Tag: iab-education

Voters of color are a big reason Trump leads the GOP primary | CNN Politics

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Former President Donald Trump holds an average double-digit advantage over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in national 2024 Republican primary surveys. That, in itself, isn’t notable given Trump, the frontrunner, has been ahead of DeSantis (by far his nearest competitor or potential competitor) since polling began about the race.

But what may surprise is how Trump is ahead. An average of CNN/SSRS and Quinnipiac University polls released this week reveals that Trump’s lead may, in large part, be because of his clear edge among potential Republican primary voters of color.

Trump was up an average of 55% to 26% over DeSantis among Republican (and Republican leaning independent) voters of color in an average of the two polls.

Among White Republican voters, the race was well within the margin of error: Trump’s 38% to DeSantis’ 37%.

I should note the combined voter of color sample size of the CNN/SSRS and Quinnipiac University is about 200 respondents. This isn’t particularly large, but it’s more than large enough to say with a high degree of statistical confidence that Trump is ahead among them and that he is doing better among them than he is among White Republicans.

The fact that Trump is doing considerably better among Republican voters of color than White Republicans flies in the face of the fact that many Americans view Trump as racist. I noted in 2019 that more Americans described Trump as racist than the percentage of Americans who said that about segregationist and presidential candidate George Wallace in 1968.

But Trump’s overperformance with Republican voters of color makes sense in another way. The Republican primary race right down is breaking down along class lines just like it did during the 2016 primary.

Trump’s base is made up of Republicans whose households pull in less than $50,000 a year. He led this group of voters by 22 points over DeSantis in our CNN poll. He trailed DeSantis by 13 points among those GOP voters making at least $50,000 a year. This is a 35 point swing between these two income brackets.

Republican voters of color are far more likely than White Republicans to have a household income of less than $50,000 a year. According to the CNN poll, 45% of Republican voters of color do compared to just 28% of White Republicans.

Trump’s lead among Republican voters of color comes at a time when they’re becoming a larger part of the party. During the Republican primary season in 2016, voters of color were 13% of Republican voters. Today, they’re closer to 18%.

To put that into some perspective, White voters with a college degree are about 28% of Republican potential primary voters. Trump, of course, has historically struggled among well educated White voters, even within own party.

While voters of color don’t make up nearly the same share of the Republican party as White voters with a college degree, the difference isn’t all that large. This means that if Trump ultimately does as well with Republican voters of color as the current polling indicates, it would be a good counterbalance for his weakness among White voters with a college degree.

Trump doing better among Republican voters of color now is after he dramatically improved among all voters of color during the 2020 general election. While he still lost among them in 2020 by 45 points to Joe Biden in exit poll data, this was down from his 53-point loss in the 2016 election to Hillary Clinton. (Other data shows a similar improvement for Trump.)

Trump’s improvement with voters of color occurred even as his margin among White voters declined between 2020 and 2016. In fact, Trump probably would have won the 2020 election had he had slightly less slippage among White voters between 2016 and 2020.

Indeed, the Republican Party as a whole has been improving among voters of color. The party’s 38-point loss among that bloc for the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterms was a 5-point improvement from 2020. Its margin among White voters stayed the same in exit poll data.

Put another way: The shift among voters of color from 2022 to 2020 could have provided the winning margin for Republicans to take back the House.

The question going into 2024 is whether voters of color will continue their shift to the Republican Party and with Trump in particular. If they do, they could provide them both with a big boost.

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March 19, 2023
‘So much blood’: Medics tell what they saw and did after Uvalde massacre | CNN

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Chilling details of the chaotic and bloody aftermath of the Uvalde school massacre show how emergency medics desperately treated multiple victims wherever they could and with whatever equipment they had, according to never-before-heard interviews.

Some came from off-duty or far away to back up their colleagues sent to Robb Elementary School, where classrooms had become kill zones but there were still lives to be saved.

There was the state trooper with emergency medical certification who always carried five chest seals with him, never imagining he would ever need them all at once; the local EMT who crouched behind a wall as gunshots rang out and was soon treating three children at the same time; and her off-duty colleague who found herself caring for her son’s classmates, not knowing if her own boy was alive.

Amanda Shoemake was on the first Uvalde EMS ambulance to arrive at the school last May 24, she told an investigator from the Texas Department of Public Safety. But with law enforcement officers waiting for 77 minutes to challenge the shooter, she spent time trying to direct traffic to maintain a lane for ambulances to get through once victims started coming out, she said, according to investigation records obtained by CNN.

“We were just waiting for what felt like a while. And then somebody … came and they were like, ‘OK, we need EMS now,’” she said in the interview, part of the DPS investigation into the failed response to the school shooting, in which 19 children and two teachers were killed. At least one teacher and two children were alive when officers finally stormed the classrooms, but they died later.

As Shoemake and colleagues reached the school building, they were told the shooter had not yet been found and could be in the ceiling, she recounted, saying how they sheltered behind a brick wall as the shooter was confronted.

“We just squatted down there and waited there until the shooting stopped,” she said. “And then after some time they brought out the first kid that was an obvious DOA.”

DPS trooper Zach Springer was one of the hundreds of law enforcement officers from across southwest Texas who responded to Robb when alerts went out for reinforcements. He had become certified as an EMT a few months earlier, he told the Texas Ranger who interviewed him.

“I made a conscious decision not to bring my rifle,” he said he thought as he drove up. “I knew there were so many people up there, they’re not going to need rifles, they’re going to need med gear.”

Springer entered the school and started getting a triage area ready at the end of the hallway where armed officers from the school force, local police department, sheriff’s office, state police and federal agencies were lined up. While commanders like then school police chief Pete Arredondo, then acting city police chief Mariano Pargas and Sheriff Ruben Nolasco have given various statements about whether they knew children were hurt and needed rescue, medics from many agencies prepared for victims.

“I set up as best I could,” he said. “I put tourniquets, gauze, Israeli bandages, compression bandages, hemostatic gauze. I was like, ‘I got everything, I think.’ … I had five chest seals, which is ridiculous in my opinion, like I’ve made fun of myself – when am I ever going to need five chest seals?”

He heard the breach and then started seeing children brought out amid the smoke from the brief but intense firefight, he said.

He went to help a Border Patrol medic treating a girl shot through the chest. He said he started checking her legs for injuries when he heard colleagues ask for a chest seal. In the chaos of the response, all had been taken.

Springer said they covered the girl’s wounds with gauze, got her onto a backboard and he repeatedly told the others to secure her head as they moved her, though he later believed the young victim was too small for the carrier.

I can still hear her voice

EMT Kathlene Torres after treating Mayah Zamora

“I don’t think that they secured her head because she wasn’t tall enough for her head to be secured,” he said. And while the girl was thought to be alive when they pulled her from the classroom, she did not survive, he said.

When he ran back in, the hallway lined with posters celebrating the end of the school year had been transformed. “You could smell the iron – there was so much blood,” he said.

Back outside, Uvalde EMS Shoemake had put the first victim in her ambulance to hide him from the crowds of anxious parents frantic for information, when another child was brought out. She saw an unattended ambulance from a private company with its door open and no stretcher, she said.

“I had them put her on the floor of that ambulance and I started treating her there. Then while I was treating her, there was two more 10-year-old boys brought to me and so I put one on the bench and one in the captain’s seat.”

Shoemake’s colleagues including Kathlene Torres came to help and got the little girl onto a stretcher and into another ambulance, working to save her life as they first thought a helicopter would take her and then getting her to the hospital themselves, they said.

Torres told a DPS officer the girl was critically injured but still managed to share her name and date of birth. She was Mayah Zamora, who would spend 66 days in hospital before she could go back to her family. “I can still hear her voice,” Torres said.

At least two of the EMTs had been at Robb earlier in the day to see awards presented to their children. One of them, Virginia Vela, had watched her 4th-grader son at a 10 a.m. ceremony and then two hours later was corralled in the funeral home parking lot across the street from the school with her husband and other parents who were being held back by officers.

She told the DPS investigator that she was recognized as a local EMT and allowed into the funeral home to treat some children who had been hurt climbing through windows to get away from the school.

Photos show chaotic scene as Uvalde students escape

When she went closer to the school to help the other EMTs, she saw the first victim brought out, a boy who was dead, she said.

“I thought it was my son,” she said. “Once I saw his clothes, I knew it wasn’t my son, but the fear … ran through my body.”

More children came for emergency medical treatment.

What I was thinking was ‘run buddy … get the hell away from that school, just run to the bus’

EMT Virginia Vela when she finally saw her son

“One of the kids that I had in the unit, he was shot in the shoulder. The student that I was helping up from the side of the unit, he had bullet fragments on his thigh,” she said. “And then we had another student with blown off fingers. And she was just in and out. We were trying to get her oxygen and trying to keep her alive. And I realized those were my son’s classmates and my son was not coming out.”

Vela opened the ambulance to see if more children were being brought to them. And finally, she saw her boy running from the school.

“I didn’t even run to him. I didn’t go get him. What I was thinking was ‘run buddy … get the hell away from that school, just run to the bus,’” she said. “I grabbed my phone, and I called my husband and my husband’s like, ‘I see him, I see him, he’s getting onto the bus, he’s OK.’ And I said, ‘OK, but I’ve got to stay here with these students.’ And I hung up and I continued to do my job.”

Vela told DPS she remembered a little more of the day after she knew her son was safe, but it was still a blur as she worked with Shoemake and the others, writing a child’s vitals on their arms and getting them on their way – load and go, load and go.

And once the emergency work was done, she had an important question.

“I asked my partner, ‘Did I freeze? Did I even help you?’ She goes, ‘Yes, girl. You were like jumping from unit to unit, helping everybody that was coming out,’” Vela said. “And I was like, I need to know this. I need to know that I continued doing my job.”

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March 18, 2023
In wake of Florida law, additional states seek to restrict certain LGBTQ discussions in schools | CNN Politics
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CNN
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Bills similar to Florida’s controversial legislation that bans certain instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools are being considered in at least 15 states, data compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union and reviewed by CNN shows.

Some of the bills go further than the Florida law, dubbed by its critics as “Don’t Say Gay,” which sparked a furious nationwide discussion about LGBTQ rights, education policy and parental involvement in the classroom.

The debate reflects the sensitive forces of LGBTQ rights becoming increasingly ascendant at a time when some parents are seeking greater input in their children’s education, especially in the wake of the tumult wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Republicans, arguing that discussions around gender identity and sexuality are inappropriate for young children, have used the banner of “parental rights” to push for a curtailment of such conversations in schools, even though opinions on the matter vary widely among parents. LGBTQ rights advocates see a conscious decision to stigmatize a vulnerable slice of American society and a potential chilling effect on what they believe to be urgently needed discussions.

“These bills are predicated on the belief that queer identities are a contagion while straight, cisgender identities are somehow more pure or correct,” Gillian Branstetter, a communications strategist for the ACLU, told CNN. “In truth, every student has a right to have their own life stories reflected back at them and every student benefits from stories that serve as a window into the lives of people different from them. Censorship and homogeneity benefit no one while denying all students an equal chance to learn, grow and thrive.”

The ACLU has tracked a total of 61 bills across 26 states, though efforts in several states, including Mississippi and Montana, have already failed. Earlier this month, Arkansas approved restrictions against such discussions through the fourth grade.

Ultimately, it’s unclear how many of the bills will be enacted. A Human Rights Campaign report released in January said that of 315 bills that they viewed as anti-LGBTQ that were introduced nationwide last year, only 29 – less than 10% – became law.

Florida’s law, titled the “Parental Rights in Education” bill, prohibits classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade “or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” It also requires districts to notify a student’s parent if there’s a significant change in their mental or emotional well-being, which LGBTQ rights advocates argue could lead to some students being outed to their parents without the student’s knowledge or consent.

“We will continue to recognize that in the state of Florida, parents have a fundamental role in the education, health care and well-being of their children. We will not move from that,” Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said when he signed the bill in March 2022.

