CHICAGO (AP) — Thousands of protesters marched in Chicago on Saturday against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and President Donald Trump’s plan to send National Guard troops and immigration agents to the city.
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This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.
People march during Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights’ “Chicago Says No Trump No Troops” protest Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)People march during Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights’ “Chicago Says No Trump No Troops” protest Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)People march by Chicago Theater during Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights’ “Chicago Says No Trump No Troops” protest Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) – continued
Hope you got go to Eric Barnes’ presentation today. Love the lyrics to this song! I’ll try to post a few more including Piano Man. Let me know your favorites! (Also I hope we can get an upgraded sound system in the MBR. It’s so badly needed!). Sorry to learn that Joel has been diagnosed with normal pressure hydrocephalus. We wish him well. What a talent!
Posted inMusic|Comments Off on Just The Way You Are
Some researchers suspect that rising prescription drug use may explain a disturbing trend.
Ed Note: At your next doctor visit, consider asking them whether any of your medications (prescription or over-the-counter) many be related to increased risk of falling.
Earl Vickers was accustomed to taking Molly, his shepherd-boxer-something-else mix, for strolls on the beach or around his neighborhood in Seaside, Calif. A few years ago, though, he started to experience problems staying upright.
“If another dog came toward us, every single time I’d end up on the ground,” recalled Mr. Vickers, 69, a retired electrical engineer. “It seemed like I was falling every other month. It was kind of crazy.”
Most of those tumbles did no serious damage, though one time he fell backward and hit his head on a wall behind him. “I don’t think I had a concussion, but it’s not something I want to do every day,” Mr. Vickers said, ruefully. Another time, trying to break a fall, he broke two bones in his left hand.
So in 2022, he told the oncologist who had been treating him for prostate cancer that he wanted to stop the cancer drug he had been taking, off and on, for four years: enzalutamide (sold as Xtandi).
Among the drug’s listed side effects are higher rates of falls and fractures among patients who took it, compared with those given a placebo. His doctor agreed that he could discontinue the drug, and “I haven’t had a single fall since,” Mr. Vickers said.
Public health experts have warned of the perils of falls for older people for decades. In 2023, the most recent year of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 41,000 Americans over 65 died from falls, an opinion article in JAMA Health Forum pointed out last month.
More startling than that figure, though, was another statistic: Fall-related mortality among older adults has been climbing sharply. (continued on Page 2 or here)
From GoodGoodGood – thanks to Pam P. (Ed note: Is this perhaps a new way to worship?)
St. John’s Lutheran Church has sat on a downtown corner of Madison, Wisconsin — just three blocks from the state Capitol — for nearly 170 years.
But its leaders are now working to demolish it.
“St. John’s has always been a place focused on refuge, serving the poor, and meeting people where they are,” the church’s pastor, Rev. Peter Beeson, said in a fundraising video.
“Today, we’re looking at adapting our building in the most audacious way yet: by tearing it down to build 110 units of affordable housing, plus worship and community space.”
The current St. John’s Lutheran Church building. Photo courtesy of Google Maps
In the place of the old building will be a brand-new 10-story redevelopment, as Beeson described, home to a new worship space, offices, community spaces, and over 100 mostly low-income apartments, with a parking garage underneath.
The idea came about from conversations around how the congregation could best give back to the community, and now the $58 million project is about to break ground, with the goal to be completed in the next two years.
“We were realizing more and more people were struggling with finding housing,” Beeson recently told Wisconsin Public Radio. “And if they were able to find housing, were paying 50, 60, 70% of their income for housing costs.” (continue on page 2 or here)
Posted inAdvocacy, Housing, Kindness, Morality, Religion|Comments Off on Church to demolish existing worship space, creating 110 units of affordable housing
Today President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order to rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War, although the 1947 abandonment of the Department of War name was not simply a matter of substituting a new name for the original one. In 1947, to bring order and efficiency to U.S. military forces, Congress renamed the Department of War as the Department of the Army, then brought it, together with the Department of the Navy and a new Department of the Air Force, into a newly established “National Military Establishment” overseen by the secretary of defense.
In 1949, Congress replaced the National Military Establishment name, whose initials sounded unfortunately like “enemy,” with Department of Defense. The new name emphasized that the Allied Powers of World War II would join together to focus on deterring wars by standing against offensive wars launched by big countries against their smaller neighbors. Although Trump told West Point graduates this year that “[t]he military’s job is to dominate any foe and annihilate any threat to America, anywhere, anytime, and any place,” in fact, the stated mission of the Department of Defense is “to provide the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation’s security.”
