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The declaration that would provide assistance for individual residents with damaged property could still be weeks away, Mississippi lawmakers said at the Wednesday hearing.

The broadly popular Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant program is on life support after Wisconsin Senate Republicans canceled a vote on a GOP-authored bill to extend the program during the body’s floor session Wednesday.  For nearly four decades, the program has allowed the state Department of Natural Resources to support the acquisition of land for conservation purposes. […]

A coalition of public health and environmental groups filed a suit Wednesday challenging the Trump administration’s recent finding that the Environmental Protection Agency could not regulate climate-warming greenhouse gases. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and President Donald Trump announced last week the administration was finalizing a repeal of the 2009 endangerment finding, which declared the agency could […]

Republicans in the Oregon Senate staged a walkout Wednesday afternoon ahead of a scheduled vote on a bill to reschedule a referendum on controversial transportation tax and fee increases from November to May. Senators were scheduled to meet at 1:30 p.m., but no Republicans were present during roll call, prompting Senate President Rob Wagner, D-Lake […]

Why Democrats shouldn’t borrow from Republicans on energy and the environment

وزارت امور خارجه ایتالیا سفیر جمهوری اسلامی را احضار کرد

FRANKFORT — The first bill to reach Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s desk in this legislative session is aimed at giving Kentuckians more time to pay utility bills expected to rise because of a spike in natural gas prices during the recent extreme cold.  Sen. Phillip Wheeler, R-Pikeville, told lawmakers this week he filed Senate Bill […]

An attorney for the truck driver is arguing statements by the San Bernardino County district attorney violated their client's rights under the California Racial Justice Act.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is now holding immigrants in two different cell blocks inside of the Metropolitan Detention Center, a hulking federal jail in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.   That news came from Rep. Dan Goldman, whose district encompasses the prison and who toured the facility for the first time on Wednesday, speaking to several detainees who had […] The post ICE Has Doubled Its Presence in Notorious Brooklyn Jail appeared first on THE CITY - NYC News.

A coalition of public health and environmental groups filed a suit Wednesday challenging the Trump administration’s recent finding that the Environmental Protection Agency could not regulate climate-warming greenhouse gases. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and President Donald Trump announced last week the administration was finalizing a repeal of the 2009 endangerment finding, which declared the agency could […]

