While I expect these options to be popular with some, I doubt it will stem the exodus. I don’t think most are leaving (or not joining) because of the way shifts are structured.
The flexible schedule comes amid a mass exodus of veteran officers retiring or taking jobs at other departments for better pay and benefits. The department is experiencing high overtime costs as the rest of the force picks up the slack with extra hours.
[…]
Under the 12-hour shift option, officers work three days on and three days off within the NYPD’s scheduling framework.
In the 10-hour option, officers would work 10-hour shifts for four days, followed by two days off.
Officers based in the Bronx — in the 45th and 47th precincts and in Transit District 11 and Public Service Area 8, which serves city housing projects in the 43rd, 45th and 47th precincts — are participating in the pilot program. If the program works, the city hopes to expand it.
I part ways with the Republicans on this one. The data is clear that more money will not result in better educational outcomes – especially in MPS. Don’t give them any more money. The leftist educrats will drop or circumvent the requirements as soon as they can, but the increased spending is eternal. Starve the beast.
Furthermore, whether or not a district uses police, private security, arms staff, or other security measures seems to me to be a strictly local concern.
The district had cut its last contracts with Milwaukee police in summer 2020, as racial justice protests landed outside MPS offices. School board members have stood by that decision, but lawmakers could go over their heads.
While previous attempts by lawmakers to require school districts to hire police officers have been subject to veto by the governor, this one could be harder for Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to block if he wants to pass the whole bundle of proposals in the same bill. Evers’ spokesperson has not replied to questions from the Journal Sentinel about the plan.
Evers would not be allowed to use his partial-veto power on this bill if it lands on his desk, according to Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau Director Richard Champagne. On bills that spend public funds, Evers is allowed to use a partial veto, crossing out only certain parts of it. But Champagne said this bill does not qualify as an appropriations bill, and Evers would only be allowed to veto it in full.
The bill, released by state Assembly leaders Tuesday, could still change as it moves through the Legislature. It includes a range of other measures, including allowing the city of Milwaukee to levy a sales tax if approved by referendum.
[…]
MPS stopped using school resource officers in its buildings in 2016 in response to complaints about police unnecessarily citing and arresting students for incidents that could have been handled as disciplinary matters by the district. In 2020, it also ended contracts with police to patrol outside buildings and events.
Ron DeSantis now has at his disposal $12 million to fly migrants to Democratic enclaves after the Florida legislature passed on Tuesday a new measure that helps fund the controversial program.
In September, the Florida governor flew four dozen migrants from Texas to the swanky Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard. The stunt caused an uproar from immigration advocates and Democrats after the migrants had to find ways off the island.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has accepted an invitation from President Joe Biden to discuss the debt limit on May 9 in an attempt to end the on-going standoff, according to a report citing a source familiar to the matter.
The invitation came after the Treasury Department warned American is set to run out of money by June 1 and default on its debts – earlier than expected – ratcheting up the hear on lawmakers to avert an economic crisis.
Only halfway through his first term, President Biden has rent our great republic to the point that it will take generations to reverse the damage – if it can be reversed. Our national debt now far exceeds our country’s full annual economic output. Inflation is crushing dreams and robbing the middle class of their spending power. Our borders are wide open with terrorists and criminals intermingling with the world’s indigent. All of them are stretching and breaking our social fabric. Crime is eating out the core of our once great cities. America’s power on the international stage is at its lowest ebb since World War 1. All of this is being overseen by the increasingly senile head of what is proving to be one of the most prolific criminal family organizations our nation has ever seen, according to the investigation of the U.S. House Oversight Committee and IRS whistleblower.
Despite all of that destruction, if the Republicans choose Donald Trump as their nominee, it is more than probable that Biden will win reelection.
Donald Trump’s victory in 2016 was lightning in a bottle. He managed to speak to the large, disaffected segment of the populace who were fed up with Washington ignoring them. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party nominated a uniquely disliked political figure in Hillary Clinton after a fractious primary where the party’s schism with the socialists, led by Senator Bernie Sanders, failed to heal before the general election.
Trump’s term in office was terrific in many ways. He pushed back the regulatory state to allow the American economic engine to flourish. The Trump-Ryan tax cuts unleashed American capital and drove up real wages faster than in decades. Trump’s “America first” foreign policy was clear and sensible. Trump’s excellent choice in federal judges and fortuitous opportunity to appoint three Supreme Court justices has proven to be the only bulwark against Biden’s rapacious rule.
But let’s not kid ourselves. Trump accelerated the decadent spending of his predecessor and built the foundation from which Biden launched generational inflation. While Trump did well with Operation Warp Speed and the initial response to the pandemic, he was lethargic in letting America get back to normal and perpetuated the Rule of Fauci. Despite all of the bluster about “draining the swamp,” the swamp won.
Even with the full power of incumbency, Trump failed to win reelection. Irrespective of your thoughts on the integrity of the electoral process in 2020, Trump in 2020 was simply less popular than Trump in 2016. After all, he lost to a candidate who ran an anemic campaign from the comfort of his basement.
Trump in 2023 is in even worse shape than Trump in 2020. There is a noticeable difference in Trump’s message and priorities. Instead of talking about Making America Great Again, Trump is just a rhetorical blowtorch to anything and anyone who threatens him. Trump’s message in 2016 was about us. His message in 2023 is about him.
This is why Trump cannot win the general election. Despite what you may think of him, he has irreparably damaged his relationship with half the conservatives, three-fourths of the independents, and he never had the liberals. No matter how you work the electoral math, he cannot win a national general election again. He has let the lightning out of the bottle.
by Owen | 2103, 1 May 2323 | Politics | 3 Comments
Whatever. He’s lost his power. And isn’t it telling how nobody even pretends anymore that the “Inflation Reduction Act” actually had anything to do with reducing inflation?
Sen. Joe Manchin is losing patience with his fellow Democrats over their signature climate law — and the feeling is mutual.
The West Virginia Democrat has spent weeks escalating his attacks on President Joe Biden’s implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, the sweeping bill that Manchin helped write in a deal that stunned Washington last summer. Last week, he threatened to join Republicans in voting to repeal the law, as the House GOP is demanding in its legislation for raising the nation’s debt limit.
Manchin’s comment caught his caucus colleagues off guard, even if such a repeal would be a long shot in Congress. It came just as Biden was launching a reelection campaign that rests heavily on that legislation’s climate and health care provisions.
“That surprises me that he wants to repeal it. I think it’s one of his greatest accomplishments,” said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), a close colleague of Manchin’s on the Energy Committee, in an interview.
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration will end most of the last remaining federal COVID-19 vaccine requirements next week when the national public health emergency for the coronavirus ends, the White House said Monday.
Vaccine requirements for federal workers and federal contractors, as well as foreign air travelers to the U.S., will end May 11. The government is also beginning the process of lifting shot requirements for Head Start educators, healthcare workers, and noncitizens at U.S. land borders.
The requirements are among the last vestiges of some of the more coercive measures taken by the federal government to promote vaccination as the deadly virus raged, and their end marks the latest display of how President Joe Biden’s administration is moving to treat COVID-19 as a routine, endemic illness.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday said President Biden, who kicked off his reelection campaign last week, could “win in a landslide” in 2024.
Sanders, who ran against Biden in the 2020 race, said it’s “no great secret” that he and the president “have strong differences of opinion,” but stressed that he thinks Biden is the clear choice for voters given the current political backdrop.
“We live in a nation where you have a major political party, the Republican Party, where many- not all, but many of their leadership doesn’t even believe in democracy, they maintain the myth that Trump won the last election. They’re trying to keep people from voting. They’re trying to deny women the right to control their own bodies,” Sanders said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — Shelters in a Texas city struggled to find space Saturday for migrants who authorities say have abruptly begun crossing by the thousands from Mexico, testing a stretch of the U.S. border that is typically equipped to handle large groups of people fleeing poverty and violence.
The pace of arrivals in Brownsville appeared to catch the city on the southernmost tip of Texas off guard, stretching social services and putting an overnight shelter in an uncommon position of turning people away. Officials say more than 15,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, have illegally crossed the river near Brownsville since last week.
That is a sharp rise from the 1,700 migrants that Border Patrol agents encountered in the first two weeks of April, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials.
“It’s a quite concerning because the logistical challenge that we encounter is massive for us,” said Gloria Chavez, chief of the U.S. Border Patrol Rio Grande Valley Sector.
Democrats in the Oregon House of Representatives have introduced a bill that would decriminalize homeless encampments in public places and allow homeless people to sue for $1,000 if harassed or told to leave.
The bill, HB 3501, would allow unhoused people to use public spaces “without discrimination and time limitations” regarding their housing status, the text reads.
