In the News

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is widely considered the federal government's most effective anti-poverty program. Sending tax refund checks to millions of low-income Americans every year, it helps people keep more of what they earn, and helps people stay working (and not claiming other benefits). In the 2015 tax year, more than 26 million families and individuals received the EITC, with an average payout of about $3,000 (the maximum amount available is about $5,500). Unusually, the EITC also has broad bipartisan support.

Since March 2015, millions of people inside the country of Yemen have languished on the edge of social collapse due to brutal and inhumane conflict that has resulted in at least 10,000 deaths — many of them civilians.

On top of the violence of the conflict itself, Yemenis face desolation in their everyday lives, economic decay and the fastest spreading cholera epidemic ever recorded. The nation, and its people, lie at a tipping point between mere emergent crisis and something far worse.

Two US lawmakers are pushing for Congress to classify "stealthing" – the act of secretly removing a condom during sex – as rape.

The practice, which transforms a consensual act into a non-consensual one, puts the partner at risk of sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies. The phenomenon has gained increasing attention in recent months as growing numbers of women have spoken out about their experiences.

U.S. Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) announced on Wednesday that they would push lawmakers to have "stealthing," or nonconsensual condom removal, classified as rape.

One of the challenges facing Democrats in the upcoming tax "reform" fight, is that the stakes of tax policy can feel abstract. With Obamacare repeal, progressives had little trouble illustrating the grave consequences of the GOP's reactionary agenda: Millions of people would lose their insurance; nonaffluent cancer patients would be priced out of chemotherapy; and severely ill babies would hit their "lifetime limits." By contrast, it's hard to tell a truly harrowing story about the repeal of the state and local tax deduction.

Two US representatives want nonconsensual condom removal — known as "stealthing" — to be classified as rape and are pushing for a hearing to learn more about the practice and its repercussions.

Democratic Reps. Ro Khanna, from California, and Carolyn Maloney, from New York, sent a letter Wednesday to the House Judiciary Committee asking its members to address the issue.

Democratic Reps. Ro Khanna of California and Carolyn Maloney of New York sent a letter on Wednesday requesting the House judiciary committee convene a hearing addressing nonconsensual condom removal, more commonly known as "stealthing."

The legislators are raising the issue in hope that the public can better understand the scope of this problem and examine any potential legal remedies to it.