How Trump’s second term might affect the market and your finances

  Ever since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, stock market expectations have been volatile – driven in part by a healthy dose of motivated reasoning.

  At first, markets surged on hopes of lower taxes and deregulation. But this enthusiasm soon faded as announcements about tariffs and stricter immigration policies dampened sentiment. Underscoring that point, on March 3, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 600 points after Trump said that tariffs he had been threatening for weeks would indeed be imposed on Canada and Mexico the following day.

Cutting Medicaid and federal programs are among 4 key Trump administration policy changes that could make life harder for disabled people

  While policy debates on immigration, abortion, and other issues took center stage in the 2024 presidential election, the first months of the Trump administration have also signaled major changes in federal disability policy.

  An estimated 20% to 25% of Americans have a disability of some kind, including physical, sensory, psychological, and intellectual disabilities.

America’s park and forest rangers are being fired, and oil and gas bosses are now in charge

  Billionaires Elon Musk and President Donald Trump are purging park rangers, scientists, and other public land experts while putting oil and gas industry executives and their close allies in charge of America’s public lands. As a result, visitors and communities are already feeling the impacts on their parks, and land protections are being gutted to clear a path for pollution and corporate exploitation.

Motive, tact, tone, and timing

  Trustworthiness is essential to good relationships, and honesty is essential to trustworthiness. Being honest isn’t simply telling the truth, though. It’s also being sincere and forthright. Thus, it’s just as dishonest to deceive someone by half-truths or silence as it is to lie.

  But what if honesty requires us to volunteer information that could be damaging or hurtful?

The Trump administration has made 36 million workers newly vulnerable to discrimination and harassment

  Recent actions by the Trump administration have put working Americans at greater risk of unchecked discrimination and harassment by degrading long-standing programs such as the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). Already, these actions have harmed workers. While discrimination is illegal for all employers, the federal government maintains greater oversight of the employers that win its contracts, whether to provide goods or services, to staff projects, or to administer crucial functions of everyday life. Even beyond these workers being harmed, because taxpayer dollars are being spent—and because discrimination is an expensive misuse of funds—enforcement is a crucial part of contracting.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - 60th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery march

  This Sunday, leaders from throughout Alabama and the entire country will commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery March and the infamous Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. It was a momentous occasion and needs memorializing. 

CDC layoffs strike deeply at its ability to respond to the current flu, norovirus and measles outbreaks and other public health emergencies

  In just a few short weeks, the Trump administration has brought drastic changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and public health. Beginning with the removal of websites and key public health datasets in January 2025, the Trump administration has taken actions to dismantle established public health infrastructure as part of its second-term agenda.

  In addition, the administration has begun a widespread purge of the federal public health workforce. As of Feb. 19, around 5,200 employees at the CDC and the National Institutes of Health had been let go. About 10% of the CDC’s staff have been removed, with plans for additional firings.

The Alabama Legislature’s late Gothic period

  I can’t go to Goat Hill lately without feeling déjà vu.

  It started with Gov. Kay Ivey’s State of the State address on Feb. 6. There was the trite invocation of the “Gulf of America.” The vicious attacks on transgender Alabamians. And the constant talk about job creation and business investment that never seems to dent Alabama’s high rates of poverty or low rates of workforce participation.

  Go after immigrants. Back The Blue. Make vague commitments to broaden a potentially catastrophic voucher program in the Education Trust Fund.

  It’s all been done.

3 ways Trump is acting like a king and bypassing the Constitution’s checks and balances on presidential authority

  I learned basic civics in my public school. But mostly, because it was more interesting, I also learned civics after school while watching the animated series “Schoolhouse Rock,” often with my abuela – my grandmother – who took care of me.

  Back then, “Schoolhouse Rock” had a wonderful episode, “Three Ring Government.” In singing narration, the characters explained “about the government, and how it’s arranged, divided in three, like a three-ring circus.”

Educators calculate their risks in class as states escalate anti-DEI pressure

  At Miami Norland Senior High School in Miami Gardens, Florida, Renee O’Connor continues to teach students about Ida B. Wells, James Baldwin, and The 1619 Project in her African American history class.  

  She does this despite the ban on teaching the Pulitzer Prize-winning reexamination of African American enslavement and legacy in the state’s public schools, in a state regulation implementing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ 2022 “Stop WOKE Act.” The law aims to restrict educating children and others about the U.S. legacy of racism in schools and workplaces. 

  O’Connor isn’t defiant. She cites an obligation to her students.  

  “I teach a factual education based on documented proof,” O’Connor said.