Category Archives: Progress

The Trump administration released an executive order authorizing the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to move forward with efforts to permit third partiessuch as industry groups, trade associations, companies, and other nonprofit and for-profit providersto certify Registered Apprenticeship programs. This executive order comes on the heels of former President Barack Obamas unprecedented $265 million investment aimed at developing high-quality Registered Apprenticeship programs, and will seriously undermine recent bipartisan efforts to increase workers access to good, well-paying jobs through apprenticeship.

Apprenticeship is an earn-and-learn training strategy whereby apprentices participate in structured, on-the-job training, while earning a wage. Apprenticeship programs are registered with the DOL, and registration signifies to both workers and employers that the program meets certain standards. The so-called industry-recognized apprenticeships that the Trump administration will create could sidestep long-held labor standards that define Registered Apprenticeship, which is well known for good wages and quality skill development, and is well-regarded by workers, employers, and policymakers alike.

Rather than helping workers access quality, well-paying jobs, President Trumps deeply misguided proposal would make workers vulnerable to low-quality programs that dont offer the skills or wages apprenticeship programs for which apprenticeship programs are known. Indeed, the presidents proposalwhich comes on the heels of his budget proposal that would gut job training programswould make it easier for low-quality providers to access already limited federal funds. Once again, the president is putting the needs of workers last.

Angela Hanks is the associate director for Workforce Development Policy on the Economic Policy team at American Progress.

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How Trump's Executive Order Would Undermine Quality Apprenticeship - Center For American Progress

An agreement on education funding may be in sight, but Wisconsin lawmakers still have a long road ahead before they reach a deal on the state's transportation budget.

The Legislature's Joint Finance Committee resumed work on Gov. Scott Walker's two-year budget proposal on Thursday after a two-week hiatus prompted by stalled negotiations over those two areas.

Assembly members including Joint Finance co-chair Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, and committee member Rep. Mary Felzkowski, R-Irma, toured the state promoting their plan, which would direct an additional $92 million in revenue limit authority for school districts that spend less than most others and an additional $30 million for the states general schools funding mechanism than what the governor proposed in his own spending plan. At the same time, the proposal would offer about $70 million less than Walker's proposed $649 million increase in per-pupil aid.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, dubbed the plan a nonstarter before it was even released, arguing it "raises property taxes and picks winners and losers within our school districts."

But Senate Republicans have since shown a willingness to address low-spending districts, if not in the exact way proposed by their Assembly counterparts.

"Im not thinking education will be that large of a stumbling block," Nygren told reporters on Thursday. "I do think transportation, their position with GPR borrowing, is going to be a stumbling block."

Fitzgerald said last month Senate Republicans would likely pursue financing some roads borrowing with general purpose revenue. Walker's proposal includes $500 million in borrowing, the lowest level since the 2001-03 state budget, but Assembly Republicans say that's still too much.

Earlier this month, Fitzgerald said he doesn't think Senate Republicans' support has moved far from what Walker initially proposed in his transportation budget.

"The Senate wants more. The Assembly wants less. Goldilocks would say, that makes our budget just right," Walker said last month.

Legislators are aiming to complete work on the budget before the start of the new fiscal year on July 1, but Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, called that an "artificial deadline" on Wednesday. If a new budget doesn't pass by the start of the new fiscal year, state programs will continue to operate under the previous budget.

More important than finishing work by the end of the month, Vos said, is working together to find long-term solutions. Vos said he had a "good conversation" on Tuesday with Walker and Fitzgerald, and the leaders have "broad outlines of where we want to be."

"We'll just have to get there," Joint Finance co-chair Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, said Thursday.

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Progress on education funding, but transportation still an issue in Wisconsin budget negotiations - Madison.com

The taping for WWE Networks Mae Young Classic, the companys long discussed womens tournament, is less than a month away, so we knew wed have to start getting details soon.

Moments ago, we got our first concrete ones, as WWE revealed the first four participants in the tourney. Its an interesting mix.

From outside the current roster, theyre bringing in a couple of ladies who hold titles in other promotions - and both the wrestlers and the companies they represent are on different ends of the experience/history spectrum.

From Mexico, Princesa Sugehit is the current Mexican National Womens Champion. That belt, currently promoted by CMLL, has been around since 1955 and is one of the oldest womens titles actively being defending in the world today. Sugehit herself has been wrestling for CMLL and AAA for more than 20 years.

Toni Storm was just recently crowned the first ever Progress Womens champion. The 21 year old has amazingly been wrestling since she was 13. Born in New Zealand, raised in Australia and based in the United Kingdom, she represents another tie between WWE and Jim Smallmans UK promotion.

