In the News

A growing number of states have implemented "shelter in place" orders in response to the coronavirus pandemic, ordering the closure of nonessential businesses and barring residents from making unnecessary trips. But some in Congress believe those closures should not just be ordered on a state-by-state basis, but on a federal level as well.

Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California and 19 of his colleagues sent a letter to the White House on Tuesday asking the president to issue a two-week shelter in place order for the entire country.

More than 60 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives want the Trump administration to press Israel not to use American military equipment to demolish Palestinian homes.

Fremont Rep. Ro Khanna's district has been one of the hardest hit in the country by the novel coronavirus.

Santa Clara County, which covers much of Khanna's 17th Congressional District, reported 37 cases as of Monday, the most in California. There are at least 124 cases across the state.

ALMOST A YEAR after the Trump administration unsealed an indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, two progressive members of Congress are trying to prevent a World War I-era secrecy law from being used to investigate and prosecute journalists for publishing classified information.

Danielle Polk used to work up to 13 hours per day, seven days a week, as a bank teller and a McDonald's floor supervisor. She dreamed of finishing college, but thought she couldn't afford to step away from the workforce to do it. "I was worried about the cost," Polk, who's now 22, recalls. "I was also worried about not having the time to actually attend."

Nonbinary and intersex people could finally be able to obtain a passport that matches their gender identity under new legislation introduced Tuesday.

While filling out a passport application more than five years ago, Dana Zzyym didn't want to lie. Instead of checking the box labeled "M" or "F" for gender, Zzyym — who is intersex and identifies as neither male nor female — wrote down an "X."

The application was denied, prompting Zzyym to begin a lengthy, landmark court fight with the State Department, arguing that the limited gender options violated their constitutional rights.

Like a lot of job fairs on college campuses, the event that brought tech-industry recruiters to San Jose State University on Saturday featured plenty of eager students and company-branded swag: Amazon foam footballs, eBay water bottles and Salesforce socks.

But unlike a lot of tech-industry job fairs — and unlike Silicon Valley itself, which has long been criticized for its lack of diversity — most of the prospective employees, and the recruiters from some of the sector's biggest firms, were black.