The constantly changing COVID-19 rules can be frustrating. But this pandemic is like no other public health crisis in history. It is better to think of the virus and US responses the way we think about hurricanes.
The Richardson Independent School District in Texas is among the many districts across the state defying the governor’s mask mandate ban to require masks for students.
AP Photo/LM Otero
If it sounds like the law is all over the place on school mask mandates, that’s because it is. The nation’s schools are subject to a complex web of local, state and federal laws.
Joe Biden has signed dozens of executive orders during his first 100 days in office, many of them reversing Trump-era policies.
Evan Vucci/AP Photo
The president is calling for sweeping changes in health care policy. Tens of millions of Americans could be affected.
Pro-Trump rioters trying to enter Capitol building. A recent poll showed that up to one-fifth of Americans supported the assault on the Capitol.
Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
To repair the public’s dwindling trust in the federal government, politicians must recommit to the impartial cooperation that bolsters political institutions.
Modern presidents, including Trump and Obama, have issued far fewer executive orders than their predecessors before World War II.
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From expanding children’s coverage to reducing surprise bills, Biden and lawmakers may be able to broaden health care access.
President-elect Joe Biden opposes proposals to allow uranium mining around the Grand Canyon, which the Trump administration supports.
Michael Quinn, NPS/Flickr
The Trump administration has used executive orders, deregulation and delays to reduce environmental regulation. Biden administration officials will use many of the same tools to undo their work.
Two detainees at Guantanamo are among those who told ICC investigators they were tortured at CIA ‘black sites’ in Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004.
ohn Moore/Getty Images
The court prosecutes genocide, torture and grave wartime abuses worldwide. Trump’s executive order imposes on its lawyers and judges the kind of sanctions usually used on foreign terrorists.
The U.S. Supreme Court building, completed in 1935, is considered a neoclassical masterpiece.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Federal building guidelines say that ‘development of an official style must be avoided’ – which is exactly what a leaked executive order is trying to do.
Will this help the thousands of Americans who need a kidney transplant get one in time?
Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
President Trump claims that churches suffer from the over-regulation of their political speech. In reality, oversight is lax for religious groups and secular tax-exempt nonprofits alike.
Community health workers like these visit patients’ homes in Malawi to help prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
Baylor College of Medicine Children's Foundation–Malawi/Chris Cox
All recent Republican presidents have cut off foreign aid tied to abortion. Trump’s expansive version of those restrictions endangers billions slated for HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
Locking down the federal government.
NicoElNico via shutterstock.com
President Trump’s new executive order on cybersecurity signals some significant new federal cybersecurity efforts.
Though many of Thomas Jefferson’s educational policies were never passed during his lifetime, they became the foundation of federal education today.
Portrait by Mather Brown / Wikimedia Commons
Trump has ordered a task force to look into the federal government’s role in schools. Where does this executive order fit in the country’s long history of federal versus state educational policies?