According to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank that advocates for issues including LGBTQ rights, Florida’s law was the catalyst for the bills currently under consideration in other states, which include:
An Iowa bill that passed the state House last week that would prohibit instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation from kindergarten through sixth grade.

A bill in Oregon that would prohibit any discussion on sexual identity for grades kindergarten through third grade without parental notification and consent.

Legislation in Alaska that would require parental notification two weeks prior to “any activity, class or program that includes content involving gender identity, human reproduction or sexual matters is provided to a child.”

Multiple bills in Florida that seek to double down on last year’s legislation, including one that requires instruction that “sex is determined by biology and reproductive function at birth” and another that prohibits requirements for employees to use pronouns that do not correspond with a student’s sex.
A recurring theme in the legislation is a requirement that school employees notify a parent if a child expresses a desire to be addressed by a pronoun that matches their gender identity if it differs from the one assigned at birth.

“We’re not saying that you can’t do this,” Washington Republican state Sen. Phil Fortunato, who introduced legislation that would limit instruction on gender and sexual identity for kindergarten through third grade, told CNN. “I mean, I disagree with it, but, you know, if the parents and the child agree with it, that is their decision. But they shouldn’t be doing it behind the parent’s back when their kid goes to school. And that’s the point of the bill.”

Missouri’s bill is uniquely far-reaching: no employee at a public or charter school would be allowed to “encourage a student under the age of eighteen years old to adopt a gender identity or sexual orientation,” though what the law means by “encourage” is not explained. School officials would be required to immediately notify parents if their child confides in them “discomfort or confusion” about their “official identity” and teachers would not be allowed to refer to a student by their preferred pronouns without first securing a parent’s approval.

The bill specifically calls for whistleblower protections for school employees who report violators, who would then face “charges seeking to suspend or revoke the teacher’s license to teach based upon charges of incompetence, immorality or neglect of duty.”

In a blog post entitled “Evil perpetrated on our children,” Missouri GOP state Sen. Mike Moon, who sponsored the legislation, called it a “lie that boys can be changed into girls and girls can be changed into boys.”

“One thing we must agree on, though, is that parents are responsible for the upbringing of their children,” he continued. “To that end, parents must be involved in the education of their children.”

The measures are likely to face swift legal challenges if enacted, though at least two efforts to block Florida’s law have so far failed to take it off the books. One of those lawsuits, brought by a group of students, parents and teachers in Florida, was thrown out last month by US District Judge Allen Winsor, a Trump appointee, who said the challengers were unable to show that they’ve been harmed by the law.

“Plaintiffs have shown a strident disagreement with the new law, and they have alleged facts to show its very existence causes them deep hurt and disappointment,” Winsor wrote in his order. “But to invoke a federal court’s jurisdiction, they must allege more. Their failure to do so requires dismissal.”

At the heart of opponents’ concerns is the vagueness in the laws’ language as written. LGBTQ issues are not generally a formal part of public school curricula, they point out, leaving educators with the prospect of having to determine where legal fault lines are drawn with nothing less than their careers at stake.

“What counts as classroom discussion? As classroom instruction? Does it just include the curriculum for the class?” asked Alice O’Brien, the general counsel for the Alice O’Brien, in an interview with CNN. “For example, does it include teachers’ lesson plans, or does it sweep so broadly as to include classroom discussion? A teacher answering a student’s question, a teacher perhaps intervening in an incident where one student is bullying another student because of that student’s prestige, sexual orientation or gender identity? It’s very unclear what is prohibited and what is not prohibited.”

There are other concerns. Naomi G. Goldberg, the deputy director of MAP, worries about a “chilling effect on teachers themselves in terms of their ability to support students in the classroom as well as the students themselves in the classroom.”

A similar point was made in a CNN op-ed last year by Claire McCully, a trans mother who is outraged over Florida’s law.

“Like any other parent, I expect my family to be welcomed and accepted by others at the school,” McCully wrote. “And of course, this acceptance might be more likely if some of the children’s stories read in classrooms feature two dads, two moms or even a trans mom.”

Cathryn Oakley, the state legislative director and senior counsel of the Human Rights Campaign, told CNN that using a student’s preferred pronouns is harmless to other students but deeply meaningful to trans children themselves. She urged a cautious approach that recognizes the need for schools to be a safe space for vulnerable children, particularly if there is a risk that outing a child before they are ready could lead to “family rejection or even violence.”

“No one is suggesting that this is information that won’t be relevant to parents,” she said. “But what we are saying is that young folks should be able to have this conversation on their own terms with their parents and not have a third party be forced to broker a conversation that could put that child in danger.”
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March 18, 2023
This CNN Hero paid tribute to her late father by transforming a library into a center for feeding, teaching, and nurturing her community | CNN

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During Guatemala’s violent, decades-long civil war, an estimated 200,000 people were killed. Among them was Brenda Lemus’s father, Bernardo Lemus Mendoza, a prominent academic and intellectual who spoke out against the government.

“There were many people who were fighting for their rights, who were being repressed,” Brenda Lemus said. “My father (fought for) … their right to an education and access to work. He was persecuted, he was exiled from the country many times, and he was ultimately assassinated.”

Lemus’s father grew up in poverty in the small rural town of Purulhá, several hours outside of Guatemala City. Despite the odds, she said he managed to graduate school and eventually become the financial director at the San Carlos de Guatemala University.

During the peace process, the Guatemalan government wanted to dignify the memory of those killed by the state. To commemorate Bernardo and his love of literature, the government donated 180 books to his family to start a library in his hometown. In 2011, the Bernardo Lemus Mendoza Library opened in Purulhá.

Lemus relocated her family there and dedicated herself to getting the library off the ground. Today, it serves as a beacon of hope and a center of learning for young people living in extreme poverty.

From the start, Lemus saw how the community was struggling in many ways.

“The community’s youth had a lot of needs, especially in education,” Lemus said. “But all the books that were given to us … were about the armed conflict. None of them were for kids or young people, and there were no schoolbooks at all.”

Children would arrive at the library looking for books so they could attend school and do their homework. Many families couldn’t afford school supplies. So, Lemus got schools to agree to donate books, and she started giving them to children in the community.

She also saw that students needed notebooks for class. Some were writing on crumpled, old, torn pieces of paper.

“It made me think about when I was younger, going to school and hiding my notebooks because I didn’t want to do my homework. I had everything. And yet here were a bunch of kids who had nothing, holding on to a rotten piece of paper to be able to take notes,” Lemus said. “That filled me with compassion for these kids. I wanted to help them as much as I could.”

Realizing that young people in Purulhá were growing up under similar conditions as her father had, Lemus wanted not only to address their needs but to help them break the cycle of intergenerational poverty.

In 2012, she co-founded Yo’o Guatemala, a nonprofit whose name means “together we go.”

She began providing after-school programming and noticed many students had trouble focusing.

“I had to repeat the subjects often until one of the kids said to me, ‘Please, don’t repeat it to me again. I just can’t concentrate because I’m so hungry,’” Lemus said. “We realized that many of our kids were malnourished, some chronically, and it was impossible for them to focus on anything else.”

Her organization started a nutrition program for more than 40 families suffering from chronic malnutrition and has since expanded, providing extensive literacy, health, and community building programs.

“My goal with all of this is to make sure the kids in this community get a proper education, eat well, and get ahead with the same opportunities as if they were my own kids or yours,” Lemus said. “We are dignifying the memory of my father, and we are dignifying the lives of the children of Purulha.”

CNN spoke with Lemus about her efforts. Below is an edited and translated version of their conversation.

CNN: The assistance you provide is constantly evolving, depending on the community’s needs. How are you helping girls to access education?

Brenda Lemus: In Purulhá, girls stop studying very early, get pregnant, get married, and the cycle repeats itself. It’s a cycle of poverty that seems endless; it’s like a spiral that takes them to the bottom. We want to break (that) through education.

Parents usually reject sending their daughters to school because they help mom at home. The girls don’t perform the same as boys in school because it’s different: The boy goes to school, and when he leaves, he goes to play soccer. The girl goes to school, and comes home to cook, take care of siblings, wash clothes. And so she drops out of school because she doesn’t do her homework. Of course she doesn’t do her homework because she has too much of a burden at home. The girls have the entire burden, and it isn’t easy.

We currently have 10 girls in our residency. The girls come on Mondays, leaving on Fridays. They spend weekends at home. We are in charge of everything with respect to them during that time. And we give the opportunity to the girls who are much more vulnerable when it comes to dropping out of school. I’m convinced that by giving the girls an integral educational opportunity, with quality, we can break the cycle of poverty.

CNN: What is your focus with the “Mi Nino Bonito” program?

Lemus: We began a daycare program for children. We receive them very early because most of their mothers work in the local market. We give them a warm breakfast. We give them all the stimulation that they should have according to their age, but we teach the children to be independent.

They are usually the youngest in their house and the last in the food chain, so they have to fight for a piece of bread. We teach them to wash their dishes, to clean up if they spilled. We give them pediatric check-ups with vitamins, taking care that they don’t get sick. They become very independent children who then excel.

CNN: How does your eco-brick program work and what’s its significance?

Lemus: The eco-brick program has a special magic because it is the education of the children, by the children, through garbage. Children whose parents are unable to buy them school supplies have the opportunity to recycle materials such as non-recyclable aluminum or single-use plastics, encapsulating them in PET bottles forever.

The children collect garbage, clean the environment, recycle, and they receive school supplies as the tradeoff – for 10 eco-bricks, they have their full list of school supplies. If they deliver five more bricks, they get to take a brand-new backpack. With (the eco-bricks), schools are built in other parts of Guatemala by volunteers who come from the United States.

The value and dignity of the hard work they do is instilled in all the children. They provide their community with cleanliness and sanitation through recycling; this gives them dignity. The children come here in hopes of being able to finish their studies without dropping out. But they earn it with pure, hard work. This has allowed youth to have better opportunities for more dignified paid jobs.

Want to get involved? Check out the Yo’o Guatemala website and see how to help

To donate to Yo’o Guatemala via GoFundMe, click here

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March 17, 2023
English professor in Florida says university terminated his contract after a complaint over his racial justice unit | CNN

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A former English professor at Florida’s Palm Beach Atlantic University says the school terminated his contract early after a complaint that he was “indoctrinating” students by teaching about racial justice.

Sam Joeckel told CNN in a Wednesday statement he felt the university ended his contract early “for a clear reason: my decision to teach and speak about racial justice.”

Officials at the private Christian university informed Joeckel last month his contract renewal was placed on hold while they investigated the materials he used in the racial justice unit, telling him a decision would be made by March 15, CNN previously reported. The former professor told CNN at the time February’s conversation with his employers indicated the investigation was prompted by a complaint from a parent.

“I believe this goes against the Christian beliefs that I hold closely, and that PBA claims to hold closely,” Joeckel said in his statement this week. “PBA has chosen to reject the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.: ‘Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, [racial] injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.’”

In a statement in response to CNN’s inquiry, Palm Beach Atlantic University spokesperson Jason Masterson said: “On the advice of legal counsel, the university has no comment.”

The university’s employee handbook says, “Discontinuance of employment may occur at any time, without cause, at the discretion of PBA.” The institution does not offer tenure, the review process for employment decisions regarding senior faculty that is meant to safeguard academic freedom.

Joeckel said he believed “the timing of this is not a coincidence,” and pointed to rhetoric from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other “far-right politicians and activists” around subjects including race.

DeSantis, a Republican, has said he intends to defund all diversity, equity and inclusion programs at state colleges and universities in Florida. These policies and programs are created to promote representation for people who have historically faced discrimination because of their race, ethnicity, disability, gender, religion or sexual orientation.

Joeckel said he plans to pursue legal options to “fight back and show PBA, and other institutions, that they cannot get away with this.”

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March 16, 2023
Iran arrests more than 100 people over suspected poisonings of schoolgirls | CNN

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Iran has arrested more than 100 people “in connection with” the suspected poisoning of hundreds of schoolgirls across the country, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

Citing a statement from Iran’s Interior Ministry, IRNA said the people had been “identified, arrested and investigated” in several cities, including the capital Tehran.