“Many persons in Oregon have experienced homelessness as a result of economic hardship, a shortage of safe and affordable housing, the inability to obtain gainful employment and a disintegrating social safety net system,” says the bill, sponsored by Rep. Farrah Chaichi, a Democrat whose district includes Beaverton, and Rep. Khanh Pham, from southeast Portland. “Decriminalization of rest allows local governments to redirect resources from local law enforcement activities to activities that address the root causes of homelessness and poverty.”
Here is my full column that ran earlier in the week in the Washington County Daily News:
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Jill Underly has finally found something to get vocal about. It’s not about the fact that only about 9.1% of Milwaukee government schools kids are proficient or better at math. It’s not about the fact that only 5.1% of Kenosha government schools kids are proficient or better at language arts. No, those immoral and abysmal failures escape Underly’s notice. But the fact that some kids in the Waukesha government school district are not singing “Rainbowland” by Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton has drawn her full wrath. Underly’s priorities are clear and wrong.
The root of the issue is that the Waukesha School District is policy 2240. I invite readers to go to the Waukesha School District’s website and read the actual policy. The policy is simply that controversial issues should only be addressed in an age-appropriate, educational manner. Teachers should only express opinions on controversial issues in the context of instruction and make it clear that it is their opinion. The goal of the policy is to keep classrooms focused on education and not indoctrination. Note that the policy is not specific to liberal or conservative issues, but any issue that elicits controversy. Last month, a first-grade teacher wanted her students to sing “Rainbowland” for a concert. Instead, the kids will sing “Rainbow Connection.” The district administration insisted on the change under policy 2240 because “Rainbowland” is considered to be controversial. The song was released in 2017 by Miley Cyrus, and despite being a pretty terrible song, it has become something of a symbol for the LGBTQ+ political movement. To avoid the introduction of controversial adult issues at what is supposed to be an innocuous grade school concert, the administration made the change against the teacher’s wishes.
Into this intensely local issue, state Superintendent Underly inserted herself and the full weight of the DPI. Without the courtesy of engaging in an actual discussion by calling the Waukesha superintendent, Underly sent a strongly worded letter to the district in her full capacity as state superintendent. She accused the district of “causing undue harm to students and staff” and urged the district to reverse their policy. Underly has made it clear that she wants controversial issues to be infused into every part of the school day at the arbitrary discretion of individual teachers.
Understand that if those same teachers were infusing biblical teachings or gun rights into every day, then Underly’s stance would be different. But since those teachers want to indoctrinate kids with critical race theory, gender ideology, and Marxism, Underly wants to enforce unfettered access to kids under the banner of inclusivity. Leftist activists like Underly never seem to consider how ferociously exclusive they are to people with whom they disagree.
This is the trick by which leftists have been using our schools increasingly as indoctrination centers. Through activists posing as teachers and staff, they push the latest leftist ideology into our schools through every crevasse. With flags on the walls and off-topic rants, they program kids to accept their world view as the only normal. Then, when challenged by parents who disagree, they gaslight and accuse parents of being controversial and oppressive. It is a proven tactic by leftist cry-bullies.
In Waukesha, the citizenry, through their elected school board, has decided that they want their teachers to spend their time teaching. Their policy does not prohibit the discussion of controversial subjects but relegates them to the appropriate educational context. The district’s recently approved Parental Rights and Transparency policy reaffirms this commitment to education and inclusivity and leaves the teaching of values and religion to parents.
The good folks of Waukesha are making it clear that they want their government schools to spend their valuable time teaching core subjects and skills instead of wading into the latest cultural controversy. Government schools are only required to teach 1,137 hours per school year for grades seven through 12 — less for other grades. That’s less than 13% of a child’s time. Kids can spend the other 87% of their time engaging in cultural warfare, but for that 13%, Waukesha wants their kids to learn something.
Under Superintendent Underly’s watch, like that of her predecessor, the performance of government schools to educate kids has been in decline. Our kids are falling increasingly behind and are less equipped to be successful adults than their parents were. Despite this, Underly is choosing to spend her finite time and considerable resources bullying school districts to allow leftist teachers to use their classrooms to indoctrinate the next generation.
Time is our most finite resource and the way people choose to use their time tells you everything you need to know. The Waukesha School District is using their finite classroom time to teach. Superintendent Underly is using her time for leftist activism.
