Teachers unions back proposed delay of return to classroom
March 15, 2021
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BOSTON (AP) The leaders of three Massachusetts teachers unions are supporting emergency legislation filed by state lawmakers that would require the state s education commissioner to give school districts more time to prepare for the return of elementary school students to full-time, in-person lessons.
The Massachusetts Teachers Association, the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts, and the Boston Teachers Union said the legislation would allow more school workers to get a vaccine before returning, The Boston Globe reported.
Teachers and other school workers became vaccine eligible last week.
State Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley has ordered school districts to return pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade students to classrooms for full-time instruction by April 5. Middle schoolers are scheduled to return April 28.
Hawaii adopts most extreme open records limits amid pandemic
AUDREY McAVOY, Associated Press
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FILE - In this Oct. 15, 2020, file photo, Hawaii Gov. David Ige speaks at a news conference at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu. A year after the first coronavirus shutdowns, many U.S. states and cities are still struggling with a silent side effect: Public records have become harder to get. Ige, a Democrat, took the most sweeping action when he suspended the state’s entire open-records law in March 2020. Ige eased the suspension under pressure from open-government advocates.Marco Garcia/AP
HONOLULU (AP) Hawaii has the lowest COVID-19 infection rate of any state in the nation. It’s also a pandemic standout for a more dubious reason: instituting the most extreme restrictions on the public’s access to official records.
Newsom commutes sentence of East Bay woman who killed stepfather
ADAM BEAM, Associated Press
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday commuted the life sentence of a San Leandro woman convicted of killing her stepfather in 1989, making her immediately eligible for release on parole.
Teresa Paulinkonis, 57, has been in prison for 31 years. When she was 24, prosecutors say she and her mother first attempted to kill Paul Paulinkonis, 67, by poisoning his meatloaf and drinks with oleander. When that did not work, Teresa Paulinkonis bludgeoned him to death with a pipe on New Year s Eve 1989. She was sentenced to 25 years to life for murder in 1992.