________
________
________
from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington
Parents engaging in their children’s education is a permanent and invaluable consequence of the pandemic school year. For some parents it will mean showing up at public school board meetings with questions, maybe even waving signs and demanding that those elected to represent them are actually listening. Others will choose private schools, where wise administrators align with parents as paying customers if they want to remain in operation. And a growing number of families in the Spokane area and across the nation are choosing homeschool, or as it is called by the state of Washington, home-based instruction. Jen Garrison Stuber, advocacy director for the Washington Homeschool Organization board, says registration for the WHO’s September 2021 Parent Qualifying Course is overflowing. “Normally we have 200 to 400 in the fall class, this year we have over a thousand with zero advertising.”
Browne’s Addition has always been a place that welcomes people of all economic strata to live and visit. When we had them, our neighborhood council allocated Community Development Block Grant funds to nonprofit groups in our neighborhood, in addition to providing volunteer time to help local underprivileged persons. Browne’s Addition is unique; this is the most densely populated neighborhood in Spokane, with a very high level of non-owner-occupied buildings and mobile residency.
Dr. Francisco Velázquez, the health district’s interim health officer, said the district works with all major events to help them comply with state requirements and reduce COVID-19 transmission. Recommendations vary based on a variety of factors, Velázquez said, but he said the health district’s recent recommendations have been similar for all large, outdoor events. “At the end of the day it is their decision to move forward or not,” Velázquez said. “We don’t tell them what to do; we provide them as much guidance as we can.”
Last fall, the district opened the year with distance learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Many families elected to send their kids to private schools; others homeschooled or deferred entry for another year. And while the effect of COVID varied widely by district, most districts in Spokane County lost students. At Spokane Public Schools, enrollment last year was down almost 6% – a loss of 1,698 students over the previous year. Roughly a third of the decline was at the kindergarten level; now, most of them are back. The result is the biggest kindergarten class in recent history: about 2,700, according to district estimates.
In his most forceful pandemic actions and words, President Joe Biden on Thursday ordered sweeping new federal vaccine requirements for as many as 100 million Americans — private-sector employees as well as health care workers and federal contractors — in an all-out effort to curb the surging COVID-19 delta variant. Speaking at the White House, Biden sharply criticized the tens of millions of Americans who are not yet vaccinated, despite months of availability and incentives. “We’ve been patient. But our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us,” he said, all but biting off his words. The unvaccinated minority “can cause a lot of damage, and they are.”
Work crews searching for a time capsule they believed was buried in the pedestal under a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that had towered over Richmond hit a snag Thursday. Crews were having difficulty finding the capsule’s precise location, and a crane they were using to lift heavy pieces of the cornerstone broke down in the morning, stalling work until another crane was brought in a few hours later.
A weather system approaching northwest California was expected to bring dry lightning and blustery winds by late Thursday, unleashing a risk of new wildfires as thousands of firefighters have been making headway against existing blazes. A warning for dangerous fire weather was set to take effect in much of fire-scarred Northern California in the afternoon and last through Friday.
The Justice Department on Thursday sued Texas over a new state law that bans most abortions, arguing that it was enacted “in open defiance of the Constitution.” The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Texas, asks a federal judge to declare that the law is invalid, “to enjoin its enforcement, and to protect the rights that Texas has violated.” “The act is clearly unconstitutional under long-standing Supreme Court precedent,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference announcing the suit. The Justice Department argues the law unlawfully infringes on the constitutional rights of women and violates the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which says federal law supersedes state law. Federal officials are also concerned other states could enact similar laws that would “deprive their citizens of their constitutional rights,” he said. “It is settled constitutional law that ‘a State may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability,’” the lawsuit reads. “But Texas has done just that.”
The White House said Thursday it would withdraw the nomination of a gun-control advocate to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives after nominee David Chipman ran into bipartisan opposition in the Senate.
South Carolina abortion law challenge backed by 20 states
Twenty Democratic attorneys general have voiced their support for a lawsuit challenging South Carolina’s new abortion law, arguing that the restrictive measure could harm their states by taxing resources if women cross borders to seek care. ... All but three of the attorneys general on Wednesday’s filing also come from states with Democratic governors. In addition to the District of Columbia, the states that signed onto the brief are: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington. In July, 20 mostly Republican-led states went on record in support of South Carolina’s law, arguing in an amicus brief that a federal judge was wrong to pause the entire measure instead of just the provision being challenged.
