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Royal Society of Edinburgh: Identifying Opportunities for Scotland and Asia Pacific Partnerships
EDINBURGH, Scotland, Sept. 25 (TNSrpt) -- The Royal Society of Edinburgh issued the following news:
* * *
Published on 24 September 2026
Identifying opportunities for Scotland and Asia Pacific partnerships
Scotland's higher education sector is recognised for the excellence of its globally connected research.
-
The results of the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF) in 2021 found that all Scottish universities undertake 'world-leading' and 'internationally excellent' research.
The current financial pressures, however, have threatened Scotland's competitive research productivity. ... Show Full Article EDINBURGH, Scotland, Sept. 25 (TNSrpt) -- The Royal Society of Edinburgh issued the following news: * * * Published on 24 September 2026 Identifying opportunities for Scotland and Asia Pacific partnerships Scotland's higher education sector is recognised for the excellence of its globally connected research. - The results of the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF) in 2021 found that all Scottish universities undertake 'world-leading' and 'internationally excellent' research. The current financial pressures, however, have threatened Scotland's competitive research productivity.To ensure Scotland maintains the global standing of its higher education sector and the stability and sustainability of both regional and national economies, there is an increasing urgency for international collaboration that facilitates knowledge exchange, unlocks funding opportunities, and generates innovative research and development.
Focus on Asia Pacific
The Scottish Government introduced the first International Education Strategy (IES) in February 2024, in which the Asia-Pacific region emerges as a key region for potential partnerships in areas spanning academic research, commercialisation, and global export.
A new scoping report, published by the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), presents an overview of the current landscape of collaborative relationships between Scottish universities and the Asia Pacific region, focusing on Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. It was commissioned by the RSE's Asia-Pacific Working Group in 2025. It draws on survey data and case study interviews to investigate the benefits of, drivers for, and barriers to sustainable partnerships and identify priority areas for strategic support.
Key findings from existing Scotland-Asia Pacific Partnerships:
* Transnational education and student mobility opportunities play instrumental but overlooked roles in building research connections and training internationally and interculturally competent students.
- International programmes expose students to cross-cultural perspectives and equip them with essential linguistic skills at an early stage. Streamlining and diversifying these opportunities would enrich student experience and cultivate institutional and personal connections.
* Researcher-driven collaborations are often initiated through existing institutional or professional networks and formally kicked off with small-scale funding for international mobility.
- Given the physical distance and time difference, interpersonal networks play a critical role in initiating contact. Small grants are essential for maintaining the impetus and solidifying collaborative relationships.
* Scotland and the focus regions have shared research and innovation (R&I) interests in strategic areas that receive public and private-sector funding.
- Numerous dedicated funding streams specifically support collaborative projects involving the focus regions. Japan exemplifies the proactive role that funding agencies can perform in promoting research visibility.
* Collaboration gives researchers unique access to complementary expertise, facilities, data, and infrastructure of the broader research ecosystem.
- Distinctive regional expertise, resources, institutions, and cultural heritage enable researchers to conduct innovative research across disciplines and realise wide-ranging impact in transnational contexts.
* The sustainability of partnership depends on shared interest, mutual trust, and robust institutional support over an extended period.
- Given the current geopolitical tension and financial pressures, partnerships require resourcefulness, adaptability, and resilience on both individual and institutional levels to survive and thrive. The involvement of students and early career researchers is a key factor in sustaining long-term partnerships.
Highlighted barriers to initiating and sustaining collaboration:
* Funding gaps: University budget cuts and the structure of external funding sources constrain international mobility and hinder sustainable collaboration.
* Administrative hurdles: Complex and fragmented administrative processes detract from research activities. Academics without permanent positions often lack visibility and are particularly vulnerable to the obstacles typically erected by bureaucratic red tape.
* Mobility barriers: Geopolitical tensions and economic fluctuations increase the logistical and financial challenges of travelling between the focus regions.
