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Dodger Dogs are an important tradition, and they’re a staple part of going to a baseball game in Los Angeles, so here’s what makes them so popular.
Mashed – Fast Food, Celebrity Chefs, Grocery, Reviews
By: Grace Dumas, News of the North
Alaska education leaders told lawmakers Monday, that the state’s public schools are in a “crisis” due to rising vacancies, high teacher and principle turnover and growing student needs, all while enrollment declines.
Testifying before the joint education committee, meaning both the House and the Senate, superintendents, principals, special education directors and recruitment experts described the education system as strained by flat funding.
They stressed housing and visa barriers for teachers, and a growing share of students needing intensive support.
Jennifer Schmitz, director of the Alaska Educator Retention and Recruitment Center, said Alaska’s annual turnover has reached about 30% for teachers and 35% for principals.
“We are in a crisis time right now with teacher turnover and principal turnover,” Schmitz said.
Districts are also depending on hundreds of international teachers and emergency teaching certificates to staff classrooms.
In many districts, she said, international teachers have become deeply rooted in communities and students rely on them for stability.
But new federal visa costs and restrictions, including a potential $100,000 price tag for some H‑1B visas, threaten those positions, especially for rural schools.
“We are in an educational crisis, and we are doing harm to the children of Alaska. An urgent response is needed to address the dire vacancy rates and the need for in person educators and support personnel across Alaskan schools.” Said David Nogg, principle of Goldenview Middle school.
In a separate Senate Labor and Commerce Committee hearing, lawmakers heard similar testimony when discussing Senate Joint Resolution 28, warning that steep federal fee hikes and new placement limits on visa programs are not only worsening worker shortages in schools but tourism and other key industries across the state as well.
“Visa workers are vital to filling Alaska’s diverse workforce. Foreign worker visa programs are extremely useful for highly seasonal industries such as tourism. Alaska has the largest seasonal employment swing in the country, this is not a marginal fluctuation, it is a structural feature of our economy.” Said Mike Mason, legislative assistant to Senator Löki Tobin.
Education leaders also pointed the Base Student Allocation (BSA), saying, even after last year’s increase, inflation has eroded its value.
“All boats rise and fall on the same tide, and for Alaska school districts, that tide is the BSA,” Randy Trani, Superintendent of the Mat-Su district said, calling for “timely, reliable, predictable” funding so districts can plan and focus on academics instead of annual cuts.
School finance officials also stressed that most dollars already go directly to students and there are funding needs beyond the classroom that districts are struggling to meet.
Anchorage budget director and Alaska Association of School Business Officials president Katie Parrott said about 75% of districts’ operating spending in FY2025 went to instruction, while only 2% went to district-level administration and 5% to administrative support like payroll and HR.
“There are a lot of competing priorities eating into these slices of the pie.” She said, “It’s truly imperative that the state does increase and inflation proof funding for pupil transportation as one of the key strategies to address chronic absenteeism, make sure kids are getting to school that they have equitable access.”
Throughout the hearing, educators said they remain committed to students and to Alaska, but warned that constant uncertainty is pushing many out of the profession or out of the state, saying, “when you starve a system, you see the impacts of that.”
From anthems that get the party started to ballads that pull at the heartstrings, Kid Rock has a song for every moment. Continue reading…The Boot – Country Music News, Music Videos and Songs
From anthems that get the party started to ballads that pull at the heartstrings, Kid Rock has a song for every moment. Continue reading…Country Music News – Taste of Country
Last fall, the world saw Nate Smith put his political views on full display, unapologetically. But after some hard conversations and plenty of self-reflection, the country singer has shifted his focus to something he believes matters far more than those statements: creating hope and unity.
Following the death of Turning Point Co-Founder, Charlie Kirk, Smith began openly sharing his support for the current U.S. President, Donald Trump. He later removed several posts from Instagram, one of which showed him holding a red “Make America Great Again” hat onstage. Another included a video that captured what he described as being the “proudest moment of my entire career so far” because it showed him finally sharing his authentic self with the public.
“Continue to be bold, and unashamed. Patriotism is alive and well!” he wrote at the time.
