Tag: Sidney Slon

Hello and happy Friday! We have just one more week of February, which means we’re inching ever closer to spring. I’m Sidney Slon, and here’s the news we covered this week.

After the Presidents’ Day holiday, Olivier began the week looking into the partial government shutdown – the third in only three months. This time, congressional disagreements over immigration enforcement took center stage.

Following two fatal shootings by federal agents in Minneapolis this January, Democrats want changes that would allow more oversight of ICE and Border Patrol agents. They want agents to wear visible identification and body cameras, obtain judicial warrants and stop using face coverings. Republicans call these restrictions “burdensome” as they hold the partisan line.

While some Department of Homeland Security operations are paused, many of its agencies are considered essential and will continue functioning despite workers being unpaid, including the Transportation Security Administration and Coast Guard.

In our midweek column, Olivier dove into affordability. After months of relatively stable prices, multiple companies recently indicated they will raise prices on their goods due to tariffs and rising health insurance costs. That may be bad news for Republicans heading into the midterms this year.

While other parts of the economy are doing well under the Trump administration, like employment levels and the stock market, cost of living remains one of the most important issues for voters. There’s also the issue of promises. While President Donald Trump has promised to decrease prices for American consumers across the board, the Consumer Price Index has only shown signs of lower inflation, not lower prices. In other words, prices are still higher than when Trump began his second term last year.

Olivier’s final column of the week covered the latest developments in artificial intelligence, with an emphasis on the ethical conundrums surfaced by the new technology: