Politics, Public Health
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The Biden-Harris Immediate priorities

President Biden will deliver bold action and immediate relief for American families as the country grapples with converging crises. This will include actions to control the COVID-19 pandemic, provide economic relief, tackle climate change, and advance racial equity and civil rights, as well as immediate actions to reform our immigration system and restore America’s standing in the world. 
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3 more Republican states announce they're leaving a key voting data partnership
The Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, is a multi-state partnership that experts across the political spectrum say is the only reliable, secure way for states to share voter registration data with each other.

But on Monday, three Republican-led states announced they are pulling out of ERIC — leaving questions about the future of a system that up until recently was a bipartisan success story, as well as questions about how these three states will maintain accurate voter lists without such a resource.
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"[ERIC] is a godsend," Paul Pate, the GOP secretary of state of Iowa, told NPR in an interview last month.

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Gun violence is a public health crisis

​In the United States, gun violence is a major public health problem and a leading cause of premature death. Preventing death, disability and injury from gun violence requires a public health approach that involves data collection and surveillance, research to understand which policies and programs are effective in decreasing gun violence, initiatives to implement those measures that are shown to work and continued surveillance and evaluation.
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Amazon and Howard University Announce Academic Collaboration

In an ongoing effort to create enduring pipelines of diverse science talent and differentiated research, Amazon today announced a collaboration with Howard University, a historically Black college or university (HBCU) located in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1867, Howard is a research university comprised of 14 schools and colleges.  (Read More)
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One nation, under gun violence: America tops 100 mass shootings in 2023

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WashingtonCNN -- The US has surpassed 100 mass shootings in 2023, a disturbing milestone that underscores the grave cost of inaction in Washington and state legislatures across the country.
​America reached the grim number by the first week of March – record time, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive, which, like CNN, defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.
Last year, the US hit 100 mass shootings on March 19, per the GVA, almost two weeks after this year’s date. The previous year, 2021, saw a late March date as well, and from 2018 to 2020, there weren’t 100 mass shootings until May.
“Americans are tired of fearing if they or their families will be the next victims of a mass shooting. Our children are tired of being told to ‘run, hide, and fight,’” said Kris Brown, president of Brady: United Against Gun Violence, an organization seeking to mitigate gun violence in the US.
“These regular, uniquely American tragedies must be a call to action for our political leaders. We need decisive change to US gun laws and regulations. The cost of political inaction on preventing gun violence is increasingly, tragically clear,” Brown said.
But following passage of last year’s bipartisan gun safety law, there’s been little political momentum in the divided Congress for more gun safety legislation, even as the rate of mass shootings has picked up.
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A teacher shortage so acute that students are expected to learn without one
ROSEDALE, Miss. — It’s near the end of the day at West Bolivar High School, and Jordan Mosley is stuck. The 15-year-old sophomore stares at her laptop and restarts the video.

Her teacher that day is a stranger — a nameless long-haired man on the screen. He explains two-column geometry proofs and how students could use the software to complete them. “Prove if the length of AB is equal to the length of EF,” the man says.

But there is no one to ask for help in this classroom, where students stare sleepily at laptops amid the din of a portable air conditioner. There is only a teacher’s assistant who can print out additional worksheets if they run into trouble. So, Jordan, a top student, decides to wait until she can see Ms. Butler, the high school’s popular math teacher — and its only one.  (read more)
Social Policy and ​Legislation

DESANTIS SPARKS OUTRAGE WITH REJECTION OF AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES CLASS

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is facing criticism after his administration rejected an Advanced Placement African American Studies course from being taught in Florida schools, the latest curriculum-related action by the governor to draw fierce backlash.
The DeSantis administration made the move earlier this month, when it sent a letter to the College Board Florida Partnership arguing that “the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value.” The letter didn’t name which law the course purportedly violated, and the state’s Department of Education did not clarify that matter when asked by The Hill.
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The action has drawn heavy criticism, with Democratic legislators and LGBTQ advocates likening it to DeSantis’s recent crusade against Florida schools teaching lessons related to sexual orientation or gender identity — topics state officials have argued are inappropriate for children.
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The implications of Roe v wade
Introduction
Women of color have much at stake in the June 2022 Supreme Court ruling in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The decision overturned the longstanding Constitutional right to abortion and eliminated federal standards on abortion access that had been established by earlier decisions in the cases, Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Going forward, it will be up to each state to establish laws protecting or restricting abortion in the absence of a federal standard.
State laws range from complete abortion bans with criminal penalties to abortion protections that include funding for clinics, and legal protections for clinicians. In some states, abortion provision will remain legal and available because the states have had policies in place prior to the Dobbs decision that protect access even in the absence of Roe. Another group of states do not have any explicit laws either upholding abortion rights or prohibiting abortion, and access to services is mixed in these states. Finally, since the Supreme Court ruling, several states have already outlawed provision of abortion services, and more states are expected to act in the coming weeks. These 17 states had policies in place prior to the decision that would effectively outlaw abortions soon after a ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade. Many of these states are in the South, which has large shares of Black and Hispanic women, the Plains which has a large Indigenous population, and the Midwest. To obtain an abortion, women in states that prohibit abortions would likely have to travel out of state, which will result in disproportionate barriers to accessing abortions for people of color.   READ MORE

NEW REPORT: US Democracy Has Declined Significantly in the Past Decade, Reforms Urgently Needed

Measures to address racial injustice, special-interest influence, and partisan polarization should be among the top priorities.

..Today, Freedom House released a special report, From Crisis to Reform: A Call to Strengthen America’s Battered Democracy, which identifies three enduring problems that have undermined the health of the US political system: unequal treatment for people of color, the outsized influence of special interests in politics, and partisan polarization. This report comes in response to a decade-long decline in US democracy and is based in Freedom House’s global comparative research...
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Commentary, Editorials
& Interviews

Opinion: Biden's smart political move angers progressives

President Joe Biden gets it. Being seen as “soft on crime” is the Achilles’ heel for Democrats — and he’s not going to let them deepen that negative association, even if it angers some progressives.
At issue is a local Washington, DC, bill that would revise the city’s 100-year-old criminal code. There’s general agreement that the code needs fixing, but the devil is in the details of the new version — in this case, literally soft-on-crime provisions such as reduced sentences for carjackings. This is absurd at a time when homicides are up 36% year-over-year in the nation’s capital, according to police.
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