This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with the Idaho Statesman. Sign up for Dispatches to get our stories in your inbox every week.

Time and again, the U.S. Department of Education has been the last resort for parents who say the state of Idaho has failed to educate their children. The federal agency in 2023 ordered Idaho to stop blocking some students with learning disabilities, like dyslexia, from special education. That same year, it flagged that the state’s own reviews of districts and charters obscured the fact that just 20% were fully complying with the federal disability law. Last year, it told the state it must end long delays in services for infants and toddlers with disabilities, which could include speech or physical therapy.

Now President Donald Trump has pledged to dismantle the department.

Idaho’s superintendent of public instruction Debbie Critchfield has celebrated the proposal. She insisted that the move would not change the requirement that states provide special education to students who need it. That would take an act of Congress.

But parents and advocates for students with disabilities say they are worried that no one will effectively ensure schools follow special education law.

“Historically, when left to their own devices, states don’t necessarily do the right thing for kids with disabilities and their families,” said Larry Wexler, a former division director at the federal Office of Special Education Programs, who retired last year after decades at the department.

Former federal Education Department employees who worked on special education monitoring said oversight measures would likely be hampered by the layoffs, which included attorneys who worked with the special education office to provide state monitoring reports.

Gregg Corr, a former division director with that office, said that without the group of attorneys who were focused on enforcing special education law, it will be “really difficult for staff to finalize and issue these reports to states.” He added there may also be a reluctance to take on more complicated issues without running them by attorneys.

“What might have been, you know, inconsistent with the legal requirements six months ago may be fine now — it just depends on how it’s interpreted,” Wexler said.

For parents who have been fighting for services for years, the federal oversight has been critical.

After Ashley Brittain, an attorney and mom to children with dyslexia, moved to Idaho in 2021, she realized a key problem: Idaho’s criteria for qualifying students with specific learning disabilities such as dyslexia or dysgraphia was so narrow it disqualified some eligible students from receiving services, she said.

Historically, when left to their own devices, states don’t necessarily do the right thing for kids with disabilities and their families.

Together with Robin Zikmund, the founder of Decoding Dyslexia Idaho who has a son with dyslexia and dysgraphia, Brittain has spent years trying to get the state to acknowledge the disability and provide services to dozens of kids who needed help.

“We’re at the table time and time again, at the eligibility table, where school teams wouldn’t qualify our dyslexic students,” Zikmund previously told the Idaho Statesman and ProPublica. “And it was like, ‘What is going on?’”

Brittain called state officials and told them they were breaking the law. State officials disagreed. No one took action, she said. In 2022, she wrote to the Office of Special Education Programs. In the letter she sent to the federal department, she said the Idaho Department of Education, under former superintendent Sherri Ybarra, was “refusing to entertain any conversations” about changing the way it determined which students were eligible for special education. Ybarra could not be reached for comment.

Before Congress passed what is now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1975 and created the U.S. Department of Education as an agency under the Cabinet about five years later, Brittain would have been on her own.

At the time, nearly 1.8 million students with disabilities weren’t being served by the public schools, according to estimates. Some states had laws prohibiting students with certain disabilities from attending public schools, according to the federal government’s own history.

The law granted students with disabilities access to a “free appropriate public education” — fitting the individual needs of the student — and gave money to states to fulfill the promise. Now, the law also guarantees infants and toddlers with disabilities access to early interventions, such as physical or speech therapy.

The U.S. Department of Education has since been responsible for making sure states follow the law, providing reviews of state performance, distributing money and offering technical assistance to help states improve learning outcomes for students in special education.

The department conducts an annual review of each state, and a more intensive one that’s supposed to be completed roughly every five years. The annual reviews look at discipline numbers, graduation rates and test scores to identify problems and help states to fix them. A five-year review includes a visit to the state and a look at state policies, student data and annual reports. When states need to take corrective action, the federal special education office monitors that they are making the changes.

Idaho is one of about a dozen states currently being monitored, according to the most recent updates on the federal agency’s website.

We’re at the table time and time again, at the eligibility table, where school teams wouldn’t qualify our dyslexic students. And it was like, ‘What is going on?’

