LAWRENCE JONES: America's children are facing 'unprecedented challenges' as new school year begins

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Fox News host Lawrence Jones broke down the challenges facing America's education system on "Cross Country."

LAWRENCE JONES: We're taking a hard look at the state of our education in this nation. The students in our lives are facing unprecedented challenges as this school year begins.  EX-FAIRFAX COUNTY TEACHER ON GENDER TRANSITION TRAINING: "PARENTS RIGHT ARE BEING OBSTRUCTED LEFT AND RIGHT"

School districts are offering incentives and pay raises to get more teachers into the classroom before August.    (FNC)

We see the consequences of the pandemic in the form of massive learning lapses. We have a youth mental health crisis now deemed a national emergency, but COVID emergency funds approved for education back in 2021 are still sitting unspent. Not to mention, we're in the midst of a nationwide teacher shortage. We know the struggles, but what about the solution? CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

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This article was written by Fox News staff.

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Elon Musk challenges Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal to a debate on bots

Centi-billionaire Elon Musk provoked Twitter and challenged the company's CEO Parag Agrawal to a "public debate" about fake accounts and spam in the midst of a contentious legal battle over a $44 billion acquisition.

Musk filed a bid with the Securities and Exchange to acquire Twitter back in April this year. After the companies agreed to move ahead with a take-private deal, Musk said he was terminating his acquisition, and accused Twitter of presenting false numbers, including in its SEC filings, pertaining to the amount of monetizable daily active users, and the number of spam and bot accounts on the social network.

Twitter then sued Musk in a Delaware chancery court to ensure the deal would go through as promised, and Musk filed counterclaims and a countersuit there on July 29.

In a series of tweets that Musk began posting just before 1 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 6, Musk interacted with a fan who had summarized his accusations about Twitter including that it was stonewalling him and giving him, "outdated data," and "a fake data set" when he asked the company for details about how it tabulates mDAU, and estimates for spam and bot accounts.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO wrote, "Good summary of the problem. If Twitter simply provides their method of sampling 100 accounts and how they're confirmed to be real, the deal should proceed on original terms. However, if it turns out that their SEC filings are materially false, then it should not."

By just after 9 a.m. Saturday morning, Musk started a Twitter poll asking his followers to vote on whether "[l]ess than 5% of Twitter daily users are fake/spam." Respondents to the informal poll could choose one of Musk's provided answers which read either "Yes" followed by three robot emoji, or "Lmaooo no." (The slang abbreviation "lmao" stands for "laughing my a-- off.)

Musk also wrote Saturday morning: "I hereby challenge @paraga to a public debate about the Twitter bot percentage. Let him prove to the public that Twitter has <5% fake or spam daily users!"

A source close to the company says a debate is not going to happen outside of a pending trial.

Attorneys for Musk did not respond to requests to comment on Saturday, and an attorney for Twitter declined to comment on Musk's Saturday tweets.

Twitter's attorneys have argued in court filings that Musk gave the company just twenty-four hours to accept his offer before he would present it directly to Twitter shareholders, and waived due diligence including a chance to seek more information on false or spam accounts.

They wrote in court filings, "Musk's repeated mischaracterizations of the merger agreement cannot change its plain words."

At an annual shareholder meeting for Tesla on Aug. 4, Musk was asked to speak about Twitter during a question-and-answer session that followed a proxy vote.

He said, drawing laughter from the audience in attendance, "I obviously have to be a little careful what I say about Twitter because there's this lawsuit and stuff." He confirmed that the only two publicly traded securities he owns are Tesla and Twitter.

And then he spoke as if he still wants to become the owner of the social networking company, a stark contrast to arguments made by Musk via his attorneys in legal filings in Delaware in which Musk argues he should not have to go through with the deal.

At the Tesla 2022 shareholders' meeting, Musk said: "I think in the case of Twitter since I use it a lot, shoot myself in the foot a lot, you know, dig my grave, etc. I think it's — I do understand the product quite well, so I think I've got a good sense of where to point the engineering team at Twitter to make it radically better."

He added that Twitter would "help accelerate" a "pretty grand vision" he had to build a business he'd been thinking about since his earliest years as a tech entrepreneur, X.com or X Corporation.

"Obviously that could be started from scratch," he said, "but I think Twitter would help accelerate that by three to five years. So it's kind of like something I've thought would be quite useful for a long time. I know what to do. Don't have to have Twitter for that but, like I said, it's probably at least a three-year accelerant and I think it's something that will be very useful to the world."

