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The North Carolina Supreme Court issued a new round of opinions last week, but once again left unresolved the Leandro school funding case, a decades-old legal fight over the state’s obligation to provide a “sound, basic education” to its public school students. The Leandro case dates back to 1994, when five low-wealth, rural counties sued […]

Падзеі 16 сьнежня ў беларускай і ўсясьветнай гісторыі.

Court records show ICE ignored multiple warnings before deporting a man from El Paso to Guatemala, prompting sharp judicial criticism and a scramble to bring him back amid concerns for his safety. The post Guatemalan man illegally deported from El Paso is returned to U.S. under federal judge’s order appeared first on El Paso Matters.

An attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney on Sunday killed 15 people and left Jewish communities reeling worldwide. The violence has also drawn attention to the resilience of Australia’s distinctive Jewish community, shaped by the world’s largest concentration of Holocaust survivors outside Israel, a growing Yiddish revival scene, and a large... The post Australia’s Jewish community is defined by Holocaust survivors, Yiddishkeit, and immigrants appeared first on The Forward.

Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news. Is this thing even on? That’s what people at a public hearing on the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance wondered after the mic briefly stopped working — a technical glitch that underscored their real question: whether the group had not only heard but truly understood concerns about their work so far. Those comments from some of the roughly two dozen attendees at the Madam Walker Legacy Center on Monday took place two days before the Indianapolis Local Education Alliance’s vote on its final recommendations Wednesday. The alliance is considering two proposals that would both reduce the power of the elected IPS school board. One would give oversight of charter and IPS schools to a collaborative board consisting of IPS, mayoral, and charter school appointees. Another would give oversight to an independent Indianapolis Education Authority within the mayor’s office, and create a new secretary of education position. But would an appointed board listen and be responsive to the public’s views about schools? Several people in the audience on Monday were skeptical. They pointed out that the ILEA — which consists of appointed members — was advancing proposals to create appointed boards, despite public support for elected ones. “The thing I see here is consolidation of executive authority to individuals who do not have direct accountability to the public,” said Madison Whitcomb, a community member. “I don’t want people appointing anybody. I want them elected. When I elect someone, I have a voice in that.” ILEA member and former mayor Bart Peterson rejected the idea that public feedback had reached any kind of consensus. Ultimately, the ILEA’s recommendations will likely leave some people disappointed, he said. “It’s not about pleasing any individual,” he said. “It’s about trying to figure out the best thing to do for our city, for our students, and our families.” It’s unclear whether state lawmakers will adopt the task force’s recommendations or mandate their own changes. The alliance was created by state lawmakers to make recommendations on how charters and Indianapolis Public Schools could share transportation and facility resources. But to address those challenges, the group is also tackling the question of who in the city should have oversight of public schools. Groups supporting IPS have criticized the two proposals to change how schools are run, and instead have called for an elected school board to oversee both district and charter schools. On Monday, they also raised concerns about how the city would fund a new secretary of education position and other staff necessary to maintain the proposed Indianapolis Education Authority. But IPS has financial concerns, too, including a precipitous funding cliff that could lead to schools closing, said Chris Bultman executive director of external affairs at Indiana Math and Science Academy, an independent charter school. “That would be bad, that would reduce choice,” he said. IPS currently operates at a deficit that’s reached tens of millions of dollars, said Andrew Strope, IPS deputy superintendent, who spoke at the public comment session. And the effects of a new law that both caps property tax revenue and requires school districts to share that revenue with charter schools will further impact the district’s operations fund by up to $50 million. Some charter school supporters have praised some aspects of the two proposals the ILEA will consider Wednesday, but have also warned the group not to recommend infringing on charters’ independence. Bultman said he liked the ILEA’s proposed governance models because they retained his school’s elected board to make decisions for the school. But the ILEA should avoid limiting the number of charter authorizers, or placing a moratorium on new schools, he said. Stand for Children Indiana, an advocacy group that’s backed the expansion of charter school models, has proposed a board that’s partly elected and partly appointed by the mayor’s Office of Education Innovation. Stand for Children has also called for an end to district-run schools, calling for all schools to be autonomous — either as an Innovation Network school or a charter school — with their own boards. The head of the Indiana Charter Innovation Center has also called for all schools to become autonomous. The task force is also considering two sets of proposals for how IPS and charters could share transportation and facilities. In one model, schools would participate in and pay into a collaborative that manages transportation and building services. In another model, an independent authority would collect property taxes and oversee those services. The ILEA will meet at 6 p.m. on Dec. 17 at the City-County Building at 200 E. Washington St. and will take another hour of public comment before discussing and then voting on final recommendations. Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org. Amelia Pak-Harvey covers Indianapolis and Lawrence Township schools for Chalkbeat Indiana. Contact Amelia at apak-harvey@chalkbeat.org.

