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When I began Schwartzreport my purpose was to produce an entirely fact-based daily publication in favor of the earth, the inter-connectedness and interdependence of all life, democracy, equality for all, liberty, and things that are life-affirming. Also, to warn my readers about actions, events, and trends that threaten those values. Our country now stands at a crossroads, indeed, the world stands at a crossroads where those values are very much at risk and it is up to each of us who care about wellbeing to do what we can to defend those principles. I want to thank all of you who have contributed to SR, particularly those of you who have scheduled an ongoing monthly contribution. It makes a big difference and is much appreciated. It is one thing to put in the hours each day and to do the work for free, but another to have to cover the rising out-of-pocket costs. For those of you who haven’t done so, but read SR regularly, I ask that you consider supporting it.
AI is becoming an issue in education, yet another example of how it is growing in influence in all aspects our society with almost not coherent thought as to how to integrate it so it is a positive influence instead of a destructive one. There needs to be a major societal-wide discussion about AI, and it is not happening.
A quarter of public K-12 teachers say using AI tools in K-12 education does more harm than good. About a third (32%) say there is about an equal mix of benefit and harm, while only 6% say it does more good than harm. Another 35% say they aren’t sure.
How teachers’ views differ by school level
High school teachers are more likely than elementary and middle school teachers to hold negative views about AI tools in education.
About a third of high school teachers (35%) say these tools do more harm than good. Roughly a quarter of middle school teachers (24%) and 19% of elementary school teachers say the same.
Fewer than one-in-ten teachers at all levels say these tools do more good than harm.
Some 47% of elementary school teachers say they aren’t sure about the impact […]
I don’t understand what Netanyahu and his cronies are doing to Israel, or why they are doing it. But it has made Netanyahu a war criminal, and Israel increasingly a pariah state. As this report describes they don’t want the truth of what is happening in Gaza to get covered close up by journalists. What I do understand is that the implications of all this is going to affect the Middle East for generations.
Smoke billows following Israeli strikes in the northern Gaza Strip as seen from Israel’s southern border, on May 16. Credit: Gil Cohen Magen / Xinhua / Getty
Israeli officials seized broadcasting equipment belonging to the Associated Press on Tuesday, arguing it was used to provide images to Al Jazeera, whose Jerusalem bureau was shuttered earlier this month following the passage of a new foreign broadcast law.
Why it matters: Press advocates have warned that the law creates a dangerous precedent for censoring independent news outlets in the region amid the ongoing war with Hamas.
Israeli lawmakers passed the measure last month, empowering the country’s communications minister to take action against any foreign media network that it can prove poses a national security risk.
Tuesday’s seizure has already garnered sharp criticism, with Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid calling it “an act of madness.”
Driving the news: Officials seized AP’s equipment in the southern town of Sderot on Tuesday afternoon, arguing the global news agency had violated […]
“Unified Reich.” Criminal Trump is so far gone mentally that he has begun to openly employ Hitler’s language when he speaks to his followers. This is the latest example but not the only one. And the MAGAt Congress members and voters continue to kneel at his feet rendering their obeisance to their master. This is straight out of what happened in Germany in the 1930s
Former President Donald Trump‘s account shared a video on social media Monday that referred to a “unified Reich” among possible developments if he were to win re-election in November, drawing criticism from President Joe Biden and his campaign.
Trump’s account posted a 30-second video to his Truth Social platform Monday afternoon that asked, “what happens after Donald Trump wins?” and “what’s next for America?” The video was also posted to his Instagram account.
The background is made up of hypothetical newspaper front pages with headlines including: “BORDER IS CLOSED — 15 MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS DEPORTED” and “ECONOMY BOOMS.” Twice in the clip, slightly blurred text appears beneath the headlines that reads: “Industrial strength significantly increased … driven by the creation of a unified Reich.”
The post of the video was deleted from Truth Social on Tuesday morning. It was also removed from Trump’s Instagram account.
“Reich,” meaning realm, kingdom or empire, is often considered to be a reference to Hitler’s Third Reich regime that emerged in 1930s Nazi Germany — and its inclusion in the video was condemned by Biden.
“Is this on his official account? Wow!” Biden said Tuesday in a video of […]
Fran Silverman, Associate Director of Communications - Yale School of the Environment
Stephan:
Further proof that we live in an interconnected, interdependent matrix of life, and if we are to survive we must protect the matrix. As a country, as a society, fostering wellbeing must become our most important priority.
Credit: Yale School of the Environment
Solving the climate crisis and biodiversity crisis are not separate issues. Animals remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide each year. Restoring species will help limit global warming, new science reveals.
Protecting wildlife across the world could significantly enhance natural carbon capture and storage by supercharging ecosystem carbon sinks, a new study led by Yale School of the Environment Oastler Professor of Population and Community Ecology Oswald Schmitz has found.
