The Bundesliga leaders Borussia Dortmund’s title chances suffered a serious blow on Friday after they stumbled to a 1-1 draw at struggling Bochum.
Dortmund are on 61 points, two points clear of second-placed Bayern Munich with four matches remaining, who will move top if they beat bottom club Hertha Berlin on Sunday.
The visitors went 1-0 down after five minutes following Anthony Losilla’s thunderous strike from just outside the penalty area. Yet Bochum’s joy only lasted two minutes as the unmarked Karim Adeyemi tapped in at the far post.
The equaliser failed to inject any urgency into Dortmund’s performance, however, despite the coach Edin Terzic urging them on from the sidelines.
Their best chances in the second half only came after the introduction of Marco Reus in the 73rd minute, with the midfielder setting up Youssoufa Moukoko, but his effort was parried by the Bochum goalkeeper Manuel Riemann.
Riemann pulled off a better save in the 76th to deny Jude Bellingham before Donyell Malen, who had scored in the previous five games, put the ball just wide with a backheel.
With Terzic booked for dissent after the 90-minute mark, Dortmund ran out of time, and will have to wait for Sunday’s result in Munich to find out how their title chances look.
In Italy, meanwhile, Napoli fans preparing to celebrate the club’s first league title since 1990 have been told to steer clear of Mount Vesuvius, the volcano that overlooks the southern city of Naples.
National park authorities became concerned at reports that Napoli’s fans plan to set off flares to light up Vesuvius should the team clinch the title on Sunday.
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Runaway leaders Napoli will secure the club’s third Serie A crown if they beat visitors Salernitana, and second-placed Lazio drop points against Internazionale at San Siro.
“We are all pleased for Napoli’s success which will bring honour to our region and great joy for people,” said the Vesuvius park commissioner, Raffaele De Luca. “But the celebrations must remain within the limits of civil behaviour.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is building a universal pre-K system for all 4-year-olds by 2025 despite a broader multibillion-dollar budget shortfall. In Illinois, Gov. JB Pritzker, who has a history of early childhood education philanthropy, wants universal preschool by 2027. And in Michigan, where Democrats took full control of government in the midterms, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer included $257.3 million in her budget to expand free pre-K to all 4-year-olds regardless of income.
It’s an investment that “helps parents, especially moms, go back to work,” Whitmer said in her State of the State address, adding that access to free preschool “will launch hundreds more preschool classrooms across Michigan, supporting thousands of jobs.”
Some states, such as Alabama and Georgia, have offered free state-funded pre-K for years using a first-come first-serve system or a lottery, but the latest pushes hope to dramatically expand free access to just about anyone. Hawaii, New Jersey and Colorado are already spinning up massive programs of their own, and finding they have to contend with an early educator workforce hollowed out by the pandemic and questions over how to sustain the costs as federal stimulus wanes.
“The pandemic brought light to the importance of early care and education and we benefited from the federal dollars that came through stimulus funding,” Colorado’s Early Childhood Department Executive Director Lisa Roy, who oversees the state’s universal preschool program, said in an interview. “But there doesn’t seem to be an understanding that this was not just a pandemic issue.”
The number of child care workers since 2010 peaked in February 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Then the pandemic hit and the numbers tanked.
While the child care workforce is rebounding from the lowest points of the pandemic, there were still nearly 58,000 fewer child care workers in January 2023 than February 2020. It’s a lag that tempers governors’ pre-K ambitions and, advocates argue, prevents parents from getting back to work.
“We should continue to be concerned about the fact that we are below levels [and] that we do not have enough options for parents right now,” said Sarah Rittling, executive director of First Five Years Fund, an early learning and care advocacy group.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis will launch a universal pre-K program this fall after campaigning on universal full-day preschool in 2017.
The state used federal Covid-19 relief funds to boost its child care and early educator workforce. And by early March, over 33,000 families applied for a seat in the new universal pre-K program and more than 1,600 preschool providers have registered to serve as operators.
Voters threw their support at the concept approving a nicotine tax via ballot measure in 2020 to fund half-day preschool. Now, every 4-year-old is eligible for up to 15 hours of free preschool a week under the program starting later this year, with some eligible for more hours if they meet certain criteria, while 3-year-olds with certain needs can receive up to 10 hours a week.
