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During the Phenology Report for the week of July 7, 2026 Staff Phenologist John Latimer remarks on blooming wildflowers, the poisonous water hemlock and crab spiders.Send us a voice memo through SpeakPipe!

The utility said that it is working to reduce wait times and uncertainty for customers pursuing solar projects.

Congestionamentos crônicos. Falta de integração no transporte público. Acidentes e mortes. Experiências de gestão baseada no Comum e na gratuidade universal avançam no mundo em busca de soluções para a crise urbana. Poderão desenhar “novo municipalismo”? The post Tarifa Zero, caminho para a cidadania ativa appeared first on Outras Palavras.

For four years, local election administrators have relied on a single sentence in state law to carry out early in-person voting. Not anymore. Regulations approved by a 4-0 vote of the Rhode Island Board of Elections at its meeting Tuesday codify and add detail to the process and protections for early voting, available at designated […]

TOPEKA — Cindy Holscher and Ethan Corson on Tuesday both called for the legalization of recreational marijuana in Kansas, separating themselves from other gubernatorial candidates who only support using the drug for medicinal use or oppose legalizing it altogether. The two state senators are seeking the Democratic nomination for governor in the Aug. 4 primary, […]

Data analysis by Sophie HayssenSign up for Chalkbeat Chicago’s free daily newsletter to keep up with the latest news on Chicago Public Schools.Alex Dakessian, the assistant principal at McCutcheon Elementary on Chicago’s North Side, had a hectic year. She scheduled classes, helped evaluate 78 teachers and support staff, oversaw the school’s five specialized classrooms for students with significant disabilities, and translated for some of its more than 130 English learners. With two campuses several blocks apart, she sometimes became a “track star running between buildings” when emergencies arose. But with McCutcheon’s kindergarten through eighth grade enrollment a few students shy of 250, Dakessian’s position landed on the chopping block this spring when the district cut school budgets.More than 130 small schools were poised to lose funding for their assistant principals next school year. Most, including McCutcheon, used discretionary dollars to keep them or convinced CPS to make an exception, leaving about 40 campuses without that position, Chalkbeat has learned. The move comes as district officials are trying to close a $732.5 million deficit to balance a more than $10 billion budget. In 2024, Chicago Public Schools vowed to staff an assistant principal on each of its campuses — no matter how small — as part of a new budget formula meant to steer more resources to high-needs schools, many hit hard by enrollment losses. But this spring, the district announced it would cut funding for assistant principals, or APs for short, in schools with fewer than 250 students, among other educator and support staff positions. The move incensed leaders at the Chicago Principals & Administrators Association, which is bargaining with the district to finalize the first fully fleshed-out contract for school leaders. The union has argued that regardless of school size, APs such as Dakessian ensure campuses run smoothly and serve as sanity-saving partners and confidants for principals. According to numbers provided by school board members, 72 of 138 campuses chose to use discretionary dollars to keep those positions. In the cases of another 23 schools, the district made an exception and funded an AP position, for example because of an upcoming program change.Nelson Gerew of the Chicago Public Education notes the nonprofit has been a major proponent for staffing an assistant principal in each school. They help ease the intense pressure and loneliness of the principal role and represent a crucial school leader pipeline, with about a third eventually taking over the top job at their CPS school. But this spring, Gerew says, school budget cuts were inevitable to balance the district’s budget. Because CPS guarantees a minimum level of staffing under its 2024 formula, many small schools were protected from other cuts the district made, Gerew notes. Cutting their APs meant they would share in the budget pain with larger schools, he said. There, principals have occasionally noted that both some schools serving hundreds of students and campuses serving fewer than 100 receive funding for one assistant principal. “It’s encouraging that the vast majority of principals were able to keep their APs,” Gerew said. As of its most recent staffing data at the end of June, CPS had a total of 644 assistant principal positions, up from about 600 before the 2023 budget formula changes and from a recent low of 540 in 2017, during another tough budget stretch. In 2026, APs made an average salary of $135,650, based on a Chalkbeat analysis of public CPS staffing data.In a statement, CPS, which lost 45,000 students since the start of the pandemic, pointed to the intense fiscal pressures it faces. It said school budgets — including the number of eliminated assistant principal positions — remain preliminary until the school board approves an overall district budget this summer. But it said most appeals for additional staffing from schools were approved, and the district would make an effort to reassign employees whose positions were cut. An ‘arbitrary’ enrollment cutoff with a catch The principals union has pointed to Dakessian’s case to argue that the district’s 250-student cutoff is arbitrary and to contest a decision not to include pre-K enrollment. Last year’s official enrollment at McCutcheon was 246 students. But that number does not include about 70 preschool students, who are