Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf wants to raise taxes on wealthy residents and the natural gas industry to help pay for new investments into education and coronavirus relief.
The governor’s proposal will call for increasing the personal income tax rate from 3.07% to 4.49%.
The reported budget plan follows a statement Tuesday in which Wolf’s office said 67% of Pennsylvania taxpayers would see tax cuts or have their taxes stay the same under his plan to cut costs for working class households while raising billions to invest in education and “workforce development.”
President Biden will meet with 10 GOP senators after they put forward a $618 billion counteroffer to his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan.
President Joe Biden will meet with 10 Republican senators as he tries to pass a coronavirus relief package.
The GOP lawmakers put forward a $618 billion aid package, which scales back the direct payments and unemployment benefits in Biden’s plan and does not include state and local government aid.
Biden has to decide whether to move forward with his $1.9 trillion proposal with only Democratic votes in the Senate or try to negotiate a smaller piece of legislation with Republicans.
NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar’s military staged a coup Monday and detained senior politicians including Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi — a sharp reversal of the significant, if uneven, progress toward democracy the Southeast Asian nation has made following five decades of military rule.
An announcement read on military-owned Myawaddy TV said Commander-in-Chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing would be in charge of the country for one year. It said the seizure was necessary because the government had not acted on the military’s claims of fraud in November’s elections — in which Suu Kyi’s ruling party won a majority of the parliamentary seats up for grabs — and because it allowed the election to go ahead despite the coronavirus pandemic.
The takeover came the morning the country’s new parliamentary session was to begin and follows days of concern that a coup was coming. The military maintains its actions are legally justified — citing a section of the constitution it drafted that allows it to take control in times of national emergency — though Suu Kyi’s party spokesman as well as many international observers have said it amounts to a coup.
It was a dramatic backslide for Myanmar, which was emerging from decades of strict military rule and international isolation that began in 1962. It was also a shocking fall from power for Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate who had lived under house arrest for years as she tried to push her country toward democracy and then became its de facto leader after her National League for Democracy won elections in 2015.
(Editor’s Note According To Wikipedia) Myanmar (English pronunciation below; Burmese: မြန်မာ[mjəmà])[nb 1] or Burma, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar,[nb 2] is a country in Southeast Asia. Myanmar is bordered by Bangladesh and India to its northwest, China to its northeast, Laos and Thailand to its east and southeast, and the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal to its south and southwest. Myanmar is the largest country in Mainland Southeast Asia and the 10th largest in Asia by area. As of 2017, the population was about 54 million.[7] Its capital city is Naypyidaw, and its largest city is Yangon (Rangoon).[2]
Called the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx), the project is a scientific experiment designed to help us better grasp the possibility of applying stratospheric aerosols in the field of solar geoengineering.
The experiment involves improving the fidelity of simulations (computer models) of solar geoengineering to generate answers to vital questions surrounding the notion. To fully understand both the risks and benefits of solar geoengineering, scientists will rely on these simulations — but there is an inherent risk to relying on simulations: namely, current technology tends to predict an overly optimistic outcome.
This is why SCoPEx will gather quantitative measurements of aerosol microphysics — along with atmospheric chemistry, which are two points of high uncertainty in present-day simulations.
The experiment involves flying a balloon above Sweden to see if it can block sunlight on its way to Earth — with hopes of creating a new way of fighting global climate change.
As Twitter and Facebook crack down on those spreading baseless QAnon conspiracies, adherents are finding other apps to communicate, including platforms where they may be further radicalized.
Joe Biden waited nearly four decades to become the most powerful man in the free world. Now that he is, he’s making himself scarce.
Biden is leaning on doctors and health experts to publicly detail his Covid policy. He’s relying on his Cabinet, economic advisers and other high-ranking administration officials to help sell his nearly $2 trillion rescue package. Biden’s press team, meanwhile, is standing in for their boss by blanketing TV programs with pledges to tell the truth even when it’s inconvenient. It’s one of the more arresting shifts after four years of a president who delighted in torturing the media with sudden pronouncements that often surprised and befuddled his own advisers.
“He trusts them, and Americans will trust experts,” John Anzalone, a top Biden adviser and campaign pollster, said of the president’s approach to his team. “Plus,” he added, “Biden is dealing with multiple crises and is a good delegator.”
