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Marion Joseph died in 2022 and therefore cannot celebrate what at long last is happening in California to improve children’s abysmal levels of reading comprehension. Joseph, a renowned expert on reading instruction, came out of retirement in the 1980s to wage a personal crusade for the adoption of phonics, doing battle with educators who stubbornly supported a rival system called “whole language” that was failing to raise reading scores. Phonics stresses fundamental instruction in the letters and letter combinations that make up sounds, thus allowing children to “sound out” words and later whole sentences and passages. The whole language approach…
Thirty people were injured, some critically, when a car plowed into a crowd outside an East Hollywood nightclub early Saturday morning, after which the driver was shot by someone in the crowd who fled the scene on foot. The crash was reported just before 2 a.m. on the 4600 block of West Santa Monica Boulevard near Vermont Avenue, according to Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman Lyndsey Lantz. The crowd was standing outside a music venue named The Vermont Hollywood, where a show was taking place, according to multiple media reports. Ambulances lined the street where 28 people were injured after…
As the Clippers went deeper in their pursuit of veteran guard Bradley Beal, they got an assist from none other than James Harden. Harden spent more than 30 minutes on the phone with Beal’s agent, Mark Bartelstein, detailing the reasons why the three-time All-Star should join the Clippers. Not only did the agent like what he heard, but so did Beal, who after being bought out by the Phoenix Suns, officially signed a two-year, $11 million deal Friday. “There aren’t many players who, one, we’d be willing to do it, and two, who would spend the time talking to another…
Truth in Accounting (TIA) is a think tank that analyzes government financial reports. As part of its mission, it encourages public entities to produce financial reports that are comprehensive, clear, and transparent; and which inform the public of the importance of truthful accounting. Last year, this column reported on TIA’s fifteenth annual Financial State of the States report, which ranks all 50 states by financial health. No one was shocked by California’s less-than-stellar fiscal health rating. Earlier this month, TIA released a new report, The States Financial Transparency Score 2025, focusing specifically on financial transparency noting that, while “state budgets…
PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — The question Scottie Scheffler was asking of himself at the start of the week could very well be posed to those chasing him in the British Open. What’s the point? Scheffler delivered another example Saturday at Royal Portrush why he has dominated golf the last three years. He was the only player in the last eight groups not to make a bogey on his way to a 4-under 67 that allowed him to open a four-shot lead as he goes for the third leg of the career Grand Slam. Scheffler has won the last 10 times…
The Transportation Security Administration did not officially start requiring travelers to take off their shoes at the airport until August 2006. That was nearly five years after Richard Reid unsuccessfully tried to ignite explosives in his sneakers on an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami. The fear of Reid copycats was the ostensible justification for the TSA’s seemingly belated shoe rule, which the agency finally ditched last week, nearly two decades after adopting it. The longevity of that widely resented and ridiculed policy, which the U.S. was nearly alone in enforcing, illustrates the ratchet effect at work in security…
LUCHON-SUPERBAGNERES, France — Dutch rider Thymen Arensman won the Tour de France’s toughest stage after a long solo effort over mammoth climbs and Tadej Pogačar increased his overall lead Saturday. Arensman, who rides for the Ineos-Grenadiers team, posted the biggest victory of his career. After crossing the finish line in the deep fog enveloping the ski resort of Superbagnères, Arensman lay exhausted on the road with his head in his hands. He went solo with 23 miles left from a breakaway, and quickly opened a comfortable lead. He started the final ascent to Superbagnères, which is more than 7.5 miles…
Never having fully learned the lessons of the Jim Thorpe biographies I read as a kid, I was rather slow to come around to the notion of paying college athletes for their athletic skills played out in the service of the school. It was all out of some old-fashioned allegiance to the idea of amateurism. Guys play in college for fun and maybe some glory, right? Maybe impress some girls. If you go on to become a professional athlete, more power to you. And that’s where the money is. No more. The fancier quarterbacks, running backs and shooting guards have…
About two weeks after Pam Bondi was sworn in as U.S. Attorney General, John Roberts of Fox News asked her if the Department of Justice was going to release the list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients. “It is sitting on my desk right now for review,” Bondi answered. “That’s been a directive by President Trump.” Bondi said she was also reviewing the John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King files. “That’s all in the process of being reviewed,” she said. That was on Feb. 21. On July 6, a Sunday, the FBI and the DOJ released a joint statement saying there…
More than 1.4 million Californians identify as American Indian or Alaskan Native, according to the 2020 U.S. Census. But unlike states with smaller Native populations, there’s no nationally accredited tribal college or university to serve Native Americans and help them learn about and within their culture — something that American education has historically fought against. On Friday, July 18, Assemblymember James Ramos, D-San Bernardino, helped the Palm Desert-based California Indian Nations College move $10 million closer to accreditation. The state money “shows the commitment from the State of California towards California’s first people, this nation’s first people,” said Ramos, the…