Search progressive ideas and resources

4+ min ago (1450+ words) WASHINGTON " To end the longest government shutdown in American history, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators came together and agreed to kick the can. The can seems to have hit a brick wall. Unless Congress acts, massive spikes in health-care premiums are coming in the New Year for millions of Americans " the reason Democrats refused to fund the government this fall. "This whole year we've been moving backwards on health-care because of this administration," Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) told Raw Story just off the Senate floor. While President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have yet to offer a policy solution, this week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced a measure to stave off premium spikes by extending COVID-era health insurance subsidies for three years. As part of the deal that ended the shutdown, Senate Majority Leader John Thune promised to bring…...

8+ min ago (258+ words) First words are sweet and first steps are exciting, but there's something about first lost tooth that makes us so emotional. It's a milestone that truly feels like a "big kid" one, and officially shows that your baby is no longer little. Andy Cohen is going through it with his son Ben, 6, and we're sending all the hugs. And it wasn't just a little teary-eyed. "I was sobbing in front of Ben's school," Cohen admitted. "Looking at the pride that he had and how excited he was, and that was his first tooth, and he'll never have this again. And I was sobbing down the whole street today on the way home." Aww! Bless his poor heart, that sounds awful. I remember feeling the same way when my now-8-year-old lost his first tooth, and nothing prepares you for seeing…...

10+ min ago (1244+ words) I knew immediately we had to do something," said Carpenter, who is a member of Sunrise Brown and an outreach organizer for the national Campus Climate Network, or CCN." That night, Carpenter joined a Zoom call with other Brown students who spent two hours discussing what to do. They decided to launch a new organization,"Brown Rise Up, specifically to counter the spread of authoritarianism on campus. I knew immediately we had to do something." Students at other universities that had been asked to sign the compact were having similar conversations." Within 24 hours of the compact's release, we had students from every one of the nine schools getting on a Zoom call to discuss how to respond," said Alicia Colomer, a recent New York University graduate and CCN managing director." CCN is one of many organizations in the nationwide Students…...

17+ min ago (364+ words) Background: News footage of the scene in Pace, Fla., where Danika Troy's body was found (WEAR). Insets (left to right): Gabriel Williams, Kimahri Blevins, and Danika Troy (Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office). Two Florida teenagers have been charged with murder after police said they lured a 14-year-old girl to the woods and fatally shot her before burning her body. The purported slight happened during the teens' Thanksgiving break. According to the Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office, Troy was first reported missing on Monday by her mother, who told police that she last saw her daughter at 10 p.m. Sunday. On Monday morning, Troy's mother noticed that her daughter's electric scooter was missing. A day later, a passerby reported seeing a dead body in a wooded area. Police responded to the scene where they found evidence of a fire, "multiple live ammunition rounds,…...

18+ min ago (37+ words) A group of vaccine advisers to U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Friday voted to remove the broad recommendation that all newborns in the U.S. receive a hepatitis B vaccine," Reuters reports....

20+ min ago (249+ words) On Friday, one of Donald Trump's key economic advisers gave a thumbs-up to a proposal that would allow the purging and replacement of the Federal Reserve's regional bank presidents, allowing the president to stack the deck in his favor. At the New York Times's DealBook Summit on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent floated the change, suggesting the presidents should reside "in their districts for at least three years before taking office," Al Jazeera is reporting. The report added that Bessent insisted, "there is a disconnect with the framing of the Federal Reserve" before adding, "unless someone has lived in their district for three years, we're going to veto them." Bloomberg News is reporting that Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassert agreed with Bessent and called for a residency requirement. That led economics analyst and MS NOW host Catherine Rampell to raise…...

20+ min ago (186+ words) Federal agencies, meanwhile, forewent more than $200 million in 2024 by undercharging ranchers for forage. This year, the Trump administration released a plan pledging to further lower costs for the ranching industry. With federal agencies understaffed " both the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service have been hit hard by cuts " it is virtually impossible to perform environmental reviews on public land allotments, which used to constitute an important component of the permit renewal process. Where the BLM has conducted such assessments, it found grazing had degraded at least 38 million acres, an area about half the size of New Mexico. And close to two-thirds of the land it listed as being in good shape had not been checked in more than a decade, the analysis found. The investigation also found that, even when federal workers try to enforce existing rules, they…...

20+ min ago (98+ words) Let the Cars Burn" Mike Davis in The Case for Letting Malibu Burn, Ecology of Fear The Native American dictum: When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten & the Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money credited to Alanis Obomsawin, filmmaker & member of the Abenaki Nation, best describes our current dilemma. For more details: Earth System Science Data (ESSD) Fire is mad / Fire is madder than mad / All over the World" Lee Scratch Perry Companion PieceDig"Scape: Extreme Carwash, or the Impact of Vehicles on Extreme Weather Events...

23+ min ago (257+ words) Two federal agencies under President Donald Trump are pointing fingers at each other after another major arrest flub. The Miami Herald's David Goodhue broke a story this week of a U.S. citizen being pulled from a car and detained. The woman was driving her boyfriend's car, and since he is an undocumented immigrant, they were after him. When they discovered it was a female driver of the vehicle, they still pulled her from the vehicle, sobbing and screaming, "I'm a U.S. citizen, please help me." It was only after the violent incident that they looked at her driver's license and confirmed she was a citizen. Speaking to MSNOW's "Morning Joe" about his report, Goodhue revealed that he received personal calls from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which blamed U.S. Customs and Border Protection for the mistake. "Oh," a shocked Mika Brzezinski commented. Jonathan Lemire…...

23+ min ago (1002+ words) The company made its pitch to Wall Street during an investor day held at the Nasdaq in New York City on Thursday Versant on Thursday made the case to investors that it was more than a Comcast cast-off as it looks to best position its declining, but still profitable, cable networks for growth. Upon its separation, the company's portfolio will include USA Network, CNBC, MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), Oxygen,E!,SYFYandGolfChannel,as well as digitalassetsFandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow and SportsEngine. It will officially separate from Comcast on Jan. 2 and trade under the ticker symbol VSNT starting Jan. 5. "We are prepared to defy expectations and be the innovators in the markets that we serve," Versant CEO Mark Lazarus said. "This is a company with a mandate to build beyond cable, in fact, beyond media, and we are ready to transform and…...