State Sen. Scott Wiener wants to tackle energy affordability by making it easier than ever for households to adopt increasingly popular clean-energy tech. California lawmakers are considering two bills that would slash red tape for households looking to add certain types of clean tech. Earlier this month, state Sen. Scott Wiener (D), whose district includes San Francisco, introduced legislation that would make it easier for individuals to adopt all-electric, superefficient heat pumps (SB 222) and plug-in solar panels (SB 868). “The cost of energy is too high,” Wiener told Canary Media.…
Posts published in “U.S.”
WASHINGTON — The first year of President Donald Trump’s return to the White House was defined by clashes with the judiciary branch, as the president and his administration pushed forward with an aggressive immigration agenda. In the past year, the Trump administration has aimed to drastically change immigration policy in the United States, including by stripping millions of immigrants of their legal status and attempting to redefine the constitutional right of birthright citizenship. The moves have often run directly against the judiciary branch. Federal judges briefly stalled the Trump administration’splans to deploy…
King called for an aggressive federal effort to reverse racial inequality. Instead, we’re getting one to entrench it. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words from his “Beyond Vietnam” speech still ring true. “When machines and computers, profit motives, and property rights are considered more important than people,” he warned, “the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” Those words, delivered in 1967, still summarize today’s political moment. Instead of putting the lives of working Americans first, our leaders in Congress and the White House…
CARACAS, Venezuela. It was 1:58 a.m. on Jan. 3 when a thunderous roar made the windows of my apartment in downtown Caracas shake. Are the New Year’s celebrations still going on? Is a storm coming or is it an earthquake, I wondered. Despite multiple threats from the United States against Venezuela, I couldn’t believe that bombing was possible; not like this, not now. As people say in Venezuela, “It’s one thing to call on the devil, and another to see him actually arrive.” As the missiles began to fall one…
One year after Donald Trump’s second inauguration, a pattern emerges. Across dozens of executive orders, agency memos, funding decisions and enforcement changes, the administration has weakened federal civil rights law and the foundations of the country’s racially inclusive democracy. From the start, the U.S. was not built to include everyone equally. The Constitution protected and promoted slavery. Most states limited voting to white men. Congress restricted naturalized citizenship to “free white persons.” These choices were not accidents. They shaped who could belong and who could exercise political power, and they…
That spending comes even as real estate values are dropping For Detroit homeowners over 65 who overwhelmingly live on fixed incomes, unexpected costs – increases in grocery prices, rising health care premiums or an emergency repair – heighten their risk of financial instability and can even lead to them falling into poverty. I am a policy researcher at Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan. Our initiative uses action-based research, an approach that seeks to understand real-world problems and inform policy changes that could make life work better for people…
The future of many of Donald Trump’s tariffs are up in the air, with the Supreme Court expected to hand down a ruling on the administration’s global trade barriers any day now. But the question of whether a policy is legal or constitutional – which the justices are entertaining now – isn’t the same as whether it’s wise. And as a trade economist, I worry that Trump’s tariffs also pose a threat to “economic democracy” – that is, the process of decision-making that incorporates the viewpoints of everyone affected by…
The whole story of Barbra Streisand and the sturgeon began a few months ago on a Thursday when I was at my regular spot at the fish counter. A very pleasant, attractive woman ordered a pound of Nova and, before Slim, my long sharp slicing knife, and I started our journey through the salmon, she said, “I’m buying this for Barbra Streisand.” I was skeptical, so I asked her what her relationship was with Barbra. She told me her name was Christine and that she was Barbra’s editor and had…
President Donald Trump’s threat this week to stop federal funding to both so-called “sanctuary” cities and the states where they’re located was greeted with disbelief by many states and cities since the administration has fared poorly on that issue in court. “We will go to court within seconds, and we will win if he does this. It’s already proven unlawful. We’ve already won multiple times,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta told ABC News7 in San Francisco on Wednesday. “Those are funds that belong to the people of Chicago, not the…
A South Bay business owner who was convicted of fraud, sentenced to prison, and pardoned on the final day of President Donald Trump’s first term – then convicted in 2024 of another fraud scheme hatched after her release and sent to prison again – was pardoned a second time by Trump Thursday. Adriana Camberos was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison in April after a jury convicted her and her brother, Andres, of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and wire fraud charges. Court records show Camberos…