Sign up for Chalkbeat Detroit’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system and Michigan education policy. As the Detroit school district continues to experience special education teacher shortages, its superintendent is proposing ways for more teachers to enter the field. Nikolai Vitti, superintendent of Detroit Public Schools Community District, said due to the increase in children being diagnosed with autism statewide, he wants the Michigan Department of Education, or MDE, to expand access to special education programs and offer incentives to bring in more people to the profession. “That’s the challenge we’re facing here [in DPSCD], but this is a statewide challenge,” Vitti said during a school board meeting last month. “There’s just so few teachers that are generally going into the profession, but especially special education. And then adding that special education endorsement just creates another barrier.” Currently, an aspiring teacher needs a bachelor’s degree in general education and a special credential called an endorsement. If they want to teach children with a specific disorder, like autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, the person needs an additional endorsement. Michigan has seen statewide teacher shortages for at least the last 15 years as educators leave the field at an unsustainable rate. This has forced schools to rely on those with temporary or interim credentials, according to a report released last month from the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative at Michigan State University. That is especially true for special education, where vacancy rates are nearly double the statewide average. More than 5% of all special education full-time positions were vacant in the fall of 2024, far exceeding the statewide vacancy rate of 2.8%. Across much of the state, the lack of staffing has resulted in teachers with no special education credentials instructing students with disabilities. Lacking enough specialists, districts apply for temporary approvals from the state to put general education teachers in classrooms even though they haven’t yet earned the added credential. This can stretch school resources and, critics say, shortchange the education of the district’s most vulnerable students. The shortage is not only confined to teachers – Michigan also lacks speech language pathologists, social workers, and paraprofessionals who work with students with disabilities. At a board meeting on Feb. 10, Vitti said DPSCD had 28 teacher and 32 support staff vacancies. That includes six paraprofessionals in the Exceptional Student Education, or ESE, department, 10 occupational therapists, six physical therapists, and one speech language and pathologist. However, Vitti said the district is “overstaffed” for the first time during his tenure with 107 full-time and contracted psychologists. ESE is the district’s name for its special education department. The number of children in Michigan being diagnosed with autism is also rising. According to a 2024 report from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, 25,315 Medicaid-eligible children – birth through 18 years – were evaluated or reevaluated as having a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder in 2022. The following year, 27,449 children were evaluated or reevaluated, a less than 1% increase. Meanwhile, the Michigan Department of Education reported that 25,147 of all children enrolled in grades K-12 during the 2022-23 school year were assigned autism spectrum disorder eligibility. With new state Superintendent Glenn Maleyko leading the Michigan Department of Education, Vitti is hopeful he’ll be open to possible changes to the certification process. “The remedy to this is maybe require the special education certification and then give the teacher with that certification some time to gain the endorsement in the specialization area so that we can have more certified teachers in the classroom,” Vitti said during the meeting. “But we can’t do that unilaterally without MDE approving that.” Finding autism spectrum disorder teachers ‘particularly challenging’ In an email to BridgeDetroit, Vitti said that the supply of educators statewide is not meeting demands when it comes to staffing and support for special education, or Exceptional Student Education, DPSCD’s name for the department. “This is particularly challenging in areas like Autism Spectrum Disorder,” he said. DPSCD’s special education department offers several programs specifically for students with disabilities, including autism spectrum disorder. The programs that saw the biggest enrollment increases in recent years were Mild Cognitive Impairment and ASD, according to a 2025 district report. Enrollment for the autism spectrum disorder programs increased by 100 students between 2022 and 2024, from 311 to 411. The number is projected to rise again to 438 students in the upcoming 2025 report. Autism spectrum disorder classrooms should have no more than five students to a class, so at least 400 additional teachers are needed based on the number of children with autism recorded in the department of health and human services report, Vitti said. Between August 1, 2024, and July 31, 2025, 138 prospective special education teachers took the state autism spectrum disorder test, with 128 people passing. The exam is part of the Michigan Test for Teacher Certification, or MTTC. Aspiring teachers can become certified in special education in one of three ways, Michigan Department of Education spokesperson Ken Coleman told BridgeDetroit in an email: They can attend a traditional preparation program offered at a four-year university for initial certification. This lets students earn a general education endorsement and a special education endorsement simultaneously, along with a bachelor’s degree. This includes at least 30 credit hours of content-focused coursework and a minimum of an 8-week internship in a special education placement as well as at least 50 student contact hours in the area of the general education endorsement. These all contribute to the required minimum of 600 hours of clinical experiences prior to certification recommendation. Students also have the option of taking an expedited special education program. Expedited programs allow students to earn a special education endorsement without the additional general education endorsement, along with a bachelor’s degree. Completers hold a standard Michigan teaching certificate with a particular special education endorsement. This includes at least 30 credit hours of content-focused coursework and a minimum of a 300-hour internship in a special education placement. This is incorporated into the required minimum of 600 hours of clinical experiences prior to certification recommendation. A person can take an alternative pathway program, which trains people who already have a bachelor’s degree. They can earn one of the following special education endorsements: cognitive impairment, emotional impairment, physical or other health impaired, and specific learning disabilities, as well as a general education endorsement on a five-year Interim Teaching Certificate, or ITC. Alternative route candidates earning special education endorsements must complete at least 32 credit hours of content-focused coursework, pass the Michigan teaching certification test and complete an eight-week internship before they can add the endorsement to their interim teaching certificate. For teachers already in the field, they can add a particular special education endorsement to their certificate through a traditional or an alternative route program, Coleman said. The time frame to become certificated varies, he said, but a bachelor’s degree and certification coursework typically take four years to complete, while teachers earning an additional endorsement typically enter programs that last between 1.5 to 2.5 years. That makes their college training more costly. And once they graduate, many if not most districts don’t offer a pay bump for the extra training. Ben Hicks, the associate executive director of training and development for the Michigan Association of Administrators of Special Education, said the costs along with the time frame to become certified is one of the challenges he hears most from educators. “It becomes more costly and time-consuming and then on top of that, with the certification plus the endorsement, you have to student-teach twice,” he said. Coleman added that the Michigan Department of Education has made several changes to the certification process in recent years to streamline the experience of prospective special education teachers. Some of those changes include launching the Special Education Teacher Tuition Reimbursement Grant in 2021 to incentivize certified Michigan teachers to earn an endorsement in special education for employment in a program for which they are currently not qualified, allowing waiver requests for teacher placement in certain special education programs beginning in 2023, and approving preparation standards last year for a new stand-alone special education teacher credential. The endorsement is intended to stand alone on a Michigan teaching certificate but can also be combined with other endorsements in general or special education, the Michigan Department of Education said in a news release. Prospective special educators will enter the new programs this fall, and teachers will begin to enter the field with the new special education teacher endorsement by spring 2028. Vitti believes one possible solution to the shortage of autism spectrum disorder teachers is for universities to expand access to endorsements. Twelve colleges across Michigan offer autism spectrum disorder endorsements, including Eastern Michigan University, Madonna University, Oakland University, and Wayne State University. Alternative pathway programs like Talent Together, which pays school employees and community members to get teaching credentials, offer special education certifications in areas like autism spectrum disorder, cognitive, and emotional impairment and learning disabilities. DPSCD’s teacher preparation program, On the Rise Academy, does not offer autism spectrum disorder as an endorsement, but educators can become certified in cognitive impairment in addition to one of the program’s general education endorsements. “Our hope would be that the ASD programs are more accessible at universities and through alternative providers — and that there are incentives tied to increasing the number of ASD-certified teachers for university preparation programs,” Vitti said. Ensuring teachers are adequately trained State lawmakers have also taken notice of the teacher shortages in special education. In 2021, Michigan’s Legislature budgeted $1.5 million to study how to “attract, prepare, and retain qualified personnel for children with disabilities.” That task force would become Optimise. The group identifies barriers for special educators, partnering with professional organizations, institutes of higher education, and the governor’s office to come up with recommendations to those barriers. The group has several action teams, with teacher credentialing and standards being one of them. Laurie VanderPloeg, consultant for Optimise, said incentives have been a topic of discussion for some of the groups. Group members have mentioned giving special educators a stipend for their tuition reimbursement for school and paying teachers overtime for the paperwork they can’t complete during the school day. The group has also talked about reducing the amount of time in teacher prep programs, but guaranteed that there’s an increase in rigor. “We’re really looking at how do we beef up and change some of our preparation programs to be less timely, which would reduce the cost for overall tuition, but increase the quality of what’s being taught, and retaining the rigor of the program so that parents can be very comfortable with the fact that the candidates are coming out well prepared to meet the diverse needs of their children,” VanderPloeg said. Heather Eckner, director of statewide education for the Autism Alliance of Michigan, also recognizes the difficulties school districts in the state face in hiring special education teachers and staff. The nonprofit works with students with autism and their families statewide. While administrators may feel pressured to fill those vacancies, what Eckner hears from families is that they want districts to ensure teachers have adequate training and credentials. When teachers don’t have that training, she has seen cases of educators using exclusionary discipline tactics like seclusion and restraint. “If we think about it from a family/student perspective, it’s like, we need people in these positions, but we need personnel who are appropriately trained and adequately supported to meet the needs of kids,” Eckner said. “When that’s not in place, we see a rise in things that nobody really wants to happen, where kids get pushed out and underserved or inappropriately served. Higher ed teacher prep programs really have not evolved to better prepare teachers for the student populations that they encounter in any setting in schools now.” Like Vitti, Eckner wants to see more alternative teacher preparation programs that offer special education endorsements. “Special education is often left out of the plan for comprehensive reform,” Eckner said. “Now you’re getting these pathways underway like TeachMichigan and Talent Together. But where’s your plan to help build a pipeline to increase how many special education-endorsed teachers we have?” Bridge Michigan reporter Isabel Lohman contributed to this report. Micah Walker is a reporter for BridgeDetroit. You can reach her at mwalker@bridgedetroit.com.

