The nation in brief

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot voiced frustration Wednesday about a looming teachers strike, saying “we’ve bent over backwards” to try to appease the Chicago Teachers Union.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot voiced frustration Wednesday about a looming teachers strike, saying “we’ve bent over backwards” to try to appease the Chicago Teachers Union.

Chicago gears up for teachers strike

CHICAGO — Chicago parents and community groups are scrambling to prepare for a teachers strike set to begin today, prompting the city to preemptively cancel classes in the nation’s third-largest school district.

The Chicago Teachers Union confirmed Wednesday night that its 25,000 members would not return to their classrooms today after months of negotiation between the union and Chicago Public Schools failed to resolve disputes over pay and benefits, class size and teacher preparation time.

The strike is Chicago’s first major walkout by teachers since 2012, and city officials announced early Wednesday that all classes had been canceled for today in hopes of giving more planning time to 300,000 students’ families.

During the 2012 strike, the district kept some schools open for half days during a seven-day walkout. District officials said that this time they will keep all buildings open during school hours, staffed by principals and employees who usually work in administrative roles.

Breakfast and lunch will be served, but all after-school activities and school buses will be suspended in the district, which serves more than 300,000 students.

Lightfoot said the city has offered a 16% pay raise over a five-year contract and agreed to put language in the contract that addresses “enforceable targets” on class size and increasing staffing levels for positions such as nurses, librarians and social workers.

Union leaders, though, disputed Lightfoot’s characterization of the city offers on several issues, including class sizes.

Rules out on notice of Chinese contacts

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration said Wednesday that it is requiring Chinese officials in the U.S. to notify the State Department ahead of any contacts they plan to have with American educators, researchers, and local and state governments.

The release of the new rules was accompanied by notices to U.S. educational and research institutions and local governments informing them of the reporting requirement. The change took effect Wednesday.

State Department officials say the change was made to reciprocate for similar rules that U.S. diplomats face in China. But unlike the Chinese, who must approve such contacts, the U.S. government will not require Chinese officials to receive permission from the State Department for any meeting.

The rules cover all meetings Chinese diplomats have with representatives of state, local and municipal governments, and all visits to public and private educational and research institutions, including national laboratories in the U.S. and its territories.

U.S. officials believe that universities, as recruiters of foreign talent and developers of cutting-edge research, are ripe targets for theft by Beijing.

Dad gets $450,000 in Sandy Hook case

MADISON, Wis. — A jury in Wisconsin has awarded $450,000 to the father of a boy killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting after he filed a defamation lawsuit against conspiracy theorist writers who claimed the massacre never happened.

A Dane County jury Tuesday decided the amount that James Fetzer must pay Leonard Pozner, whose 6-year-old son, Noah, was among the 26 victims at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, 2012.

Fetzer, a retired University of Minnesota Duluth professor now living in Wisconsin, and Mike Palacek co-wrote a book, Nobody Died at Sandy Hook, in which they claimed the Sandy Hook shooting never took place but was instead an event staged by the federal government as part of a Barack Obama administration effort to enact tighter gun restrictions. A judge earlier ruled that Pozner was defamed by statements in the book that claimed he fabricated copies of his son’s death certificate.

Fetzer called the damages amount “absurd” and said he would appeal.

Palacek reached a settlement with Pozner last month, the terms of which were not disclosed.

N.Y. law revises double jeopardy rules

ALBANY, N.Y. — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into state law legislation clearing away legal hurdles that could have prevented state prosecutions of people pardoned by President Donald Trump for federal crimes.

The law, signed Wednesday by the Democrat, revises exceptions to the state’s double jeopardy law.

New York Democrats have argued that the law will ensure that the state’s ongoing investigations into associates of the president can’t be derailed by a White House pardon — a particular concern in a state home to much of the world’s business dealings. Republicans, meanwhile, have decried the law as a partisan attack that assumes pardons that may never be issued.

The law was passed this year amid speculation that Trump will pardon his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort or former lawyer Michael Cohen.

Both are currently in prison after being convicted of federal crimes. Manafort is awaiting trial on a New York state mortgage fraud charge that closely mirrors part of his federal case. Presidents can’t issue pardons for state crimes.

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