling for an end to earmarks, which Senate appropriators who manage them call “congressionally directed spending” or community projects…

Three years after a national reckoning on race prompted California to study reparations, the Legislative Black Caucus is assembling legislation to put the recommendations of a reparations task force into law…

President and Administration

HHS has determined that marijuana is less dangerous than other controlled substances and said it has potential in medicine…

Thousands of teenagers and young adults have developed delusions and paranoia after using cannabis…

On Tuesday, 1/9, Meta said it would hide content related to suicide, eating disorders and self-harm from teenagers on Instagram and Facebook, policy changes that appear to mirror legislation being considered in Congress…

Vice President Harris announced on Thursday, 1/11, that the Biden administration is investing $285 million to help schools hire and train more than 14,000 mental health counselors…

Student loan borrowers enrolled in the administration's new SAVE plan will have their debt wiped…

Residential treatment facilities in the U.S. for teenagers with opioid and other substance use disorders are few and expensive, according to a new federally funded study on the availability of care…

Education

Since the early days of the COVID pandemic, dozens of students in Missoula, Mont., have attended a fully online program run by the school district…

Public Safety and Justice Update: 1/12/24

During the pandemic, violent crime rose across the U.S. Murders in 2020 increased at the fastest rate since national statistics began in 1960…

Wayne LaPierre resigned as leader of the National Rifle Association (NRA) last week, ending his decades long reign over the prominent gun rights group, days before the start of his civil trial in New York…

A public memorial service was held this week for an Oakland police officer killed in the line of duty…

In 1992, East Palo Alto was dubbed the "murder capital" of the U.S., with 42 murders in its 2.5 square miles — a per capita rate higher than that of any other city of any size…

Gov. Gavin Newsom called for new laws targeting retail thieves amid an increase of robberies and scrutiny of criminal justice reforms he backed…

Gun owners in California will likely be allowed to carry in most public places until at least summer after a federal appeals court panel blocked central provisions of a state law that banned carrying guns in schools, parks, libraries and other areas the law classified as “sensitive”…

Public safety legislation unveiled this week by local lawmakers in the nation’s capital is aimed at bringing down spiraling violent crimes rates that have stoked public anxiety and prompted congressional scrutiny…

Weekly Update 1/8/24

Appropriations

Lawmakers hope to pass a long-awaited deal expanding the Child Tax Credit and restore a trio of popular business breaks…

California

Today, 1/8, the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to a California law that bans the sale of flavored cigarettes, leaving the state law in place…

On Tuesday, 12/19, California water officials approved standards to clean sewage water well enough to pipe directly back into drinking faucets…

California agencies are already slowing down their work ahead of a projected record $68 billion budget shortfall this year…

In a recent New York Times interview, California Senator Laphonza Butler discusses adjusting to the slow pace of the Senate…

Housing, crime and climate change must be priorities for the Assembly as constituents clamor for results, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Salinas) told members of his caucus on their second day back in session…

President and Administration

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has issued the FentAlert: Empowering Youth for Safer Choices-SAMHSA Fentanyl Awareness Youth Challenge…

On Tuesday, 12/19, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first test that uses DNA in assessing whether certain individuals may have an elevated risk of developing opioid use disorder (OUD)…

The White House had more than 10 meetings scheduled last week on the FDA’s proposed menthol ban, with many more to come later this month, according to Office of Management and Budget records…

Since the passing of the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, over 500 gun purchases have been denied to people under the age of 21 who are deemed a threat to society, the Justice Department announced Friday, 1/5…

This spring, the pot of money covering free internet for millions of U.S. households is expected to run dry…

A 1965 rule that banned Medicaid from paying for hospital treatment for people with mental illness and substance use could soon be struck down…

On Friday, 12/29, President Biden signed a proclamation to pardon all U.S. residents and legal permanent residents serving jail time for marijuana possession and marijuana use charges on federal lands and in D.C…