Wasn’t this the SOP anyway? Also, can South Korea really rely on the US to hold up our end of the bargain if push comes to shove? Do we, Americans, really still want to be on the hook for defending South Korea?
US President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol have secured a landmark deal which includes plans to periodically deploy US nuclear-armed submarines in South Korea.
Washington has also agreed to involve Seoul in its planning for any use of nuclear weapons against North Korea.
In return, South Korea has agreed to not develop its own nuclear weapons.
The deal, called the Washington Declaration, will strengthen the allies’ co-operation in deterring a North Korean attack, Mr Biden said.
He spoke on Wednesday during a joint press conference with Mr Yoon, who is in Washington this week to discuss issues including the war in Ukraine, climate change, cyber co-operation and nuclear power.
The South Korean leader said the Washington Declaration – the centrepiece of this week’s state visit – marked an “unprecedented” step to enhance extended deterrence, a commitment from the US to deter attacks and protect US allies using its military power, including nuclear weapons.
Bearing in mind that we only get one side of the story in this article and it’s from the aggrieved teacher, but this is the kind of stuff that parents are rightfully getting upset about. This is a 3rd grade teacher. 3rd grade. I don’t want her delving into queer theory any more than I want her to 2nd Amendment rights. I want her to teach the curriculum. Is that so hard? Just do the job. The classroom is not your personal activism space.
Sophie Marie (@soph4president), a third-grade teacher in Austin, Texas, recently came under fire for certain ways she conducts her class. Her attire was also a point of contention.
“you’d think I was teaching way out west but this is downtown Austin…,” she writes.
“OK, so today I got pulled into a ‘check-in meeting’ with my administrator at school, and she had this lovely list of concerns that she wanted to bring to my attention,” Sophie explains in the video.
Included in the list is the concern that Sophie is “intentionally” teaching her third-grade students about their rights.
“But my favorite amongst them is, ‘We’ve noticed an intentional attempt at teaching your students about their legal and constitutional rights.’ That’s the concern,” she reveals. “Why are you concerned? Why is that a concern? Why does that concern you?”
Sophie, who is “queer until proven straight,” is outspoken about human rights on her social media platforms. She covers a plethora of current events, including the Queer Capitol March and Texas legislation.
“I have no other choice but to be political. life is depending on it,” reads her Instagram bio. “unwilling to die for the dow. abortion advocate.”
Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas hit back at women who don’t want her to compete in women’s sports, claiming they were too scared to ‘fully manifest’ their ‘implicit bias’ and play it off as half-support.
The former University of Pennsylvania athlete joined first NCAA transgender swimmer Schuyler Bailar on his podcast Dear Schuyler on Monday to discuss the division over whether or not trans-female athletes should be on women’s sports teams.
‘They’re using the guise of feminism to sort of push transphobic beliefs. I think a lot of people in that camp sort of carry an implicit bias against trans people, but don’t want to, I guess, fully manifest or speak that out. And so they try to just play it off as this sort of half-support.
Bailar agreed with the controversial athlete, saying: ‘They’re coming from…this whole protect “protect women’s sports,” [which] has become a very big movement and that they do it under the guise of feminism. “Oh, we’re just feminists, we’re just fighting for women,” and whenever anybody says that I’m always [like]: ‘Okay, you’re fighting for women by excluding women so that’s not fighting for women.’
The athletes discussed how black women faced the same criticism that transgender women are facing now, saying that people ‘don’t want a woman who doesn’t look like you perhaps or who isn’t fitting your version of womanhood to win.’
Bailar went on to say that feminism has become ‘twisted’ and ‘turned into excluding women’ and reduced them to ‘reproductive capacity.’
‘At the end of the day, everybody’s trying to – under a true feminist – is everybody trying to come together to sort of break down these patriarchal ideals of what a woman is and who can be a woman and sort of open that up to to the very broad range of possibilities that there are,’ Thomas said.
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Jill Underly has finally found something to get vocal about. It’s not about the fact that only about 9.1% of Milwaukee government schools kids are proficient or better at math. It’s not about the fact that only 5.1% of Kenosha government schools kids are proficient or better at language arts. No, those immoral and abysmal failures escape Underly’s notice. But the fact that some kids in the Waukesha government school district are not singing “Rainbowland” by Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton has drawn her full wrath. Underly’s priorities are clear and wrong.
