Tootfinder

Opinion: Texas is losing the reading battle while leaders fight a culture war over books - El Paso Matters https://elpasomatters.org/2026/02/03/opinion-texas-reading-crisis-culture-war-literacy-reform/

Opinion: A politicized reading list won’t fix Texas’ reading crisis — investing in teachers will
Instead of investing in teachers, funding and evidence-based literacy instruction, Texas is fueling culture-war debates that do nothing to reverse its worsening reading crisis.

Grr and argh.
The people who make government websites generally tend to do a halfway decent job of meeting the spec, but they really really need to learn to push back when the spec is FUCKING STUPID.
Having just completed my "Annual Filing" with Companies House - and why is that even a thing, we're not posting fucking vellum to Victorian clerks who scurry up ladders to deposit the sacred paperwork in the appropriate filing cabinet any more - I got a new scary emai…

The January wildfires that ripped through Los Angeles forced the state to spend billions in disaster aid
-- and delay tax filings for LA residents.
The cost of Medi-Cal,
the state-run health insurance program for low-income residents, ballooned to $6 billion more than anticipated.
Donald Trump’s on-again-off-again tariff policies rocked the stock market,
which California heavily relies on for tax revenue.
And the state lodged a flurry of lawsuits again…

Your one-minute guide to California’s budget outlook this year
Spoiler alert: California’s deficit grows, uncertainty looms, and state leaders may have fewer options than before to tackle it.

Students table for the Big Red Buddies who volunteer to help Head Start
#photo

Metropolitana 🔶
城 🔶
📷 Pentax MX
🎞️ Ilford Pan 100
#filmphotography #Photography #blackandwhite

China investigates top general Zhang Youxia in rare purge of senior military leaders https://therecord.media/china-investigates-top-general-purge-senior-military-leaders

Nice to see a UK party leader demonstrate some actual compassion and care this Christmas. I'm so fed up with politicians pedaling hate and division trying to pander to terrible racism and xenophobia, trying to pick up the votes of the hateful.
This is what political leadership really is. Not following the right wing media hatred but countering it.
Zack Polanski's Christmas message is less than five minutes.
#green #christmas

Trump’s intensifying standoff with European leaders over the fate of Greenland
prompted a sharp response from investors Tuesday morning,
with the value of U.S. stocks, dollar and government bonds all falling.
The S&P 500 dropped over 1 percent
as investors reacted to Trump’s increasing threat of higher tariffs on European allies unless they supported his plans for America to take control of Greenland.
Tuesday morning’s decline was first time the index has st…

Stocks and Bonds Fall on Trump’s Greenland Threats
The S&P 500 dropped over 1 percent Tuesday morning, its lowest decline at the start of the trading day since April, when President Trump first announced his sweeping tariffs.

Questions remain about how leaders at the Los Angeles fire department responded to a fire that leveled entire communities,
and who within the agency knew about concerns the fire could still pose a threat.
A former LA city councilor says the aftermath and recovery effort should serve as a Pearl Harbor moment for the city,
which should never again be in a position with flames encroaching on all sides.
The LA Times has published a series of bombshell revelationsabout th…

A year out from the 2026 midterms, with Republicans feeling the blows from a string of losses in this week’s elections,
Donald Trump and his allies are mounting a multipronged attack on almost every aspect of voting in the United States
and raising what experts say are troubling questions about the future of one of the world’s oldest democracies.
While Democratic leaders continue to invest their hopes in a “blue wave” to overturn Republican majorities in the House and Senat…