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Editorial: Holding students back isn’t punishment

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:35 GMT

As the end of the school year approaches, a large number of US students are facing an unpleasant possibility: They may be asked to repeat a grade due to low test scores. In response, some states want to scrap rules that hold unready students back for a year. That would be a mistake. Rather than lowering academic expectations, schools should give flailing students the added attention they need to meet them.In recent decades, policymakers have placed greater emphasis on standardized test scores, particularly in reading, to determine whether kids should be promoted to the next grade. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia require that districts hold back students who fail to demonstrate basic reading proficiency by third grade. Several large public-school systems, including New York City and Chicago, adopted grade-retention mandates of their own.Such policies historically affected a small portion of students, partly because states kept benchmarks low and allowed exemptions for chi...

‘Fractional work’ is gig economy’s next big thing

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:35 GMT

Not long ago, Tiffany Putland traded a steady paycheck in management at one of Minnesota’s largest companies for a patchwork of part-time gigs.No regrets.“I’ve never been happier professionally to be honest,” she said. “I make my own schedule, choose my clients. It’s just a way of life that’s really, really nice.”Putland is now a fractional professional — an emerging term often used to describe experienced leaders offering high-level skills on a part-time basis for up to a year, typically.For small and growing firms across a range of industries, that means access to talent they can’t afford, or don’t yet need, at a full-time level.Fractional work falls somewhere on the gig economy spectrum — more embedded than a consulting gig, more focused than a temp job.And it often requires executive skills or experience. Companies have hired chief financial officers and even CEOs on a fractional basis as they take a step toward expandi...

Schoen & Mangel: The debt ceiling debate is back in Biden’s court

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:35 GMT

As the United States barrels towards an unprecedented default on our national debt, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy was finally able to pass a debt limit bill last Wednesday, shifting responsibility for avoiding economic catastrophe back to President Biden, who must now display presidential leadership, change his tactics, and come to the negotiating table.Until now, Biden had been successful at laying the blame for a lack of progress on the debt ceiling on House Republicans, who had been unable to pass a bill to serve as a starting point in negotiations, and who have tied raising the debt ceiling to a wish list of partisan demands that are unlikely to advance.Put simply, as the U.S. economy teeters on the brink of a recession amid persistent inflation, multiple bank failures, and record levels of economic pessimism, President Biden and Congressional Republicans have been locked in a dangerous game of political chicken, betting that voters would blame the other side for the econo...

Janet Jackson tour a reason to celebrate

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:35 GMT

In 2016, during an event celebrating Madonna as Billboard’s Woman of the Year, Madge said: “I think the most controversial thing I have ever done is to stick around. Michael is gone. Tupac is gone. Prince is gone. Whitney is gone. Amy Winehouse is gone. David Bowie is gone. But I’m still standing. I’m one of the lucky ones and every day I count my blessings.”If a pop star can scratch out a few years standing on top, it’s a major miracle. Only two ’80s-born stars have stuck around for four decades: Madonna and Janet Jackson.This summer both icons will dominate the concert season – Janet Jackson performs at the Xfinity Center May 19, Madonna plays two nights at the TD Garden in August. Madonna will get most of the headlines but Janet deserves equal time (and both deserve more attention than 99% of the shows on the road this summer).Janet Jackson has outsold David Bowie, Amy Winehouse, and Tupac (and Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder and Cher). She has racked up 28 Top 10 hits (as many as her b...

Dear Abby: In-laws’ visits take physical & mental toll

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:35 GMT

Dear Abby: My in-laws live out of state, and they would stay with us when they visited. Once my son was born, I told my husband they would need to stay in a hotel because we no longer have the room. They are also the most disrespectful houseguests, and I have terrible insomnia.My MIL speaks to me only when my husband is around, and my FIL complains about everything — our streaming services, saying I need to buy more towels and complaining that we don’t have soda. I have tried explaining to my husband that they send my anxiety into the next dimension, but because none of this happens when he’s around, he doesn’t understand. I have had to ask my doctor to give me a small supply of medication for my nerves.Since they have been staying at a hotel, they complain about the cost and the accommodations. I have offered to pay for a rental. Now she’s telling my husband she will buy a sleep sofa for when they visit. I have tried telling my husband all the reasons ...