“Initial inquiries show that a number of these people, out of mischief or adventurism and with the aim of shutting down classrooms and influenced by the created psychological atmosphere, have taken measures such as using harmless and smelly substances,” the statement read.

Iran has seen a wave of suspected poisonings, carried out almost entirely at girls’ schools, in recent months.

While Iranian politicians have suggested the girls could have been targeted by hardline Islamist groups, activists believe that the poisonings may be linked to the nationwide protests that erupted last September over the death of Mahsa Ami. Many schoolgirls have been active in the protests, removing their mandatory headscarves in classrooms, tearing up pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and calling for his death.

Medics, parents and teachers have accused the Iranian government of attempting to silence the victims.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei previously called the suspected poisonings an “unforgivable crime” and called for “severe punishment” for anyone found responsible.

Among those arrested, the ministry said, were “individuals who have had hostile motives, tried to create fear and horror among people and students, shut down schools, and created pessimism toward” the Iranian government.

They would remain “under investigation until required assurances are achieved,” the statement said, adding that the number of poisoning cases at girls’ schools across the country had been decreasing “over the past several days.”

The first suspected poisonings happened in November at a high school in the city of Qom which saw 18 schoolgirls hospitalized, according to Iranian state media.

A mother of two daughters from Qom previously told CNN that both girls, who attended different schools, had suffered significant health issues after being poisoned.

One girl experienced nausea, shortness of breath and numbness in her left leg and right hand while the other now had “difficulty walking,” she said.

Growing alarm in Iran after report hundreds of schoolgirls were poisoned

Another incident in the city took place in February when more than 100 students from 13 schools were hospitalized after what Iranian state news agencies described as “serial poisonings.”

Both the United States and United Nations have called on Iranian authorities to fully investigate the suspected poisonings and hold those responsible to account.

The White House on Monday said there must be a “credible, independent” investigation of poisonings among schoolgirls in Iran, suggesting it could be within the purview of the United Nations to look into the matter.

Previously, the Biden administration had noted Iran itself was conducting an investigation. But questioned by CNN’s Phil Mattingly on Monday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the situation could fall within the mandate of the UN’s independent fact-finding mission on Iran.

“We are closely following this deeply concerning situation that we’re seeing in Iran,” she said. “The continued poisoning of schoolgirls across Iran is unconscionable. There must be a credible, independent investigation (and) accountability for those responsible.”

She said if the poisonings were related to recent protests, it was “well within” the UN fact-finding mission’s mandate.

“The possibility that girls in Iran are being possibly poisoned for simply for trying to get an education is shameful, it’s unacceptable,” she said.

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March 11, 2023
Arizona launches hotline for public to report ‘inappropriate’ school lessons | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Arizona’s top education official launched a hotline this week for state residents to report K-12 class curriculum and lessons that they deem “inappropriate,” the Arizona Department of Education said in a press release.

Championed by state Superintendent for Public Instruction Tom Horne, the “Empower Hotline” allows residents to voice their concerns about classroom materials that “detract from teaching standards,” including lessons that “focus on race or ethnicity rather than individuals and merit, promote gender ideology and social emotional learning,” the department said.

Horne, a Republican, unseated the Democratic incumbent last fall, running on a campaign platform of “fighting critical race theory” and stopping the “liberal indoctrination” of schoolchildren, according to his campaign website. He previously served two terms in the position from 2003 to 2011 and as Arizona attorney general from 2011 to 2015.

“I promised to establish this hotline so that anyone could report the teaching of inappropriate lessons that rob students of precious minutes of instruction time in core academic subjects such as reading, math, science, history and the arts. That promise is being kept,” Horne said in the press release.

Horne’s agenda has been criticized for placing unnecessary emphasis on political issues, instead of focusing on other needs such as adding more mental health services for students and trimming class sizes.

Marisol Garcia, president of the Arizona Education Association, told CNN she was “disappointed” that Horne hasn’t worked to “get a grasp of what was going on” in Arizona schools but instead has pushed policies based on what she called “outlandish claims that he had been repeating during the campaign.”

Garcia, who also teaches eighth grade social studies, said she won’t change her curriculum because of the hotline but is afraid inexperienced teachers will alter their classes due to political pressure.

This isn’t the first instance of Arizona GOP lawmakers attempting to curb critical race theory, which the Arizona Department of Education defines loosely as “an ideology that can wear many different labels.” In 2021, Republican Gov. Doug Ducey signed a law prohibiting teachings that “blame or judge on the basis of race,” but the law was later struck down by the state Supreme Court.

Most recently, a bill sponsored by Arizona GOP lawmakers to restrict classroom lessons on race and ethnicity was vetoed Thursday by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.

This follows a push from conservative politicians across the country to curb critical race theory and classroom curriculum that teaches about race and ethnicity through the lens of power and privilege.

Critical race theory is based on the premise that racism is systemic in American society. According to CRT, racism is more than the result of individual prejudice; it is baked into institutions, laws and policies, and this creates and maintains racial inequities.

In January 2022, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia launched an email tip line for parents to report concerns about “divisive concepts” being taught in the classroom. He also issued an executive order banning critical race theory from being part of the public school curriculum, even though it wasn’t included in Virginia’s standards of learning.

The tip line was eventually shuttered in September 2022. In the emails reviewed by CNN, there were concerns about institutionalized racism, mask wearing in schools, a back-and-forth about math curriculum and one woman who said she wanted to flood the tip line with positive comments.

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March 11, 2023
Police release Michigan State shooting timeline and a troubling note found in the gunman’s pocket | CNN
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The gunman who killed three Michigan State University students and critically wounded five others last month in a mass shooting wrote in a note found in his pocket that he was “tired of being rejected” and was hurt, police said Friday.

The Michigan State University Police and Public Safety Department released a detailed timeline of events and shared images of a note gunman Anthony Dwayne McRae, 43, wrote, police said in a news release.

Written on spiral notebook paper, the two-page document is dated a day before the February 12 shooting. Portions of it have been redacted by police.

One side of the note starts with the gunman identifying himself: “Hi My Name is Anthony McRae.” A second side starts with “They hurted me” at the top of the page before listing the locations of other targeted areas.

McRae writes that he is the leader of a group of 20 people and claims “another team” in his group will be targeting the other outlined locations – upon discovering the note, law enforcement officials “investigated and cleared all of the other locations McRae named in the note,” police said.

“While McRae states in the note that he was acting with others, investigators from MSU DPPS, Michigan State Police and the FBI have determined through comprehensive reviews and detailed follow-up that McRae acted alone and was not working with other people,” the statement from MSU DPPS said.

In the letter, McRae appears to write about his grievances repeatedly writing “they hate me” and detailing other general, non-specific, perceived slights against him like “I’m tired of being rejected,” “No one noticed me,” “Everywhere I go people treat me different.”

Police detail a timeline of events, sharing the gunman’s whereabouts and how police responded to his movements accordingly:
8:18 p.m. – Ingham County 911 started receiving calls of the first shots fired at Berkey Hall, MSU police said

Two minutes later, at 8:20 p.m. ET, officers entered Berkey Hall

8:24 p.m. – McRae entered the Union

8:26 p.m. – First report of shooting at the Union

8:27 p.m. – Officers arrived at the Union

8:30 p.m. – First emergency alert notification was sent

8:31 p.m. – Second emergency alert notification was sent

11:18 p.m. – Photo of suspect was shared on MSU DPPS social media

11:35 p.m. – Ingham County 911 received a call about a person matching the description of the suspect walking on Lake Lansing Road near High Street in the City of Lansing

11:49 p.m. – Officers approached McRae and he shot and killed himself
As part of the ongoing investigation, police said they are currently reviewing and finalizing details of the route McRae took as he left campus, according to the statement.

From February 13 to February 14 between 8 p.m. and 1 a.m., Ingham County 911 received 2,100 phone calls, which is the equivalent of 2.5 days’ worth of calls for the dispatch center – within a 5-hour period, police said.
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March 10, 2023
DeSantis points to looming culture wars with Florida ‘on the front lines in the battle for freedom’ | CNN Politics

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Laying out his top priorities for a second term and a potential platform for a presidential run, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis delivered a State of the State speech Tuesday that conspicuously avoided much of the divisive rhetoric that has fueled his political ascent but nevertheless signaled another round of cultural wars is coming in the weeks ahead.

DeSantis asserted that his landslide November victory was a “vindication” of his contentious agenda during his first term and a mandate to “shoot for the stars” and “swing for the fences” in the coming year. He encouraged lawmakers to “ignore all the background noise” as they tackle a lengthy list of priorities that are sure to enrage Democrats but animate future Republican primary voters.

“We find ourselves in Florida on the front lines in the battle for freedom,” he said. “Together, we have made Florida the nation’s most desired destination and we have produced historic results. But now’s not the time to rest on our laurels.”

The remarks laid the groundwork for what is expected to be a breathless sprint by the GOP-controlled legislature to rack up policy wins that could form a platform to launch DeSantis’ highly anticipated bid for the White House.

DeSantis notably refrained from using the word “woke” in his remarks – a staple of the political speeches he has delivered in recent months – and wasn’t nearly as combative toward President Joe Biden. He largely focused on more agreeable topics like improving education, alleviating traffic congestion and championing truck drivers, police officers and nurses.

But he also chastised the “biomedical security state” that required Covid-19 vaccines and vowed to permanently ban mandates related to coronavirus mitigation, an outlier position that helped DeSantis emerge as a conservative star during the pandemic.

“We defied the experts, we bucked the elites, we ignored the chatter,” DeSantis said. “We did it our way, the Florida way.”

DeSantis has urged or endorsed proposals touching every facet of the culture wars: restricting abortion, allowing concealed firearms in public without training and universal school choice. There are bills targeting drag shows, liberal protections and so-called “woke”-banking.

Moments before DeSantis’ remarks began, legislation was filed that would ban abortion after six weeks except in cases of rape and incest and make it illegal to send abortion medications through the mail. DeSantis in his speech nodded to supporting efforts to “protect life” but avoided specifics. He also signaled support for legislative efforts to follow steps taken by his administration to ban treatments for transgender children.

“Our schools must deliver a good education, not a political indoctrination,” DeSantis said. “It’s sad that we have to say this, but our children are not guinea pigs for science experimentation, and we cannot allow people to make money off mutilating them.”

Many of the proposals are aimed at classrooms. In a bill addressing K-12 schools, teachers cannot be told they must use a student’s preferred name and pronouns and discussing gender identity and sexual orientation and gender identity would be prohibited topics until high school. On college campuses, gender studies would be banned, as would diversity and equity programs, and hiring decisions will fall into the hands of board members largely appointed by DeSantis.

DeSantis has said he will formally decide on whether to jump into the 2024 race after the legislature completes its work, a timeline that would mean an announcement in May or June. But DeSantis is already taking steps to build out a political team for a potential run and recently huddled with donors, elected Republicans and conservative influencers in Palm Beach, where they plotted strategy and policy in former President Donald Trump neighborhood.

His out-of-state travel has also picked up. While lawmakers meet over the next 60 days, DeSantis is expected to spend the next couple months on the road promoting his new book, “The Courage to Be Free.” DeSantis is scheduled to travel to Alabama on Thursday before heading to the early nominating states of Iowa and Nevada this weekend.

DeSantis’ agenda is expected to face little resistance in the Republican-led legislature, where lawmakers have repeatedly succumbed to political pressure from the popular governor in the past and appear closely aligned heading into the upcoming session.

Indeed, in the hour before DeSantis’ remarks, Senate President Kathleen Passidomo told her members she considered DeSantis “truly America’s governor.”

“The eyes of the nation are on Florida this year,” she said. “Let’s show America how it’s done.”

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March 7, 2023
This is the dynamic that could decide the 2024 GOP race | CNN Politics

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The same fundamental dynamic that decided the 2016 Republican presidential primaries is already resurfacing as the 2024 contest takes shape.

