Latest news with #Department
The Age
an hour ago
- Business
- The Age
Trump says he will double steel, aluminium tariffs to 50 per cent
'They are an act of economic self-harm that will only hurt consumers and businesses who rely on free and fair trade. We will continue to engage and advocate strongly for the removal of the tariffs,' Farrell said. Australia exported $640 million worth of steel and $440 million of aluminium last year to the US. The cumulative $1 billion trade is a small amount compared to the nation's total exports of $660 billion in the past financial year. Opposition trade spokesman Kevin Hogan said the latest move was concerning for Australian jobs. 'The Albanese government needs to double its efforts to protect our steel industry and local jobs for our steel workers,' he said in a statement on Saturday. 'This is why it is imperative that the Australian prime minister personally meets with President Trump ... to develop a personal rapport with the United States president and protect Australian industries.' The steel and aluminium tariffs were enacted under trade laws rather than emergency powers, and were not among those struck down by the decision of the Court of International Trade this week. Those tariffs – which include a 10 per cent levy on Australian goods – will remain in place after a federal appeals court agreed to temporarily preserve them while the government pursues an appeal. The matter is almost certain to be decided by the Supreme Court. In February, Trump told Prime Minister Anthony Albanese he would consider giving Australia an exemption to the tariffs on steel and aluminium. Australia received a carve out during the first Trump administration. But the US president decided against giving any exemptions this time. Earlier on Friday, Trump also registered his frustration with China – which he accused of reneging on a tariff truce negotiated earlier this month – raising the prospect of additional import taxes. 'China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US. So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!,' Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. Steel prices in the US have climbed 16 per cent since Trump became president in mid-January, according to the government's Producer Price Index, and such a dramatic increase in steel tariffs could push prices even higher. In March 2025, steel cost $US984 ($1535) a metric tonne in the US, significantly more than the price in Europe ($1076) or China ($611), according to the US Commerce Department. The US produced about three times more steel than it imported last year, with Canada, Brazil, Mexico and South Korea being the largest sources of steel imports. Loading While Trump initially vowed to block the Japanese steelmaker's bid to buy US Steel, he reversed course and announced an agreement last week for what he described as 'partial ownership' by Nippon. It's unclear, though, if the deal his administration helped broker has been finalised or how ownership would be structured. Analysts have credited tariffs going back to Trump's first term with helping strengthen the domestic steel industry, something that Nippon Steel wanted to capitalise on in its offer to buy US Steel. The United Steelworkers union remained sceptical of Nippon's planned investment. Its president, David McCall, said in a statement that the union was most concerned 'with the impact that this merger of US Steel into a foreign competitor will have on national security, our members and the communities where we live and work'. Trump stressed the deal would maintain American control of the storied company, which is seen as both a political symbol and an important matter for the country's supply chain, industries such as car manufacturing and national security. Trump, who has been eager to strike deals and announce new investments in the US since retaking the White House, is also trying to satisfy voters, including blue-collar workers, who elected him as he called to protect American manufacturing. US Steel has not publicly communicated any details of a revamped deal to investors. Nippon Steel issued a statement approving of the proposed 'partnership' but also has not disclosed terms of the arrangement. No matter the terms, the issue has outsized importance for Trump, who last year repeatedly said he would block the deal and foreign ownership of US Steel, as did former president Joe Biden. Trump promised during the election campaign to make the revitalisation of American manufacturing a priority of his second term in office. The fate of US Steel, once the world's largest corporation, could become a political liability in the midterm elections for his Republican Party in the swing state of Pennsylvania and other battleground states dependent on industrial manufacturing. Trump has said he wouldn't approve the deal if US Steel did not remain under American control and keep its headquarters in Pittsburgh.
Miami Herald
3 hours ago
- Politics
- Miami Herald
After Uvalde, school mental health grants had bipartisan support. Now Trump is cutting them.
