Author: Sarah Castro

Happy New Year! Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team has been reading this week.

Retail Politics – How a politician comes across in ads and in debates can be very different from how they are day-to-day. Here’s one reporter, who’s been traveling with Cruz campaign, take on candidate. Read more in The Washington Post.

Polar Opposites – The Republican Party that elected Paul Ryan speaker eight weeks ago also rocketed Donald Trump to the top of the national polls eight weeks before that.  The men ascended at essentially the same time, but it’s hard to believe they’ll both make it through 2016 politically alive because their philosophies, approaches and opinions are significantly different.  Read more in Roll Call. 

Welcome Back! – The best known surrogate of the 2016 race, and probably the best known political surrogate period, is back on the trail stumping for his wife. President Bill Clinton is back. Read more in The Hill and The New York Times.

Guns – The White House announced an Executive Order to expand background checks for some firearm purchases and step up federal enforcement of the nation’s gun laws. While the Administration is limited in what it can do, the move is designed to engage governors, state legislators, and local government. Essentially, side stepping Congress on the highly political, divisive issue. Despite previous high-profile efforts by the President to persuade Congress to take up legislation restricting gun sales, neither the House or Senate has done so. Predictably, Congress has already threatened to hold up the Attorney General’s funding in an effort to restrict the move. The Executive Order makes gun sales and control a central issue in the 2016 campaigns. Read more in The New York Times and in Vox.

Freeze in the Arctic State – A hiring freeze and travel ban for Alaska state agencies and employees could have an impact on funding for the WWAMI program in Anchorage. Read more in Governing. 

Results – As the Supreme Court considers the affirmative action policy of the University of Texas at Austin (for the second time), the University of Michigan seems to have found the secret to reshaping freshman minority enrollment, all while in the face of Michigan voters banning affirmative action. Read more in The New York Times.

Overstep – In 2010 and 2011, The Obama administration laid out universities’ and school districts’ obligations to address harassment and sexual violence in two key “Dear Colleague” letters, and those letters helped to usher in sweeping changes on many campuses. Critics said federal officials  overstepped their bounds by pressuring schools to create quasi-criminal justice systems on campus that fail to adequately protect the rights of the accused. Now, Senator James Lankford (R-OK) has taken up the cause by sending a letter questioning whether the Education Department has exceeded its legal authority in its efforts to push colleges to do more on sexual assault. Read more in The Hill and The Washington Post.

Year in Review – As 2016 starts, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has their year in review. See it at the OSTP Blog.

Happy Holidays! Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team is reading this week.

Tax 2.0 – Congressional leadership is saying that passage of a major tax deal has increased the chances that Congress will tackle tax reform in 2017. Read more at The Hill. 

Big Boost – Congress passes a 2016 spending and tax bill that blows away caps on discretionary spending to fund more student aid and health research. Read more at Inside Higher Ed.

Bernie v. DNC – The Sanders campaign took advantage of a down firewall to access Clinton campaign voter data. The DNC subsequently barred the Sanders campaign from any of the DNC data. Politico has an overview, and the New York Times has why voter data is important.

5 Myths – Here are the five most common myths (and some tips) about wine for your holiday season. Tip: put your wine in the blender for 30 seconds..Who knew? Read more at Food 52. 

Diary of Air Travel – A visual diary documenting a flight from New York to Berlin (with a layover in London). Read it at The New York Times. 

Here is a selection of articles the Federal Relations team is reading this week.

Long View – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) released the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan, Fiscal Years 2016-2020: Turning Discovery Into Health.   The plan focuses on four essential, interdependent objectives that will help guide NIH’s priorities over the next five years as it pursues its mission of seeking fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and applying that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability.  Read the plan here. 

Final Act – 2016 is a Presidential election year and Obama’s last year in office. What’s on the agenda? Read the memo at Politico. 

Second Red Alert – Bejing has issued a second Red Alert for air quality. The first was issued last week, and lasted the bulk of the week. The second alert is expected to last longer than the previous alert. Read more at The New York Times.

Debate 5.0 – The latest Republican presidential debate had Donald Trump holding strong, Jeb Bush making a slight comeback, and Ted Cruz solidifying his role as the #2 horse in the race. Read more at the New York Times or CNN has the whole debate in 90 seconds.

Treasonous – During the Republican presidential debate this week, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) might have said more than he should have. He may have revealed classified information about the CIA meta data program. If he did do so, that’s treason and Congress is looking into it. Read more at MSNBC. 

Hike It Up – For the first time in a decade, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates from 0%-.25% to .25%-.5%. Read more the New York Times. 

Saintly – Mother Teresa will be canonized after a second miracle has been confirmed. She cured  a man in Santos, Brazil, with a serious viral brain infection. Mother Teresa was beatified in 2003, but full Sainthood requires two miracles. Her canonization is expected in September. Read more at NBC News. 

Save Tatooine – In honor of the latest Star Wars film, recent documentary, Set Wars: The Surprising Second Life Of Star Wars, is trying to save Mos Epsa, which was the set to Tatooine. To create the documentary, the filmmakers utilized Verse, which is a platform that allows directors to create a self-guided journey through the documentary with access to various subplots, locations, and narratives. Learn more at Forbes.