The study, published in Nature Climate Change and co-authored by 15 scientists from eight countries, examined nine wildlife species — marine fish, whales, sharks, grey wolves, wildebeest, sea otters, musk oxen, African forest elephants, and American bison. The data shows that protecting or restoring their populations could collectively facilitate the additional capture of 6.41 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually. This is 95% of the amount needed every year to meet the Paris Agreement target of removing enough carbon from the atmosphere to keep global warming below the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold.
“Wildlife species, throughout their interaction with […]
Bill McKibben spells out what I said in the previous article and why I said it. Climate change prevention, like our democracy based on the data, hangs by a thread. Except for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren , Katie Porter, and a few others no one in Congress, certainly no Republicans, seem to give a damn about what is happening. As the data in the chart shows other countries seem to get it but in the U.S. as a culture, we seem to be incapable of moving past greed as our first priority.
In one of the gigglier moments in modern movie history, Dr. Evil, awakening from thirty years of cryogenic sleep, threatens the world with utter destruction unless it pays him…one million dollars. (His criminal accomplices explain inflation to him, and he ups his price to $100 billion; happily, Austin Powers saves the world, and the cash).
Donald Trump has his own number—a clean billion, which is what he told fossil fuel executives they should pay in return for giving them literally anything they want in his next administration. That they would use that power to once-and-for-all overheat the earth is a given; the level of corruption and danger here is so over the top that it almost seems like a movie—but not a comedy, unless you run Exxon.
That’s not the only valuation we’ve gotten in recent weeks. In a largely overlooked story a few weeks ago, a Reuters team obtained the report that Citibank had prepared for the Federal Reserve, outlining its exposure to […]
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, “At least 21 million people nationwide have been disenrolled from Medicaid since states began eligibility redeterminations in spring 2023.” Between that and what post-Dobbs is doing to healthcare in Red States, what is happening in the Illness Profit System as a result of changing health policies, as well as hospitals closing particularly in rural areas, America’s already inferior healthcare, is getting even worse.
Disabled people are losing benefits with little or no notice, getting bad advice when they call for information, and facing major disruptions in care while they wait for issues to be sorted out.Credit: Rich Legg / Getty
Jacqueline Saa has a genetic condition that leaves her unable to stand and walk on her own or hold a job. Every weekday for four years, Saa, 43, has relied on a home health aide to help her cook, bathe and dress, go to the doctor, pick up medications, and accomplish other daily tasks.
She received coverage through Florida’s Medicaid program until it abruptly stopped at the end of March, she said.
“Every day the anxiety builds,” said Saa, who lost her home health aide for 11 days, starting April 1, despite being eligible. The state has since restored Saa’s home health aide service, but during the gap she leaned on her mother and her 23- and 15-year-old daughters, while struggling to regain her Medicaid benefits.
This is one the many stories I see about hospitals closing. Rural hospitals and healthcare systems have been in a growing crisis, and since 2010, over 130 have closed. Yet when was the last time you ever saw this medical crisis discussed on a network news program?
Hicksville Hospital. Credit: WANE
HICKSVILLE, OHIO — After releasing through a Facebook post late Thursday, local officials are reacting to the closure of Hicksville Community Memorial Hospital after experiencing financial woes in 2021.
In January of this year, Roy Davis, CEO of Community Memorial Hospital, said the hospital had a “50-50” chance of surviving, following the financial hardship from an electronic medical records conversion disaster in 2021. The disaster caused the hospital to lose 6-months of revenue.
“We’ve had plans in place for a while to help with if that did come to fruition,” said Bruce Silcott, Deputy EMS Chief.
Instead of heading to Hicksville Community Memorial Hospital, the emergency services will reroute to Parkview Bryan, Parkview DeKalb, Parkview Regional or Defiance Regional, depending on where they are in the community. They have already been able to put these runs into practice continuing to serve the 8,000 people […]
This is the candidate for President of the Republican Party calling for the execution of the serving President while speaking to an audience of individuals notably suffering from obsessive gun psychosis and with a demonstrated proclivity for violence. It should also be mentioned that criminal Trump, whose mental abilities are clearly deteriorating, froze in mid-speech and stood silently with his head down for about two minutes before beginning to speak again.
Donald Trump speaking to the NRA in Texas Credit: MSNBC screenshot)
All three co-hosts of MSNBC’s “The Weekend,” along with former Donald Trump White House aide Sarah Matthews, pounced on Donald Trump for telling a raucous NRA crowd on Saturday that President Joe Biden deserves to be executed.
During his speech before the gun owners in Texas, the former president told the crowd that “Manchurian candidate” Biden has accepted money from Russia, China and Ukraine before claiming, “If that were a Republican, he would have been given the electric chair, they would have brought back the death penalty.”
That led “The Weekend” co-host Alicia Menendez to begin the segment with, “A reminder, in case you needed one, a political candidate alluding to the execution of a sitting president in front of the most prominent organization of gun owners — definitely not normal.”
Co-host Michael Steele, the former chair of the RNC, ruefully contributed, “Look, okay, so Trump is a liar, well established, we know that. […]