Sitting down for a candid interview with Billboard News, Smith admits that moment was followed up by an honest and important conversation with a follower with opposing political views that completely changed his perspective on the subject.
“She was really mad and said some pretty not nice things to me…really, really mean,” he recalled of the user.
This hit Smith straight to the heart and instantly made him want to get to the bottom of how he was able to hurt someone so much as a result of sharing his political views. So he messaged her and said, “Tell me why this hurt you.”
What started as a tense exchange turned into an unexpected friendship where both parties were able to share their thoughts and come to understand each other better.
“By the end, she’s like, ‘You’re the best.’ I’m like, ‘You’re the best. Do you want tickets to a show?’” he recalls before adding, “Completely became friends. It was the craziest thing. If you saw where it came from, you would never believe that in a million years.”
This interaction opened Smith eyes to see that when all the various beliefs are taken away, we are all just human beings with different passions.
“No one’s bad here,” Smith stated. “We’re just people, you know what I mean?”
The “World On Fire” singer went on to emphasize that his intentions were never to hurt somebody, and he never imagined taking a stand for his believes would get him to that point.
“That’s the thing that really kills me,” he noted.
“I’m not a person who’s divisive in any way and I love people so much,” Smith went on to say. “I think where I’m at now is seeing the temperature of everything and how I feel in myself and the growth that I’m having in myself.”
A big part of that reflection is shown through an unreleased song that Nate Smith has been teasing across social medial titled, “Pray.” Throughout the lyrics, he shares powerful statements such as “the person that I want to be doesn’t match my reflection.”
He says that “a lot going on in the world” around the time he wrote the track with hit-making songwriter, Ashley Gorley. They got to discussing what was most important and came to the conclusion that, “it wasn’t your political stance, I can promise you that. The most important thing I think is that we come together and unite as people. We need that so bad right now, to unite. And I think ‘Prayer’ is something a lot of us can get behind, whatever that means for them.”
Moving forward, his mission is to pour his energy into leaning into the belief that coming together as a unite and leaning prayer is more important than anything else.
“I think the most important thing is that we come together, we love each other…I think pray is the song to do that, I really believe it in my heart,” he added.
With “Pray,” Smith is sharing a message he truly believes can inspire understanding and connection in a world that often feels divided.
The post Nate Smith Rethinks Sharing Political Views, Shifts Focus Toward Creating Hope and Unity appeared first on Country Now.
Country Now
Wanting to up your game when it comes to this breakfast staple? Cooking perfect eggs is actually way easier than you think. Learn the trick!
Mashed – Fast Food, Celebrity Chefs, Grocery, Reviews
U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum speaks at a March 12, 2026, news conference at the Ted Stevens Anchorage Internatinal Airport. Burgum was with a delegation of Trump administration officials making a trip to Japan for an energy conference. Behind him is a stuffed polar bear on display at the airport’s north terminal. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is facing a significant overhaul, including further staff cuts, according to a statement from a tribal leader during a congressional hearing on Mar. 18 about federal funding for Indigenous communities for fiscal year 2027.
“Just this week, we learned that the Bureau of Indian Affairs is planning on releasing and implementing a reorganization plan that will make significant cuts to the staff critical in administering programs and distributing funding to tribal nations,” said Mark Macarro, president of the National Congress of American Indians and chairman of the Pechanga Band of Indians. “This action has been done without consultation with tribal nations and without consideration of the impact it will have on the delivery of programs and services.”
The information comes after a year of intensive reorganization within the Department of Interior that has led to a 11% reduction in the workforce at Indian Affairs. According to the Government Accountability Office, those staffing cuts have “caused delays in carrying out work, left regions and agencies with critical gaps, an exacerbation of previously identified issues with lack of sufficient workforce capacity,” Macarro said.
Macarro did not expand on the planned reorganization’s details, or how he learned about it. In an emailed statement, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Billy Kirkland said, “Indian Affairs is committed to upholding federal responsibilities to tribal communities. Under President Trump’s leadership, we are prioritizing maximizing resources and enhance operational effectiveness across the organization to cut bureaucratic waste. These efforts reflect our commitment to streamlining government operations while ensuring that Indian Affairs efforts remain strong, effective, and impactful.