“It passed in red counties, in blue counties, rural and urban — people in our state overwhelmingly said kids ought to be able to go to preschool,” Polis told House lawmakers on Capitol Hill last month. “Now that’s funded but along with it, we need more early childhood educators.”
Polis said the state wants to expand Care Forward Colorado, an American Rescue Plan-funded program that provides free community college training for health care workers, to include early childhood educators.
But to have a workforce that supports a sweeping policy like universal pre-K, states need sustained federal funds, according to child care and early education officials and advocates. And Democrats in Congress agree. Many wore crayon pins at this year’s State of the Union — a subtle way of showing that child care should be a policy priority.
Child care spending over the last two years was “a step in the right direction but we have a long way to go,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said at a February press conference.
There may also be good cause for governors and legislatures to approach the new spending with caution. While many states are awash in budget surpluses this year — and ideas for how to spend them — the overall economy remains fragile. An analysis from the Pew Charitable Trusts predicted “several looming challenges” for state governments, including slowing revenue growth as inflation stays high and federal aid wanes.
The 2021 American Rescue Plan provided $39 billion to states for child care. In the fiscal year 2023 appropriations, the Child Care and Development Block Grant fund was increased by 30 percent to $8 billion. Additionally, Head Start received $12 billion — $596 million of that must be used for cost-of-living increases for employees and $262 million for recruiting and retaining staff.
Among Republicans, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott led a bill last year to reauthorize the block grant program with financial assistance for degree and credential attainment for aspiring educators. And Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, the new top Republican on the Senate HELP Committee, has stressed the need for the panel to approve reauthorizations left undone.
Federal funds are “foundational to all of these efforts,” Rittling said. “We have to come up with and really seize on an opportunity regardless of who’s in control of our political parties, to come together on a solution.”
To recruit and retain early educators, some states are turning to tax credits as an incentive. Whitmer’s budget recommendation in Michigan includes $24 million to provide up to $3,000 in annual tax credits for early childhood educators. In Colorado, the state is providing an educator tax credit for the next four years to support boosting the workforce.
California is in a different situation. Grappling with a budget deficit, the state is delaying $550 million in early education facilities funding from 2023‑24 to 2024‑25. Teacher-to-student ratios will also remain stagnant. Just 23 percent of California school districts report having enough transitional kindergarten teachers and the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office says maintaining a larger ratio “helps ensure that schools do not experience even greater staffing shortages.”
For Hawaii, the state has given itself a bit of time to shore up staffing. In 2020, the legislature set a goal to provide access to preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds by 2032. Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke, a Democrat who is spearheading the plan, said she’s not worried about staffing facilities — yet.F
“A new initiative like this, and a very aggressive initiative, you need somewhat of a long-term commitment and long-term timeline,” Luke said in an interview. “There’s a tendency by many of the elected officials to try to deliver in two years, or even four years within the term of their office, but a lot of times that’s not possible.”
She said the state has enough early educators for the next two to three years of expansion and they’re building preschool facilities at high schools and universities for student job training. Hawaii needs more than 465 classrooms to provide preschool for the 9,287 underserved 3- and 4-year-olds, according to state estimates.
“Funding and capacity support from the Legislature will be crucial to see this plan through,” state Sen. Michelle Kidani, who chairs the education committee, told POLITICO in a statement.
Luke, who secured an initial $200 million to build pre-K classrooms when she chaired the House Finance Committee, announced her “Ready Keiki” plan this year. She said the yearslong approach would allow the state to build out both the classroom infrastructure and the educators needed to teach keiki, the Hawaiian word for children.
“Many of the educational leaders out there recognize it’s one thing to just build classrooms, but there’s a whole lot of things that go into it. We need staffing and we need support services — it is a long-term effort,” she said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
But Conner’s fledgling cannabis business is also vastly outnumbered by illicit competitors that have sprouted all over the city since the state legalized weed for adults nearly two years ago. New Yorkers are buying weed from behind the counter of bodegas, shopping in unlicensed stores and ordering from underground delivery services.
Smacked’s soft launch last week marked a milestone for New York’s uniquely interventionist marijuana program, which prioritizes dispensary licenses for entrepreneurs with past pot offenses and takes care of their real estate challenges. And while Conner is the first such entrepreneur to open his dispensary’s doors to the public, it’s unclear how the state will follow through on the promises its made to these small businesses.