A second round of comments is due Jan. 17 in the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rulemaking, which would revive Obama-era restrictions on internet service providers blocking and throttling their customers’ online traffic…

The top leaders at Meta, TikTok, Snap, Discord, and X (formerly known as Twitter) will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Jan. 31 to testify about their “failure” to remove content sexually exploiting children…

Nearly 172,500 people went to the emergency room in late December for the flu, COVID-19 or respiratory syncytial virus, according to CDC data…

Congress

Republicans put a $10,000 cap on SALT deductions in their 2017 tax law, a move despised by property owners in high-cost metro areas…

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s last day in Congress was Sunday, 12/31…

The focus in coming weeks will be former President Donald Trump’s bid to win the GOP presidential nod, as well as President Biden’s vulnerability…

The House Homeland Security Committee is formally moving ahead with impeachment proceedings against the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas…

Education

On Friday, 1/5, the Education Department announced that an additional 758,000 student loan borrowers faced billing mistakes as payments resumed in the fall…

While the entire United States is still reeling in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the recovery process has not been even nationwide…

Conservative legal groups, Christian conservative groups and groups aligned with Leonard Leo, the financial architect of the conservative legal movement and Federalist Society co-chair, are rallying around an effort to create a public Catholic school in Oklahoma…

Across vast expanses of urban and semi-urban America, and especially in Black and brown communities where charter schools have proven most popular and effective, there’s still plenty of room to grow, and few policy barriers standing in the way…

The academically top-ranked charter school in Colorado Springs has displayed a pattern of discrimination against children with special needs and shirked its lawful responsibilities, some parents and teachers are alleging…

A federal judge in Michigan has dropped the North Carolina Coalition for Charter Schools from a lawsuit challenging rule changes for charters set in Washington, DC…

Linda Brown, who was arguably one of the most influential U.S. educators in decades, died on Christmas day in her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the age of 81…

A simplified Free Application for Federal Student Aid is finally online after a significant delay…

The Biden administration is moving to allow undocumented students to participate in federal programs that help disadvantaged students prepare for college, proposing new assistance to a population that’s largely excluded from most federal aid…

Public Safety and Justice Update: 1/5/24

A 17-year-old opened fire at a small-town Iowa high school on 1/4, killing a sixth-grader and wounding five others…

Almost any student could take a knife to school, yet, the vast majority of attacks with weapons at schools in 2023 involved guns…

As voters turn their attention to a crucial election year, gun safety groups are prepared to press candidates on their plans to curb gun violence…

Last year there was a US record of 39 mass shootings with at least four victim fatalities…

Crime declined in the third quarter of 2023 relative to the same period in 2022, according to data released by the FBI…

Last month, Vice President Kamala Harris hosted a group of state legislators at the White House to unveil the administration’s new policies to combat gun violence…

A fourth man was arrested on charges stemming from the cannabis business break-in resulting in the fatal shooting of Oakland police Officer Tuan Le as three other suspects made  court appearances this week…

Police are pushing back against a state report that found Black drivers more likely to be stopped by officers than white ones…

A new California law that would bar licensed gun holders from carrying in public did not go into full effect 1/1 as scheduled, after a federal judge found parts of it unconstitutional…

New head of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, Kevin McCarty, wants to revisit a criminal justice ballot initiative California voters passed nearly a decade ago, joining legislative Democrats who are seeking to crack down on drug and property crimes…

Over the past 16 months, the Justice Department has deployed a new law targeting gun traffickers to charge over 250 people…

Many people hoped body worn cameras would help hold police officers accountable for wrongful shootings, but there have been mixed results…

A San Jose police officer has resigned after the police department found numerous text messages that “demonstrated racial bias," according to a statement by the San Jose Police Department (SJPD)…

San Jose leaders want to make it easier to nab individuals stealing catalytic converters and are proposing tweaking the current ordinance to make possessing an unattached catalytic converter illegal without proof of ownership…