Musk didn't go into any further details at that meeting. However, he reportedly said during a town hall meeting with Twitter employees in June this year that he wanted to grow Twitter's user base to a billion people and saw Twitter as a platform that could evolve into an app like China's WeChat, a "super app," that incorporates everything from messaging, video and social media, to mobile and point-of-sales payments, with a robust app ecosystem.

Unless they reach a settlement first, Twitter and Musk are headed for a five-day trial in Delaware that starts on Oct. 17. The judge ruling on the case is Chancellor Kathaleen St. J. McCormick.

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/elon-musk-challenges-twitter-ceo-parag-agrawal-to-a-debate-on-bots/?feed_id=7577&_unique_id=62ef05186a540

Former NAB chief challenges inquiry commission's proceedings in court over harassment allegations

Former chairman NAB Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal (L) and Tayyaba Gul. — Radio Pakistan/YouTube Screengrab via Independent Urdu/File

ISLAMABAD: Former chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal on Wednesday challenged the inquiry commission’s proceedings in the court over sexual harassment allegations filed against him.

Complaints against the former NAB chief were filed by Tayyaba Gul and women who approached the missing person commission back when he was heading the commission.

 Iqbal’s request for an immediate stay order to halt Lahore High Court’s inquiry has been rejected.

Earlier, the former NAB chief — as the head of the missing person commission — also challenged his summoning by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in the Islamabad High Court, following which the IHC issued a stay order.

On August 1, he also challenged the PAC’s decision of limiting his position as the chairman of the missing person's commission.

The petition argued that the minutes of the PAC’s meeting on July 7 should be declared "illegal" and that the committee be restrained from taking disciplinary action.

It should be noted that the federal government, last month, issued a notification announcing the formation of an inquiry commission to investigate sexual harassment allegations levelled at the former NAB chief and others.

The commission is investigating allegations of “sexual offences including assault, harassment, outraging and insulting modesty, misdemeanour, misconduct, misuse and abuse of authority” made by the complainant against the alleged offenders.

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/former-nab-chief-challenges-inquiry-commissions-proceedings-in-court-over-harassment-allegations/?feed_id=6210&_unique_id=62eae2dc3b355

Sen. Graham challenges 2020 Georgia election probe subpoena

ATLANTA -- U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham is challenging a subpoena to testify before a special grand jury that's investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others broke any laws when they tried to overturn Joe Biden's win in Georgia.

Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, received a subpoena that was issued on July 26 and orders him to appear before the special grand jury to testify on Aug. 23, his lawyers said in a court filing. Graham is seeking to have the challenge to the subpoena heard in federal court in Atlanta rather than before the Fulton County Superior Court judge who’s overseeing the special grand jury.

The senator is one of the Trump allies who Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis wants to question as part of her investigation into what she alleges was “a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.”

Graham had said repeatedly that he would fight the subpoena once he received it, which happened last week, according to his lawyers. He has denied meddling in Georgia's election.

In a court filing last month, Willis, a Democrat, wrote that Graham made at least two telephone calls to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and members of his staff in the weeks after Trump’s loss to Biden, asking about reexamining certain absentee ballots “to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump.”

When he made those calls, Graham “was engaged in quintessentially legislative factfinding — both to help him form election-related legislation, including in his role as then-Chair of the Judiciary Committee, and to help inform his vote to certify the election,” his lawyers wrote in a court filing on Friday.

Graham's lawyers cite a provision of the U.S. Constitution that they say “provides absolute protection against inquiry into Senator Graham's legislative acts.” They also argue “sovereign immunity" prevents a local prosecutor from summoning a U.S. senator “to face a state ad hoc investigatory body.” And they assert that Willis has failed to demonstrate “the ‘extraordinary circumstances’ necessary to order a high-ranking federal official to testify.”

Willis' office will respond in court and expects Graham to testify before the special grand jury, spokesperson Jeff DiSantis said.

Given that Graham has been summoned to testify on Aug. 23, his lawyers asked for expedited consideration of his motion to quash. The judge granted that request, setting a hearing for Aug. 10.

Graham had previously filed a federal court challenge in South Carolina to try to stop Willis' efforts to compel him to testify. Before a judge there could hold a hearing, he withdrew that case and agreed to file any challenges to a subpoena in the investigation in either state superior court or federal court in Georgia, according to a court filing.

U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, a Georgia Republican, filed a federal court challenge similar to Graham's after he received a subpoena to testify before the special grand jury. After hearing arguments from his lawyers and from Willis' office, a federal judge last week declined to quash his subpoena.

