Open Newswire

Kenyan politician Newton Kariuki, popularly known as Karish, blames former deputy president Rigathi Gachagua for his defeat in the Mbeere North parliament

Former Rep. Robin Smith (R-Hixson) may avoid jail after the presidential pardons of co-conspirators Glen Casada and Cade Cothren, while a group opposed to auto racing at the Fairgrounds Nashville is attempting to amend the Metro Charter, a 64-year-old man was struck and killed by a car in South Nashville, Belmont College of Law Dean Alberto Gonzales is stepping down, and Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia is a finalist for the Heisman Trophy. The post Dec. 9: Robin Smith Wants to Stay Out of Jail; Fairgrounds Speedway Racing Faces a New Challenge appeared first on Nashville Banner.

Algunas reflexiones acerca del comunicado que sacó la DAIA luego de la jura de diputados y diputadas de la Nación que hicieron alusión a un pedido de Palestina libre. Por Cátedra Libre Edward Said de Estudios Palestinos para La tinta La Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas (DAIA), que se presenta a sí misma como representante […] La entrada La DAIA, una vez más contra la libertad de pensamiento y expresión se publicó primero en La tinta.

On a monsoon day in 2015, as grey skies stretched overhead, tourist guide Basil P. Das and his father set out to tend to the plants in their coffee plantation in the village of Jellipara in Palakkad district in Kerala. As they began to till the soil in their three-and-a-half-acre farm, a small black and […]

A popular program allowing Medicare patients to get hospital care at home would be extended until 2030 under a bill passed in the U.S. House of Representatives and awaiting consideration by the Senate.  The bill was passed by the House on Dec. 1 and referred to a Senate committee the next day. The federal government […]

Evictions are a growing problem in Nashville, with nearly 15,000 filed in 2024 and a comparable number in 2025. Lawyers, advocates and some who have experienced multiple evictions talk about the challenges related to losing one's housing and how Nashville does more than a lot of other cities to address the root causes and find ways to help. The post Evicted in Nashville: How Tenants, Landlords and the Courts Face the Housing Crisis appeared first on Nashville Banner.

When Minnesota lawmakers legalized recreational marijuana in 2023, Democrats hailed it as the state’s most sweeping shift in drug policy in half a century and long-overdue relief for tens of thousands whose records were marred by low-level marijuana offenses. What had been a felony — having two ounces of cannabis flower in a car, enough […]

Участники войны убили или покалечили более тысячи человек после возвращения с фронта. В девяти из 10 случаев участие в войне смягчает приговор суда. Об этом говорится со ссылкой на совместное расследование издания "Вёрстка" и Die Welt сообщает Радио Свобода. Речь идет о российских военнослужащих, которые возвращались к гражданской жизни в ходе отпуска, после ранения, окончания контракта или увольнения со службы. От действий военнослужащих, вернувшихся с фронта, с начала войны погиб 551...

El PP se prepara para avalar dos de los decretos sociales más sensibles del Gobierno, pero solo si viajan limpios y sin añadidos estratégicos.

В Курске 8 декабря прошел стихийный митинг жителей Глушковского и Суджанского районов, протестующих против решения властей отменить выплаты тем, кто утратил имущество из-за вторжения ВСУ в регион.

The Department of Justice is asking for information on voters, like the last four digits of a Social Security number and drivers license information. The post Trump administration wants sensitive voter data from Kansas and Missouri appeared first on The Beacon.

Oklahoma County Commissioners have tapped CREOKS Health Services, a Tulsa-based mental health nonprofit, to oversee completion of the county’s new Behavioral Care Center.

