"Newspapers were still read on trains and in libraries, but the contest for news supremacy lay in the domestic space. News was something that came to us, that occupied our homes. It tied us constantly to the turn of events happening outside our protective four walls. Local radio and television arose, following newspapers in serving audiences who understood themselves as much regionally as nationally. The multi-format, domestic model began to be overturned at the turn of the century. The Internet has become a platform for all established news media (press, television, radio) and has led to the creation of new news media forms. Social media combines personal and general information, serves as a distribution platform for stories from the other news media while delivering original content as well, and supplies content on which all news media now depend."

"Officials from the seven Colorado River basin states agreed ... with a federal plan to sharply cut releases from Lake Powell, as both groups scramble to protect water supplies and power generation by propping up the lake’s level. The states were responding to a proposal two weeks ago from Tanya Trujillo, an assistant secretary for water and science for the Interior Department, to withhold almost a half-million acre-feet to address “critically-low elevations over the next 24 months” at Lake Powell and Lake Mead."

"When investigative journalist Corey G. Johnson started working at the Tampa Bay Times in 2017, he had been following national news coverage of lead poisoning the public water supply in Flint, Michigan, where he spent summers as a kid visiting family. Johnson decided to look into lead in Hillsborough County public schools and reported in 2018 that school district officials had found elevated levels on some campuses but didn’t tell families for 16 months — until he began asking parents what they knew about the tests. Amid that investigation, a source handed him a state health report showing Hillsborough had the highest number of adults diagnosed with lead poisoning of any of Florida’s 67 counties. The report pointed to an unnamed battery recycler as the key culprit. Their 18-month investigation also reveals why regulators failed to correct the problem and its impact on workers and the surrounding community."

"I have argued that cryptocurrencies may be creating a movement toward non-uniform currency in the U.S. — a system that society has disliked historically. In the pre-Civil War era, the majority of the U.S. money supply consisted of privately issued banknotes. Publications listed and frequently updated the going exchange rates for different currencies in particular locations. Similar to today’s global currency system, the pre-Civil War era was characterized by exchange rate chaos, with currencies constantly fluctuating against one another. People didn’t like that system, and a uniform currency was implemented in the U.S. during the Civil War. But cryptocurrencies may unwittingly be pushing us back in the direction of a non-uniform currency system."

"When inflation broke loose in March 2021, even though I had expected it to run above 2 percent in 2021 and 2022, I never thought it would reach the very high levels we have seen in recent months. Indeed, I expected it would eventually fade, due to the nature of these shocks. All the suspected drivers of this surge in inflation appeared to be temporary: the one-time stimulus from fiscal policy, supply chain shocks that previous experience indicated would ease soon, and a surge in demand for goods. In addition, we had very accommodative monetary policy that I believed would end in 2022. The issue in my mind was whether these factors would start fading away later in 2021 or in 2022."

“Just as an infant knows to tune into her mother’s voice, an adolescent knows to tune into novel voices,” said lead study author Daniel Abrams, PhD, clinical associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. “As a teen, you don’t know you’re doing this. You’re just being you: You’ve got your friends and new companions and you want to spend time with them. Your mind is increasingly sensitive to and attracted to these unfamiliar voices.” In some ways, teens’ brains are more receptive to all voices — including their mothers’ — than the brains of children under 12, the researchers discovered, a finding that lines up with teenagers’ increased interest in many types of social signals.

“All survivors of sexual violence deserve access to compassionate and competent care, and professionals must be able to obtain the resources, training and institutional support required to meet survivors’ needs. Medical forensic care providers can have an enormous impact on survivors, as well as on the investigation and prosecution of these cases,” said Deputy Attorney General Monaco. “Programs, initiatives and projects funded under the Violence Against Women Act, including the SAMFE Virtual Practicum announced today, support practices that save lives and help build coordinated community responses to sexual and domestic violence.”  