(The Center Square) – Democratic attorneys general from 13 states on Wednesday sued the U.S. Department of Energy over its decision to terminate $2.7 billion in federal money for energy and infrastructure programs. The suit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, says the programs were mandated by bipartisan majorities in Congress and that the Trump administration violated the Constitution’s separation of powers, which gives Congress the power of the purse. The lawsuit is being co-led by attorneys general from California, Colorado and Washington state. Other plaintiffs are attorneys general from Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin. Besides the U.S. Department of Energy, defendants include Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, the Office of Management and Budget, and OMB Director Russell Vought. In California, $1.2 billion in federal funding for Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems and $4 million under the Resilient and Efficient Codes Implementation program were terminated. “The president doesn’t just get to cancel them because he disagrees with them,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta told reporters during a virtual news conference Wednesday afternoon with Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser. The Center Square reached out Wednesday to the White House and the U.S. Department of Energy for comments, but did not receive a response before press time. The Trump administration has called clean energy grants a “green new scam” that fail to meet economic security or clean energy standards. The lawsuit refers to Republican President Donald trump's executive order, called "Unleashing American Energy" and issued on Inauguration Day - Jan. 20, 2025. Trump's order says "burdensome and ideologically motivated regulations" have impeded development of energy and natural resources and caused higher costs for energy, transportation, heating, utilities, farming and manufacturing. The order calls on all agencies to pause the distribution of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The latter is also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The suit accuses the Trump administration, including the Department of Energy and the Office of Management and Budget, of eliminating programs created under the two laws. The lawsuit said the Department of Energy followed up with a list in March of DOE-funded energy and infrastructure projects it would end and expanded that list in October. "In our constitutional system, only Congress has the power to appropriate funding, and to define if and how federal programs are administered," the lawsuit says. Weiser accused the Trump administration of creating its own scam by blocking money Congress allocated for states. “Federal funding can’t be terminated to punish states or score political points,” Bonta said. He added the termination of federal money threatens more than 200,000 union jobs in California and guarantees higher energy prices. “California believes in innovation and clean energy,” Bonta said. “We won’t stand by while lawful funding is stripped away.” Weiser accused the Trump administration of canceling the same grants in blue states that it is allowing for red states. “We don’t live in the Blue States of America or the Red States of America. We live in the United States of America,” Weiser said. The Center Square Thursday asked Weiser and Bonta several questions about their current and previous lawsuits against the Trump administration. Weiser replied by accusing the Trump administration of making arbitrary and capricious decisions that violate the federal Administrative Procedure Act. He said the federal government didn't give a reason for blocking funding such as approximately $300 million to Colorado State University to study ways to reduce methane emissions. “If we’re going to have gas and oil development, it’s valuable to make sure methane emissions aren’t happening," Weiser told The Center Square. "In Colorado, we have these methane-producing wells, and we’re seeking to address it." Bonta said the hydrogen project in California, which gets most of the federal energy funding cited on Wednesday, involves hydrogen plants and distribution. Bonta and Weiser agreed they’re getting a high rate of return on their lawsuits against the Trump administration. For every dollar spent suing Trump, California gets a return of nearly $10,000, Bonta said, answering The Center Square’s questions. He said that after spending $19 million so far, the state has protected $200 billion in federal funding. “Some things are priceless,” Bonta said, citing the rights to vote and birthright citizenship and court rulings that resulted in the removal of federalized deployed National Guard and Marines from Los Angeles. Weiser said his office received an additional $600,000 to spend on litigation against Trump and has secured $1 billion in federal funding. Wednesday’s lawsuit is the 58th one California has filed since President Donald Trump started his second term in January 2025. For Colorado during the same period, it’s the 54th suit. Bonta said California filed 120 lawsuits against Trump during his first term and, at the state’s current pace, is on the way to doubling that during the president’s second term. Weiser, who became the Colorado attorney general in 2019, said he filed 19 lawsuits against the first Trump administration and three times that since January 2025. During other administrations, California has filed few, if any, lawsuits against the federal government, Bonta said.