(The Center Square) – Augusta-Richmond County’s consolidated government apparently doesn’t track supplemental pay to employees in any modern, easily-accessible data-keeping format. Several requests from The Center Square under the Georgia Open Records Act have been met with high cost estimates, indicating intensive labor needed to locate the records, or in some cases total silence. After seven weeks of haggling, the city finally backed off its high prices and said it will release the data before Christmas. "I think it’s safe to say that they do not have recordkeeping on par with other large cities that you’ve dealt with," said Clare Norins, a board member of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation. "That’s an accountability concern that they aren’t able to produce this data." Home of the Masters Tournament, Augusta sits along Georgia’s eastern border with South Carolina and has long been considered the state’s second-largest city. It lost that title to Columbus earlier in the decade, but may have regained it depending on different population estimates. The population currently stands around 206,000 – a count derived from the city’s merger with Richmond County in 1996. Today, the combined city-county government employs more than 2,500 people, with a $1.35 billion budget. Since mid-October, The Center Square has asked the city for spreadsheets of employee salaries, overtime pay, cash outs of sick leave or vacation leave, terminations, and annual pension payments – records other cities and counties across the nation often provide for little or no cost to members of the news media. Atlanta, for example, whose government employs three times the number of people as Augusta’s, provided its information in four spreadsheets at no cost. Augusta initially responded that assembling the information would require more than 187 hours of labor. The quoted cost: $2,969, required up front. Ryan Mulvey, senior attorney for Americans for Prosperity Foundation called the records "pretty basic personnel data, that you'd think would be in a reasonably easy, retrievable format." "You might be able to get better insight into how taxpayer dollars are being spent in government – at least when it comes to personnel issues – when you are getting information like (overtime pay), than what you would get from base salary data," Mulvey said. As a case in point, New Orleans’ current financial crisis has been partly blamed on overspending on overtime. "There's always possibility of instances of fraud, waste and abuse," Mulvey said. "Having a complete picture of the amount of money that's being spent in government gives you a better idea of whether things are working efficiently, or whether there's room for reform." Augusta's records officer explained that the request was complicated because it asked for so many specific data fields that would have to be assembled and added. So the Center Square amended its request, asking for the databases in whatever form they are currently kept, so that no additional labor would be needed other than producing the records electronically and removing personal information. The city produced a salary spreadsheet – which did not include overtime or other payments to employees – for a cost of $33. But for the balance of the records, the city still wanted $1,883, for about 119 hours of labor. Julie Schweber, of the Society for Human Resource Management, said most large employers and large government agencies use automated systems to keep up with payroll, overtime, retiree cash outs, terminations and resignations, and other workforce data points. Software programs allow for the data to be exported into spreadsheets, which leaders rely on to forecast future employee turnover, expected retirements, and department-by-department overtime spending. "It doesn’t seem like a good way to manage a business if they can’t produce this information," said Schweber, of SHRM’s HR Knowledge Solutions, speaking generally and not specifically about Augusta. "Otherwise, how do you do your budgeting for the year as the head of an agency – state, federal, local, city? It’s usually part of the standard labor cost when you’re budgeting for the next year." Hoping to find out why Augusta’s cost remained so high, The Center Square filed three new requests, separately, for the outstanding items. The city quoted a cost of $416 for employee terminations data, saying that producing a spreadsheet would take more than 26 hours of labor. For the pension payments, the city said this information is actually in the possession of the Georgia Municipal Employee Benefit System, not with the Augusta government. For employee cash outs, the city said it needed until Dec. 1 to produce records. That date came and went, though, with no word from the city and no explanation. The Center Square tried again to obtain some of the missing information – this time asking for overtime payments and other compensation to all city employees and elected officials dating back to 2023. Again, the request asked for the data in whatever form it is currently kept. Georgia’s open records law allows government agencies three days to respond to requests. Within that time, they can turn over the requested records; respond that the records don’t exist; respond that they do exist but are exempt from release, citing the exceptions in the law; or provide a timetable for producing the records with a cost estimate. After three days and with no response from the city, The Center Square sought an explanation. The city’s open records officer replied, "August (sic) currently has no update to provide on this request." Norins, of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation, examined The Center Square’s requests and the city’s responses. She said she does not believe Augusta has been intentionally operating in bad faith. "It seems like they can’t (produce the records), from looking at this," said Norins, who is also director of the University of Georgia School of Law’s First Amendment Clinic. "Or they may not even have a great sense of what they actually have and where it is, so their estimate is coming somewhat out of the air." The Center Square reached out to the office of Augusta Mayor Garnett Johnson and a city spokeswoman, seeking to know why the city would have such difficulty producing the personnel data. No explanation has been provided, but late last week the city responded that its IT department needs ten more business days to create new reports, and the records will be provided at no charge. When open records requests are filed through the city’s online portal, a boilerplate automatic response says, "Augusta, Georgia, recognizes that full compliance with the requirements of the Georgia Open Records Act is a vital and essential component of creating and maintaining public trust and enhancing the consolidated government’s effectiveness."