Internally, two women whove been featured as enhancement talent on NXT will represent the Performance Center. Sarah Logan (fka Crazy Mary Dobson) was well established on the indies and trained in Japan before signing with WWE last year. Lacey Evans (real name Macey Estrella), on the other hand, is a former U.S. Marine who wrestled briefly on the independent circuit before signing with WWE in 2016*.

Its an intriguing mix - and we still have 28 more names to add!

* This post has been corrected to reflect Evans 2014 - 2015 independent career, which included a run as champion for American Premier Wrestling out of Georgia.

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Progress, Mexican champs among first competitors announced for WWE women's tournament - Cageside Seats (blog)

Ive been in public service long enough to know theres a time to play politics and a time to rise above it.

As our elected leaders in Washington chart a new course on health care and Medicaid coverage for tens of millions of Americans hangs in the balance consider this a clarion call for statesmanship.

Look, Obamacare has real flaws. There is bipartisan agreement the state health exchanges are broken and, for far too many Arizonans, health insurance remains unaffordable and out of reach.

But in the course of addressing these shortcomings, it makes no sense to cripple a separate health care program with a 50-year track record of success: Medicaid.

First, a little backstory: I was elected to the Arizona Legislature in 2010, during the depths of the Great Recession. More than one-third of Arizonas General Fund revenue evaporated in the wake of the housing collapse, resulting in a series of tremendously difficult cuts to state programs and services.

One of those decisions was to freeze enrollment in Medicaid for adults without children. Over the course of 18 months, more than 160,000 Arizonans fell off the Medicaid rolls. Some were in the middle of receiving lifesaving treatment. Many others began turning up in hospital emergency rooms as their last and only option to receive medical care.

The personal and economic toll from these Medicaid cuts was immense and heartbreaking.

Thats why, a couple years later, I was proud to stand with then-Gov. Jan Brewer and a bipartisan coalition of legislators as we lifted the enrollment freeze and restored Medicaid coverage for Arizonas working poor.

Today, its clear we made the right decision. The number of Arizonans with health coverage is up; care provided by Arizona hospitals to the uninsured is down 60 percent statewide; and billions of federal dollars our own tax dollars are flowing into the local economy.

I now fear all of this progress is at risk. Congress has proposed slashing $880 billion from Medicaid over the next decade. It is simply not realistic for the state of Arizona to make up for this loss of federal funding. If enacted, these Medicaid cuts threaten a return to the bad-old-days of enrollment freezes, increasing numbers of uninsured and growing cost shifts in the form of higher health premiums, not to mention ER waiting rooms clogged with non-emergencies.

No government program is perfect, but Arizonas Medicaid program known as AHCCCS is the gold standard when it comes to delivering quality, affordable health care. Our states Medicaid program uses an integrated, managed-care model that promotes competition and patient choice, controls costs and incentivizes preventative care. Gov. Doug Ducey continues to thoughtfully reform the program to ensure it is taxpayer-friendly, most significantly by preparing enrollees for the day theyll transition off Medicaid and onto private coverage.

I look forward to working with the governor and Washington officials to ensure Medicaid remains viable for the more than 1 in 4 Arizonans who depend upon it.

Rep. Heather Carter, R-Cave Creek, is chairwoman of the House Health Committee.

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The views expressed in guest commentaries are those of the author and are not the views of the Arizona Capitol Times.

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Medicaid progress at risk as cuts to program loom - Arizona Capitol Times

The recent passage of the American Health Care Act through the House of Representatives, though contentious, proves one point definitively: This government is fully capable of making progress when it puts its mind to it.

Now, with meaningful strides being made in such fields as healthcare and tax reform, it's high time lawmakers look ahead to the next major legislative task. And to my mind, there is no system in greater need of reform than the welfare system.

The welfare system has remained largely unchanged since the sweeping bipartisan reforms of 1996 made under former President Bill Clinton, but in the intervening years, we seem to have lost sight of why those reforms were enacted. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was meant to transform welfare programs into a temporary safety net that gave impoverished families the help they needed to become self-sufficient again by incentivizing full-time employment and financial literacy.

However, the reality is that our current system discourages, prevents, and blocks any attempt at upward mobility. In the 20 years since the Clinton reforms, federal spending on welfare has tripled, yet poverty rates are almost unchanged. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that there are 5.7 million job openings around the country, yet 6.9 million people remain unemployed. The number of food stamp recipients has ballooned astronomically from 17.2 million in 2000 to 44.2 million in 2016. The nation is spending more than $1 trillion a year on more than 90 federal welfare programs, yet these policies clearly continue to fail the most vulnerable members of our society, leading them into cycles of unemployment and government dependency.

We must take a comprehensive look at means-tested welfare expenditures to figure out what works and what doesn't. Just throwing money at the problem won't solve anything. We need vocational training and job search programs that enable welfare recipients to develop and apply the skills necessary to succeed and thrive in professional environments.

