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Medicaid and Fiscal Federalism During the COVID-19 Pandemic
From the Abstract: "We analyze the effects of the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic on state and local government finances, with an emphasis on health spending needs and the role of the Medicaid program. We arrive at three conclusions. First, we find that nationwide, and over the entirety of the federal budget window, the enhanced federal matching funds are of roughly the same magnitude as expected increases in state Medicaid costs. There is a difference in timing, however, as projected relief funds are more concentrated in the near term than projected spending needs. Second, we show that there is substantial variation in states' exposure to increases in Medicaid program costs. Third, we evaluate the extent to which federal aid has been targeted at states with large increases in Medicaid costs. We show that the enhanced Medicaid matching funds are quite weakly correlated with variations in states' cost increases. In contrast, the state aid formula in the American Recovery Plan Act appears, to at least a moderate degree, to direct dollars toward states with large increases in their Medicaid enrollments."
National Bureau of Economic Research
Clemens, Jeffrey; Ippolito, Benedic N.; Veuger, Stan
2021-04
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Defense Health Care: DOD Needs to Fully Assess Its Nonclinical Suicide Prevention Efforts and Address Any Impediments to Effectiveness, Report to Congressional Committees
From the Highlights: "Suicide is a public health problem facing all populations, including the military. From 2014 to 2019, the rate of suicide increased from 20.4 to 25.9 per 100,000 active component servicemembers. Over the past decade, DOD has taken steps to address the growing rate of suicide in the military through efforts aimed at prevention. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 included a provision for GAO [Government Accountability Office] to review DOD's suicide prevention programs. This report examines DOD's suicide prevention efforts, including, among other objectives, (1) the extent to which non-clinical efforts are assessed for being evidence based and effective and (2) any impediments that hamper the effectiveness of these efforts."
United States. Government Accountability Office
2021-04
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Border Security: CBP Has Taken Actions to Help Ensure Timely and Accurate Field Testing of Suspected Illicit Drugs, Report to the Chairwoman, Caucus on International Narcotics Control, U.S. Senate
From the Highlights: "Within the Department of Homeland Security, CBP [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] reported seizing approximately 830,000 pounds of drugs in fiscal year 2020. When CBP officers and agents encounter suspected illicit drugs, they conduct a presumptive field test. A positive test result is one factor CBP uses to establish probable cause for an arrest or seizure. GAO [Government Accountability Office] was asked to review issues related to CBP's field drug testing. This report examines (1) CBP's policies and procedures for testing suspected illicit drugs in the field; (2) available data on CBP's field drug testing; and (3) CBP's efforts to help ensure timely and accurate test results."
United States. Government Accountability Office
2021-04
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National Security DOD and State Have Processes for Formal and Informal Challenges to the Classification of Information, Report to the Honorable Christopher S. Murphy, U.S. Senate
From the Document: "Classified national security information is vital to U.S. national interests. The appropriate protection and handling of this information is a top priority for the executive branch and Congress. Based on guidance, such as Executive Order 13526, 'Classified National Security Information,' authorized holders with access to classified information may submit a classification challenge if there are reasons to believe information is improperly classified. According to DOD and State officials, Members may also submit a classification challenge. GAO [Government Accountability Office] was asked to review the processes for challenging the classification of national security information. This report describes (1) the processes to challenge the classification of information at DOD and State; and (2) the processes that Members of Congress can use to challenge the classification of information at DOD and State. GAO reviewed applicable laws and regulations, and DOD, State, and other guidance related to the classification of information and classification challenge processes. GAO also interviewed DOD, State and ISOO [Information Security Oversight Office] officials."
United States. Government Accountability Office
2021-04
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COVID-19 Testing in State Prisons
From the Introduction: "This report explores the potential relationship between COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] testing rates and COVID-19 infection and mortality outcomes across the 32 state prison systems where information necessary to conduct such an analysis was publicly available. The report also describes how four state DOCs [departments of corrections] (Colorado, Connecticut, Michigan, and Vermont) implemented mass testing, and details the steps that accompanied or followed testing."