روایت شاهد عینی از خشونت حکومت علیه مردم ایران؛ وقتی «نمایش قدرت» ابزار حکمرانی می‌شود

Norman C. Francis, the stalwart city leader in civil rights, business and education who led Xavier University for nearly half a century, died early Wednesday morning at Oschner Hospital. He was 94 years old. One of the most influential figures in New Orleans’ recent history, Francis played key roles in both integration efforts of the […]

PIERRE — Legislation to address aggressive and violent student behavior passed with full support from the South Dakota House Education Committee on Wednesday, and legislation providing money to build a non-residential treatment center for children also advanced. The bill addressing aggressive and violent students will be heard next by the full House of Representatives. The […]

COLUMBIA — The head of the South Carolina Senate GOP cautioned his fellow legislators on the optics of electing a former member of the General Assembly to the state’s highest court. “Y’all, this looks really bad,” Majority Leader Shane Massey said on the Senate floor Wednesday. In a rare move, the Edgefield Republican directly addressed […]

RICHMOND, Va.—The Virginia House of Delegates on Tuesday passed legislation continuing billions of dollars in state tax exemptions for all qualifying new and existing data centers as long as they take a series of steps to move away from fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy. Passed roughly along party lines in the Democratic chamber, […]

The experience will include four exhibitions focused on the tournament’s storied history and soccer’s impact on the world.