As in 2016, early polls of next year’s contest show the Republican electorate is again sharply dividing about former President Donald Trump along lines of education. In both state and national surveys measuring support for the next Republican nomination, Trump is consistently running much better among GOP voters without a college education than among those with a four-year or graduate college degree.

Analysts have often described such an educational divide among primary voters as the wine track (centered on college-educated voters) and the beer track (revolving around those without degrees). Over the years, it’s been a much more consistent feature in Democratic than Republican presidential primaries. But the wine track/beer track divide emerged as the defining characteristic of the 2016 GOP race, when Trump’s extraordinary success at attracting Republicans without a college degree allowed him to overcome sustained resistance from the voters with one.

Though the early 2024 polls have varied in whether they place Trump or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the lead overall (with the latest round tilting mostly toward Trump), that same overriding pattern of educational polarization is appearing in virtually all of those surveys, a review of public and private polling data reveals.

“Trump does seem to have a special ability to make this sort of populist appeal [to non-college voters] and also have a special ability to make college-educated conservatives start thinking about alternatives,” GOP pollster Chris Wilson said in an email. “I think we’ll continue to see a big education divide in his support in 2024.”

The stark educational split in attitudes toward Trump frames the strategic challenge for his potential rivals in the 2024 race.

On paper, none of the leading candidates other than DeSantis himself seems particularly well positioned to threaten Trump’s hold on the non-college Republicans who have long been the most receptive audience for his blustery and belligerent messaging. By contrast, most of the current and potential field – including former Governors Nikki Haley and Chris Christie; current Governors Chris Sununu of New Hampshire and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia; former Vice President Mike Pence; and Sen. Tim Scott – appear better suited to attract the white-collar Republicans who have always been the most skeptical of Trump.

That could create a situation in which there’s too little competition to Trump for voters on the “beer track” and too many options splintering the voters resistant to him on the “wine track.” That was the dynamic that allowed Trump to capture the nomination in 2016 even though nearly two-thirds of college-educated Republicans opposed him through the primaries, according to exit polls, and he didn’t reach 50% of the total vote in any state until the race was essentially decided.

While the political obstacles facing Trump look greater now than they were then, his best chance of winning in 2024 would likely come from consolidating the “beer track” to a greater extent than anyone else unifies the “wine track” – just as he did in 2016. In each of the past three contested GOP presidential primaries, the electorate have split almost exactly in half between voters with and without college degrees, analyses of the exit polls have found.

“Right now, unless somebody cracks that code to get competitive with Trump there [among blue-collar Republican voters], it could fall into the old pattern which is the best scenario for him,” said long-time GOP strategist Mike Murphy, who directed the super PAC for Jeb Bush in the 2016 race.

Jennifer Horn, the former GOP state chair in New Hampshire, added that while Trump’s ceiling is likely lower than in 2016, he could still win the nomination with only plurality support if no one unifies the majority more skeptical of him. “He isn’t going to need 50% to win,” cautioned Horn, a leading Republican critic of Trump.

The wine track/beer track divide has been a consistent feature of Democratic presidential primary politics since 1968. Since then, a procession of brainy liberal candidates (think Eugene McCarthy in 1968, Gary Hart in 1984, Paul Tsongas in 1992 and Bill Bradley in 2000) have mobilized socially liberal college-educated voters against rivals who relied primarily on support from non-college educated White voters and racial minorities (Robert F. Kennedy, Walter Mondale, Bill Clinton and Al Gore in those same races). In the epic 2008 Democratic primary struggle, the basic divide persisted in slightly reconfigured form as Barack Obama attracted just enough white-collar White and Black voters to beat Hillary Clinton’s coalition of blue-collar Whites and Latinos. Joe Biden in 2020 was mostly a beer track candidate.

Generally, over those years, the educational divide had not been as important in Republican primary races. More often GOP voters have divided among primary contenders along other lines, including ideology and religious affiliation. Both the 2008 and 2012 GOP races, for instance, followed similar lines in which a candidate who relied primarily on evangelical Christians and the most conservative voters (Mike Huckabee in 2008 and Rick Santorum in 2012) ultimately lost the nomination to another who attracted more support from non-evangelicals and a broader range of mainstream conservatives (John McCain and Mitt Romney).

The conservative columnist Patrick J. Buchanan, in his long-shot 1992 and 1996 bids for the GOP nomination, pioneered a blue-collar conservatism centered on unwavering cultural conservatism and an economic nationalism revolving around hostility to foreign trade and immigration. Huckabee and even more so Santorum advanced those themes, clearing a path that Trump would later follow – with a much harsher edge than either.

In 2008, there was no educational divide in the GOP race: McCain won exactly the same 43% among Republican voters with and without a college degree, according to a new analysis of the exit poll results by CNN polling director Jennifer Agiesta. But by 2012, Santorum’s blue-collar inroads meant Romney won the nomination with something closer to the Republican equivalent of a wine-track coalition: Of the 20 states that conducted exit polls that year, Romney won voters with at least a four-year college degree in 14, but he carried most non-college voters in just 10.

Wilson, the GOP pollster, said that an educational divide also started appearing around that time in other GOP primaries for Senate, House and governor’s races more frequently though by no means universally.

“This wasn’t always the driving demographic or ideological difference in primaries before Trump,” Wilson said. “Sometimes a candidate [who] was particularly strong in sounding populist themes would create this type of gap, but often a more traditional issue difference either on social issues or on issues like tax increase votes or support for Obamacare or something adjacent to it would be a stronger signal in a primary.”

In 2016, Trump turned this traditional GOP axis on its head. He narrowed the big divisions that had decided the 2008 and 2012 races. He performed nearly as well among voters who identified as very conservative as he did among those who called themselves somewhat conservative or moderate, according to a cumulative analysis of all the 2016 exit polls conducted by ABC’s Gary Langer. Likewise, Trump performed only slightly better among voters who were not evangelicals than those who were, Langer’s analysis found.

Instead, Trump split the GOP electorate along the wine-track/beer-track divide familiar from Democratic primary contests over the previous generation. According to Langer’s cumulation of the exit polls, Trump won fully 47% of GOP voters without a four-year college degree – an incredible performance in such a crowded field. Trump, in stark contrast, carried only 35% of Republican voters with at least a college-degree across the primaries overall. But the remainder of them dubious of him never settled on a single alternative. Sen. Ted Cruz, who proved Trump’s longest-lasting rival, captured only about one-fourth of the white-collar GOP voters, with the rest splitting primarily among Marco Rubio, John Kasich and Trump himself.

In October 2015, I wrote that Trump’s emerging strength in the GOP nomination race could be explained in two sentences: “The blue-collar wing of the Republican primary electorate has consolidated around one candidate. The party’s white-collar wing remains fragmented.” That same basic equation held through the primaries and largely explained Trump’s victory. The question now is whether it could happen again.

There’s no question that some of the same ingredients are present. Recent national polling by the non-partisan Public Religion Research Institute, according to detailed results shared with CNN, shows that Republicans without a college degree are more likely than those with advanced education to agree with such core Trump themes as the belief that discrimination against Whites is now as big a problem as bias against minorities; that society is growing too soft and feminine; and that the growing number of immigrants weakens American society.

The educational divide is also appearing more regularly in other GOP primaries for offices such as senator or governor, especially in races where one candidate is running on a Trump-style platform, Republican strategists say. It is also reappearing in polls measuring GOP voters’ early preferences for 2024. Recent national polls by Quinnipiac University, Fox News Channel and Republican pollsters including Whit Ayres, Echelon Insights and Wilson have all found Trump still running very strongly among Republicans without a college degree, usually capturing more than two-fifths of them, according to detailed results provided by the pollsters. But those same surveys all show Trump struggling with college-educated Republican voters, usually drawing even less support among them than he did in 2016, often just one-fourth or less.

Wilson, for instance, said that in his national survey of prospective 2024 GOP voters, Trump’s support falls from about half of those with a high school degree or less, to about one-third of those with some college experience, one-fourth of those with a four-year degree and only one-fifth of those with a graduate education. In a recent national NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, half of Republicans without a college degree said nominating Trump again would give the party the best chance of winning in 2024; two-thirds of the Republicans with degrees said the party would have a better chance with someone else.

State polls are showing the same pattern. The latest University of New Hampshire survey showed Trump attracting about two-fifths of GOP voters there without a high school degree, about one-third of those with some college experience, and only one-sixth of those with a four-year or graduate degree. A recent LA Times/University of California (Berkeley) survey in that state produced very similar results. Trump also ran much better among Republicans without a degree than those with one in the latest OH Predictive Insights primary poll in Arizona, according to detailed results provided by the firm.

Craig Robinson, the former GOP state party political director in Iowa, said he sees the same divergence in his daily interactions. “The people that I hang out with or have breakfast with on Saturday, it’s the more business, more educated guys, and they are like, ‘Hey, we just want to move on [from Trump],’” Robinson told me. “But if I go back home to rural Iowa, they are not like that. They are looking for the fighter; they are looking for the person that they think will stand up for them and that’s Trump by and large.”

Republicans who believe Trump is more vulnerable than in 2016 largely point to one reason: the possibility that DeSantis could build a broader coalition of support than any of Trump’s rivals did then. In many of these early state and national polls, DeSantis leads Trump among college educated voters. And in the same polls, DeSantis is generally staying closer to Trump among non-college voters than anyone did in 2016. “DeSantis may be able to do some business there,” said Murphy, referring to the GOP’s blue-collar wing.

When DeSantis spoke on Sunday at the Ronald Reagan presidential library about an hour northwest of Los Angeles, he smoothly displayed his potential to bridge the GOP’s educational divide. For the first part of his speech, he touted Florida’s economic success around small government principles – a message that could connect with white-collar GOP voters drawn to a Reaganite message of lower taxes and less regulation. In the speech’s later sections, DeSantis recounted his clashes with what he called “the woke mind virus” over everything from classroom instruction about race, gender and sexual orientation, to immigration and crime and his collisions with the Walt Disney Co. Those issues, which drew the biggest response from his audience, provide him a powerful calling card with GOP voters, especially those without degrees, drawn to Trump’s confrontational style, but worried he can’t win again.

“There is a lot of energy in the party right now around these cultural issues,” said GOP consultant Alex Conant, who served as the communications director for Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign. “If you watch Fox prime time, they are not talking about tax cuts and balancing budgets. They talk about the same cultural issues that DeSantis is putting at the core of his campaign.”

The risk to DeSantis is that by leaning so hard into cultural confrontation on so many fronts he could create a zero-sum dynamic in the race. That approach could allow him to cut into Trump’s blue-collar base, but ultimately repel some college educated primary voters, who view him as too closely replicating what they don’t like about Trump. (If DeSantis wins the nomination, that same dynamic could hurt him with some suburban voters otherwise drawn to his small government economic message.)

That could leave room in the top tier of the GOP race for another candidate who offers a sunnier, less polarizing message aimed mostly at white-collar Republicans. “I think there is absolutely room for more than two candidates, especially two candidates who are both competing very hard for the Fox News audience,” Conant said. Almost anyone else who joins the race beyond Trump and DeSantis (assuming he announces later this year) may ultimately conclude that lane represents their best chance to win.

In many ways, Trump looks more vulnerable than he did in the 2016 primary. But assembling a coalition across the GOP’s wine-track/beer-track divide that’s broad enough to beat him remains something of a Rubik’s Cube, and the countdown is starting for the field that’s assembling against him to solve it.

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March 7, 2023
DeSantis agenda — and potential campaign platform — in the spotlight as Florida lawmakers return to work | CNN Politics

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CNN
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In the coming weeks, Gov. Ron DeSantis is poised to show Floridians – and the country – just how much further he is willing to go than any other Republican leader to turn his state into a conservative vision where abortion is nearly outlawed, guns can be carried in public without training, private schools are subsidized with taxpayer dollars and “wokeness” is excised.