White House aides describe the strategy not so much as delegation but as an concerted effort to restore confidence with a public battered by the contradictory messaging and scorched-earth politics of the Trump years. In just over a week, the White House has booked 80 TV and radio interviews with 20 senior administration officials, members of the Covid-19 response team and Cabinet secretary designates. They’ve had officials on each major network, booking them on every Sunday show in the first week. And they worked with CNN to have three of the doctors in charge of its Covid-19 response take questions from the public during a coronavirus town hall, said Mariel Sáez, the White House director of broadcast media.
Who’s not been booked for any sit-down interviews: Biden.
But the president hasn’t exactly been absent either. He appeared for brief ceremonies where he signed executive orders and delivered mostly scripted remarks. He’s taken a handful of questions from the news media. And he’s expected to give a major foreign policy address on Monday amid a planned trip to the State Department, his first visit to a Cabinet agency.
Equality and equity are both inherently different, yet also interlinked. Is equity needed for equality? If so, when does this become over-equality? In this blog, I explore how despite their differences, these two concepts are dependent on one another.
The difference between equality and equity must be emphasised. Although both promote fairness, equality achieves this through treating everyone the same regardless of need, while equity achieves this through treating people differently dependent on need. However, this different treatment may be the key to reaching equality.
Referring back to the student example, fairness through equality would mean giving all students the same level of support. However, those who need more support beyond this initial level to succeed would therefore not have equal opportunities to those who do not.
By ‘unequal’ I do not mean providing someone with less but simply providing more to those who need it.
Alternatively, fairness through equity means giving students varying, perhaps unequal, but proportionate levels of support. This would then mean that those who need and receive the extra support would go onto have the same, equal opportunities as those who did not.
So, I therefore ask the following question – can unequal but proportionate support and treatment encourage equality?
Equity for Equality
Before the controversial nature of this question takes hold, I’d just like to clarify that by ‘unequal’, I do not mean providing someone with less but simply providing more to those who need it. Equality means giving everyone the same opportunities, but how can everyone have the same opportunities if some are receiving less support than they need in the name of equality? It is for this reason that I suggest equity plays a key role in ensuring equality, and the examples are not limited to students.
Gender equity refers to treating men and women fairly based on their respective needs. Although this may mean that treatment will be different, it will also be fair. This has an important role in achieving gender equality, because the inequalities that exist means that we have to give more to ensure that all genders have equal opportunities. For example,in 2017 only 11% of the engineering workforce was female, which therefore suggests that women may need more support and encouragement to enter this workforce, and more action may need to be taken to make it as accessible to women as it is to men. In other words, give different treatment for equal opportunity.
Equity does not undermine equality, but rather provides the means to achieve this. Equality is undermined when equity is used incorrectly; it is undermined when a person or group’s needs are not taken into account, i.e. giving less to those who need it and more to those who do not. For example, giving women in the engineering workforce less support based on low numbers rather than high need. Unfortunately, there is a fine line between equity and inequality, which we must be careful not to cross.
Conclusion
Equality and equity may be inherently different but are also bound together. In order to create true equality of opportunity, equity is needed to ensure that everyone has the same chance of getting there. However, we must be cautiously when dealing with equity; providing too little to those who need it and too much to those who do not can further exacerbate the inequalities we see today.
California Democrat, Rep. Maxine Waters has cashed in more than $1 million for her daughter through her campaigns since 2003, according to federal election data.
Karen Waters received over $1.1 million for her services with her mother’s campaigns — $250,000 of which came from the most recent election cycle, reported the Federal Election Commission.
Daughter of the California Democrat organized slate-mailing operations to bolster her mother’s re-election.
Slate-mailing is an uncommon practice in federal elections, where a consulting firm is hired to create a pamphlet of sorts that contains a list of candidates or policy measures, and advises voters how to cast their ballots.
Congresswoman Waters was reportedly the only federal politician to use a slate-mailer operation during the 2020 general election.
Though the practice is not all together that uncommon in the state of California, who has seen politicians like Gov. Gavin Newsom use the campaigning method. Vice President Kamala Harris also used slate-mailers during her 2017 Senate campaign.
Members of the community are urging the Mt. Lebanon School board to move forward with five-day-a-week in-person instruction for students.
The district returned to a hybrid format for elementary school students Jan. 11, with children in classrooms two days a week. The middle schools and high schools returned to the hybrid format Jan. 21.
