Aluminum prices are up 59% from a year ago, and America’s 10% tariffs on the metal are not relieving any headaches at beer and non-alcoholic beverage manufacturers.
The tariffs were originally put in place in 2018, ostensibly to protect domestic aluminum producers. The theory was that China and other foreign producers were “dumping” aluminum into the U.S. at low prices below cost to capture market share and supposedly drive American producers of aluminum out of business.
Like their counterparts in other Southern states, Alabama lawmakers adopted a new constitution during the early stages of the Jim Crow era with the explicit intent to deny Black citizens access to the ballot and to establish white supremacy and racial segregation as the law of the land.
That 1901 constitution – which legalized discrimination against Black citizens for more than six decades – is still in effect today. And even though many of its provisions have been shredded by federal court decisions and civil rights laws, its racist language and other harmful effects remain.
Well, folks, the final census figures are in from last year’s 2020 nose count. The census is taken every 10 years to determine the lines and boundaries of congressional and legislative districts. However, the census reveals a lot more information about us as a state and nation than just how many of us there are. It paints a picture of who we are as people and what we look like.
The most recent census unveils an America much different than those of us who were born in the 1950s and are referred to as the “Baby Boomer” generation. We are one diverse country. Indeed, we are a true melting pot. The United States is now less than 60% white/Caucasian – 57% to be exact. The black/African-American population has basically remained the same at about 12% of the population. The most remarkable figure is that 20% of our population identifies as Hispanic. The Asian population has doubled over the 10 years from 3% to 6% percent. It is a new America.
The new Texas law that bans most abortions uses a method employed by Texas and other states to enforce racist Jim Crow laws in the 19th and 20th centuries that aimed to disenfranchise African Americans.
Rather than giving state officials, such as the police, the power to enforce the law, the Texas law instead allows enforcement by “any person, other than an officer or employee of a state or local governmental entity in this state.” This enforcement mechanism relies solely on citizens, rather than on government officials, to enforce the law.
Facebook has been quietly experimenting with reducing the amount of political content it puts in users’ news feeds. The move is a tacit acknowledgment that the way the company’s algorithms work can be a problem.
The heart of the matter is the distinction between provoking a response and providing content people want. Social media algorithms – the rules their computers follow in deciding the content that you see – rely heavily on people’s behavior to make these decisions. In particular, they watch for content that people respond to or “engage” with by liking, commenting, and sharing.
President Joe Biden has called for major clean energy investments as a way to curb climate change and generate jobs. On Sept. 8, the White House released a report produced by the U.S. Department of Energy that found that solar power could generate up to 45% of the U.S. electricity supply by 2050, compared to less than 4% today. We asked Joshua D. Rhodes, an energy technology and policy researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, what it would take to meet this target.
North Korea appears to have restarted its nuclear reactor, enabling it to augment its ongoing production of approximately seven or more nuclear weapons per year. Pyongyang’s missiles and nuclear weapons have long garnered fear, international condemnation, and tough sanctions.
The regime’s cyber activities, however, have elicited less response despite their repeated attacks on governments, financial institutions, and industries.
Inequities and disparities in U.S. health care access have had insidious impacts on communities for centuries and will require robust and long-term action to remedy. As of March 2020, 13 million people had gained Medicaid coverage in states that implemented the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Medicaid expansion. However, in 11 of the remaining states that have not expanded the program, 2.2 million people are stuck in the “coverage gap”: Despite having incomes below the federal poverty level (FPL), they do not qualify for Medicaid and are also ineligible for financial assistance for marketplace coverage. As a result, millions of low-income individuals—who are disproportionately Black and Latino—are unable to access the coverage they need.
Today marks the 20th anniversary of the infamous 9/11 terrorist attacks on our nation. It was a day in your life where you remember where you were and what you were doing when you first heard of the attacks on the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It changed our world.
Like most people, I thought the first plane that flew into the towering Trade Center was an accident. However, when the second plane hit, you knew it was not pilot error. It was traumatic and terrifying. I asked several of our state leaders about their memories of that fateful day. Allow me to share some of their experiences.
Many Americans breathed a sigh of relief when the Supreme Court left the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in place following its third major legal challenge in June 2021. This decision left widely supported policies in place, like ensuring coverage regardless of preexisting conditions, coverage for dependents up to age 26 on their parents’ plan, and removal of annual and lifetime benefit limits.
But the hits keep coming. One of the most popular benefits offered by the ACA, free preventive care through many employer-based and marketplace insurance plans, is under attack by another legal domino, Kelley v. Becerra. As University of Michigan law professor Nicholas Bagley sees it, “[t]his time, the law’s opponents stand a good chance of succeeding.”