DeSantis’ agenda is expected to dominate the debate in Tallahassee when state lawmakers return to action on Tuesday for what is perhaps the most anticipated legislative session in recent memory. With a decision on his presidential ambitions waiting on the other side of the 60-day session, DeSantis has hyped the humdrum of parliamentary proceedings and legislative sausage-making into a spectacle worth following.

“People look at Florida like, ‘Man, the governor has gotten a lot done,’” DeSantis told “Fox & Friends” last month. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

With DeSantis’ backing or urging, Republican lawmakers have filed a slate of bills that will keep Florida at the forefront of the culture wars that are raging in statehouses across the country. There are legislative proposals targeting drag shows, treatments for transgender children, diversity and equity programs at public universities, gender studies majors, professor tenure, teachers unions, libel protections for the media, so-called “woke” banking and in-state college tuition for undocumented residents. Other proposals would extend DeSantis’ powers as governor, including to control the hiring of professors on every public campus through his political appointees and put him in charge of picking the board that oversees scholastic athletics in the state. Another would amend a longstanding “resign to run” law so DeSantis could launch a bid for president without stepping down as Florida governor.

Though no governor in Florida’s modern history has wielded executive power or the bully pulpit quite like DeSantis, it’s the closely aligned, Republican-held legislature that has handed the governor many of the policy wins that have fueled his political rise. Already this year, the legislature has met in special session to shore up several of DeSantis’ priorities, including the freedom to transport migrants from anywhere in the country to Democratic jurisdictions and fewer hurdles for his new election crime office to charge people for voting errors and violations.

Lawmakers in the special session also approved DeSantis’ plans for a takeover of Disney’s special government powers – punishment for the entertainment giant’s objection last year to the Parental Rights in Education law, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by critics, which prohibited the instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity until after third grade. Under the new law, DeSantis chooses the board members that oversee the taxing district around Disney’s Orlando-area theme parks. Last week, he appointed to the board a political donor, the wife of the state GOP chairman and a former pastor who once suggested tap water could turn people gay.

Now, lawmakers have proposed taking up the legislation at the heart of that feud once again, by extending the prohibited topics in the Parental Rights in Education law to eighth grade. The bill also declares “it is false to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to such person’s sex” and it prohibits school districts from requiring teachers or other employees to use a student’s preferred name or pronouns.

For his part, DeSantis will deliver the state of the state address on Tuesday and then spend much of the following weeks on the road to promote his new book, “The Courage to be Free,” a memoir transfixed on the political battles from his first term. It will be up to Republican lawmakers to give DeSantis fresh material from which he can build a narrative for a presidential campaign, should he choose to run. DeSantis has said he intends to decide after the session if he will jump into the 2024 contest.

Privately, DeSantis’ political team believes that as a sitting governor, DeSantis’ ability to stack policy wins is critical to mounting a campaign against former President Donald Trump. Like Trump and former Gov. Nikki Haley, the only other major declared candidate, many potential contenders for the nomination are out of office and unable to dictate an agenda for other Republicans to match. And, unlike DeSantis, their records may not reflect what animates GOP primary voters at the moment.

In a speech behind closed doors last week to the conservative Club for Growth, DeSantis also suggested he is a singular force among elected Republicans in pushing the party to engage in ideological battles.

“I’m going on offense,” DeSantis said, according to audio of his speech obtained by CNN. “Some of these Republicans, they just sit back like potted plants, and they let the media define the terms of the debate. They let the left define the terms of debate. They take all this incoming, because they’re not making anything happen. And I said, ‘That’s not what we’re doing.’”

Democrats, a perennial minority in Tallahassee with even fewer members after the last election, have little recourse to stop DeSantis and Republican lawmakers. Democrats have asserted that the Republican agenda is failing to address the problems many Floridians are facing, including skyrocketing rents, a housing shortage and fast-rising property insurance rates.

“Just a reminder, eggs are still $5 for a dozen,” Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book said Monday. “It’s $3.50 for a gallon of gas. If you live in the state of Florida in a high rise, you still have to buy flood insurance. But the Republicans want to fight about drag and which bathroom people use.”

Still, there are signs of dissent among Republicans in how hard to push on several fronts. Some Republicans have raised concern at the price tag for a DeSantis-backed expansion of a school voucher program that currently allows low-income parents to offset the cost of sending their children to private and religious school. Under the latest proposal, the program would be open to virtually all parents regardless of income, including those who choose to home school their kids.

At a committee meeting last week, state Sen. Erin Grall, a Republican, warned that the “potential for abuse rises significantly with the dollar amount and keeping a child at home.”

Republicans also have not settled on a new legislative framework for the future of abortion access in the state. Before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer, DeSantis signed a bill to ban abortion at 15 weeks without exception. He recently signaled he would support legislation that banned abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected; however, he has not publicly advocated for it with the same fervor as his other priorities. Meanwhile, the state’s Senate President Kathleen Passidomo previously said she wanted a 12-week ban that included exemptions for rape and incest.

John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy Council, an influential conservative group, said he expects a compromise heartbeat bill will pass that includes some exceptions. Other anti-abortion groups want to see DeSantis sign a complete ban on abortion.

“While exceptions are important and represent real human beings, the bottom line is they are small in number, so it’s a huge victory even with exceptions and I think the governor and his staff are thinking the same way,” Stemberger said. “He’s certainly committed to signing a heartbeat bill.”

It remains to be seen, too, how Republicans respond to DeSantis’ immigration agenda. DeSantis has proposed repealing a measure that granted in-state tuition for undocumented students who were brought to the US by their parents. The law, championed by his own lieutenant governor, Jeanette Nuñez, when she was a state representative, was a top priority of his predecessor, then-Gov. Rick Scott, and passed the GOP-controlled legislature with help from many of the party’s Latino members. Additionally, DeSantis wants lawmakers to mandate that employers check the immigration status of all workers against a federal database called E-Verify, a proposal opposed for years by the state’s influential hospitality and agriculture industries that bankroll many Republican campaigns.

Republicans have also faced pressure from the right on another DeSantis priority: eliminating the state permit to carry a concealed weapon in Florida. Under the proposal, eligible Floridians could carry a concealed gun in Florida without seeking approval from the state, which currently requires proof of training and a background check to obtain.

While Democrats and gun-control advocates have criticized DeSantis for removing one of the few checks on firearms in the state, gun-rights activists have said the measure doesn’t go far enough. They want Florida to allow people to carry a gun in public in the open and for the state to eliminate gun-free zones. In Florida, it’s currently illegal to carry a firearm at a school or on a college campus.

“The title of ‘constitutional carry’ for this bill is a lie,” Luis Valdes, the Florida director of Gun Owners of America, said during a recent committee hearing on the bill. “Why are Republicans defending (former Democratic attorney general) Janet Reno’s gun control policies?”

DeSantis has suggested, at times, that it is up to the legislature to put these bills on his desk. But for some conservatives, DeSantis has set the expectation that he can bully Republican lawmakers into supporting any measure he gets behind.

DeSantis himself has said his political philosophy is guided by taking political risks that others won’t.

“Boldness is something that voters reward,” DeSantis said Sunday in California. “The lesson is swing for the fences. You will be rewarded.”

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March 6, 2023
‘We are in limbo:’ Student loan borrowers still face months of uncertainty about Biden’s forgiveness program | CNN Politics

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Washington
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More than 40 million federal student loan borrowers could be eligible for up to $20,000 in debt forgiveness, but they will likely have to wait several more months before the Supreme Court rules on whether President Joe Biden can implement his proposed relief program.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week in two cases challenging Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, but justices aren’t expected to issue their decision until late June or early July.

When the ruling comes will also determine when federal student loan payments, which have been paused due to the pandemic since March 2020, will restart.

Some borrowers have been anxiously waiting for years to see if Biden would fulfill his campaign pledge to cancel some federal student loan debt. The president finally announced a forgiveness plan last August.

But after 26 million people applied, the program was blocked by lower courts in November – before any debt could be canceled.

“In some ways, it feels like we are one step closer now that they’ve heard the oral arguments, but until a decision is made, it still feels like we are in limbo,” said Lindsay Clausen, who has about $68,000 in student loan debt and works as an instructional designer at a university.

Clausen, 33, filed for relief from Biden’s forgiveness program last fall as soon as the application was open, hoping the forgiveness would help her and her husband save for a new home and expand their family.

“I felt relief, and then it was like a rug was pulled from underneath me,” Clausen said.

“Whichever way SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the US) decides to rule, it will at least be nice to have an answer,” she added.

The Biden administration has estimated that more than 40 million federal student loan borrowers would qualify for some level of debt cancellation, with roughly 20 million who would have their balance forgiven entirely, if the forgiveness program is allowed to move forward.

But not everyone with a federally held student loan would qualify.

Individual borrowers who earned less than $125,000 in either 2020 or 2021 and married couples or heads of households who made less than $250,000 annually in those years could see up to $10,000 of their federal student loan debt forgiven. Those with higher incomes would be excluded.

If a qualifying borrower also received a federal Pell grant while enrolled in college, the individual is eligible for up to $20,000 of debt forgiveness. Pell grants are a key federal aid program that help students from the lowest-income families pay for college, but these borrowers are still more likely to struggle paying off their student loans.

Student debt cancellation would deliver financial relief to millions of Americans, potentially helping them buy their first homes, start businesses or save for retirement.

But those who have already paid off their student loans, or chose not to borrow money to go to college to begin with, would get nothing. And the estimated $400 billion cost of canceling some debt would shift to all taxpayers.

At last week’s hearing, several of the conservative justices questioned whether that tradeoff is fair, while liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor pushed back, arguing how many borrowers “don’t have friends or families or others who can help them make these payments.”

The back-and-forth on fairness touches on one of the biggest complaints about the nation’s higher education system: many people feel they need to go to college, and as a result borrow money, to get ahead.

Angel Enriquez, a 30-year-old meteorologist with about $61,000 in student loan debt, is one of those people.

His parents, immigrants from Mexico, couldn’t afford to help him pay for college. Enriquez was wait-listed at a state school that had a meteorology program, so he instead enrolled at a more expensive school out of state. He is now pursuing a master’s degree, which he felt he needed to stand out in a competitive industry.

“When you talk about fairness, it’s a complicated argument,” Enriquez said.

“But if you talk to someone who comes from poverty, or someone who’s a person of color, they are going to benefit from the forgiveness program the most because they’re the ones that have to jump through extra financial hoops in order to get where everyone else in the educated country is,” he said.

For some students, college degrees do not deliver the step up in the world they hoped for.

Even though Blake Goddard worked part-time jobs while in college, he still had to borrow nearly $90,000 for his bachelor’s degree in network communications management from DeVry University. In an effort to land a higher-paying job in the information technology industry, he then earned his master’s degree, borrowing another $44,000.

Despite those degrees, most of his jobs have been temporary contract positions, and many of his co-workers opted for getting lower-cost IT industry certifications rather than a four-year degree.

Meanwhile, the Department of Education has found that DeVry University, a for-profit college, misled at least 1,800 borrowers with false advertising about job placement rates.

While Goddard, 45, considers himself “one of the lucky ones” who would qualify for $20,000 of debt relief, the cancellation wouldn’t make too much of a dent in his more than $150,000 balance.

His debt, Goddard said, is “so detrimental” to his American dream, which was to buy a house and have a family.

“I was stupid enough to fall for it,” Goddard said about taking out student loans.

“I wish we could make it so nobody else in this country falls into the same trap,” he added.

Now, he’s committed to helping others avoid borrowing so much money for college and volunteers with an organization that helps students pursue careers in STEM fields.

One criticism of Biden’s one-time forgiveness program is that it would do nothing to address the cost of college for future students.

A more permanent solution to the college affordability problem would have to be created by Congress, but lawmakers have failed to pass any sweeping measure. A provision to make community college free was dropped from Biden’s Build Back Better agenda before it came to a vote in the House in 2021.

The Biden administration is also working on changes to existing federal student loan repayment plans, which don’t need congressional approval, and that aim to make it easier for borrowers to pay for college.

