The video, which was shared by Marshall Mathers himself, accompanied the caption: “We have one shot. One opportunity. One moment. Don’t miss the chance — vote.” It included the iconic song from 8 Mile, Lose Yourself.
Beyoncé Knowles-Carter took to Instagram to endorse Joe Biden for President with a video of herself wearing a Biden-Harris face mask.
The presumptive Democratic nominee has selected the California lawmaker to be his vice presidential running mate in this fall’s general election, the campaign announced on Tuesday.
I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked @KamalaHarris — a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants — as my running mate.
Back when Kamala was Attorney General, she worked closely with Beau. I watched as they took on the big banks, lifted up working people, and protected women and kids from abuse. I was proud then, and I'm proud now to have her as my partner in this campaign.
.@JoeBiden can unify the American people because he's spent his life fighting for us. And as president, he'll build an America that lives up to our ideals.
I'm honored to join him as our party's nominee for Vice President, and do what it takes to make him our Commander-in-Chief.
Born in Oakland to a Jamaican father and Indian mother, Kamala Harris won her first election in 2003 when she became San Francisco’s district attorney. She was elected California’s attorney general in 2010, the first woman and Black person to hold the job.
Joe Biden will announce his 2020 presidential candidacy on Thursday morning with an online video, Mike Memoli reports via two sources close to Biden with direct knowledge of the planning. Biden will then appear in Pittsburgh Monday for an event at a local union hall.
Biden’s career in public service began in 1972 when he was elected to the Senate in Delaware.
Biden served in the Senate for nearly 40 years, where he served as chair of the Senate Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees, before becoming vice president in 2009.
Other notable Democratic candidates vying for the 2020 presidency include Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Corey Booker.
All these candidates won’t do nothing for black people at the end of the day. They won’t even get the liquor stores out of our neighborhood unless they reinvest and gentrified our communities.
The more than 391,000 American children and youth living in foster care deserve to grow up in safe and loving homes devoted to their health, happiness, and success. These are often our most vulnerable children, and we have a solemn responsibility as a country to ensure they grow up healthy, supported, and with as much opportunity as all other children.
From day one, the Biden-Harris Administration has taken action to protect children and youth in the child welfare system, support the thousands of dedicated kinship and foster families who are a critical resource to children and families in times of need, and invest in community-based child abuse and neglect prevention programs that help to prevent the conditions that lead to kids entering foster care in the first place.
Today, and in recognition of National Kinship Month, the Biden-Harris Administration is building on this progress and releasing three landmark regulations to strengthen services and support for children and families in the child welfare system. Specifically, the regulations will:
Support kinship caregivers – family members and loved ones who step forward to care for a child in foster care – by making it easier for them to access resources and financial assistance.
Protect LGBTQI+ youth in foster care from abuse and mistreatment and ensure they have the services they need to thrive.
Expand access to legal services for children and families at risk of entering or in the child welfare system.
Taken together, this landmark package of new rules, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Administration for Children and Families, will advance equity in the child welfare system and have a profound impact on the safety and wellbeing of families across the country.
Support kinship caregivers. When parents are having a difficult time safely caring for their own children, it is often grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other relatives who step forward to provide a loving home for those children, either temporarily or permanently. These kinship caregivers help children stay connected to their families and cultural identity, and research shows that children in foster care who are able to live with their kin experience less trauma. But for too long, federal regulations imposed significant burdens on these kinship caregivers by making it harder for them to become foster families. Today, HHS has issued a final regulation that will allow states to simplify the process for kinship caregivers to become foster care providers, and require that states provide these family members with the same financial support that any other foster home would receive. This regulation will help families across the country care for children in their extended family, and receive the resources and financial support they need and deserve. These changes will advance the Administration’s priority of equity for families who have been underserved and adversely affected by persistent poverty.
Protect LGBTQI+ youth. LGBTQI+ youth face profound disparities in the foster care system. Because of family rejection and abuse, LGBTQI+ children are overrepresented in foster care where they face poor outcomes, including mistreatment and discrimination because of who they are. To address these disparities, President Biden signed an Executive Order directing HHS to protect LGBTQI+ youth in the foster care system. Today, HHS is delivering on that promise by releasing a proposed regulation to protect LGBTQI+ youth in foster care. The proposed rule would require that every state’s child welfare agency ensure that LGBTQI+ children in their care are placed in foster homes where they will be protected from mistreatment related to their sexual orientation or gender identity, where their caregivers have received special training on how to meet their needs, and where they can access the services they need to thrive.
