World news

Subterms

    More stories

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Charlie Kirk memorial mixes rally and revival as mourners vow to spread Maga message

      by

      Hours before the sun rose over the Arizona desert, tens of thousands of mourners snaked through the Valley toward the State Farm stadium in Glendale – where the conservative activist Charlie Kirk was lionized as a “prophet” for the streaming era and a defender of free speech, martyred in the line of duty.The memorial was part spiritual revival and part political rally, with a program that included Donald Trump and prominent members of the president’s Make America Great Again (Maga) movement. Mourners obliged the red, white and blue “Sunday best” dress code, filling the at-capacity venue with stars, stripes and Maga hats.“We’ve got it from here,” said vice-president JD Vance, memorializing Kirk, his friend and the founder of the youth activist group Turning Point USA, as one of the most pre-eminent voices on the American right.Inside the domed stadium, emotions were already raw when Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow, took the stage. She inhaled deeply and looked heavenward then dabbed tears from her eyes and began her remarks before a rapt audience, Trump among them.She said her husband’s work was devoted to saving the “lost boys of the west” who lack direction and meaning, including the 22-year-old suspect charged with his murder. “That man,” she said, her chest heaving. “I forgive him.” A tearful crowd rose to its feet in sustained applause as Kirk cast her eyes upward.A political widow in an instant, Kirk will succeed her husband as the chief executive of the political movement he founded. “I will make you proud,” she said.Her words marked the emotional crest of an hours-long service that began with Christian worship songs and ended with a live performance by Lee Greenwood of God Bless the USA – and a speech from the president to a “nation in mourning”. “America loved Charlie Kirk,” Trump said, admiring the 31-year-old’s ability to “always draw a crowd”.As the afternoon wore on, the speeches became sharper and more political – a battle cry that implored the government officials present to be aggressive in “wielding the sword against evil”. There were only a handful of explicit references to Democrats and the left – but many speeches mixed personal remembrances of Kirk with a searing vilification of his ideological opponents.“To those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us, what do you have? You have nothing,” said Stephen Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff, his voice rising with indignation.“You are nothing. You are wickedness. You are jealousy, you are envy, you are hatred. You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing. We are the ones who build.”Prosecutors have said Kirk was killed by a lone gunman, Tyler Robinson, who has been charged with capital murder and could face the death penalty if convicted. While authorities have not revealed a clear motive for the shooting, prosecutors say texts from Robinson indicated he had enough of Kirk’s “hatred”.“We are all Charlie Kirk now,” said Florida congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna, who began her political career helping to “battle the socialist indoctrination on college campuses” as Turning Point USA’s national Hispanic outreach director.Before the memorial began, conservative media personalities and influencers circulated in the VIP section of the stadium. Colorado congresswoman Laura Boebert, wearing a blue blazer, mingled with Kyle Rittenhouse, who became a cause célèbre on the right after being acquitted of fatally shooting two men during protests against a police killing in Kenosha, Wisconsin.“Honored to be here,” tweeted billionaire businessman and former Trump administration adviser Elon Musk. Musk was seated next to Trump, a reunification Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet said Kirk had wanted “so badly”.View image in fullscreenEddie Wallin crossed the Atlantic to attend Kirk’s memorial. His journey took him from Sweden to Texas, where he rented a car and drove 17 hours to reach Glendale, subsisting on bananas and other provisions that he could eat behind the wheel.Wearing a white shirt emblazoned with the word “Freedom”, Wallin recalled meeting Kirk in 2019, during a trip to Texas. He said Kirk, smiling, told him he never expected to meet a Swedish conservative. Six years later, Wallin said he encountered Kirk again during the 2024 presidential election won by Trump and was surprised the organizer, by then a hugely prominent figure in Maga politics, remembered him.“After so many years, he remembered me,” Wallin said. “I will remember him for my whole life.”Friends and colleagues shared personal anecdotes, depicting Kirk as a tireless promoter of conservative cultural values and a “Maga warrior” who encouraged those he loved to get married and have “millions of kids”.Turning Point USA staff described Kirk’s journey from a teenager with an “idea and a folding table” into the leader of one of the most influential conservative youth movements of the modern era. One suggested Kirk was having “heavenly Fomo” – fear of missing out – looking down on the event, the largest in the organization’s history. The memorial, with Super-Bowl level security at the stadium where Taylor Swift launched her historic Eras tour, was pulled together in just 10 days.The stage bore stamps of a Turning Point production: columns of sparklers flared, red lights blinked and two large American flags featured prominently, atop the TV screens that reflected the program to the audience.Mike McCoy, Kirk’s former chief of staff, quoted philosopher Soren Kierkegaard: “The martyr dies and his rule has just begun.” The audience roared.Several speakers, including Trump, spoke of their shock at learning that Kirk had been fatally shot. Frank Turek was there on the Utah Valley University campus, standing feet from Kirk when he was struck by a single bullet. Turek recalled the harrowing minutes that followed, including a struggle to pull Kirk’s 6ft 5in frame into a car as medics performed first aid. “His face was looking at mine but he wasn’t looking at me,” Turek said. “He was looking past me, right into eternity.”Long before the speaking program began, mourners wiped their eyes, swayed to the music, their arms raised in worship. Parents brought young children – even babies – to the memorial. One father padded the lining of his jacket with diapers, as no bags were allowed under the rigorous security in place for the event.Near one of the entrance’s, Turning Point Action registered voters and handed out information to students interested in starting new chapters on their high school or college campuses – a political movement Erika Kirk vowed would grow “10 times greater through the power of his memory”.Several stands sold T-shirts with a sketch of Kirk and the text, “This is our turning point.”Many supporters and speakers vowed to carry on Kirk’s work.Jeffrey Barke, a physician with a large online following, came with a group of friends from Orange county, California, on what he called a “pilgrimage of sorts” to honor Charlie Kirk’s legacy.“What you’re seeing here is not just a tribute to his movement, you’re seeing a revival of his message: faith, family, freedom,” Barke said, gesturing to the crowd of supporters. Though only 31, Kirk left a lasting spiritual and political legacy, Barke said.“I think every one of us needs to be a bit more uncomfortable than we’re used to in spreading Charlie’s message,” he said, pledging to use his own platform and social media presence to do so.Christina Sawick, wearing a “Trump was right about everything” hat, said she was inspired by the attendance to pay tribute to Kirk, whom she had followed since 2016. On Sunday, she left her home in Mesa at 3am to attend the service. Sawick said the country seems to have reached a turning point, and she hopes Americans will follow Kirk’s legacy.“I want people to get behind our president,” she said. “And that there’s nothing wrong with making America great again.” More

