Author: Adrian Mcdonald

A new flashpoint is emerging in the Canada-U.S. relationship that could lead to what one congressman calls a tit-for-tat “race to the bottom.” Rep. Brian Higgins, a Democrat who represents the U.S. border community of Buffalo, New York, said he’s prepared to advocate for a new tax on Canadians who own property in the U.S. — unless Americans are offered more exemptions from Ottawa’s new underused housing tax, which targets foreign property owners in Canada. Higgins said he hopes it doesn’t get to that point. But if Canada doesn’t expand its exemptions for Americans, he said, “we will explore the…

With declining numbers of college students earning degrees in education, a variety of programs are turning to teenagers to address these issues. Added to this, the teacher workforce is woefully out of alignment with the nation’s student population. About 80% of public school teachers are white and 77% are female, according to the most recent federal National Principal and Teacher Survey. And Black and Latino teachers are leaving the profession at higher rates than white teachers. With declining numbers of college students earning degrees in education, a variety of programs are turning to teenagers to address these issues. Through early…

College is an enormous financial commitment, and tuition costs continue to rise every year. According to the U.S. News and World Report, the average tuition and fees at private colleges comes out to $39,723 for the 2022-2023 school year. But advertised “sticker prices” for colleges are not what the average student is actually paying, says U.S. News and World Report. At Princeton University, for example, advertised tuition and fees for the 2021-2022 school year was $56,010, but students paid an average of $16,562 after need-based financial aid, according to U.S. News and World Report. What is the most expensive college?…

Kidney disease places particularly heavy burdens on people in rural communities. Congress can take action to help them. For the roughly 800,000 Americans living with kidney failure, there are many hurdles to overcome, from receiving life-saving dialysis care three days a week to finding someone willing to be a living organ donor. But for patients with kidney failure who live in rural areas, there can be additional struggles, such as needing to travel 75 miles to see a specialist or not being able to find renal-friendly foods at the local grocery store. For those living outside of major metropolitan areas,…

By JOSHUA KUCERA March/April 2014 Joshua Kucera is an Istanbul-based journalist. It’s perhaps not surprising that Tajikistan, which shares a poorly guarded, 750-mile border with opium-rich Afghanistan, has become a major global drug-trafficking hub—in fact, more than 80 percent of Afghanistan’s heroin exports to Russia and Europe now pass through Tajik territory. Over the past decade, the United States, worried that the drug trade would soon be accompanied by all the other security problems that plague Afghanistan, has cooperated closely with Tajikistan’s government to help it stem the narcotics trade. Seems reasonable, right? Unfortunately, that government is such a dubious…

The United States and Japan have signed an updated memorandum of cooperation on cybersecurity to strengthen operational collaboration, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said. The memorandum was signed in Washington by U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura. The two also hosted a roundtable with Japanese business representatives on upholding human rights and preventing use of forced labor in supply chains, the statement saidsource: japantoday

The United States has accused North Korea of supplying battlefield missiles and rockets to the Russian mercenary group Wagner for use in Ukraine. The White House said the shipment violated UN Security Council resolutions and that it would announce further sanctions on Wagner. Both North Korea and Wagner have denied the reports. Fighters from the mercenary group have ballooned from 1,000 to nearly 20,000 in Ukraine, the UK government says. The group has also been active recently in Syria and African countries, and has repeatedly been accused of war crimes and human rights abuses. “Wagner is searching around the world…