Superintendent Tim Steinhauer said the next step will be to add a four-day-per-week hybrid option in the secondary schools and a five-day-a-week option at the elementary level, but no set time frame was given at the Jan. 19 meeting.
“This year has been really hard for students — going in and out of school — and technical difficulties,” said fifth grader Ava Cantore, who added she has friends in neighboring school districts that are in school and learning “in a better way.”
“This experience has been hard on all kids — cyber and hybrid — and all of us are at our wits’ end,” Ava said.
Resident Susan Uffelman said she was “appalled” by the school board and administration. She said her son completed his studies and graduated early from Mt. Lebanon just last week.
“He had 12 days of in-person education since March. How any of you feel that is acceptable is beyond me,” Ms. Uffelman said.
Resident Joanna Crago asked if the board could hold a special meeting to vote on getting students back in the classroom full-time.
“Other schools are back already and we are months behind,” Ms. Crago said.
As far as increased in-person learning, Mr. Steinhauer said the current two-day-a-week hybrid model “allows us to de-densify to achieve the 6 feet of physical distance” recommended by the State Department of Education and Department of Heath.
“I want to be clear, increased in-person learning will mean we will not be able to maintain the 6 feet of distancing throughout the entire school day,” Mr. Steinhauer said.
The district is also planning for recovery options which may include summer learning and enrichment opportunities.
Although no timeline was given for completely reopening schools, Mr. Steinhauer said the next school board meeting is scheduled for Feb. 8 with its regular meeting on the 15th.
“It certainly would be the board’s decision to consider that on Feb. 8 and then have a week to consider that on the 15th,” Mr. Steinhauer said.
The board also unanimously passed a resolution stating the district would not raise taxes by more than its 3.5% Act 1 Index for the 2021-22 school year.
Mt. Lebanon’s Act 1 Index, which is the state’s means of determining property tax increases justified by wage inflation in each district, allows for a maximum increase of 0.8676 mills.
The 0.8676 mill figure would equate to an increase of about $86 in taxes per $100,000 of assessed property value in Mt. Lebanon and would net the district about $2.3 million. However, the board does not have to increase taxes by the full 0.8676 mills — that is the maximum that it can raise taxes.
Mt. Lebanon’s millage rate currently sits at 24.79, or about $2,479 for every $100,000 of assessed property value.
District director of business, Robert Geletko said at a previous meeting that even with the potential millage increase, the district would still have to use some of its fund balance to balance the 2021-22 budget.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) denied on Wednesday that he was trying to overturn the presidential election with his votes to challenge the Electoral College results in Arizona and Pennsylvania on Jan. 6.
Hawley told St. Louis radio station KMOX that he did not aim to change President Biden’s election results with his votes and instead sought a congregational debate on “election integrity.”
“I never said that the goal was to overturn the election,” he said. “That was never the point and it was never possible.”
“What we need to have are elections that are fair, free and open, and I think Congress needs to do its job and look into election irregularities,” the senator said.
Hawley’s votes to contest the results came after former President Trump for weeks after the election promoted unfounded claims that widespread voter fraud led to his loss and called on his supporters to protest certification on Jan. 6.
Rioters supporting Trump ended up storming the Capitol that day in an attack that resulted in five deaths and temporarily delayed Congress from affirming Biden’s election win.
Congress reconvened later that evening after the building was secured. Eight Republican senators and 139 House GOP members still voted to challenge the Electoral College results in at least one of the two states despite the day’s violence.
Hawley and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) were among the most scrutinized, facing accusations they incited violence by committing to teaming up with House Republicans contesting the results, which forced both chambers to head into debate before eventually certifying the vote.
Think your dog is smart? New research suggests one way to find out.
Most dogs can’t learn words without extensive training, but a few with exceptional abilities learn words without any formal training, researchers report. They learn words simply by playing with their owners.
The team of Hungarian researchers investigated how quickly two of these talented pooches could learn new words.
Their study included a Border Collie named Whisky from Norway — already famous for her spontaneous categorization skills — and a Yorkshire terrier named Vicky Nina, from Brazil.
“We wanted to know under which conditions the gifted dogs may learn novel words. To test this, we exposed Whisky and Vicky Nina to the new words in two different conditions — during an exclusion-based task and in a social, playful context with their owners,” said study first author Claudia Fugazza, a member of the Family Dog Project research team at Eötvös Loránd University, in Budapest.