Months of delays by Oklahoma land commissioners in approving a commercial lease for a Lawton-area data center led the developer to withdraw, costing the state potential education revenue. The post State Delays Push Data Center Developers to Private Land appeared first on Oklahoma Watch.

Chalkbeat Ideas is a new section featuring reported columns on the big ideas and debates shaping American schools. Sign up for the Ideas newsletter to follow our work. An obscure university report has unleashed a cascade of criticism over high school grade inflation and university admissions standards. Last month, a committee at the University of California San Diego described a sharp increase in the number of college students there who need remedial math, in some cases even below middle school levels. The report pointed to California’s decision to drop standardized tests from admissions and the increasing number of students from the state’s high-poverty public schools. “Admitting large numbers of students who are profoundly underprepared risks harming the very students we hope to support, by setting them up for failure,” warned the 13-person committee of faculty and administrators. This report caught fire across the internet because to critics it represents something bigger: an example of lower standards in education and equity efforts run amok. The learning declines in American schools are indeed alarming and present new challenges for colleges. I want to focus, though, on a specific claim in the report and many associated commentaries: that students with weak math scores are harmed by being admitted into UCSD. In reality there is a significant body of research that suggests precisely the opposite, says Zachary Bleemer, a Princeton University economist who has studied University of California admissions extensively. “There’s no advantage to the student to being pushed into a less selective university,” says Bleemer. “Instead, you’re just taking away the advantages that a school like UC San Diego offers them.” This suggests that selective universities like UCSD aren’t helping underprepared students by rejecting them, even though that might be the easier option for professors and administrators. In one paper, Bleemer examined a policy from the early 2000s that automatically admitted students to certain UC schools, including UCSD, based on their high school class rank, without regard to their SAT scores. At first glance, these good-GPA, low-SAT students, who were typically from high-poverty high schools, struggled in college. They had lower grades and were less likely to graduate than their UC peers. But that’s not the right point of comparison, says Bleemer. The better question is what would have happened to those students had they not been admitted to a UC school. He was able to disentangle this by comparing them to an essentially identical group of students who just missed getting in. Here the results flipped on their head: Attending a UC school increased students’ chances of graduating college by several percentage points and their early career wages rose by several thousand dollars annually. This undermines the notion that students suffer if they are admitted to selective schools where they may have weaker preparation than their peers. In the context of affirmative action, this is often referred to as a potential “mismatch.” In another paper, Bleemer examined this directly. He found that banning race-based affirmative action in California hurt underrepresented students’ chances of earning a college degree as well as their income later in life. Again no evidence of mismatch — just the opposite. A separate study of Bleemer’s looked at a more narrow access question. In 2008, UC Santa Cruz’s economics department set a GPA threshold for majors of 2.8. The likely logic here was understandable: Students who couldn’t manage even a B average in introductory economics weren’t well equipped to major in the subject. Yet Bleemer found that students who were just short of the GPA cutoff earned substantially less money in their early 20s as a result. I’ve focused on Bleemer’s work because it’s on the UC system. Other research generally finds similar results. Jack Mountjoy, an economist at the University of Chicago, studied students in Texas who were denied admissions to certain public colleges because their test scores were too low. Several years later, he found, those students were less likely to hold a degree and made less money compared to all-but identical students who barely reached the admissions threshold. The students who did get in were typical high school graduates, not academic superstars. Some didn’t graduate or struggled in college. Yet overall their “outcomes are significant improvements over the typical trajectories these marginal students would have experienced had they been rejected instead,” writes Mountjoy. Although there remains some debate about the mismatch theory, an overview from the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, acknowledged that in the undergraduate context “students are at least as likely to graduate if they attend more elite schools—indeed, often more so.” The takeaway from these papers is the same: Limiting students’ access to colleges or courses because they are deemed underprepared does not seem to do them any favors. It actually just holds them back, at least in many contexts where this has been studied. This makes sense. Selective colleges tend to have more resources, so may be better equipped to help students who need remediation. Students themselves are opting into these schools, so they apparently think it’s the best choice. All of this is relevant to the current discussion over the admissions standards at UCSD and other selective schools. Obviously we want high schools to better prepare students academically. (I spend much of my time writing about how K-12 schools can improve.) But when students graduate lacking specific skills, as inevitably will be the case for some, colleges have to decide how to respond. The UCSD committee recommends more aggressively screening out students who struggle in math. It also proposes scaling back the number of students from high-needs public schools. This figure has increased particularly sharply at UCSD recently and accounts for some of the rise in remediation. The report emphasizes the university’s “limited instructional resources.” Yet less-selective public universities in the state tend to have even less funding than UC schools. A spokesperson for UCSD did not make someone from the committee available for an interview and declined to respond to written questions. For his part, Bleemer understands the preferences of faculty for fewer students who need extra help or who attended higher-needs high schools. “There’s nothing easier than teaching a class where everyone gets an A,” he says. (“I’m at a university that passes the buck. I should emphasize my own hypocrisy here,” acknowledges Bleemer, who teaches at Princeton.) In competitive college admissions, there are many potential objectives for a school. Some applicants will always lose out. Faculty and staff at UCSD are free to make the case for whatever admissions standards they like. But we should be skeptical of the suggestion that students are being rejected for their own good. Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat’s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