As Amanda Castro and Hannah Parry of Newsweek note, in August, Trump said he wanted the change because “Defense is too defensive…we want to be offensive too if we have to be.” By law, Congress must approve the change, which Politico estimates will cost billions of dollars, although Trump said: “I’m sure Congress will go along if we need that. I don’t think we even need that.” By this evening, nameplates and signage bearing the new name had gone up in government offices and the URL for the Defense Department website had been changed to war [dot] gov.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has pushed the change because he sees it as part of his campaign to spread a “warrior ethos” at the Pentagon. Today he said the name change was part of “restoring intentionality to the use of force…. We’re going to go on offense, not just on defense. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality, violent effect, not politically correct. We’re going to raise up warriors, not just defenders. So this War Department, Mr. President, just like America, is back.”
In 1947, when the country dropped the “War Department” name, the chief of staff of the U.S. Army—the highest-ranking officer on active duty—was five-star general Dwight D. Eisenhower. It is unusual for anyone to suggest that Eisenhower, who led the Allied troops in World War II, was insufficiently committed to military strength. Indeed, the men who changed the name to “Defense Department” and tried to create a rules-based international order did so precisely because war was not a game to them. Having seen the carnage of war not just on the battlefield but among civilians who faced firebombing, death camps, homelessness, starvation, and the obscenity of atomic weapons, they hoped to find a way to make sure insecure, power-hungry men could not start another war easily.
The Movement Conservatives who took over the Republican Party in the 1980s leaned heavily on a mythologized image of the American cowboy as a strong, independent individual who wanted nothing from the government but to be left alone. That image supported decades of attacks on the modern government as “socialism,” and it has now metastasized in the MAGA movement to suggest that the men in charge of the government should be able to do whatever they want.
Just what that looks like was made clear on Wednesday when the Trump administration launched a strike on a boat carrying 11 civilians it claimed were smuggling drugs. Covering the story, the New York Times reported that “Pentagon officials were still working Wednesday on what legal authority they would tell the public was used to back up the extraordinary strike in international waters.” (continued on page 2 or here)
By Daily Actions on September 5, 2025 (thanks to Mary M.)
Donald Trump and Dr. Oz want to let Artificial Intelligence (AI) choose which procedures Medicare will cover for individual patients — with AI companies being paid based on how much money they save by denying people’s coverage.
Donald Trump and Dr. Oz* are rolling out a pilot program to fundamentally change Medicare. They want to require senior citizens to get prior authorization for some healthcare services, and here’s the kicker: Artificial Intelligence (AI) gets to decide whether medical care is approved or not. Medicare plans to pay them a share of the savings generated from rejections. AI companies would directly profit from denying needed care to seniors.
These for-profit AI Death Panels will roll out this January in six pilot states: Arizona, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and Washington. It is a first step towards privatizing Medicare.
A pilot program in six states [including Washington State] will use a tactic employed by private insurers that has been heavily criticized for delaying and denying medical care.
Like millions of older adults, Frances L. Ayres faced a choice when picking health insurance: Pay more for traditional Medicare, or opt for a plan offered by a private insurer and risk drawn-out fights over coverage.
Private insurers often require a cumbersome review process that frequently results in the denial or delay of essential treatments that are readily covered by traditional Medicare. This practice, known as prior authorization, has drawn public scrutiny, which intensified after the murder of a UnitedHealthcare executive last December.
Ms. Ayres, a 74-year-old retired accounting professor, said she wanted to avoid the hassle that has been associated with such practices under Medicare Advantage, which are private plans financed by the U.S. government. Now, she is concerned she will face those denials anyway.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to begin a pilot program that would involve a similar review process for traditional Medicare, the federal insurance program for people 65 and older as well as for many younger people with disabilities. The pilot would start in six states next year, including Oklahoma, where Ms. Ayres lives.
The federal government plans to hire private companies to use artificial intelligence to determine whether patients would be covered for some procedures, like certain spine surgeries or steroid injections. Similar algorithms used by insurers have been the subject of several high-profilelawsuits, which have asserted that the technology allowed the companies to swiftly deny large batches of claims and cut patients off from care in rehabilitation facilities.
The A.I. companies selected to oversee the program would have a strong financial incentive to deny claims. Medicare plans to pay them a share of the savings generated from rejections.