The slow drip of dispensary openings — Housing Works opened one on Dec. 29 and Smacked nearly a month later — underscores the challenges the state faces in securing real estate and raising capital for entrepreneurs.
Unlike comparing prices for comparable office space, there’s no equivalent, transparent system for retail, explained Kristin Jordan, CEO of cannabis-focused brokerage firm Park Jordan.
“It’s really a wild west,” she said. “Retail is not an open book.”
Other legal weed states that have attempted social equity programs have encountered numerous problems: Entrepreneurs often struggle to raise capital or find landlords willing to rent to them, and licensees with little business experience find themselves entering a market already dominated by large cannabis companies.
But there’s nothing quite like New York’s weed experiment.
“This is the boldest and most extreme social equity program that’s ever been attempted,” said University of California, Davis economist Robin Goldstein, co-author of the book “Can Legal Weed Win?” “It’s an experiment and nobody knows how it will turn out.”
Smacked might be open, but only on a pop-up basis. After about one month of sales, the location will be closed again for construction.
Even so, Conner is undaunted by the challenges ahead.
“Sometimes, I pinch myself,” he said in an interview outside the shop ahead of the recent opening. “I just can’t believe it.”
How it works
Conner is the recipient of a Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary (CAURD) license. These licenses are reserved for people who have been convicted of a marijuana offense prior to legalization or have an immediate family member who was convicted for cannabis. They must also have prior small business experience. Nonprofits that serve formerly incarcerated populations are also eligible for the first round of licenses.
The state will license 150 applicants to open up dispensaries across the state. So far, 66 licenses have been doled out, with 56 going to justice-impacted entrepreneurs and another 10 going to nonprofits.
The Dormitory Authority of the State of New York, an agency that typically provides financing and construction for schools and hospitals, is tasked with finding locations and building them out for CAURD applicants.
DASNY will sign a lease with the landlord, and sublease the location to the applicant. The agency also selected 10 firms to construct the dispensaries. Temeka Group, one of the 10 firms who won the contract with DASNY, will be working with Conner to build out Smacked. The company has constructed more than 400 dispensaries throughout the U.S., said its CEO, Mike Wilson.
Meanwhile, DASNY is raising money for a $200 million public-private fund that will go toward standing up these dispensaries and providing a variety of other services beyond real estate and construction. The funds are treated like a loan, so licensees like Conner will eventually have to pay the state back, with market-rate interest.
The fund got $50 million from the state and needs to raise another $150 million from the private sector. During a recent press conference, DASNY President Reuben McDaniel declined to say how much money the fund has raised.
“We’ve had significant conversations, significant investors, who are very interested in this program,” McDaniel said. “I’m sure we’ll have plenty of money to do what we need to do.”
CAURD licensees have been promised turnkey dispensaries. But that is taking time to implement. In DASNY’s original request for proposals, the agency anticipated raising $150 million by September 2022.
“This is an economic opportunity to give people access they wouldn’t have otherwise.” McDaniel said. “In programs like this … capital is always a problem.”
Potential pitfalls
The fastest way to launch a recreational weed market is to allow medical marijuana dispensaries to start serving adult-use customers, which is the path recently taken in nearby states such as Connecticut and Rhode Island.
For New York, where the Big Apple was already home to one of the largest illicit marijuana markets in the world, taking nearly two years to launch recreational sales has prompted a proliferation of unlicensed dispensaries, drawing a variety of public health concerns, including sales to minors and products tainted with contaminants.
New York’s two open licensed dispensaries can hardly compete with an estimated 1,400 unlicensed cannabis retailers that are getting California weed and selling the stuff without paying cannabis taxes.
Faced with delays in securing and building out real estate, regulators have made several changes to the program. Most notably, the state is now allowing CAURD applicants to find their own real estate instead of waiting for a DASNY location.
“Clearly, there’s been a lack of progress,” said Rob DiPisa, co-chair of the cannabis law group at Cole Schotz, of the changing guidance.
If applicants opt to find their own location, it will put them in competition with DASNY for a limited pool of spaces that meet state regulatory standards. For example, retail dispensaries must be located a certain distance away from houses of worship, school grounds and other dispensaries. Plus, if they sign their own leases, they risk their eligibility for the $200 million fund that was designed to help them.