* Cultural and institutional differences: Language can limit communication, but an open-minded attitude to differences in academic practices, social etiquettes, and cultural norms contributes to forming equitable relationships.
* Policy shifts: Changing government priorities can disrupt long-term plans for research collaboration. Inter-governmental cooperation is crucial for coordinating funding calls and bi/multilateral projects.
Overview of recommendations:
* Adopt flexible and sustainable funding models: Allocate resources to projects that demonstrate the potential to deliver mutual benefits and advance sustainable development. Devise metrics that recognise intangible outputs and multi-/ inter-disciplinary achievement. Monitor progress and provide follow-up support to ensure cost-efficient investment and maximise impact.
* Ring-fence resources for mobility opportunities: Prioritise international mobility and commit to providing modest but regular travel grants that facilitate in-person interactions. Reduce administrative workload and expand opportunities for international experience across all career stages.
* Increase mutual understanding and foster equitable relationships: Address the gap between soft power capacity and international appeal. Promote Scotland's research and the society's unique offerings to Asia-Pacific partners and vice versa to heighten mutual awareness of the benefits of collaboration between the two regions.
Actionable recommendation for the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE):
* Forge and strengthen linkages and networks: Use the RSE's convening power and work with key stakeholders to establish structured networking and knowledge exchange programmes and platforms that connect researchers from Scotland and the Asia-Pacific region. Target priority areas and leverage complementary strengths to expand engagement with corporate partners.
* * *
REPORT: https://rse.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Asia-Pacific-Scoping-Report_September-2026-1.pdf
* * *
Original text here: https://rse.org.uk/identifying-opportunities-for-scotland-and-asia-pacific-partnerships/
* * *
Published on 24 September 2026
Identifying opportunities for Scotland and Asia Pacific partnerships
Scotland's higher education sector is recognised for the excellence of its globally connected research.
-
The results of the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF) in 2021 found that all Scottish universities undertake 'world-leading' and 'internationally excellent' research.
The current financial pressures, however, have threatened Scotland's competitive research productivity. ... Show Full Article EDINBURGH, Scotland, Sept. 25 (TNSrpt) -- The Royal Society of Edinburgh issued the following news: * * * Published on 24 September 2026 Identifying opportunities for Scotland and Asia Pacific partnerships Scotland's higher education sector is recognised for the excellence of its globally connected research. - The results of the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF) in 2021 found that all Scottish universities undertake 'world-leading' and 'internationally excellent' research. The current financial pressures, however, have threatened Scotland's competitive research productivity.To ensure Scotland maintains the global standing of its higher education sector and the stability and sustainability of both regional and national economies, there is an increasing urgency for international collaboration that facilitates knowledge exchange, unlocks funding opportunities, and generates innovative research and development.
Focus on Asia Pacific
The Scottish Government introduced the first International Education Strategy (IES) in February 2024, in which the Asia-Pacific region emerges as a key region for potential partnerships in areas spanning academic research, commercialisation, and global export.
A new scoping report, published by the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), presents an overview of the current landscape of collaborative relationships between Scottish universities and the Asia Pacific region, focusing on Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. It was commissioned by the RSE's Asia-Pacific Working Group in 2025. It draws on survey data and case study interviews to investigate the benefits of, drivers for, and barriers to sustainable partnerships and identify priority areas for strategic support.
Key findings from existing Scotland-Asia Pacific Partnerships:
* Transnational education and student mobility opportunities play instrumental but overlooked roles in building research connections and training internationally and interculturally competent students.
- International programmes expose students to cross-cultural perspectives and equip them with essential linguistic skills at an early stage. Streamlining and diversifying these opportunities would enrich student experience and cultivate institutional and personal connections.
* Researcher-driven collaborations are often initiated through existing institutional or professional networks and formally kicked off with small-scale funding for international mobility.
- Given the physical distance and time difference, interpersonal networks play a critical role in initiating contact. Small grants are essential for maintaining the impetus and solidifying collaborative relationships.
