Over two years removed from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ohio students are still struggling to succeed in the classroom, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
The latest release of state test scores shows that 51% of students were unable to pass high school algebra in 2022, compared to 39% before the pandemic, according to state test data reported by the Dispatch. In addition to math scores, reading scores fell below pre-pandemic levels at a 33.5% proficiency.
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New Jersey is set to become the first state in the country that will mandate its public school students to learn about so-called “global warming,” with curriculum focusing on the subject being introduced in the 2022-2023 academic year.
According to ABC News, the effort was led by Tammy Murphy, the wife of Governor Phil Murphy (D-N.J.). In an interview on Thursday, the First Lady of New Jersey falsely claimed that “climate change is becoming a real reality.”
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Journalist Glenn Greenwald is criticized the Democratic Party, calling members authoritarians trying to criminalize their opposition.
After The Prospect managing editor Ryan Cooper complained about Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz not being indicted with in a sex-trafficking probe, Greenwald, co-founder of The Intercept, responded with his criticism.
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The University of California, Berkeley gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2021 to a left-wing nonprofit funding groups that seek to empty prisons across the U.S., according to California financial records.
Berkeley sent over $262,500 to the Heising-Simons Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity that opposes “mass incarceration” and backs prison reform, according to records obtained by the transparency watchdog OpenTheBooks. The charity has granted huge sums to groups trying to overhaul the criminal justice system and get inmates back onto the streets, a Daily Caller News Foundation review found.
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“Our expectation has been we would begin to see inflation come down, largely because of supply side healing. We haven’t. We have seen some supply side healing but inflation has not really come down.”
That was Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Sept. 21, speaking to reporters following the central bank’s meeting where the Federal Funds Rate was once again increased 0.75 percent to its current range of 3 percent to 3.25 percent in a bid to combat sticky 8.3 percent consumer inflation the past year.
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More than 75% of probable voters said they would not likely back candidates supporting policies that stop police from detaining criminals charged with violent offenses, according to a new poll, with a state measure set to potentially free some violent crime suspects.
About 76.9% of respondents said they would not be at all likely to vote for a candidate supportive of such policies toward criminals facing violent charges like kidnapping and armed robbery, according to the September poll by the Trafalgar Group partnered with Convention of States Action. Illinois’ Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today (SAFE–T) Act is set to permit the bail-free release of people accused of kidnapping, aggravated battery and other crimes punishable by probation next year, Champaign County State’s Attorney Julia Reitz told ABC 20.
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A decade-old Chinese-language press release reveals an elite Washington, D.C., think tank knew of a prominent Chinese academic’s high-ranking Communist Party position before hiring him a month later — an affiliation the think tank omitted from the English-language press release heralding the opening of their new center in Beijing.
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Italy is set to elect a right-wing coalition led by Giorgia Meloni, exit polls showed Sunday after voting for the country’s next prime minister ended.
The major left-leaning coalition, with between 25.5 percent and 29.5 percent of the vote, ceded defeat to the Brothers of Italy party and its nationalist allies who collectively obtained up to 45 percent of the vote, Reuters reported. As prime minister and leading Italy’s most rightward government since WWII, Meloni has said she will seek to cut taxes, expand natural gas infrastructure and regulate immigration, Politico reported.
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A senior adviser to President Joe Biden claimed “MAGA” Republicans pose a “danger to our democracy” and seek to “destroy the United States of America” during a Sunday morning appearance on MSNBC.
“It is important that as we look at this MAGA Republican agenda and those who seek to lead our country like Kevin McCarthy, who will lead our country if Republicans take the House in November, it is important that we pay attention to what they, what the agenda will be,” former Democratic Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta, now a senior adviser to President Biden, told host Jonathan Capehart. “This MAGA Republican agenda is a very dangerous agenda.”
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The Department of Labor announced Thursday that 1,000 people have been charged for receiving $45.6 billion of fraudulent unemployment insurance (UI) payments since March 2020.
The pandemic overwhelmed state offices responsible for distributing benefits, with 57 million people filing initial UI claims within five months of March 2020, the DOL-OIG reported. Fraudsters were successfully able to take advantage of the chaos, filing for claims in multiple states, using fraudulent emails and using the Social Security Numbers (SSN) of dead people and federal prisoners.
