Aggregator

Here's what you need to know before July 1.

A city-hired veterinarian uncovered concerning conditions inside Central Park’s stables, including cramped quarters, skin lesions and swollen limbs, a report revealed Tuesday — as the fleet of carriage horses returned to work. The bombshell veterinary report, obtained by animal activists through a freedom of information request, contained the shocking findings from surprise visits made to...

With the NBA Draft just hours away, one name continues to hover around the Golden State Warriors more than any other: Trey Murphy III. The New Orleans Pelicans forward has been connected to the Warriors for months, and a flurry of reports leading into draft night suggests those discussions remain very much alive. The Warriors...

Angie Báez, who went viral for dumping trash over the weekend, was described in her bio as someone whose “dedication to making a positive impact shines through in every aspect of her work.”

Casa Amor is in full effect as 12 new men arrive to shake up the Villa in episode 18 of “Love Island USA.” While the islanders are exploring new options, our “Virtual Reali-Tea” co-hosts, Danny Murphy and Evan Real, are enjoying the Cannes sun. Recapping the latest episodes is our “Love Island USA” correspondent, Jordan...

Casa Amor is in full effect as 12 new men arrive to shake up the Villa in episode 18 of “Love Island USA.” While the islanders are exploring new options, our “Virtual Reali-Tea” co-hosts, Danny Murphy and Evan Real, are enjoying the Cannes sun. Recapping the latest episodes is our “Love Island USA” correspondent, Jordan...

The US men's national team has emerged as one of the most exciting squads to watch in the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Randi Whinegarten

Authored by Larry Sand via American Greatness,

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, wrote a hyperbolic piece titled "America's Teachers Can't Afford to Teach," which appeared in Time magazine on June 11.

The excessively whiny article is filled with half-truths meant to make readers feel sorry for impoverished, underpaid teachers. Among other things, she asserts that the vast majority of American educators are living paycheck to paycheck, taking on debt to buy groceries, and facing other financial hardships.

She maintains that the pay gap between "teachers and other college-educated professionals - known as the 'teacher pay penalty' - has grown to 27 percent. To put it plainly, people with the same level of education and experience can make far more doing almost anything other than teaching. We cannot accept this as an unfortunate reality or an accident."

But when you look at the facts, which apparently is an alien concept to the union boss, you get a very different picture. While it is true that teacher salaries nationwide have not quite kept up with inflation, Weingarten tells only part of the story, omitting many perks afforded to educators.

Just Facts, a nonprofit dedicated to researching and publishing verifiable facts on critical public policy issues of our time, analyzes teacher salaries and reports that in the 2021-22 school year, the average U.S. teacher earned $66,397 in salary and $34,090 in benefits, including health insurance, paid leave, and pensions, for a total compensation of $100,487.

Also, full-time public school teachers work an average of 1,490 hours per year, including time spent on lesson preparation, test construction, grading, providing extra help to students, coaching, and other activities, while their counterparts in private industry work an average of 2,045 hours per year, about 37 percent more than public school teachers.

Weingarten also fallaciously claims that teachers in states with union-backed collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) earn 24 percent more than those in states without such agreements.

However, those without an agenda tell a very different story, arguing that CBAs actually hurt the bottom line for all teachers. Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Institute writes that teachers in non-collective bargaining districts earn about 12 percent more than their unionized peers. Other research by Michael Lovenheim and Andrew Coulson produced similar findings. In 2018, University of California, San Diego professor Augustina Pagalayan reported that CBAs do not improve teacher pay.

It's worth noting that union dues for teachers are quite high these days. In Los Angeles, for example, full-time educators pay about $1,500 in dues annually.

Weingarten also never explains where the bulk of union dues are spent. According to a Pew Research poll, about 58 percent of public K - 12 teachers lean Democratic and 35 percent lean Republican. But OpenSecrets reports that in 2024, the American Federation of Teachers gave $3,069,063 (99.89 percent) to Democrats and a scant $3,323 (0.11 percent) to Republicans.

Additionally, while she bemoans low teacher pay, the money she collects from them goes to pay her a hefty salary. As the Illinois Policy Institute reveals, Weingarten's current yearly income is $514,488, making her a one-percenter.

Another fraud perpetrated by Weingarten concerns a book she wrote last year, Why Fascists Fear Teachers: Public Education and the Future of Democracy, which she claims will "empower us and give us hope." The problem is that every word from the union boss is nonfactual claptrap.

As Aaron Withe, Freedom Foundation CEO, writes, the book opens by comparing the Nazi occupation of Norway to the current state of American education and "argues that anyone who disagrees with the author's vision for public schools is, in some meaningful sense, a fascist."

Perhaps the biggest deception in Weingarten's book is its portrayal of her role during the pandemic. "I led the AFT in developing a concrete plan to reopen schools as quickly and safely as possible," she claims.

Bald-faced lie.

In reality, she repeatedly argued for keeping schools shuttered throughout the spring and summer of 2020, while her union aggressively lobbied the CDC to revise its school-reopening guidance. Two of her language recommendations were adopted verbatim.

Weingarten also outrageously used members' dues to pay for her fiction-laden book.

Researcher Maxford Nelsen combed through the AFT's most recent LM-2 - the annual financial disclosure unions file with the U.S. Department of Labor - and unearthed a detailed accounting of how member dues were used to produce Weingarten's book.

The AFT paid nearly $1 million to a New York law firm, and its attorney is likewise thanked in the book's acknowledgments for reviewing the manuscript. When the New York Post asked about it, an AFT spokesperson claimed the review was done pro bono, but the union LM-2 says otherwise.