Most importantly, we need to strengthen and reinforce work requirements that get people out of the house and into the labor force. A 2014 study by the American Enterprise Institute found that "Having a job is the surest way out of poverty Welfare programs that incentivize work have been far more successful in boosting incomes and mobility than simple cash assistance programs."

Such solutions work not just in theory but in practice. In Maine, Republican Gov. Paul LePage enacted in 2014 a series of reforms that required all able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) to hold a job, participate in state-sponsored vocational training, or do community service in order to receive food stamp benefits.

The results were immediate and exemplary: Just three months after the work policy went into effect, the ABAWD caseload in Maine had dropped by a staggering 80 percent, from 13,332 in December to 2,678 in March. This is just one of the many significant successes state governments have seen with their welfare reform initiatives, and there is no reason to believe similar federal policies wouldn't pay the same dividends for the 4.7 million ABAWDs on food stamps nationwide.

It is imperative that our legislators seize this critical moment and do not allow complacency to erode the dedication that has brought them to this point. Congress needs to push forward on legislation like that proposed by Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, and deliver substantive reform on the national level. The road ahead certainly isn't easy, but lawmakers are now in a prime position to strike while the iron is hot and craft a welfare system that actually raises helpless citizens out of the depths of poverty. The sooner they can start, the better for the poor, for the economy, and for the country.

Adam Brandon (@adam_brandon) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is president and CEO of FreedomWorks.

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Let's make real progress on welfare reform - Washington Examiner

The News Tribune (blog)

Watchpoints: Progress noted in Zunino's work in progress The News Tribune (blog) The numbers speak for themselves and are beginning to inch past the characterization of a small sample size. Catcher Mike Zunino is batting .319 in 20 games for the Mariners since his May 22 recall from Triple-A Tacoma with six homers and 21 RBIs. and more »

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Watchpoints: Progress noted in Zunino's work in progress - The News Tribune (blog)

DeSmog (blog)

Cities Can Jump-start Climate Progress by Plugging in Their Vehicles DeSmog (blog) President Donald Trump's decision to exit the Paris climate agreement reaffirmed what was already clear: The federal government is no longer leading American efforts to shrink our carbon footprint. But many state and local governments along with ... and more »

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Cities Can Jump-start Climate Progress by Plugging in Their Vehicles - DeSmog (blog)

MOSCOW (AP) Russia has made progress fighting soccer racism ahead of next years World Cup, but players, coaches and fans still risk abuse, a new report says.

There were 89 racist and far-right incidents at Russian games in the 2016-17 season, slightly below the two previous seasons, according to Thursdays report by European anti-discrimination group FARE and Russia-based SOVA.

In one case, an African player complained of racist abuse by an opponent during a Russian Premier League game. In another case, a hardline fan group segregated part of a stadium for people of Slavic appearance, the report alleges. Fans of Russian champion Spartak Moscow flew anti-Semitic banners.

The Russian Football Unions disciplinary committee, however, has said it didnt detect a single racist incident in any of the top three divisions this season.

The report comes ahead of the Confederations Cup, starting Saturday, and a year ahead of the World Cup.

The Russian football authorities and the government authorities have realized the way both of these competitions will be tarnished by the fear of racism occurring and theyve taken some quite strong measures, FAREs executive director Piara Powar told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. There still remains the danger of some isolated incidents taking place.

Russian authorities have taken measures to blacklist at least 191 fans from attending sports events, while the RFU ejected an influential fan leader, Alexander Shprygin, from its organization. He was deported twice from France last year following violence around Russias match with England at the European Championship, and has been accused of posting far-right symbols on social media, a charge he denied.

Shprygin was dragged out of a bathroom at an RFU conference in September by police and detained, reportedly in connection with an investigation into fan violence.

FARE says Russia has made some progress, and that it didnt observe monkey chants or openly Nazi flags in any top-flight games this season. However, it warns far-right fans instead fly banners with concealed messages such as runes and number codes used by Nazi and ultranationalist groups.

The RFU punished two clubs in the 2015-16 season for such banners, but didnt pursue any such cases this season something which Powar says indicates it may be turning a blind eye.

That was despite cases of anti-Semitic banners being flown by Spartak fans, including taunts aimed at rival CSKA Moscow, whose club president and then-coach are both Jewish. Another Spartak banner showed a Russian rock singer caricaturized as an Orthodox Jew, accompanied by personal abuse.

CSKA fans also targeted their own coach, Leonid Slutsky now at Englands Hull City with a banner linking his Jewish faith to poor results.