The government said the A.I. screening tool would focus narrowly on about a dozen procedures, which it has determined to be costly and of little to no benefit to patients. Those procedures include devices for incontinence control, cervical fusion, certain steroid injections for pain management, select nerve stimulators and the diagnosis and treatment of impotence.
Abe Sutton, the director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, said that the government would not review emergency services or hospital stays.
Mr. Sutton said the government experiment would examine practices that were particularly expensive or potentially harmful to patients. “This is what prior authorization should be,” he said. (continued on Page 2 or here)
Posted inEthics, Finance, Government, Health|Comments Off on Medicare Will Require Prior Approval for Certain Procedures [for those with Original Medicare]
As we speak, President Trump has deployed thousands of National Guard troops, federal agents, and local police forces to the streets of D.C. to target Black and Brown residents, immigrants, and unhoused people — all in an effort to expand his power and sow fear in our communities.
This militarization is about control, not safety. And now they’re threatening to target people exercising their First Amendment right to protest.
Unfortunately, this is likely just the beginning as the Trump administration has threatened to deploy military troops into other beloved American cities like Chicago, Baltimore and New York City.
We want to make sure you know your rights when protesting this extreme abuse of power by the administration. Join ACLU People Power’s Know Your Rights Training on 9/5 at 8 PM ET to get prepared before you take action.
WHAT: ACLU People Power’s Know Your Rights Training WHEN: Friday, September 5th at 8 PM ET Hosted By: ACLU National
This is our home. This is our community. These are our streets. We will defend them together.
Register now to make sure you Know Your Rights before you take action.
Thanks to Ann M. (Ed. note: Maybe Russell will speak here some day! Can anyone else beat this cousin story? And yes, keep your boots on!)
After a career in home building, my Texas cousin Russell Eppright now manufacturers “top drive” hunting vehicles with compartments for guns, dogs, beer, etc. He poses with rattlesnakes on his ranch.
One recent Saturday morning, Twisp was full of activity, typical for the region’s peak tourist season.
People in bathing suits ready to raft on the Methow River. Shoppers getting fresh produce at the Twisp Farmers Market. Others gathered in Twisp Works, a community hub that offers a mix of retail, eateries, art and public green space.
At the corner of State Route 20 and South Glover Street, about 150 people gathered for what’s become routine for the community: a protest over President Donald Trump’s policies. Aug. 23 marked the 27th consecutive Saturday protest.
Despite living in a Trump stronghold, Okanogan County residents have been able to sustain several months of regular demonstrations and other activities protesting the first half-year of the president’s second term.
These Okanogan County protesters hope to connect with others with similar concerns, and also to be heard by those with differing viewpoints.
The August 23 protest in Twisp. (David Ryder for Cascade PBS)
Okanogan County, which borders Canada, is the state’s largest county by area — at more than 5,300 square miles, nearly equal to the state of Connecticut. By population — the county had nearly 45,000 residents based on a 2024 estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau — it’s smaller than a few dozen Washington cities.
It heavily favored President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, giving him 55.7% of the county’s votes to Democrat Kamala Harris’ 40.8%. However, several precincts within the county went for Harris, including those in the Methow Valley where Twisp is located.
Those protesting in Okanogan County want to call attention to how Trump’s policies from the other Washington will affect one of the state’s poorest counties: As of 2023, Okanogan County’s personal income per capita was $52,446, putting it in the bottom 28% of all counties statewide, according to figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
As a result, many residents here are dependent on programs such as Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), both of which will receive massive cuts under the budget reconciliation bill passed by Congress and signed into law by Trump in early July. (continued on Page 2 or here)
We understand that over the past 250-odd years, you have come to rely on the services provided by the U.S. of A.: postal delivery, representative government, edible food, clean water, lifesaving vaccines, and no kings—ever, guaranteed. Well, 250 years of free is enough. Now we demand $TRUMP coin.
Was America perfect before? Hell, no! Some of these features arrived pretty late for some of you, and for that, we used to be sorry.
We were so excited to reach 340 million free users. But now it’s time to streamline our product so that it appeals more to paid subscribers, and that means some changes for everyone else. We are adding a lot of features no one asked for that will make your experience worse and also cost a lot of money! Freedom isn’t free! Nor is it, exactly, the freedom you’ve been used to! Yes, that is the National Guard in your city. We know that you didn’t request it; it’s just a new feature we’re rolling out, possibly for 30 days, possibly for even longer!
