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Biden meets with mayors and governors on infrastructure package
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden met with a group of governors and mayors on Wednesday as he seeks to build support for a massive federal infrastructure package awaiting action from Congress. The local officials joining Biden in the Oval Office included Mayors Nan Whaley of Dayton, Ohio; Kate Gallego of Phoenix, Ariz., and Michael Hancock, […]
How the new, expanded federal child tax credit will work
WASHINGTON — The most ambitious part of the pandemic stimulus package signed by President Joe Biden earlier this year is about to hit the bank accounts of millions of U.S. parents. Starting Thursday and ending in December, the vast majority of U.S. households with children will begin receiving monthly payments as a result of changes in […]
CDC study finds racial, regional disparities as schools reopened for in-person learning
WASHINGTON — After last year’s abrupt shutdown of schools due to the coronavirus pandemic, increasing numbers of students returned to in-person learning. But a new study shows that racial and geographic gaps persisted as K-12 students went back to their classrooms—with non-Hispanic white kids more often the ones attending a brick-and-mortar school full-time in most states. […]
Wisconsin Republicans split on vote to remove statues of Confederate leaders, bust of Dred Scott author
WASHINGTON — The U.S. House voted Tuesday to remove from the Capitol a bust of the late Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, a Marylander who wrote the despised Dred Scott decision—as well as evict statues and busts of men who fought for the Confederacy or served in its government. The legislation passed on a vote […]
Supreme Court affirms transgender rights in declining to hear school bathroom case
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it will not hear a case of a transgender student in Virginia who was barred from using the boys’ bathroom, a decision that affirms lower-court rulings that said treating transgender students differently violates federal law. Justices on the top court offered no comment in declining to […]
U.S. Department of Justice takes Georgia to court over its elections law
WASHINGTON — U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday that the Department of Justice is suing the state of Georgia to overturn a sweeping elections law passed in March, with a legal challenge that alleges the new statute violates the federal Voting Rights Act. The federal lawsuit is the latest in a series of challenges […]
Biden administration extends federal eviction moratorium for one final month
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Thursday extended a national moratorium on evictions for another month, offering what federal officials say will be a final respite while they scramble to beef up other help for renters that could mitigate a wave of evictions once the legal protection does expire. The added month of eviction relief comes […]
Biden and bipartisan senators clinch a deal on $1.2T infrastructure plan
WASHINGTON — The White House and a bipartisan group of U.S. senators said Thursday they’ve struck a deal on the outlines of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package, marking a breakthrough on federal dollars for road and bridge projects after weeks of negotiations — but with significant hurdles still ahead. President Joe Biden stood with the […]
Glenn Grothman tries to ban ‘critical race theory’ in District of Columbia schools
WASHINGTON — A Republican member of the U.S. House from Wisconsin wants to restrict how District of Columbia public school teachers talk about racism and sexism, drafting a bill that’s the latest attack by the GOP against discussions of race and gender in U.S. schools. The bill introduced this week by Rep. Glenn Grothman, titled […]
Marjorie Taylor Greene in new attack on Fauci demands his salary be stripped
WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia on Tuesday led a group of House Republicans calling for the firing of Dr. Anthony Fauci, formalizing their intense criticism of his public statements and actions throughout the coronavirus pandemic into legislation. Those GOP lawmakers can’t actually oust Fauci from his post as director of the National […]
Earmarks list for states in U.S. House infrastructure bill tops $5.7B
WASHINGTON — U.S. House Democrats’ highway funding bill is poised to include roughly three out of five transportation projects submitted by members, as legislators vie for their share of federal dollars through the resurrected congressional earmarks process. The 1,473 projects that made the cut were out of 2,383 that Democratic and Republican legislators requested for […]
States poised to allow college athletes to profit off their name, image and likeness
WASHINGTON — A seismic shift will rock college sports next month, when a handful of new state laws go into effect allowing student athletes to make money off their personal images. It’s been against the rules governing collegiate sports for student athletes to make a profit off their name or image— a practice that’s commonplace […]