On Wednesday, SpaceX successfully completed the first launch of an all-civilian crew into Earth’s orbit, marking another milestone for both the company and the nascent private space industry. At 8 p.m. yesterday evening, one of the company’s Falcon9 rockets took off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, carrying four amateur astronauts inside a Crew Dragon space […]
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for the vaping industry. Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) let a deadline for authorizing vape products pass without having processed millions of pending applications—effectively making those products illegal to sell. Then on Monday, House Democrats unveiled a funding plan for their $3.5 trillion Build Back […]
House Democrats are keen to raise taxes on corporations, high-income earners, and users of vaping products to pay for their $3.5 trillion spending bill. But they’re cutting local newspapers some slack by slipping a special subsidy for publishers into their latest tax proposal. Under the tax bill released by the House Ways and Means Committee […]
House Democrats’ new housing bill devotes billions of dollars in new funding to making America’s housing greener and more climate-resilient. It also spends much more money bailing out coastal homeowners most exposed to the rising sea levels caused by climate change. Tucked away in the 135-page, $330 billion dollar legislation released by the House’s Financial […]
When President George W. Bush was making the case for creating a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in mid-2002, his administration assured the public that the new organization “would not ‘grow’ government.” Rather, by cobbling together 22 separate agencies under one cabinet-level secretary, the federal government would be able to respond more flexibly and […]
Whether San Francisco’s restrictions on chain stores will allow a local burrito business to open another restaurant might hinge on what the owners decide to call their new location. That, in turn, raises some troubling First Amendment implications. For close to four decades, local favorite El Farolito has made a name for itself serving up […]
In response to increasingly successful state-level efforts in California to nudge local governments into allowing more housing, anti-development opponents have introduced a sweeping ballot measure that would effectively strip the state of its ability to regulate land use. This past week, activists submitted language for their “Californians for Community Planning Initiative” to the state’s attorney […]
The headline-grabbing fights in California housing politics over the past couple years have generally been over big, ultimately unsuccessful state bills that would override local zoning restrictions to allow for apartments near transit and job centers. This year, the state’s pro-development YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) activists and legislators devoted their energy toward wonkier, slightly […]
A housing shortage in cities across the country is costing people more than just money. Unable to find affordable housing closer to the office, an increasing share of Americans are spending extraordinary amounts of time getting to and from work. The number of “super commuters”—people who spend more than 90 minutes commuting one way—has grown […]