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Even in the best case scenario where the Federal Reserve is able to combat inflation without causing a recession, it is unlikely to cut interest rates, Goldman Sachs analysts warned in a note, according to Business Insider.
The Federal Reserve has raised rates three times in the past four months, with Wednesday’s 0.75% increase bringing primary credit rates to 3.25%, one of the most aggressive increases since the 1980s. However, even in a so-called “soft landing” where a recession and layoffs are avoided, the Fed is unlikely to cut interest rates until “something goes wrong,” according to a Goldman Sachs note reported by Business Insider.
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Democrats’ virtual 180 on the issue of crime — a journey from supporting the “defund the police” movement to espousing tougher law enforcement — has been accentuated by a striking pattern in recent months: prominent liberals being mugged, sometimes quite literally, by the harsh reality of rising crime as victims themselves.
The latest liberal to embody this shift is Bill Walton, the 69-year-old basketball legend-turned-garrulous broadcaster, who has a history of stirring controversy and advocating a range of progressive causes over the years.
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The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which sets medical standards for transgender-related procedures, recognized eunuchs as a gender identity group in its newest guidelines, recommending castration as a treatment option.
Eunuchs are males who wish to remove all male genitals, genital functioning or other masculine attributes, according to WPATH. Eunuchs are listed alongside gender identities and sexual conditions like “nonbinary” and “intersex” in the eighth edition of WPATH’s standards of care, which states that eunuchs need “gender-affirming care” that can include physical and chemical castration in order to live out their identities.
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Despite what you may have read or heard, the Republicans running in this cycle have an advantage that may, at this point, be dispositive.
A recent batch of polling has made it clear that the issues voters consider most important are the same issues on which they most trust Republicans.
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The U.S. Department of Defense is taking new measures to help U.S. service members deal with rising costs as inflation continues to put the pressure on Americans.
Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder laid out a series of changes from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to help families deal with the recent rise in costs, particularly in food, housing and childcare.
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An FBI whistleblower who was recently suspended said in an interview this week that he became a whistleblower last November because of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s email ordering the FBI to use Patriot Act counterterrorism tools to target parents at school board meetings.
Special Agent Kyle Seraphin, who was indefinitely suspended on June 1 after nearly six years with the Bureau, said that he was so disturbed by the directive, he went to his congresswoman’s office in New Mexico, and made a “protected disclosure.”
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The Federal Reserve’s decision to raise target interest rates by 75 basis points for the third time this year following a Wednesday meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee all but ensures American families’ financial pain will continue and our current recession will likely drag on.
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Odds are jurors in Douglas Austin Jensen’s trial took longer to fill out the verdict forms than they took to decide his fate.
After only a few hours of deliberations on Friday, 12 residents of the nation’s capital found Jensen guilty on seven counts related to his involvement in the Capitol protest on January 6, 2021. Jensen, an alleged QAnon follower, infamously confronted Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman inside the building that afternoon; he potentially faces decades in prison for convictions on impeding law enforcement officers and obstruction of an official proceeding, a dubious nonviolent felony punishable by up to 20 years in jail.
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Financial executives across the retail industry have been forced to adjust strategies to account for customer expectations as inflation puts pressure on outlets, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Major retailers, including Macy’s and Target, who used discounts to clear excess inventory after overestimating demand for their products following a wave of pandemic-era retail spending, are being forced to develop strategies, such as reducing the size of bundles or subtly cutting down on discounts, to entice customers while protecting profit margins, the WSJ reported. Dollar stores have gained popularity as consumers struggle with inflation and — in tandem with the more aggressive discounting campaign by retailers — customers’ heightened demand for value has left some retailers concerned that customers might start to expect discounts that damage profits.
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The second-largest school district in the country is stocking its schools with naloxone, an opioid overdose reversal drug, following student deaths, according to a Thursday news release.
In the recent weeks, nine students have died from overdoses in the Los Angeles Unified School District, with one student overdosing in the bathroom after obtaining a pill containing fentanyl from a peer, according to the Los Angeles Times. Every school in the district, beginning with elementary schools, will be stocked with the nasal spray version of naloxone, or Narcan, according to news release by the school.
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The majority of Americans believe illegal immigrants should be sent to sanctuary cities, a new poll from Scott Rasmussen and RMG Research Inc found.
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sent 50 migrants last week to Martha’s Vineyard, which advertises itself as a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants, last week, sparking widespread backlash. The new poll suggests that ordinary Americans are actually supportive of the decision despite the media’s negative response.
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On November 8, 2022, Ohio voters will have the opportunity to amend the Ohio Constitution in a way that supports and promotes public safety. Issue 1, the “Ohio Determining Bail Amount Based on Public Safety Amendment” will add the following language to the Constitution: “When determining the amount of bail, the court shall consider public safety, including the seriousness of the offense, and a person’s criminal record, the likelihood a person will return to court, and any other factor the general assembly may prescribe.” The proposed amendment strikes a balance between the competing interests behind the granting of bail: preserving the accused’s presumption of innocence against the community’s need for public safety.
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The mutual fund industry has gone “woke.” It’s not just the asset managers who screen socially “unacceptable” companies in industries involving, say, guns, fossil fuels, tobacco, or gambling. Those have been around for decades.
No, there’s something else amiss. And if you’re investing your hard-earned money, you might be part of the problem.
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One of the nation’s most prestigious universities is ordering students to attend mandatory training on using “correct” pronouns for their fellow students, warning that using their real pronouns may constitute “abuse” and could lead to disciplinary action.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, the Ivy League school Harvard University now requires all students to attend mandatory Title IX training sessions. At these sessions, they are told, among other things, that “using the wrong pronouns” for students who believe they are a different gender constitutes “abuse,” and that “any words used to lower a person’s self-worth” are “verbal abuse.”
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The American Principles Project (APP), a national pro-parents rights organization that directly engages in campaigns and elections, has entered the Polk County, Florida school board election by providing four local candidates with $40,000 for ad campaigns.
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The desperate attempts by the White House, congressional Democrats, and the corporate media to refocus voter attention on abortion rather than inflation are failing. Most reputable polls show that the electorate is far more concerned about mismanagement of the economy by President Biden and his collaborators in Congress than about threats to reproductive rights posed by “MAGA Republicans.” Contrary to Democratic hopes, November won’t be about abortion vs. inflation. The midterms will be a referendum on Biden’s performance, particularly as it affects inflation.
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That once distinguished the United States from illiberal regimes following the Orwellian mantra “some are more equal than others” was the hallowed American idea of “equal justice under the law.”
The phrase is engraved above the entrance to the United States Supreme Court – an ideal that took centuries to achieve. Yet it is an ancient concept – what the Greeks called isonomia that distinguished classical democratic Athens from its anti-democratic rivals. Isonomia later became enshrined as the central criterion of all Western consensual governments.
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The Department of Education (DOE) is giving about $25 million in grants to several universities to help them hire and train a “diverse educator workforce,” according to a Sept. 12 press release.
The DOE partnered with Teacher Quality Partnership (TQP), a group that works on preparing higher education faculty, to provide 22 new five-year grants to several universities, including three historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), according to the press release. The institutions receiving grants will work with TQP to “recruit highly qualified individuals, including individuals of color” for educator positions.
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With the school year underway around the U.S., parents and caregivers are once again faced with the age-old struggle of wrangling groggy kids out of bed in the morning. For parents of preteens and teenagers, it can be particularly challenging.
Sometimes this gets chalked up to laziness in teens. But the main reason why a healthy person is unable to naturally wake up without an alarm is that they are not getting the sleep their brain and body need.
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The Heritage Foundation, a preeminent conservative think tank founded in 1973, is leaning into a new, more populist vision of conservatism that’s focused on domestic and cultural issues and more open to wielding government power to advance the conservative cause.
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A highly contentious vote on a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage at the federal level has been put on hold until after the November midterms, as the legislation struggles to garner 60 votes in support.