The Department of Education is currently finalizing a new income-driven repayment plan to lower monthly payments as well as the total amount borrowers pay back over time. In contrast to the one-time student loan cancellation program, the new repayment plan could help both current and future borrowers.

Additionally, in July, changes will be made to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which allows certain government and nonprofit employees to seek federal student loan forgiveness after making 10 years of qualifying payments. The changes will make it easier for some borrowers to receive debt forgiveness.

If the Supreme Court ultimately gives the student loan forgiveness program the green light, it’s possible the government will begin issuing some debt cancellations fairly quickly. The administration has said it already approved 16 million applications for relief.

But several of the conservative justices expressed skepticism last week about whether Biden has the power to implement his student loan forgiveness program.

Lawyers for the government have remained confident that their plan is legal. They point to a 2003 law passed after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that grants the secretary of education power to make sure people are not worse off in respect to their student loans in the event of a national emergency.

“I’m confident we’re on the right side of the law,” Biden told CNN a day after the oral arguments when asked if he was confident the administration would prevail in the case. “I’m not confident of the outcome of the decision yet.”

If the Supreme Court strikes down Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, it could be possible for the administration to make some modifications to the policy and try again – though that process could take months.

The pandemic pause on payments will remain in effect until either 60 days after the Supreme Court’s decision, or late August – whichever comes first.

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March 5, 2023
Wave of suspected poison attacks on schoolgirls sparks protests in Iran | CNN

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Worried parents protested in Iran’s capital Tehran and other cities on Saturday over a wave of suspected poison attacks that have affected schoolgirls in dozens of schools, according to Iranian news agencies and social media videos.

The so-far unexplained illnesses have affected hundreds of schoolgirls in recent months. Iranian officials believe the girls may have been poisoned and have blamed Tehran’s enemies.

The country’s health minister has said the girls have suffered “mild poison” attacks and some politicians have suggested the girls could have been targeted by hardline Islamist groups opposed to girls’ education.

Iran’s interior minister said on Saturday investigators had found “suspicious samples” that were being studied.

“In field studies, suspicious samples have been found, which are being investigated… to identify the causes of the students’ illness, and the results will be published as soon as possible,” the minister, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, said in a statement carried by the official news agency IRNA.

Sickness affected more than 30 schools in at least 10 of Iran’s 31 provinces on Saturday. Videos posted on social media showed parents gathered at schools to take their children home and some students being taken to hospitals by ambulance or buses.

A woman from the city of Qom previously told CNN that both her daughters, who attended different schools, had been poisoned. One girl suffered significant health issues after being poisoned: experiencing nausea, shortness of breath and numbness in her left leg and right hand as well as difficulty walking.

A gathering of parents outside an Education Ministry building in western Tehran on Saturday to protest over the illnesses turned into an anti-government demonstration, according to a video verified by Reuters.

“Basij, Guards, you are our Daesh,” protesters chanted, likening the Revolutionary Guards and other security forces to the Islamic State group.

Similar protests were held in two other areas in Tehran and other cities including Isfahan and Rasht, according to unverified videos.

The outbreak of schoolgirl sickness comes at a critical time for Iran’s clerical rulers, who have faced months of anti-government protests sparked by the death of a young Iranian woman in the custody of the morality police who enforce strict dress codes.

Social media posts in recent days have shown photos and videos of girls who have fallen ill, feeling nauseaous or suffering heart palpitations. Others complained of headaches. Reuters could not verify the posts.

The United Nations human rights office in Geneva called on Friday for a transparent investigation into the suspected attacks and countries including Germany and the United States have voiced concern.

Experts have spoken about the difficulties in investigating the situation in Iran and told CNN that the incidents were “remarkably similar” to dozens of incidents at schools in Afghanistan since 2009. “In a few of these incidents, pesticides were strongly suspected but most of the illnesses remain unexplained,” said London based defense specialist Dan Kaszeta from the Royal United Services Institute.

Iran rejected what it views as foreign meddling and “hasty reactions” and said on Friday it was investigating the causes of the incidents.

“It is one of the immediate priorities of Iran’s government to pursue this issue as quickly as possible and provide documented information to resolve the families’ concerns and to hold accountable the perpetrators and the causes,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani told state media.

Schoolgirls were active in the anti-government protests that began in September. They have removed their mandatory headscarves in classrooms, torn up pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and called for his death.

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March 4, 2023
All flights grounded at airport near Penn State University over suspicious device, 100 passengers bused to campus | CNN

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All flights were grounded at University Park Airport in Pennsylvania Friday as authorities investigated a suspicious device in a checked bag, forcing about 100 passengers to be bused out of the area and the airport to close until Saturday, officials said.

The airport in State College, located less than five miles from the Penn State University campus, was closed to air traffic and passengers while an explosives device team and local police examined the contents of the bag, which was checked on a flight en route to Chicago, Penn State University Police and Public Safety said in a statement.

The “suspicious” contents were later determined to not be an explosive device, Penn State spokeswoman Lisa Marie Powers told CNN late Friday.

The item had been detected by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers at the airport, according to TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein. Local police officers and FBI officials were also on site, she said.

“The immediate area was evacuated and a perimeter established,” Farbstein said in a statement, adding bomb technicians would be looking at the bag and its contents.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop for the airport “due to security.” The airport will reopen early Saturday morning, police said.

The airport closure took place as Penn State students were gearing up for their Spring Break travel plans next week. Buses from the university came to the airport to transport about 100 passengers to the campus, where they were offered shelter and given food, according to police.

The University Park Airport calls itself “a home town airport with a world of destinations,” according to its Facebook page. It says four airlines – Allegiant, Delta, United, and American airlines – offer regularly scheduled flights to and from major hub cities including Detroit, Philadelphia and Washington/Dulles.

Earlier in the day, the general passenger terminal at the airport was evacuated “out of an abundance of caution,” police said. There were no incoming or outgoing flights scheduled when the evacuation took place.

The investigation at the airport comes just days after federal agents arrested a Pennsylvania man after he allegedly tried to bring explosives in his suitcase on a flight from Lehigh Valley International Airport in Allentown to Florida.

Marc Muffley, 40, faces two charges, according to a federal complaint, including possession of an explosive in an airport and possessing or attempting to place an explosive or incendiary device on an aircraft.

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March 3, 2023
Democratic AGs condemn DeSantis administration for asking Florida colleges for information on students receiving gender-affirming care | CNN Politics

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A coalition of 16 Democratic attorneys general criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over his administration’s request to public colleges in the state for information about students receiving gender-affirming care, saying it intimidates physicians and could have a chilling effect on students seeking the care.

The coalition, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, said in a letter sent on Friday to DeSantis, a Republican, that they have an “interest in protecting the rights and medical decisions of the many students and staff members in the Florida state university system who are citizens of our states.”

“The information request you have issued threatens to undermine the private medical decisions made by transgender individuals together with their families and health care providers and risks the lives and welfare of some of the most vulnerable people in our communities,” the letter says.

It’s unclear why DeSantis’ administration is seeking this information. CNN has reached out to DeSantis’ office for comment on the letter.

Gender-affirming care – particularly for trans youth – has recently come under assault by conservatives, with several GOP-led states moving to restrict it for minors over the last few years. LGBTQ advocates and their supporters have said that targeting the care could have dire consequences for a vulnerable group that suffers from uniquely high rates of suicide.

The attorneys general charged that the request “may be intended to intimidate, and will actually intimidate, university administrators and health care providers and chill vulnerable students, including the students or staff in Florida’s state university system who are citizens of our states, from accessing necessary medical care.”

In January, Florida Office of Policy and Budget director Chris Spencer sent a memo to all public colleges in the state that said the agency “has learned that several state universities provide services to persons suffering from gender dysphoria.”

The memo included a four-page survey containing the various pieces of information the office wanted about the students seeking gender-affirming care, including “the number of encounters for sex-reassignment treatment or where such treatment was sought.”

Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person transition from their assigned gender – the one the person was designated at birth – to their affirmed gender – the gender by which one wants to be known.

Though the care is highly individualized, some people may decide to use reversible puberty suppression therapy. This part of the process may also include hormone therapy that can lead to gender-affirming physical change. And some people may seek surgical interventions.

Major medical associations agree that gender-affirming care is clinically appropriate for children and adults with gender dysphoria, which, according to the American Psychiatric Association, is psychological distress that may result when a person’s gender identity and sex assigned at birth do not align.

The Florida memo asked that the schools provide information about “the number of individuals” – including their age – who were prescribed puberty blockers, hormones and underwent medical procedures as part of their care.

The attorneys general urged the governor to rescind his request to the colleges, though the memo from the state agency said that the information should be returned to the state by February 10.

Under DeSantis, Florida has taken other steps to restrict gender-affirming care, with its Department of Health releasing new guidance last year that advises against any such care for children and adolescents.

DeSantis also faced intense scrutiny last year for signing a measure that bans certain instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom.

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March 3, 2023
Alarm grows in Iran over reports that hundreds of schoolgirls were poisoned | CNN

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Concern is growing in Iran after reports emerged that hundreds of schoolgirls had been poisoned across the country in recent months.

On Wednesday, Iran’s semi-official Mehr News reported that Shahriar Heydari, a member of Parliament, cited an unnamed “reliable source” in saying that “nearly 900 students” from across the country had been poisoned so far.

The first reported poisonings happened in the city of Qom on November 30, when 18 schoolgirls from one high school were hospitalized, according to Iranian state media. In another incident in Qom on February 14, more than 100 students from 13 schools were taken to hospitals after what the state-affiliated Tasnim news agency described as “serial poisonings.”

There have also been reports of schoolgirls being poisoned in the capital Tehran – where 35 were hospitalized on Tuesday, according to Fars News. They were in “good” condition, and many of them were later released, Fars reported. State media have also reported student poisonings in recent months in the cities of Chaharmahal, Bakhtiari and Borujerd.

Many of the reports involve students at girls’ schools, but state media have also reported at least one incident of poisoning at a boys’ school, on February 4 in Qom.

CNN has reached out to one of the schools named by state media as having had an incident of poisoning, Noor Yazdanshahr Conservatory in Qom, as well as to individual teachers, but has not heard back.

Iranian Health Minister Bahram Einollahi, who visited affected students in Qom, said on February 15 that the symptoms included muscle weakness, nausea, and tiredness, but that the “poisoning” was mild, according to a report in state media outlet Iranian Students News Agency.

Einollahi said his team had taken many samples from patients admitted to one Qom hospital for further testing at Iran’s renowned Pasteur Institute, which reported that no microbes or viruses had been identified in the samples, according to ISNA.

It’s unclear if the incidents are linked and if the students were targeted. But Iran’s Deputy Health Minister in charge of Research and Technology Younes Panahi said on February 26 that the poisonings were “chemical” in nature, but not compound chemicals used in warfare and the symptoms were not contagious, according to IRNA.

Panahi added that it appears that the poisonings were deliberate attempts at targeting and shutting down girls’ schools, according to IRNA.

“After the poisoning of several students in Qom … it became clear that people wanted all schools, especially girls’ schools, to be closed,” Younes Panahi told a news conference Sunday, according to Iranian state media outlet IRNA. He later retracted the comment, saying he was misquoted, Fars news said.

But a mother of two girls in Qom told CNN that both of her daughters had been poisoned, at two different schools, and one of them had experienced significant health issues after being poisoned last week. She spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the reports, and fears for her family’s safety.

“One of my daughters was poisoned in school last week,” the mother told CNN on Tuesday. She said they spent two days at Shahid Beheshti Hospital in Qom along with several other schoolchildren and staff. Her daughter experienced nausea, shortness of breath and numbness in her left leg and right hand, she said.

“Now she has trouble with her right foot and has difficulty walking,” the mother said.

Local activists and national political figures have called for the government to do more in investigating the poisonings.

“The poisoning of students at girls’ schools, which have been confirmed as deliberate acts, was neither arbitrary nor accidental,” tweeted Mohammad Habibi, spokesman for the Iranian Teachers Trade Association on February 26.