“Importantly, in both conditions the dogs heard the name of the new toy only four times,” Fugazza said.
Those who wondered why China chose to give $1.5 billion to Joe Biden’s son Hunter need wonder no more. Three executive orders issued during his first week in the White House made clear the payback Biden is giving China in return for its generosity to his family.
1) Biden repealed President Trump’s order that banned investments and materials from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in America’s electric power grid.
Trumps order noted that “foreign adversaries are increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in the United States bulk-power system.”
He explained that “unrestricted acquisition or use in the United States of bulk-power system electric equipment designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by persons owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of foreign adversaries augments the ability of foreign adversaries to create and exploit vulnerabilities in bulk-power system electric equipment, with potentially catastrophic effects.”
On January 16th, the week before Biden’s inauguration, Trumps’ secretary of energy Dan Roulette supplemented the order to prohibit utilities that supply electricity to critical defense facilities from doing business with the CCP.
2) A week later Biden ordered US officials from calling the Covid19 epidemic “the China virus” as former president Trump accurately called it. The virus was developed, released, and concealed by China, so the phrase was completely appropriate.
3) Biden also killed the Keystone pipeline this week. China opposes the pipeline because it sends Canadian oil to the United States. If the pipeline is not completed, China will likely get the oil instead of us. The oil now earmarked for Keystone would go to Canadian Pacific Ocean ports to be shipped to China.
Why on Earth would Biden issue these orders, especially in a week when the Chinese air force flew incursions into Taiwanese air space, a move that would normally have led to American condemnation and a response?
Biden’s executive order on the power grid was issued with no explanation or justification, so we can only speculate.
Could these orders be partial payback for China’s bribes to Hunter?
In a letter on Thursday, the group said Biden’s proposal of a one-time direct payment worth $1,400 would only “provide a temporary lifeline.”
Over 50 progressive Democrats urged President Joe Biden on Thursday to consider sending recurring stimulus checks to Americans.
The letter, signed by Reps. Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and others, doesn’t specify an amount, but the group has previously shown support for $2,000.
Biden has proposed a one-time direct payment of $1,400 in his stimulus proposal.
Hundreds of pets have died and others have been sickened after eating recalled pet food manufactured by Midwestern Pet Foods, according to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) updated recall notice.
As of Jan. 21, the FDA became aware that more than 110 dogs died and over 210 others fell ill after consuming food from the company’s Oklahoma plant “that may contain potentially fatal levels of aflatoxins.”
However, as new information becomes available, “case counts and the scope of this recall may expand,” the FDA said.
Earlier this month, the company expanded its recall “out of an abundance of caution” to include pet food products containing corn that were manufactured in the company’s Oklahoma manufacturing plant and have an expiration date on or before July 9, 2022.
The US Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday issued a national terrorism bulletin warning of the lingering potential for violence from people motivated by anti-government sentiment after Joe Biden’s election.
The bulletin suggests the riot by a mob of Donald Trump supporters at the US Capitol on 6 January may embolden extremists and set the stage for additional attacks.
DHS did not cite any specific plots, but pointed to “a heightened threat environment across the United States” that it believes “will persist” for weeks.
It is not uncommon for the federal government to warn local law enforcement through bulletins about the prospect for violence tied to a particular event or date, such as the Fourth of July holiday. But this particular bulletin, issued through the department’s national terrorism advisory system, is notable because it effectively places the Biden administration into the politically charged debate over how to describe or characterize acts motivated by political ideology and suggests that it sees violence aimed at overturning the election as akin to terrorism.
President Biden on Wednesday unveiled his environmental plan, a Green New Deal-like initiative aimed at putting “climate change at the center of our domestic, national security and foreign policy,” which is drawing criticism for its high cost and potential job losses as the US tries to dig out of its COVID-19-induced economic troubles.
Biden pitched the package of policy changes — including eliminating coal, oil and natural gas as electricity sources by 2035 — as a boon to the workforce, but was met with worry over the current jobs that would be lost amid a health crisis, economic crisis and $27 trillion national debt.
Patrick Morrisey, West Virginia’s Republican attorney general, said Wednesday that Biden’s policies will be “destructive” to the economy, especially as it tries to recover from the coronavirus business slowdown.
CHICAGO – Children who have been marooned at home for months by the pandemic are slowly returning to classrooms, but many teachers say they won’t go back until they’ve received the Covid-19 vaccine.