Parent complaints can also trigger a review, as was the case with Brittain in Idaho. After Brittain alleged that the state was wrongfully keeping kids with dyslexia and other disabilities from special education, she waited over a year before she got an answer from the Office of Special Education Programs: She was right. Idaho, it turned out, accepted a lower percentage of students with specific learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, into special education compared to other states — about half the national average, according to the most recent data reported to the U.S. Department of Education from the 2022-2023 school year.

By then, Idaho had a new state superintendent of public instruction, Critchfield, for whom Brittain campaigned. The Office of Special Education Programs told Critchfield in 2023 that the state needed to demonstrate its policies complied with federal law or update them.

In response, the Idaho Department of Education has updated its special education manual, which has since been approved by the Legislature. It has also directed school districts to review every student found ineligible for special education since 2023 to determine if they needed to be reevaluated.

Parents in Idaho celebrated the victory, which could make it easier for some kids to qualify in a state that has one of the lowest percentages of students who receive special education. But they acknowledged the fix wasn’t perfect and left out students who may have been found ineligible for special education before the federal office identified the problem. The state isn’t tracking the number of students who have since qualified due to the change.

Nicole Fuller, a policy manager at the National Center for Learning Disabilities, said a case like this, in which some students are being missed, “truly underscores the need for federal oversight, and, of course, holding states accountable for accurately identifying disabilities.”

Federal oversight isn’t perfect. By the time Idaho addressed Brittain’s complaint, the state had been out of compliance since at least 2015. States that fall out of compliance can be at risk of losing federal funding, although that penalty does not appear to have been used in decades.

The federal government has never fulfilled its promise to fund 40% of each state’s special education costs, but Idaho relied on federal funding for about 18% — around $60 million — of its special education budget during the 2022-2023 school year, state officials said. The rest is made up by the state or by local school districts through referendums. A recent report by an independent Idaho state office estimated special education was underfunded by more than $80 million in 2023.

But U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon, appointed by Trump in March, has said that closing the department wouldn’t mean “cutting off funds from those who depend on them” but would eliminate the “bureaucracy” and regulations associated with them.

Critchfield, Idaho’s superintendent, said on Idaho-based The Ranch Podcast that teachers involved in special education spend a lot of time filling out paperwork instead of “focusing on how to help that child be successful.” The changes are about “removing the bureaucracy.”

But Critchfield acknowledged that cuts at the federal level could pose challenges if states have to take on more of an oversight role.

“As much as I am a champion of states doing that, the reality is there would be implications for Idaho and our department,” she said in a statement to the Statesman and ProPublica. The state is looking at what it can do to prepare and “where gaps would exist” should more responsibilities fall to the states.

Zikmund, the advocate who praised Critchfield for being responsive to parents and having an “open-door policy,” said that parents could be better off after the changes with good leadership at the state level, but without it, they could face a “train wreck.”

One test will come in June, when the Office of Special Education Programs is expected to release reports telling states how they performed in their annual reviews. The layoffs and restructuring under Trump are making some advocates question if the federal government will truly hold states to account.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Becca Savransky, Idaho Statesman.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Allen Forrest.

In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, the number of people killed in the Russian attack increased to five, the Prosecutor-General's Office said on Telegram, after initial reports put the number at three.

"Despite the efforts of the medics, two wounded people died in the hospital," the message reads.

Another 51 people were wounded, including four children, regional Governor Oleh Synyehubov said on Telegram, adding that Russian Kh-22 missiles struck civilian targets in the Kyiv and Saltivka districts.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

"Apartment buildings, an educational institution, and other exclusively civilian infrastructure were destroyed," Synyehubov wrote.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said 30 residential buildings were damaged, some 1,000 windows were broken, and the heating had to be turned off in 20 houses as the temperatures reached minus seven degrees Celsius.

In Kyiv, at least 20 people, including four children, were wounded, Mayor Vitali Klitschko and city administration chief Roman Popko said on Telegram.

One woman was declared clinically dead despite efforts by doctors to resuscitate her, Popko said.

Three districts -- Pechersk, Svyatoshynsk, and Solomyansk -- were targeted in the attack, Klitschko said.

"As a result of the Russian missile attack, 20 people were wounded; 13 of them are hospitalized, including three children. One 13-year-old boy and six adult victims were treated by medics on the spot," Klitschko wrote.

