The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District had said an active shooter was reported at Robb Elementary School, which has an enrollment of just under 600 students. Uvalde Memorial Hospital said in a Facebook post that it was caring for “several students” in its emergency room, but it did not detail the nature or severity of their injuries. Another hospital, University Health, said it was treating a child and an adult patient from Robb Elementary but their conditions weren’t immediately available. Earlier, the district said that all schools in the district were locked down because of gunshots in the area. A Uvalde Police Department dispatcher said the scene was still active and that no other information was immediately available.

[story from Sep 27, 2021] On Sept. 27. 1986, more than 100,000 people filled Public Square in downtown Cleveland for Balloonfest. It was supposed to improve Cleveland’s image and show the world a city on the rise. But 35 years ago today, a monumental event quickly turned disastrous; causing multiple accidents and hampering the search for two missing fishermen in Lake Erie. “It was like almost a volcano when it went off,” said FOX 8’s Neil Zurcher who covered the event, “Just about everything in the world that could go wrong went wrong that weekend.”

Some resort owners think they have found a way to avoid getting stuck with excess inventory when guests cancel at the last minute.

We now know how much it costs to bend a top Democratic super PAC to your will: $5 million. Late on Friday night, we learned that cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried had donated $6 million to the House Majority PAC on April 4, just days before HMP began spending $1 million to boost first-time candidate Carrick Flynn in the Democratic primary for Oregon's brand-new 6th Congressional District. The move had infuriated countless Democrats, who demanded to know why HMP, which had never before involved itself in a primary like this in its decade-long existence, had chosen this race to break with past practice. It particularly enraged the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which was backing state Rep. Andrea Salinas in the race and had given the PAC more than $6 million since 2012—money donated to defeat Republicans, not fellow Democrats. In the short term, at least, Bankman-Fried's efforts on behalf of Flynn—and HMP's decision to sell out on his behalf—were a debacle. Salinas doubled up Flynn, winning the nomination 36-18, and Flynn's final cost-per-vote will likely exceed $1,000—another terrible return on investment. HMP will also have some serious relationship-mending to do, especially with the Hispanic Caucus.

The U.S. will ease some sanctions on Venezuela in exchange for continued dialogue between President Nicolás Maduro and the opposition, the Biden administration announced Tuesday. The sanctions relief allows Chevron Corp. to negotiate the terms of its license and potential future activities with Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA. In October, Maduro suspended talks held in Mexico with the country's opposition leaders in retaliation for the U.S. extradition of Alex Saab, a close ally of the Venezuelan leader who is accused of laundering money. A senior administration official stressed the measures are being taken at the “request of the Venezuelan interim government and the 'Unity' platform of opposition parties.”

“The reason this smells so bad is that there is all sorts of evidence he did not receive this on the merits.”

Modular home left abandoned in street after dead-of-night move damaged mailboxes road signs and trees

Inside the 2024 soul-searching that’s happening in every corner of the Democratic Party — except the White House.

Congress wrote a covid relief law that tried to block the firm from accessing money. But the Small Business Administration still gave money to companies in which it has a significant investment. The Washington Post's investigation highlights the disconnect between lawmakers who approve funding and the federal agencies that spend it. In the early months of the pandemic, as lawmakers toiled on an aid package for shuttered concert halls and other performance venues, a major company lobbied to be included in the relief. Live Nation Entertainment — the corporate parent of Ticketmaster and a dominant force in the entertainment industry — urged Democrats and Republicans in Congress to let it be directly eligible for the $15 billion emergency relief program, according to five people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Congress was wary of allowing grants to publicly traded companies such as Live Nation, worrying that the funds could be used to bail out stock market investors. In the end, lawmakers wrote the law to exclude public companies, as well as firms they own or control. But the parameters set by Congress and the Small Business Administration, which disbursed the funds, allowed several companies in which Live Nation has significant investments to receive grants: Nearly $19 million went to firms listed as subsidiaries on Live Nation’s 2022 securities filings or in which Live Nation has a substantial, though not majority, ownership stake, according to a Washington Post review of Securities and Exchange Commission filings, state corporate documents and SBA data, as well as interviews with executives at companies that received grants. The grants do not appear to have violated the law or any rules set by the SBA. Nevertheless, the revelation demonstrates how a large company with stakes in hundreds of smaller businesses could, while following the rules, reap a benefit that some legislators didn’t want. And it shows that how agencies implement a law can be just as important as the way it is written by Congress. “When we wrote this, we specifically didn’t want these publicly traded companies — Live Nation foremost among them — to get their hands on this money,” said Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), a key co-sponsor of the relief legislation. “I did not want Live Nation getting a nickel.”

Pastor John B. Lowe stepped up to the podium again and answered the angry attendees. “I told you I admitted adultery. I told you that it went on far too long.” The person recording the video now interrupts him. “You didn’t tell them she was fourteen years old.” “No,” the pastor corrects her. “She was sixteen.” “Sorry, sixteen.” “Sixteen years old, okay,” Pastor Lowe continued. “And it was wrong. I can’t say it, I can’t make it right. I can’t make it any better. That’s just the way it is.”

