Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday put a spotlight on high unemployment among young people. On Thursday, protecting seniors from budget cuts was the focus of summit he hosted in Washington. On Thursday, Sanders renewed his call for filibuster reform after Senate Republicans used stalling tactics to keep President Obama’s nominees to head EPA and the Department of Labor bottled up in committee. A Thursday Senate speech focused on modernizing the U.S. Postal Service. And in a Wednesday column in Politico, Sanders examined the severe shortage of primary care physicians in the United States.

Sen. Bernie Sanders makes a point during a meeting with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and other labor leaders on Thursday in the U.S. Capitol.

Young and Unemployed in America The unemployment rate for workers 16- to 24-years-old was 16.2 percent in April. That’s more than double the conservative official national unemployment rate that the Labor Department announced last Friday. For teenagers, the overall unemployment rate is 25.1 percent. For black teens the number is a distressing 43.1 percent. The United States has surpassed much of Europe in the percentage of young adults without jobs, according to The New York Times. What has Congress done? It cut $1 billion from youth jobs programs over the past decade. Bernie is working on legislation to change that. For a fact sheet on youth unemployment, click here. Are you under 25 and jobless or know someone who is, Sanders wants to hear your story. Click here to send a video and here to send an email.

Social Security Summit Sen. Bernie Sanders hosted a summit meeting Wednesday with seniors, veterans and other grassroots groups united to protect Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans from budget cuts proposed by congressional Republicans and some Democrats. The event drew hundreds of opponents of a proposal to cut cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security and disabled veterans by revising how the consumer price index is calculated. To watch the entire meeting, click here. To see highlights, click here.

Republican Obstructionists Republican senators on Thursday stalled the confirmation of President Obama's nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Even if Democrats can move Gina McCarthy’s nomination out of committee, she still could face a filibuster on the Senate floor. Sanders said the filibuster rules should be changed to stop Republicans from using parliamentary tactics to thwart the majority. Republican senators on Wednesday delayed for the second time in two weeks a vote on the nomination of Tom Perez, who Sanders called “a strong and competent candidate” to head the Department of Labor. To watch highlights from the environment committee hearing, click here.

USPS Sanders spoke Thursday about U.S. Postal Service operations. In a Senate floor speech, he noted that the Postal Service operated at a profit until it was required to come up with $5 billion a year to fund future health benefits for employees. Sanders and Rep. Peter DeFazio have authored legislation to modernize the Postal Service, but in his Senate speech Sanders noted that the mail service could still be turning a profit today without the unprecedented funding requirement. To watch on C-SPAN, click here.

Save Lives, Ease Suffering, Prevent Billions in Wasteful Spending  “The American approach to primary health care is one of the more glaring failures of a dysfunctional health care system that costs almost twice as much per capita as that of any other major country — often with worse results,” Sanders wrote in a column published on Wednesday by Politico. “We need 16,000 more primary-care practitioners to fill gaps in care that exist today. That number will significantly increase in the years to come, beginning next year when 30 million more Americans get insurance under the Affordable Care Act.” To read the column, click here.

Baby Names The Social Security Administration announced on Thursday that the most popular baby names in Vermont in 2011 were Liam and Emma. There wasn’t a Bernie, Patrick or Peter in the top 100. To see the state-by-state list, click here.