Lifestyle related news.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Education Department has begun accepting applications for President Joe Biden's student debt cancellation — a plan that makes 43 million Americans eligible for at least some debt forgiveness. Borrowers were notified last week that an early, "beta launch" version of a new online form was made available as the department looks [...]
SEATTLE (AP) — The shooting deaths of two Connecticut officers and wounding of a third punctuated an especially violent week last week for police across the country and fit into a grim pattern: Even as more officers left their jobs in the past two years, the number targeted and killed rose. According to organizations that [...]
As many schools across the country grapple with teacher shortages, some are turning to candidates without teaching certificates or formal training. Alabama administrators increasingly have hired educators with emergency certifications. Texas, meanwhile, allowed about one in five new teachers to sidestep certification last school year. In Oklahoma, an "adjunct" program allows schools to hire applicants [...]
ASTORIA, Ore. (AP) — A shortage of child care has become so acute that it’s reaching far into rural communities, including one northwestern Oregon county where future embryos are in line for a spot at Amy Atkinson’s nursery and preschool. “We have children that have not been implanted yet that are on our waitlist,” said [...]
DENVER — Interior Secretary Deb Haaland recently announced an expansion of a National Park Service historical site dedicated to the massacre by U.S. troops of more than 200 Native Americans in what is now southeastern Colorado. Haaland, the first Native American to lead a U.S. Cabinet agency, made the announcement during a solemn ceremony at [...]
CHICAGO (AP) — As the new school year swings into gear, some students carry heavier worries than keeping up with homework: Demand has been growing steadily for children's books that address traumatic events such as school shootings. Sales of books for young readers on violence, grief and emotions have increased for nine straight years, with [...]
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Hollywood sign is getting a makeover befitting its status as a Tinseltown icon. After a pressure-wash and some rust removal, workers this week began using 250 gallons of primer and white paint to spruce up the sign ahead of its centennial next year. The entire renovation effort is expected to [...]
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — In California's capital, massive tent encampments have risen along the American River and highway overpasses have become havens for homeless people, whose numbers have jumped a staggering nearly 70 percent over two years. Among the 9,300 without a home is Eric Santos, who lost his job at a brewery and was [...]
In her second-grade classroom outside Seattle, Fatima Nuñez Ardon often tells her students stories about everyday people realizing their dreams. One day, for example, she talked about Salvadoran American NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio and his journey to the International Space Station. Another day, she told them her own life story — how she, an El [...]
Daniel Kelly and his wife bought a 1977 doublewide mobile home in May for about $83,000 at Tropicana Sands, a community for people 55 and older in Fort Myers, Fla., but he ran into roadblocks when he tried to insure it. Managers at Tropicana Sands told him he likely wouldn't be able to find a [...]