Schools will likely have to lay off social workers and counselors, and college programs designed to train mental health providers may shut down after the Trump administration decided it would stop funding grants created under a bipartisan law passed in response to mass school shootings. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act came on the heels of the devastating 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 elementary schoolers and two teachers. Gun control remains a deeply divisive issue, but Democrats and Republicans agreed: Schools should get more money to address students' mental health needs. They set aside $1 billion to do that. When it came time to distribute that money, the Biden administration gave applicants the option to show how they planned to diversify the mental health profession and prepare educators to work with kids from diverse backgrounds-in a bid to help students who often have higher needs but struggle to access care outside of school. Now schools that tailored their proposals to meet that criteria appear to be among those losing their funding. "The Department has determined these grantees are violating the letter or purpose of Federal civil rights law; conflict with the Department's policy of prioritizing merit, fairness, and excellence in education; undermine the well-being of the students these programs are intended to help; or constitute an inappropriate use of federal funds," Brandy Brown, the deputy assistant secretary for K-12 education, wrote in an email to members of Congress the night of April 29. The Education Department has the authority to stop funding multiyear grant recipients, but it rarely does so. The state education agencies in Colorado, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin were among the grantees that lost their funding. So did the San Diego County Office of Education, Lincoln Public Schools in Nebraska, and Teachers College at Columbia University, which was supporting efforts in New York City schools. "Grant recipients used the funding to implement race-based actions like recruiting quotas in ways that have nothing to do with mental health and could hurt the very students the grants are supposed to help," Madi Biedermann, an Education Department spokesperson, wrote in an email to Chalkbeat. The Trump administration is objecting, in particular, to the Biden administration's decision to give schools more points on their grant application if they planned to increase the number of mental health staffers from diverse backgrounds or who were from the communities where they'd be working with kids. The federal notice didn't say what counted as "diverse," and it noted that any hiring strategies used by schools had to follow federal civil rights laws. "We were not there to say that this meant there had to be any type of racial quotas, or it had to be along the lines or race, or ability, or language," said Mary Wall, who until January served as the Education Department's deputy assistant secretary for P-12 education. "We simply said it would be wise and we encourage applicants to make hires of school-based mental health professionals that are reflective of the communities that they're serving." Many schools expected to get three or four more years of funding, but now the grants will run out in December. Wall said schools were well on their way to hitting the goal of hiring and training 14,000 mental health professionals, but these cuts put that at risk. "Not giving grant continuations has an extreme impact on whether or not the work can continue," she said. That's already happening in some places. Teachers College had begun training five graduate students to provide mental health services in schools, and was preparing to send offer letters to eight more when the college found out it had lost its $4.9 million five-year grant. The Trump administration ended it back in March when it terminated $400 million in funding for Columbia University. Those trainees, many of whom were bilingual or first-generation college students who couldn't otherwise afford graduate school were slated to work in high-need schools in Harlem and East Harlem-parts of New York City where many newly arrived immigrants live and families often struggle to find stable housing. Now, schools won't get the year of free services those trainees were going to provide, such as therapy and parent training. And there will be gaps in the future pipeline, too. "We were going to be producing professionals who would be working in these settings delivering school-based mental health services for years to come, ideally their entire careers," said Prerna Arora, an associate professor of psychology and education at Teachers College who was overseeing the grant. "We are in desperate need of these types of professionals." Cuts to mental health grants part of anti-DEI push The cuts appear to be part of the Trump administration's broader attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and exemplify how the administration is using the Supreme Court's ruling that barred affirmative action in higher education to target a much wider set of DEI practices in K-12 schools. Already, the Trump administration has threatened to withhold federal education funding from states that won't sign off on its contested interpretation of what constitutes racial discrimination under federal civil rights law-a policy that's currently on hold as several legal challenges work their way through the courts. The Trump administration is investigating Chicago Public Schools for launching a Black student success plan and has sought to dismantle other practices, such as forming staff affinity groups based on race or allowing college students to participate in separate graduation ceremonies that celebrate their race or heritage. It is unclear exactly how many of the 265 