| OnPolitics Today: 77 days later, Trump makes opioids an official emergency |
 |
| Better late than never? Seventy-seven days after President Trump declared he would declare America's opioid crisis a national emergency, he kind of did. |
| Trump on Thursday ordered the painkiller crisis to be considered a "public health emergency," a less sweeping classification than the "national" designation he predicted on Aug. 10. |
| America's growing addiction to opioids killed 64,000 last year, what Trump described as a "horrible plague" from which "no part of our society" has been spared. Trump signed a memorandum giving states more freedom in how they spend federal funds to address the crisis, senior officials told USA TODAY. |
| But a public health emergency - the sort typically reserved for disasters and disease outbreaks - lasts only 90 days. Here's more on what Trump can do in that span. |
| It's OnPolitics Today, the daily politics roundup from USA TODAY. Subscribe here. |
Republican lawmakers, desperate for a win, risk $1.5 trillion in national debt |
| The House on Thursday adopted a Republican budget plan already passed in the Senate, which will allow Republicans pursue a massive tax overhaul that could tack a whopping $1.5 trillion to the national debt. That's a lot for the party of fiscal conservatism. House Republicans initially winced at such an increase, but eventually gave in after members said they needed a big legislative win ahead of 2018 midterm elections. That's politics, kids. |
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free... |
| After suspending the refugee admissions program for 120 days, the Trump administration replaced it with a more restrictive, scaled-back version that last year would have blocked half of the refugees seeking to enter the United States. Translation: The new rules block refugees from 11 countries from which 44% of America's 53,716 refugees came in the last fiscal year, a USA TODAY analysis found. All but two are majority-Muslim nations. |
The JFK files (some of them, at least) are out |
| "The long anticipated release of the #JFKFiles will take place tomorrow," Trump tweeted on Wednesday. "So interesting!" After a prolonged day of restless waiting, Trump ordered the release of 2,800 secret records tied to Kennedy's assassination but blocked others, extending the deadline another 180 days. |
White Americans think they're treated unfairly |
| Most white Americans think they face discrimination in the United States, according to a poll published by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Harvard's school of public health. While 55% said "discrimination against white people exists in the U.S. today," a smaller percentage said they personally had faced discrimination. About 19% of whites said they'd faced job discrimination, with 11% saying it occurred at or ahead of college. |
| In other poll news: A Military Times survey found 44% of American troops view Trump favorably, while 40% did not. |
Elsewhere in politics |
| |
No comments:
Post a Comment