Council on Criminal Justice
Schnepel, Kevin T.; Jemison, Erin; Engel, Leonard W. (Len) . . .
2021-04
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Protecting Consumers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Year in Review
From the Document: "The Federal Trade Commission [FTC] is a bipartisan independent agency that protects consumers and promotes competition. The COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic and the attendant economic fallout touch on the full breadth of the Commission's mandate. The FTC has applied its resources to investigate and respond to issues arising from COVID-19 over the last year, and, with the benefit of recent support from Congress, will redouble those efforts going forward. The Commission began taking action related to COVID-19 even before the March 13 declaration of a national emergency, warning consumers in February 2020 about COVID-19-related scams."
United States. Federal Trade Commission
2021-04
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Modeling COVID-19 Nonpharmaceutical Interventions: Exploring Periodic NPI Strategies
From the Webpage: "We developed a COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] transmission model used as part of RAND's web-based COVID-19 decision support tool that compares the effects of nonpharmaceutical public health interventions (NPIs) on health and economic outcomes. An interdisciplinary approach informed the selection and use of multiple NPIs, combining quantitative modeling of the health/economic impacts of interventions with qualitative assessments of other important considerations (e.g., cost, ease of implementation, equity). This paper provides further details of our model, describes extensions, presents sensitivity analyses, and analyzes strategies that periodically switch between a base NPI level and a higher NPI level. We find that a periodic strategy, if implemented with perfect compliance, could have produced similar health outcomes as static strategies but might have produced better outcomes when considering other measures of social welfare. Our findings suggest that there are opportunities to shape the tradeoffs between economic and health outcomes by carefully evaluating a more comprehensive range of reopening policies."
RAND Corporation
Vardavas, Raffaele; Nascimento de Lima, Pedro; Baker, Lawrence
2021-04
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Missile Defense: Fiscal Year 2020 Delivery and Testing Progressed, but Annual Goals Unmet, Report to Congressional Committees
From the Highlights: "For over half a century, the Department of Defense has funded efforts to defend the U.S. from ballistic missile attacks. This effort consists of diverse and highly complex land-, sea-, and space-based systems and assets located across the globe. From 2002 through 2019, MDA [Missile Defense Agency]--the agency charged with developing, testing, integrating, and fielding this system of systems--received about $162.5 billion. The agency also requested about $45 billion from fiscal year 2020 through fiscal year 2024. In fiscal year 2020, MDA's mission broadened to include evolving threats beyond ballistic missiles such as defending against hypersonic missile attacks. With the inclusion of non-ballistic missile threats, the Ballistic Missile Defense System is in the process of transitioning to the Missile Defense System. Congress included a provision in statute that GAO [Government Accountability Office] annually assess and report on MDA's progress. This, our 18th annual review, addresses the progress MDA made in achieving fiscal year 2020 delivery and testing goals."
United States. Government Accountability Office
2021-04
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Maternal Mortality and Morbidity: Additional Efforts Needed to Assess Program Data for Rural and Underserved Areas, Report to the Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives
From the GAO (Government Accountability Office) Highlights: "Each year in the United States, hundreds of women die from pregnancy-related causes, and thousands more experience SMM [severe maternal morbidity]. Research suggests there is a greater risk of maternal mortality and SMM among rural residents and that underserved areas may lack needed health services. GAO was asked to review maternal mortality and SMM outcomes in rural and underserved areas. This report examines, among other objectives, what is known about these outcomes; selected CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and HRSA [Health Resources and Services Administration] programs that aim to reduce these outcomes, as well as actions to collect and use relevant data; and the extent to which HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] is taking actions to improve maternal health and monitoring progress on its efforts. GAO analyzed HHS data, agency documentation, literature, and interviewed officials from a non-generalizable sample of three states and stakeholders to capture various perspectives."
