GovTrack Insider staff writer Jesse Rifkin Could this be the first year in 18 years that Congress doesn’t vote to bestow anyone the Congressional Gold Medal? The last year when Congress awarded no new Congressional Gold Medal recipient was 2005. …

GovTrack Insider staff writer Jesse Rifkin Sometimes, when everybody else zigs, one person will zag. So too in Congress, where roll calls occasionally pit a single solitary member voting the opposite way against literally all their colleagues. As we do annually, GovTrack Insider looked into these “almost unanimous” votes to…

The lead House sponsor concluded a roundtable discussion about the bill by reading aloud the Langston Hughes poem “Harlem.” Context Book challenges and removals from U.S. public school classrooms and libraries have reached record highs in 2023, driven in large part by conservative groups like Moms for Liberty. Most of the…

The Guinness World Record for longest pregnancy in the animal kingdom is held by the alpine salamander of the Swiss Alps, at up to four or…

Jackson Pollock paintings already look like they’ve been vandalized. Context In 2022 and 2023, climate activists have increasingly taken to vandalizing works in art museums to stage public protests for their cause. In the U.S., two climate activists in April smeared red and black paint over the glass display case for…

After the Rapid City, South Dakota school system removed the Dave Eggers novel The Circle, Eggers provided hundreds of free copies to the city’s high school seniors. Context Book removals from U.S. public school classrooms and libraries increased by +33% during the 2022–23 school year, according to PEN America. Most censored…

Republicans say the last time a pilot was treated this unfairly was when the 1969 sketch comedy show Turn On was cancelled after its first…

Covid tests: how a Turkish man named Muzaffer Kayasan discovered he had Covid for 14 straight months.

They were responsible for almost 3,000 deaths; should the possibility of their own death at U.S. government hands be foreclosed? Context More than 22 years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, five men held at Guantánamo Bay military prison await trial for helping plot the operation. Most…