    • 125 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      US must ‘universally condemn political violence’, Democratic governor Shapiro says

      by

      Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro has said Americans must “universally condemn political violence, no matter where it is” after the killing of rightwing youth organizer Charlie Kirk as well as a deadly shootout in Shapiro’s state that left three police officers dead and two others injured.Hours before Kirk’s funeral, Shapiro said that the nation stands at an “inflection point” and urged Americans to choose shared values over division, pointing to the solidarity shown by Pennsylvanians in the aftermath of the officers’ killings in York county last week.“I think we’re at an inflection point as a nation, and I think we can go in a number of different ways,” Shapiro told moderator Kristen Welker on NBC News’s Meet the Press. “I hope we go the direction of healing, of bringing people together, of trying to find our commonalities – not just focus on our differences.”Shapiro told Welker about his own recent experience with political violence: when his gubernatorial mansion was firebombed in April, an act that authorities suspect was carried out by a man unhappy with Shapiro’s support of Israel amid the Israeli war on Gaza.Shapiro also referenced the murder of Minnesota state house speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in June. Authorities charged a man described by friends as right-leaning – and who had previously registered as a Republican in another state – with the Hortmans’ killings.While Shapiro said he didn’t want to equate the gubernatorial’s mansion’s firebombing with the killing of Kirk and the Hortmans, he said, “Political violence leaves scars.”Addressing arguments that criticism of political opponents may fuel violence, Shapiro pointed to longstanding US supreme court rulings that distinguish protected political speech from illicit incitement to violence.He said most political speech – even if offensive, disliked or hateful – is legal and protected.“There is a big difference,” Shapiro said.The attack on the governor’s mansion took place in April, hours after Shapiro, his wife, their four children, two dogs and another family had celebrated Passover in one of the rooms that sustained damage in the blaze.During Sunday’s interview, the governor criticized Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership and called for an end to the war in Gaza, saying “the suffering needs to stop” while adding that Hamas needed to be out of power as well.Welker also asked Shapiro to comment on criticism about in a new memoir by Kamala Harris on her unsuccessful run for the White House against Donald Trump in 2024. As Welker put it, the book – 107 Days – portrayed him as losing out on the chance to be Harris’s running mate because he was more “focused” on defining his role than helping her defeat Trump as her “number two”.“The only thing I was focused on was working my tail off to deny Donald Trump a second [presidency],” said Shapiro, who was mum about whether he would run for the White House in 2028, as many anticipate that he may.“At the end of the day, this was a choice voters had between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. They made their choice.” More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump drive to pursue critics puts US on path to dictatorship, Democrats warn

