DocMcStuffin

Black girls face more discipline and more severe punishments in public schools than girls from other racial backgrounds, according to a groundbreaking new report set for release Thursday by a congressional watchdog.

The report, shared exclusively with NPR, took nearly a year-and-a-half to complete and comes after several Democratic congressional members requested the study. Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, later with support from Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, asked the Government Accountability Office in 2022 to take on the report.

Over the course of the 85-page report, the GAO says it found that in K-12 public schools, Black girls had the highest rates of so-called "exclusionary discipline," such as suspensions and expulsions. Overall, the study found that during the 2017-18 school year, Black girls received nearly half of these punishments, even as they represent only 15% of girls in public schools.

• A new rule proposal from the Biden administration would prohibit products that are subject to U.S.-China tariffs from being eligible for a special customs exemption.

• The de minimis loophole allows packages with a value of less than $800 to enter the United States with relatively little scrutiny.

• Officials say a recent explosion in the number of de minimis shipments is due largely to Chinese-linked online retail giants like Shein and Temu.

Responding to reports that prisoner contact with loved ones helps reduce the recidivism rate, state lawmakers last year approved a $1 million pilot project to allow inmates with good behavior to make one free 15-minute phone call per month to the outside world.

Pleased with its rollout, members of the Florida Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations came back during the 2024 legislative session with a budget line item expanding the program to $2 million from an inmate trust fund, and not from general revenues.

But Gov. Ron DeSantis slashed that line item in June. Advocates for prison and criminal justice reform say that’s a problem.

“Keeping families connected is very important for re-entry and so is the education,” said Karen Stuckey, who’s had to deal with escalating phone bills as both her son and husband have been incarcerated in Florida prisons. “If you want somebody to be successful, you have to keep them connected to their families or their loved ones. Because when you get out, it’s really, really hard.”

What would happen inside an electromechanical central office if you left your phone off hook?

From the channel Connections Museum

Public sentiment on the importance of safe, lifesaving childhood vaccines has significantly declined in the US since the pandemic—which appears to be solely due to a nosedive in support from people who are Republican or those who lean Republican, according to new polling data from Gallup.

In 2019, 52 percent of Republican-aligned Americans said it was "extremely important" for parents to get their children vaccinated. Now, that figure is 26 percent, falling by half in just five years. In comparison, 63 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners said it was "extremely important" this year, down slightly from 67 percent in 2019.

Last week, the World Health Organization called attention to an mpox outbreak in South Africa. Officials there confirmed 20 cases between May 8 and July 2, with 18 hospitalizations and three deaths.

Another concern is the Democratic Republic of Congo, where an outbreak that began last year has been accelerating — and where the variant is dramatically deadlier than the mpox strain of 2022. About 6% of people who get this type of mpox are dying from it — compared to a 0.2% death rate for the 2022 strain. Most of the deaths in the DRC outbreak are among children.

The electricity grid operators of the three Baltic countries on Tuesday officially notified Russia and Belarus that they will exit a 2001 agreement that has kept Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania connected to an electricity transmission system controlled by Moscow.

The target for this treasure hunt is in Calhoun County, in a forested spot between the Apalachicola, the Chipola River, and the Dead Lakes. I don’t know if you could pick a worse spot in Florida to plop down such a toxic industry.

The Apalachicola is the largest river in volume in Florida and has the largest and most environmentally sensitive undisturbed floodplain ecosystem in the state.

The Chipola is the source of drinking water for the town of Port St. Joe, population 3,600. Its “Look and Tremble” whitewater rapids make it popular with paddlers, too.

As for the Dead Lakes: Despite the eerie name, that’s a popular fishing spot. My dad, who grew up in nearby Jackson County, loved to fish there.

If someone spilled oil in that area, the way BP spread yucky globs across the beaches of eight Florida counties in 2010, I think those lakes would be dead for real.

Open flames shot upward from four smokestacks at the Chevron refinery on the western edge of Richmond, Calif. Soon, black smoke blanketed the sky.

News spread quickly that day last November, but by word of mouth, says Denny Khamphanthong, a 29-year-old Richmond resident. "We don't know the full story, but we know that you shouldn't breathe in the air or be outside for that matter," Khamphanthong says now. "It would be nice to have an actual news outlet that would actually go out there and figure it out themselves."

The city's primary local news source, The Richmond Standard, didn't cover the flare. Nor had it reported on a 2021 Chevron refinery pipeline rupture that dumped nearly 800 gallons of diesel fuel into San Francisco Bay.

Chevron is the city's largest employer, largest taxpayer and largest polluter. Yet when it comes to writing about Chevron, The Richmond Standard consistently toes the company line.

And there's a reason for that: Chevron owns The Richmond Standard.