grantees listed on the Education Department's website lost their funding and how much money was clawed back. On May 1, an Education Department spokesperson said they could not provide a list of which school districts, states, or colleges lost their funding. The Education Department told members of Congress that the terminated grants were worth $1 billion, but that is almost certainly an overestimate, Wall said, as many grantees had already spent a chunk of their money. The grants paid for 1,500 to 2,000 new mental health providers to work in schools across the U.S. in the first year alone, Wall said. It also appears some schools kept their grants. The Indiana Department of Education, Fort Wayne Community Schools in Indiana, and Normal Public Schools in Oklahoma all told Chalkbeat they hadn't been contacted about changes to their funding. The pandemic helped bring the need for more school-based mental health workers into sharp relief as many schools saw a spike in children experiencing depression, anxiety, or other kinds of stress. So did the many unaddressed warning signs exhibited by the teenage gunman in Uvalde, who spoke often of violence and targeted the classroom where he was once bullied. That, and similar cases in other school shootings, led Congress to invest in mental health staff as a school safety measure. With the help of federal COVID relief funds, many schools launched teletherapy services to address in-person staff shortages and to connect kids with bilingual therapists, male counselors, or mental health workers of color-who are often in especially short supply, but can form close connections with kids who look like them or who faced similar challenges growing up. While there isn't much research on the effects of pairing school-based mental health workers with kids of similar backgrounds, "we do know in research outside of the school environment that it's actually really beneficial for students of color to have therapists or mental health supports from folks within their own communities," said Nancy Duchesneau, a senior P-12 research associate who studies children's social and emotional well-being at the nonprofit EdTrust. "If you have students of color in a school, you really do want adults in the building-teachers, school counselors, mental health supports-who are of the same race and ethnicity to be able to better understand where students are coming from and make sure that the interventions or supports that they receive are not based on bias, but are truly based upon the needs of the students," Duchesneau said. Chris Rufo, the influential conservative activist, was the first to publicize the mental health grant cuts, the Associated Press reported. Rufo's social media posts have prompted the Trump administration to cancel other education spending. This time, Rufo posted examples from the grant proposals on the social media site X that he said were being used to "advance left-wing racialism and discrimination." The Education Department pointed to some of those same examples when explaining what it found objectionable about the grants. One grantee planned to hire 24 new school counselors and set a goal for eight to be people of color, an Education Department spokesperson told Chalkbeat. Other grantees said they would train therapists to address racial trauma or help mental health workers use a "critical compassion perspective," instead of a colorblind perspective that assumes race and skin color don't matter. Another grantee wrote that they were training the next generation of school counselors "to recognize and challenge systemic injustices, antiracism, and the pervasiveness of white supremacy." State officials condemn-and applaud-the cuts Some officials agreed with the move. In a statement, Ryan Walters, the superintendent of Oklahoma's schools, said he applauded the Trump administration for "taking bold action to eliminate these misguided programs." Oklahoma had planned to spend $1.9 million a year to help teachers, community members, and clinicians get retrained to work as mental health staff in schools before the state lost its funding. "These grants were never about addressing real mental health needs, they were about pushing a political agenda into our classrooms," Walters said in the statement, adding that his education agency was "forced" to apply for the money by state lawmakers. "We made our opposition clear then, and we stand by it today." Other state officials condemned the cuts. In Colorado, Jeremy Meyer, a spokesperson for the state's education agency, said the state was "deeply disappointed" by the Trump administration's decision to end Colorado's grant, which was expected to total $7.5 million over five years. Now the state will get just $1.5 million. The state was still rolling out its program to help schools recruit and retrain mental health staff so "no funds had yet been distributed to the field," Meyer wrote. Jill Underly, Wisconsin's state superintendent, said in a news release that the decision to eliminate $8 million of the state's planned $10 million grant was "indefensible" at a time "when communities are urgently asking for help." Already, she wrote, the federal grant had helped Wisconsin schools hire an additional 350 mental health staffers and helped enroll 500 new graduate students in the University of Wisconsin's certification program. "Kids don't get a chance to do-over their school experience while the federal government recalibrates its political agenda," Underly wrote. "These disruptions need to stop." Chalkbeat's New York bureau chief Amy Zimmer contributed reporting. This story was produced by Chalkbeat and reviewed and distributed by Stacker. © Stacker Media, LLC.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
After Uvalde, school mental health grants had bipartisan support. Now Trump is cutting them.