United States. Government Accountability Office
2021-04
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Digital Barriers to Economic Justice in the Wake of COVID-19
From the Executive Summary: "This primer highlights major barriers to economic justice created or magnified by data-centric technologies in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Specifically, there are three major trends related to data-centric technologies that are undermining the current and future economic stability for marginalized communities: 1) Collapse of benefits automation; 2) Expanded surveillance; 3) Digital profiling of economic distress. To our knowledge, there has been little discussion of how these trends will heighten existing economic inequalities as the nation attempts to rebuild post-pandemic. We aim to fill this gap through a conception of 'data justice', in which technology serves to empower people rather than to oppress them. Further, we provide suggestions for reform so that technology works for people, rather than against them, as the nation emerges from the grip of the pandemic."
Data & Society Research Institute
Gilman, Michele, 1968-; Madden, Mary
2021-04
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Public-Private Solutions to Pandemic Risk: 'Opportunities, Challenges and Trade-Offs'
From the Executive Summary: "Commercial insurers have always sought to push the boundaries of insurability by developing innovative and viable approaches to new and emerging risks of major severity such as natural disasters or changes to liability regimes. For example, Alternative Risk Transfer (ART) solutions, introduced in the 1980s, are designed to better reflect individual risk characteristics, mitigate moral hazard (i.e. the risk of people behaving less carefully once covered by insurance), offer (limited) cover for new exposures and expand capacity for large catastrophe risks (e.g. by tapping into the vast pool of institutional investment funds through Insurance-Linked Securities (ILS)). [...] These efforts notwithstanding, pandemic business continuity risk was, in general, never possible nor intended to be covered by the private sector. To some extent, this reflects demand side reasons such as an endemic underestimation of the frequency and severity of pandemics. However, the shortage of supply primarily results from the high level of embedded risk and, therefore, prohibitively high amounts of capital needed to underpin credible insurance commitments. These extraordinarily high capital requirements are attributable to the unique correlation in the frequency and severity of pandemic business interruption losses as revealed by COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019]. Looking ahead, this does not rule out the provision of small-scale selected private market coverage by limiting the degree of risk transfer and the number of businesses covered."
International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics
Schanz, Kai-Uwe
2021-04
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Improving Public Messaging for Evacuation and Shelter‐in‐Place: Findings and Recommendations for Emergency Managers from Peer-Reviewed Research
From the Overview: "The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) conducted this study to provide emergency managers with: [1] peer-reviewed research findings on public understanding and decision-making for evacuation and shelter-in-place protective actions, and [2] data-driven recommendations for improving public messaging to inform the public about risk and to increase compliance with instructions to evacuate or to shelter-in-place. FEMA tasked Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) with conducting a literature review of published peer-reviewed research, summarizing the research findings, and developing related recommendations. This analysis can inform outreach strategies, communication strategies, evacuation planning, and emergency operations plans. Some recommendations are best implemented before an event and some suggest ways to improve response operations." A supplemental slideshow presentation of this report can be found in the HSDL here: [https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=853704]
United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency
Freeman, Carol; Nunnari, Nicole; Edgemon, Lesley . . .
2021-04
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2025 Post-Covid Scenarios: Latin America and the Caribbean
From the Executive Summary: "With vaccine rollouts underway, the world finally has an opportunity to look beyond COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] and to plan meaningfully into the future. Nevertheless, uncertainties abound, and new shocks may continue to arise, potentially bringing about social, economic, health, political and other consequences. As a region, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is vulnerable to these uncertainties and shocks, due to preexisting weaknesses such as underinvestment in public health and healthcare, inequality, high labor informality, low productivity, and weak democratic governance. Indeed, these structural weaknesses made LAC among the worst coronavirus-affected regions in human and socioeconomic terms. Going forward, the region's leaders must address the risks and opportunities that will shape the post-COVID future. Which key uncertainties will drive the region forward in the coming years, for better or worse? What are the major opportunities and risks facing governments, the private sector, and citizens, and to what extent can they effectively anticipate and navigate them? This report provides an outside-the-box framework to help unpack these questions and to challenge static assumptions about today's rapidly changing world. Building upon a robust scenario-planning exercise involving eighty-plus experts, the report identifies three main drivers of change--labeled as the dominant configuring factors (DCFs)--that will shape the region's post-COVID-19 future."