Young people are flocking to public policy classes at a time when polarization and gridlock can paralyze legislative action. To meet the demand, the La Follette School of Public Affairs will launch its first undergrad major in fall 2026, with a focus on civil dialogue and finding common ground. New UW-Madison major will teach students to bridge partisan divides is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Today’s round of questions, my smart-aleck replies and the real answers: Question: Asheville recently passed a Business Improvement District tax to improve the downtown environment. My understanding was that part of the tax would be used to increase the presence of law enforcement, as well as hiring other personnel to be present in the area […] The post Answer Man: Is the Business Improvement District working? Why no CodeRED text alerts during recent wildfire episodes? appeared first on Asheville Watchdog.

如果你刚来到纽约市，正打算从事家政工作，那么一开始可能会感到迷茫：不知道去哪儿找工作、需要具备哪些有用的资格证书，更重要的是，不清楚作为劳动者你受到哪些权利和法律保护。 本指南由布鲁克林的家政工人组织“卡罗尔花园协会”（Carroll Gardens Association，简称 CGA）协助编写，旨在为你介绍成为保姆前必须了解的重点资讯。 成为保姆需要哪些条件？ 在开始找工作之前，先准备好必要的文件，其中包括带照片的身份证明（例如护照）、紧急联络人信息，以及你的个人简历。若能准备一份与技能相关的工作经历汇总，并附上曾服务家庭的推荐信，也会对求职很有帮助。 中介机构和线上平台可以帮你与需聘请保姆的家庭取得联系，并协助处理合同与背景调查手续，但通常会收取一定费用。如果你是透过正式的保姆中介公司申请工作，这些机构还会要求你提供社会安全号码和工作许可。 想了解更多与就业中介合作的注意事项，可以参考纽约市消费者与劳动者保护局（DCWP）提供的相关建议。 要成为保姆，法律上并不强制要求持有专业的证书，但拥有相关认证会让你更具竞争力。CGA建议至少要完成心肺复苏（CPR）和急救培训课程。纽约市卫生局也提供一系列免费课程，你可以在此查阅。 如果我是无证移民，想要找家政工作该怎么办？ CGA执行主任富勒-古音斯（Ben Fuller-Googins，音译） 表示，这类家政工人应格外谨慎，并且要了解自身作为劳动者所拥有的权利。