Latest news with #Baumbach
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Netflix sets release date for Noah Baumbach's ‘Jay Kelly': See George Clooney in first photo
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways Netflix is introducing the world to Jay Kelly. On Tuesday, the streaming service released fresh information about Noah Baumbach's new movie, Jay Kelly, including its release date and a first photo of star George Clooney as the title character. More from GoldDerby Jay Kelly will premiere in select theaters on Nov. 14 before streaming on Netflix on Dec. 5. Long-rumored to be a coming-of-age movie about adults, the official logline for Jay Kelly is slightly more vague: 'Everybody knows Jay Kelly, but Jay Kelly doesn't know himself.' In the first photo from the movie, Clooney's Jay Kelly stands in front of a photograph of Jay Kelly, suggesting that the world-famous celebrity is playing a world-famous celebrity. Baumbach cowrote the movie with Emily Mortimer, who costars in the feature. Other members of the ensemble include Adam Sandler, Billy Crudup, Laura Dern, Grace Edwards, Stacy Keach, Riley Keough, Patrick Wilson, Nicôle Lecky, Thaddea Graham, Jim Broadbent, Eve Hewson, Alba Rohrwacher, Lenny Henry, Josh Hamilton, and Baumbach's wife and frequent creative collaborator, Greta Gerwig. Online scuttlebutt — or wishful thinking — has suggested Jay Kelly is a showcase for Sandler in a supporting role and could be his ticket to long-deserved Academy recognition. Baumbach's previous Netflix movie was the polarizing White Noise, an adaptation of the Don DeLillo novel of the same name. Expect Jay Kelly to play a significant role in the fall festival season, particularly with that release date. Best of GoldDerby Sign up for Gold Derby's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Career Impact Academy on track for May 1 completion date
Mar. 31—GRAND FORKS — The Career Impact Academy is on track for a substantial completion date of May 1. The Grand Forks Public Schools Facilities Committee heard the construction update following the regular School Board meeting Monday evening. In the report, district officials noted that the project progressed much more quickly than expected and no delays are anticipated. "We have a plan to absolutely get this building completed on time and ready for students for the fall," district business manager Brandon Baumbach told the committee. Furniture for the academy is expected to arrive in July, and a ribbon-cutting and open house is tentatively scheduled for August. The project is expected to come in at just under $31 million and was funded primarily through the district's building fund. The building fund is being used now to drive forward an air handling unit project at Kelly Elementary School ($88,135) and the Central High School pool recommissioning project ($181,075), but after the completion of those projects and the academy, the fund will be given a bit of a breather, Baumbach said. The Facilities Committee will discuss long-term projects and other priorities at its upcoming meeting on April 16. The committee also received an update on the new Valley Middle School, which is now roughly halfway through construction and has a projected substantial completion date of December 2025. The $55 million project is now 8.72% under budget, although the numbers aren't yet final. The project is making good time, district Building and Grounds Director Jonathan Ellwein reported, but a bathroom bill currently being considered by the Legislature could set the project back significantly if passed. As the proposed policy is written now, Valley's bathroom designs — separated by gender but with a common hand-washing area — would likely be deemed noncompliant. The district is seeking clarification on whether the in-construction bathrooms would qualify as existing facilities under the proposal. "That is the one thing that could derail the finances on this project, but I think even getting some clarity on some of the language in the bill would help," Ellwein said Monday. Other updates heard by the committee Monday include the new Central High School kitchen, which achieved substantial completion last month and cost $5.136 million, coming in nearly 15% under budget, and a number of safety and security upgrades districtwide, which are now 2.25% over budget and with few exceptions are expected to be completed by the beginning of next school year. In other news, * School Board members approved a guaranteed maximum price for safety and security enhancements at Kelly Elementary School. The board approved a GMP of of $727,905 with a total project cost of $862,567. * The board's finance committee also recommended the board sign off on allocating Building Fund dollars to replace Lewis and Clark Elementary's broken intercom system, which is obsolete. The project is expected to cost $36,994, including a 10% contingency. Board members approved the funds. * Board members heard a financial update from Baumbach. Between July 1, 2024, and Feb. 28, the district's revenues are $84.5 million and expenditures are $72 million, "right where we'd expect us to be in the year," Baumbach said. Other expenses are also down 52%. The board voted to accept the general financial report. * The board voted to adopt a slate of policies without changes since the last reading. Among the amended policies is new guidance that School Board members do not have authority to resolve complaints about unlawful harassment or discrimination, and guidance that the board "will not hear, consider, or act upon personnel complaints and must remain neutral and uninvolved in the investigation process."