Politico reports that the bipartisan group of senators working on the bill, known as the Respect for Marriage Act, made their announcement on Thursday. They had previously been considering a vote on the legislation as soon as Monday of next week, but determined that they could not garner enough Republican support to overcome a possible filibuster that would kill the legislation.
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When is the last time you went to an independent coffee shop? Not a coffee shop run by a church or a charity that does positive things for a community – I mean, a grungy, hipster coffee shop run by Gen Z-ers who dress like they rolled out of a bed in the late ’70s and who believe their knowledge of roasting beans has greater value than rocket science.
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The Defense Department’s inspector general has alerted the secretary of defense to apparent blanket denials of religious accommodation requests (RAR) for exemptions from the military COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which would be a violation of federal law.
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NBC News was criticized after tweeting a quote from an immigration activist who compared the illegal migrants sent by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, to “trash.”
The since-deleted tweet included a link to a story titled, “DeSantis sending asylum-seekers to Martha’s Vineyard divides Venezuelan Americans.” The post stated: “Florida Gov. DeSantis sending asylum-seekers to Martha’s Vineyard is like ‘me taking my trash out and just driving to different areas where I live and just throwing my trash there,’ a founding member of a foundation which helps refugees says.”
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Voters overwhelmingly trust Republicans to manage the economy, a new poll ahead of this year’s midterm elections suggests, while also viewing the economy as the most important issue.
Roughly 52% of voters said that they trust Republicans to manage the economy, compared to 38% for Democrats, while only 1% of respondents said they agreed with the proposals of both parties to manage it, according to a poll conducted by the Times and Siena College, which measured the relative strength of both parties in advance of the election scheduled on Nov. 8. The economy has been the most important issue to voters heading into the polls; in a July edition of the same NYT/Siena poll, 20% called it the “most important problem facing the country today,” while roughly 76% said that it would be “extremely important” to them as they vote.
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China announced sanctions against CEOs of two major U.S. defense contractors Friday for their role in an arms package the State Department approved for Taiwan on Sept. 2.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the sanctions against Raytheon CEO Gregory J. Hayes and Boeing Defense CEO Ted Colbert will “defend China’s sovereignty and security interests” against U.S. “military contact” with Taiwan. The Biden administration notified Congress of its intent to transfer $1.1 billion worth of military equipment to Taiwan earlier this month, including 60 anti-ship missiles Boeing Defense agreed to produce and 100 air-to-air missilescontracted with Raytheon.
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Republican J.D. Vance’s lead over Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan grew up to 4 points in Ohio’s Senate race 53 days out from Election Day, according to a new survey from Emerson College Polling and The Hill released Friday, in a bad sign for Democrats’ hopes of taking the Senate.
Vance held a 44% to 40% lead in polling conducted by Emerson College and The Hill in Ohio’s race for U.S. Senate. He previously led Ryan by three points, 45% to 42%, according to Emerson College’s polling in August.
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As life expectancy declines in the United States, life expectancy in China has continued its steady climb, potentially surpassing the U.S., according to certain recent data sets.
The U.S.’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently estimated that life expectancy at birth had fallen nearly a year to 76.1 years in 2021, while the Chinese National Health Commission estimated that life expectancy in China had risen to 78.3 in 2021, according to The State Council Of The People’s Republic of China. However, this data is disputed, with Chinese state estimates of life expectancy in 2020 nearly a year higher than estimates by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), or by the World Bank.
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Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio blasted the Biden administration for what he viewed as prioritizing aid to Ukraine during a Monday appearance on Fox Business Network.
“I’m all for helping Ukraine, I just don’t think it should be the American taxpayer continuing to give and give and give,” Jordan said. “So you know, again, let’s hope he moves in the right direction as it seems to be doing and we want Ukraine to prevail in this — in this war, but let’s be supportive but I don’t know that we need to be sending a bunch of more American tax dollars there.”
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Republican senators claimed in a Monday letter to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Rohit Chopra that he has returned the federal agency to its “lawless and unaccountable” Obama-era “roots.”
Led by Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, the 12 senators are taking aim at Chopra’s alleged “abuses of power” that are a “serious concern.” Chopra should “reverse course” and ensure the CFPB “stay[s] within the boundaries of law,” the senators wrote.