      by

      Top Democratic leaders on Sunday warned that Donald Trump’s drive to go after his political opponents is putting the US on a path to becoming a dictatorship and a “banana republic” just eight months into his second presidency.The warnings came a day after Trump’s public call for the justice department to take action against perceived enemies – and after ABC yanked its late-night talkshow host Jimmy Kimmel off the air in the wake of a threat from regulators at the Federal Communications Commission who are loyal to the president. Such behaviors, along with others since his return to the Oval Office in January, has prompted many who are not fiercely aligned with him to describe him as an authoritarian.Turning the justice department “into an instrument that goes after his enemies, whether they’re guilty or not … is the path to a dictatorship,” Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said on CNN. “That’s what dictatorships do.”Schumer’s fellow Democratic senator Chris Murphy, meanwhile, suggested the US was already becoming a “banana republic”.“The president of the United States is now employing the full power of the federal government, the FCC the department of justice, in order to punish, lock up, take down off the air all of his political enemies,” Murphy said on ABC.ABC indefinitely took Kimmel’s show off the air after he criticized the Trump administration’s response to the 10 September shooting death of far-right political organizer Charlie Kirk – which in turn prompted FCC chairperson Brendan Carr to threaten to revoke the broadcast licenses of ABC stations.“This is one of the most dangerous moments America has ever faced,” Murphy said. “We are quickly turning into a banana republic.”In a social media post Saturday addressing “Pam” – evidently attorney general Pam Bondi – Trump fumed over the lack of legal action against US senator Adam Schiff of California and New York attorney general Letitia James, both Democrats.Schiff and James are among a handful of people who have been accused by a close Trump ally, Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte, of falsifying documents on mortgage applications.“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump said.On Friday, the federal prosecutor who was overseeing the probe into James resigned, after the attorney – Erik Siebert – reportedly insisted there was insufficient evidence to charge her with mortgage fraud.Siebert, US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, reportedly told staff of his resignation via an email on Friday. Trump claimed Saturday on social media that he fired Siebert.Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, whom Trump defeated to win his first presidency, echoed Schumer’s criticism. She called Trump’s moves a “very dangerous turn in our politics”.“What we’re hearing now from the White House and their supporters (is) that this may, you know, lead to even further political action, legal action, prosecutorial action, intimidation of all kinds,” Clinton said on CNN.Outgoing Republican congressman Don Bacon of Nebraska, in response to a question about the Trump administration and Kimmel, separately told CNN that “there have been some wrong statements made, to say the least”.“To threaten media and say you’re going to pull their license – that’s not what America’s about,” said Bacon, who has decided against running for re-election in the 2026 midterms. “And we do have a freedom of speech, freedom of the press. And we should defend that.”Schiff and James have separately clashed with Trump, leading investigations that the Republican president alleges were political witch-hunts.During Trump’s first presidency, Schiff – then a member of the US House – led the prosecution at Trump’s first of two impeachment trials, which was based on allegations he pressured Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 election. Schiff also served on a select House committee which investigated the January 6 attack on Congress carried out a pro-Trump mob which wanted to keep him in office after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.In between Trump’s presidencies, James brought a major civil fraud case against him, alleging he and his company had unlawfully inflated his wealth and manipulated the value of properties to obtain favorable bank loans or insurance terms.A state judge ordered Trump to pay $464m in that suit, but a higher court later removed the financial penalty while upholding the underlying judgment. More