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Grand Forks Public Schools seeing few of its legislative goals advance
Mar. 26—GRAND FORKS — Just over halfway through the legislative session, many of Grand Forks Public Schools' policy goals are on ice. Forty-eight days into the 2025 legislative session, few of the proposals administrators and School Board members hoped for — and floated to state lawmakers — seem likely to become law. Bills increasing overall state funding or support for specific programs have been cut back or died on the floor, while legislation directing state dollars to private schools has trucked forward despite widespread opposition from public schools and teachers unions. "Even if bills showed strong support in the first half, this is the part where the rubber hits the road," district Business Manager Brandon Baumbach said. "I take the position of patience and doing the work." School funding bills appear largely set to fall short of the district's hopes. Superintendent Terry Brenner in December floated a 4% increase in state aid to schools for the 2025-26 school year. House Bill 1013, which passed the House 72-17 last month, only allocates a 2% increase for next year, with another 2% for 2026-27. A competing funding bill, HB 1369, at one point included funding formula increases for English learners and special education students — a cost the district has increasingly shouldered in recent years — but saw that provision stripped out in the version passed by the House. Bills offering free school meals for all students died in the House, and funding to cover cost overruns for the Grand Forks Career Impact Academy and other career and technical education centers across the state didn't make the Senate bill funding the Department of Career and Technical Education. Meanwhile, two bills that would create educational savings accounts for North Dakota students continue to work their way through the House and Senate. District officials oppose any kind of school choice legislation, though Brenner acknowledged last year that some form of school choice was likely to pass. At last week's Government Affairs Committee meeting, board member Jay Kleven floated the prospect of backing one bill over the other as a "pragmatic" compromise measure. Baumbach said Friday he's hopeful a lackluster revenue forecast earlier this month could tank school choice for another two years. "Even if they want to establish educational savings accounts — if it's a priority of this Legislature that might remain a priority, but with the budget forecast, it may say, 'things are getting too expensive, maybe we won't do that this time,"" Baumbach said. Grand Forks has racked up at least one win. On Monday, Gov. Kelly Armstrong signed Senate Bill 2149, which will allow school districts located on Air Force bases — like Grand Forks Air Force Base's Nathan Twining Elementary and Middle School — to access low-interest loans from the Bank of North Dakota reserved for public schools. That will help the district bankroll its 20% share of the new school set to be built on the base. A student transportation funding bill that cleared the House, HB 1214, includes specific funding for transit to and from career and technical education centers. "I'm happy they're considering it," Baumbach said. "Making sure all kid have access to the Career Impact Academy is a priority." Another bill, HB 1381, would reduce how much state aid is deducted from Grand Forks and other school districts' state payments based on their local revenues, potentially increasing overall spending for schools. Though the government affairs committee was established in part to lobby lawmakers — and has changed its regular meeting date and time three times to accommodate them — Grand Forks legislators have been largely absent from committee meetings since the session began. Only one lawmaker, Rep. Mark Sanford, called into a Feb. 20 committee meeting, for 11 minutes. Baumbach and committee and School Board member Josh Anderson separately defended lawmakers' absenteeism, pointing to state legislators' busy and often hectic schedules. Anderson further said lawmakers remain accessible to the committee via email and other forms of communication. According to his weekly schedule, Brenner met with lawmakers as part of a weekend meeting of Team Grand Forks earlier this month. He did not respond to a Herald query asking if he could share details from that meeting. Though the House and Senate must sign off on the same version of a bill before it becomes law, bills that have advanced from one chamber to the next are not necessarily final. If lawmakers vote to amend a bill received from another chamber, House and Senate members must meet to work out a compromise bill that can then be voted on. Asked for his feelings at this point in the session, Anderson deferred judgment. "I don't know if I can directly say how we feel right now at this point, because we're really just past crossover (in the Legislature)," he said. "There's a lot of things that could still happen and come out of this." Aimee Copas, executive director of the North Dakota Council of Educational Leaders, made a similar observation to the Herald on Monday. This session got "mixed reviews" for public school support, she said, but most of the K-12 bills in the Legislature had not yet been signed into law. "Much of the priorities really come down to the final days and how the big K-12 funding bills shake out and how the final policy bills pass or die," she wrote in an email to the Herald.
