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As with pension fund divestment policies, it’s tempting for states and local governments to blacklist companies over their public policy stances. But it’s the taxpayers who are likely to be the collateral damage losers.
Since COVID, deaths and injuries of cyclists and pedestrians are at their highest in four decades. Meanwhile, motorists complain downtown driving has worsened with fewer car lanes available.
The growing officer shortage is colliding with the highest rates of gun violence Philadelphia has seen in generations. Critics argue local policies, such as city residency requirements, have made the situation worse.
Fuel, energy and food costs have soared while teacher shortages have increased pressure to raise wages. The financial problem has hit as education emerges as a central issue in the Iowa governor’s race.
Car-Crazy Los Angeles now has more train and bus riders than the San Francisco Bay Area. As of June 2022, Los Angeles County has recovered 71 percent of its ridership compared to 55 percent in the Bay Area.
Christopher Gilmore, principal of Westwood High School in Mesa, Ariz., commenting on the shortage of math teachers as the school year begins. According to one national survey by Education Week, nearly three-fourths of principals and district officials said this summer that the number of teaching applicants was not enough to fill their open positions. Other surveys released this year have suggested that parents are deeply concerned about staffing and that many more teachers are eyeing the exits. (The New York Times, Aug. 30, 2022)
It seems logical that we would be rushing to turn vacant office buildings into apartments and condos. So far it’s not happening on a large scale, but there are reasons to think it’s in our urban future.
Community-based organizations know how to register voters and increase census participation. Reaching out block by block, even door to door, they can be just as effective in boosting vaccination rates.
Data collected from sewage water generates more accurate and economical information on COVID-19 activity than reports that depend on positive test results. But funding for this type of analysis hasn’t been reliable.
The 33-year ordeal of Salman Rushdie came to head with a knife attack at a venerable cultural venue in upstate New York. That the onstage stabbing took place in America is a grim reminder of the need for eternal vigilance in defending the First Amendment.
The vast majority of ghost guns recovered by law enforcement nationwide are built from parts made by Polymer80, which has managed to evade laws forbidding the manufacture of unserialized gun parts.
Diesel-powered school buses produce more than 5 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions. EV school buses eliminate harmful pollutants and cost less to maintain than diesel buses. But they aren’t cheap.
Gabrielle Perry, a 29-year-old epidemiologist in New Orleans, regarding the obstacles that families, especially Black families, experience toward generational wealth, which, Perry says, acts as a societal tax on Black people. Perry, who has $135,000 of student loan debt and expects $20,000 of that to be wiped out under the plan announced this week by President Biden, is grateful for the relief but is disappointed the president hasn’t decided to clear all student debt. (Associated Press — Aug. 26, 2022)
The Republican secretary of state claims that the biggest threat to the state’s elections is not fraud, but the people who are claiming election fraud exists and the danger that those conspiracy theories create.
Connecticut gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski criticized Gov. Ned Lamont over the lack of transparency and the increasing costs of the offshore wind redevelopment project in New London.
The tech company has partnered with the trucking company Daimler to increase its fleet of autonomous semitractor-trailers to 60 vehicles running on I-45 between Dallas and Houston.
Grace Rink, who does the job for the city of Denver using a taxpayer-supported fund specifically for climate action, explains why it’s vital.
The biggest federal climate, clean energy and environmental justice commitment in history is an unprecedented opportunity. The ideas contained in cities’ and companies’ environmental disclosures are a treasure trove to guide policymakers.
They’ve outlived their usefulness and stand in the way of getting anything done for Americans. We should turn to electoral approaches that diminish their impact and influence.
A group of Republican attorneys general have filed a lawsuit in hopes of preventing California from setting its own vehicle emissions standards, claiming the state’s rules could negatively impact other states down the road.
The Broward County city’s mayor and commissioners voted unanimously on Aug. 23 to give themselves raises, increasing the mayor’s and commissioners’ salaries by 166 percent and 156 percent, respectively.
A federal judge has approved a settlement between the state and 54 residents who had been on a work-release program but lost COVID-related unemployment benefits when the pandemic stopped their work opportunity.
Executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, regarding a ruling from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found that gender dysphoria is covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, which would help stop conservative efforts to restrict gender-affirming care. The ruling is binding for the states covered by the Richmond-based court, which are Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. (Associated Press — Aug. 24, 2022)
The Chicago Transit Authority is hoping to finally make good on a promise to expand a subway line to the southern edge of the city. First it needs the City Council to agree to a plan for raising billions of dollars to support the project.
In the 1940s, Black Georgians elected the second woman in the state to Congress. Her political rise and fall reveal the lengths that state officials would go to disenfranchise Black voters.
A recent poll found that 70 percent of California voters support a measure to amend the state’s constitution to include abortion rights protections. Some believe the abortion issue will drive voters to the polls come November.
The GO Green Energy Fund provides clean energy investments to low- to moderate-income neighborhoods to combat environmental injustice. Through the Inflation Reduction Act, green banks nationwide will receive $20 billion.
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