Russian missiles also hit the city of Pavlohrad, in the southern region of Dnipropetrovsk, killing at least one person, regional Governor Serhiy Lysak announced on Telegram.

In Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed on January 23 that the missile strikes "successfully" targeted Ukraine's military production facilities, hitting all intended targets, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov again denied that Russian forces had struck civilian areas, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Russia over the past several weeks has abruptly intensified its missile strikes on Ukrainian civilian targets, causing numerous deaths, injuries, and material damage. The eastern city of Kharkiv, just 30 kilometers from the Russian border, has been particularly targeted by Russian strikes.

According to Ukrainian officials, only between December 29 and January 2, Russia launched more than 500 Iranian-made drones and cruise missiles at Ukraine's cities.

The unusually intense wave of strikes has also put pressure on Ukraine's air-defense capabilities and its ammunition stockpiles, prompting President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to call on Kyiv's allies to step up weapons deliveries.

With reporting by AP

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, the number of people killed in the Russian attack increased to five, the Prosecutor-General's Office said on Telegram, after initial reports put the number at three.

"Despite the efforts of the medics, two wounded people died in the hospital," the message reads.

Another 51 people were wounded, including four children, regional Governor Oleh Synyehubov said on Telegram, adding that Russian Kh-22 missiles struck civilian targets in the Kyiv and Saltivka districts.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

"Apartment buildings, an educational institution, and other exclusively civilian infrastructure were destroyed," Synyehubov wrote.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said 30 residential buildings were damaged, some 1,000 windows were broken, and the heating had to be turned off in 20 houses as the temperatures reached minus seven degrees Celsius.

In Kyiv, at least 20 people, including four children, were wounded, Mayor Vitali Klitschko and city administration chief Roman Popko said on Telegram.

One woman was declared clinically dead despite efforts by doctors to resuscitate her, Popko said.

Three districts -- Pechersk, Svyatoshynsk, and Solomyansk -- were targeted in the attack, Klitschko said.

"As a result of the Russian missile attack, 20 people were wounded; 13 of them are hospitalized, including three children. One 13-year-old boy and six adult victims were treated by medics on the spot," Klitschko wrote.

Russian missiles also hit the city of Pavlohrad, in the southern region of Dnipropetrovsk, killing at least one person, regional Governor Serhiy Lysak announced on Telegram.

In Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed on January 23 that the missile strikes "successfully" targeted Ukraine's military production facilities, hitting all intended targets, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov again denied that Russian forces had struck civilian areas, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Russia over the past several weeks has abruptly intensified its missile strikes on Ukrainian civilian targets, causing numerous deaths, injuries, and material damage. The eastern city of Kharkiv, just 30 kilometers from the Russian border, has been particularly targeted by Russian strikes.

According to Ukrainian officials, only between December 29 and January 2, Russia launched more than 500 Iranian-made drones and cruise missiles at Ukraine's cities.

The unusually intense wave of strikes has also put pressure on Ukraine's air-defense capabilities and its ammunition stockpiles, prompting President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to call on Kyiv's allies to step up weapons deliveries.

With reporting by AP

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

Israel is deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food and fuel in Gaza, prompting Human Rights Watch to accuse the occupation of utilizing starvation as a weapon of war. Human Rights Watch’s Israel and Palestine director, Omar Shakir, says 97% of the groundwater in Gaza is unfit for human consumption after the destruction of pipelines and treatment sources, the rejection of humanitarian aid and the collapse of the medical system under incessant bombing, leading to mass dehydration and contagious disease. Shakir calls on the international community to condemn Israel’s actions and to increase pressure on U.S. support in particular. “The United States and Israel are isolated in the international community,” Shakir says. “The use of double standards in Israel and Palestine harms civilians all over the world.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

• UN Secretary General urges Security Council to call for permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
• Texas judge allows woman with fetus with terminal diagnosis to have abortion.
• Former President Trump appeals ruling denying him immunity from criminal prosecution.
• House rejects EPA emission requirements calling for all new cars sales to be electric by 2032.
• San Francisco homeless rights advocates call on city to conduct accurate homeless head count.
• San Francisco homeless rights advocates call on city to conduct accurate homeless head count.
• Oakland teachers hold pro-Palestinian teach-in despite District warnings against it.

