Domestic Glance
New Mexico will become the first state to offer free universal childcare, the governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced this week, an expansion of an existing program that has helped lift tens of thousands of people out of poverty.
Beginning 1 November, the state will guarantee no-cost childcare to all residents, regardless of their income level in what the governor’s office described as a “groundbreaking new initiative”.
“Child care is essential to family stability, workforce participation, and New Mexico’s future prosperity,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “By investing in universal child care, we are giving families financial relief, supporting our economy, and ensuring that every child has the opportunity to grow and thrive.”
In 2022, the state became the first to offer childcare at no cost to most families, making it free for those who earned up to 400% of the federal poverty level, which amounts to about $124,000 for a family of four. About half of the children in the state qualified.
New Mexico becomes first state to offer free childcare for all: ‘model for the nation’
The school shooting industry is worth billions – and it keeps growing
On a sunny day in Grapevine, Texas, three drones are buzzing around the head of a test dummy balanced on a pedestal. It's part of a demonstration outside the National School Safety Conference.
"We use drones to stop school shootings," says Justin Marston, the CEO of Campus Guardian Angel, the company selling the drones. In the event of a shooting, remote pilots fly the drones, housed at the school, at the shooter. They shoot pepper balls and run the drones into the shooter to debilitate them.
The technology is one example on a long list of products schools can buy to deter a shooter.
There have been more than 400 school shootings since Columbine in 1999, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. The latest was last month, when a former student opened fire at a Catholic school in Minneapolis. Two students were killed and at least 18 others were wounded.
New Orleans archdiocese increases sex abuse settlement offer to $230m guaranteed
Just as the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans was beginning to ask victims of clergy sexual abuse to approve a settlement plan assuring them of $180m, the church has now guaranteed $230m – enough to persuade certain attorneys who were opposed to striking a deal to instead favor settling.
The church’s largest insurer, Travelers, for now has evidently held out against a settlement. However, the Guardian and local reporting partner WWL Louisiana understand that the insurer is in active talks to contribute an amount of money that could substantially increase the worth of the proposed settlement.
Either way, Monday’s higher offer was a long-rumored move by the archdiocese to appease a sizable bloc of sexual abuse victims who had been advised by their attorneys to reject the smaller offer in a voting process that runs through 29 October.
Some of those attorneys issued a statement on Monday saying their “dogged efforts” had produced a “superior deal … to resolve this bankruptcy at long last”, and that they would be encouraging all of their clients “to vote in favor of this amended plan” thanks to the “current and certain funding now in place” for it.
Davey Johnson, who won 2 World Series with Orioles, managed Mets to title, dies at 82
Davey Johnson, an All-Star second baseman who won the World Series twice with the Baltimore Orioles as a player and managed the New York Mets to the title in 1986, has died. He was 82.
Longtime Mets public relations representative Jay Horwitz said Johnson's wife, Susan, informed him of his death after a long illness. Johnson was at a hospital in Sarasota, Florida, when he died Friday, Horwitz said.
Johnson played 13 major league seasons with Baltimore, the Atlanta Braves, Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs from 1965-78 and won the Gold Glove three times while being voted an All-Star four times. He managed the Mets, Cincinnati Reds, Los Angeles Dodgers and the Washington Nationals during a span from 1984-2013.
Kennedy Center ticket sales take a nosedive after Trump takeover
Ticket sales at the Kennedy Center have continued to plummet following Donald Trump’s takeover of Washington DC’s premier performing arts venue, with the prestigious Stuttgart Ballet expected to dance next month to houses less than 20% full.
Audiences are “voting with their feet to skip out” on shows that would once have been packed, in protest at the US president inserting himself into the center’s management and operations as its new chairman, amid discussions around the notion of renaming it after Trump, according to an analysis by the Washingtonian magazine.
The outlet said the Stuttgart Ballet’s series at the Kennedy complex’s Opera House in October is only “between 4 and 19%” full based on reservations so far, and BodyTraffic, a Los Angeles troupe booked for two performances in the smaller Eisenhower Theatre at the end of the month, is only booked so far at 12% capacity.
“Big yikes,” one current Kennedy Center staffer told the outlet, having been granted anonymity to speak for fear of retaliation by its new leadership team of Trump-installed loyalists and acolytes.
Mexican festivals in Chicago canceled amid Trump plans to deploy troops
Donald Trump’s plan to deploy national guard troops and federal immigration agents to Chicago is already having an impact on the city’s Mexican community.
Organizers have canceled several local events tied to Mexican Independence Day, which occurs on 16 September.
People of Mexican descent constitute about 21% of the city’s population, according to census data, and hold annual events around the holiday that attract thousands of people.
But Trump recently inaccurately described Chicago as “the most dangerous city in the world” and said: “We’re going in.”
The administration plans to send 230 agents, most of whom work for Customs and Border Protection, to Chicago from Los Angeles as part of an increased effort to make immigration arrests, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
At least three events connected to the holiday have been canceled or postponed. Organizers decided to cancel El Grito Chicago, an event that drew 24,000 people last year, and was scheduled for 13-14 September.
Trump, apparently misled by video of 2020 protests, threatens to send troops to Portland
Donald Trump told reporters that he might send national guard troops into Portland, Oregon, apparently because he was misled about the scale of small protests there by a TV report that incorrectly presented video recorded in 2020 as having taken place this summer.
“I will say this, I watched today, I didn’t know that was continuing to go on, but Portland is unbelievable, what’s going on,” Trump said. He then claimed, incorrectly, that he had seen video evidence of “the destruction of the city”.
Trump, apparently misled by video of 2020 protests, threatens to send troops to Portland
Donald Trump told reporters that he might send national guard troops into Portland, Oregon, apparently because he was misled about the scale of small protests there by a TV report that incorrectly presented video recorded in 2020 as having taken place this summer.
“I will say this, I watched today, I didn’t know that was continuing to go on, but Portland is unbelievable, what’s going on,” Trump said. He then claimed, incorrectly, that he had seen video evidence of “the destruction of the city”.
In fact, a handful of protesters have demonstrated outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in a remote area of Portland along the south waterfront this year, but the scale of the protests, which attract dozens at most, is nothing like the 2020 protests following the police killing of George Floyd that regularly drew thousands to tens of thousands of demonstrators to a central part of the city for months.
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