WV Teachers End Strike With Pay Deal
West Virginia Teachers’ Strike Ends With a Promise to Raise Pay. NYT: "A teachers’ strike that ground public schools to a halt across West Virginia is set to end on Thursday, a week after it began, Gov. James C. Justice and teachers’ union representatives said Tuesday. They announced a deal that signaled a win for unions in a reddening state, even though some lawmakers and even the teachers themselves expressed doubts it would ultimately work. Mr. Justice, a Republican, said that he had promised the state’s teachers and other school employees a 5 percent raise and that he would create a task force to address the problem of rising insurance costs for public employees, a key issue in the strike."
SCOTUS Rules Legal Immigrants Can Be Jailed Indefinitely
Ruling Means Immigrants Could Continue To Be Detained Indefinitely. NPR:"The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that immigrants, even those with permanent legal status and asylum seekers, do not have the right to periodic bond hearings. It's a profound loss for those immigrants appealing what are sometimes indefinite detentions by the government. Many are held for long periods of time — on average, 13 months — after being picked up for things as minor as joyriding. Some are held even longer. The case, Jennings v. Rodriguez, has implications for legal permanent residents whom the government wants to deport because they committed crimes and for asylum seekers who are awaiting a court date after turning themselves in at the border. Immigrant advocates contend that many of these immigrants have a right to be free on bail until their case is heard."
Inequality Is Worse, 50 Years After Kerner Report
Inequality still real, 50 years after landmark report. CBS: "Democracy in the U.S. is threatened as the country remains segregated along racial lines and child poverty worsens, among other barriers of inequality described in a study released 50 years after the landmark 1968 Kerner Report. The new report blames U.S. policymakers and elected officials, saying they're not doing enough to heed the warning on deepening poverty and inequality that was highlighted by the Kerner Commission five decades ago and it lists areas where the country has seen 'a lack of or reversal of progress.' 'Racial and ethnic inequality is growing worse. We're resegregating our housing and schools again,' said former Democratic U.S. Sen. Fred Harris of Oklahoma, a co-editor of the new report and the last surviving member of the original Kerner Commission created by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967. 'There are far more people who are poor now than was true 50 years ago. Inequality of income is worse.'"
EPA To End Research On Effects of Chemical Exposure
Trump’s EPA to close research center that protects public health. ThinkProgress: "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to eliminate its National Center for Environmental Research (NCER), a department that funds research into environmental impacts on communities. The center, tasked with distributing “grants to test the effects of chemical exposure on adults and children,” will be shuttered amid a reorganization at the agency as part of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s goal of creating more efficiency at the agency. Most of the EPA’s grants come out of the NCER, a division of the agency’s Office of Research and Development. Last October, Pruitt ordered that scientists who have received EPA grants from the NCER and other programs at the agency won’t be allowed to serve on the agency’s advisory boards. Critics of the policy change denounced the move as a poorly disguised attempt to push out experts at odds with industry."
Dems Flip Statehouse Seats in NH, CT
Democrats just flipped two state legislative seats in Connecticut and New Hampshire. Vox: "Democrat Philip Spagnuolo won a special election for the Belknap 3 House District in New Hampshire Tuesday night, adding yet another state legislative flip to Democrats’ already impressive roster of Trump-era special election wins. He won by a seven-point margin in a district that Trump carried by 12 percentage points, making for a very impressive 19-point swing toward the Democrats. Meanwhile, over in Connecticut Democrats flipped another seat — House District 120 — winning a narrow 51-49 race in a seat that Clinton carried 49-47."
More From ourFuture.org:
Gun Control Legislation Is Constitutional. Miles Mogulescu: "It’s time to stop letting the NRA scare the burgeoning gun safety movement led by courageous student survivors into accepting small-bore reforms out of a mistaken belief that stronger gun safety laws would be unconstitutional."