Atlantic Council of the United States
Zhang, Pepe; Engelke, Peter O.; Van Velkinburgh, Sara
2021-04
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Improving Public Messaging for Evacuation and Shelter-in-Place: Findings and Recommendations for Emergency Managers from Peer-Reviewed Research [Presentation]
This slideshow is a supplemental presentation to the report of the same name in the HSDL library located here: [https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=853703] From the Purpose: "An examination of published peer-reviewed research on evacuation and shelter-in-place protective actions to: [1] Document research findings; and [2] Present research-based recommendations to emergency managers on: [a] Informing community members about risk, and [b] Providing effective messaging to increase compliance with instructions to evacuate or to shelter-in-place."
United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency
2021-04
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Diverging Objectives: Maintaining Strategic Stability with Russia While Expanding Global Missile Defense
From the Abstract: "Since the US left the ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile] Treaty in 2002, the prevailing assumption has been that Russia's consistent concerns with the limited US ballistic missile defense (BMD) system was political bluster, because its nuclear deterrent was large enough to easily defeat any US defenses. Previous studies generally based their arguments on a faulty understanding of Moscow's deterrence requirements, assuming it would accept a minimum deterrence standard of only a few warheads surviving to detonation. The following study shows that Moscow desires a credible threat of unacceptable damage to deter the United States and that an expanding US ballistic missile defense (BMD) system could prevent Russia from achieving this criterion and ultimately degrade bilateral strategic stability. The analysis uses a scenario planning framework to compare four future scenarios of US BMD versus Russia's nuclear deterrent. These comparisons demonstrate that unchecked expansion of the US missile defense system, especially when combined with future arms limitations, will cause legitimate concern in Russia over its ability to deter the United States during a crisis. Moscow's reduced confidence will continue to compel it to find new capabilities to penetrate and circumvent missile defense in order to restore balance, degrading arms race stability between the United States and Russia. Any further BMD expansion will further degrade strategic stability and put at risk future arms control agreements."
Air University (U.S.). Press
Russell, Shawn A.
2021-04
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DATAworks 2021: Empirical Analysis of COVID-19 in the U.S.
From the Executive Summary: "The zoonotic emergence of the coronavirus SARSCoV-2 [severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2] at the beginning of 2020 and the subsequent global pandemic of COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] has caused massive disruptions to economies and health care systems, particularly in the United States. This briefing to be presented at DATAWorks 2021 will describe IDA [Institute for Defense Analyses]'s empirical analysis of COVID-19 data within the U.S. general population."
Institute for Defense Analyses
Heuring, Emily D.
2021-04
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Financial Fraud in the United States, 2017
From the Document: "In 2017, an estimated 3.0 million persons, or about 1.25% of those age 18 or older, reported that they were victims of personal financial fraud during the prior 12 months[.] About 2.0 million persons (0.81%) reported experiencing fraud related to consumer products and services, the most commonly reported type of financial fraud[.] Findings are from the 2017 Supplemental Fraud Survey (SFS), the first data collection of its kind under the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The SFS collected data on the experiences of adults with seven types of personal financial fraud during the 12 months preceding their interview. Tis report describes the prevalence of personal financial fraud, victim characteristics, and whether the fraud was reported to police or others. For more information on the Bureau of Justice Statistics' (BJS) definition of fraud and the fraud types measured in the SFS, see the 'Measurement of personal financial fraud victimization' text box and 'Methodology'."
United States. Bureau of Justice Statistics
Morgan, Rachel E.
