Missoula Co. school districts working through substitute shortages

The first four months of the school year have seen a shortage of substitute teachers, with schools scrambling to fill holes where they can.

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  • Even after Capitol assault, Biden team undecided on domestic terrorism law

    President-elect Joe Biden's team is reconsidering a domestic terrorism law out of concern that future administrations or law enforcement might abuse it.

  • Pelosi denounces 'punk' seen wearing 'Camp Auschwitz' shirt in Capitol riot

    The House speaker said she couldn't help but be overcome with anger when she saw a Trump supporter who stormed the Capitol wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the words “Camp Auschwitz.”

  • Texas realtor who took private jet is charged in Capitol riot

    Jennifer Ryan faces charges of disorderly conduct and knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful entry.

  • White veteran charged in shooting Black girl at Trump rally

    A white military veteran shot and wounded a 15-year-old girl when he fired his gun into a car carrying four Black teens during a tense confrontation at a Trump rally near the Iowa Capitol last month.

  • 5th member of Congress contracts COVID in post-riot surge

    A fifth member of Congress has tested positive for COVID-19 following last week’s lockdown at the Capitol — a surge of cases that had been predicted as a result of the Jan. 6 occupation.

  • House arrest plan for invader of Pelosi's office halted

    A federal judge in Washington on Friday night halted a plan to release and put on house arrest the Arkansas man photographed sitting at a desk in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office during last week's riot at the U.S. Capitol. Richard Barnett will instead be brought to Washington, D.C., immediately for proceedings in his case, Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ordered Friday night, staying a decision by another judge to confine Barnett to his home in Gravette, Arkansas, until his trial. Howell's ruling came hours after U.S. Magistrate Judge Erin Wiedemann in Arkansas set a $5,000 bond for Barnett and ordered that a GPS monitor track his location.

  • Congress may award its highest honor to Capitol cop Eugene Goodman. But he wasn't the only 'hero.'

    A bipartisan group of three House members said Thursday that they will nominate Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman for the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor awarded by Congress, for facing off against a mob of rioters in the Capitol during the Jan. 6 siege and potentially saving the Senate."He's a hero!" said Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.), who is introducing the resolution with Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.). The Senate started evacuating a minute after Goodman lured a crowd of rioters away from a nearby door to the chamber, according to a video by HuffPost's Igor Bobic.Goodman served in Iraq in the Army's 101st Airborne Division, but little else is known about him and he "isn't saying anything at all publicly — not to reporters, not on social media," The Associated Press reports.But Goodman isn't the only officer who showed heroism during the mob siege, and several D.C. Metropolitan Police reinforcements involved in the battle at the West Terrace told their harrowing stories to The Washington Post. One Capitol Police officer was killed by the rioters, and nearly 60 D.C. police officers and an unknown number of Capitol Police were injured.D.C. officer Michael Fanone, 40, was filmed being bludgeoned with metal pipes and flag poles after the West Terrace mob dragged him down the entrance stairs. "We were battling 15,000 people," not 50, he told the Post. "It looked like a medieval battle scene." After the mob hit him with a stun gun, the Post adds, "Fanone suffered a mild heart attack and drifted in and out of consciousness."Officer Daniel Hodges, 32, was captured in another viral video with his head being smashed in a door. Rioters tried to gouge his eyes out before he even got to the West Terrace tunnel, he told the Post. "The zealotry of these people is absolutely unreal," he said, adding that he didn't want to draw his gun "because I knew they had guns — we had been seizing guns all day" — and "we would have lost" in a firefight.Rows of bludgeoned officers from D.C., then surrounding jurisdictions, fended off the rioters in hand-to-hand combat for hours. The West Terrace was "one of the few places where police prevented rioters from breaking through," the Post reports. "Had those rioters succeeded, authorities said, thousands more people could have poured into the Capitol, with possible catastrophic consequences." Read more war stories, and watch the disturbing videos, at The Washington Post.More stories from theweek.com Trump's vaccine delay is getting suspicious The worst-case scenario for America's immediate future 5 scathing cartoons about Trump's second impeachment

  • EU states warn of risks to vaccination credibility as Pfizer slows supplies

    European governments said the credibility of their COVID-19 vaccination programmes was at risk on Friday after U.S. pharmaceutical firm Pfizer announced a temporary slowdown of deliveries of its vaccines. Shots developed by Pfizer with its German partner BioNTech began being delivered in the European Union at the end of December, but around nine of the 27 EU governments complained of "insufficient" doses at a meeting this week, a participant said. Pfizer initially said deliveries were proceeding on schedule, but then on Friday announced there would be a temporary impact on shipments in late January to early February caused by changes to manufacturing processes to boost output.

