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Downey: Inflated grades hide COVID learning loss

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:57 GMT

Three and a half years ago, COVID-19 began its deadly march across the United States, shuttering schools and isolating children from their communities and their teachers. A series of recent reports have quantified the academic and mental health toll to students from the pandemic. The consensus: The “COVID-19 generation” is not ready for the demands of college or the working world, and dramatic interventions are needed.On Wednesday, the Building Bridges Initiative, a collaboration of national education advocates across the political spectrum including leaders of the Georgia Charter Schools Association, RedefinED Atlanta and GeorgiaCAN, issued a call to action, warning the pandemic caused learning setbacks that will stagger “our nation’s social and economic health.”Also released on Wednesday, the “State of the American Student” report by the Center on Reinventing Public Education depicts a generation in crisis emotionally and academically. In many ways, school feels normal again, said...

The Breeders all in for ‘Last Splash’ at Boston House of Blues

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:57 GMT

Kim Deal was perusing social media last week when she saw a post from Olivia Rodrigo — who was enthusing over the fact that Deal’s band, the Breeders, would be opening her show at Madison Square Garden. And Deal says she was surprised as anyone else to see that.“It was a cute post, wasn’t it?,” she told us later that morning. “I am hoping that her fans will be super excited, even if they don’t know us. I think audiences are different now. If a band comes out in front of the headliner, they know he headliner has backed them and they won’t be mean. We’ve been in front of Foo Fighters audiences and they’re a really sweet crowd, with husbands and wives sharing their love for that band. And this will be my first time at Madison Square Garden — unless the Pixies ever played there, but I really have no idea.” (In fact they did, but only after Deal’s departure).Before that happens, the Breeders will be in Boston Sunday night to play the entirety of their “Last Splash” album at t...

Editorial: Nixing Senate dress code weakens much-needed decorum

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:57 GMT

Congress is bickering as usual. A potential federal shutdown is looming. Public respect for the elected representatives of government is at historic lows.What a perfect time to announce that members of the world’s greatest deliberative body are welcome to start coming to the U.S. Capitol looking like slobs.Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has officially ditched the Senate dress code for members while on the chamber floor.It’s true that post-pandemic fashion norms are, to put it mildly, relaxed.But they shouldn’t be when representing American democracy to the nation and the world from the televised floor of the United States Senate.“There has been an informal dress code that was enforced,” Schumer said in a statement, but going forward, “Senators are able to choose what they wear on the Senate floor. I will continue to wear a suit.”Notably, the relaxed new standards don’t apply to the staff who attend the senators. They still have to dress in business attire. Thus has Schum...

Bobb: Polarization harming a generation of kids

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:57 GMT

A perfect storm is brewing — and if we fail to act, the damage to our classrooms and children could be significant.Much of the 2023-2024 school year will occur against a looming presidential election. Many Americans look toward that election with dread because of the deep polarization and bitter rhetoric occupying much of our national discourse.A 2022 survey found Americans rated political extremism and polarization as a leading concern, outpacing immigration, healthcare and unemployment. But hyper-polarization does not just tear at our national fabric; it is causing harm to a generation of young people.A Stanford study last year found that children can become politically polarized at age 11. These are sixth-graders already learning to distrust and dislike fellow citizens because of political disagreements.At the Bill of Rights Institute, we work with more than 70,000 civics and history teachers, and they experience the effects of polarization firsthand in their classrooms.As one No...

Orioles’ 2-out rally in 9th goes to waste in 9-8 walk-off loss to Guardians as bullpen is again asked for too much

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:57 GMT

An Orioles bullpen that was a strength for much of the season is showing the effects of two straight weeks of games.Baltimore lost to the Cleveland Guardians, 9-8, on Friday night, the team’s third consecutive defeat that landed on a reliever. A short start from right-hander Dean Kremer tasked the bullpen with covering five innings in the team’s 15th of 17 straight games.After the Orioles manifested a two-out rally to take the lead in the top of the ninth on Aaron Hicks’ two-run double, All-Star reliever Yennier Cano allowed a leadoff double in the bottom half. Following an intentional walk to put the potential winning run on base and set up a potential game-ending double play, David Fry drove in both runners on a walk-off double to deep left field.The Orioles (95-59) benefited from the Toronto Blue Jays beating the Tampa Bay Rays to drop their magic number to win the American League East to six, but Baltimore couldn’t lower it further by beating a Cleveland ...