(The Center Square) – More companies are expanding in Texas on the taxpayer’s dime, including Ariat International and Southwest Airlines. Ariat, a California-based company that designs and sells high quality performance equestrian footwear and apparel, is expanding its regional headquarters in Fort Worth, with the help of a taxpayer-funded $1.5 million Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) grant. The expansion is expected to create 150 new jobs and make more than $8.9 million in capital investment in the region. “Texas is the land of economic freedom and opportunity,” Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement. “That’s why Texas is the No. 1 state in the nation for attracting new business investment and creating good-paying jobs.” Ariat’s $8.9 million expansion “showcases the strength of our state’s economy.” “Fort Worth and the State of Texas have been an incredible partner in Ariat’s growth, and we’re proud to expand our presence here with this investment,” Co-founder and CEO of Ariat International Beth Cross said in a statement. “Creating 150 new jobs in the community is especially meaningful to us, and we’re committed to building opportunities that strengthen both Ariat and Fort Worth for the long term.” The company is named after Secretariat, the race horse who won the Triple Crown in 1973. “Secretariat’s big heart and competitive spirit were the motivations behind naming our company Ariat,” Cross explains. “Ariat was founded as ‘The New Breed of Boot.’ We were the first to integrate athletic footwear technology into boots for equestrian athletes. Today, our world-class product team builds innovative and award-winning performance products for all types of outdoor and work environments.” Southwest Airlines is also expanding operations in Austin with the help of a taxpayer-funded, $14 million TEF grant and a $375,000 Veteran Created Job Bonus. The expansion is expected to create 2,000 jobs in Austin by mid-2027. The Fortune 500 company is one of the largest employers in Texas and has been headquartered in in the state since it was first incorporated in 1967. It’s the largest carrier at Austin–Bergstrom International Airport, operating more than 4,000 flights a day during peak travel periods. In 2024, it carried more than 140 million customers. With TEF support, Southwest is establishing a new pilot and flight attendant crew base in Austin. The base will include pilots and flight attendants, in addition to managerial and support staff to support flight operations across the southwest. The expansion also includes a buildout of the station’s Command Center and a training facility for flight attendants. “Southwest Airlines was born and raised in Texas and has been a core element of the economic growth we have seen in our state," Abbott said. "We are the home of economic opportunity for our fellow Texans more than any other state in the United States, and we know a key reason for that is because of everything Southwest Airlines provides. We are proud to partner with everybody connected with Southwest as well as the City of Austin on such a huge announcement for our state." “This investment demonstrates our commitment to Austin and to our customers” and Texas’ support “clears the way for Austin to become an even bigger part of our future,” Southwest Airlines President, Chief Executive Officer, and Vice Chairman of the Board Bob Jordan said in a statement. Awarded through the Texas Economic Development & Tourism office, the Texas Enterprise Fund grant “may be awarded to a business relocation or expansion project for which one Texas site is in competition with out-of-state locations to create new, good-paying jobs in the community and attract significant new capital investment to the state,” the office says. Critics argue the TEF is corporate welfare and companies would expand operations in Texas anyway because of Texas’ business friendly policies. The grants impose additional costs on cities “in the form of reduced revenues and increased liabilities,” and there’s no meaningful measurement to quantify incentives to economic well-being, the Better Cities Project has argued, The Center Square reported. The Texas Public Policy Foundation argues the TEF should be eliminated and has proposed an alternative solution, noting that “The interstate subsidy race represents an ever-spiraling stairway to more government intervention in the market.”

Like so many Jewish Americans whose families immigrated prior to World War II, I grew up believing that none of my family had survived the Holocaust. When I would ask my older relatives, they would shrug. Only my grandfather shared anything about our relatives: He remembered how his parents would receive letters from Lithuania in... The post Australia welcomed my family’s Holocaust survivors — and Bondi Beach soon became a symbol of renewal for me appeared first on The Forward.

