Local
Lawmaker jumps into the debate over sexual assaults on Georgia campuses
Cobb County lawmaker Earl Ehrhart aspires to make sexual assault on Georgia campuses a thing of the past, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was inspired by articles written from AJC’s Janel Davis and Shannon McCaffrey who unearthed, over a five year period, that Georgia’s five largest public universities had recorded 90 reports of rape and sodomy with no criminal prosecutions and 43 sexual misconduct complaints. The universities include the University of Georgia, Georgia State University, Kennesaw State, Georgia Tech and Georgia Perimeter College. Ehrhart has already had conversations with university leaders, and intends to have House committee hearings in the fall.
National
Health Care bill in Florida was rejected
Florida’s House of Representatives reject a reincarnation of Obama’s Affordable Care Act. according to the New York Times. The bill, called The Florida Health Affordability Exchange, was designed to insure more than 650,000 residents. This bill would have allowed more than $18 billion in federal funding to go towards expanding healthcare insurance availability and assisting buyers in obtaining coverage from private providers. The bill was defeated in the House by a vote of 72 to 41, making Florida one of 22 states refusing to expand Medicare under the Affordable Care Act. This bill’s failure also means affordable healthcare coverage will not have another chance to expand until next year. This bill was introduced on Friday in a special vote scheduled to end June 20.
International
ISIS uses social media to make inroads in U.S.
An extremist group known as ISIS is rapidly gaining followers and sympathizers via social media to attract young, disillusioned Americans into their fold, according to CNN. As a result, approximately 3,400 Westerners have travelled to Iraq and Syria to establish an Islamic state, while some 200 Americans have gone or tried to travel to Syria. The extremist group’s recruitment efforts are hard to detect, because of encrypted dark space communication, officials calling the inability to discern the multitude of conversations troubling.