“This administration believes that a more effective path forward is one that reduces federal overreach and empowers tribal governments to tailor solutions that best meet the unique needs of their communities,” he said. “This shift in approach will ultimately foster greater self-governance and more responsive, culturally relevant services.” Requests for additional information from the Department of Interior and U.S. Department of Agriculture were not answered before press time.
“We urge the committee to encourage Indian Affairs to reverse course and engage in robust and collaborative consultations with tribal nations before taking any action that would imperil the already understaffed Indian Affairs workforce,” Macarro said.
We urge the committee to encourage Indian Affairs to reverse course and engage in robust and collaborative consultations with tribal nations.
– Mark Macarro, president of the National Congress of American Indians and chairman of the Pechanga Band of Indians
The news that the agency plans to reorganize and cut more employees is a departure from the statements that Indian Affairs officials recently shared with the Government Accountability Office, when they said that as of December 2025 there were “no plans to reorganize or further reduce the workforce,” although “existing functions might need to be restructured or realigned to achieve administration priorities.”
In a report published in January, the GAO found that the Bureau of Indian Affairs has lost 13% of its workforce since January 2025, while the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs lost 27% and the Bureau of Indian Education lost 5%. The cuts have also impacted central BIA offices: The Pacific Regional Office lost 29% of its staff, while employees in the Southern Plains office were reduced by 26%, and the Alaska Regional Office saw a reduction of 22%. The BIA was already understaffed and underfunded and has been so for years.
Tribal leaders said that the staffing cuts have had an impact on services, while the Government Accountability Office noted that Indian Affairs officials had yet to analyze the projected cost savings from the cuts.
The agencies in the Department of the Interior that serve tribal nations aren’t the only ones that have been deeply impacted by staffing cuts. In the same hearing last Wednesday, Intertribal Timber Council President Cody Desautel (Colville) stated that the Office of Tribal Relations within the USDA already lost about 75% of its staff in the past year, adding that the Forest Service had improved consultation recently and seems open to partnering with tribal nations, but that staffing is a serious issue. That office is the primary point of contact for tribal nations for everything from tribal consultation on policies and co-stewardship agreements to supporting tribal food programs. Additional staff losses could also occur within the USDA when it moves forward with its own proposed reorganization. The department held two tribal consultations about its plans last fall, during the last government shutdown.
Tribal leaders voiced strong opposition to such a reorganization, Government Executive reported. Their primary concerns included the department’s failure to consult tribal nations before introducing the plan, pointing out that the reorganization would cause a disruption in services, and that despite being justified as a cost-saving measure, it would negatively impact tribes in the long run. According to a summary of the consultations, one tribal leader called the reorganization “a failure of USDA to adhere to its own consultation policy,” while another stated that “mass relocations will destroy irreplaceable knowledge about Treaty rights, forest conditions, and working relationships built over decades, and new staff unfamiliar with the land will make mistakes.”
If you have information or documents to share about how staffing cuts are impacting Indian Country, please email us at highcountrynews@protonmail.com
Note: This story was updated to include comment from the Bureau of Indian of Affairs.
This article first appeared on High Country News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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This is not the kind of year that Kristi Noem envisioned for herself.
First, she gets fired from her role as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and now there are reports that her husband enjoys wearing women’s clothing along with giant fake breasts.
Yes, according to the Daily Mail, Byron Noem is a member of the so-called “bimbofication” fetish scene.
Sources tell the outlet that Noem carried on in-depth conversations with other members of the community, remarking at one point that he wanted “huge, huge ridiculous boobs.”
The Mail claims to have received “hundreds” of incriminating messages sent by three women from an online bimbofication forum.
Some of those messages reportedly contained images of Byron in his “bimbo” garb.
It’s the kind of story that one would expect Kristi to immediately deny.
Instead, her reps issued a vague statement in which she requested “privacy and prayers.”
“Ms. Noem is devastated. The family was blindsided by this, and they ask for privacy and prayers at the time,” Kristi’s team tells The New York Post.
News of Byron’s “double life” comes on the heels of reports that Kristi engaged in an affair with another top Trump aide, Corey Lewandowski.
That situation was just one of many hot topics that Noem was interrogated about when she testified before Congress earlier this year.