U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May, who is also assigned to hear Graham's challenge, sent the matter back to Fulton County Superior Court, saying that there are at least some questions that Hice may be compelled to answer. If disagreements arise over whether Hice is protected under federal law from answering certain questions, he can bring those issues back to her to settle, she said.

Willis has confirmed that the investigation’s scope includes a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Raffensperger during which Trump urged Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss in the state.

“I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said during that call.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has repeatedly described his call to Raffensperger as “perfect.”

Willis is also interested in false allegations of election fraud made by former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and others during Georgia legislative committee meetings in December 2020. Jacki Pick Deason, a Dallas-based lawyer and podcaster, spoke at one of those meetings on Dec. 3, 2020.

Willis is trying to compel Deason's testimony. Because she lives outside Georgia, Willis has to use a process that involves getting a judge in Texas to order her to appear. A judge in New York has already ordered Giuliani to testify next week.

In a court filing in Texas last week, Deason argued that she shouldn't be ordered to testify. She cited alleged flaws with the paperwork Willis filed seeking her testimony, argued that a summons to appear before a Georgia special grand jury is not recognized in Texas and said that the demand for her appearance is based on a false assertion that she was a lawyer for the Trump campaign. She also said that it would be an undue burden for her to travel to Atlanta on days when the special grand jury is meeting in August because of professional obligations and other commitments.

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Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C., and Jamie Stengle and Jake Bleiberg in Dallas contributed to this report.

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/sen-graham-challenges-2020-georgia-election-probe-subpoena/?feed_id=5307&_unique_id=62e83e03138dc

US to plant 1B trees amid climate crisis challenges

Destructive fires in recent years that burned too hot for forests to quickly regrow have far outpaced the US government's capacity to replant trees.

Blazes have charred 5.6 million acres so far in the US this year. (AP Archive)

The Biden administration has said the government will plant more than one billion trees across millions of acres of burned and dead woodlands in the US West, as officials struggle to counter the increasing toll on the nation's forests from wildfires, insects and other manifestations of the climate crisis.

"Our forests, rural communities, agriculture and economy are connected across a shared landscape and their existence is at stake," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement on Monday announcing the reforestation plan.

"Only through bold, climate-smart actions ... can we ensure their future."

Destructive fires in recent years that burned too hot for forests to regrow naturally have far outpaced the government's capacity to plant new trees. That has created a backlog of 4.1 million acres in need of replanting, officials said.

The US Agriculture Department said it will have to quadruple the number of tree seedlings produced by nurseries to get through the backlog and meet future needs.

That comes after Congress last year passed bipartisan legislation directing the Forest Service to plant 1.2 billion trees over the next decade and after President Joe Biden in April ordered the agency to make the nation's forests more resilient as the globe gets hotter.

Officials had to pursue a more piecemeal approach with incremental measures such as Monday's announcement since most of the administration's agenda on the climate crisis remains stalled due to disagreements within Congress.

To erase the backlog of decimated forest acreage, the Forest Service plans over the next couple of years to scale up work from about 60,000 acres replanted last year to about 400,000 acres annually, officials said.

READ MORE: Firefighters begin to slow California wildfire near Yosemite

Challenging year

Blazes have charred 5.6 million acres so far in the US this year, putting 2022 on track to match or exceed the record-setting 2015 fire season, when 10.1 million acres burned.

Many forests regenerate naturally after fires, but if the blazes get too intense they can leave behind barren landscapes that linger for decades before trees come back.

The Forest Service this year is spending more than $100 million on reforestation work and is expected to further increase in coming years, to as much as $260 million annually.

To prevent replanted areas from becoming similarly overgrown, practices are changing so reforested stands are less dense with trees and therefore less fire-prone, said Joe Fargione, science director for North America at the Nature Conservancy.

But challenges to the Forest Service's goal remain, from finding enough seeds to hiring enough workers to plant them, Fargione said.

Many seedlings will die before reaching maturity due to drought and insects, both of which can be exacerbated by the climate crisis.

Living trees are a major “sink” for carbon dioxide that’s driving the climate crisis when it enters the atmosphere, Fargione said. That means replacing those that die is important to keep climate change from getting even worse.

READ MORE: Thousands evacuated as 'explosive' California wildfire widens

Source: AP

Source https://www.globalcourant.com/us-to-plant-1b-trees-amid-climate-crisis-challenges/?feed_id=2150&_unique_id=62df5b3bce306