President Joe Biden on Thursday announced a set of aggressive measures aimed at beating back a nationwide surge in coronavirus cases driven by the highly infectious delta variant, including new federal vaccine and testing requirements for large companies and health care workers. The president announced the steps as part of a sweeping plan that includes efforts to encourage mask wearing, increase economic support for small businesses and make free COVID-19 tests and treatments more widely available. Appealing directly to the roughly 80 million Americans who aren’t yet inoculated, Biden urged them to take advantage of the “safe, effective and free” shots to help end what he called “a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
President Biden announced sweeping new vaccine mandates Thursday that will affect tens of millions of Americans, ordering all businesses with more than 100 employees to require their workers to be inoculated or face weekly testing. Biden also said he was requiring all health facilities that accept Medicare or Medicaid funding to vaccinate their workforces, which the White House believes will impact 50,000 locations. And the president announced he would sign an executive order that would require all federal employees to get vaccinated against the coronavirus – without an option for those who prefer to be regularly tested instead – in an effort to create a model he hopes state governments and private companies will adopt.
The Spokane Veterans Home has another COVID-19 outbreak that already has led to the death of at least one resident. Late on Wednesday, the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs reported that a resident had died following a COVID-19 diagnosis, “either due to COVID-19 or other underlying medical conditions.” Facility-wide testing this week has found 21 new cases in the facility, including 11 residents who tested positive and 10 staff members.
With disasters devastating communities across the country – from wildfires in the West to hurricanes in the East – federal emergency relief has been stretched thin, and the past year in Malden and Pine City has illustrated how limited federal help can be. On Sept. 16, [2020] after state inspectors conducted a preliminary assessment of the fire’s damage, Gov. Jay Inslee formally asked then-President Donald Trump to declare a major disaster, a move that authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, to send aid. It wasn’t an unusual ask – Trump had declared wildfires in Oregon and California major disasters in the weeks before Inslee made his request. But he ignored the plea for months over a feud with the Democratic governor, despite the Republican congresswoman who represents the area, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, appealing directly to the president. ... When President Joe Biden opened the spigot of federal money in February, it was too little too late in the eyes of those involved in the recovery effort in Malden and Pine City.
Months after the first $40 million of federal coronavirus aid landed on its doorstep, city of Spokane leaders have yet to agree on a process to distribute it. ... The city was awarded $81 million through the federal American Rescue Plan, with the first half available this year and the second half arriving in 2022. The city has until the end of 2024 to spend the money.
A second defendant has been convicted of sabotaging railroad tracks near the U.S.-Canada border in Washington state just before a train carrying crude oil was due to pass through – apparently part of a campaign to protest construction of a pipeline across British Columbia. ... TC Energy, the Alberta company behind the pipeline proposal, has said it’s committed to partnering with the 20 First Nations that have executed agreements related to the project and has provided them an opportunity to invest in it.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced Thursday that starting next week, the state’s indoor mask mandate will be expanded to include outdoor events with 500 or more attendees, regardless of vaccination status. The new requirement — which takes effect Monday — comes days after a similar outdoor mask mandates took effect in the state’s two most populous counties, King and Pierce, due to rising COVID-19 cases. An indoor mask mandate, regardless of vaccination status, has been in place in Washington since Aug. 23.
Masks are back for everyone at large outdoor gatherings. Starting Monday, everyone in the state – regardless of vaccination status – will be required to wear a mask at outdoor gatherings of 500 people or more, Gov. Jay Inslee announced Thursday. The requirement will affect sporting events, fairs, concerts and other large gatherings.
Susana Dueñas could hardly believe the news: Mexico’s Supreme Court had decided that abortion could not be considered a crime. The 38-year-old woman from central Mexico had spent six and a half years in prison on just that charge. The court ruled unanimously Tuesday that parts of a law in the northern border state of Coahuila criminalizing abortion were unconstitutional. The decision immediately compels judges across the nation to consider cases with that ruling in mind. And there are thousands of open cases in Mexico against women accused of illegal abortions.
________
No comments:
Post a Comment