    • 225 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Amid the anger and hate, this is the big question: can societies still summon empathy? | Keith Magee

      by

      Something is happening, and we see it on both sides of the Atlantic. On the surface, it is about flags, identity and political allegiance. But to me, as an American living in Britain, recent events reveal something deeper: both our societies are normalising hate ​and othering in ways that corrode not only our politics but our souls.The something is aggressions and micro-aggressions: a coarsening of everyday encounters. I have snapshots. Recently, at a celebrated creative hub in London, I twice endured blatant bias. My guests and I – the only all-Black table in the room – were left in the dark, literally. As night fell, every other table was given a lamp except ours. When I raised it with management, I was interrupted, dismissed and told it was an oversight. A Black staff member was sent to smooth things over​. An official later told me that while they had “a different view of what happened”, they accepted that this was “how [I] experienced it” and admitted it “fell short of [their] usual standards”. My Blackness was overlooked, diminished and dismissed – while whiteness was appreciated, affirmed and celebrated, in a space that loudly markets itself as a home of “belonging”.​The pendulum has swung back. Much more overt aggression is normalised in a way I haven’t seen in years. Recently in US airports and restaurants, I ​have been called the N-word: a word ​historically intended not ​just to insult, but to erase.These are not minor indignities. They are signs of a culture where suspicion and prejudice are no longer whispered but weaponised. In Colorado, three students were critically wounded after a school shooting. In Minnesota, political leaders were among those targeted in a mass attack by an assailant who compiled a sprawling “hitlist” of dozens of Democrats, though investigators noted he appeared to hold few consistent or coherent ideological beliefs. In Sweden, 10 students and staff members were killed in a tragic attack at an adult education centre in Örebro – a case in which police confirmed “there was nothing … to suggest he had acted on ideological grounds”. Here in Britain, far-right activity and asylum seeker protests have surged, fuelled by a combination of inflammatory rhetoric and relative silence from political leaders.What unites these threads is not ideology but a deficit of empathy. And without empathy, democracies falter.Martin Luther King Jr warned: “Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.” Hatred, he knew, corrodes the hater as much as the hated. Love, by contrast, is the only force capable of transforming both. This is not abstract philosophy. It is lived truth.And the message of Jesus Christ was never about defending doctrines or drawing boundaries of purity. It was a message of radical love – love that crossed lines, embraced the despised and saw the soul beyond the sin. That is the love the world is starving for today.Rabbi Jonathan Sacks made the same case in his 2015 book Not in God’s Name: “We are all children of Abraham … God is calling us, Jew, Christian and Muslim, to let go of hate and the preaching of hate, and live at last as brothers and sisters … honouring God’s name by honouring his image, humankind.” His challenge was theological, yes, but also civic. Societies cannot thrive if they are built on grievance. Empathy must become a public practice woven into our schools, workplaces and laws. Politicians who thrive on division should be held accountable not only for what they say but for the cultures of cruelty they foster.Even in the US, where free speech is sacrosanct, presidents have acknowledged, rhetorically at least, that liberty cannot mean licence. “We must love each other, show affection for each other, and unite together in condemnation of hatred, bigotry, and violence,” the Trump White House once declared. That statement should apply to every American citizen – bar none – and to every society that claims to be democratic.From Britain’s protests to the US’s violence, public theatre often drowns out deeper questions. The real issue is not which side shouts louder, but whether societies can still summon empathy in an age addicted to division. Free speech is vital for democracy – but without empathy and responsibility, it becomes a blunt instrument that wounds the vulnerable while shielding the powerful.Here in Britain, empathy would mean confronting racism where it hides in plain sight: in private clubs that celebrate whiteness while ignoring Blackness, and in everyday encounters where bias is excused as banter. It would mean reshaping our politics so grievance is not weaponised but grace is prioritised.This is not about sentimentality. Empathy is not naivety. It is an act of moral courage. It means refusing to define people solely by their worst moments. It means seeing the soul in the person across from us – even when their words wound.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionI feel outraged when a waiter – or anyone – calls me a nigger, because the word is meant to erase me. But I do not feel hatred. Hatred corrodes the soul. Outrage, when held rightly, becomes the fuel for truth-telling – for refusing to allow dignity to be diminished or injustice to be normalised. My hope is that even in the face of such ugliness, we can build a society where empathy does the work that hate once claimed: binding us together, not tearing us apart.I think often of my son. He is growing up in a world more toxic than the one I inherited. He will face choices about whether to meet cruelty with cruelty or to answer it with love. What I want him to know; what I want us all to know, is that empathy is not weakness. It is strength. It is the refusal to let hate dictate who we are. In the end, it is the only inheritance worth leaving behind.I think, too, of another child: Charlie Kirk’s son in the US. One will grow up without his father; my own will grow up watching what that boy’s father stood for. Two boys, oceans apart, but inheriting the same question: will we break the cycle of hate? My prayer is that, in different ways, both will come to know this: the only way forward, the only way to heal what is broken, is love.

