1A

School boards are used to dealing with local grievances. But these days, their meetings are becoming venues for national issues. These often mundane gatherings have become ground zero for heated debates over mask mandates, critical race theory, and gender pronouns.

But school boards have long been local flashpoints for national issues. Are the current disputes much different from those in the past over sex education, textbooks, or the fight to keep evolution out of the classroom?

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Congress is back in session and one of its most important tasks now is to figure out how to pay for President Joe Biden's $3.5 trillion dollar plan to expand the social safety net.

Democrats hope to fund it by raising taxes for wealthy corporations and individuals, which Republicans are pushing back on.

So how does Congress move forward?

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A week after the Supreme Court declined to block Texas' new abortion restrictions, the Justice Department sued the state of Texas.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, who announced the lawsuit, says the statute is unconstitutional.

We talk about the new lawsuit — and answer your questions about the most restrictive abortion law in the country.

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As the delta variant rages on, President Joe Biden says he will issue an executive order that would require certain businesses to mandate the Covid-19 vaccine for their employees.

There's a high likelihood this move will spur legal challenges, and it also raises the question of what the federal government can and can't mandate.

Biden's executive order could be a unifying force when it comes to the vaccine. It could also deepen the power struggle between federal and state authorities.

So, who should have that power? And how does polarization complicate things?

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It's wedding season... during a pandemic.

Many couples set their eyes on 2021 to host their big day with hopes of a semi-normal summer after a year of uncertainty. That normal summer didn't come, but still, nearly half of couples with wedding dates in 2020 postponed their receptions until 2021 according to a study by The Knot. That means we're seeing a lot more weddings than normal this year.

And the wedding boom is likely here to stay for at least another year.

How should couples hoping to tie the knot be thinking about their big day when Covid isn't going anywhere anytime soon?

We talk about how to stay safe during these celebrations of love, and what happens when your dream wedding has to stay just that... a dream.

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As the new school year starts, current cases of Covid-19 have now topped 40 million. A fourth of these cases are children.

President Joe Biden warned the nation of a "code red" climate emergency. His administration is laying out a solar plan to provide half of the nation's electricity by 2050.

Meanwhile, the Taliban has named its interim cabinet as it works to establish its government in Afghanistan. Women have taken to the streets in protest of the group's gender policies which include a ban on women playing sports.

Local officials in Ethiopia are claiming that Tigray forces have killed more than 120 people in recent days following battlefield losses. If true, it would be one of the deadliest massacres of the 10-month war. Tigray forces have denied these reports.

We discuss all these headlines and more during the News Roundup.

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As we near the 20-year anniversary of the September 11th attacks, many Americans are reflecting on that moment and its fallout.

For Muslim Americans, that fallout included a rise in Islamophobia. Hate crimes against Muslims spiked 500 percent from 2000-2009, according to data from Brown University.

Our panel of experts reflects on the anti-Muslim discrimination following 9/11 and what change still needs to happen.

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In less than a week, Californians will head to the polls in a recall election to decide the fate of their governor, Gavin Newsom.

It's the second recall of a California governor in the state's history and 46 candidates are hoping to take his job — including conservative talk show host Larry Elder, reality television star Caitlyn Jenner, and financial YouTuber Kevin Paffrath.

But do any of them have a chance of replacing Newsom in one of the bluest states in the U.S.? And what's with California's recall elections anyway?

We talk about the Golden State's unique practice of direct democracy.

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At the age of 18, a Yemeni man named Mansoor Adayfi says he was traveling in Afghanistan when he was kidnapped and sold to the CIA by Afghan warlords. The U.S. government had distributed flyers across the region offering bounties in exchange for "suspicious people."

He became "Detainee 441" and was held without charge at Guantánamo Bay Detention Center for 14 years until his release in 2016. Adayfi tells his story in his new memoir, "Don't Forget Us Here."

President Barack Obama signed an executive order to close Guantánamo Bay in 2009. Twelve years later, it remains open, with 39 detainees. A tribunal will begin hearing the case soon of five of those men who are accused of being involved in the 9/11 attacks. Much of the evidence is tainted by torture.

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The world of work has inspired some of our best-known classical music. From Schumann to Shostakovich, to one of the most respected American classical composers of the twentieth century: Aaron Copland. For Labor Day, Copland is our focus.

Leonard Bernstein called him "the best we've got." Works like "Appalachian Spring," "Rodeo," "A Lincoln Portrait," and "Fanfare for the Common Man" have been described as embodying the classic American virtues of simplicity, goodness, and love of wide-open spaces.No wonder he is often called the "dean of American composers."

Politics and public affairs were at the center of Copland's life. He was attacked by Sen. Joe McCarthy in the 1950s. As a liberal, at one time he supported a Communist candidate for governor of Minnesota and a Communist candidate for president.

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