National News - Page 31

Biden signs temporary spending bill that heads off a government shutdown

By Tamara Keith President Biden signed a short-term government funding bill on Thursday, avoiding a potential government shutdown and pushing into next year debates about wartime funding for Ukraine and Israel. Biden’s approval came a day after the Senate overwhelmingly approved the stop-gap spending bill. The measure, designed by new House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., funds four federal agencies until Jan. 19, 2024 and the rest until Feb 2, 2024. The goal is to give Congress more time to negotiate long-term spending bills. The president is in San Francisco for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, so the bill came out West

Police and protesters clash at Atlanta training center site derided by opponents as ‘Cop City’

 Police used tear gas and flash-bang grenades Monday to halt a march seeking to stop construction of a police and firefighter training center in Atlanta. More than 500 people on Monday marched about 2 miles from a park to the site, which is just outside the Atlanta city limits in suburban DeKalb County. A wedge of marchers, including some in masks, goggles and chemical suits intended to protect against tear gas, pushed into a line of officers in riot gear on a road outside the training center site. Officers pushed back and then responded with tear gas, with one protester

This school board made news for banning books. Voters flipped it to majority Democrat

By Emily Rizzo Meghan Budden’s family was considering moving if their Pennsylvania school district didn’t change course. She normally isn’t politically active, she said, but felt compelled to volunteer when a slate of Democrats launched bids to take back their school board in Central Bucks School District, just north of Philadelphia. Central Bucks is well known both statewide and nationally for heated board meetings over masks and Pride flags, policies banning certain books and directives to not use students’ preferred names and pronouns. Accusations of discrimination against LGBTQ students have also led to an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Department of Education. “I couldn’t have my kids in a school district where these kinds of

SCOTUS Finally Has New Rules, Will They Actually Rein In Clarence Thomas?

By Jessica Washington After an escalating series of scandals, the Supreme Court finally issued a code of conduct. But will this new code actually do anything to curb the behavior of some of the more notorious justices (**cough cough** Justice Clarence Thomas), or will it just sit there collecting dust? Not to burst any bubbles, but the first page of the justice’s statement kind of gives the whole game away. “For the most part these rules and principles are not new,” reads the statement, “The absence of a Code, however has led in recent years to the misunderstanding that the

‘Big risks’: Obama and tech experts address harms of AI to marginalized communities

By Claretta Bellamy More must be done to curb AI’s potential for harm or the further marginalization of people of color, a panel of experts weighing the ever-widening reach of AI warned last week. The warning came during a panel discussion here at the Obama Foundation’s Democracy Forum, a yearly event for thought leaders to exchange ideas on how to create a more equitable society. This year’s forum was focused on the advances and challenges of AI. During a panel titled, “Weighing AI and Human Progress,” Alondra Nelson, a professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study, said AI

Teens wrote plays about gun violence — now they are being staged around the U.S.

By Neda Ulaby American high school students, who were born after the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999, are grimly accustomed to shooting drills and regular, if not daily, reports of gun violence on the news. It was the 2018 school shooting at Parkland, Fla., that helped catalyze Enough! Plays to End Gun Violence. The yearly contest encourages young people to write plays addressing how ongoing shootings affect American lives. But founder Michael Cotey spent most of his professional life as a theater geek, not an activist. “We’re kind of always in a state of being bruised and battered,” he

Black Voters Have New Power in Mississippi. Can They Elect a Democrat?

By Nick Corasaniti Just three years ago, Mississippi had an election law on its books from an 1890 constitutional convention that was designed to uphold “white supremacy” in the state. The law created a system for electing statewide officials that was similar to the Electoral College — and that drastically reduced the political power of Black voters. Voters overturned the Jim Crow-era law in 2020. This summer, a federal court threw out another law, also from 1890, that had permanently stripped voting rights from people convicted of a range of felonies. (The case is currently tied up on appeal, with no

Authors of George Floyd book were told not to talk about systemic racism at Tenn. school event

By Char Adams Journalists Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, authors of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book “His Name Is George Floyd,” are still unclear why they were told they couldn’t read from their book or talk about systemic racism to a room full of high school students in Memphis. Two days before an event at Whitehaven High School, they said they were “blindsided” by the last-minute restrictions, which they believed event organizers issued in accordance with Tennessee laws restricting certain books in schools. They said they’d also been told the week before the appearance that their book wouldn’t be distributed at the event.

Kids hear the news. Here’s how teachers help them understand it

Written By Sequoia Carillo Each morning, Stephanie Nichols gathers her second graders around a table to eat breakfast and start their day. As the kids unpack their knapsacks and settle into the classroom, Nichols likes to listen more than she speaks. Breakfast table conversation can be about anything – from video games to the New England Patriots. But in recent weeks the table was buzzing about one thing: the mass shooting in Lewiston that left 18 people dead and 13 wounded. The event resulted in a multi-day search that closed schools and left the community on lockdown. Nichols teaches at Narragansett Elementary School

Supreme Court Adopts Ethics Code After Reports of Undisclosed Gifts and Travel

By Abbie VanSickle The Supreme Court issued an ethics code on Monday after a series of revelations about undisclosed property deals and gifts intensified pressure on the justices to adopt one. In a statement, the justices said they had established the code of conduct “to set out succinctly and gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the members of the court.” Left unclear was how the rules would be enforced, and the court said that it was still studying how any code would be put into effect. “For the most part these rules and principles

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