[…]
Understand that if those same teachers were infusing biblical teachings or gun rights into every day, then Underly’s stance would be different. But since those teachers want to indoctrinate kids with critical race theory, gender ideology, and Marxism, Underly wants to enforce unfettered access to kids under the banner of inclusivity. Leftist activists like Underly never seem to consider how ferociously exclusive they are to people with whom they disagree.
This is the trick by which leftists have been using our schools increasingly as indoctrination centers. Through activists posing as teachers and staff, they push the latest leftist ideology into our schools through every crevasse. With flags on the walls and off-topic rants, they program kids to accept their world view as the only normal. Then, when challenged by parents who disagree, they gaslight and accuse parents of being controversial and oppressive. It is a proven tactic by leftist cry-bullies.
In Waukesha, the citizenry, through their elected school board, has decided that they want their teachers to spend their time teaching. Their policy does not prohibit the discussion of controversial subjects but relegates them to the appropriate educational context. The district’s recently approved Parental Rights and Transparency policy reaffirms this commitment to education and inclusivity and leaves the teaching of values and religion to parents.
The good folks of Waukesha are making it clear that they want their government schools to spend their valuable time teaching core subjects and skills instead of wading into the latest cultural controversy. Government schools are only required to teach 1,137 hours per school year for grades seven through 12 — less for other grades. That’s less than 13% of a child’s time. Kids can spend the other 87% of their time engaging in cultural warfare, but for that 13%, Waukesha wants their kids to learn something.
Under Superintendent Underly’s watch, like that of her predecessor, the performance of government schools to educate kids has been in decline. Our kids are falling increasingly behind and are less equipped to be successful adults than their parents were. Despite this, Underly is choosing to spend her finite time and considerable resources bullying school districts to allow leftist teachers to use their classrooms to indoctrinate the next generation.
Amid a protracted stalemate in Congress over immigration, President Joe Biden has opened a back door to allow hundreds of thousands of new immigrants into the country, significantly expanding the use of humanitarian parole programs for people escaping war and political turmoil around the world.
The measures, introduced over the past year to offer refuge to people fleeing Ukraine, Haiti and Latin America, offer immigrants the opportunity to fly to the United States and quickly secure work authorization, provided they have a private sponsor to take responsibility for them.
As of mid-April, some 300,000 Ukrainians had arrived in the United States under various programs — a number greater than all the people from around the world admitted through the official U.S. refugee program in the last five years.
By the end of 2023, about 360,000 Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians are expected to gain admission through a similar private sponsorship initiative introduced in January to stem unauthorized crossings at the southern border — more people than were issued immigrant visas from these countries in the last 15 years combined.
The Biden administration has also greatly expanded the number of people who are in the United States with what is known as temporary protected status, a program former President Donald Trump had sought to terminate. About 670,000 people from 16 countries have had their protections extended or become newly eligible since Biden took office, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.
The Scranton Army Ammunition Plant is at the vanguard of a multibillion-dollar Pentagon plan to modernize and accelerate its production of ammunition and equipment not only to support Ukraine, but to be ready for a potential conflict with China.
But it is one of just two sites in the U.S. that make the steel bodies for the critical 155 mm howitzer rounds that the U.S. is rushing to Ukraine to help in its grinding fight to repel the Russian invasion in the largest-scale war in Europe since World War II.
The invasion of Ukraine revealed that the U.S. stockpile of 155 mm shells and those of European allies were unprepared to support a major and ongoing conventional land war, sending them scrambling to bolster production. The dwindling supply has alarmed U.S. military planners, and the Army now plans to spend billions on munitions plants around the country in what it calls its most significant transformation in 40 years.
[…]
The Army is spending about $1.5 billion to ramp up production of 155 mm rounds from 14,000 a month before Russia invaded Ukraine to over 85,000 a month by 2028, U.S. Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo told a symposium last month.
Already, the U.S. military has given Ukraine more than 1.5 million rounds of 155 mm ammunition, according to Army figures.
But even with higher near-term production rates, the U.S. cannot replenish its stockpile or catch up to the usage pace in Ukraine, where officials estimate that the Ukrainian military is firing 6,000 to 8,000 shells per day. In other words, two days’ worth of shells fired by Ukraine equates to the United States’ monthly pre-war production figure.
[…]
The factory — built for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad just after 1900, when the city was a rising coal and railroad powerhouse — has produced large-caliber ammunition for the military going back to the Korean War.