Especially in Chicago, the nation’s third-largest public school district, where teachers who were supposed to return to classrooms Wednesday worked from home again and are once more threatening to strike.
LONDON (Reuters) – Microsoft co-founder turned philanthropist Bill Gates says he has been taken aback by the volume of “crazy” and “evil” conspiracy theories about him spreading on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic, but said on Wednesday he would like to explore what is behind them.
In an interview with Reuters, Gates said the millions of online posts and “crazy conspiracy theories” about him and about top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci had likely taken hold in part because of the combination of a frightening viral pandemic and the rise of social media.
“Nobody would have predicted that I and Dr. Fauci would be so prominent in these really evil theories,” Gates said.“
Rosenstein offered to wear wire on Trump, wanted fired Comey’s advice on special counsel, newly declassified memos show.
Declassified FBI memos provide startling new details that undercut the frenzied 2017 effort to investigate Donald Trump for obstruction, revealing the FBI knew Director James Comey’s firing had been conceived by Justice Department leadership long before the president pulled the trigger during a key moment in the Russia probe.
The memos written in May 2017 by Acting Director Andrew McCabe and a lieutenant also provide contemporaneous proof for some of the more jaw-dropping lore of the now-discredited Russia collusion scandal.
For instance, the memos directly state that then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein offered to wear a wire to secretly record Trump in the Oval Office and that Rosenstein also wanted to seek Comey’s advice — after his termination — on a possible Russia special counsel. The bureau nixed both ideas, the memos show.
On Monday, the House delivered its article of impeachment to the Senate. On Tuesday, the members of the House who will act as trial lawyers will be sworn in, with the trial set to begin Feb. 8.
The question is straightforward — the sole article of impeachment alleges that Trump incited an insurrection. We all saw the insurrection play out live on television, computer and phone screens across the country. We all saw our elected officials wearing gas masks and sheltering in place in the people’s house, the Capitol. We all saw the speech Trump gave moments before the insurrection. We have likely all made up our minds already whether Trump’s behavior rises to the level of an impeachable offense.
But while the facts feel relatively clear, the next two weeks give Trump and his GOP allies a chance to strategize. And a primary Republican defense is already taking shape: that the Senate lacks the constitutional power to hold the trial because Trump is no longer in office.
“Our members, irrespective of what they might think about the merits, just believe that this is an exercise that really isn’t grounded constitutionally and, from a practical standpoint, just makes no sense,” Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., told Politico.
This is a demonstrably weak argument. The Senate not only has the constitutional right to try Trump; it has a constitutional duty to do so.
Let us start with the text of the Constitution itself. Article II, Section 4 provides that the president and other federal officials subject to the clause can be impeached for treason, bribery or “other high crimes and misdemeanors.” This is no less true if the impeachable offense occurs at the end of a president’s term or right before a president were to resign. In fact, in this case, it may be even more urgent to impeach and convict Trump because his alleged actions — working to overturn a free and fair election — threaten the integrity of any democracy’s primary way of getting rid of officials: elections.
(editors note) The actual text of the part of the US Constitution that covers impeachment is as follows as quoted from The National Constitution Center:
“Article II, Section 4
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”
WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Jen Psaki: When I was in Wilmington before the president was inaugurated, I did ask him for my four-year-old niece Suraya – who was very curious about what his favorite ice cream was – and his favorite ice cream was chocolate chip. So that is my update for all of you on that. But I have not found the freezer.
And, second, we also learned what Hunter Biden had for breakfast. (Hint: bagels)
Can’t wait for the daily report on regularity. I hope they’re both getting enough fiber!
But isn’t it adorable how fast and obvious the media can change the rules?
No stranger to ice cream or bagels, CNN’s media correspondent Brian Stelter asks this question, “Is President Biden making news boring again?”
The answer is no. You are.
Meaning, you pretend that real news isn’t happening under Joe. Unless you think “news” is your latest complimentary cliche.
After a week in which we saw the white house banish the national guard to a parking lot, the obliviousness toward the ANTIFA riots, the lies about Trump not leaving a vaccine plan, a moratorium on natural gas and drilling … We get ice cream and bagels.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday rolled out an additional slate of executive actions to address racial equity, a move to fulfill a key campaign promise that he made during the height of this past summer’s protests.
Biden said that Tuesday’s actions are a direct response to the groundswell of protests that emerged following the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, by Minnesota police and the resulting calls for racial justice. In brief remarks at the White House, the president said Floyd’s death “opened the eyes of millions” and paved the way for change.