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – December 7, 2023 Former President Trump appeals ruling denying him immunity from criminal prosecution. appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

• UN Secretary General urges Security Council to call for permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
• Texas judge allows woman with fetus with terminal diagnosis to have abortion.
• Former President Trump appeals ruling denying him immunity from criminal prosecution.
• House rejects EPA emission requirements calling for all new cars sales to be electric by 2032.
• San Francisco homeless rights advocates call on city to conduct accurate homeless head count.
• San Francisco homeless rights advocates call on city to conduct accurate homeless head count.
• Oakland teachers hold pro-Palestinian teach-in despite District warnings against it.

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – December 7, 2023 Former President Trump appeals ruling denying him immunity from criminal prosecution. appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Friday denied reports that U.S. President Joe Biden would imminently approve the Willow Project, saying "no final decisions" have been made on the highly controversial $8 billion ConocoPhillips oil drilling endeavor in northern Alaska slammed by critics as a "climate catastrophe."

"Anyone who says there has been a final decision is wrong," Jean-Pierre told reporters Friday evening after outlets including Bloomberg, CNN, and The New York Timesreported that the Biden administration would green-light what would be the single-largest oil operation in the United States.

"President Biden is delivering on the most aggressive climate agenda of any U.S. president in history and spurring an unprecedented expansion of clean energy," the White House spokesperson added.

Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—who supports the project—told the Times that she had not received notification of its approval.

"We are not celebrating yet, not with this White House," she said.

Climate campaigners, Indigenous groups, environmentalists, dozens of Democratic U.S. lawmakers, and others are vehemently opposed to what many have called a "ticking carbon bomb" and a "climate catastrophe."

The Biden administration's own assessment of the project acknowledges that it "would likely incur spills," and the Interior Department has expressed "substantial concerns" about the proposal.

According to the Sierra Club:

Willow is sited in a vast Arctic landscape that provides critical habitat for birds from all over the world as well as animals like the caribou that subsistence hunters rely on to feed their families and communities. Native communities, like Nuiquset, are already dealing with the consequences of oil development in the region, including deteriorating air quality and a spike in respiratory disorders. Last year, a well in Conoco's Alpine Field blew out, spewing methane into the air and endangering residents of Nuiquset. These risks are already here, and Willow only makes them worse.

On Friday, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore called the proposed project "recklessly irresponsible," adding that "we must end the expansion of oil, gas, and coal and embrace the abundant climate solutions at our fingertips."

Len Montgomery, public lands campaign director at Environment America, told Common Dreams via email that "we need our leaders to think long-term. Clean energy, not oil, is our future."

"Allowing a brand new Arctic oil project to break ground in one of our most sensitive ecosystems would be short-sighted," Montgomery argued. "This project will exacerbate climate change and will directly harm caribou and polar bears. We are inspired by the outpouring of opposition against this project from across the country and we will continue our efforts to prevent the chillers, the ice roads, and the well pads from ever encroaching on this pristine area."

Quannah Chasinghorse—a Han Gwich'In and Sicangu/Oglala Lakota land protector, climate justice activist, and fashion model from Eagle Village, Alaska and the tribes of South Dakota—wrote in a CNNopinion article Friday that "ConocoPhillips has claimed that the Willow Project could create thousands of construction jobs and hundreds of permanent ones, along with needed oil, but at what cost?"

"We must change the narrative that the land serves us and only exists so that we can extract resources from it."

"Make no mistake, it will not only be local communities, or even Alaskans, who will feel the negative climate impacts of this project," she continued. "According to an analysis from the Center for American Progress, developing and burning oil from the Willow Project would produce up to 287 million metric tons of carbon dioxide over the next 30 years. That's equal to the annual emissions of 76 coal power plants—a third of all coal plants in the United States."

"We must change the narrative that the land serves us and only exists so that we can extract resources from it," Chasinghorse asserted. "My elders tell me that if we take care of the land, the land will take care of us. We cannot live without healthy land. Not just us Gwich'in. All of us, everywhere"

"President Biden, stop the Willow Project," she added. "Stop climate chaos, before it's too late"

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

The United Liberation Movement for West Papua has condemned an Indonesian government protest over Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s declared support for ULMWP full membership of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) as “grotesque hypocrisy”.