Dear Abby: Vacation with hubby a drunken drag

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:57 GMT

Dear Abby: I love to travel, yet I loathe traveling with my husband. He gets anxious and extremely mean on the days leading up to the trip and especially while en route. I do all the planning and pay for everything, and I regard it as not only ungrateful and rude, but unnecessary. Is it wrong for me to not want him to come on the next big trip I plan?Also, while we travel, all he wants to do is sleep, eat and drink. I’m all about taking in the local culture and making sure to not miss anything. I also enjoy a glass of wine with dinner, but I don’t want to drink into oblivion, and I’m definitely not up for sleeping my vacation away. My husband does have a drinking problem as well (a topic for another letter).Before I booked our last trip, I begged him to please not ruin it (our children were with us), and he promised to be on his best behavior. That lasted until the day before we left. Then it was like the mean switch flipped on. Before we even left for the airport,...

Bribery case against Sen. Menendez shines light on powerful NJ developer accused of corruption

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:57 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — In late 2020, Sen. Bob Menendez met with Philip Sellinger, a private practice lawyer and former fundraiser for the senator, to assess his potential fit as the next U.S. Attorney for the state of New Jersey — and to discuss one case in particular.If appointed, Sellinger would assume control of one of the largest prosecutor’s offices in the country, a post that comes with the power to bust mob bosses and go after corrupt public officials.But Menendez, federal prosecutors say, was fixated on a less consequential matter: ensuring the future prosecutor would act sympathetically toward a friend of his facing bank fraud charges, real estate developer Fred Daibes.Daibes is now a key figure in a sweeping bribery case brought against Menendez, his wife and multiple other associates. It accuses Menendez and his wife of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cash, gold bars and a luxury car in exchange for a range of favors, including secretly aiding the government ...

Zelenskyy, accompanied by Trudeau, greets cheering crowd of supporters in Toronto

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:57 GMT

TORONTO — A large crowd of members of the Ukrainian community and politicians welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his wife, Olena Zelenska, with a standing ovation as they walked into a Canadian Armed Forces facility in Toronto Friday night.About 1,000 people gathered at the Fort York Armoury to show support for Zelenskyy, who is visiting Canada for the first time since Russian troops began a full-scale assault on Ukraine in February 2022.Zelenskyy and his wife arrived at the venue accompanied by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland.A group of students and teachers from St. Demetrius Ukrainian school in Toronto sang the Ukrainian anthem while others were singing along and waving Ukrainian and Canadian flags.Trudeau has announced that Canada is extending its financial support to Ukraine with a $650-million commitment to give the country more predictable and stable support over the next three years.Canada ha...

The federal government is headed into a shutdown. What does it mean, who’s hit and what’s next?

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:57 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government is heading toward a shutdown that will disrupt many services, squeeze workers and roil politics as Republicans in the House, fueled by hard-right demands for deep cuts, force a confrontation over federal spending.While some government entities will be exempt — Social Security checks, for example, will still go out — other functions will be severely curtailed. Federal agencies will stop all actions deemed non-essential, and millions of federal employees, including members of the military, won’t receive paychecks.Here’s a look at what’s ahead if the government shuts down on Oct. 1.WHAT IS A GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN?A shutdown happens when Congress fails to pass some type of funding legislation that is signed into law by the president. Lawmakers are supposed to pass 12 different spending bills to fund agencies across the government, but the process is time-consuming. They often resort to passing a temporary extension, called a conti...

Nikki Haley’s approach to abortion is rooted in her earliest days in South Carolina politics

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:24:57 GMT

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — As a state representative running a longshot campaign for South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley would often explain her opposition to abortion with a story about her family.“I’m strongly pro-life, very pro-life, and not because my party tells me to be, but my husband was adopted, and so every day I know the blessings of having him there,” she said in 2010.She won that race and was reelected as governor before serving as former President Donald Trump’s United Nations ambassador. She’s now competing against Trump as the only woman seeking the Republican presidential nomination. And in a primary race animated by questions over the future of abortion access in the U.S., Haley is reviving the personal anecdote she would give in South Carolina — almost verbatim. “I am unapologetically pro-life, not because the Republican Party tells me, but because my husband was adopted, and I live with that blessing every day,” she told a New Hampshire audience in ...