You were pretty vocal about what attracted you to America in the first place: personal liberty, economic opportunity, something called the American dream, and, of course, the perennial threat of gun violence. (That last feature developed over time, but it seems that our users are pretty attached? We offered you many opportunities to opt out.) But we knew what was really keeping you here: inertia, and the challenge of finding an alternative that sells decent breakfast burritos. We are banking on that going forward.
We hope the difficulty of switching to another provider will keep you here while we slowly remove all the features that you came for and replace them with AI-generated slop. We are also changing a lot of our graphic design to extract any remaining soul from our product. (We saw how well that went for Cracker Barrel!) This comes with branding updates too! Instead of a Nice, Friendly Place Where You Can Work Hard and Have a Better Life, we’re now That Place With More Than 60,000 People Currently in ICE Detention. Sydney Sweeney’s jeans are running the Department of Homeland Security.
Don’t worry. Our new CEO does hate a large portion of our current user base, but he’s not totally ignorant of the culture here. He is very excited to bring back some things that past users described as “great,” such as Depression, Recession, and White-Shark Attacks. It was also his brilliant idea to add the features of autocracy—State Control of Business, General Encouragement of Groveling, Masked Men Who Yank Your Neighbors Into an Unmarked Van to Whisk Them Off to a Gulag—to our core democratic product.
You heard it right: The government you knew for Weather Data and Medical Research is going all in on Despot Whims. This costs money, so bedrock features such as Separation of Powers, No Troop Quartering, and Due Process are being phased out, even for premium subscribers. We are also getting rid of most of our Health and Science. But you can have a career in ICE.
We are retaining some features for premium users. Want rule of law? That’s premium. The right to run your company without government interference? That’s a paid feature now. An explanation from the Supreme Court as to why it just ruled against you? Maybe!
Why is this happening now? Simple. You all know the classic process of enshittification, as coined by Cory Doctorow, from your experience with the tech products that touch every aspect of your life. First, you have a product that everyone enjoys, and then, when someone decides that that product needs to make a profit, everything about it gets gradually worse and worse until the whole thing is ruined. This is why, whenever you open America’s homepage, an unwanted video starts to play. Instead of the medical recommendation you were looking for, there is a man with one weird trick, whom doctors hate! (He is the health and human services secretary!) All of the articles are now written by AI, except Article I, which has disappeared entirely.
Why are these changes necessary? They aren’t! Can you opt out of them? No! Tariffs, a share of Intel, and a weirdly conciliatory attitude toward Russian President Vladimir Putin are now the default for all users. Also, everything that used to be free now isn’t: speech, assembly, and petition, to name just three. Eggs now cost $800—both because they are very expensive to produce and because we are trying to make the dollar worthless.
What happened to my free press? Sorry! That’s paywalled.
We have gotten rid of the people responsible for making gradual improvements to America, and our new team wants to see exponential profits for shareholders. It’s unclear who these shareholders are, exactly! We thought all of us were, but it might just be our CEO? The executive mansion definitely seems fancier than we remember, and he has a new private plane.
You can still keep using America, and depending on your version, it may remain functional for some length of time. But if you’d like to subscribe to our premium product, there’s no better opportunity than right now! Please hand $5,000,000 in unmarked bills to our CEO. He may spare you.
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on Apologies: You Have Reached the End of Your Free-Trial Period of America!
By William FoegeWilliam, Roper, David Satcher, Jeffrey Koplan, Richard Besser, Tom Frieden, Anne Schuchat, Rochelle P. Walensky and Mandy K. Cohen – in the NYT Opinion Section
The authors previously led in the C.D.C., as directors or acting directors under Republican and Democratic administrations.
We have each had the honor and privilege of serving as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, either in a permanent or an acting capacity, dating back to 1977. Collectively, we spent more than 100 years working at the C.D.C., the world’s pre-eminent public health agency. We served under multiple Republican and Democratic administrations — every president from Jimmy Carter to Donald Trump — alongside thousands of dedicated staff members who shared our commitment to saving lives and improving health.
What the health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has done to the C.D.C. and to our nation’s public health system over the past several months — culminating in his decision to fire Dr. Susan Monarez as C.D.C. director days ago — is unlike anything we had ever seen at the agency and unlike anything our country had ever experienced.