Expand access to legal services. Many families that come to the attention of a child welfare agency are in the midst of or recovering from familial, health, housing, or economic challenges. Children and families in the child welfare system must navigate complex legal proceedings related to these challenges but are often forced to do so without access to a lawyer. This makes it harder for families to achieve stability and get the necessary resources. Oftentimes access to legal representation could avoid placing children in foster care. For example, under this rule, if a parent was seeking a restraining order from an abusive spouse in order to keep their children safe and prevent their removal from the home, a state could use federal funds to help that parent access a lawyer to file a restraining order. Today, HHS is releasing a proposed rule that will allow child welfare agencies to use federal funds to expand access to legal services for families who need access to a lawyer to achieve stability. In addition, the rule would allow Tribes to be reimbursed for the legal costs of intervening in a state foster care court proceeding over the parental rights of an Indian child, which Tribes have the authority to do under the Indian Child Welfare Act, but which can be costly for Tribes.
These new regulations build on the Biden-Harris Administration’s track record of strengthening services for children and families in the child welfare system, including:
Investing hundreds of millions of dollars in community-based child abuse and neglect prevention programs.
Proposing a $5 billion expansion of evidence-based foster care prevention services to allow more children to remain safely in their homes with their families.
Proposing a $9 billion expansion to provide housing vouchers to all 20,000 youth exiting foster care annually — a key step in helping them secure stable housing during this difficult transition.
Working to help states place more children with relatives and other trusted adults instead of in group homes, and calling on Congress for an additional $1 billion to help youth aging out of foster care find a job, enroll in and afford higher education, obtain necessities, and access preventative health care
Calling on Congress to make the Adoption Tax Credit fully refundable and proposing extending it to legal guardians — including grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other relatives.
Working with states to help youth aging out of the foster care system stay in school, participate in job training programs, pay their bills, and transition to adulthood.
Expanding the Military Parental Leave Program, which enables service members to spend needed time with their families following a child’s adoption or placement in long-term foster care.
Bringing the child poverty rate to a historic low during the expanded Child Tax Credit, preventing children from being unnecessarily removed from their families because of poverty.
Since taking office, President Biden has delivered on the most ambitious climate, clean energy, conservation, and environmental justice agenda in history – signing into law the largest investment in climate action ever, protecting more than 21 million acres of public lands and water and advancing the Justice40 Initiative, which directs 40 percent of the benefits from key federal investments to disadvantaged communities. As part of this historic commitment to tackle the climate crisis, President Biden promised to mobilize the next generation of clean energy, conservation, and resilience workers.
Today, through his Investing in America agenda, President Biden is delivering on that commitment by taking executive action to launch the American Climate Corps – a workforce training and service initiative that will ensure more young people have access to the skills-based training necessary for good-paying careers in the clean energy and climate resilience economy. The American Climate Corps will mobilize a new, diverse generation of more than 20,000 Americans – putting them to work conserving and restoring our lands and waters, bolstering community resilience, deploying clean energy, implementing energy-efficient technologies, and advancing environmental justice, all while creating pathways to high-quality, good-paying clean energy and climate resilience jobs in the public and private sectors after they complete their paid training program.
The American Climate Corps will focus on equity and environmental justice – prioritizing communities traditionally left behind, including energy communities that powered our nation for generations, leveraging the talents of all members of our society, and prioritizing projects that help meet the Administration’s Justice40 goal. Additionally, President Biden is calling on Tribal, State, and local governments, labor unions, nonprofit service allies, the private sector, and philanthropy to collaborate with the Federal government to expand skills-based training partnerships to ensure our nation has the workforce necessary to meet our climate goals. In fact, just today, five new states are launching their own Climate Corps, which will work as implementing collaborators of the American Climate Corps. With today’s announcement, ten states will have launched Climate Corps in 2021.
Additionally, the White House is launching a new website where anyone interested in joining or supporting the American Climate Corps can sign up to learn more: www.whitehouse.gov/climatecorps.
The American Climate Corps will:
Train young people in clean energy, conservation, and climate resilience-related skills: The American Climate Corps is a new initiative that will provide the next generation of Americans with job training and service opportunities to work on a wide range of projects that tackle climate change – including restoring coastal wetlands to protect communities from storm surges and flooding, deploying clean energy, managing forests to improve health and prevent catastrophic wildfires, implementing energy efficient solutions to cut energy bills for hardworking families, and more. All American Climate Corps programs will be paid experiences that adhere to a common set of programmatic standards, and provide pathways to high-quality employment opportunities in the public and private sectors. No prior experience is required for most positions. Through the American Climate Corps, federal departments and agencies will build upon existing relationships to ensure that all young people have the chance to participate in these opportunities.
