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As early voting began in the 2026 primary, the campaign of Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) bashed “Democrat-aligned dark money groups” for running ads supporting his opponent, Sheriff Sam Page. Page, the longtime sheriff of Rockingham County, Berger’s home, is by any measure the most serious primary challenger the powerful Republican Senate leader […]

Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis was shot in the leg during the incident. Another Venezuelan man was also accused of attacking an immigration officer.

ICE agents arrested five men on their way to work in late January in Du Quoin.

Complaints about President Shaunda Richardson-Snell reached Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which sent a letter to the college asking it to stop.

萬斯給歐洲人留下惡劣的印象，始於去年的慕尼黑安全會議，令歐洲震驚的是，這位上任才兩月的美國副總統，滿口教訓歐洲如何做的語氣，認為歐洲文明面臨消亡危險，批評歐洲反民主排擠極右翼，對烏克蘭戰爭採信俄方邏輯，形同拉開了幾天後澤連斯基在白宮受辱的序曲，也敲響了美國至少部分拆毀自己親手參與締造的戰後秩序的警鐘。

From bingo and dancing to wine tasting and live music, here are some top events happening Feb. 13 to 15: Things to do in Stockton Feb. 13–15: Galentine’s bingo, wine and chocolate weekend and more is a story from Stocktonia News, a rigorous and factual newsroom covering Greater Stockton, California. Please consider making a charitable contribution to support our journalism.

(The Center Square) – Lawmakers in California are starting to roll out a new oversight review process to ensure bills passed in previous years are meeting residents' needs. So far, 14 bills passed since 2015 by lawmakers currently in office have been picked to undergo the process. All 14 bills were introduced by Democratic members of the state Assembly, according to a list released by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas' office. Assemblymember Gail Pellerin is the author of one of the bills, Assembly Bill 2496, which was passed in 2014 and aimed to help foster families. “Our hopes are that we have a solid path forward for our foster family homes to get the insurance they need to take care of our most vulnerable youth in California,” Pellerin, D-Santa Cruz, told The Center Square on Friday. “We hit a barrier, a stopping point, where we basically put a Band-Aid on the problem, and now we’re looking for the long-term solution,” Pellerin said. Previous years’ bills passed in the Assembly and signed into law by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom have sometimes not been implemented, according to members of the California Assembly. “As legislators, it is disheartening for us to find out that these departments or regulatory agencies are sitting on these bills, waiting us out until we are termed out, or refusing to implement these bills as if they are members of the Legislature,” Assemblymember Mike Gipson, D-Gardena, told The Center Square in an exclusive interview on Friday. “When we pass a bill,the implementation starts the first of the year. That’s what our expectations are as lawmakers.” Gipson added it takes months of working on a bill and involving constituents who care about the issue before a bill is passed and signed by the governor. “Believing the bill is going to be implemented by a state agency and finding out months and months or years later that that bill has not been implemented is quite concerning,” Gipson told The Center Square. After an Assembly floor session concluded Friday in Sacramento, other lawmakers told The Center Square they want to see the implementation of bills they authored in previous years. “There’s nothing worse than when you’re not doing implementation,” Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguilar-Curry, D-Davis, told The Center Square. “You can do all the policy you want to, and you can do a bill. But if you can’t implement it, you should be checking yourself, so I think the outcome is going to be really good.” Aguiar-Curry added she thinks lawmakers should always follow through if their previously passed bills are actually being implemented. “People should always be doing that review process,” Aguiar-Curry said. “I think some people don’t realize how important it is.” The effort comes on the heels of a CBS investigation that showed that the state’s legislators ignored recommendations from the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office for years that show that many of the Legislature's laws received little to no oversight by those same lawmakers to ensure that laws were implemented after being signed by the governor. The investigation reported billions of dollars of fraud and waste were found in a variety of taxpayer-funded efforts, including housing programs to help the homeless, public safety, wildfire risk management and drinking water. Republican lawmakers, too, support the outcomes review process, expressing in a letter sent to Speaker Rivas, D-Salinas, that they don’t want to see taxpayer dollars wasted from legislation it passes. “Assembly Republicans are committed to Protecting the Promise of accountable government,” Assembly Minority Leader Heath Flora, R-Ripon, wrote in the letter that was signed by several other Republican legislators. “We agree that state laws, regulations, and programs should be periodically reviewed to ensure they deliver the promised results once enacted. For this reason, Republicans have repeatedly called for audits of state programs and authored several bills requiring legislative review of regulations.”