part of a separate funding stream, but still demand the time and attention of school leaders. School leaders and their advocates say assistant principals tend to have full plates, pitching in with a wide range of duties, from handing school discipline to communicating with families to filling in when other staff is absent or positions go vacant. At last month’s school board meeting, Cy Hendrickson, the vice president of the principals union and an assistant principal at Hernández Middle School, said because they work throughout the summer, many assistant principals make less per hour than they would if they had continued teaching. Many regularly work on their own time on evenings and weekends, from completing teaching evaluations to answering parent emails, he said. “The responsibility of leading and loving a CPS school is too immense and too profound for any one person to bear alone,” Hendrickson said. The standoff over the AP cuts has cast a shadow over ongoing contract talks between the district and Chicago Principals & Administrators Association, which formally unionized school leaders for the first time after state lawmakers allowed it in 2023. Last fall, the two sides reached a preliminary agreement that included more protections against harassment and more due process rights for principals facing discipline, as well as 4% cost of living increases for 2025-26. But the union and district have been bargaining over a more fully fleshed-out contract.Kia Banks, the union’s president, said it was “blindsided” by the district’s assistant principal decision — and has continued to push for a way to preserve these positions at the bargaining table. She said at the more than 40 schools losing their APs — campuses serving predominantly high-needs, Black and Latino students — only two principals told the union they feel they can make do without a second-in-command next year.School board members express concern about AP cutsSome school board members have voiced concern about the assistant principal cuts, even as they say they understand the district was forced to make difficult decisions to balance its budget.Board member Karen Zaccor, a former CPS educator, said three schools in her North Side district lost their AP funding, including McCutcheon and Uplift High School, which has bucked district trends by growing its enrollment in recent years. All three chose to keep those positions with discretionary dollars. But she said she worries about what programs and other budget items might not be funded as a result.“You can’t say, ‘We solved the problem. All of these schools are getting their APs back,’” Zaccor said. “We don’t know what else might be going away.”School board member Jessica Biggs, a former CPS principal, said she felt the district had made the right call when it committed to staff an assistant principal in each school. She had spent most of her first year as a principal without a second-in-command, at Burke Elementary, which served fewer than 250 students at the time. She struggled. In her second year, she hired assistant principal Tenesha Hatter, whom Biggs credits with the school’s enrollment and academic growth. Hatter led the school’s efforts to improve its climate and culture and fostered relationships with students to improve attendance, allowing Biggs to focus on boosting academics. Hatter went on to become a CPS principal herself. “I don’t know if I would have stayed in the role if it wasn’t for her,” Biggs said. At the same time, she added, “There is nothing that’s good to cut right now.”One small school principal, who spoke with Chalkbeat anonymously to discuss the issue without district authorization, recalls finding out the campus would lose its assistant principal funding this spring. “I remember putting my head in my hands and just sitting there thinking, ‘Oh my god,’” that principal said. “It was devastating.” The school got just enough discretionary dollars to keep the assistant principal. But it eliminated a teaching position to free up more discretionary dollars it still needs for learning materials, supplies, and more. For the first time, it will start charging student fees, and will lean on parent leaders to do “a hella lot of fundraising,” the principal said.Mila Koumpilova is Chalkbeat Chicago’s senior reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Mila at mkoumpilova@chalkbeat.org.

Democrats trying to replace Graham Platner will have to make key decisions on whom to choose as his replacement and how, as pressure builds on the U.S. Senate candidate to drop out after a sexual assault allegation against him. The allegation by 41-year-old Jenny Racicot, first reported by Politico, didn’t just damage Platner — it […]

Detroit Democratic U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar joined fellow Democratic Reps. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Lou Correa of California, both leaders on the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee, in calling on the Trump administration to open the Gordie Howe International Bridge.  The bridge, which will connect Detroit to Ontario, Canada, was initially slated to open […]

有数十个国家国会议员参与的对中政策跨国议会联盟(IPAC)星期二(7月7日)组成代表团访问台湾。IPAC共同主席、荷兰众议员扬·帕特诺特(Ian Paternotte)在台北总统府告诉台湾总统赖清德，代表团部分成员此行可能须承受一定代价，但仍决定前来，“这才是重点。”

A new White House report accusing the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History of “extreme political activism,” and demanding the museum revise its exhibitions to elide the darker elements of the nation’s past, mirrors a troubling trend in Europe, where right-wing nationalist governments have spent the past decade forcing museums to minimize their countries’ roles... The post European leaders downplayed the Holocaust. Now Trump is using their tactics against the Smithsonian appeared first on The Forward.