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Grand Forks Public Schools has recovered approximately half of $2.2 million swindled last year
Feb. 25—GRAND FORKS — Law enforcement has been able to recover more than half of the $2.2 million defrauded from Grand Forks Public Schools last summer, according to Business Manager Brandon Baumbach. Authorities were able to recover $1,296,935 of the more than $2 million defrauded from the district, and received an additional $100,000 payout from social engineering — otherwise known as phishing — insurance, Baumbach shared at Monday's School Board meeting. That leaves the district with a net loss of $842,730, taken from the district's building fund — meaning the loss has not impacted funding for day-to-day operations. Baumbach also shared that the fraudulent wire transfer took place on Aug. 16, and was discovered during the following billing cycle. A police report was first filed by the district on Sept. 13. In the aftermath of the discovery, Baumbach said, the district froze all external transfers, and contacted its bank, the Grand Forks Police Department and the Internet Crime Complaint Center, run by the FBI. He reiterated the fraud is an isolated incident, and that there is no reason to suspect internal fraud or embezzlement. He said staff followed internal protocols, but this had not prevented the fraud. "It is important to highlight the district personnel in the business office were victims of a crime," Baumbach said. While the district's IT system was not breached, Baumbach said administrators were providing new cybersecurity training and implementing multifactor authentication across the district. In response to a question from board member Amber Flynn, Baumbach said the district had looked into increasing its phishing coverage but found most insurers were unwilling to increase their coverage past $200,000. Grand Forks Police Department Lt. Andrew Stein told the Herald the fraud investigation remains active and ongoing. Police provided no new documents relating to the investigation in response to an open records request filed by the Herald. "It is true the investigation is not quite done, and it's my understanding it might not be for a long, long time. We thought an update to the community was deserved," Baumbach said. In other news from Monday's board meeting: * Board members decided redrawing school boundaries needs more time and resident input . * IT specialist Logan Corneliusen was honored as the classified employee of the quarter, while Lisa Vojacek, a Valley Middle School instructional coach, was the certified employee of the quarter. * Board members signed off on a Head Start Quality Improvement Plan. * Finance committee members are considering a request for proposal for new busing software capable of electronically tracking students and sharing bus route updates with families, among other improvements. * School Board members signed off on a bid with a guaranteed maximum price of $690,556 for safety and security upgrades to Lake Agassiz Elementary, coming in $85,571 under projected expenses. * The board also signed off on a plan to replace the district's aging Apple laptops by leasing new Macbook Airs. IT Manager Darin King said the district is pursuing resale options for its current laptops, which were purchased outright using federal coronavirus relief dollars. * The 2025-26 school year will begin on Wednesday, Aug. 26, for kindergarten through ninth-grade students and Thursday, Aug. 27 for 10th- through 12th-graders, and end for all on Thursday, May 28, 2026. Board members also tentatively OK'd start dates of Aug. 26 and 27, 2026, and an end date of May 27, 2027, for the following school year. * Board members approved establishing a virtual high school for district students, effective for the 2025-26 school year. * School Board members again found Terry Brenner's performance as superintendent to be satisfactory in his latest evaluation, though some board members dinged Brenner for not communicating proactively with them and again complained about the breadth of the evaluation.