* Scotland and the focus regions have shared research and innovation (R&I) interests in strategic areas that receive public and private-sector funding.
- Numerous dedicated funding streams specifically support collaborative projects involving the focus regions. Japan exemplifies the proactive role that funding agencies can perform in promoting research visibility.
* Collaboration gives researchers unique access to complementary expertise, facilities, data, and infrastructure of the broader research ecosystem.
- Distinctive regional expertise, resources, institutions, and cultural heritage enable researchers to conduct innovative research across disciplines and realise wide-ranging impact in transnational contexts.
* The sustainability of partnership depends on shared interest, mutual trust, and robust institutional support over an extended period.
- Given the current geopolitical tension and financial pressures, partnerships require resourcefulness, adaptability, and resilience on both individual and institutional levels to survive and thrive. The involvement of students and early career researchers is a key factor in sustaining long-term partnerships.
Highlighted barriers to initiating and sustaining collaboration:
* Funding gaps: University budget cuts and the structure of external funding sources constrain international mobility and hinder sustainable collaboration.
* Administrative hurdles: Complex and fragmented administrative processes detract from research activities. Academics without permanent positions often lack visibility and are particularly vulnerable to the obstacles typically erected by bureaucratic red tape.
* Mobility barriers: Geopolitical tensions and economic fluctuations increase the logistical and financial challenges of travelling between the focus regions.
* Cultural and institutional differences: Language can limit communication, but an open-minded attitude to differences in academic practices, social etiquettes, and cultural norms contributes to forming equitable relationships.
* Policy shifts: Changing government priorities can disrupt long-term plans for research collaboration. Inter-governmental cooperation is crucial for coordinating funding calls and bi/multilateral projects.
Overview of recommendations:
* Adopt flexible and sustainable funding models: Allocate resources to projects that demonstrate the potential to deliver mutual benefits and advance sustainable development. Devise metrics that recognise intangible outputs and multi-/ inter-disciplinary achievement. Monitor progress and provide follow-up support to ensure cost-efficient investment and maximise impact.
* Ring-fence resources for mobility opportunities: Prioritise international mobility and commit to providing modest but regular travel grants that facilitate in-person interactions. Reduce administrative workload and expand opportunities for international experience across all career stages.
* Increase mutual understanding and foster equitable relationships: Address the gap between soft power capacity and international appeal. Promote Scotland's research and the society's unique offerings to Asia-Pacific partners and vice versa to heighten mutual awareness of the benefits of collaboration between the two regions.
Actionable recommendation for the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE):
* Forge and strengthen linkages and networks: Use the RSE's convening power and work with key stakeholders to establish structured networking and knowledge exchange programmes and platforms that connect researchers from Scotland and the Asia-Pacific region. Target priority areas and leverage complementary strengths to expand engagement with corporate partners.
* * *
REPORT: https://rse.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Asia-Pacific-Scoping-Report_September-2026-1.pdf
* * *
Original text here: https://rse.org.uk/identifying-opportunities-for-scotland-and-asia-pacific-partnerships/
FFRF Dissects Trump's '250 Victories for People of Faith'
MADISON, Wisconsin, Sept. 25 -- The Freedom From Religion Foundation issued the following news release:
* * *
September 24, 2026
FFRF dissects Trump's '250 victories for people of faith'
-
The White House's newly released list of President Trump's "Top 250 Victories for People of Faith" is a revealing catalog of the administration's efforts to redefine religious liberty.
The sprawling list, released to coincide with America's 250th anniversary, claims to provide "250 reasons why Trump is the most pro-faith, pro-life, and pro-religious liberty president in American history."