That’s leaving applicants in a bit of a bind: Strike out on their own to find a location and give up state funding, or wait in line for a DASNY location without clarity on when they will be given a shop?
“That’s a tragic choice between two bad options,” Goldstein said.
A spokesperson for DASNY did not answer questions about the specifics of the process.
During a Cannabis Control Board meeting Wednesday, McDaniel acknowledged that allowing CAURD applicants to find their own locations has “added some complexity to the work that we’re doing,” he said. But “we’re very excited that the recent retail real estate component of this is actually being accelerated.”
Landlords are apprehensive about working with DASNY because the social equity fund has yet to raise the full $200 million. That’s making potential landlords wary of participating in the program.
Not only that, but many landlords have lenders to answer to — and those lenders are wary of entering into the cannabis industry due to its federal illegality.
With the growth of the state-regulated cannabis industry in the past decade, both landlords and lenders have become more sophisticated when it comes to working with the cannabis industry, said DiPisa, who is working with a landlord in negotiations with DASNY.
“[Multistate operators] understand that there’s certain language that needs to go in these lease agreements that the lenders want to see,” DiPisa said. “I think there’s a bit of a learning curve [for DASNY].”
And unlike cannabis companies that are just negotiating for their own operations, DASNY is trying to enter into a large number of leases and build out facilities in a short amount of time.
“The concept is great,” DiPisa said. “The problem is … it’s a very difficult thing to actually implement.”
Jeremy Rivera is one CAURD applicant whose company, Kush Culture Industries, is debating whether it should fund its own construction or wait for a state-leased location.
“Are you willing to wait for [DASNY] or do you want to get first to sale?” he said.
Rivera recently co-founded the CAURD Coalition, along with three other applicants, in hopes of helping other like them navigate an at-times confusing process with shifting timelines and changing regulatory guidance.
“Capitalism has ruined cannabis,” Rivera said. “We’re figuring out how we can all help each other.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Mud oozed and swirled under the wheels of Darren Sauter’s tractor. The slick remnants of the state’s epic, weeks-long rainstorms left neighborhoods like this one in Felton, California, inundated even after the waters receded. Days after the downpours, Sauter and others were working to rid homes and streets of the dirty muck, piled 3ft high in places.
“People have had to just live with this,” said Sauter, speaking over the hum of his equipment as he worked on Wednesday afternoon. Sauter came down from Ben Lomon, a town just north of this quiet neighborhood in the Santa Cruz mountains, to help volunteer with the daunting cleanup.Riding a bright orange front loader,he shoveled mud to the side to create a pathway through the wet earth, still laden with chemical contaminants from the roadway and the smell of sewage, as solemn-faced residents looked on. “You can’t even walk through it.”
Spanning redwood covered mountains to the beaches of the Pacific coast, Santa Cruz county is a region of vast geographical and socioeconomic diversity. It has also borne the brunt of the brutal California rainstorms, which dropped an estimated 32.6tn gallons of water in just three weeks, causing an estimated $1bn in damage statewide and claiming at least 21 lives.
Darren Sauter volunteers to help clear mud and debris from neighborhoods hit hard by California’s storms. Photograph: Gabrielle Canon/The Guardian
From hillside towns like Felton to the picturesque coastal enclave of Capitola, the long road to recovery from disaster is only beginning.The county was declared a major disaster zone by Joe Biden, who visited Capitola on Thursday to survey the damage and said it would “take years to rebuild”.
At least a thousand homesin Santa Cruz county were damaged during the deluge, according to officials, but assessments are still ongoing. Estimates of the destruction on private land are expected to be in the tens of millions with public infrastructure damage believed to be in excess of $55m. The financial toll is only expected to grow.
“We are definitely transitioning from the response phase of this disaster to the recovery phase,” said Dave Reid, director of the Santa Cruz county office of response, recovery and resilience. “For some people that might look like reestablishing access to their homes and for others it might mean having to completely rebuild.”
Even as the sun pierced through gray haze this week, offering a hopeful reprieve from the relentless rain, risks remain. New dangers lurk in soggy buildings as threats from mold and other environmental health hazards can quickly take hold. Saturated hillsides could still crumble without warning. Though the downpours have ended – at least for now – there’s no time to lose.
