The Federal Reserve announced an interest rate hike of 0.75 percentage points, bumping the range of the federal interest rate to between 3.75% and 4% following a Wednesday meeting of Fed policymakers.
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Results of national education assessments released last week showed unprecedented drops in academic achievement in fourth- and eighth-grade math and reading scores, but black, Hispanic, and low-income Catholic school students outperformed their counterparts in national, charter, and public school averages.
Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” revealed a dramatic decline in test scores from 2019, when students were last tested.
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Less than a week before Election Day, Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon received two pieces of good news.
First, her poll rankings against Democratic incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer have tilted significantly in Dixon’s favor. Second, she garnered the endorsement of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.
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South Dakota epitomizes the rapid growth of homeschooling in America. Guided by the principle that parents, not the government, have the right to determine what and how their kids are taught, homeschooling families have overturned existing rules and batted down attempts over the last decade to impose new ones in many states, including South Dakota.
What’s left in much of the United States today is essentially an honor system in which parents are expected to do a good job without much input or oversight. The rollback of regulations, coupled with the  ill effects of remote learning during the pandemic, have boosted the number of families opting out of public schools in favor of educating their kids at home.
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The White House announced Wednesday that the Biden administration will spend $13.5 billion total to directly cover rapidly increasing household utility bills and help homes become more energy efficient ahead of the winter months.
The Department of Health and Human Services will give $4.5 billion to local governments to help low-income people pay their electricity bills which will increase further during the winter months due to natural gas shortages, according to a White House fact sheet. The Energy Department will also spend $9 billion on tax credits for households that buy heat pumps and insulate their homes to make them more “energy efficient.”
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The Treasury Department is weighing whether or not it has the authority to launch an investigation into Elon Musk’s recent acquisition of Twitter, The Washington Post reported Tuesday evening.
Under the terms of the deal, foreign investors, including a member of the Saudi royal family, could potentially have access to confidential financial and user data, according to The Washington Post, citing anonymous sources familiar with the deal. Treasury Department officials are examining their legal options to investigate the deal, but whether they were aware of this potential information sharing was unclear and the Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) typically investigates foreign nationals, not U.S. citizens like Musk.
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The Biden administration is on pace to quickly meet its cap for a program to grant Venezuelan migrants legal entry just a few weeks after implementation, according to Reuters.
The U.S. has granted entry to around 7,000 migrants, Reuters reported, citing a source familiar with the matter. The program, which began in early October, will allow a total of 24,000 Venezuelan migrants to enter legally.
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I have never considered that my patronage of a business, or the lack thereof, would make or break the enterprise. So, I find it amusing that D-list celebrities believe their threats to leave Twitter could make any difference when it comes to the company’s bottom line.
This week, stars who haven’t been relevant in years, such as Toni Braxton and Sara Bareilles, announced that they would leave Twitter in the wake of its purchase by SpaceX founder Elon Musk. Braxton, who last had a Billboard 100 hit in the 1990s, said she was leaving because she saw “hate speech” on the platform since the acquisition late last week. Bareilles, who I think had a hit with “Love Song” in the early 2000s, claims the platform is “just not for me” anymore.
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The Salvation Army has dropped contentious racial material from its website following inquiry from a conservative activist group.
Last year, reports emerged that the religious organization had asked its white members to seek forgiveness for racism. Following public controversy the group backed off of that stance and claimed to have removed racial materials from its training manuals.
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In a bellicose speech on Wednesday, President Joe Biden warned Americans that “democracy is on the ballot” ahead of the November midterm elections, attempting to present the electoral contest as a choice between a Trump-led autocracy and a Democratic-led republic.
Biden filled the speech with vitriolic rhetoric against “extreme MAGA Republicans” and derided the “election deniers” who questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.
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Twitter’s sole director Elon Musk announced on Tuesday that he will be charging verified accounts $8.00 a month to retain their blue checkmark status.
“Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit,” he tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “Power to the people! Blue for $8/month.”
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