북한 주민들이 사용하는 스마트폰에서 전세계적인 인기 모바일 게임 ‘클래시 오브 클랜’을 그대로 베낀 불법 복제 게임이 활발히 구동 중인 것으로 확인됐습니다.

စစ်တပ် ဗုံးကြဲသွားတဲ့ ရွှေမှော်ဧရိယာတဝိုက်မှာ တိုက်ပွဲဖြစ်ပွားနေတာမရှိဘူးလို့လည်း ဒေသခံတွေပြော။

The Trump administration has rolled back teen pregnancy prevention grants and repurposed a program designed to reduce unintended pregnancies so that it promotes childbearing. But several states, including Republican-led ones, have protected or expanded access to contraception in recent months. Georgia Republican state Rep. Beth Camp sponsored a bill to expand contraceptive access in her […]

The FIFA decision to suspend Folarin Balogun’s red card is a compact case study in how power can shape the application of rules without ever rewriting them.

Un total de 60 años de presidio solicita la Fiscalía para los tres acusados por el secuestro y robo con...

La exmandataria, Michelle Bachelet, estuvo presente en el 1° Encuentro Nacional de Alcaldesas realizado en Chile. Según publicó Emol, la expresidenta señaló en la oportunidad que “para mí el tema de la mujer en la política, la mujer en general, pero en la política, es súper importante, porque creo que nosotras tenemos que estar en los […] Este artículo Michelle Bachelet sobre acoso a mujeres en política: “Se ha exacerbado a nivel digital, buscan castigar la exposición pública y silenciar voces” fue publicado originalmente en El Diario de Antofagasta.