Неясно, повлияет ли этот план на тех, кто, по словам правозащитников, был заключен в тюрьму по политическим мотивам, число таких лиц в Азербайджане, по данным Европейского парламента, за последние годы возросло почти до 400

De toekomst van deze meisjes is afhankelijk van het creëren van ruimte waar vrouwen hun dromen kunnen waarmaken en kennis delen, maar ook de toekomst van Mexico vorm gaan geven.

North Carolina has launched its program to repair rental properties damaged by Hurricane Helene. The program, which will be funded with federal grant dollars, began accepting applications Monday morning. Owners of properties with one to four rental units are eligible. If they participate in the program, they must agree to provide “affordable” rent rates in […]

It’s been a big year for education and a big year for EdNC. In addition to winning the N.C. Press Association’s public service award, we hit our annual targets for users and pageviews in October. Neither would have happened without our readers. We’ve compiled a list of our top articles for the year categorized by news, policy, features, and perspectives.… The post Year in Review: EdNC’s top articles of 2025 appeared first on EdNC.

A small parasite is taking advantage of global warming to wreak havoc: the winter tick is decimating young moose.

(The Center Square) – Catholic Charities are to be granted religious exemption to unemployment taxes, the Wisconsin Supreme Courtruled Monday. Attorney General Josh Kaul had asked the court to eliminate the exemption after the U.S. Supeme Court had ruled in June that Catholic Charities qualified. Nineteen state attorneys general had supported the Catholic Charities case in a letter before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled. Monday’s order noted the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled on the case and sent further action on the case back to the Wisconsin bench to make further rulings that were consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Therefore, it wrote, Catholic Charities “is eligible for the religious purposes exemption to unemployment taxation” and the Wisconsin Supreme Court ordered the Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission to make Catholic Charities eligible for the exemption. “After decades of fighting for a statutorily available religious exemption, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has affirmed the religious liberty of the Diocese of Superior Catholic Charities Bureau,” David Earleywine, Wisconsin Catholic Conference Associate Director for Education & Religious Liberty, said in a statement. “As the WCC has previously stated, true Catholic charity is inherently religious and cannot be reduced to another secular social service.”

Para entender correctamente qué ocurre cuando no se paga una póliza de coche, es necesario analizar cómo actúa la ley y qué efectos se producen en cada fase del impago.

Раніше сьогодні Служба безпеки України заявила, що в результаті спецоперації в порту Новоросійська був уражений російський підводний човен

OKLAHOMA CITY — An advocacy group that represents licensed child care providers is asking an Oklahoma County judge to force a state agency to restore a pandemic-era subsidy program. The Licensed Child Care Association of Oklahoma sued the Oklahoma Department of Human Services last week in Oklahoma County District Court, seeking an emergency injunction that […]

President Donald Trump is showing increasing interest in reducing the number of routine childhood vaccines in the United States. As part of that justification, he and anti-vaccine activists are pointing to what’s recommended in other countries — an idea that medical and public health experts say ignores key differences about the United States’ health care […]

(The Center Square) – Ahead of upcoming premium hikes, a report published Monday ranked Spokane as the ninth-highest city nationwide for where people spend the most on health care and basic medications. According to personal finance website WalletHub, Spokane is the only Northwest city to land in the top 10. The study compared the costs of doctor, dentist and optometrist visits with the prices of ibuprofen and insulin across some of the largest cities nationwide. Seattle ranked 74th and Portland ranked 41st, according to Monday's report. The main metric associated with each position is the cost of health care as a share of median monthly household income. Spokane families make tens of thousands of dollars less than those in Seattle and Portland, but pay a larger share of their income for relatively the same basic care and medications. “As health care gets increasingly more expensive, more and more people find themselves struggling to afford essential services and medicines,” Chip Lupo, WalletHub analyst and writer, wrote in the report.​ He said some cities have lower prices than elsewhere, but the average income may still not be enough to keep pace with rising costs, even outside health care. Detroit, Mich., topped the chart, with 13.17% of median monthly income spent on health care, while Gilbert, Ariz., was the cheapest city at 3.54%. Spokane households spend 9.16% of the median monthly income on health care, behind New Orleans, La., at 9.28%, but just ahead of Baton Rouge, La., at 9.01%. WalletHub cited federal data showing an 11.8% increase in costs over the last five years, underscoring the importance of an emergency fund. Government employees aren’t immune to those costs, nor are local taxpayers. Mayor Lisa Brown warned city staff in October that her administration is meeting with union leadership following a significant rise in medical claims over the past year. One email says medical premiums could increase by 25% in 2026.​ “It is important to remember that benefit premiums are composed of both an employer contribution and an employee contribution,” Brown wrote in an email on Oct. 14. “We share this news with heavy hearts. We will continue to evaluate all our options and communicate with you as often as possible.” City Administrator Alex Scott and Chief Financial Officer Matt Boston told the Spokane City Council at the time that the increase would help rebuild reserves in the Employee Benefits Fund. They backfilled $8 million from reserves last month just to keep the benefits fund solvent through the end of 2025.​ According to census data, Spokane’s median household income from 2019 to 2023 was $65,745, 44% below the statewide median and 19.4% below the nationwide median. So, despite paying roughly the same amount, Spokane households spend a far larger share of their monthly paychecks on health care than Seattle households, which had a median annual income of $121,984 across that same period. The Spokane Regional Health District did not respond to The Center Square before publishing on Monday.​ “While some cities have lower prices than others, the average income in many places still may not be enough to keep up with the costs,” Lupo wrote in the WalletHub study, “especially when consumers have also faced inflated prices across all other facets of their budgets over the past few years.”

