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Thanks to an under-the-radar bookkeeping change at the Department of Education, hundreds of rural schools across the US are set to lose vital funds.
As reported in the New York Times, the department has changed the eligibility criteria for the Rural and Low-Income School Programme, which provides funding for school districts in some of the poorest parts of the country.
The change will make it harder for districts to demonstrate their eligibility, meaning hundreds of them will lose tens of thousands of dollars – and in some cases much more.
Nearly a seventh of the US’s public school pupils live in rural school districts, which have long been poor and underfunded. Many depend on the programme to fund everything from anti-bullying initiatives to counselling to language lessons for non-English speakers.
To qualify for the programme, school districts must prove that at least 20 per cent of their area’s school-age children live in poverty.
Officially, they are required to do so using census data, but because the census often leaves out many people living in rural areas, they have in practice been allowed to cite the percentage of their pupils who qualify for free or subsidised meals.
The department has now abruptly decided that it will only allow districts to use census data, meaning districts will struggle to account for all children in their local areas who would qualify.
A department spokeswoman told the Times that the move is simply a matter of following the law and that Congress can legislate to formally change the criteria, but the move has nonetheless met with condemnation from both Democrats and Republicans.
Even some of those sympathetic to Donald Trump and invested in his re-election are baffled as to why the department would withdraw the money from poor, rural districts, including core parts of the president’s electoral base.
Senators including Susan Collins of Maine are now scrambling to put together a fix that will ensure schools can still access the programme.
The Department of Education is led by Betsy DeVos, who was one of Mr Trump’s most controversial cabinet appointees at the start of his administration. She has drawn fire both for her lack of experience in schools and her past statements advocating a religious agenda for public education.
Eight percent of Iran's parliament — 23 out of 290 members — has been infected with the coronavirus.
At least seven government officials also have it, including one of Iran's vice presidents, and a key adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has died from the virus.
The government's efforts to suppress information about the scale of the outbreak has exacerbated its impact, and experts warn this is a cautionary tale for the rest of the world.
Iran is descending into chaos amid the coronavirus outbreak, with the government seemingly incapable of handling the scale of the crisis and going as far as to threaten the death penalty to those who hoard necessary materials or equipment.
At least 77 people have died in Iran from the virus so far, according to the official death toll, though the number could be much higher because of the government's apparent efforts to hide the extent of the outbreak. Iran has over 2,300 confirmed cases.
As of Tuesday, 8% of Iran's parliament has been infected, according to CNN, along with Iran's deputy health minister and one of the country's vice presidents. And a key adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Mohammad Mirmohammadi, has died from it.
In total, at least 23 members of the 290-member Iranian parliament have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, CNN reported. The parliament has been suspended indefinitely, and lawmakers have been asked to stop meeting with the public.
Iran appears to have the highest number of government officials infected with the coronavirus. At least seven Iranian officials, including Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar, have tested positive for coronavirus.
Meanwhile, Iran has temporarily released 54,000 prisoners to combat the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, BBC News reported.
The coronavirus has caused such a stir in Iran that people are not leaving their homes, which has apparently eliminated pollution from the skies of the capital, Tehran.
Though the novel coronavirus originated in Wuhan, China, it appears that Iran is the new epicenter. The first coronavirus case in New York City was a woman who had recently been traveling in Iran.
The Trump administration on Saturday announced it was expanding a travel ban on Iran to any foreign nationals who had been in the country over the past 14 days.
Experts on public health and democracy have said that Iran's handling of the coronavirus, and the lack of transparency surrounding the outbreak, is a cautionary tale for the rest of the world.
"In China and Iran, both experiencing major outbreaks, early action has been undermined by efforts to halt and control free flow of information," which has limited the public's understanding and willingness to "share vital information with officials," Matthew Kavanagh, an assistant professor of global health at Georgetown University, told Insider last week.
Trump speaking at a MAGAt rally in North Charleston, South Carolina. | Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — President Donald Trump on Friday night tried to cast the global outbreak of the coronavirus as a liberal conspiracy intended to undermine his first term, lumping it alongside impeachment and the Mueller investigation.
Fat Bastardo's Op Ed: Smart people will believe the scientists and medical experts while the MAGAts will believe Trump. More MAGAts will die than moral people. This is the silver lining.
He blamed the press for acting hysterically about the virus, which has now spread to China, Japan, South Korea, Iran, Italy and the U.S, and he downplayed its dangers, saying against expert opinion it was on par with the flu.
Fat Bastardo's Op Ed: Trump is a dumb fuck but he's smart enough to know that his MAGAts are dumber than he is. He wants those fat fuckers dead so they can be replaced with cheaper and more productive Mexican labor.
“The Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. They're politicizing it,” he said. “They don't have any clue. They can't even count their votes in Iowa. No, they can't. They can't count their votes. One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia.’ That did not work out too well. They could not do it. They tried the impeachment hoax.”