2021-04
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Sexual Harassment: NNSA Could Improve Prevention and Response Efforts in Its Nuclear Security Forces, Report to the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives
From the GAO (Government Accountability Office) Highlights: "Federal law prohibits sexual harassment in the workplace. Besides being harmful to those harassed, sexual harassment can decrease organizational performance and increase turnover. In January 2019, public allegations of sexual harassment in NNSA's [National Nuclear Security Administration] nuclear security forces drew attention to this issue. House Report 116-120 provided that GAO review sexual harassment in NNSA's nuclear security force. This report examines (1) what NNSA and its contractors know about the prevalence of sexual harassment in their nuclear security forces, (2) the extent to which NNSA and its contractors implement EEOC [U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] recommendations to prevent and respond to sexual harassment, and (3) the extent to which EEOC found that NNSA and DOE [Department of Energy] meet its requirements relevant to sexual harassment. GAO reviewed information on sexual harassment and programs to address such harassment at DOE and NNSA from fiscal years 2015 through 2020."
United States. Government Accountability Office
2021-04
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Economic Adjustment Assistance: Experts' Proposed Reform Options to Better Serve Workers Experiencing Economic Disruption, Report to the Honorable Chris Coons, U.S. Senate
From the Highlights: "Various economic disruptions, such as policy changes that affect global trade or the defense or energy industries and shifts in immigration, globalization, or automation, can lead to widespread job loss among workers within an entire region, industry, or occupation. GAO [Government Accountability Office] was asked about options for reforming the current policies and programs for helping workers weather economic disruption. This report describes a range of options, identified by experts, to reform the current policies and programs for helping workers weather economic disruption."
United States. Government Accountability Office
2021-04
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Victims of Identity Theft, 2018
From the Document: "In 2018, an estimated 23 million persons, or about 9% of all United States residents age 16 or older, reported that they had been victims of identity theft during the prior 12 months[.] Five percent of residents age 16 or older had experienced at least one incident involving the misuse of an existing credit card, and 4% had experienced the misuse of an existing bank account. One percent reported the misuse of their personal information to open a new account. Less than 1% had experienced the misuse of their personal information for other fraudulent purposes, such as for getting medical care, a job, or governmental benefits. Financial losses due to identity theft totaled $15.1 billion among the 16.3 million victims age 16 or older with known losses of $1 or more (70% of all victims). Tis report uses data from the 2018 Identity Theft Supplement (ITS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey. From January to June 2018, the ITS collected data from persons about their experience with identity theft during the 12 months preceding the interview."
United States. Bureau of Justice Statistics
Harrell, Erika, 1976-
2021-04
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COVID-19: HHS Should Clarify Agency Roles for Emergency Return of U.S. Citizens During a Pandemic, Report to Congressional Addressees
From the Highlights: "HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] provides temporary assistance to U.S. citizens repatriated by the Department of State (State) from a foreign country because of destitution, illness, threat of war, or similar crises through the U.S. Repatriation Program. In January and February 2020, HHS assisted State in repatriating individuals from Wuhan, China, and the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Yokohama, Japan, to the U.S. HHS quarantined repatriates at five Department of Defense (DOD) installations to ensure they did not infect others with COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019]. GAO [Government Accountability Office] was asked to examine HHS's COVID-19 repatriation efforts to ensure the health and safety of those involved in the response. This report examines HHS's coordination and management of its COVID-19 repatriation response."
United States. Government Accountability Office
2021-04
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How Violent Attacks Are Changing The Demands of Mass Casualty Incidents: A Review of The Challenges Associated with Intentional Mass Casualty Incidents
From the Abstract: "Antagonistically induced mass casualty incidents (MCI) introduce unique conditions that are rarely addressed in current MCI policies. Many of today's MCIs are intentional acts of violence, such as mass shootings, improvised explosions, mass stabbings, vehicle rammings, and other similar assault tactics. Not only have the methods changed, so too have the impacts. These violent incidents are occurring more frequently and involve far more victims than in the past due to the choice and power of weapons. The injury patterns, especially those associated with gunshots and explosives, have become more devastating and far more time sensitive than conventional traumatic injuries, such as those caused by blunt trauma. Mindful of the propensity for additional attacks, victims are more inclined to leave the area of the attack long before emergency medical services can arrive. This article explores some of the challenges for public safety in controlling the incident."
Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.). Center for Homeland Defense and Security
Hodgson, Luke J.
2021-04
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Violence Against Women and Children During COVID-19-- One Year on and 100 Papers In: A Fourth Research Round Up
From the Document: "A year after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] a pandemic, we take stock of an increasingly diverse set of new studies linking violence against women and children (VAW/C) to COVID-19 and associated pandemic response measures. In this fourth round up, we focus exclusively on research in low- and middle-income countries (LICs and MICs) published since December 2020 to highlight dynamics in settings that previously had fewer studies. As in previous round ups (see the first [hyperlink], second [hyperlink] and third [hyperlink] covering a total of 74 studies), we only include studies that have sufficient information on indicator definition and analysis methods (though we maintain a full set of studies--including more policy-oriented briefs and reports--in our evidence tracker [hyperlink]). In total, we summarize 26 new studies from LICs and MICs, with the majority focused on identifying trends (15 studies), while others present analysis of risk factors or dynamics (an additional ten studies), and one represents an impact analysis of prevention programming."
Center for Global Development
Bourgault, Shelby; Peterman, Amber; O'Donnell, Megan
2021-04
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Passengers with Disabilities: Airport Accessibility Barriers and Practices and DOT's Oversight of Airlines' Disability-Related Training, Report to Congressional Committees
From the Highlights: "Approximately 43 million people in the United States have some type of disability, which may affect mobility, vision, hearing, and cognition. Without accessible airport facilities and accommodations--such as appropriate assistance from the check-in counter to the gate, or effective communication of flight information--air travel for people with disabilities can be extremely challenging. The FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] Reauthorization Act of 2018 includes provisions for GAO [Government Accountability Office] to review leading airport accessibility practices for passengers with disabilities, as well as required training for airline and contract service personnel who assist these passengers within the airport. This report examines, among other objectives: stakeholder-identified barriers that passengers with disabilities face when accessing airport facilities, accessibility practices to assist passengers with disabilities, as well as how DOT [Department of Transportation] has overseen airlines' disability-related training."
United States. Government Accountability Office
2021-04
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Global Health Security: USAID and CDC Funding, Activities, and Assessments of Countries' Capacities to Address Infectious Disease Threats Before COVID-19 Onset, Report to Congressional Committees
From the Highlights: "The outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in December 2019 demonstrated that infectious diseases can lead to catastrophic loss of life and sustained damage to the global economy. USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development] and CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] have led U.S. efforts to strengthen GHS [global health security]--that is, global capacity to prepare for, detect, and respond to infectious disease threats and to reduce or prevent their spread across borders. These efforts include work related to the multilateral GHSA [Global Health Security Agenda] initiative, which aims to accelerate progress toward compliance with international health regulations and other agreements. House Report 114-693 contained a provision for GAO [Government Accountability Office] to review the use of GHS funds. In this report, GAO examines, for the 5 fiscal years before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, (1) the status of USAID's and CDC's GHS funding and activities and (2) U.S. agencies' assessments, at the end of fiscal year 2019, of GHSA partner countries' capacities to address infectious disease threats and of challenges these countries faced in building capacity."
United States. Government Accountability Office
2021-04
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Battling the Invisible Enemy: The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate's COVID-19 Response, One Year Later
From the Document: "For millions of citizens around the world locked down in quarantine, staying at home and waiting to learn more about COVID-19, it may have felt like life was put on pause for most of 2020. But for emergency managers, policy makers, research scientists, countless frontline workers, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T), everything kicked into high gear. [...] This document highlights just some of the important work S&T has contributed to during this turbulent time. It describes scientifc [sic] studies and their corresponding conclusions, recounts multifaceted support given without hesitation to fellow DHS components and other key partners, and it looks forward to what's next for this response. I am incredibly proud of the way so many people have stepped up and risen to the challenge to stop this pandemic."