FARE says the number of violent racist incidents fell from five to two last season compared to the year before. There was also no repeat of large-scale violent attacks on foreign fans, such as those which took place between Russian and English fans in Marseille a year ago during the European Championship.

However, there are indications that football-related violence between different ethnic groups in Russia is becoming more entrenched, with fans from Russias largely Muslim regions in the North Caucasus forming fan groups which adopt football hooligans rules and initiate fights with Moscow teams.

In another case last month at a playoff game for a place in the Russian Premier League, one fan group from the Yenisei Krasnoyarsk team issued a statement on social media saying that its sector of the stadium was only available to fans of Slavic appearance.

A member of the group, Artyom Kirillov, suggested the group had been misunderstood. A lot was made up in local media reports of the incident, he told the AP. We are loyal to all Russian citizens.

FIFA said Wednesday that Confederations Cup games will use a three-stage process in the event of fan racism. Referees will first request a public announcement, then suspend the game if the behavior doesnt stop. If racist incidents still persist, they can stop the game.

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Russia making progress on racism before World Cup report - FOXSports.com

The progress in recovery from wrist surgery has been steady for Rams receiver Tavon Austin.

The fifth-year pro did not participate in full-team drills during offseason workouts, organized team activities or minicamps, but he remained active via multiple conditioning drills, most of which included reps featuring a hand-eye coordination component.

I graduated from tennis balls to a Nerf ball, he said Wednesday after the Rams concluded the second day of what was scheduled as a three-day minicamp.

The Rams announced later that the final day of the camp had been canceled, ostensibly as a reward for players for their work during the offseason.

The Rams will reconvene in late July for training camp at UC Irvine.

That will be the first opportunity for the 5-foot-8, 179-pound Austin to show how he can fit into an offense designed by coach Sean McVay and offensive coordinator Matt LaFleur.

We have ideas of the way we want to utilize him, McVay said, Hes done lot of great things on tape. But until youre actually able to get out on the grass with him and watch him do some of the things that were asking him to do, it does makes it a little more difficult. ... Well get a chance to see that early on in training camp.

Said LaFleur: The one thing that everybody knows is that he can run. One thing that this offense is predicated on: We need guys that have speed to help create some of these explosive plays that we want to try to manufacture in the pass game.

Austin, the eighth pick in the 2013 draft, signed a four-year, $42-million extension before last season.

He caught 58 passes for 509 yards and three touchdowns in an offense that ranked last in the NFL for the second consecutive season.

McVay, the Washington Redskins offensive coordinator the last three seasons, has installed parts of a scheme that helped the Redskins rank second in passing and third in total offense in 2016.

Austin made reference to receivers DeSean Jackson and Jamison Crowder, who were productive in Washingtons offense last season, and said he would be prepared for whatever role he is assigned.

Austin mainly has been deployed on short routes during his first four NFL seasons. With the selection of receiver Cooper Kupp in the draft, McVay and LaFleur could give Austin more deep ball opportunities.

I just want the ball in my hand any type of way, Austin said. I dont care if you give it to me vertically, if I get jet sweeps or, whatever, screens or options.

It doesnt really matter to me. I just want the ball in my hands at any time I can get it. So Im just taking it in and whatever he prepares for me I definitely will be ready.

It has been six weeks since Austin had surgery on his left wrist. He said Wednesday he could not recall when he was injured.

I think it was just a lot of wear and tear on it, he said, adding I came in, got an X-ray on it and they told me I had to get surgery.

Though he has not been on the field for workouts, Austin has tutored younger players in meetings and welcomed the opportunity to share leadership responsibility with Robert Woods.

McVay has said that second-year pro Pharoh Cooper would compete for a role returning punts, a job Austin has held since his rookie season.

Austin wants to keep it.

Well see what happens with that when punt-return time comes around, he said. Thats one of the biggest parts of my game. ... Hopefully, Ill still be back there.

Etc.

Defensive tackle Aaron Donald continued to work on the side doing conditioning drills. Cornerback E.J. Gaines and running back Lance Dunbar have not been practicing because of minor injuries, McVay said, but they are expected to be ready for training camp. ... Former NBA star Paul Pierce attended practice. Kevin Demoff, the Rams chief operating officer, was named chairman of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles for 2017-18.

gary.klein@latimes.com

Follow Gary Klein on Twitter @latimesklein

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Rams' Tavon Austin continues his steady progress from wrist surgery - Los Angeles Times

New York Times

Officer's Journey to Gay Pride Honoree Marks a Town's Progress New York Times Barney Frank, the former congressman from Massachusetts, at Glen Rock's pride celebration this month. In a town like this, this is a major example of the progress we are making, he said. Credit Fred R. Conrad for The New York Times. Officer Stanislao ...

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Officer's Journey to Gay Pride Honoree Marks a Town's Progress - New York Times