      Keith Magee is a theologian and author, and chairs the Guardian Foundation More

    • 200 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      US attorney tasked with inquiring into Trump critics resigns after president says ‘I want him out’

      by

      The federal prosecutor for the eastern district of Virginia resigned Friday under intense pressure from Donald Trump, after his office determined there wasn’t sufficient evidence to charge New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, a political rival of the president, with a crime.Erik Siebert told colleagues he was resigning in a letter sent Friday, NBC News reported. Meanwhile, in an early Saturday post on his Truth Social platform, Trump maintained that Siebert didn’t quit – but rather: “I fired him!”Hours earlier, Trump bluntly told reporters in the Oval Office: “I want him out.” The president claimed he soured on Siebert because Virginia’s two Democratic senators had endorsed his nomination, but also claimed that James “is very guilty of something”. ABC News reported earlier on Friday that Trump decided to fire Siebert after he failed to obtain an indictment against James.In 2024, James filed a civil lawsuit against Trump and his company that resulted in a significant financial penalty. That penalty was thrown out in August by an appeals court that upheld a judge’s finding that Trump had engaged in fraud by exaggerating his wealth for decades.After a five-month investigation, officials did not find enough clear evidence to charge James with a crime, ABC News reported earlier this week. Trump nominated Siebert, who worked since 2010 as an assistant US attorney in that office, for the position in May.The investigation centered on the allegation that James falsely said she was going to use a home she purchased in Virginia as her primary residence. While one document indicated James intended to use the home as her primary residence, others in the transaction show James clearly indicating she intended to use it as a second home.Ed Martin, a former January 6 defendant lawyer who is leading the justice department effort to target Trump’s political rivals, pressured prosecutors to seek an indictment, according to ABC News. Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and a staunch Trump ally, who criminally referred James, had urged Trump to fire Siebert, according to ABC.Pulte also referred California senator Adam Schiff, another political rival of Trump, and the Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook for mortgage fraud. The allegations in both of those cases appear similarly thin.The justice department has long held a level of independence from the White House, an arms length seen as necessary to give Americans confidence its prosecutors and other attorneys are making enforcement decisions based on facts and not politics. Trump has upended that norm, firing career attorneys and FBI agents who worked on January 6 cases.Those fired include Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI director James Comey and a career prosecutor who worked on some of the highest-profile cases in the southern district of New York. Maurene Comey, who was not given a reason for her firing, sued the Trump administration this week. More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘These results are sobering’: US high school seniors’ reading and math scores plummet