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.In his first six months in office, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has issued a steady stream of announcements and policy initiatives in the three areas that powered his affordability-focused campaign: childcare for kids 5 and younger, transportation, and housing.But when it comes to K-12 public education — the largest operation under Mamdani’s control by both budget and headcount — the story has been quite different.Out of the hundreds of press releases Mamdani sent out since his term began, just 11 relate to K-12 education, according to a Chalkbeat analysis. Only one announced a new policy affecting what happens inside classrooms serving more than 800,000 elementary- to high school-age students. And even the new policy — expanding a reading and math curriculum overhaul launched under his predecessor Eric Adams — largely continued work already underway.Other press releases related to winter storms, street safety outside schools, and the opening of new schools that started under a previous administration.Mayoral press releases are an incomplete measure of Mamdani’s record and agenda on K-12 education, and schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels has introduced several initiatives of his own. But some longtime education watchers — including Mamdani supporters — said the dearth of attention to K-12 schools and absence of concrete policy proposals one-eighth of the way through Mamdani’s first term raises questions about how he will manage a core function of the city’s government.“He’s the first mayor that I’ve seen … to have so little apparent interest in our public schools from K-12,” said Leonie Haimson, the executive director of Class Size Matters and a longtime education advocate. She argued that Mamdani could use his “progressive values to really make a difference in our schools,” adding that overseeing public schools “is a very critical part of his responsibilities.”In many ways, the lack of focus on K-12 schools during Mamdani’s first months in office is not a surprise. Education didn’t figure prominently into his mayoral campaign, which focused on his key priorities and largely avoided political fights that could distract from those efforts. Some observers suggested that an aggressive push to make the K-12 system more equitable — a political minefield for progressive politicians — may feel too risky when Mamdani is still shoring up support for his core agenda.Keeping up his “laser focus” on expanding free childcare — a broadly popular policy — could pay political dividends by providing economic relief for families while also better preparing children for K-12 schools, said Shael Polakow-Suransky, president of Bank Street College of Education and a former deputy chancellor under Michael Bloomberg.“That is where the political capital on education will need to be spent over the next few years, if they’re going to deliver on that promise and actually get the educational benefits,” he said.Polakow-Suransky and others familiar with the Mamdani administration’s education plans said the quiet start on K-12 policy may be a deliberate effort by Mamdani and Samuels to gather input before making potentially disruptive changes.But other observers noted that while Mamdani still has time to make his mark on city schools, his current approach risks further entrenching a status quo marked by deep problems and inequities.“The absence of any identifiable priority is a worry,” said David Bloomfield, a professor emeritus of education leadership, law, and policy at Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate Center. The longterm benefits of an improved K-12 school system take years to materialize, Bloomfield noted, unlike the more immediate benefits of Mamdani’s policy priorities.“He seems to feel that what’s in place is good enough,” Bloomfield said.Jenna Lyle, a spokesperson for Mamdani, disputed the idea that he has focused less on K-12 education in his early months than predecessors.“Change isn’t measured by the number of press releases we send out. It’s measured by whether people’s lives are better because they were invited to shape the policies that affect them,” she said. The administration is preparing to “share our broader vision for public schools” by holding listening sessions and gathering community feedback, she added.What has Mamdani done so far, and how does it compare to past mayors?Mamdani offered few sweeping education promises on the campaign trail, but did stake out several positions that set him apart from his competitors, including ending mayoral control of city schools and removing kindergarten entry to the city’s gifted and talented program.Neither has come to pass.Mamdani reversed his position on mayoral control shortly before taking office. He also backed away from a campaign promise to quickly comply with the state’s class size law, instead asking for an extension to save money this fiscal year. He has not advanced proposals to change the gifted and talented program or offer prospective new teachers tuition assistance, as he pledged during the campaign. He has made some efforts to reduce the Education Department’s astronomical contracts budget, but those efforts have been complicated by scrutiny over allegations that Samuels violated contracting rules in a previous role. He also continued a pandemic-era policy launched under Bill de Blasio and continued by Adams to spare schools with declining enrollment from budget cuts.Most longtime education observers said Mamdani has focused noticeably less on K-12 education than his immediate predecessors, Adams, de Blasio, and Bloomberg — though several noted that those mayors’ education agendas didn’t fully come into focus during their first six months in office.Adams issued 21 press releases related to K-12 education during his first six months, including announcements expanding the gifted and talented program, introducing dyslexia screening, and rehiring district superintendents, a Chalkbeat analysis found. His most recognizable education policy, NYC Reads, was announced more than a year into his tenure.Bloomberg made controversial and sweeping reforms of the K-12 school system a centerpiece of his agenda. De Blasio, like Mamdani, initially emphasized childcare, but nine months into his tenure launched a major effort to flood struggling schools with additional resources.Matt Gonzales, a longtime school integration advocate who served on Mamdani’s education transition team, said preserving programs for vulnerable students in the recent budget agreement between Mamdani and the City Council was a significant early policy achievement. He also argued that introducing new policies in the middle of a school year could be disruptive.“I want all the big pronouncements and priorities laid out ASAP,” he said. But “there’s a real need to stabilize the system … and then move a vision for education in this new school year.”What does Mamdani’s quiet start on K-12 education mean for schools?While the Mamdani administration hasn’t offered a detailed public agenda for K-12 schools, officials have negotiated the budget and an extension of the state’s class size law deadline, said Aaron Pallas, a professor of sociology and education at Columbia University Teachers College. (The Education Department issued a press release with a quote from Mamdani detailing the new class size plan).He added that making meaningful change in a system as sprawling as New York City is difficult and that “on the ground level, a lot can continue in a positive way without high-level policy pronouncements.”But if outcomes such as test scores and graduation rates slip, Mamdani may face “pressure to do more,” he said.Some advocates hope Mamdani will focus on increasing racial and socioeconomic integration, and merging underenrolled schools — two longtime priorities for Samuels. Others want him to stake out a firm position against artificial intelligence in schools.Whatever the agenda looks like, some supporters hope Mamdani will bring the same public attention campaign he’s launched for childcare — including a jingle contest judged by Cardi B — to K-12 education.“I’m hopeful that we see more of that kind of skill around education, especially as they really get to take the reins of things this school year,” Gonzales said. “That’s going to really need the mayor’s messaging and savviness.”Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

En Guinée-Bissau, la junte au pouvoir a fixé le référendum constitutionnel au 30 août. Cette révision de la Constitution intervient à cinq mois du scrutin présidentiel fixé par les militaires et censé aboutir à une transition civile.

حذف آمریکا از یک‌هشتم نهایی جام جهانی؛ ناامیدی هواداران در کنار امید به آینده فوتبال

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