Impeachment is and will be the big story for weeks if not months to come—and it should be. But other news keeps happening, even if we don’t all have the bandwidth to follow it closely. Here are some of those stories:
● The Senate passed a short-term spending bill to keep the government open through November 21 while Congress and the Trump administration negotiate a longer-term funding bill.
● Workers have been out on strike against General Motors since September 16, and they are still out on the picket lines every day fighting to hold ground against a profitable corporation. There are reports that GM and the UAW are getting closer to a deal, and GM has reinstated health benefits for the striking workers.
● The average annual premium for employer-sponsored family health coverage hit $20,576, a 5% increase. Families are paying more than $6,000 a year of that, while deductibles average $1,655. Families at lower-wage firms are less likely to be eligible for coverage and they’re likely to pay more if they have it. “The single biggest issue in health care for most Americans is that their health costs are growing much faster than their wages are,” said the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Drew Altman.
● The Senate confirmed Eugene Scalia as labor secretary.
● Boris Johnson, the Donald Trump of the United Kingdom, came in for (more) criticism when he called for Parliament to move ahead with Brexit in memory of Jo Cox, the anti-Brexit member of Parliament who was assassinated just before the 2016 referendum. Cox’s widower and Johnson’s sister were among those who criticized his remarks.
● Scientists who served on an EPA air-pollution panel until the Trump administration disbanded it will hold their own meeting and issue a report on particulates in the air we breathe, pushing back on the administration’s efforts to weaken clean-air policies.
● The Trump administration is threatening to cut federal highway funds for California because the state is—wait for it—not doing enough to clean up its air. This comes just after the Trump administration announced it would be stripping California of its ability to set strict auto emissions standards—and as two more states announce they’ll be adopting California’s emissions standards.
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