Search Results for COVID Relief Fiscal Funding

Missouri lawmakers vote to expand tax credit-backed private school scholarshipsMissouri lawmakers on Thursday passed a bill to expand private school scholarships statewide, an effort made possible by extensive compromises including a commitment to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on public schools.The GOP-led House voted with a bare-minimum margin of 82-69 to send the measure to Republican Gov. Mike Parson. If signed, it would offer up to $6,375 per child for expenses including tuition, textbooks, tutoring, transportation, extracurriculars and summer school.The bill’s passage is a victory for advocates who have struggled for years to expand access to charter schools, virtual schools and private schools in Missouri. Worries about taking away resources from traditional kindergarten-12th grade public schools have been bipartisan.DRAFT REPORT SAYS MISSOURI’S HOUSE SPEAKER STYMIED ETHICS INVESTIGATION INTO HIS SPENDINGThe heart of the legislation is the expansion of Missouri Empowerment Scholarships Accounts, which low-income families can draw from….

Less than half of Americans say they get enough sleep, new poll showsIf you’re feeling — YAWN — sleepy or tired while you read this and wish you could get some more shut-eye, you’re not alone. A majority of Americans say they would feel better if they could have more sleep, according to a new poll.But in the U.S., the ethos of grinding and pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps is ubiquitous, both in the country’s beginnings and our current environment of always-on technology and work hours. And getting enough sleep can seem like a dream.The Gallup poll, released Monday, found 57% of Americans say they would feel better if they could get more sleep, while only 42% say they are getting as much sleep as they need. That’s a first in Gallup polling since 2001; in 2013, when Americans were last asked, it was just about the reverse…

‘Jurors Get Freaked Out’: CNN’s Elie Honig Says ‘They’re Gonna Need All Six’ Alternate J…CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig predicted that Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial will need the maximum of six alternate jurors in case several jurors get sick, become “spooked, or “freaked out” to the point where they cannot continue. A jury of 12, plus one alternate, were seated in the Trump case as of Thursday evening, with Judge Juan Merchan saying he hoped to have all alternates seated by the end of court Friday. Trump is facing 34 felony charges of falsifying business records to conceal affairs he had before the 2016 election. He has pleaded not guilty. Honig and Anderson Cooper discussed how quickly Judge Merchan moved forward with the jury selection, with Honig saying he thinks “it’s a good sign for the speed with which we can get this trial in.” Cooper asked how…

How Trump Is Fracturing Minority CommunitiesThe most succinct explanation for how Republicans expect Donald Trump to win in November may have come from, of all people, the firebrand Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida.“What I can tell you,” Gaetz said earlier this year, “is for every Karen we lose, there’s a Julio and Jamal ready to sign up for the MAGA movement.”What Gaetz is saying, in his somewhat stereotypical racial shorthand, is that even if Trump alienates a growing number of well-educated white women (“Karen”), he can overcome those losses by attracting more blue-collar, nonwhite men (“Julio and Jamal”).Even most Democrats agree that Trump appears positioned to gain ground this year among Black and Latino men without a college degree—groups that already moved in his direction from 2016 to 2020, according to studies of the vote such as the analysis of the results released by Catalist, a Democratic voter-targeting firm. And…

Marjorie Taylor Greene Files Amendment to Israel Aid Bill for Space Lasers — And It Just Gets Weir…Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing. — William Shakespeare, Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 26–28) As House Republicans battle amongst themselves over spending bills and aid packages for Israel and Ukraine, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) contributed several amendments that, while they’re highly unlikely to become law, did at least provide some amusement for congressional news junkies. Greene’s tenure in Congress thus far is marked by an abundance of outrageous headlines but bereft of any significant legislative accomplishments. A search of the legislation she has sponsored brings up only two bills that even passed the House — one to rename a federal courthouse in Georgia after a judge who died in 2022 and one to impeach…

Mike Johnson: The wartime Speaker battling on multiple fronts”I regard myself as a wartime Speaker,” declared House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.Only, we’re not sure if Johnson was referring to the internecine war among Republicans over whether he should keep his job.Many members wear pocket squares with their suits. But not Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. He walks around with a self-made, diode “debt clock” tucked into the breast pocket of his jacket, tracking the skyrocketing debt. Massie’s ascending fiscal chronometer may have read more $34 trillion dollars this week. But the only number which mattered on Capitol Hill Tuesday morning was “two.” As in two House members who were ready to oust Johnson from his job: Massie and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. “The motion (to remove Johnson) will get called. And then he’s going to lose more votes than (former House Speaker) Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., And I told him this in…