Brief #131 – Environment Policy
By Katelyn Lewis
Federal officials announced Thursday their plan to tighten restrictions on the amount of lead allowed in drinking water in an effort to reduce the health hazards such exposure has caused in poor, often minority communities across the U.S.
Brief #132 – Economic Policy
By Rosalind Gottfried
The recent union vote, at a Buffalo, NY Starbucks, represents the first success in the company’s 8000 corporate retail outlets. Workers United is the entity representing the workers and is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union. Another area store failed to vote in a union while a third one had a successful outcome which has been contested by both sides.
Brief #130 – Environment Policy
By Timothy T. Loftus, Ph.D.
This past October, the Northwest News Network reported that a coalition of conservation groups, the Nez Perce Tribe, and the State of Oregon reached an agreement with the Biden Administration and federal agencies to pause, until next summer, long-running litigation over the operations of Snake River dams within the Columbia River Basin.
Brief #137 – Foreign Policy
By Reilly Fitzgerald
The detention (or internment) camps that are housing the Uyghurs (and several other ethnic minority groups) are essentially prisons. According to NBC News, they reported that a high-level Communist Party official in Xinjiang described, in leaked documents, the security measures of the camps and they more closely align with a prison than a “vocational center”.
The leaked documents mention video surveillance in/around classrooms, dormitories, and even watch towers. The Chinese government has cited worries about extremism and even terrorism from within the Uyghur population as a main driver of these policies.
Brief #30 – Social Justice
By Erika Shannon
The investigation into the January 6 attack on our nation’s capitol is currently well underway; there have been numerous subpoenas issued, thousands of tips collected, and many depositions and interviews conducted.
Brief #131 – Economic Policy
By Rosalind Gottfried
Wages are increasing significantly in all sectors. As workers have gradually rejoined the labor force, taking their time even as federal subsidies to unemployment benefits ended, starting wages and service work especially have seen large increases. Wages increased 4.9% between October 2020 and October 2021.
Brief #129 – Environment Policy
By Todd J. Broadman
With President Biden’s COP26 climate pledge as backdrop, his administration has been issuing oil leases at a record pace. Biden said that climate change is “the challenge of our collective lifetimes, an existential threat to human existence as we know it. And every day we delay the cost of inaction increases.” His pledge is to cut U.S. emissions by up to 51% over the next nine years. At the end of October, the administration had approved 3,091 new drilling permits on public lands at a rate of 332 per month, outpacing the Trump administration’s 300 permits per month in fiscal years 2018-2020.
Brief #130 – Economic Policy
By Rosalind Gottfried
After persistent bickering Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer reached a procedural agreement allowing the Senate to pass an increase in the debt ceiling with a simple majority. This bill passed Thursday and is likely to quickly lead to an increase in the debt ceiling of 2-2.5 trillion dollars, which will cover the government’s debt payments through next year’s election.
Brief #178 – Civil Rights
By Rodney A. Maggay
In 1973 the United States Supreme Court decided the landmark case Roe v. Wade. That case ruled that a woman’s choice to have an abortion is protected by the U.S. Constitution. The basis of the ruling by the Court was that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a “right to privacy” which includes the choice to have an abortion. The case then laid out a balancing test that focused on each of the three trimesters of a woman’s pregnancy.
Brief #104 – Health & Gender Author Taylor J Smith Brief Title: States Launch Assaults on the Rights of the Transgender Community: Part I May 1, 2021 More than 100 bills that threaten the rights of transgender people have been introduced across thirty-three states...