National
A Fiscal Playground: The Past and Present of California K-12 Funding
As students flood store aisles eager to stock up on notebooks and gear for the coming academic year, California’s public schools find themselves grappling with their own critical to-do lists. Schools rely heavily on state funding to cover teacher salaries,…
Young Black Voters Have a Message for Joe Biden
Laura Williams attended one of the largest conferences of Black undergraduates in the country. Here’s what young Black voters think about the 2024 election. President Joe Biden is hemorrhaging support from young Black voters. An April 2024 poll found that…
California’s Caste Question
“I was feeling powerless,” Prem Pariyar said. It was the morning of October 9, 2023—the culmination of eight months of intense campaigning and fierce debate that divided California’s South Asian American community. Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, had just…
The Ex-Gun Salesman Who Wants to Turn Montana Blue
“I think Democrats need to understand that a political party is about one thing: winning elections,” said Ryan Busse, as he sipped his coffee at a Starbucks in Kalispell, Montana, his home for the last 25 years. Busse is the…
On the Air: An Interview with Washington Post Podcast Host Martine Powers
Martine Powers ’11 is the senior host of “Post Reports,” the award-winning daily news podcast from The Washington Post. She graduated from Yale in 2011 with a B.A. in African American Studies. Before joining the Post, Powers worked as a…
A Crowded Playing Field: Tesla’s Ascendant Chinese Competitor
BYD, the largest automotive manufacturer you have probably never heard of, is beating Tesla at its own game. In the fourth quarter of 2023, the Shenzhen-based carmaker sold 526,000 battery-powered vehicles, outpacing Tesla’s net sales by approximately nine percent. The…
Cutting Ties: The Unraveling of Partnerships between American and Chinese Universities
In January 2024, Florida International University (FIU) arrived at the final step of a long partnership. The school terminated several of its successful partnerships with Chinese universities, including a Spanish language program, engineering programs, and a dual-degree hospitality program. FIU’s…
Playing Catch-up: Pandemic Learning Loss in Garden Grove, California
*Note: The student “Joseph” is referred to by a pseudonym to protect his privacy as a minor. In the fall of 2021, Garden Grove’s Sunnyside Elementary reopened its doors, returning to in-person learning after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down Southern…