Man shot by deputy at North County church

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:35 GMT

If you or anyone you know needs help, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline can be reached at 988. The hotline is available 24 hours a day.VISTA, Calif. -- An apparently suicidal man was shot by a deputy at a North County church on Sunday, according to the San Diego Sheriff's Department.Shortly before 12:30 p.m., patrol deputies were dispatched to the church located in the 1400 block of Calle Jules in Vista after a man was reportedly at the location holding a handgun to his head.When deputies arrived on scene, they learned that other members of the church were inside the building with the man, according to San Diego Police Department Lt. Adam Sharki in a release.As deputies attempted to gather more information, Sharki said responding law enforcement noticed the man exit the church with the firearm in his right hand. Deputies gave commands to the man to drop the gun, according to SDPD. Reports of shots fired at house party in Lincoln Park When the man failed to follow the demands of la...

Tourist boat capsizes in southern India, at least 22 dead

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:35 GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) — A double-decker boat carrying more than 30 passengers capsized off a beach in southern India on Sunday night, and more than 22 people including children died, officials said.Police officer Abdul Nazar said the rescue teams were expecting to recover more bodies from inside the boat. He said authorities were investigating what caused the tourist boat to overturn near Thoovaltheeram beach in Tanur, a coastal town in Kerala state’s Malappuram district.The dead included children who had come for a ride on the boat during their school vacation, Sports Minister V Abdurahiman told the Press Trust of India news agency, adding that four people in critical condition were admitted to a hospital. The state’s chief minister, who will visit the area Monday, tweeted his condolences to the victims’ families and urged the district’s authorities to oversee the rescue.Monday has been declared a day of official mourning, PTI reported, quoting a government statement. Pr...

Cummings, Cochrane among musicians who say they’ll play Lightfoot tribute: friend

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:35 GMT

ORILLIA — Plans for a star-studded night of music celebrating the legacy of Gordon Lightfoot are already taking shape, according to his longtime friend and concert promoter.Bernie Fiedler says several prominent Canadian musicians who counted themselves among Lightfoot’s friends, including Burton Cummings, Tom Cochrane and Murray McLauchlan, have already committed to performing at a tribute show.Fiedler says while it’s too early to predict when the event might happen, he hopes it’ll take place at Toronto’s Massey Hall, a venue Lightfoot frequented.He says he’d like the show to include Lightfoot’s original band as the accompaniment “if they’re willing.”Fiedler outlined the details at a public visitation for the folk singer on Sunday in his hometown of Orillia, Ont., where an estimated 2,400 fans attended.The “If You Could Read My Mind” and “Sundown” singer died last week at 84.“His last words to me wer...

Congress eyes new rules for tech: What’s under consideration

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:35 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Should TikTok be banned? Should younger children be prevented from engaging with social media? Can the government make sure private information is secure? What about brand new artificial intelligence interfaces? Or should users be regulating themselves, leaving the government out of it?Tech regulation has been gathering momentum on Capitol Hill amid concerns about China’s ownership of TikTok and as parents are growing increasingly worried about the effects of social media on a post-pandemic mental health crisis. Noting that many young people are struggling, President Joe Biden said in his February State of the Union speech that “it’s time” to pass bipartisan legislation to impose stricter limits on the collection of personal data and ban targeted advertising to children. “We must finally hold social media companies accountable for the experiment they are running on our children for profit,” Biden said. Lawmakers have introduced a slew of bipartisan bills to regulat...

‘My career of 280 years’: Biden jokes off 2024 age concerns

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:21:35 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden served in the Senate for 270 years. He used to be three years older than his sister Valerie, but now has 20 years on her. And the fourth U.S. president — whom Biden affectionally calls “Jimmy” Madison — is a good friend.All kidding aside, the 80-year-old Biden will tell you, he is at the end of his career, not the beginning. He’s been doing this for a long time. And he’s gotten a “hell of a lot of wisdom” over those years, making him deserving of a second term.As Biden, the oldest president in U.S. history, embarks on his reelection campaign, he is increasingly musing aloud about his advanced age, cracking self-deprecating jokes and framing his decades in public life as a plus, hoping to convince voters his age is an asset rather than a vulnerability.In short, he’s trying to own it. “I stand here humbled being the first sitting president of the United States to have an opportunity to speak at Ebenezer Sunday service,” Biden said in January at ...