Habibi is among a growing number of people who believe that the poisonings may be linked to the recent protests under the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement. The movement has been characterized by women’s and young girls’ outpouring of anger over issues ranging from freedoms in the Islamic Republic to the crippling state of the economy.

“To erase the gains on freedom of clothing, (the authorities) need to increase public fear,” he tweeted.

United States Department of State Spokesperson Ned Price called the reports of poisoning schoolgirls “very disturbing,” during a briefing Wednesday.

“We’ve seen these reports, these are very disturbing, these are very concerning reports,” Price said.”To poison girls who are simply trying to learn is simply an abhorrent act.”

Price urged “Iranian authorities to thoroughly investigate these reported poisonings and do everything they can to stop them and to hold accountable the perpetrators.”

In mid-February Tasnim reported that Iran’s Minister of Education, Yousef Noori, said “most” of the students’ conditions were caused by “rumors that have scared people,” and that “there is no problem.” He said that some students had been hospitalized due to “underlying conditions,” according to Tasnim.

Dan Kaszeta, a London based defense specialist and an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, spoke to CNN about the difficulties authorities may face in confirming reports like these.

“Unfortunately, it can be very difficult to investigate such incidents. Often, the only way to discover the causative agent is to collect samples at the time of dissemination, and this is usually difficult or impossible,” he said.

“These current incidents in Iran are remarkably similar to dozens of incidents at schools in Afghanistan since approximately 2009. In a few of these incidents, pesticides were strongly suspected, but most of the illnesses remain unexplained,” he added.

Kaszeta went on to explain that smells are difficult to use as an indicator. “Some things have smell added to them as the underlying dangerous chemical may be odorless.”

Jamileh Kadivar, a prominent Iranian politician and former member of parliament, also believes that there is malicious intent behind the poisonings. “The continuity and frequency of poisonings in schools during the past three months proves that these incidents cannot be accidental and are most likely the result of organized group actions directed by think tanks and aimed at specific goals,” she wrote in an Op-Ed in Iran’s state-run newspaper Etelaat.

Iranian Education Minister Yousef Nouri visited some of the students who were hospitalized in Qom after the string of school poisonings in mid-February, and said that a special team had been formed in Tehran to follow up on the issue, according to a report in Tasnim, a state-affiliated media outlet.

Iran’s national police chief, Ahmadreza Radan, said on February 28 they are investigating the cause behind the “poisonings” and that no one has been arrested with the authorities still trying to determine whether the alleged poisonings are intentional or not, according to IRNA.

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March 1, 2023
‘A form of resistance’: More Black families are choosing to homeschool their children | CNN

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Tracie Yorke grew concerned about the quality of education her son was receiving after his school moved to remote learning during the pandemic in 2020.

Yorke, of Hyattsville, Maryland, described her fourth grader’s Zoom classes as chaotic – it looked as if teachers had not been trained in virtual instruction, she said.

That summer, the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked a national racial reckoning. With only one Black teacher at the school and none past the fourth grade, Yorke said her son Tyce, who is now 13 years old, had no one he could relate to.

“There was a lot of mayhem,” said Yorke. “I really realized, ‘I don’t think this environment is healthy for my child.’”

Yorke decided to homeschool Tyce, and has done so for the last three years. She has put together a curriculum that meets his specific needs and can teach him about race and African American history without the risk of politicians intervening.

While homeschooling isn’t new, advocates say a growing number of Black parents are educating their children at home so they can exercise more control over what they are taught and how they are treated. Many made the switch to homeschooling during the pandemic, but interest is growing as national debates over teaching systemic racism and Black history in the classroom continue, advocates say.

In the last few years, lawmakers, mostly Republicans, have called on schools to remove critical race theory – a concept that legal scholars say acknowledges that racism is both systemic and institutional in American society – from their curriculums. (Educators argue that critical race theory itself is generally not included in the grade school curriculum.) There have also been widespread efforts by lawmakers, parents and school boards to ban books about race, gender and sexuality. And most recently, Florida’s Department of Education rejected an Advanced Placement African American studies course.

According to census data, the number of Black households homeschooling their children jumped from 3.3.% at the start of the pandemic in 2020 to 16.1% by the fall of that year. That jump was the largest of any racial group. Meanwhile, the proportion of homeschooled children in the US overall nearly doubled from 2.8% before the pandemic to 5.4% in the 2020-21 school year, according to the US Department of Education. The data may not present a complete count of families because every state regulates and tracks homeschooling differently.

Cheryl Fields-Smith, a professor in elementary education at the University of Georgia, cited several reasons why more Black families are choosing to homeschool, including the disproportionate rates of discipline against Black students, the resegregation of schools, the denied access to gifted education in Black and brown communities, and bullying compounded by school safety concerns.

Fields-Smith said while these issues are often researched in isolation, many Black families are having to face them all at the same time. So they are developing learning routines that fit their children’s needs and forming homeschooling co-op groups with other families to teach their children together and socialize them, Fields-Smith said.

“I conceptualize it as a form of resistance,” Fields-Smith told CNN. “Instead of accepting the status quo, families are resisting what’s happening in their schools.”

Some families say they chose to homeschool because they were living in majority White school districts and wanted to teach their children to have confidence in their Black identity. Others expressed a desire to shield their children from the nation’s polarizing racial climate.

Sherri Mehta, of Laurel, Maryland, said she first turned to homeschooling in 2020 to help her young son who wasn’t doing well with remote learning as a kindergartner.

Mehta said she was also becoming concerned about her two children facing a “cultural gap” or racism because they were not around teachers who looked like them in their school district. And she saw few Black children included in the school’s gifted program.

With homeschooling, Mehta said she and her husband can split the responsibilities of teaching different subjects, teaching the truth about Black history and slavery, and can rely on co-op groups for hands-on learning, such as woodworking.

Mehta said she doesn’t want her children to experience the same racial trauma she experienced in public school. She recalled growing up in Richmond, Virginia, and competing against sports teams with names such as the Rebels and the Confederates.

“There is a sort of innocence lost and I just think my kids are deserving of something different,” Mehta said. “They’ll face racism. It’s not going away. But having the experience they have now of being surrounded by this nurturing of their entire being, I think what they have now will help them face challenges as they get older.”

Carlos Birdsong, of Charlotte, North Carolina, said he wanted his two daughters to have “a greater sense of cultural identity” amid the political divisiveness in the country.

“We moved here from South Carolina to this area because these public schools were supposedly good,” Birdsong said. “The charter schools in our area are mostly White. The private schools are White. They are very good schools, but they may not be the best fit because they’re majority White,” he said.

Some families who homeschool are driven by their own experiences with traditional schooling or because they want to emphasize religious training in their instruction.

Aurora Bean, a mother of three from Matawan, New Jersey, began homeschooling her children four years ago because she was uncomfortable with schools discussing gender identity issues at a young age and wanted to be able to teach her children about their faith. She was also opposed to the Covid-19 vaccine requirements many schools introduced during the pandemic.

She supplements her children’s learning with coursework provided through Acellus Academy, an online K-12 private school that offers classes in Spanish, history and other subjects. Bean said she has embraced the freedom homeschooling provides, including the ability for her family to spend several months traveling the world as part of a Christian discipleship training program later this year.

“It’s so important for my kids to see beyond our nice neighborhood,” Bean said. “It’s important for them to see the other side of things, more of the world, less of the privilege.”

Many families have leaned on support groups and virtual education providers such as Outschool – which Yorke uses – to help them navigate teaching their children at home.

Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman and Fields-Smith created the group Black Family Homeschool Educators and Scholars in 2020 to help families who want to homeschool but don’t know where to start. Ali-Coleman, now the organization’s sole owner and managing director, said she had homeschooled her daughter, Khari, off and on for years. And Khari was later able to attend the University of San Francisco on a full scholarship, she said.

Families who homeschool come from all socioeconomic backgrounds, Ali-Coleman and Fields-Smith say.

“When I homeschooled, I was not upper-middle-class, married – although I live with my partner who is my daughter’s father – Christian or politically conservative,” Ali-Coleman told CNN.

She advises parents who want to homeschool to start with a mission statement spelling out their goals, and she holds virtual teach-ins to help families navigate challenges. Ali-Coleman said some families turn to homeschooling because institutional schoolwork isn’t challenging enough.
“We’re now seeing the way people are speaking out loud about how they have a problem with the way we’re teaching history,” Ali-Coleman said.

Ali-Coleman also said homeschooling requires parents to adjust their thinking and potentially change what they do to earn money. While homeschooling, she worked jobs that offered her flexibility, she said.

“This gig economy that is now more formalized is something homeschooling parents have been doing for ages,” she said. “You have to think ‘what are the unique needs of your family and what are the support systems you need to create?’ I never want to give the impression that it’s easy. It’s always based on what the unique needs of the family are. Adjustments are definitely required and that’s something that you need to go in knowing.”

Back in Maryland, the Yorkes explore Black history all year as part of Tyce’s curriculum. Last year, he studied Amharic, an Ethiopian language not offered in most schools and took a course on “Blacks in Comics” through a local Black homeschool co-op. This year, he took a class on astronomy that highlighted African and Black contributions to the field.

“I’ve always had concerns about educating a young Black boy, with the perceptions and stereotypes and coming off of George Floyd,” Yorke said. “I want to be able to discuss race in the classroom.”

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March 1, 2023
Biden administration tells student loan forgiveness applicants it is ‘confident’ in face of Supreme Court skepticism | CNN Politics

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The Biden administration is projecting confidence about the fate of President Joe Biden’s student loan cancellation program in a message to applicants, even in the face of skepticism from conservative Supreme Court justices in Tuesday’s high-stakes oral arguments.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in an email sent to millions of borrowers who applied for debt cancellation that the administration “mounted a powerful case” in support of Biden’s executive action.

“Our Administration is confident in our legal authority to adopt this plan, and today made clear that opponents of the program lack standing to even bring their case to court,” Cardona wrote in the email update obtained by CNN.

The email update to applicants reflects a position administration officials have maintained in the wake of the oral arguments. But it also implicitly lays out the administration’s view of the political dynamics of a move that has became an immediate partisan flashpoint. As applicants and administration officials alike settle in for what will likely be months of waiting for a final decision, the update sent to roughly 7 million people also provides a window into the reach the administration would have to frame the debate – and consequences – should the program be struck down.

Cardona’s message comes as millions of borrowers remain in limbo as they await a Supreme Court decision on whether Biden’s action to cancel up to $20,000 in student loan debt will stand.

White House officials, who closely monitored the oral arguments in two challenges, have maintained the position that they will ultimately prevail in the cases that challenge Biden’s authority to discharge millions of dollars in federally held loans. While they remain confident on the merits, sources continue to highlight the view inside the administration that the plaintiffs lack standing to bring the challenges – which would render the arguments over the authority itself moot.

One source familiar told CNN that the White House remains confident that things will go their way, simply saying: “We’ll win.”

A particular flashpoint in the hearing was the states’ arguments that the loan forgiveness program’s potential harms to MOHELA – the Missouri-created entity that services loans in the state – gives Missouri standing.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett stood out among the conservatives for asking particularly pointed questions of the GOP states about their standing arguments, setting her apart as a potential pickup vote for the court’s three liberal members.

“If MOHELA is an arm of the state, why didn’t you just strong-arm MOHELA and say you’ve got to pursue this suit,” Barrett asked Nebraska Solicitor General James Campbell.

The question was one of several directed at Campbell, who represented the group of Republican-led states that argue the administration exceeded its authority, about the states’ standing claims.

Another source familiar said that Barrett’s comments only raised optimism within the administration.

But as several conservative justices leveled sharp questions related the government’s authority on the matter, Cardona’s update appeared intended to assuage overarching concerns.

It also previewed a political contrast officials will likely elevate should Supreme Court strike down Biden’s actions – one White House officials have repeatedly pressed as the challenges have made their way through the courts.