Coordinate Recruitment Across Federal Programs: In the coming months, to facilitate a streamlined experience for American Climate Corps participants, the Federal government will launch a dedicated American Climate Corps recruitment website, where participants can learn about and apply for opportunities in their community and organizations can learn how to work with American Climate Corps members. Moreover, to ensure Federal agencies are working together to implement the American Climate Corps, the Department of Labor, Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Energy, and AmeriCorps will sign a memorandum of understanding to formalize this new initiative, and AmeriCorps will stand up a new “American Climate Corps hub,” which will support the American Climate Corps.
Expand AmeriCorps Segal Education Awards Access: Today, President Biden is encouraging the Chief Executive Officer of AmeriCorps to consider expanding access to Segal AmeriCorps Education Awards to American Climate Corps members conducting national service work. Segal AmeriCorps Education Awards can be used by AmeriCorps members after completing their service to pay for post-secondary education and training or to reduce their student debt.
Streamline Pathways into Civil Service: The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has issued a proposed rulemaking that could, if finalized, create a streamlined pathway into federal service for federally-supported national, state, local, or Tribal service programs, including American Climate Corps programs.
Leverage Tribal, State, and Local Governments: Five states across the country, including California, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, and Washington, have already launched successful Climate Corps programs, demonstrating the power of skills-based training as a tool to expand pathways into good-paying jobs. Today, five new states – Arizona, Utah, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Maryland – are moving forward with state-based climate corps that are funded through public-private partnerships, including AmeriCorps, which will work with the American Climate Corps as implementing collaborators to ensure young people across the country are serving their communities while participating in paid opportunities and working on projects to tackle climate change.
Today’s announcement builds on nearly $500 million of Biden-Harris Administration investments to expand pathways into good-paying union jobs by prioritizing Registered Apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeship programs, including in clean energy and other climate-focused careers. To continue building on this historic agenda, the Administration is:
Investing in Pre-Apprenticeships and Registered Apprenticeships through the Department of Labor: Earlier this year the Department of Labor YouthBuild program awarded $90 million to grantees, including supporting pre-apprenticeships that will educate and train young people in green initiatives. The Department of Labor supported a historic $20M cooperative agreement with the TradesFutures, a non-profit working to develop, promote, and improve Apprenticeship Readiness Programs, to advance equitable opportunities in construction trades. TradesFutures seeks to enroll more than 13,000 participants in pre-apprenticeship readiness programs – giving them hands-on learning experience and skill development – and expects to subsequently place at least 7,000 of them into Registered Apprenticeships in the construction industry.
Investing in Pre-Apprenticeship Programs through the Department of Energy: Today, the Department of Energy’s Career Skills Training Program announced $10 million to provide grants to pay the Federal share of career skills training programs under which students concurrently receive classroom instruction and on-the-job training for the purpose of obtaining an industry-related certification to install energy efficient building technologies. Additionally, just this week, DOE hosted the inaugural meeting of the 21st Century Energy Workforce Advisory Board, which is charged with advising the Secretary of Energy in developing a strategy for the Department of Energy to support and develop a skilled energy workforce, including—among other goals—prioritizing effective education and job training for underrepresented groups and socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals.
Expanding National Service Opportunities to Advance our Wildfire Crisis Strategy: Today, AmeriCorps and U.S. Forest Service launched Forest Corps – a five-year $15 million agreement, and the first major interagency partnership under President Biden’s American Climate Corps. Beginning next summer, this program will engage 80 young adults, ages 18-26, in wildland fire prevention, reforestation, and other natural and cultural resource management projects to support the U.S. Forest Service’s Wildfire Crisis Strategy and Reforestation Strategy. Consistent with President Biden’s call for Congress to increase the AmeriCorps living allowance, AmeriCorps NCCC Forest Corps members will receive a compensation package equivalent to $15 an hour, including lodging, transportation, clothing, a living allowance, health benefit, and more. Members will receive extensive training, hands-on experience, and leadership skills for future careers in natural resource management, forest health, and climate resilience at the U.S. Forest Service or other organizations.
Expanding the Indian Youth Service Corps: This week the Department of the Interior announced a $15 million commitment through President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda to expand the Indian Youth Service Corps and other programs supporting the next generation of conservation and climate stewards. This effort will be facilitated in collaboration with the Office of Strategic Partnerships, which was launched during the 2022 White House Tribal Nations Summit to assist with building partnerships, leveraging resources, and promoting innovative solutions for Indian Country. With funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, the Interior Department will expand the capacity of the Corps and similar projects serving underserved communities by 30 percent, reaching over 5,000 young people. The expanded programs will work with federally recognized Tribes and Tribal organizations as well as programs serving the U.S. territories, the Native Hawaiian Community, and urban communities across the United States.