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The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot is trying to probe former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, reportedly finding he was involved in efforts to overturn 2020 election results, according to The Hill.
A committee member said Gingrich seems to have participated in an effort by various allies of former President Donald Trump to establish fake electors in states Trump claimed to have won, the outlet reported. Committee chair Bennie Thompson’s recent letter requesting Gingrich’s “voluntary cooperation” indicated he communicated with Trump advisors like Jared Kushner, Mark Meadows and Jason Miller about election outcome reversal tactics.
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Accreditation pervades American education from kindergarten through graduate school. It has become a means through which the government enforces subpar educational outcomes and increases its power.
Of course, it didn’t start out that way.
Primary and secondary accreditation began in the 1880s as a voluntary method to improve quality among schools and establish standards for students preparing for college.
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The total number of homeless people in Los Angeles County has skyrocketed over the last few years, reaching a staggering new total of over 69,000.
Fox News reports that the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), which released its updated report on Thursday, found an increase of 4.1 percent since 2020. In the entirety of the county, approximately 69,144 people are now homeless; in just the city of Los Angeles alone, there are 41,980 homeless people.
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There has been a lot of talk during this election cycle about “voter enthusiasm;” which side has it, what are its causes, and what might it all mean for the final result. Much of it is propaganda that should be ignored, but there are some numbers and data that can help illuminate the terrain. All that attention is appropriate, given that each and every election depends entirely on who shows up to vote.
Let’s start with the propaganda.
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A startling new study by the Pew Research Center reveals a staggering statistic. The United States is No. 1 globally . . . but in a shameful category. Of the 130 nations surveyed America, by more than a factor of three, had the greatest number of fatherless homes: “The U.S. has the world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households. Almost a quarter of U.S. children under the age of 18 live with one parent and no other adults (23%), more than three times the share of children around the world who do so (7%).”
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Joe Biden announced Friday that former Obama Administration adviser John Podesta would join the White House to oversee the spending of $370 billion for the purpose of addressing so-called “global warming.” His appointment, however, has led to criticism from China hawks who warn that Podesta is too close to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
According to the Washington Free Beacon, Podesta had previously called for more Chinese investment in American infrastructure as far back as 2013, claiming that there are “great opportunities for Chinese firms to directly invest in this nation, to build American infrastructure, to create American jobs, and generate steady and handsome returns.”
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President Joe Biden received no bounce in polls from his dark Sept. 1 speech in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania outlining the supposed “threat” to “the very foundations of our republic” posed by former President Donald Trump and the so-called Make America Great Again (MAGA) Republicans.
58 percent disapproved of his handling of his job before the speech, and 57 percent afterward, the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.
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Texas mom Jennifer Cains told Campus Reform that she unenrolled her daughter from the University of North Texas (UNT) College of Education’s Center for Young Children (CYC) after learning that teachers were allegedly pushing gender theory and pronouns in a classroom full of four-year-olds.
The CYC is an “early childhood program within the College of Education” at UNT. The center describes itself as a “research-based, high-quality preschool program” used to give UNT’s college trainees experience and provide “care and education” for its young students.
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The Biden Administration’s efforts to rewrite American history continued on Thursday, with the Department of the Interior (DOI) announcing that it would be renaming 650 various monuments, geographical features, and other historic landmarks owned by the federal government.
As reported by Fox News, the new Board on Geographic Names (BOGN) voted on final new names that would replace the names of any federal land featuring the word “Squaw.” The DOI, led by far-left radical Deb Haaland, has repeatedly and falsely claimed that the word is “an offensive ethnic, racial and sexist slur, particularly for Indigenous women.”
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California could soon offer a tax incentive to certain households that do not own cars under a bill awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s consideration.
Senate Bill 457, which passed the Legislature on the final day of session last week, would offer a $1,000 tax credit per household starting in January 2023 to certain low-income taxpayers who do not own a vehicle. The bill specifies that spouses jointly filing making $60,000 or less and individuals who make $40,000 or less would be qualified for the tax credit.
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