      by

      The average reading and math scores of American high school seniors fell to their lowest levels in two decades in 2024, according to new national data released last week.The results, from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), found that, on average, reading scores for 12th graders were 10 points lower in 2024 than they were in 1992, when the test was first administered, and that math scores fell to their lowest levels since 2005, when the math assessment began.The test, administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which is part of the US Department of Education, assessed roughly 19,300 12th-graders in math, 24,300 in reading and 23,000 eighth-graders in science between January and March of last year.The report found that 35% of seniors “performed at or above” the NAEP’s “proficient” level in reading, and 22% were at or above that level in math.It also stated that 45% of 12th graders scored below the NAEP’s “basic” level in math, marking a five percentage-point increase from 2019. In reading, 32% of students scored below the basic level, which was a two-point increase from 2019.“These results are sobering,” said NCES acting commissioner Matthew Soldner. “The drop in overall scores coincides with significant declines in achievement among our lowest-performing students, continuing a downward trend that began before the Covid pandemic.“Among our nation’s high-school seniors, we’re now seeing a larger percentage of students scoring below the NAEP basic achievement level in mathematics and reading than in any previous assessment.”One lingering effect of the pandemic present in the report was chronic absenteeism. The report found that about a third of 12th-graders reported missing three or more days of school in the month before the test, up from 25% in 2019.“Students are spending less time learning,” said Thomas Kane, an education economist at Harvard. “And when they are present, instruction is less efficient because teachers are constantly reteaching material.”Robert Balfanz, a professor at John Hopkins University School of Education, said easy access to information online and the use of online assignments may also be leading some students to treat in-person school attendance as optional.“In their minds, they tell their parents, ‘Look, all my assignments are online, I can do them even if I’m not at school,’” Balfanz said.But while the Covid pandemic and school closures had major effects on learning, experts say the academic decline began before 2020.“The uncomfortable truth is that American students have been significantly losing ground for more than a decade,” Eric Hanushek, an education economist, wrote in an opinion piece last week. “The pandemic didn’t break American education – it was already broken.”Kane said the decline among lower-achieving students began some time around 2015 and has continued.“It’s clearly not just the pandemic,” Kane said. “It should be troubling to everyone, and we need to find a solution.”Experts point to a range of potential factors beyond absenteeism that could be contributing to the decline, including increased screen time and smartphone use, declining student engagement, and the rollback of test-based accountability since the expiration of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2015.Carol Jago, a longtime English teacher and literacy expert at UCLA, told the Associated Press last week that students today read fewer books and spend less time with longer texts.“To be a good reader, you have to have the stamina to stay on the page, even when the going gets tough,” Jago said. “You have to build those muscles, and we’re not building those muscles in kids.”Balfanz added that the constant exposure to short-form and visual media in students’ daily lives may be making academic focus more difficult.One potential solution, he said, could be to add more dedicated reading time into school days – and restricting smartphones in classrooms.Kane noted that academic declines are appearing in other countries as well, which suggests a broader global trend that could be linked to increased screen use.Some US states have already passed laws restricting phone use in schools. Kane believes that there needs to be a national effort to assess the impact and effectiveness of those policies to see whether they work and ought to be implemented in more areas.The role of smart phones and social media in academic performance came up this week during a Senate hearing on the NAEP results.Martin West, the vice-chair of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees policy for the NAEP, told lawmakers that the rise of “smartphones and social media platforms targeting youth” is one area they should investigate.“We lack direct evidence of a causal link between smartphones and learning, but I’m convinced that this technology is a key driver of youth mental health challenges, a distraction from learning, both inside and outside of schools, and a deterrent to reading,” West said.Rebecca Winthrop, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, testified that student disengagement was exacerbated by the pandemic and is being amplified by social media. She endorsed actions such as smart phone bans, higher academic expectations, and adopting more engaging teaching styles.The NAEP results also reignited the debate around the federal government’s role in education, with US education secretary Linda McMahon saying last week that the lesson from the results “is clear”.“Success isn’t about how much money we spend, but who controls the money and where that money is invested,” she said. “That’s why President Trump and I are committed to returning control of education to the states so they can innovate and meet each school and students’ unique needs.”Representative Tim Walberg, a Republican who chairs the House education committee, agreed and said that “by returning education to the states, we can empower parents and local communities and ensure every child gains the skills necessary to succeed”.But Democratic representative Bobby Scott pushed back, writing that the NAEP results “reinforce the urgent need for sustained federal investment in academic recovery and educational equity”.“Now is not the time to retreat from our responsibility to provide every child, regardless of zip code, with the opportunity to succeed,” he added.Balfanz believes that “some collective effort at the national level” is needed to support states and districts in implementing proven solutions. He emphasized the need to “set targets and goals and strategies” and help build the capacity at the local level to be able to achieve them.Kane said that he agrees that states need to take a “more aggressive role in helping to reverse these trends” but that the federal government also needs to prioritize partnering with states “in a concerted, coordinated effort to answer two questions: finding effective ways to lower absenteeism and measuring the impact of the cellphone bans”.“Something fundamental in US schools is broken,” Kane warned. “And we need to fix it.” More