Neighboring states Ohio and West Virginia came in 10th and 28th respectively.
WalletHub compared all 50 states across 31 “key indicators” of a good commute, with data sets ranging from average gas prices to rush-hour traffic congestion to road quality.
Pennsylvania ranks second for most auto repair shops per capita.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is featured on the cover and above the fold in “Metro Dailies in the Age of Multimedia Journalism,’’ Mary Lou Nemanic’s provocative book about the technological, financial, and managerial issues vexing the newspaper industry.
Ms. Nemanic, a communications professor at Penn State-Altoona, praises the PG for a couple things. She claims its modern newsroom is a design “leader’’ for facilitating collaborative multiplatform journalism. And she applauds ownership for its “nuanced and gradual” transition from print to digital. However, she said that management’s bitter feud with its union employees means “the newspaper still faces ongoing challenges with labor negotiations, journalistic autonomy and editorial accountability that overshadow its continuing viability.’’
“METRO DAILIES IN THE AGE OF MULTIMEDIA JOURNALISM”
By Mary Lou Nemanic
Temple University Press ($27.95)
In many ways, the PG typifies an industry still in flux. More than a decade after the Great Recession and the rise of the internet robbed it of readers and advertising revenue, the industry is still grappling to find a new and sustainable business model. As a result, newspapers have shed about half their newsroom jobs since 2008. Cities like New Orleans have lost their daily paper while others, like Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, have seen daily print editions reduced to three or four a week. The PG recently announced it will eliminate Friday print editions in February. Soon Sunday may be the only day with a print edition.
What makes Ms. Nemanic’s book provocative is its contrariness. While the general consensus is that newspapers aren’t long for this world, the author is surprisingly bullish on the industry’s future. She believes that newspapers will survive if only because publishers need to hang on to their lucrative print advertising revenue. They’re finally realizing that $100 popup ads are no substitute for $1,000 display ads in the Sunday paper.
How important does print advertising remain for newspaper publishers? Ms. Nemanic cited a study showing that the Cleveland Plain-Dealer still generated 80% of its publisher’s advertising revenue even after it reduced home delivery to four days a week.
The enduring popularity of print – 71% of newspaper subscribers prefer or only use the print edition, according to the American Press Institute — proves “that there is a future for newspapers as long as newspaper companies are willing to integrate their print and online operations, make a commitment to visual journalism across platforms, make a commitment to journalistic integrity and autonomy, and retain staff sizes substantial enough to allow for quality content,’’ Ms. Nemanic writes.
She excoriates Advance (nee Newhouse) Publications for rushing headlong into a digital-first publishing strategy without devising a viable business plan. Advance’s mismanagement led to the collapse and sale of the New Orleans Times-Picayune and to deep newsroom cuts at the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.
Twenty years of online experiments have been underwhelming for newspapers, Ms. Nemanic concludes.
She holds up the Minneapolis Star Tribune as a successful model for medium-sized dailies that the Post-Gazette should emulate. It’s an “audience-first’’ strategy that strikes a balance between print and digital platforms.
“We’ve not cut back on our news well,’’ said Mike Klingensmith, the Star-Tribune’s CEO. “That has helped us maintain readership while we increase digital income.’’
Ms. Nemanic’s thesis is compelling, if not entirely convincing, and it comes with a couple of caveats. First, the Star-Tribune partnered in a nonprofit study with Temple University, publisher of this book. This raises at least the appearance of a possible conflict, which the author never seeks to address.
Second, most of the interviewees she quotes directly are newsroom personnel with a vested interest in seeing print survive. There’s little feedback from the boardroom, where the fate of newspapers is ultimately decided — save for a 2-year-old prediction from former New York Times CEO Mark Thompson that print will be dead in a decade.
Post-Gazette readers would surely be interested in learning the Block family’s plans for the paper’s future. They won’t find it here.
Steve Halvonik is a former Post-Gazette reporter and editor who teaches journalism at Point Park University.
This comes days after the district said it is looking into possibly delaying the return of in-person classes until April.
The virtual public meeting lasted over three hours with more than 70 speakers voicing their concerns and support for a return to the classroom in February.
With coronavirus cases still high, board president Sylvia Wilson proposed the resolution to delay the hybrid return until April 6 last week.
