Political News

Postal union officials are sounding the alarm about the potentially damaging impacts of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s effort to consolidate post offices across the U.S. as part of his widely condemned 10-year plan to reshape the public mail agency. Government Executive reported Friday that “more than 200 post offices and …

A right-wing dark money group controlled by Leonard Leo—a legal activist who has played an outsized role in packing the U.S. Supreme Court with conservative ideologues—was the beneficiary of a massive, possibly unprecedented donation of $1.6 billion from a shadowy electronics mogul with ties to the Koch network. The enormous …

Kira Lerner, Pennsylvania Capital-Star Republican candidates who claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump have been nominated for governor in four critical swing states, raising concerns that if elected they could try to sway election results in 2024 and beyond. In Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, Republican …

Anne Toomey McKenna, University of Richmond Data privacy in the U.S. is, in many ways, a legal void. While there are limited protections for health and financial data, the cradle of the world’s largest tech companies, like Apple, Amazon, Google, and Meta (Facebook), lacks any comprehensive federal data privacy law. …

Nadra Nittle, The 19th President Joe Biden announced a highly anticipated plan Wednesday to offer student loan relief to more than 40 million people, a move supporters hope will have life-changing ramifications for borrowers, particularly women, who hold two-thirds of student loan debt, and women of color, whose loan debt is …

Jennifer Shutt, New Jersey Monitor A federal court released a partially redacted affidavit Friday detailing some of the reasons the Federal Bureau of Investigation provided to a judge in order to get a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s private residence in Mar-a-Lago. The request to search the property …

Jennifer Shutt, Missouri Independent The White House held a virtual meeting Thursday with more than 1,000 college and university officials to help them prepare for a school year when monkeypox cases are expected to crop up on campus. The Biden administration’s monkeypox and COVID-19 response teams as well as representatives …

Jared Strong, Iowa Capital Dispatch August 24, 2022 The U.S. Department of Agriculture will distribute up to $550 million to expand certain farmers’ access to land, money and markets and to create educational opportunities for the students of higher-education institutions that cater to racial and ethnic minorities. “The idea here …

Stephen Fowler, GPB News A new filing from the Fulton County District Attorney‘s office paints the clearest picture yet of the scope of a special grand jury’s investigation into potential election interference in Georgia’s 2020 presidential election by former President Donald Trump and his allies. The Tuesday response to Gov. …

Five years after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell aggressively pushed a $1.9 trillion tax cut package that disproportionately benefited corporations and the wealthiest Americans, progressives on Wednesday were uninterested in his complaints about President Joe Biden’s cancellation of some student debt for working Americans. “You should sit this one out,” …

Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams White House officials during the tenure of former President Donald Trump “deliberately and repeatedly” pressured the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to authorize unproven and potentially dangerous Covid-19 treatments, while working to derail the agency’s vaccine guidance ahead of the 2020 presidential election, a congressional report …

Eleanor Klibanoff, The Texas Tribune Performing an abortion is now a felony punishable by up to life in prison in Texas after the state’s trigger law, which has only narrow exceptions to save the life of a pregnant patient, went into effect Thursday. The law was “triggered” when the U.S. …

Baylor Spears, Minnesota Reformer, Source New Mexico Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and 23 other state attorneys general urged the U.S. Supreme Court in an amicus brief to reject a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act, which protects the sovereignty of Native American children, their families and tribal communities. …

Kenny Stancil, Common Dreams While disappointed that President Joe Biden declined to wipe out all $1.6 trillion in federal student loan debt held by more than 45 million borrowers, progressives welcomed other relief measures announced Wednesday. Biden’s move to cancel up to $10,000 in debt for federal borrowers with individual …

President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he will cancel up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for Pell Grant borrowers and up to $10,000 for all other borrowers with an income of less than $125,000 for an individual and $250,000 for a household. Biden also announced his administration is extending …