Schools will likely have to lay off social workers and counselors, and college programs designed to train mental health providers may shut down after the Trump administration decided it would stop funding grants created under a bipartisan law passed in response to mass school shootings. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act came on the heels of the devastating 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 elementary schoolers and two teachers. Gun control remains a deeply divisive issue, but Democrats and Republicans agreed: Schools should get more money to address students' mental health needs. They set aside $1 billion to do that. When it came time to distribute that money, the Biden administration gave applicants the option to show how they planned to diversify the mental health profession and prepare educators to work with kids from diverse backgrounds—in a bid to help students who often have higher needs but struggle to access care outside of school. Now schools that tailored their proposals to meet that criteria appear to be among those losing their funding. "The Department has determined these grantees are violating the letter or purpose of Federal civil rights law; conflict with the Department's policy of prioritizing merit, fairness, and excellence in education; undermine the well-being of the students these programs are intended to help; or constitute an inappropriate use of federal funds," Brandy Brown, the deputy assistant secretary for K-12 education, wrote in an email to members of Congress the night of April 29. The Education Department has the authority to stop funding multiyear grant recipients, but it rarely does so. The state education agencies in Colorado, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin were among the grantees that lost their funding. So did the San Diego County Office of Education, Lincoln Public Schools in Nebraska, and Teachers College at Columbia University, which was supporting efforts in New York City schools. "Grant recipients used the funding to implement race-based actions like recruiting quotas in ways that have nothing to do with mental health and could hurt the very students the grants are supposed to help," Madi Biedermann, an Education Department spokesperson, wrote in an email to Chalkbeat. The Trump administration is objecting, in particular, to the Biden administration's decision to give schools more points on their grant application if they planned to increase the number of mental health staffers from diverse backgrounds or who were from the communities where they'd be working with kids. The federal notice didn't say what counted as "diverse," and it noted that any hiring strategies used by schools had to follow federal civil rights laws. "We were not there to say that this meant there had to be any type of racial quotas, or it had to be along the lines or race, or ability, or language," said Mary Wall, who until January served as the Education Department's deputy assistant secretary for P-12 education. "We simply said it would be wise and we encourage applicants to make hires of school-based mental health professionals that are reflective of the communities that they're serving." Many schools expected to get three or four more years of funding, but now the grants will run out in December. Wall said schools were well on their way to hitting the goal of hiring and training 14,000 mental health professionals, but these cuts put that at risk. "Not giving grant continuations has an extreme impact on whether or not the work can continue," she said. That's already happening in some places. Teachers College had begun training five graduate students to provide mental health services in schools, and was preparing to send offer letters to eight more when the college found out it had lost its $4.9 million five-year grant. The Trump administration ended it back in March when it terminated $400 million in funding for Columbia University. Those trainees, many of whom were bilingual or first-generation college students who couldn't otherwise afford graduate school were slated to work in high-need schools in Harlem and East Harlem—parts of New York City where many newly arrived immigrants live and families often struggle to find stable housing. Now, schools won't get the year of free services those trainees were going to provide, such as therapy and parent training. And there will be gaps in the future pipeline, too. "We were going to be producing professionals who would be working in these settings delivering school-based mental health services for years to come, ideally their entire careers," said Prerna Arora, an associate professor of psychology and education at Teachers College who was overseeing the grant. "We are in desperate need of these types of professionals." The cuts appear to be part of the Trump administration's broader attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and exemplify how the administration is using the Supreme Court's ruling that barred affirmative action in higher education to target a much wider set of DEI practices in K-12 schools. Already, the Trump administration has threatened to withhold federal education funding from states that won't sign off on its contested interpretation of what constitutes racial discrimination under federal civil rights law—a policy that's currently on hold as several legal challenges work their way through the courts. The Trump administration is investigating Chicago Public Schools for launching a Black student success plan and has sought to dismantle other practices, such as forming staff affinity groups based on race or allowing college students to participate in separate graduation ceremonies that celebrate their race or heritage. It