Many teachers backed the proposal.
Students are currently set to return to a blend of in-person and online instruction on Feb. 8.
Some parents are becoming increasingly frustrated in the face of another delay, worried that their children are falling behind.
“The PPS school board’s decision to continue with virtual only learning has wreaked havoc on my child’s social and emotional development, on our family’s finances and our family in general,” one parent said during Monday’s meeting.
Others pleaded with the district to at least start small, asking to bring in younger students or those who are struggling the most with virtual learning.
“Let’s choose one group and get started. Please, please don’t delay the return of school until April 6. It’s going to be so messy getting kids back to school during this pandemic. But let’s accept the messiness and just start trying,” one parent said.
The board will vote on the delay during a board meeting on Wednesday. If approved, a hybrid schedule would begin on April 6.
Former President Trump on Monday established an official post-presidency office in Palm Beach County, Fla., to oversee his affairs, Fox News has learned.
A statement from Trump’s office said the Office of the Former President will be responsible for his “correspondence, public statements, appearances, and official activities.”
“The Office will also “advance the interests of the United States and … carry on the agenda of the Trump Administration through advocacy, organizing, and public activism.”
Twitter has permanently banned My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell’s account after he continued to perpetuate the baseless claim that Donald Trump won the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Twitter decided to ban Lindell, who founded bedding company My Pillow, due to “repeated violations” of its civic integrity policy, a spokesperson said in a statement. The policy was implemented last September and is targeted at fighting disinformation.
NEW DELHI (AP) — Tens of thousands of protesting farmers drove long lines of tractors into India’s capital on Tuesday, breaking through police barricades, defying tear gas and storming the historic Red Fort as the nation celebrated Republic Day.
They waved farm union and religious flags from the ramparts of the fort, where prime ministers annually hoist the national flag to mark the country’s independence.
Thousands more farmers marched on foot or rode on horseback while shouting slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. At some places, they were showered with flower petals by residents who recorded the unprecedented rally on their phones.
Washington (CNN)President Joe Biden has replaced the controversial White House physician who offered misleading information about President Donald Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis last fall.
A White House official said Biden had selected Dr. Kevin O’Connor to replace Dr. Sean Conley as his doctor. It’s not uncommon for a president to name his own physician when taking office, though his two most recent predecessors each retained the incumbent doctor who had attended the men who served before them.
He administered Biden’s physical in 2019 and prepared a report that deemed the then-candidate “healthy” and “vigorous.” At 78, Biden is the oldest newly inaugurated president in history.
A White House physician is responsible for medical care of the President, the first family and White House staff. They oversee a team of doctors and nurses that comprise the White House Medical Unit, which is headquartered in the ground level of the White House.
White House physicians travel wherever the President does, including on the Marine One helicopter and aboard Air Force One. They can frequently be seen walking a few paces behind the President, carrying a large medical bag. They also traditionally perform an annual physical and provide a summary for reporters.
Both O’Connor and Conley hold degrees in osteopathic medicine, one of the two degrees in the United States with which physicians can practice medicine — either as a doctor of medicine or a doctor of osteopathic medicine. About a quarter of US medical students train at osteopathic medical schools, according to the American Medical Association. Historically, doctor of osteopathic medicine programs have touted their methods as “more holistic.”
Conley drew scrutiny during Trump’s bout with coronavirus in the fall. He supervised a team of specialists at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where Trump was treated.
At first, he did not disclose the President had received supplemental oxygen, and defended the decision by saying he wanted to “reflect the upbeat attitude of the team.”
“I didn’t want to give any information that might steer the course of illness in another direction, and in doing so it came off that we were trying to hide something,” Conley said.
He replaced Dr. Ronny Jackson, a Navy rear admiral who was nominated to be secretary of veterans affairs. Jackson later withdrew following a string of allegations that included he loosely handled prescription pain medications, was intoxicated during an overseas trip and created a toxic work environment. Jackson denied the allegations. He later ran for a Texas congressional seat as a Republican and won.
On Wednesday, Conley was seen departing the White House alongside Trump, who was making a final trip to Florida before his term ended.
This story has been updated with additional background information.
The Supreme Court has effectively shut down two lawsuits alleging that former President Donald Trump was violating the Constitution by profiting from his public office, the court said Monday.
The announcement may indicate that the justices are looking to put the Trump era behind them and are not eager to wade into disputes about his personal or business affairs.
