Our Latest Updates – Archive

Begun by President Trump, the student loan repayment pause will have been in effect for over two years by the end of the current pause’s end in Aug. 2022.

Book challenges jumped to an all-time high in 2021 with 729 challenges, containing a total of 1,597 books.

In a largely partisan vote, the US House of Representatives voted 220 to 204 to decriminalize marijuana, including medical and recreational use. However, neither the House bill nor a similar bill in the Senate are expected to garner enough Republican votes to be passed.

Terminally ill people will no longer be subject to a residency requirement to seek physician-assisted suicide in Oregon.

Compassion & Choices, a national advocacy group, sued Oregon. The Oregon Health Authority and the Oregon Medical Board settled in the U.S. District Court in Portland on Monday, agreeing to stop enforcing the residency requirement and to ask the legislature to edit the law. The group plans to pressure the eight other states and DC with aid-in-dying programs to lift their residency requirements.

Should birth control pills be available over the counter? Explore updated arguments, quotes, and supplemental research.

The protestors were accused of “destabilizing public order, collective security and citizen tranquility” during the 2021 protests.

While the current debate about employer vaccine mandates in the United States centers upon COVID-19 requirements, mandates and the debate about them are as old as the country itself.

The US Senate unanimously approved a bill that would make DST permanent as of Nov. 20, 2023 if approved by the House and signed by President Biden. The delay is meant to give airlines and other transportation providers time to adjust to the change as they set schedules months ahead of time.

Ohio’s constitutional carry law, signed on Mar. 15, 2021, goes into effect 91 days after the law is filed by the Secretary of State.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made more than 74,000 administrative immigration arrests in fiscal year 2021, down from over 100,000 yearly under the Trump administration.

Alabama joins a growing number of states eliminating concealed carry permit requirements.

Of 142 countries, 42 (29.6%) require a prescription for birth control pills, 47 (26.1%) officially require no prescription (though 10 require a health screening), and 53 (37.3%) countries informally allow birth control pills to be distributed without a prescription

Between Sep. 9, 1976 and June 17, 2021, 102 drug ingredients were switched from prescription (Rx) to over-the-counter (OTC) status by the FDA.

In a 6-3 vote, the US Supreme Court upheld Tsarnaev’s death sentence. The sentence was overturned in 2020 by an appeals court, but that ruling was appealed to the Supreme Court by the Trump administration. The Biden administration, despite a federal moratorium on capital punishment, pursued the appeal after Biden took office.

On Aug. 4, 2021, the Mexican government sued US gun manufacturers in US federal court. The Mexican government accused the manufacturers, including Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc.; Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Inc.; Beretta U.S.A. Corp.; Colt’s Manufacturing Company LLC, and Glock Inc, of “actively facilitating the unlawful trafficking of their guns to drug cartels and other criminals in Mexico.” The Foreign Affairs Ministry estimates 70% of guns trafficked in Mexico came from the United States, contributing to 17,000 homicides in 2019 alone. In Feb. 2022, the attorneys general of 13 states filed a brief in federal court supporting the Mexican government’s lawsuit.