is unclear exactly how many of the 265 grantees listed on the Education Department's website lost their funding and how much money was clawed back. On May 1, an Education Department spokesperson said they could not provide a list of which school districts, states, or colleges lost their funding. The Education Department told members of Congress that the terminated grants were worth $1 billion, but that is almost certainly an overestimate, Wall said, as many grantees had already spent a chunk of their money. The grants paid for 1,500 to 2,000 new mental health providers to work in schools across the U.S. in the first year alone, Wall said. It also appears some schools kept their grants. The Indiana Department of Education, Fort Wayne Community Schools in Indiana, and Normal Public Schools in Oklahoma all told Chalkbeat they hadn't been contacted about changes to their funding. The pandemic helped bring the need for more school-based mental health workers into sharp relief as many schools saw a spike in children experiencing depression, anxiety, or other kinds of stress. So did the many unaddressed warning signs exhibited by the teenage gunman in Uvalde, who spoke often of violence and targeted the classroom where he was once bullied. That, and similar cases in other school shootings, led Congress to invest in mental health staff as a school safety measure. With the help of federal COVID relief funds, many schools launched teletherapy services to address in-person staff shortages and to connect kids with bilingual therapists, male counselors, or mental health workers of color—who are often in especially short supply, but can form close connections with kids who look like them or who faced similar challenges growing up. While there isn't much research on the effects of pairing school-based mental health workers with kids of similar backgrounds, "we do know in research outside of the school environment that it's actually really beneficial for students of color to have therapists or mental health supports from folks within their own communities," said Nancy Duchesneau, a senior P-12 research associate who studies children's social and emotional well-being at the nonprofit EdTrust. "If you have students of color in a school, you really do want adults in the building—teachers, school counselors, mental health supports—who are of the same race and ethnicity to be able to better understand where students are coming from and make sure that the interventions or supports that they receive are not based on bias, but are truly based upon the needs of the students," Duchesneau said. Chris Rufo, the influential conservative activist, was the first to publicize the mental health grant cuts, the Associated Press reported. Rufo's social media posts have prompted the Trump administration to cancel other education spending. This time, Rufo posted examples from the grant proposals on the social media site X that he said were being used to "advance left-wing racialism and discrimination." The Education Department pointed to some of those same examples when explaining what it found objectionable about the grants. One grantee planned to hire 24 new school counselors and set a goal for eight to be people of color, an Education Department spokesperson told Chalkbeat. Other grantees said they would train therapists to address racial trauma or help mental health workers use a "critical compassion perspective," instead of a colorblind perspective that assumes race and skin color don't matter. Another grantee wrote that they were training the next generation of school counselors "to recognize and challenge systemic injustices, antiracism, and the pervasiveness of white supremacy." Some officials agreed with the move. In a statement, Ryan Walters, the superintendent of Oklahoma's schools, said he applauded the Trump administration for "taking bold action to eliminate these misguided programs." Oklahoma had planned to spend $1.9 million a year to help teachers, community members, and clinicians get retrained to work as mental health staff in schools before the state lost its funding. "These grants were never about addressing real mental health needs, they were about pushing a political agenda into our classrooms," Walters said in the statement, adding that his education agency was "forced" to apply for the money by state lawmakers. "We made our opposition clear then, and we stand by it today." Other state officials condemned the cuts. In Colorado, Jeremy Meyer, a spokesperson for the state's education agency, said the state was "deeply disappointed" by the Trump administration's decision to end Colorado's grant, which was expected to total $7.5 million over five years. Now the state will get just $1.5 million. The state was still rolling out its program to help schools recruit and retrain mental health staff so "no funds had yet been distributed to the field," Meyer wrote. Jill Underly, Wisconsin's state superintendent, said in a news release that the decision to eliminate $8 million of the state's planned $10 million grant was "indefensible" at a time "when communities are urgently asking for help." Already, she wrote, the federal grant had helped Wisconsin schools hire an additional 350 mental health staffers and helped enroll 500 new graduate students in the University of Wisconsin's certification program. "Kids don't get a chance to do-over their school experience while the federal government recalibrates its political agenda," Underly wrote. "These disruptions need to stop." Chalkbeat's New York bureau chief Amy Zimmer contributed reporting. This story was produced by Chalkbeat and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
When is Ohio's sales tax holiday? What items are eligible?