But the buildings are on the National Historic Registry of Historic Places, limiting how the Army can alter the structures.
Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News last week:
At the end of a very long and thoughtful process, the Washington County Board has voted to try to sell the Samaritan Campus to a private buyer. They believe that such a sale is the best solution for the residents and the taxpayers. It was not an easy choice.
Samaritan is Washington County’s long-term care facility for elderly citizens. It is largely funded by reimbursements from federal and state programs, like Medicaid, but as a county-run facility, any shortages must be covered by county taxpayers. For many years, this was not much of an issue as the facility was able to remain mostly solvent. Like so many other things, the pandemic broke the financial model.
Just like all other long-term care facilities, Samaritan is facing severe staffing challenges. It is a national problem. The increasing cost of paying for staff is outstripping the increases in funding. Even with paying higher wages and retention incentive programs, the facility remains understaffed and has a high staff turnover rate. The issue is driven by demographics where there are simply too few people willing to do the hard work of care givers. It is so severe that at least one other Wisconsin county is recruiting caregivers from the Philippines to fill the need.
This problem has put Samaritan over $4 million in the hole since the pandemic began. That is $4 million that county taxpayers are obligated to cover. In addition, the facility itself needs significant work. The building is sturdy, but it is old and needs to be renovated, if not replaced, to meet the needs of residents for years to come. Accumulating the information from two study committees and two financial analyses by Wipfli, the County Board considered three options: renovate, replace, or sell Samaritan. There was a fourth option to simply close Samaritan, but there was little appetite for that option and County Executive Josh Shoemann had promised to veto any closure. Replacing Samaritan was an expensive choice. At an estimated cost of $31 million, it would fix the issues with the facility, but still did not address the underlying staffing issues. Renovating Samaritan was less expensive at $15 million, but also did not fix the underlying issues. Also, the $15 million estimate was suspect. Whenever one starts to pull back the walls of an old building, costs tend to pile up. Selling Samaritan would not cost anything, but it is also unknown how much a private company would pay the county for the facility. The county still owes about $3.5 million on it, so hopefully any sale price would at least pay off that debt. Whoever buys it would purchase an old building in need of work and still have the staffing issues to manage. On the positive side, the building has a lot of unused space that could be used for private residents or other uses to improve the financial viability of the facility.
In the end, the decision was really about whether or not the county, and the county taxpayers, want to be in the business of running a long-term care facility. At one time there were over 100 county-run long-term facilities in Wisconsin. Now there are only 35. The private sector fills this care needs of elderly folks throughout the state and can leverage economies of scale that a single county cannot match.
For Washington County to continue to run Samaritan, they would need to figure out how to make the math work. They could try something like building out a private care facility in the unused space to subsidize the deficits, but that would put the county government in direct competition with several private care facilities in the county. Or the County Board could just accept that Samaritan would run at a loss and the county taxpayers would have to cover the difference in perpetuity. At a cost ranging into the tens of millions of dollars, this would be an expensive obligation that draws funds from other county obligations.
By voting to sell Samaritan, the County Board is seeking to protect county taxpayers from significant financial obligations while allowing a private company to bring significant resources to bear on behalf of the residents. All things considered, the County Board made the best choice.
I commend the County Board, the county executive, and all of the people who worked on a solution. Throughout the process, the focus remained on doing what they truly thought was in the best interests of the residents of Samaritan while, secondarily, protecting the taxpayers’ interests. That was the correct prioritization.
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – New Zealand’s last exports of livestock by sea have been completed and live exports have ceased, its agriculture minister said on Friday, as it fully implemented a ban on export shipments of animals on the grounds of their welfare.
The government announced in 2021 that shipping animals offshore, largely for building herds in trading partners like China, would be halted but farmers would be given two years to transition out of the profitable export business.
“Our position on the map means that the journey to northern hemisphere markets will always be a long one and this brings unavoidable animal welfare challenges,” Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor said in a statement announcing that live exports had ceased.
Controversial social media app TikTok announced Friday that it would begin removing “climate change misinformation” from its platform.
“On April 21, we will begin to ramp up enforcement of a new climate change misinformation policy which removes climate change misinformation that undermines well-established scientific consensus, such as content denying the existence of climate change or the factors that contribute to it,” the company said in a statement ahead of Earth Day on Saturday. “As we do for all misinformation policies, we will work with independent fact-checking partners when applying this policy to help assess the accuracy of content.”