  • Nikki Haley launches push to support conservative candidates ahead of rumoured 2024 presidential bid

    Former South Carolina governor is tipped to be run for president at next election

  • Waitress credited with helping boy after noticing bruises

    A Florida waitress who noticed bruises on an 11-year-old boy flashed him a handwritten note asking him if he needed help, and when he nodded yes, she called the police, authorities said. Orlando police credited Flaviane Carvalho, a waitress at Mrs. Potato Restaurant, with coming to the boy's aid on New Year's Eve when the child’s parents weren’t looking. Police took the boy to a hospital where doctors found bruises on his face, earlobes and arms.

  • Trump's team is reportedly trying to assemble a crowd for a 'major send-off' hours before Biden's inauguration

    President Trump is planning to exit the White House on the morning of Jan. 20, a few hours before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in a short distance away, CNN reports. "Eager for a final taste of the pomp of being president, Trump has asked for a major send-off," and "as one of their final acts, Trump's team is working to organize a crowd to see him off on the morning of Biden's inauguration, when he plans to depart Washington while still president" for a flight to Palm Beach, Florida, where his term will officially end at noon.There are 20,000 National Guard troops currently deployed or en route to Washington, D.C., ahead of Biden's inauguration, because the last crowd Trump drew to the White House morphed into an insurrectionist mob that stormed the Capitol.Plans are still being ironed out, CNN says, but "Trump told people he did not like the idea of departing Washington for a final time as an ex-president, flying aboard an airplane no longer known as Air Force One. He also did not particularly like the thought of requesting the use of the plane from Biden." The Bidens will wake up on Inauguration Day at nearby Blair House, CNN reports, adding that "its use was offered to them by the State Department rather than the Trumps, who refuse to make contact with the incoming president and first lady.""Trump has expressed interest to some in a military-style sendoff and a crowd of supporters," CNN says, but it's unclear "whether that occurs at the White House, Joint Base Andrews, or his final destination, Palm Beach International Airport."Outgoing U.S. presidents almost always attend the swearing-in of their successors, Defense One notes, and "in recent decades, the outgoing president and first lady walk down the back steps of the Capitol to an awaiting helicopter, which then makes the short five-minute flight over to Joint Base Andrews in nearby Maryland. Upon arriving at Andrews, the former president and first lady are usually greeted by a military honor guard, former staffers, friends, and other well wishers." Two senior Pentagon officials confirmed to Defense One on Thursday that, in a break with recent tradition, no military farewell is being planned for Trump.More stories from theweek.com Trump's vaccine delay is getting suspicious The worst-case scenario for America's immediate future 5 scathing cartoons about Trump's second impeachment

  • Canada's Trudeau urges unified front against China detentions, says all nations vulnerable

    Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged nations around the world to maintain a unified front against Chinese detentions of foreign citizens, saying every country was vulnerable. Trudeau made his remarks as China offered more consular access to two Canadian men it arrested in December 2018 and charged with spying. Canada has repeatedly called on its partners to press Beijing for their release.

  • California sees record highs as Midwest deals with blizzard conditions

    As blizzard conditions impacted parts of the Midwest, two Southern California coastal locations registered a national high temperature of 94.

  • No charges in Pennsylvania discarded-ballots case

    No criminal charges will be filed against a former temporary elections worker authorities have said mistakenly discarded nine military ballots ahead of the November presidential election, a federal prosecutor announced Friday. Officials have previously blamed the decision to toss out the ballots on an unidentified and improperly trained contract worker who had been handling mail-in ballots for the county for two days. The ballots were later retrieved from the trash and were counted with other mailed ballots after the Nov. 3 election.

  • Trump's White House packs up as one of the least civil presidential handovers in history begins

    When George H. Bush handed over to his Democratic successor, Bill Clinton, he wrote a heartfelt letter wishing President 42 luck and “great happiness”. George W. Bush offered Barack Obama friendly advice as he was leaving office to “ignore the critics” and that he was "pulling" for him. Since George Washington gave the keys to the White House over to John Adams in 1797, the transfer of power between presidents has largely been peaceful, if on occasion spiteful. This year all norms, however, have been broken. For starters, Donald Trump only conceded last week - at the urging of White House lawyers - after his supporters stormed the US Capitol. The formal process finally began this week, with White House staff pictured removing its current occupants’ belongings - everything from paintings to a taxidermy pheasant.