Ohio's sales tax holiday for 2025 will be Aug. 1-14, Gov. Mike DeWine announced on May 30. 'The timing of this year's sales tax holiday not only supports families preparing for back-to-school, but also provides relief on other important household needs,' DeWine said in a statement. During the holiday, shoppers will be able to make qualifying purchases both in-store and online without paying state sales tax. Almost all tangible personal property priced at $500 or less is tax-free. Here are some examples of items that will be tax-free: Electronics: Computers, televisions, and other gadgets Clothing: Any apparel items Books: All types, including novels and textbooks Home Goods: Furniture, kitchenware, and home decor Plants: Indoor and outdoor plants Sporting Goods: Equipment and apparel for sports Food and Beverages: Dine-in food, dietary supplements, and soft drinks Note: These are just examples. Many other items will also be exempt from sales tax during this period. Stay up to date: Sign up for The Scoop, our weekly newsletter on Ohio politics The tax exemption does not apply to services or to purchases of motor vehicles, watercraft, outboard motors, alcohol, tobacco, vapor products, or any item containing marijuana. For full details, including eligible items and frequently asked questions, visit the Ohio Department of Taxation's Sales Tax Holiday page. You can also contact the Department by email or by calling 1-888-405-4039. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio sales tax holiday 2025: When is it? What items will be included?
Sharjah 24
8 hours ago
- Business
- Sharjah 24
SSSD's "Intaj" Centre organises Eid Al Adha exhibition
The exhibition is held from May 29 to June 1 at Al Rahmaniya Centre, featuring participation from productive families in Sharjah and other branches across the Emirate. Diverse Product Packages on Display Families will showcase a variety of themed collections, including a package for traditional crafts, a package for clothing and accessories, and a package for handmade items. All products have been specially curated to suit the festive atmosphere of Eid. High Public Demand and Strong Community Support Maryam Al Hammadi, Director of the Centre, stated that productive families eagerly anticipate the arrival of Eid Al Fitr and Eid Al Adha in preparation for participating in the exhibition, which continues to draw high public turnout—especially in residential areas near shopping centres. The exhibition has grown to build a loyal fan base among those who appreciate elegance and craftsmanship, thanks to the Department's ongoing commitment to its members in the "Intaj" Centre and its desire to bring them joy by providing an additional income stream to improve their financial well-being. This support has been reflected in external showcases, the launch of an online store, and assistance in obtaining trade licenses from the Sharjah Economic Development Department at affordable rates. Homemade Goods with Natural Ingredients The showcased products are known for being authentically homemade, featuring natural ingredients. The range also includes clothing, accessories, and handmade crafts that align with the needs and traditions of Eid Al Adha. Attractive Promotional Offers Notably, shoppers can take advantage of exciting promotional offers: any customer who spends AED 300 will receive a shopping voucher courtesy of the Sharjah Cooperative Society.
