Category: News

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced today that he is cancelling most of the traditional month-long August recess.  Under the new schedule, the Senate would have a week-long recess at the beginning of August but would return to Washington for the rest of the month. Read more from Federal Relations.

The FY2019 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday would fund the Department of Energy Office of Science (Science) at $6.65 billion. Read more from Federal Relations.

Curious what’s happening in Congress this week? Our colleagues in Federal Relations have compiled a selection of committee meetings scheduled for this week. Several committees are slated to examine the opioid crisis from a variety of angles and there are markups and hearings on funding requests and budgets budgets. Read more here.

The University of Washington this week ranked No. 5 on the Forbes list of Best Value Colleges 2018. The UW rose from 23^rd place in the 2016 ranking. Read more from UW News.

Yesterday, University of Washington marked the official groundbreaking of the university’s new 290,000-square-foot Population Health Building, a facility that will house the Population Health Initiative launched by the UW in 2016. The Population Health Initiative is a 25-year effort to create a world where all people can live healthier and more fulfilling lives. The UW defines population health as revolving around three major pillars — human health, environmental resilience, and social and economic equity.

As part of the initiative, the new building will create a space for interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation to better understand and improve all the factors that influence the health and well-being of populations here and across the globe. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Department of Global Health and portions of the School of Public Health all will be located in the building.Read more from UW News.