National News - Page 38

HBCUs Face New Challenges Under Parent Plus Loan Limits

By Danielle Chemtob Antonio Sweeney relied on a mix of private and school scholarships, plus a federal Pell Grant for low income students, to pay for his first two years at his dream school, Morehouse College, in Atlanta, the alma mater of Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) and Martin Luther King Jr. But by junior year, most of the outside scholarship money was used up and he had taken on so many activities–from serving as class president to running his own side businesses–that he hadn’t earned enough credits to keep his Morehouse academic scholarship. He filled the gap that year by taking out

Major News Networks Reject New Pentagon Press Policy

By Daniel Arkin Five major broadcast news networks announced Tuesday that they will not sign the Pentagon’s new press policy before an afternoon deadline, joining several other media organizations that have objected to a set of rules that many journalists consider restrictive. “Today, we join virtually every other news organization in declining to agree to the Pentagon’s new requirements, which would restrict journalists’ ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues,” NBC News said in a joint statement with ABC News, CBS News, CNN and Fox News Media. “The policy is without precedent and threatens core journalistic

Chicago Schools Face ICE Raids, Students Feel Unsafe

By Daniella Silva and Natasha Korecki A teacher said tear gas drifted toward a school playground, forcing students and recess indoors. A viral video recorded near another school showed law enforcement dragging a woman out of her van and onto the ground. And students say they have seen ICE vehicles in their neighborhoods, leading them to feel frightened, according to one instructor. Educators say those incidents and others that have taken place as federal immigration agents increase arrests in Chicago are disrupting their jobs, upending their communities and traumatizing their students. “Everyone’s very anxious,” said Sheena Shukla, a school social worker for Chicago

JD Vance Defends Young GOP Leaders Over Racist Chat

By Henry J. Gomez and Allan Smith Vice President JD Vance has come to the defense of young Republican leaders who are under scrutiny after Politico published “hundreds of racist and hateful messages” from what it reported was their private group chat. The “reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys,” Vance said Wednesday in an appearance on “The Charlie Kirk Show,” the podcast launched by the recently assassinated conservative activist who was a close ally of Vance and President Donald Trump. “They tell edgy, offensive jokes, like, that’s what kids do,” Vance continued. “And I really don’t want us to grow up

Judge Blocks Trump Layoffs of Federal Workers in Shutdown

By Fiona Glisson and Ryan J. Reilly A federal judge on Wednesday granted a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from laying off federal workers during the government shutdown, which has now stretched to two weeks. Two unions sued the Trump administration last month ahead of the shutdown after the White House signaled a plan to lay off workers through “reductions in force” (RIFs) at federal agencies. At a hearing on Wednesday, a federal judge in the Northern District of California granted the unions’ motion to issue a temporary restraining order preventing the layoffs, which began on Friday. “The activities that are being undertaken here

Trump Administration Cuts 600 CDC Jobs Amid Shutdown

By Pien Huag Around 600 workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were cut over the long weekend, as part of a wider push by the Trump Administration to slash the size of the federal workforce during the government shutdown. It was not a smooth process. On Friday, more than 1,300 CDC employees were notified that they had lost their jobs. Many of them were furloughed because of the shutdown, and found out only after Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, posted on X that “the RIFs have begun.” The next day, around 700 employees got emails revoking

Chicago Protest Erupts After Federal Agents Use Tear Gas

By  Mary Norkol, Anthony Vazquez and Kade Heather Federal agents chased a car through a residential neighborhood on the Southeast Side of Chicago Tuesday, and then intentionally crashed into the car in a risky maneuver restricted by some police departments nationwide. The maneuver was caught on local security cameras, which showed the car being hit by the feds’ vehicle, leading the occupants of the car to fall out while it was moving. The occupants then fled on foot as agents ran behind. The commotion attracted a crowd of onlookers and protesters, who converged near the scene of the crash at 105th Street and Avenue

MacKenzie Scott Donates Millions to Support Education

MacKenzie Scott continues to make large, unrestricted donations to HBCUs and institutions dedicated to advancing education for students of color. Her latest gifts include $42 million to 10,000 Degrees, a Bay Area nonprofit that helps first-generation students attend and complete college. According to Fortune, the donation is the largest in the organization’s 45-year history. Scott also contributed tens of millions to Native Forward, the nation’s largest scholarship provider for Native students, and $70 million to the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) to build pooled endowments across 37 historically Black colleges and universities. These donations reinforce Scott’s reputation for trust-based philanthropy—large grants given quickly and

UPS Packages Stuck in Customs Chaos Under New Regulations

By Kayla Steinberg Thousands of U.S.-bound packages shipped by UPS are trapped at hubs across the country, unable to clear the maze of new customs requirements imposed by the Trump administration. As packages flagged for customs issues pile up in UPS warehouses, the company told NBC News it has begun “disposing of” some shipments. Frustrated UPS customers describe waiting for weeks and trying to make sense of scores of conflicting tracking updates from the world’s largest courier. “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Matthew Wasserbach, brokerage manager of Express Customs Clearance, said of the UPS backlog. “It’s totally unprecedented.” Wasserbach’s New York City-based shipping services firm

Trump’s Layoffs Slash Education Department Workforce by 20%

By Colin Binkley A new round of layoffs at the Education Department is depleting an agency that was hit hard in the Trump administration’s previous mass firings, threatening new disruption to the nation’s students and schools in areas from special education to civil rights enforcement to after-school programs. The Trump administration started laying off 466 Education Department staffers on Friday amid mass firings across the government meant to pressure Democratic lawmakers over the federal shutdown. The layoffs would cut the agency’s workforce by nearly a fifth and leave it reduced to less than half its size when President Donald Trump took office on Jan.

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