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Grand Forks officials, nonprofits relieved after Trump administration backs down from funding freeze
Jan. 29—GRAND FORKS — Local officials expressed relief after the White House backed down on an order to halt trillions of dollars in federal support. The Trump administration on Wednesday rescinded a budget office memo calling for a spending freeze on federal grants and loans less than 24 hours after the order was blocked by a federal judge. The broadly written memo, issued Monday, generated widespread confusion as federal agencies attempted to parse out what of their funding to halt and state and local entities waited anxiously to find out whether the flow of federal dollars would be interrupted. In Grand Forks, the White House order threatened to disrupt construction projects, university research, public transportation, plans to expand air service at Grand Forks International Airport and local efforts to combat homelessness. "I still don't understand the full intention of what the memo meant to do, so I'm glad they took a second to reassess their approach," said Brandon Baumbach, business manager at Grand Forks Public Schools. A little more than 10% of the school district's funding — more than $14 million — is set to come from federal sources this year. An Education Department spokesperson clarified Tuesday the funding freeze would not affect formula funding for low-income students, special education and the cost of operating the Grand Forks Air Force Base school district. That still left millions in funding up in the air, including a promised 80/20 federal match to build a new Nathan Twining Elementary and Middle School on the air base. After learning of the funding freeze, the district business office on Tuesday attempted to request a partial reimbursement for around $650,000 of design work on the base school, only to find themselves unable to submit the request through an online portal. Medicaid and Head Start providers nationwide reported similar difficulties accessing online federal reimbursement portals Tuesday, even though the White House later clarified those programs were supposed to be exempted. In Grand Forks, Head Start did not experience the disruption, according to Tracey Johnson, director of the local program. Baumbach said he planned to review discretionary grants received by the district and assess the likelihood they could be subject to a future hold by the Trump administration. "We're aware of some of the administration's thinking, so that will guide our own analysis and what we should be thinking about going forward," Baumbach said. "It alarmed us, and so it had our attention, and now it has our attention." The original memo, from the Office of Management and Budget, purported to target "Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies." City Administrator Todd Feland said federal funds pay for half of the city's operating costs for public transportation, which it receives via reimbursement in a similar manner to the school district. He said a protracted hold on federal funds could have disrupted summer road projects the city had not yet bid out as well as the $99 million expansion of the city's wastewater treatment plant. "If there was a long delay, we would have missed construction season," Feland said. It could have also delayed plans to add a new air carrier at Grand Forks International Airport, since the city has not yet received the $1 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation to fund start-up costs. Some were still parsing out the expected impact of the White House memo when it was rescinded. Grand Forks Public Health Director Tess Wall said her agency spent much of the last two days conferring with the state Department of Health and Human Services, which distributes federal dollars to local public health agencies like Grand Forks'. "It was a lot of waiting for clarity on specifics," Wall said. "There really wasn't enough information to make any action." Around 39% of Grand Forks Public Health's funding comes from the federal government, Wall said, and pays for programs like chronic disease support, early screenings for breast and cervical cancer, and its tuberculosis program. Grand Forks County officials had been working to determine if the freeze would affect the county Emergency Management Office or one of its Defense Department grants, County Administrator Tom Ford told the Herald in a Tuesday text message. As of Wednesday morning, UND administrators were still parsing through programs that could have been affected by the wide-ranging order. The Trump order had been expected to disrupt research grants from agencies like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Scott Snyder, vice president of research and economic development, told the Herald on Wednesday morning he'd received "relatively vague" messages from the NSF and the Department of Energy, and nothing from the NIH. The Trump administration ordered federal health agencies to pause all external communications last week, which Snyder noted had almost certainly contributed to the lack of a response from the NIH. UND had around $66 million in federal research expenditures during its 2023 fiscal year. Federal grants and contracts totaled more than $104 million for the university last year, according to Finance and Operations VP Karla Mongeon-Stewart. A statement attributed to university spokesperson Meloney Linder said UND was "pleased" to hear the freeze order had been rescinded and that the university would continue to monitor the situation. Derek Sporbert, director of UND's TRIO programs, had expected the federally-funded programs for low-income and first-generation students to shut down in a matter of weeks if the funding hold was not resolved. He told the Herald in a text message he was "relieved" the memo had been rescinded and that the situation emphasized the need to work with lawmakers to ensure the program's future. "Our ND legislators have always fiercely defended and supported TRIO in our area, and we realize that we work with students from all backgrounds and life situation(s) much broader than the scope of DEI or other types of programs," Sporbert wrote. The Monday budget memo explicitly mentioned DEI, or diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which the Trump administration described as "illegal and immoral" in a Jan. 20 executive order. A hold on federal funds could have also disrupted efforts to confront homelessness in Grand Forks, to which the city has allocated much of its recent Community Development Block Grant funding. City Council's Committee of the Whole signed off on allocating CDBG capital funds to update the fire alarm system at Northlands Rescue Mission this week, Executive Director Sue Shirek noted. Many homeless providers in North Dakota had been unable to access funding while the freeze was in effect, Shirek said, which threatened to disrupt support to already vulnerable people. United Way Executive Director Heather Novak said the nonprofit is banking on $195,000 in CDBG funds to cover security and energy efficiency improvements to two apartment complexes the nonprofit recently purchased to house homeless families. Paying that out-of-pocket would mean less funding toward United Way's family assistance programs. The nonprofit is also worried about funding disruptions for the rental assistance and utility assistance it issues to keep struggling families from becoming homeless in the first place. Novak remains concerned how long the status quo would hold. "Right now, everything is changing so rapidly that you're kind of just a sitting duck," she said. "We're waiting to hear what's going to happen, and we'll pivot any way that things move."