Mr. Kennedy has fired thousands of federal health workers and severely weakened programs designed to protect Americans from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, lead poisoning, injury, violence and more. Amid the largest measles outbreak in the United States in a generation, he’s focused on unproven treatments while downplaying vaccines. He canceled investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill prepared for future health emergencies. He replaced experts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified individuals who share his dangerous and unscientific views. He announced the end of U.S. support for global vaccination programs that protect millions of children and keep Americans safe, citing flawed research and making inaccurate statements. And he championed federal legislation that will cause millions of people with health insurance through Medicaid to lose their coverage. Firing Dr. Monarez — which led to the resignations of top C.D.C. officials — adds considerable fuel to this raging fire.
We are worried about the wide-ranging impact that all these decisions will have on America’s health security. Residents of rural communities and people with disabilities will have even more limited access to health care. Families with low incomes who rely most heavily on community health clinics and support from state and local health departments will have fewer resources available to them. Children risk losing access to lifesaving vaccines because of the cost.
This is unacceptable, and it should alarm every American, regardless of political leanings.
The C.D.C. is an agency under Health and Human Services. During our C.D.C. tenures, we did not always agree with our leaders, but they never gave us reason to doubt that they would rely on data-driven insights for our protection or that they would support public health workers. We need only look to Operation Warp Speed during the first Trump administration — which produced highly effective and safe vaccines that saved millions of lives during the Covid-19 pandemic — as a shining example of what Health and Human Services can accomplish when health and science are at the forefront of its mission.
Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox. The current department leadership, however, operates under a very different set of rules. When Mr. Kennedy administered the oath of office to Dr. Monarez on July 31, he called her “a public health expert with unimpeachable scientific credentials.” But when she refused weeks later to rubber-stamp his dangerous and unfounded vaccine recommendations or heed his demand to fire senior C.D.C. staff members, he decided she was expendable.
These are not typical requests from a health secretary to a C.D.C. director. Not even close. None of us would have agreed to the secretary’s demands, and we applaud Dr. Monarez for standing up for the agency and the health of our communities.
When the C.D.C. was created in 1946, the average life expectancy in the United States was around 66 years. Today it is more than 78 years. While medical advances have helped, it is public health that has played the biggest role in improving both the length and the quality of life in our nation. The C.D.C. has led efforts to eradicate smallpox, increase access to lifesaving vaccinations and significantly reduce smoking rates. The agency is also on the front lines in communities across the country, delivering crucial but often less visible wins — such as containing an outbreak of H.I.V. cases in Scott County, Ind., and protecting residents in East Palestine, Ohio, from toxic chemical exposure.
The C.D.C. is not perfect. What institution is? But over its history, regardless of which party has controlled the White House or Congress, the agency has not wavered from its mission. To those on the C.D.C. staff who continue to perform their jobs heroically in the face of the excruciating circumstances, we offer our sincere thanks and appreciation. Their ongoing dedication is a model for all of us. But it’s clear that the agency is hurting badly. The loss of Dr. Monarez and other top leaders will make it far more difficult for the C.D.C. to do what it has done for about 80 years: work around the clock to protect Americans from threats to their lives and health.
We have a message for the rest of the nation as well. This is a time to rally to protect the health of every American. Congress must exercise its oversight authority over Health and Human Services. State and local governments must fill funding gaps where they can. Philanthropy and the private sector must step up their community investments. Medical groups must continue to stand up for science and truth. Physicians must continue to support their patients with sound guidance and empathy.
And each of us must do what public health does best: look out for one another.
The men and women who have joined the C.D.C. across generations have done so not for prestige or power but because they believe deeply in the call to service. They deserve a health and human services secretary who stands up for health, supports science and has their back. So, too, does our country.
Posted inAdvocacy, Government, Health, History|Comments Off on We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health
By The Seattle Times editorial board If there was ever a wake-up call for local government, this is it.
In a disturbing report released Tuesday, the King County Auditor determined that grant funding from the county’s Department of Community and Human Services ballooned from $22 million in 2019-2020 to more than $1.5 billion in 2023-2024.
Along with that massive growth, the auditor discovered improper payments, including potential fraud, across multiple contracts.
It was a devastating portrait of an administration in free fall, all against the backdrop of the election of a new King County executive this fall.
Change can’t come fast enough.
First, let’s compare the $1.5 billion in social service spending examined by the auditor with a recently enacted 0.1% sales tax increase. The Metropolitan King County Council passed the new regressive tax last month because budget shortfalls had put sheriff deputies and prosecutors at risk.
This is the way of local governments around here: Basic functions go hungry while the funding of community groups continues at such a reckless pace no one can properly keep track of the dollars.
