In a historic move, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in late June to make the District of Columbia a state. The D.C. Admission Act (H.R. 51), introduced by the District’s long-serving, nonvoting Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, would make D.C. the 51st state, allowing it to hold elections for two senators and one representative. The new state would be renamed “Washington, Douglass Commonwealth.” The bill passed the House by a largely party-line vote of 232-180. No Republicans voted for the bill, which conservatives have decried as a “power grab” by Democrats (one Democrat, Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, voted against…

Even as numbers of positive COVID-19 cases continued to climb in the U.S. and around the world in early July, the U.S. formally ended its relationship with the United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO). The Trump administration first announced the controversial withdrawal in late May and cut off funding to the group; weeks later, the White House submitted an official departure notice. When the move takes effect — no sooner than July 2021 — the health organization will lose funding from one of its biggest contributors. President Donald Trump began voicing his discontent with the WHO early in the spring…