The 14-3 vote by the Chicago City Council’s Public Safety Committee tees up a showdown over the controversial measure by the full City Council, which is set to meet twice next week on Monday and Wednesday.

In defending her handling of the Clackamas County election debacle, caused by poorly printed bar codes on thousands of ballots, County Clerk Sherry Hall says she’s used the same printer, Moonlight Business Process Outsourcing, for 10 years with no problem. During that time, one major thing has changed at the company: its ownership. Moonlight BPO, as it’s known, was founded in Bend in 1985 “with a goal to provide small businesses a valuable and efficient source for all their printing, mailing and document management needs,” according to its website. In 2020, company founder Brenda Grigsby sold the company to Lakewind Investments, an Indianapolis-based private equity firm founded by Rob and George Van Vliet, according to a 2020 article in Cascade Business News. Lakewind has invested $150 million in more than 20 companies, according to its website. The printing snafu that is causing one of the worst election delays in Oregon history comes just two years after Lakewind bought Moonlight BPO, bringing unwanted attention to a nuts-and-bolts business.

Barring congressional action in the next six weeks, school districts across northeastern Oklahoma are bracing for changes to their child nutrition programs as several waivers are set to lapse on June 30. In response to the pandemic, the federal government authorized a suite of waivers in 2020 to allow school districts and summer meal sites to serve students safely. Those waivers were reauthorized for the 2021-22 school year, but an attempt to extend them in March was blocked in Congress. Along with free meals for every child, the waivers allowed sites to send home multiple days’ worth of meals and snacks at one time rather than a single lunch or breakfast that had to be served during a specific time window and eaten on site. For example, Tulsa Public Schools has offered one week’s worth of meals at a time for students attending Tulsa Virtual Academy. TVA families have been able to pick up those meals outside the former Grimes Elementary School on Mondays during the 2021-22 school year. The district offered a similar option for all families prior to extended breaks in the school year, such as spring break. If the student could not be with the parent for whatever reason, the parent could pick up meals for the child by presenting some form of identification, such as the child’s report card or birth certificate. However, after June 30, none of that will be an option.

A Virginia board is considering restoring the names of two schools that were originally named for Confederate generals but were changed in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd. The Shenandoah County School Board voted in 2020 to change Stonewall Jackson High School to Mountain View High School and Ashby-Lee Elementary School to Honey Run Elementary School. But in the two years since, community members — especially alumni — have expressed opposition to the name changes, school board member Cynthia Walsh said. More than 4,000 people have signed a petition to change the names back, Vice Chair Dennis Barlow said at a board meeting, where the issue was discussed at length last week.

Adams promised they'd be different. But a roster compiled by New York Focus shows that officers who trained for the new teams allegedly beat, harassed, and illegally arrested people while previously working on plainclothes teams.

Samuel Alito’s argument against abortion rights sounds a lot like the arguments made against school desegregation 70 years ago.

Truckers protesting in an Oakland, Calif., neighborhood on Friday afternoon had to end their demonstration when residents attacked the convoy with eggs — many, many eggs. (Last month but I'd missed it.)

Nineteen people, including the actor who played the Red Power Ranger on television, are facing federal charges after being accused of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the Department of Justice says. Austin St. John, whose real name is Jason Lawrence Geiger, was named in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury on May 12 and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. According to the indictment by the U.S. Attorney’s Office Eastern District of Texas, 19 people, including St. John, were alleged to have executed a scheme to defraud lenders and the Small Business Administration’s (SBA's) Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) of at least $3.5 million through 16 fraudulent loans.

For 20 years, leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention — including a former president now accused of sexual assault — routinely silenced and disparaged sexual abuse survivors, ignored calls for policies to stop predators, and dismissed reforms that they privately said could protect children but might cost the SBC money if abuse victims later sued. Those are just a few findings of a bombshell, third-party investigation into decades of alleged misconduct by Southern Baptist leaders that was released Sunday, nearly a year after 15,000 SBC church delegates demanded their executive committee turn over confidential documents and communications as part of an independent review of abuse reports that were purportedly mishandled or concealed since 2000. The historic, nearly 400-page report details how a small, insular and influential group of leaders “singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC to the exclusion of other considerations” to prevent abuse. The report was published by Guidepost Solutions, an independent firm that conducted 330 interviews and reviewed two decades of internal SBC files in the seven-month investigation.

When the Coalition lost government on Saturday night, Sky’s Paul Murray admitted he was “overly emotional” and needed to sleep on the result before analysing what went wrong. But the journalist who campaigned nightly on his TV show to “stop the mad left” winning government was sure of one thing: “The resistance starts here.” For six weeks Murray told his audience the polls were inaccurate and the Coalition could still win. He had cosy chats with Scott Morrison, who chose to appear on his program rather than the ABC during the election campaign. “I’m proud of my mate”, an emotional Murray said on Saturday night when it was clear Morrison had lost. On Sunday night he was gearing up for a new fight, saying: “Welcome to the first meeting of the new resistance”.