(The Center Square) - Washington Democratic leadership Wednesday told The Center Square there is disagreement between Republicans and Democrats about the best way to respond to the tragic number of children dying or suffering critical incidents in homes with drug-addicted parents. Republicans have been trying for years to amend the Keeping Families Together Act and the “imminent harm” threshold for removing a child from a home where there is drug abuse, and/or neglect. As reported by The Center Square, supporters of a fix say the definition of imminent harm needs to be changes, as it is currently leading to children being sent back to homes where lethal drugs are present and, in many cases, led to their death. There were more critical incidents in 2025 than ever before. During Monday night floor debate in the House, Rep. Travis Couture, R-Allyn, asked Democratic leadership to pull child welfare bills out of committee and force a floor vote. “People are backing this bill and begging people please; can we save these kids?” Couture said. “Couple summers ago, in Everett, three babies overdosed in the same day, all related to different families due to fentanyl exposure. One died and two were revived. And, Mr. Speaker, the very next day, after being revived, we sent those babies back home to the dangerous environment. Isn’t it nuts that we send babies back to the same fentanyl, abusing home just a day after they were exposed to fentanyl. Is there an expert that says, that's safe for the baby?” Democrats rejected all three motions, with Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon, D-West Seattle, pushing back on Couture’s suggestion that Democrats aren’t doing enough to protect kids. “I do know that they've been looking at the issue of child welfare very seriously," said Fitzgibbon during a media availability after The Center Square asked why Democrats are not taking up the bills. “There's an honest difference of opinion among legislators about what is the best way to keep kids safe. What I took exception to on the floor was the assertion that some of us care more about that than others. I don't think that's true.” Fitzgibbon said there is disagreement on the right way to go about addressing the harm being done to children. “We are not unanimous about the right way to go about that, and the right way to also support keeping families together," he said. Majority Leader Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, then said changing the imminent harm standard may not be the solution. “That question about the imminent harm, you're presuming that that's the solution,” she said. “When you look at the work that we did a couple of years ago, to make it more clear to the courts about what they could take into consideration with regard to removal….the critical incidents have shrunk dramatically in that time since we passed that bill.” Sen. Nikki Torres, R-Pasco, also had a bill (SB 5979) to address the high number of children being harmed in homes with drug addicted families. The bill was on the consent calendar Tuesday, but never came to the floor. “It had full support from committee, and it should’ve been an easy vote on the floor," Torres told The Center Square on Wednesday. "It just never got pulled to the floor for a vote. It was never put on a run list, sadly.” During a Tuesday media availability, Republican leaders questioned why Democrats aren't advancing the legislation that could save lives. “I had a little girl in Kennewick who passed away because she was hungry and her parents were locked in the bathroom doing drugs, and she ate Skittles [laced with] fentanyl and died," said Rep. April Connors, R-Kennewick. "We are hearing story after story after story of kids dying from these overdoses and the D's are not being held accountable and they're not putting our bills through hearings that would actually solve the issue." Rep. Peter Abbarno, R-Centralia, said the child protection agency isn't doing its job. “Clearly DCYF has significant issues," he said. "Clearly, families are in trouble, children are in trouble. It’s very clear there's families in crisis, children are dying, there's a drug issue, mental health issues and DCYF is not being a responsible government agency and it's a real problem.” A related bill offered by Senate Minority Leader John Braun, R-Centralia, seeks to amend the “endangerment with a controlled substance statute to include fentanyl or synthetic opioids,” according to the bill summary of SB 5071. It passed the Senate with near unanimous support. Rep. Fitzgibbon said it will be up to the committee if they want to take up the legislation. 5071 was referred to the House Community Safety Committee on Jan. 26 but has not been scheduled for a public hearing.

در داده‌نمای برنامه «میدان» نگاهی کرده‌ایم به سهم ناچیز نهاد آموزش از بودجه کشور در مقایسه با بودجه نهادهای مذهبی و ایدئولوژیک.