There was also $6,000 for fact-checking, $5,212 for a single-author photograph by a Washington-based photographer, and $64,090 to a literary agency that lists AFT, not Weingarten, as its client.

Nearly 30 AFT staff members are thanked in the acknowledgments, prompting questions about their role in the book's creation. Meanwhile, travel costs for Weingarten's nationwide promotional tour are not itemized separately but were almost certainly substantial.

In other words, teachers paid for nearly everything. Weingarten may not have contributed a single dollar to the enterprise.

Weingarten was also one of the more strident leaders in 2025's anti-Trump "No Kings" movement. She wrote, "At every turn, this president has undermined the rule of law, weaponized the federal government against the people it should serve, and divide and silence us. And now, the same far-right groups that cheered his chaos are smearing those of us who are organizing peacefully for justice."

The hypocrisy here is glaring. This is a woman who has served as AFT president since 2008 and, before that, led the UFT, AFT's New York City branch, for 11 years. Additionally, teachers do not vote for her directly; only delegates do.

At the end of the day, Randi Weingarten is a dishonest, left-wing, hypocritical bloviator who always points the finger at others for various problems.

Other than offending the dishonorable queen, teachers have nothing to lose by saying goodbye to their union and can save a lot of cash in the process.

* * *

Larry Sand is a retired classroom teacher with 28 years of experience and served as president of the nonprofit California Teachers Empowerment Network from 2006 to 2025. He currently works to raise awareness of the shortcomings of our education system.

Tyler Durden Tue, 06/23/2026 - 17:00

Snag the celeb-favorite Oura fitness ring at its lowest price ever to track over 50 health metrics in style.

Snag the celeb-favorite Oura fitness ring at its lowest price ever to track over 50 health metrics in style.

Whether the Dodgers play is in question, as heavy rain is falling at Target Field.

The whole experience is meant to make it approachable enough for even the most inexperienced gamers to easily start playing.

The whole experience is meant to make it approachable enough for even the most inexperienced gamers to easily start playing.

MINNEAPOLIS – With California Post Dodgers’ beat writer Jack Harris on a luxury vacation, columnist Dylan Hernandez invited David Vassegh of AM-570 to be a guest on this week’s show. Hernández and Vassegh talk about the season-long struggles of Kyle Tucker. They discuss whether the Dodgers should use this as an opportunity to place Tucker...

Known as "the miracle elixir of life," one plant's therapeutic effects have been used in both Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years.

UN Maritime Agency Initiates Plan To Clear Hormuz Traffic: Hundreds Of Vessels, 11K Sailors

The Strait of Hormuz is supposed to be 'open' now, based on the MoU framework, though things are expected to be extremely slow moving, despite signs of life in terms of an increased transit flow becoming evident only this week.

The saga of just how hundreds of ships will traverse is developing and tenuous: "The UN's International Maritime Organization says it will begin evacuating more than 11,000 sailors stranded in the Gulf due to the Middle East war," per AFP.

via Bloomberg

"This large-scale operation will be carried out in close cooperation with Iran, Oman, all other coastal States in the region, the United States and the maritime industry," IMO secretary-general Arsenio Dominguez stated Tuesday.

"We have secured the necessary safety guarantees and have thoroughly verified the conditions for safe navigation to support these operations," he adds.

Presumably this simply means UN assistance in seeing the stranded crew make safe passage with their cargo and on their ships. Reuters explains:

The evacuation process under ​the IMO plan, which has been under discussion for months, will be phased, ‌Oman's ⁠defence ministry said separately in an advisory.

"Given the elevated risk of collision in the current environment, a gradual and controlled evacuation of vessel traffic is required," it said.

The Omani ministry said ​the so-called Traffic ​Separation Scheme was "not ⁠safe for use at this time" and two temporary routes to north and south of the ​scheme could be used for evacuation.

"Vessels will be ​contacted individually ⁠and advised of their allocated transit day by the parties coordinated by IMO," the ministry advisory said.

According to a backgrounder in the NY Times:

Today, the stress on the roughly 11,000 stranded sailors in the Persian Gulf may be even greater. Seafarers now have internet access and are often watching livestreams of attacks happening around them, while also seeing explosions from their ship decks.

“The fact that they are sitting on board the ships with real-time information — it is psychologically very traumatic,” said Mr. Khanna, 55.

Three commercial vessels have been hit by U.S. forces this week. One of the strikes killed three people, bringing the number of seafarers killed since the start of the war to 14. All told, there have been 46 attacks on international ships in and around the Strait of Hormuz since Feb. 28, most by Iran and some by the United States.

Scant details have been issued by the International Maritime Organization. There's a backlog of some 500 or 600 vessels, but some are making it through this week.

Notably, lead crew members or captains have all along not abandoned their tens of millions or hundreds of millions in precious commodities/cargo - especially after already enduring the blockade for this long.

Tyler Durden Tue, 06/23/2026 - 16:40

NY Post readers discuss Vice President JD Vance standing by the decision to exclude Israel from negotiations with Iran.

The lawyer, who previously repped Jeffrey Epstein accusers, first requested to withdraw from the case in late May, though it remains unclear why.

"I'm just sad for the outcome and sad for what it means for Pedro's Hernandez and his family, and also I think it's not the right closure for New York, and it's not the right closure for the Patz family.''

President Donald Trump has yet to attend a single World Cup match, but FIFA has already confirmed he will have one of the tournament's most visible roles.