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox. At the height of the pandemic, as enrollment in New York City’s public schools took a nosedive, officials kept school budgets steady. City officials, who were flush with billions in one-time federal relief funding, didn’t want to take away resources from schools where students had experienced prolonged learning interruptions, even though budgets typically are tied to headcount. But as the pandemic receded and federal funds dried up, officials continued to plow hundreds of millions of dollars into school budgets to protect them from cuts as enrollment losses deepened. This school year, the city is spending over $388 million to prop schools up — the largest annual sum since the pandemic hit. Overall, officials have spent $1.6 billion to stave off enrollment-related cuts over the past six years, according to the Citizens Budget Commission, a watchdog group. Enrollment in the city’s public schools has dropped more than 8% during that time, to 884,000, and is projected to continue sliding. Now, as Mayor Zohran Mamdani prepares to release his first budget proposal next week — and warns of a $7 billion gap — City Hall must decide whether to continue the so-called “hold harmless” policy. Some budget experts believe the mayor should wind it down, arguing that allowing school budgets to become increasingly detached from enrollment introduces inequities. Some schools may receive significantly more money per student because of enrollment losses rather than student need. The issue is politically tricky for Mamdani, who vowed to prioritize funding for public education during the campaign. Some parent leaders worry that rolling back the policy would force some schools to cut key staff and programs. When former Mayor Eric Adams proposed bringing school spending in line with enrollment, he faced enormous backlash — prompting city officials to keep propping up school budgets throughout his term. “Nobody gets points for taking money away,” said Amy Ellen Schwartz, a public policy professor at the University of Delaware who has studied the city’s policy of keeping budgets steady. Roughly 450 of the city’s more than 1,500 schools received $127 million this year to help keep their budgets from dipping due to enrollment declines year over year. On top of that, city officials offered $262 million worth of mid-year budget relief to more than 1,000 schools because they welcomed fewer students than the city initially projected. Schwartz said there were good reasons to keep school budgets steady during the pandemic. Schools may have otherwise been forced to cut teachers as their budgets shrank, making it more difficult to meet students’ mounting academic and social needs. But Schwartz said the city must begin to reckon with managing a smaller school system. “I see no rationale for maintaining resources allocated to serve a population that isn’t there anymore,” she said. Parent leaders raise concerns about cuts to school programs Education Department officials have warned that the money may not last forever. Principals should “carefully program these resources while being mindful of long-term program sustainability,” officials said in a June budget memo. Yet on dozens of campuses, the funding represents more than 10% of the budgets they receive before the start of the school year, city data show. Ana Champeny, the vice president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission, said the city should consider phasing the money out over multiple years. “The shock to some school budgets would be pretty severe” if the funding was yanked all at once. “Enrollment is decreasing and we need to think about what is the right way to manage the school system.” School officials across the country are grappling with similar questions about how to reconcile enrollment declines in their budgeting decisions, said Jonathan Travers, the president of ERS, a nonprofit organization that advises district leaders. The policy dilemma only gets more difficult to resolve the longer the hold harmless policy persists, he noted. “The greater the divergence between a school funding and its enrollment, the more disruptive an eventual reconciliation is going to be,” Travers said. Some parent leaders urged city officials to avoid making abrupt changes without educating school communities about the budget process or taking stock of how schools are using the money. NeQuan McLean, the parent council president in Brooklyn’s District 16, said most schools in his district are struggling with low enrollment and use the money to help pay for essential programs, like music, art, and after-school. He worries that cuts could force campuses to slash those offerings, potentially making it even more difficult to attract families. “We’re barely managing with what we have,” said McLean, whose district covers Bedford-Stuyvesant. “I just hope they don’t pull this money without real community engagement.” He added that the city should consider rethinking the funding system more broadly to ensure schools can fund a range of staff and services regardless of how many students are enrolled. Losing the hold harmless money could make those campuses more likely to be merged or closed, a strategy Chancellor Kamar Samuels has said may be necessary for campuses that struggle to afford basic programs. Spokespeople for Mamdani and Samuels did not respond to questions about whether they intend to keep the hold harmless policy. How Mamdani manages the public school system’s budget remains an open question. Experts expect his preliminary budget, due on Tuesday, to offer clues. On the campaign trail, Mamdani singled out the Education Department as one area he hoped to find efficiencies and vowed to overhaul its procurement process. The mayor has ordered each city agency to appoint a “chief savings officer” with an eye toward assessing programs and identifying wasteful spending. An Education Department spokesperson confirmed they have selected someone for the role. They declined to say who it is. Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