    • 175 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Ted Cruz compares threats to ABC by FCC chair to those of mob boss

      by

      Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, compared Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr’s threats to revoke the broadcast licenses of ABC stations over late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s commentary to “mafioso” tactics similar to those in Goodfellas, the 1990 mobster movie.“Look, Jimmy Kimmel has been canned. He has been suspended indefinitely. I think that it a fantastic thing,” Cruz said at the start of the latest episode of his podcast Verdict with Ted Cruz. There were, however “first amendment implications” of the FCC’s role, the senator, a Harvard Law School graduate who clerked for US supreme court chief justice William Rehnquist, added.Cruz, a formerly fierce political rival of Donald Trump turned strong supporter, called Carr’s comments “unbelievably dangerous” and warned that government attempts to police speech could harm conservatives if Democrats return to power.“He threatens explicitly: ‘We’re going to cancel ABC’s license. We’re going to take him off the air so ABC cannot broadcast any more’ … He says: ‘We can do this the easy way, but we can do this the hard way.’ And I got to say, that’s right out of Goodfellas. That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it,’” Cruz said.“I hate what Jimmy Kimmel said. I am thrilled that he was fired,” Cruz also said. “But let me tell you: if the government gets in the business of saying, ‘We don’t like what you, the media, have said. We’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like,’ that will end up bad for conservatives.”During an Oval Office event on Friday, when Trump was asked about Cruz’s comments on Carr, the president raised the issue of licenses and suggested stations might be “illegally” using the airwaves to broadcast critical coverage of him in news reports.“When you have networks that give somebody 97% bad publicity,” the president said, “I think that’s dishonesty.”“I think Brendan Carr is a patriot. I think Brendan Carr is a courageous person. I think Brendan Carr doesn’t like to see the airwaves be used illegally and incorrectly,” Trump said. “So I disagree with Ted Cruz on that.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe president’s claim that news coverage on ABC, NBC and CBS was almost entirely negative appears to have been based on a subjective analysis of “the networks’ spin” by NewsBusters, a conservative media watchdog group founded by Trump’s nominee to serve as US ambassador to South Africa, the activist L Brent Bozell III. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Chinese executive jailed for 25 years in US for trafficking fentanyl chemicals

      by

      A Chinese company executive has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for trafficking in chemicals used to manufacture fentanyl, the US justice department has said.Qingzhou Wang, 37, principal executive of Amarvel Biotech, a company based in Wuhan, and Yiyi Chen, 33, the firm’s marketing manager, were convicted in New York in February of fentanyl precusor importation and money laundering.District judge Paul Gardephe sentenced Wang to 25 years in prison on Friday. Chen was sentenced to 15 years in prison on 22 August.“These executives turned a Chinese chemical company into a pipeline of poison, shipping hundreds of kilos of fentanyl-related precursors into the United States, disguising them as everyday goods, and cashing in through cryptocurrency,” Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) chief Terrance Cole said in a statement.Wang and Chen were among eight Chinese nationals and four Chinese companies charged by the justice department in June 2023 with trafficking fentanyl precursor chemicals into the US.It was the first time the United States had charged Chinese companies for trafficking fentanyl precursor chemicals inside the United States, rather than shipping them to Mexico, the origin of most of the fentanyl found in the country.Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 times more powerful than heroin and much easier and cheaper to produce. It has largely replaced heroin and prescription opioids such as oxycodone as a cause of overdoses in the United States.The June 2023 indictment of the Chinese executives and companies drew protests from Beijing.“It is completely illegal and seriously damages the basic human rights of Chinese citizens and Chinese companies,” the Chinese foreign ministry said at the time. “China strongly condemns this.”Although Mexico has been the main source of fentanyl sold in the United States, Washington has increasingly focused its attention on China-based suppliers of ingredients. More