In a statement, ULMWP interim president Benny Wenda said the Jakarta government had repeatedly stated support for the Palestinian struggle in the Middle East.

“This is an act of grotesque hypocrisy, as we have come to expect from President [Joko] Widodo. How can he support self-determination in one case and not the other?” said Wenda.

• READ MORE: Indonesia protests over Fiji’s Rabuka backing Papuan independence leader
• Indonesia reaffirms support for Palestine during PM’s visit
• Other West Papua reports

“What is the difference between West Papua and Palestine?” he asked.

Wenda met Prime Minister Rabuka in Suva and presented him with a noken — a traditional string bag woven in the colours of independence — and a Morning Star flag, the banned symbol of independence.

Rabuka tweeted confirmation of his support for the ULMWP’s bid to be full members of the MSG “because they are Melanesians” of the Pacific.

But he added that “I am not taking it for granted”.

Careful over sovereignty
In interviews he has said that care needed to be taken over the sovereignty issue.

Yes, we will support them [United Liberation Movement for West Papua] because they are Melanesians. I am more hopeful [ULMWP gaining full MSG membership]. I am not taking it for granted. The dynamics may have changed slightly but the principles are the same. pic.twitter.com/9J8qpAVhak

— Sitiveni Rabuka (@slrabuka) February 23, 2023

However, Rabuka’s warm reception of Wenda and his tweet have been interpreted as a significant departure from the stance taken by Fiji during 16 years of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama’s leadership.

Both Fiji and Papua New Guinea have been resistant to full ULMWP membership in an attempt to retain good relations with Indonesia, which is an associate member. The other MSG members are Solomon islands, Vanuatu and the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) in French-ruled New Caledonia with the ULMWP as observers.

Prime Minister Rabuka’s meeting with Wenda and promise of support provoked a diplomatic protest to Fiji by Jakarta.

Yet just last October, President Widodo welcomed Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh to Jakarta and reaffirmed his commitment to “support Palestine’s struggle amid immense challenges”.

In his statement, Wenda said Indonesia claimed its rule over West Papua was a “done deal”, but the country’s 60-year occupation was based on “a fraud that is fast unravelling”.

“The so-called ‘Act of Free Choice’ was really an Act of ‘No Choice’,” said the statement.

UN supervised ‘this fraud’
“Only 1022 hand-picked West Papuans, out of a population of more than 800,000, were intimidated and bribed into voting for integration into Indonesia. The United Nations may have supervised this fraud, but they did not endorse it, only taking note of its outcome.

“Though West Papua was added to the UN decolonisation list in preparation for our independence, Indonesia ensured it was removed after they invaded our territory in 1963.

“Since then, more than 500,000 West Papuans have been killed, hundreds of thousands have been displaced and replaced by Indonesian settlers, we have suffered massacres in Paniai, Wamena, Wasior, Biak, Abepura, and many other places.”

Wenda said Indonesia was right to support the Palestinian struggle.

“But while President Widodo has said he wants Palestine to become a full member of the UN, he opposes West Papua becoming a full member of the MSG.

“Our culture, our customs, our ethnicity, and our traditions are all Melanesian. For 60 years our voices have been silenced, our cause brushed under the carpet by the international community.

“Now that Melanesian leaders are standing up for their brothers and sisters in West Papua, the web of lies Indonesia has told the world about West Papua is collapsing under their own hypocrisy.”

‘Overwhelming evidence’
Wenda said there was “overwhelming evidence” that Indonesia was “committing genocide, ecocide, and crimes against humanity in West Papua”.

“In the same week that they protested Fiji’s support for full membership, Indonesian police cold-bloodedly massacred 10 Papuans in Wamena, and shot a teenage boy in Puncak Jaya.

“Last month, Papuans across the Nduga Regency were forced to flee their homes, adding to the nearly-50,000 [people] who have been displaced there since 2018.

“When you displace villagers and tribal peoples, they lose their hunting grounds, their rivers, their whole way of life. This is all part of a longstanding strategy of ethnic cleansing, for Indonesia to remove us from our ancestral lands and replace us with mines, plantations, and Indonesian settlers.

“West Papuans are not safe with Indonesia: our very existence as a distinct people is under mortal threat.”