富勒-古音斯和他的团队注意到，一些雇主会在工人维护权利时（例如要求加班费或带薪休假）以“要举报给移民与海关执法局（ICE）”进行威胁，而雇主这样做是违法的。 他补充说：“我们也见过一些情况，特别是住家型家政工，雇主会没收工人的护照或身份证件，使得工人感到更加无助、被完全控制。” 可以为你提供帮助的组织 全国家政工人联盟（National Domestic Workers Alliance，NDWA）：这是一个全国性的组织，致力于倡导保姆、家务清洁员和照护工作者的权益。NDWA提供培训课程、领导力发展项目及多种资源，帮助家政工人争取公平工资、福利与安全的工作环境。组织也提供法律协助、政策倡议，以及会员社区，让工人能获得工具、讲座和移民权益的相关支持。 La Colmena: 这是位于史丹顿岛的社区组织，提供职业培训、英语课程和领导力发展，同时举办“了解你的权利”讲座，并致力于反对拖欠工资及不安全工作环境等问题。 Adhikaar: 该组织主要服务尼泊尔与藏族移民社区，提供语言支持、健康与安全培训，以及“了解你的权利”相关讲座。 Damayaan: 这是一个服务菲律宾家政工人的协会，通过同侪组织、法律与劳工权益协助、领导力发展以及社区教育，来对抗拖欠工资、人口贩运与剥削等问题。 卡罗尔花园协会（Carroll Gardens Association）: 这是一家位于布鲁克林的社区组织，通过培训课程、人际网络和社区建设来支持家政工人。他们提供付费与免费的教育机会，内容涵盖劳动者权利、安全、儿童发展与紧急情况应对等主题。 家政工人联合会（Domestic Workers United）: 该组织致力于通过教育、社区动员与文化活动来提升家政工人的力量。他们提供培训、“了解你的权利”讲座和领导力发展项目，并推动公平劳动法的制定，同时支持那些无法获得联邦援助的工人。 作为家政工人，你享有哪些权利 纽约市的家政工人受到“纽约家政工人权利法案”的保护。根据法律，你拥有以下权利： 纽约市目前的最低时薪为16.50美元。至于加班费，如果你一周的工作时间超过40小时（住家型工人为44小时），超过的时数必须按你正常时薪的1.5倍支付。 如果雇主没有支付我的工资，我该怎么办？ 富勒-古音斯表示：“雇主因工人询问或维护自身权利而惩罚工人，是违法的。” 如果你被少付工资，并希望寻求外部协助，可以参考以下步骤获得援助： 关注我们的微信公众号“纽约移民记事网”，您可以直接与我们的华人社区通讯员交流，分享您希望媒体关注的有关您的社区的新闻线索。 The post 纽约家政指南：每位保姆都该了解的权利与资源 appeared first on Documented.

आधुनिक दासता न केवल अतीत की भयावह स्मृति है, बल्कि वर्तमान में भी, एक ख़तरनाक वास्तविकता के रूप में, लोगों के बुनियादी मानवाधिकारों को सीधे चुनौती दे रही है.

De Oscars van 2026 beloven één van de meest vernieuwende edities in de recente geschiedenis van de Academy Awards te worden. Terwijl Hollywood zich opmaakt voor de 98e editie, staat vast dat zowel de procedure als de waardering van films dit jaar een duidelijke verandering zullen doormaken.