"Other bans enacted after Roe are designed to be “triggered” and take effect automatically or by swift state action if Roe is overturned. Several states even have laws declaring the state’s intent to ban abortion to whatever extent is permitted by the U.S. Constitution, making their desire to halt abortion access in the state clear. A few states have amended their constitution to declare that it does not contain any protection for abortion rights or allow public funds to be used for abortion. Meanwhile, policymakers in some states have approved laws to protect abortion rights without relying on the Roe decision. Most of these policies prohibit the state from interfering with the right to obtain an abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the life or health of the pregnant person."

"Open source data indicated that the potential for violence at the U.S. Capitol appeared online months prior to the attack on January 6, 2021. Law enforcement agencies may use posts on social media platforms and other open source information to identify potential criminal activity, to develop “threat products,” and to conduct criminal investigations. Agencies must consider the protection of privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties when collecting and sharing this information. GAO was asked to review information related to the January 6 Capitol attack. This is the fifth in a series of reports on aspects of the attack. This report addresses what open source data selected federal agencies obtained and shared, as well as threat products they developed that leveraged such data related to the events of January 6."

"We’re also making headway on ensuring that our diplomats reflect America’s remarkable diversity, which is one of our greatest strengths, including in our diplomacy. We have our first ever chief diversity and inclusion officer, who is spearheading an effort to analyze and address the obstacles that prevent underrepresented groups from joining and advancing at State. We’ve expanded the Pickering and Rangel fellowships and created, for the first time – thanks to the support of Congress and his committee – paid internships at State, along with strong congressional input and support for all of these efforts."   This week, I had the chance to testify before Congress and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the Biden administration’s proposed budget for…

Hearings: Child Care — On Tuesday, the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Policy will hold a hearing, “Child Care and Other Policy Tools to Combat Bottlenecks and Inflation.” Employment — On Wednesday, the House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Human Services will hold a hearing, “Examining the Policies and Priorities of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.” Women's Congressional Policy Institute Weekly Legislative Update: Meeting Veterans’ Full Needs, Exempting Breastfeeding Women & Jury Duty; Update on Women’s Health, Mental Health, Homelessness; Women’s Business Centers Improvement Act of 2022, independent investigation & prosecution of sexual harassment, independent investigation and prosecution of sexual harassment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice      Bringing women policymakers together across party lines to advance issues of importance to women and their families.   Weekly Legislative Update Apr…

“The ongoing melting of relict permafrost under the Arctic Shelf, expulsion of brackish waters, and the formation of new ground ice within the near seafloor sediments work in concert to create the unique and rapidly changing morphology observed on the Arctic seabed,” said Paull. “These rapid changes to the seafloor demand our attention. We need to understand how the decay of relict submarine permafrost will impact the vast areas underlying the Arctic continental shelves. This groundbreaking research has revealed how the thawing of submarine permafrost can be detected, and then monitored once baselines are established.” The team expects that similar processes may also be occurring in other submarine permafrost systems. How widespread similar changes are on the Arctic shelves remains unknown, as this is one of the first areas in the Arctic studied with multiple multibeam bathymetric surveys. However, permafrost thawing may be an important process in sculpturing the seafloor throughout the Arctic."

"It has many of her own speeches, including her 2011 inaugural address as California Attorney General, her 2020 speech accepting the Democratic nomination, and several commencement addresses. The author provides some fascinating tidbits of information. Where else can you read that Harris’ sorority sisters donated checks written for $19.08 to the Biden-Harris campaign, commemorating the founding of Alpha Kappa Alpha in 1908? The author says that the Biden Victory Fund received more than 11,000 such checks, from an AKA membership of 300,000."

"Today, on Earth Day, President Biden signed an Executive Order to expand his Administration’s historic and bold efforts to tackle the climate crisis, make our nation more resilient to extreme weather, and strengthen local economies. The President will sign the Executive Order in Seattle, Washington — rounding out a trip across the West focused on lowering costs for families and protecting communities from intensifying climate impacts. Wildfires and extreme weather events are growing in frequency and ferocity, engulfing communities in the West and across the country and costing lives, homes, and money."