News Round-Up: January 3, 2017

Fitness model Nick Sandell

Some news items you may have missed:

• Nick Sandell wishes you a shirtless Happy Happy New Year!

• Debra Messing says new Will & Grace episodes are not a done deal.

• Only 46% of Americans believe Donald Trump can handle an international crisis versus an average of 71% of his predecessors.

• Janet Jackson gives birth to her first child at 50.

• The Alabama NAACP is holding a sit-in at Sen. Jeff Sessions office until he withdraws his nomination for U.S. Attorney General.

• New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proposed to offer free tuition at state colleges to hundreds of thousands of middle- and low-income New Yorkers.

• On New Year's Eve, a federal judge issued an injunction blocking enforcement of federal protections that would have barred those in healthcare services to deny reproductive health services as well as services to transgender people based on "religious beliefs."

• It's been 159 days since Donald Trump held a press conference. Back in the summer days of the campaign, he excoriated Hillary Clinton for going 179 days with answering questions from the press. Hypocrisy?

Hillary Clinton Proposes Tuition-Free College For Households Making Less Than $125K

Hillary Clinton

Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has announced she supports waiving tuition at four year public colleges for students whose families make less than $125,000.

The Clinton campaign announced the shift in higher education policy is a result of private meetings with Sen. Bernie Sanders.

For months Clinton has promoted the idea of free community college plus "debt-free" policies which would help students shake off thousands in student loans. During the Democratic primary, she disagreed with the idea of free college for everyone saying, “I don’t think taxpayers should be paying to send Donald Trump’s kids to college.”

The announced policy would be phased in over five years starting with an initial threshold of $85,000 in household income, and expanding to those making less than $125,000 by 2021.