Fat Bastardo's Op Ed: Democrats are trying to save lives by presenting the science and the warnings of medical experts. Trump is the on politicizing this by running filthy lie hole. Trump and his MAGAts deserve the agonizing death of the coronavirus.
Then Trump called the coronavirus “their new hoax.”
Trump’s comments came as the White House has struggled to adequately respond to and contain the coronavirus’s increasingly sweeping path. At the rally — held here on the eve of the Democratic primary in South Carolina — he sought to manage Americans’ expectations about the White House’s ability to fight it.
Fat Bastardo's Op Ed: Trump is already proving how incompetent the Whitehouse is by putting that science denying idiot Mike Pence in charge of fucking up things.
By undermining the news reporting on the virus and by trying to hold liberals responsible for a potential public health crisis that has little to do with politics, Trump did what he often does best: He sought to deflect blame at a time when many Americans sought leadership and scientific facts.
Fat Bastardo's Op Ed: Trump knows his MAGAts hate science so he's merely jerking them off.
After Trump had downplayed the risks of coronavirus, he reassured supporters that the White House was “magnificently organized” in fighting it. In fact, Trump’s administration spent the week jockeying among themselves to lead the response, while the stock market tumbled with losses not seen since the global financial crisis in 2008. White House officials and the president grew so concerned this week that Trump put Vice President Mike Pence in charge of the response effort, swapping out his beleaguered health secretary.
Fat Bastardo's Op Ed: Pence is a science denying conservative cock sucking fake Christian who love to jerk off the MAGAts.
None of that came up on Friday night, as Trump trash-talked his Democratic opponents in 2020 and characterized the coronavirus as the latest issue touching on border security.
Fat Bastardo's Op Ed: Trump will not be stopping cheap Mexican labor anytime soon. After the coronavirus devastates the MAGAt labor force, American companies will be begging for highly productive South American labor.
“Whether it is the virus that we're talking about or many other public health threats, the Democrat policy of open borders is a direct threat to the health and well-being of all Americans. Now, you see it with the coronavirus. You see it. You see it with the coronavirus. You see that. When you have this virus or any other virus or any other problem coming in, it's not the only thing that comes in through the border and we are setting records now at the border,” Trump said.
Fat Bastardo's Op Ed: Trump has 1000's of illegal Mexican and South American workers working for him.
Earlier in the week, the Trump administration tried to allay Americans’ concerns about the virus by downplaying the coronavirus’s seriousness. Trump also congratulated himself for shutting down flights between the U.S. and China.
Fat Bastardo's Op Ed: Trump wasn't the one who shut down the flights and even if he did, why would he? He's saying that the virus is a liberal hoax and no worse than the flu. MAGAts will die from this virus. Let's hope it's in the millions.
But by the end of the week, White House officials including the president had shifted to pushing back against anyone who expressed too much concern about the virus or its effect on the economy, repeatedly blaming the Democrats and the media for the growing concerns and the steep drop in the stock market amid the uncertainty.
Fat Bastardo's Op Ed: Worldwide stock markets are dropping because worker in factories are getting sick and dying. Production of goods and services are falling and the markets are reflecting that.
“It’s the unknown, you know, they look at it, and they say how long will this last. I think they’re not very happy with the Democrat candidates when they see them, and I think that has an impact,” Trump said at the White House on Friday afternoon before traveling to the campaign rally.
Fat Bastardo's Op Ed: Trump would be smart to shut his lie hole.
Top White House officials kept up the same mantra all day Friday.
The director of the National Economic Council Larry Kudlow told reporters that “people should not overreact” — from investors to everyday Americans. "Given what we know factually, it looks to me like the market had gone too far,” Kudlow said.
Fat Bastardo's Op Ed: No douche bag, trash like you are using this as an excuse to manipulate stock prices and create a bear market.
Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney talked about the ongoing coverage of the coronavirus as an attempt by the media to politically damage the president during an election year.
Fat Bastardo's Op Ed: Mulvaney is a know liar and his attempt to spin the reporting of this pandemic into something political is more reason why Mulvaney and other Trump henchmen be tried and executed for their treason.
Health officials, meanwhile, spent the last two days trying to determine how a California resident became infected with coronavirus and who else the patient may have exposed to it. This was the first potential case of coronavirus in the U.S. that had not been contracted from traveling abroad and potential sign it could spread throughout the U.S.
Fat Bastardo's Op Ed: For every known case of infection there are probably many unknown cases. That means their could be millions of carriers who have no or minimal symptoms. It's could be the Typhoid Mary scenario. She was asymptomatic.
That wasn’t the message on Air Force One on the flight down to South Carolina, with the televisions turned to Fox News. In the bubble the president travels in, the TV headlines told the world the president had a “firm grasp” on the coronavirus and that Democrats tried to score “political points” on it.
Fat Bastardo's Op Ed: there is one thing Trump has a firm grasp on and that is Putin's dick when he's blowing him.