A fallen tree is seen during Joe Biden’s survey the storm-caused damage in Capitola, California. Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters
People look on as Joe Biden surveys damage caused by recent heavy storms in California. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images
“We are only at the beginning of our peak rainy season,” Reid said. But there are also dangers posed by dryness. The downpours will spur vegetation to grow with vigor. Without another adequate dousing before the warmer weather sets in, parched plants could fuel the region’s already-high wildfire risks.
For now though, the county is focused on the daunting task at hand. “We have to support everyone in their recovery journey,” he said. “We can’t let anyone slip through the cracks.”
Sandbags still line the doorways of the brightly-colored buildings in the picturesque Capitola Village, which was hammered by surging surf strong enough to sever the town’s iconic pier. The storms also chewed through Seacliff State Beach, shredding a seawall, destroying a campground and smashing the bathrooms at the popular recreation site.
Along the battered shoreline, vast fields of seaweed created by ferocious tides remain piled high. Splintered debris sat alongside the sodden floorboards and crushed tiles that once belonged to waterfront restaurants and homes. In some areas of the county, the waters still have yet to recede.
“Unfortunately, the people who seem to have the least were hurt the most,” said Don Hufgard, a Red Cross volunteer from Ohio, who deployed into California this week to help residents recover from the disaster. He and his partner, who hailed from Indiana, stationed themselves in Soquel Village for part of this week, where they said some areas were still underwater.
In their mission to hand out food and supplies to residents throughout the region, they’ve encountered roads swallowed by sinkholes, landslides, and neighborhoods weary from the weather whiplash that brought devastating floods to previously drought-stricken areas.
“At least it is beautiful out now,” Hufgard said, gesturing to the cloudless sky as he buttoned up the van. He and his partner were heading out to a shelter in Capitola, another community in need.
Even in the cooler winter months, the vibrant coastal town is typically bustling. Now eerily quiet, bird calls echoed against the brightly-painted buildings that line the shore, many of which still have boarded windows and sandbagged doorways.
“You don’t feel it until you walk the streets,” Biden said after he toured the aftermath on Thursday, looking out at Seacliff state park. “We’ve got to not just rebuild, but rebuild better,” the president said, noting that the climate crisis promised a future where storms of this magnitude would become more common.
Locals agree. As the storm surged and the ocean thrashed against the shore, many felt powerless, even after doing what they could to prepare.
“We were getting it from both sides,” said Capitola police chief, Sarah Ryan. In the preceding days, businesses had been boarded and berms were built with sand. Officers went door-to-door in low-lying areas warning residents that it was time to leave. With evacuation orders in place, the community braced itself for the onslaught. “By that point,” Ryan said, “there was really nothing we could do other than let Mother Nature take its course.”
The community is now rethinking what will be required to withstand a future where extreme weather events become more common. “Knowing something like this could very-well happen again, our threshold has now shifted to a different level,” she said. “That is a conversation that is already starting to take place when we talk about recovery.”
Down the road from the police station, where officers were collecting rakes and shovels to be distributed across the small city, neighbors were convening at the bustling Reef Dog Deli, a sandwich shop and community hub in town. Friends and neighbors shared hugs, stories and smiles, now that the sun was shining, as they stopped to marvel at what the storm left in its wake.
Anthony Kresge, the owner of Reef Dog Deli in Capitola, California, welcomes locals and visitors alike after the severe storms. Photograph: Gabrielle Canon/The Guardian
Owner and chef Anthony Kresge has fostered that happy vibe in his eatery, chatting with all who enter. But, he said, the friendly façade masks the deep hurt this community is feeling. “Inside we are all struggling,” he said. “It has been a tough go but we are trying to be positive.”
The catastrophe has changed the community, he said, noting that it was always a welcoming place. But neighbors are now willing to do more to help the village rebound. He and other local business owners have banded together to organize a fundraiser event for the workers left without jobs. “No matter if you were in the flood zone or not, everybody has taken a hit,” he said.
He’s concerned about the downturn, but more than that, he is hopeful that the village will have the chance to come back stronger.
“Everyone wants Capitola to jump back and be alive again, but it’s going to take some time,” he said, calling the storms a wakeup call. This won’t be the last severe storm the community will have to endure.
“We will be stronger in our defense next time,” he added. “Because it is not if – it is when.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