Wenda said these developments showed that international intervention was needed in West Papua.

Indonesia needed to stop blocking the visit of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which had been demanded by eighty-four countries.

“President Widodo, the coverup is coming to an end, and the world is paying attention,” Wenda said. “We are only calling for your commitment to Palestinian liberation to be extended to West Papua.”

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The post By Denying Proven Failures in Tory Government, Sunak and Truss Will Repeat Them appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Patrick Cockburn.

The North Carolina Green Party's presumptive U.S. Senate nominee accused the state's Democratically-controlled Board of Elections of "a corrupt, lawless, and blatantly partisan attack on democracy" after it voted Thursday against certifying Green Party's petition for its candidates to appear on the November ballot.

"It's a slap in the face to the thousands of people who signed, to our grassroots organizers who worked tirelessly to collect thousands of signatures during an ongoing pandemic, and to everyone who believes in democracy itself," Matthew Hoh, a longtime anti-war activist, said in a statement.

All three Democratic members of the state election board voted against certification of the Green Party while the body's two Republicans voted in favor.

The board said after the vote that it opted "not to recognize the Green Party as an official political party in North Carolina" due to "an ongoing investigation into evidence of fraud and other irregularities in the petition process used to seek ballot access for the party."

The board acknowledged that the Green Party obtained more than the required 13,865 valid signatures for formal recognition, but it claimed that "several counties and state board staff identified numerous irregularities." Hoh said the Green Party received 15,953 verified signatures.

Allegations that the Green Party committed fraud in the signature-collection process have come primarily from the Elias Law Group, a firm that serves as general counsel for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC).

The Carolina Journal reported Thursday that shortly after the Green Party submitted the signatures it had collected for ballot representation, "the Elias Law Group was able to get the names and addresses of those who signed through a public-records request."

"These Green Party supporters were then repeatedly called, texted, and visited at home by Democrat operatives and asked to sign forms to renounce their earlier signature of the petition," the Journal noted.

Hoh provided the outlet with a recording of one call in which a person claiming to be a volunteer for the Green Party presses a signatory on whether they "strongly supported" the party's effort to get on the ballot. The person then proceeded to read off a script used by DSCC callers claiming that Republicans would have a "huge advantage" if the Green Party made it onto the ballot in November.

The Journal interviewed a separate Green Party supporter, Janet Nagel, who "said she also received misleading, harassing calls" from "a woman who represented herself as with the Green Party."

"It seemed illogical," said Nagel, who told the caller that "people who would be voting for the Greens were not going to be voting for the Democrats," so getting the Green Party on the ballot would not provide any meaningful boost to the Republicans.

"Then, as a non sequitur, and this was the part that really concerned me, [the caller] said, 'So would you want to remove your name from the petition?'" Nagel added.

In response to the calls, Hoh said that "the hardest thing I’ve ever seen the Democrats fight for is to keep a disabled Marine combat veteran off the ballot."

While Hoh vowed Thursday to fight the decision, the board's vote against certifying the Green Party likely means its candidates will be barred from appearing on the November ballot—the deadline to get candidates on the ballot is today, July 1.

Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said during the body's meeting Thursday that "we feel like there is a cloud over how many signatures are valid."

"There's just a lot of concern around what we're finding," Bell added.

As the local News & Observer reported Thursday, "Board of Elections staff gave a presentation in which they argued the petition sheets submitted by the Green Party showed several 'obvious signs of fraud.' Among these, the staff said they had witnessed similar signatures, partial dates of birth, and deceased voters being included in petition sheets."

Hoh countered that the board never gave a sensible justification for its refusal to certify the Green Party's 15,953 verified signatures.

During Thursday's meeting, Green Party attorney Oliver Hall repeatedly pressed Democratic board chair Damon Circosta to explain why the signatures aren't acceptable.

"I don't want to get into the details of a criminal investigation, but I have questions sufficient in number to not be willing to vote for certification today," Circosta replied.

When Hall asked again, Circosta had him muted.

Following the meeting, News & Observer notes, "a spokesperson for the State Board of Elections later clarified that the investigation was currently internal, and any criminal findings would be referred to law enforcement following the board's review."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jake Johnson.

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Adam Ramsay.

The post School Sued for Denying Equal Education to Students with Disabilities appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Vins.