  • More Inside Artist Jorge Pardo's Transformed Bushwick Carriage House

    When it came to the lighting in his home, Pardo drew inspiration from the insides of fruits, nuts, and seeds, as well as sea creatures and machine parts.Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

  • Dustin Higgs, last convict scheduled to die under Trump, is executed

    Higgs was the thirteenth federal convict put to death under Trump and the third this week to receive a lethal injection.

  • AP EXCLUSIVE: Maduro ally presses for dialogue with Biden

    A close ally of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said Friday he’s hopeful the Biden administration will roll back a “cruel” sanctions policy and instead give room for diplomacy that could lead to the reopening of the U.S. Embassy and the release of several jailed American citizens. Jorge Rodríguez’s comments came in his first interview since taking the helm of Venezuela’s National Assembly over strong protests from the U.S., European Union and domestic opponents. Rodriguez, extending an olive branch to the incoming U.S. president, said the ruling socialist party is eager for a new start after four years of endless attacks by the Trump administration that he believes not only exacerbated suffering among Venezuelans and failed to unseat Maduro but also punished U.S. investors who historically have been important in the OPEC nation.

  • Trump's approval rating plunges to all-time low of 29 percent in new Pew poll

    President Trump's approval rating has fallen to the lowest level of his presidency, with a significant drop among Republicans.In the latest Pew Research Center poll released Friday, Trump received a job approval rating of 29 percent, which is his lowest-ever number in this poll and a decline of nine percentage points from August. Additionally, Pew notes that "much of the decline has come among Republicans and GOP leaners," 60 percent of whom approve of Trump's job performance compared to 77 percent in August.Additionally, Pew found that Trump voters "have grown more critical of their candidate's post-election conduct," as the "share of his supporters who describe his conduct as poor has doubled over the past two months, from 10 percent to 20 percent." The poll also found that only 29 percent of respondents said Trump should remain a major figure in U.S. politics in the years to come, while 68 percent said he shouldn't be.The poll was conducted in the wake of last week's deadly attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, which led to Trump becoming the first president in American history to be impeached twice. In the poll, three-quarters of respondents said Trump bears either a lot or some responsibility for the riot, while only 24 percent said he isn't responsible at all. Ahead of his upcoming Senate impeachment trial, 54 percent of respondents also said it would be better for Trump to be removed from office than finish his term, a possibility that has been ruled out due to the trial not being expected to begin until President-elect Joe Biden is in office.Pew Research Center conducted its poll by surveying 5,360 U.S. adults from Jan. 8-12. The margin of error is 1.9 percentage points. Read more at Pew Research Center.More stories from theweek.com Trump's vaccine delay is getting suspicious The worst-case scenario for America's immediate future 5 scathing cartoons about Trump's second impeachment

  • Coronavirus latest news: Ending lockdown in February would be a 'disaster', Sage scientist warns

    Borders closed to shut out new strains Five million over-70s to receive invitations for jabs Doctors told to throw away leftover Covid vaccines UK faces delays in delivery of Pfizer coronavirus vaccine Three-quarters back curfews to prevent evening socialising Subscribe to The Telegraph for a month-long free trial Removing coronavirus restrictions at the end of next month would be a "disaster" and put "enormous pressure" on the NHS, a Sage scientist has warned. Professor John Edmunds told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think it would be a disaster if we removed restrictions in, say, the end of February when we have gone through this first wave of the vaccination. "First of all vaccines aren't ever 100% protective, and so even those that have been vaccinated would be still at some risk. "If we relaxed our restrictions we would immediately put the NHS under enormous pressure again." It came as the World Health Organisation warned that while measures like social distancing are working, we have to do them better. Dr Margaret Harris told the BBC: "The public health measures that we know work: the distancing, not gathering in large numbers, understanding who has the virus and who has not, keeping the two apart, all those measures do work. "They work over and over again in a number of countries, so we have to do them better. "Some of the actions at the borders, like testing people, quarantining people, understanding where they're coming from, are all part of ensuring who has the virus, who has not and keeping them apart." Follow the latest updates below.