Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team is reading this week.
It’s Not The Hunger Games – It’s college acceptance letter season, and it’s not all obsessively checking the mailbox (not just because most acceptance comes electronically these days). What’s more college isn’t (despite public and Hollywood perception) all ivy covered walls and hallowed halls. Read more at the Five Thirty-Eight.
Lawyer Up – Nationally, college campuses now are relying on lawyers, case workers, advocates and other officials to help negotiate changing ideas and standards of sexual behavior. Read more in The New York Times.
Yes We Can! – The Congressional Budget Office projected a $7.7 billion surplus in funding for the federal Pell grant program this year, which means the government may have enough money to offer low-income students more financial aid. Read more in The Washington Post.
Creative Financing – Facing a $220 million budget shortfall, Democrats in Connecticut have proposed taxing the unspent earnings of university endowments with more than $10 billion in assets. Only Yale’s $25.6 billion endowment—the country’s second largest after Harvard—fits the tax bill. Yale’s tax-exempt investments earned $2.6 billion last year, eight times more than the University of Connecticut’s $384 million endowment. Read more in The Wall Street Journal.
Secret Communications – In ISIS’s training and operational planning, the group appeared to routinely use a piece of software called TrueCrypt. Before companies like Apple and Microsoft built encryption into their products, TrueCrypt and programs like it were the primary means for securing files and disks by those with a privacy bent of whatever stripe. Read more in The New Yorker.
Actually, It’s Abuse – Last week, a man hijacked an Egyptian aircraft because he wanted to get a message to his wife about how much he loved her. His wife says he was unpredictable and abusive. Read more in The New York Times.
Managed to Make Literally Everyone Mad – In a rare moment, for Trump, of saying too much and experiencing blowback, Donald Trump blew up the news cycle on Wednesday by telling Chris Matthews at a town hall that “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who have abortions if the procedure is outlawed. Literally, every group hated these comments, which he’s tried to walk back. Read more at Vox. Vox also explains what the issue with Trump’s campaign manager was earlier in the week. Read it at Vox.
Impressively Bad – Poll numbers are in and Donald Trump is viewed unfavorably by at least 80 percent of some of the groups that Republican strategists had hoped the GOP might improve among: young voters and Latinos. Also, he’s viewed unfavorably by three our of four moderates. Oh, he’s viewed unfavorably by non-college whites by 52 percent. Read more in The Washington Post.