United States. Department of Homeland Security. Science and Technology Directorate
2021-04
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COVID-19 Efforts to Increase Vaccine Availability and Perspectives on Initial Implementation, Report to Congressional Addressees
From the Highlights: "Providing the public with safe and effective vaccines to prevent COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 19] is crucial to mitigating the public health and economic impacts of the disease. The U.S. had almost 30 million reported cases and over 545,000 reported deaths as of March 27, 2021. The federal government took a critical step in December 2020 in authorizing the first two COVID-19 vaccines and beginning distribution of doses across the nation. The government had distributed about 180.6 million vaccine doses, and about 147.8 million doses had been administered, as of March 27, 2021, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data. [...] GAO [Government Accountability Office] reviewed documents from the Departments of Defense and Health and Human Services, transcripts of public briefings, data from CDC, and interviewed or received written responses from federal officials, vaccine company representatives, and select public health stakeholders. GAO incorporated technical comments from the Department of Defense, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency as appropriate."
United States. Government Accountability Office
2021-04
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Debt Limit Since 2011 [Updated April 1, 2021]
From the Summary: "The Constitution grants Congress the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States-- one part of its power of the purse--and thus mandates that Congress exercise control over federal debt. Control of debt policy has at times provided Congress with a means of raising concerns regarding fiscal policies. Debates over federal fiscal policy have been especially animated in the past decade, in part because of the accumulation of federal debt in the wake of the 2007-2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession. Rising debt levels, along with continued differences in views of fiscal policy, led to a series of contentious debt limit episodes in recent years."
Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service
Austin, D. Andrew
2021-04-01
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'Torres v. Madrid': Police Use of Force, Fourth Amendment Seizures, and Fleeing Suspects [Updated April 1, 2021]
From the Background: "In recent months, many in Congress have shown interest in the laws governing the use of force [hyperlink] by law enforcement following incidents such as the death of George Floyd in police custody [hyperlink] and the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor by officers executing a no-knock [hyperlink] search warrant. In October [hyperlink], the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in 'Torres v. Madrid,' an appeal from the Tenth Circuit [hyperlink] that asks when police use of force is subject to the Fourth Amendment's [hyperlink] prohibition against unreasonable seizures. Specifically, the question presented [hyperlink] by 'Torres' is whether a suspect has been seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when an officer intentionally uses force to detain that suspect, but is unsuccessful--such as when the suspect temporarily evades capture. The Supreme Court has on several occasions used language that at least indirectly addresses the possibility of seizure by an unsuccessful use of force, but such language at times appears contradictory and courts have disagreed [hyperlink] on how to apply it. Below, we outline relevant precedent on seizure by unsuccessful use of force before analyzing the lower court decisions in 'Torres,' and the theories presented on appeal."
Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service
Berris, Peter G.
2021-04-01
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Laying the Foundations of DPRK Energy Security: 1990-2020 Energy Balances, Engagement Options, and Future Paths for Energy and Economic Redevelopment
From the Executive Summary: "The purpose of this report is to provide policymakers and other interested parties with an overview of the evolution of demand for and supply of energy in the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea (DPRK) over the last three decades. [...] Building on previous energy balances prepared for 1990, 1996, 2000, and 2005, 2008 through 2010, and 2014, the authors assembled information from as many data sources as possible to update our earlier work and to provide estimates of recent-year energy supply and demand in the DPRK. Somewhat revised results of the 1990, and 1996 energy balances, which provide the underpinnings of our updated DPRK energy sector analysis, as well as a detailed description of input parameters and assumptions used in the analytical process, are presented in Chapter 2 of the Report that follows."
Nautilus Institute
von Hippel, David; Hayes, Peter, 1953-
2021-04