Among the report’s findings: Auditors determined DCHS made improper payments with little oversight. DCHS conducted fiscal site visits to only 2% of grantees in 2022 and 1% in 2023. The department’s own standards called for meeting 33% of grant recipients to ensure they complied with county rules.
“According to interviews with management-level staff, DCHS culture may signal that relationships (with grantees) are more important than accountability,” wrote auditors. “The DCHS staff we interviewed rarely expressed concern about fraud risk.”
One organization spent at least $439,000 on subcontractors despite its budget allocating subcontractor payments of only $63,000. Another organization submitted an expense report that likely includes $10,000 in duplicate expenses due to four $2,500 checks being recorded twice.
And it goes on.
What was the reaction from council members during the briefing?
Unbelievably, several expressed concern — for those taking the public’s money.
Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda chided auditors presenting their report for using the term “high risk” to describe organizations with little experience and limited capability to properly manage government grants.
“The title of ‘high risk’ is not necessarily appropriate,” she said, preferring instead the terms “initial investments” or “seed capacity.”
Councilmember Sarah Perry wondered how the county could help organizations “we have in some way harmed … so they are not penalized by our lack of attention.”
Say what? Who is protecting taxpayer interests here?
Governing is hard work. Administering public funds is hard work. Nonetheless, if it wasn’t for the fact that the King County Executive’s Office is running on fumes in the dying days of former Executive Dow Constantine’s fourth — fourth! — term of office, someone should lose their job or have the decency to resign.
As it is, Constantine decamped for Sound Transit earlier this year and it’s time to focus on the future.
Both candidates now running for executive heard the auditor’s report.
Councilmember Girmay Zahilay asked how fast DCHS could implement the auditor’s recommendations. He offered no reaction when told key changes may not be made until 2027. That is simply an embrace of the status quo.
Taking a different tack was Councilmember Claudia Balducci, his opponent in November. “We’re talking today about basic financial management. And when we don’t provide basic financial management internally and with our community partners, money is wasted. And that is just unacceptable,” she said.
Noting the rather subdued response by her council colleagues during the auditor’s briefing, Balducci added:
“One of the things I love most about this government is we’re a very low drama government here. I’ve been listening to this whole conversation — the questions, the answers, the community — it’s all been very professional.
“But make no mistake, this is a damning audit. And we need to take it that way, and we need to make sure that we are on top of doing something about it, understanding the full extent of challenges and fixing them.”
Balducci earned The Times editorial board’s endorsement for a reason.
King County voters, choose wisely.
The Seattle Times editorial board: members are editorial page editor Kate Riley, Frank A. Blethen, Melissa Davis, Josh Farley, Alex Fryer, Claudia Rowe, Carlton Winfrey and William K. Blethen (emeritus).
Posted inFinance, Government, Housing|Comments Off on ‘Damning audit’ begs the question: Who is protecting taxpayer interests in King County?
Dr. Laura Jacob, superintendent of the California Area School District in Coal Center, Pennsylvania, has 30 3D printers in her office.
While she does enjoy 3D printing as a hobby, these printers represent a mission much greater than Jacob alone; They are used to print violins for low-income students.
For schools, violins can cost $500 to $2,000 each, often representing hundreds of dollars in rental fees per family each school year. For the students attending schools in Jacob’s district, that’s just not a cost their families can afford.
“Over 70% of our students are low-income. So that means 100% of our kids receive a free breakfast and free lunch every single day,” Jacob told CBS News.
A student playing a 3D printed violin. Photo courtesy of California Area School District
Regardless, she was determined to keep arts education alive for the students she serves. After seeing a video of the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra playing 3D-printed instruments, a passion took hold.
“I started tinkering. I found some models online. I’m not a computer scientist or an engineer by any means, but after a variety of failures, I found one that actually printed and it sounded good. It’s a great start for kids,” Jacob told CBS News.
Each violin costs just $50 to make, and they are now offered free to any student who wants one, thanks to grant funding.
Plus, they’re perfect for beginners.
“How it sounds, how it responds, is a bit different,” music teacher and band director Noah Kilgus told Kidsburgh.
The 3D violin club is open to students in third through 12th grade. Photo courtesy of California Area School Distrct
Although they don’t sound exactly like a traditional wooden string instrument, they are just as loud, much more durable, and easy to tune. (continued on page 2 or here)
Posted inAdvocacy, Education, Music|Comments Off on This superintendent 3D prints violins in her office so every student can play in the orchestra. They cost just $50 each
