On April 19th, a coalition of national voting rights groups working on behalf of Georgia residents and advocacy groups secured a landmark settlement to ensure that voter registration opportunities are offered to all public assistance applicants, as is required by the National Voter Registration Act.
Last summer, a Western Beef store in the East Tremont section of the South Bronx became the first supermarket in the city to receive funding through the city’s Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH) program. The FRESH initiative provides financial and zoning incentives to entice supermarket chains to build new stores in neighborhoods that lack access to fresh, wholesome foods.
Last summer, on her final day as the Chairman of the FDIC, Shelia Bair decried the short-termism that has overtaken both Wall Street and Washington, where “[o]ur financial markets remain too focused on quick profits, and our political process is driven by a two-year election cycle and its relentless demands for fundraising.” This short-termism has taken hold of the reins of our larger political system and increasingly characterizes policy initiatives at every level of government.
In the past three decades, college costs have risen significantly faster than inflation and are now at roughly 25 percent of the average household's income. This isn't true just for private schools.
States are spending less money on public colleges than they did in the past. According to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, adjusted for inflation, state support for public colleges and universities has fallen by about 26 percent per full-time student in the last 20 years.
Adjusted for inflation, state support for each full-time public-college student declined by 26.1 percent from 1990 to 2010, forcing students and their families to shoulder more of the cost of higher education at a time when family incomes were largely stagnant, according to a report released on Monday by the think tank Demos.
Wisconsin State Court Judge David Flanagan issued a temporary injunction on Tuesday that will prevent Wisconsin’s controversial Voter ID law from going into effect prior to the state’s April 3 presidential primary. After noting in the order that the Wisconsin State Constitution recognizes voting as a guaranteed right, Judge Flanagan called the bill “the single most restrictive voter eligibility law in the United States.”
A few weeks ago, Desmogblog.com released a series of internal documents from the Heartland Institute, one of the leaders of the climate denial movement, which shows the Institute’s strategy for pushing their climate denying message.
The fifth annual MetLife survey of American value ideals shows a significant shift from prioritizing achieving professional success and material wealth to having a greater sense of personal fulfillment, particularly among younger generations. Millennials preferred a sense of personal fulfillment over having enough money by a margin of 28-20. Nearly a third of Millennials surveyed thought it was more important to have close family and friends than a roof over their heads.