“While opponents of this program would deny relief to tens of millions of working- and middle-class Americans, we are fighting to deliver relief to borrowers who need support as they get back on their feet after the economic crisis caused by the pandemic,” Cardona wrote.

Biden’s plan would cancel as much as $10,000 in federal student loan debt for people earning less than $125,000 a year, or less than $250,000 for married couples. Individuals on Pell Grants could see up to $20,000 forgiven. In all, more than 40 million federal borrowers would qualify for some level of debt cancelation, with roughly 20 million who would have their balance forgiven entirely.

The Biden administration received 26 million applications for the program, which has been frozen as the court battles have played out, and more than 16 million applications had already been approved.

Cardona reiterated that a pause on federal loan payments, which was implemented during the Trump administration in response to the pandemic and was set to restart at the same time cancellation was implemented, remain on hold as the Supreme Court deliberations play out.

“While we await the Supreme Court’s decision, the pause on student loan payments remains in effect,” Cardona wrote. “Payments will resume 60 days after the Supreme Court announces its decision.”

If the litigation is not resolved by June 30, payments are scheduled to resume 60 days after that date. If it has not made a decision or resolved the litigation by June 30, payments will resume 60 days after that.

The Supreme Court’s decision is expected to come this summer.

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March 1, 2023
High levels of chemicals could pose long-term risks at Ohio train derailment site, researchers say | CNN

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An analysis of data from the US Environmental Protection Agency’s measurements of pollutants released from the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, suggests that nine of the dozens of chemicals that the EPA has been monitoring are higher than would normally be found in the area, according to a group of scientists from Texas A&M and Carnegie Mellon University.

If the levels of some of these chemicals remain high, it could be a problem for residents’ health in the long term, the scientists say. Temperature changes or high winds might stir up the chemicals and release them into the atmosphere.

The highest levels found in East Palestine were of a chemical called acrolein, the analysis says.

Acrolein is used to control plants, algae, rodents and microorganisms. It is a clear liquid at room temperature, and it is toxic. It can cause inflammation and irritation of the skin, respiratory tract and mucous membranes, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“It’s not elevated to the point where it’s necessarily like an immediate ‘evacuate the building’ health concern,” said Dr. Albert Presto, an associate research professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon’s Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation, who is working on the university’s chemical monitoring effort in East Palestine. “But, you know, we don’t know necessarily what the long-term risk is or how long that concentration that causes that risk will persist.”

Much of what scientists know about chemical exposure comes from people’s contact with chemicals at work, Preston said, which generally means exposure for about eight hours a day. People now living in East Palestine are in constant contact with the chemicals, he said, and the impact of that kind of exposure on the human body is not fully understood.

The EPA and local government officials have repeatedly said that their tests show the air quality in the area is safe and that the chemicals should dissipate. As of Sunday, officials have tested air in 578 homes, and they say chemical pollution levels have not exceeded residential air quality standards.

EPA’s air monitoring data shows that levels of monitored chemicals “are below levels of concern for adverse health impacts from short-term exposures,” an agency spokesperson told CNN on Monday. “The long-term risks referenced by this analysis assume a lifetime of exposure, which is constant exposure over approximately 70 years. EPA does not anticipate levels of these chemicals will stay high for anywhere near that. We are committed to staying in East Palestine and will continue to monitor the air inside and outside of homes to ensure that these levels remain safe over time.”

However, residents have reported rashes and trouble breathing, sometimes even in their own homes, Presto said.

“When someone says to them then, ‘everything is fine everywhere,’ if I were that person, I wouldn’t believe that statement,” he said.

So who’s right? The scientists say it’s not a black-and-white issue.

“I think it’s important for the public to understand that all sides are right. No one’s lying to them,” said Dr. Ivan Rusyn, director of the Texas A&M University Superfund Research Center and part of the team that did the analysis. “It’s just that every time you’re sharing information, whether it’s Administrator of EPA Michael Regan or Governor [Mike] DeWine or someone from Ohio EPA, when they say certain things are ‘safe,’ they really need to explain what they mean.”

Rusyn says the EPA and local officials need to do a better job of communicating with the public about the risk to residents when they are exposed to chemicals released in the crash.

Communication struggles have been a consistent pattern over the years and over numerous environmental disasters, he said. Officials will often do a good job of collecting and releasing data but then fail to give the proper context that the public will understand.

“That’s what I would like to encourage all parties to do rather than to point fingers,” Rusyn said. “The general public has to trust authorities. Cleanup is continuing. They are doing monitoring. We just need to do a better job communicating the results.”

Government communication about residents’ real level of risk has been a significant source of frustration in East Palestine, Presto said.

“People are furious. They feel like they’re getting this black-and-white answer – things are safe or not safe – when it’s not a black-and-white sort of situation,” Presto said.

The EPA says it will continue to monitor the air quality in the area and in residents’ homes. It is also setting up a community center so residents and business owners can ask questions about agency activity there.

The agency said it is collecting outdoor air samples for contaminants of concern, including vinyl chloride, a hard plastic resin used to make plastic products like pipes or packaging material that can be a cancer concern; n-butyl acrylate a clear liquid used to make resins and paint products that can cause eye, throat, nose and lung irritation or damage as well as a skin allergy; and ethylhexyl acrylate, another colorless liquid used to make paints, plastics and adhesives that can cause skin and eye irritation.

The EPA also collected field measurements for hydrogen sulfide, benzene, hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen chloride, phosgene and particulate matter.

Scientists from Texas A&M and Carnegie Mellon are monitoring the chemicals in the area using a mobile lab that they’ve used for the past decade to measure air pollution in real time in cities across the country. They expect to release data from their own tests in East Palestine on Tuesday.

The mobile lab has extremely sensitive equipment that can measure pollution in the parts per trillion. Scientists would then be able to plot them on a graph to show, in real time, where the concentrations of chemicals may be and at what level, Presto said.

Mobile lab workers will try to determine whether there are chemicals in the air that the EPA isn’t monitoring. They are also looking at pollution levels in places where the agency did not set up monitoring stations.

“The situation has to be monitored, and the EPA should continue measurements, and they should also communicate to the general public as to what they’re seeing and put this into context of risk, rather than use the numbers and expect people to figure it out for themselves,” Rusyn said.

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February 28, 2023
Opinion: Gymnastics teams look nothing like they used to. And this is the biggest change of all | CNN

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Editor’s Note: Onnie Willis Rogers is a former collegiate gymnastics champion at UCLA and a professor of psychology at Northwestern University whose research focuses on human development, diversity and equity and education. The opinions expressed here are her own. Read more opinion at CNN.

CNN
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I’m one of just five Black women in history to win the NCAA individual all-around title in gymnastics. It was a tremendous accomplishment which, when I won it two decades ago, left me elated.

But it was a particular kind of joy, tinged with the frustration often felt by the Black athlete who excels in a sport where they are one of only a very few.

I grew up in the sport in the 1980s. I took my first gymnastics class at the age of 3 and finished my final competition at the age of 22. Throughout all of my years training in the sport, I was often the lone brown face in a gym filled with tumbling, somersaulting, hand-standing kids.

Before accepting a full ride sports scholarship to UCLA, I was an elite gymnast, a member of the National Team for USA Gymnastics (USAG). As a Black gymnast growing up, being one of few was normal. And as I progressed up the ranks, the sport seemed only to get whiter.

Even during my four years at UCLA, an urban school with a sizable Black population, I was the only Black female gymnast on my team. In 2001, the year I won my NCAA title, I could probably count the other Black women gymnasts at top-ranked schools we competed against on one hand.

But I’ve noticed something different about gymnasts today, and perhaps you have, as well. There are more Black and brown athletes in the sport than ever before. And they are turning out to be a force to be reckoned with.

This year marks 20 years since my last gymnastics competition, and a lot has changed in the sport — but perhaps nothing so much as the dramatic increase in racial and ethnic diversity. The change has been nothing short of astonishing — especially at last summer’s stunning National Championships, when African American women swept the podium.

I’d been involved in gymnastics my entire life, and I never saw it coming. The diversity — and the excellence — exhibited by the top-performing women of color in the sport has been something to behold.

There’s Simone Biles who, of course, needs no introduction. She’s a global icon who has earned seven Olympic medals and 25 world championship medals — more than anyone else in gymnastics — and is regarded as the GOAT in our sport. Some have even argued that she is the greatest athlete of all time, period. Before Biles, there was Gabby Douglas, who was crowned the 2012 Olympic all-around champion, becoming the first Black gymnast to capture that title.

To be honest, it’s hard to name all the women of color who have made it to the top ranks of the sport since I stopped competing. Laurie Hernandez, who is Puerto Rican, was the youngest gymnast to earn gold in Rio 2016. Jordan Chiles helped Team USA secure the gold at last year’s world championships. And there’s Sunisa Lee, a Hmong American who became the first Asian American to win the Olympic all-around title. The list goes on and on.

The standouts of color at the collegiate level have been no less impressive. Florida Gator Trinity Thomas holds a breathtaking record of perfection. UCLA’s Chae Campbell, Chiles and freshman standout Selena Harris continue to grab headlines in our sport, as does Jordan Rucker of the University of Utah and Haleigh Bryant of Louisiana State University — and, astonishingly, too many others to name.

These women of color are setting new records and breaking the internet with performances of exceptional style and athleticism. I can’t think of another major sport that has seen its ranks change so dramatically. Swimming? Golf? Tennis? No, not really. These predominantly White sports have seen a relative few breakthrough athletes of color, but overall the complexion of the sports haven’t changed much.

Over the years, structural racism has powerfully shaped access, opportunity and identity — all of which help explain why gymnastics was so White in the first place. The long arm of economic inequality touches every facet of life, including sport.

Sports where Black people have been represented have traditionally been those accessible through schools, such as football, basketball and track and field. Gymnastics is a very expensive sport, costing thousands of dollars and requiring long, intense training hours. High-quality instruction is only accessible in private clubs and at elite training facilities that are few and far between. Growing up, my family fundraised furiously, did extra jobs at my gymnastics club, and housed visiting gymnasts to offset the unreachable high cost of tuition.

There is no magic that has “created” gymnasts of color in the past decade. There have always been strong, talented Black and brown girls capable of excelling in the sport. Many of the first Black women in the sport, like Diane Dunham and Wendy Hilliard, simply were not acknowledged because our society has for so long refused to value or validate Black women. Instead, the sport favored a Nadia Comaneci-style waif, thin and childlike. That doubtless kept a lot of women who looked like me on the sidelines. Elite gymnastics did not always see them or make space for them.

Luckily for me, there were always exceptions, and these women became my inspirations. Betty Okino and Dominique Dawes were the trailblazers in my day. I watched them represent Team USA with their brown bodies and Black girl hair and I knew it was a little more possible for me.

I vividly remember being 16 years old laying belly down on the green shag carpet in my living room in Tacoma, Washington, captivated as UCLA — and even more significantly for me, Stella Umeh — clinched its first-ever NCAA Title.

On the floor, Umeh was Black, full-bodied and fierce; her hair was a close shave; the music for her floor routine was rhythmic and pulsating. She was unlike any gymnast I had ever seen. I attended UCLA after Umeh had graduated, but walked confidently and fully in her footsteps, not simply because she too was a Black woman, but because she remade the mold.

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to attend the NCAA Metroplex Challenge gymnastics competition with my 11-year-old daughter and her gymnastics team. There were multiple Black gymnasts competing for every school on the floor.

As a developmental psychologist who studies youth identity development, I couldn’t ignore the significance of the moment. I couldn’t fail to register the awe in their eyes as they watched their possible future selves from their front row seats, a real image of who they may become. In short, identity and representation matter. How many Black girls even enter the sport in the future will be influenced by what they see as attainable or impossible.

Meanwhile, the breakthroughs in gymnastics just keep coming: This year, Fisk University is the first HBCU to have an NCAA gymnastics team — an entire team of Black and brown girls doing gymnastics. It’s radical. It’s transformative. And as Black History Month draws to a close, it’s a reminder of what is possible.

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February 27, 2023