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Conservation groups call for removal of top federal land management official Pendley, saying he’s ‘unfit’
President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Bureau of Land Management will continue leading the agency even after his nomination is withdrawn, leading the diverse conservation groups that opposed him to call for his removal from office. The Trump administration said last weekend it would pull the nomination of William Perry Pendley when the Senate […]
Trump’s $400 a week jobless aid could be just $300. It depends on where you live.
Governors, lawmakers and state unemployment agencies on Monday wrestled with confusion created by President Donald Trump’s executive action extending unemployment benefits, and it appeared some states could settle for $300 a week in benefits instead of the $400 that the president touted. State leaders from both political parties remained unsure how much they’d have to […]
Trump moves to extend unemployment benefits, suspend payroll taxes after talks break down
President Donald Trump on Saturday circumvented Congress and took action into his own hands, after weeks of unsuccessful negotiations over another coronavirus relief package on Capitol Hill. He signed three presidential memoranda and an executive order, at his private golf club in Bedminster, N.J. Trump would provide $300 per week in federal unemployment assistance with another $100 […]
House passes bipartisan public lands bill; next stop president’s desk
WASHINGTON — Major environmental legislation sailed through Congress Wednesday while the nation’s political leaders were stuck in intense negotiations over the contours of a fifth coronavirus relief package. The bill would provide $9.5 billion over five years to pay down the National Park Service’s maintenance backlog and provide permanent funding at $900 million per year […]
Librarians, national guard recruited for states’ new contact tracing armies
As states seek to loosen wide-ranging restrictions imposed to constrain the novel coronavirus, they’re also looking to deploy a huge new fleet of workers to keep cases under control. Enter the contact tracers. With interpersonal contact certain to increase as states lift COVID-19 restrictions, tracing who the infected people had contact with — and then […]
Can lessons from the Great Recession help states avoid budget disasters?
As they face massive budget shortfalls due to the COVID-19 pandemic, states are looking for federal money to help stave off the kind of drastic cuts they enacted during the last economic downturn. State budget officers and economists generally agree that cuts to state spending worsened the Great Recession in the years following 2008. Layoffs, […]