She was also questioned about the ICE shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, as well as claims that she spent hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars for TV commercials that seemed to serve no purpose other than making her look cool.
Needless to say, the former governor is probably wishing she had just stayed in South Dakota.
After all, before she joined the Trump administration, Kristi’s biggest scandal was her decision to shoot her 14-month-old puppy.
Now, she may wind up having to answer questions about the big-breasted bimbofication of Byron.
The Noems have been married since 1992, and they’ve welcomed three children, daughters Kassidy, 31, and Kennedy, 29, and a son, Booker, 23.
We will have further updates on this developing story as new information becomes available.
Kristi Noem ‘Blindsided’ By Reports of Husband’s Cross-Dressing, … was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.
The Hollywood Gossip
PHOENIX — A.J. Brown is a Philadelphia Eagle. That’s what head coach Nick Sirianni and general manager Howie Roseman have kept repeating at the NFL owners meetings the past few days. But that, of course, didn’t answer the question prevalent around the league. Will Brown be an Eagle when the season kicks off? The Philly brass repeatedly dodged that question as the team’s star receiver remains entrenched in trade rumors. “I understand that there’s interest in the A.J. Brown story,” Roseman told reporters on Sunday at the NFL’s annual meetings. “Unfortunately, I don’t have a home under a rock. But my answer to any question on A.J. Brown is that A.J. Brown is a member of the Eagles.” The answer feels akin to when teams have to repeatedly state their starting quarterback is the guy — right now. Because the implication is that things might change in the near future. “A.J.’s an Eagle,” Sirianni said Monday. Right now. Sirianni fielded a question about whether he thinks DeVonta Smith is a bona fide No. 1 receiver. Smith, of course, might have to be the top option if the team moves on from Brown. But Sirianni sidestepped that question. “Let’s keep A.J. in there. Both those players are phenomenal players that contributed to a lot of wins over the past four years here,” the Eagles coach said. “It’s not like we have a 1a and 1b. We have two ones there.” Brown, who will turn 29 in June, is expected to net at least a first-round pick for Philly, per multiple reports. In each of the past two seasons, he has eclipsed 1,000 yards and has seven touchdowns. In 2023, he posted 1,456 receiving yards and seven touchdowns. One of the most likely destinations for Brown is the New England Patriots, who signed former Packers receiver Romeo Doubs in free agency, in part to replace Stefon Diggs, a salary cap casualty. But their passing game could use more help as they try to maximize Drake Maye’s development — and the QB’s rent-controlled rookie contract. Brown played for Patriots coach Mike Vrabel in Tennessee, and while Brown is well-known to be mercurial, he and Vrabel were a good match with the Titans. So yet again, Vrabel fielded a question about whether the team might trade for the Eagles’ star receiver. “We’re gonna try to do everything we can to strengthen our roster, through the draft, through free agency, multiple ways of player acquisition,” Vrabel told reporters. “So anything that we can continue to do to strengthen the roster, we’re going to try to do.” Speaking generally about trades, Vrabel said he wasn’t too worried about trading picks in this draft versus next year’s draft — or even the 2028 draft. That’s notable, because it has been widely reported that the Eagles could wait until June 1 to trade Brown, which would alleviate some of the dead cap money in his contract. That would mean that the Patriots — or any interested trade partner — would be working with assets in the 2027 draft, which many expect to be a better class than this year’s. Vrabel clearly isn’t interested in that kind of guesswork. The other question with Brown is whether the Patriots would be receptive to the receiver’s outspoken personality. He was a key cog in Philly’s Super Bowl run two seasons ago, but when things weren’t going well for the Eagles last year, Brown openly criticized the passing game — and implied he wouldn’t be with the team for long. But, again, speaking generally about players with big egos and personalities, Vrabel seemed confident he could handle a guy like Brown. “We understand that in professional sports, players are talented and have some sort of ego to them,” Vrabel told reporters. “And there’s a balance. They have to have that edge. As a coaching staff — whatever that is — you have to balance that edge. “Everyone wants to excel. What receiver doesn’t want to catch the ball?” What team will Brown be catching the ball for in 2026? It remains an open question.Latest Sports News from FOX Sports