Day: March 14, 2022

Pennsylvania Substitute Teacher Shortage Means Fewer Barriers to Hiring Teachers

The Center Square

While the pandemic has upset the norm in education, a substitute teacher shortage in Pennsylvania has sparked changes to state law and continues to delay the return of a normal school day.

The shortage sometimes means pay spikes for substitutes, cutting into school district budgets. In the long run, shortages may require more tax revenue to cover costs and attract teachers.

Some schools have turned to remote days or shut down when they became shorthanded, like they did during a rise in COVID-19 cases, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review noted. By February, disruptions in Pennsylvania and nationally leveled off, but the supply of substitute teachers remains small.

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Commentary: Democrats’ Green Dream Will Fuel GOP Red Wave

RealClearWire

President Biden and other White House officials dramatically changed their tune this week in defending their green agenda in the face of skyrocketing gas prices and Russia’s energy supply stranglehold over Europe.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden for months blamed increasing gas prices on supply-chain issues and pent-up post-pandemic demand for travel, deflecting questions on whether his push to move the country off fossil fuels was a factor.

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Two U.S. House Races to Watch: New Hampshire’s 1st and New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional Districts

Aaron Gulbransen

The campaigns for New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District and New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional District are two races that are important to the GOP’s chances at taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

U.S. Representatives Chris Pappas of NH-1 and Teresa Leger-Fernández of NM-3 are two Democrat incumbents that could find themselves out of a job in November if their Republican challengers have their way.

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Texas Supreme Court Strikes Major Blow to Abortion Providers’ Lawsuit Against Heartbeat Abortion Ban

Susan Berry, PhD
Infant with stuffed animal

The Supreme Court of Texas recommended Friday a lawsuit challenging the state’s “heartbeat” abortion ban should be dismissed since it is enforced by “private civil action,” and not state officials.

Justice Jeffrey S. Boyd concluded in the decision regarding the case of Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, that state officials, such as medical licensing boards, cannot enforce the law that bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected

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Commentary: Joe Biden’s Electric Car Plans Support the World’s Worst Humanitarian Abuses

RealClearWire
Joe Biden

In his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, President Joe Biden promoted electric vehicles (EVs), trumpeting his plans to establish “a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations.” In so doing, Biden is unwittingly supporting the worst humanitarian abuses in the world. This is because of the way in which the materials used in manufacturing the batteries that power today’s EVs are obtained.

To obtain a reasonable amount of power per pound of battery weight, EV manufacturers generally use various forms of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, so named because the battery’s positive electrode, called the cathode, is largely made up of the highly reactive metal lithium (Li). To keep the cathode stable when a battery is not in use, the lithium is combined in a metal oxide matrix, with different manufacturers using different combinations of metals.

Most EV manufacturers combine lithium with nickel, cobalt and manganese to create a Li-Ni-Mn-Co oxide matrix to form the cathode. Tesla substitutes aluminum (Al) for the manganese, yielding a Li-Ni-Co-Al oxide matrix for the cathode on their batteries. Tesla maintains that their formulae is more cost-effective as less cobalt is required.

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Former President Barack Obama Tests Positive for COVID-19

Admin

Former President Barack Obama has tested positive for COVID-19, despite being vaccinated and receiving a booster, according to a Sunday statement from his official Twitter account.

“I’ve had a scratchy throat for a couple days, but am feeling fine otherwise,” he wrote.

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Farmers Hit Hard by Price Increases as Food Price Spike Looms

The Center Square
Man in white shirt and jeans planting seeds in the ground of a garden

Goods and services around the country are becoming increasingly more expensive, but farmers may be among the hardest hit as inflation, supply chain issues, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are expected to send food prices soaring even higher.

That impact is being felt by farmers around the country.

“The cost of fertilizer is up as much as 500% in some areas,” said Indiana Farm Bureau President Randy Kron. “It would be unbelievable if I hadn’t seen it for myself as I priced fertilizer for our farm in southern Indiana. Fertilizer is a global commodity and can be influenced by multiple market factors, including the situation in Ukraine, and all of these are helping to drive up costs.”

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Tom Brady Ends Retirement, Will Join Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2022

Admin

Football legend Tom Brady has reversed his decision to retire and now plans on joining the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for the 2022 season.

“These past two months I’ve realized my place is still on the field and not in the stands. That time will come. But it’s not now,” Brady tweeted Sunday evening.

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Pennsylvania Senators Introduce Tax Breaks and Regulatory Reform for Energy Producers

Bradley Vasoli
Doug Mastriano and Scott Hutchinson

Pennsylvania State Senators Doug Mastriano (R-Chambersburg) and Scott Hutchinson (R-Oil City) last week proposed a measure to lighten the tax and regulatory burden for fossil-fuel producers.

Their legislation, entitled the PA Energy Independence Act, would immediately pause income taxation for natural-gas developers, reduce state gas-extraction fees by 200 percent and end Governor Tom Wolf’s (D) moratorium on new state-land leases for fossil-fuel drilling. It would also suspend the state’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which would amount to a tax on carbon emissions.

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