"Trump was elected ... Show Full Article MADISON, Wisconsin, Sept. 25 -- The Freedom From Religion Foundation issued the following news release: * * * September 24, 2026 FFRF dissects Trump's '250 victories for people of faith' - The White House's newly released list of President Trump's "Top 250 Victories for People of Faith" is a revealing catalog of the administration's efforts to redefine religious liberty. The sprawling list, released to coincide with America's 250th anniversary, claims to provide "250 reasons why Trump is the most pro-faith, pro-life, and pro-religious liberty president in American history." "Trump was electedpresident, not pastor in chief, and has long forgotten he took an oath to defend and support a Constitution that is godless and separates religion from government," comments Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president. "This inappropriate list is pure pandering to his white Christian nationalist base."
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has reviewed the list. Far from documenting 250 distinct advances for religious freedom, it mixes a handful of legitimate protections for free exercise of religion with a deluge of Christian nationalist initiatives, culture-war policies, unfinished investigations and proposed rules, ceremonial proclamations, repetitious claims and assertions that omit crucial context.
"These are not 250 victories for religious liberty. They are a remarkably candid accounting of this administration's campaign to privilege religion, especially conservative Christianity, through the machinery of what is supposed to be a secular government," adds FFRF Co-President Dan Barker. "Religious freedom means every American is free to believe or disbelieve as conscience dictates. It does not mean the president gets to enlist the federal government in promoting religion."
Most revealingly, the White House repeatedly calls the government's promotion of religion a "victory." The administration celebrates establishing the White House Faith Office and faith centers throughout the federal government, creating its so-called Religious Liberty Commission and Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias, expanding government funding opportunities for religious organizations, promoting prayer and religion in public schools, organizing Christian worship services at the Pentagon and using the federal government to encourage Americans to pray.
FFRF has repeatedly sounded the alarm about many of the very actions the White House now boasts about.
When Trump established the White House Faith Office and Anti-Christian Bias Task Force in February 2025, FFRF warned that the initiatives threatened to privilege religion rather than protect genuine religious liberty. The Faith Office was tasked not merely with accommodating religious exercise but with helping faith-based organizations obtain government grants and influencing federal policy.
FFRF has also closely monitored Trump's Religious Liberty Commission, which features overwhelmingly conservative religious voices and has repeatedly promoted greater religious involvement in government and public education. Its recently released report attacks the First Amendment's Establishment Clause and recommends expanding government entanglement with religion. FFRF has called the report a roadmap for transforming religious freedom from a shield protecting individual conscience into a sword for securing religious privilege.
The White House's assertion that the commission represents "every major faith" is impossible to square with its official roster. The commission's identified religious leadership is predominantly conservative Christian while the broader advisory structure contains barely any religious diversity.
Government promotion of religion becomes a 'victory'
Some of the administration's proudest entries illustrate exactly why FFRF is concerned.
The White House counts its "America Prays" initiative as a religious-liberty accomplishment. That government-backed campaign calls on Americans to organize weekly prayer gatherings as part of the nation's 250th anniversary. FFRF objected when it was unveiled, warning that the White House was improperly using government resources and prestige to organize and encourage worship, which is outside governmental purview.
The administration similarly boasts of "Rededicate 250," the National Mall May prayer rally at which Americans were called upon to rededicate the nation as "one nation under God." FFRF protested the event and documented its overwhelmingly Christian character and participation by top government officials.
The list celebrates Trump and administration officials publicly reading Scripture during "America Reads the Bible," something FFRF previously criticized as yet another example of the administration misusing public office to promote Christianity.
And the White House counts as a "victory" Trump's Religious Freedom Day proclamation pledging to promote faith throughout American life. FFRF pointed out at the time that Religious Freedom Day actually commemorates the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, one of the foundational American statements against government-sponsored religion.
Pentagon proselytizing is celebrated as 'spiritual support'
The list also touts Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's religious activities as an achievement, including monthly Pentagon worship services and Hegseth's encouragement that service members "lean into their faith" and "rely on God."
