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There's been little progress toward gender equity in politics

Podcast: America's two major political parties are simply too big News


Report: There's been little progress toward gender equity in politics

Sara Swann

While Kathy Hochul's induction this week as the first female governor of New York marked a significant milestone for women's representation, there has been little progress elsewhere in the United States to improve gender equity in politics.

Succeeding former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned following several accusations of sexual harassment, Hochul joins eight other women currently serving as governor. Only 44 other women in the nation's history have held that office, and 19 states have never had a woman governor.

Thursday marks Women's Equality Day, but over the last year, the U.S. has seen meager improvements in the number of women serving at the local, state and national levels. According to a report released Monday by RepresentWomen, just under one-quarter of all major elected officials in the country are women — an increase of less than 1 percentage point from 2020.

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Debate

America needs democracy learning communities

Our democracy needs learning and community. There is no better place to start than at the grassroots level by forming democracy learning communities all across America, in urban and rural areas, suburbs and exurbs, argues Paul Lachelier, the founder of Learning Life.

Podcast: America's two major political parties are simply too big

The two-party system is no longer working for the country, and the party primaries that serve it have fueled dysfunction rather than encouraging compromise and unity. Nick Troiano, the Executive Director of Unite America, and Lee Drutman, Unite America advisor, recently sat down to talk to Chuck Todd about reforming the political system on The Chuck ToddCast.

Community

Stay-cation Advocacy: Building Relationships Back Home

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The Desert's Thirsty New Neighbor

A "for sale" sign in the area where the Austin, Texas-based group BorderPlex plans to build a $165 billion data center in Santa Teresa, New Mexico.

Photo by Alberto Silva Fernandez/Puente News Collaborative & High Country News

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Sunland Park, New Mexico, is not a notably online community. Retirees have settled in mobile homes around the small border town, just over the state line from El Paso. Some don’t own computers — they make their way to the air-conditioned public library when they need to look something up.

Soon, though, the local economy could center around the internet: County officials have approved up to $165 billion in industrial revenue bonds to help developers build a sprawling data center campus just down the road.

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​Former Republican presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

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Getty Images, Rebecca Noble

The Saturated Fat Fallacy: RFK Jr.’s Dietary Crusade Endangers Public Health

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s recent embrace of saturated fats as part of a national health strategy is consistent with much of Kennedy’s health policy, which is often short of clinical proven data and offers opinions to Americans that are potentially outright dangerous.

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Who’s Hungry? When Accounting Rules Decide Who Eats
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Photo by Maria Lin Kim on Unsplash

Who’s Hungry? When Accounting Rules Decide Who Eats

With the government shutdown still in place, a fight over the future of food assistance is unfolding in Washington, D.C.

As part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, Congress approved sweeping changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, affecting about 42 million Americans per month.

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