Escribió ‘Cuento de Navidad’ en apenas seis semanas y totalmente indignado por el trabajo infantil El detective más famoso de la literatura no existió en realidad, pero la historia de este médico inspiró a su creador Se suele decir que la Navidad como la conocemos hoy en día se la debemos realmente a Charles Dickens, que él fue quien realmente inventó las fiestas navideñas, aunque a lo que esto se refiere es a la idealización que tenemos en nuestra cabeza y la asociación de ciertos elementos como la nieve o el pavo con estas celebraciones, a pesar de que, por ejemplo, vivamos en un lugar en el que el paisaje nevado parezca algo de lo más lejano. Y esta afirmación de Charles Dickens como inventor de la Navidad es en gran parte por su descripción de las fiestas y de su espíritu en la famosa novela ‘Cuento de Navidad’, que ha sido objeto de varias adaptaciones en teatro o cine, y que se ha quedado en nuestro imaginario colectivo, desde su publicación en 1843. La crisis e indignación que motivaron a Dickens para su ‘Cuento de Navidad’ 'A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas', en su título original, no habría sido posible sin el contexto en el que se dio, porque fue un producto de su tiempo, como también podría serlo de la actualidad si se hicieran algunos cambios, al tratarse principalmente de un relato de crítica social y denuncia, en este caso sobre todo contra el trabajo infantil, algo que el escritor británico conocía de primera mano. Y es que nos situamos en la Inglaterra de mediados del siglo XIX, época victoriana, y es entonces cuando Dickens tiene acceso a un informe del gobierno de entonces sobre el trabajo infantil que lo indignó principalmente, al ser consciente de las condiciones deplorables y los miseros sueldos que estos, además, recibían por ello. Se basó en sus propias vivencias y la escribió en tan solo seis semanas De hecho, Charles Dickens se basó en su propia infancia para escribir ‘Cuento de Navidad’, pues él mismo había dejado de estudiar a los 11 años y se tuvo que poner a trabajar porque su padre fue encarcelado por no pagar unas deudas, algo que era habitual entonces. El escritor conocía la explotación infantil, él la había sufrido en una fábrica de betún siendo pequeño. Se cuenta que necesitó tan solo seis semanas para escribir ‘Cuento de Navidad’, en parte porque uso una literatura y un estilo cercano para poder llegar así al máximo número de lectores posibles, y con una inspiración que le venía de su propia historia, pero también de largas caminatas por las calles de Londres en busca de imaginar en su mente la novela que quería escribir. Y así fue como el 19 de diciembre de 1843 fue publicada por Chapman & Hall. En este relato corto, Dickens capta el espíritu navideño y la realidad de su época, marcada por la crisis económica, en el personaje de Ebenezer Scroog, un anciano avaro y egoísta, que se transforma hacia la generosidad, empatía y solidaridad después de recibir la visita de cuatro fantasmas en la víspera de Navidad que le muestran los errores que ha cometido en su vida a la vez que le enseñan el camino y significado de las fiestas.

Jared Kushner, dhëndri i presidentit amerikan, Donald Trump, është tërhequr nga projekti për ndërtimin e një hoteli në Beograd, raportoi gazeta Wall Street Journal më 15 dhjetor.