En este episodio descubrimos la cara menos visible de uno de los monumentos más conocidos del mundo Regresa el mítico podcast ‘Catástrofe Ultravioleta’ con una nueva temporada en elDiario.es *** Puedes suscribirte gratis al podcast Catástrofe Ultravioleta en tu plataforma de audio favorita: Spotify Apple Podcast iVoox Podimo RSS ¿Qué es Catástrofe Ultravioleta? Catástrofe Ultravioleta es un podcast de Antonio Martínez Ron, Javier Peláez y Javi Álvarez que trata de acercar el mundo de la ciencia a través de los más diversos ámbitos de conocimiento. Cada episodio es una experiencia sonora que ofrece una aproximación a la realidad desde perspectivas inesperadas y una buena dosis de humor. Desde el punto de vista técnico, cada entrega es también una pequeña composición artística, ya que cuenta con ambientaciones y músicas originales para cada episodio, montadas en ocasiones con el viejo espíritu del radioteatro y el espectáculo sonoro. Todo para emprender un viaje mental y sensorial que transmita el amor a la ciencia y la sensación de que el mundo está por descubrir. Estrenado a principios de 2014 y ganador de un premio Ondas, Catástrofe Ultravioleta es un podcast pionero en español, con una enorme comunidad de seguidores. Un proyecto innovador que explora el formato sonoro para contar historias, cuyo regreso despierta una gran expectación. La cuarta temporada de Catástrofe Ultravioleta se podrá escuchar en elDiario.es a principios de 2026.

The Washington Post’s losses, reportedly as much as $100 million a year, are mere pocket change for Jeff Bezos.

Vereador do PT aponta falta de planejamento, superlotação, cortes em banheiros e repressão a blocos comunitários ‘Prefeitura de SP está fazendo o Carnaval do caos’, diz Nabil Bonduki sobre gestão Nunes e alerta para riscos à população apareceu primeiro no Brasil de Fato.

هشدار گزارشگر ویژه سازمان ملل نسبت به اجرای مجازات اعدام معترضان در ایران

شاهین مدرس: جمهوری اسلامی با بازدارندگی عملیاتی روبرو شده است

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress on Thursday sought a ruling from a federal judge to block yet another Department of Homeland Security policy that required a notice for lawmakers to conduct oversight visits to immigration detention facilities. The policy is the third from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on the subject, and it is nearly identical to […]

Three Haitian American designers are part of a new denim collection dropping during Black History Month with Harlem’s Fashion Row. The post Gap chooses 3 designers with Haitian roots for special denim collection appeared first on The Haitian Times.

The House’s version of House Bill 2, the state budget, earmarked $26 million for a 1% raise for all state workers, including public school and higher education staff. Those raises, however, won’t happen, Senate Finance Chair George Muñoz (D-Gallup) told Source NM on Friday, because the funds are needed to cover teachers’ insurance premiums.

رضا طالبی: کنفرانس مونیخ از ۲۰۱۱ به بعد مرکزی برای مذاکرات پشت پرده شد

Late this week, chatter began to circulate of an impending visit by U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to discuss “election security.” On the heels of a raid late last month in Fulton County, Georgia, it sparked rumors of a similar raid in Maricopa County to search for non-existent widespread voter fraud. Noem’s […]

کنفرانس امنیتی مونیخ

Francesca Albanese, relatora especial de la ONU para Palestina, enfrenta presión de Francia, Alemania y República Checa por supuestas declaraciones sobre Israel, que ella desmiente. La polémica evidencia la tensión entre libertad de expresión y diplomacia internacional.