FFRF has repeatedly objected to Hegseth using his government office to promote Christianity. It first challenged his Pentagon prayer meetings in May 2025 after learning that a Christian nationalist pastor had been invited to preach at the Pentagon, proselytize and lead attendees in the Lord's Prayer.
FFRF has since documented Hegseth's escalating sectarian rhetoric, including his declaration that "we are in God we trust" while attacking "godless" Americans, and called on him to resign after he invoked Scripture at a Pentagon prayer service while framing military conflict in explicitly religious terms.
The Constitution protects every service member's right to practice a religion or no religion. It does not authorize the secretary of defense to turn the Pentagon into a platform for his personal theology.
The White House even claims victories that did not occur
The list is not merely ideological. Several entries are misleading or badly overstated.
Two entries celebrate efforts to weaken the Johnson Amendment, the federal law that prohibits tax-exempt nonprofits, including churches, from intervening in partisan elections. The White House says the Justice Department "reached an agreement" protecting houses of worship and separately credits the Treasury Department with announcing forthcoming guidance.
But the proposed agreement was never approved. On March 31, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit before considering the proposed settlement. FFRF applauded that ruling and subsequently warned Treasury and the IRS against attempting administratively to accomplish what the unsuccessful litigation did not. The White House list omits that consequential fact.
Another entry claims the administration eliminated a restriction that forced faith-based organizations to "ban religious aspects of their programs" to receive federal funds. That seriously mischaracterizes the previous rules. Religious organizations were free to retain their religious identity, names, symbols, governance and privately funded religious activities. The restriction generally prevented direct federal assistance from paying for worship, religious instruction or proselytizing.
In other words, the supposed burden on religious freedom was actually a safeguard preventing taxpayers from being compelled to subsidize religious worship.
Other "victories" are not victories at all. The list repeatedly counts investigations, lawsuits, proposed rules, statements, proclamations and requests to Congress as accomplishments. It even counts NASA astronauts talking about their personal faith and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nominating Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Religious freedom belongs to everyone
FFRF concedes that a few items on the White House list represent legitimate government functions that protect religious freedom. Prosecuting attacks against synagogues, protecting houses of worship from violence and reasonably accommodating employees' religious practices can help safeguard constitutional rights. That makes the administration's conflation of legitimate protections with government-sponsored prayer and preferential treatment for religion all the more troubling.
And religious Americans do not speak with one voice on abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, vaccines, education or the numerous other policy disputes that the White House packages as "victories for people of faith." The administration's own list demonstrates the problem with treating "people of faith" as a political constituency whose interests supposedly coincide with one particular theological and ideological agenda.
Religious liberty protects Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and members of every other faith -- but it equally protects atheists, agnostics and Americans who want nothing to do with religion.
"The First Amendment does not contain a 'people of faith' clause," says Barker. "It protects freedom of conscience for all of us. The White House seems to believe religious liberty means asking what conservative Christian activists want and then using government power to give it to them. That turns the First Amendment on its head."
FFRF will continue monitoring and challenging administration actions that cross the constitutional line between protecting private religious exercise and using public office, public money and governmental power to promote religion.
* * *
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 41,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
* * *
Original text here: https://ffrf.org/news/releases/ffrf-dissects-trumps-250-victories-for-people-of-faith/
[Category: Religion]
* * *
September 24, 2026
FFRF dissects Trump's '250 victories for people of faith'
-
The White House's newly released list of President Trump's "Top 250 Victories for People of Faith" is a revealing catalog of the administration's efforts to redefine religious liberty.
The sprawling list, released to coincide with America's 250th anniversary, claims to provide "250 reasons why Trump is the most pro-faith, pro-life, and pro-religious liberty president in American history."
"Trump was elected ... Show Full Article MADISON, Wisconsin, Sept. 25 -- The Freedom From Religion Foundation issued the following news release: * * * September 24, 2026 FFRF dissects Trump's '250 victories for people of faith' - The White House's newly released list of President Trump's "Top 250 Victories for People of Faith" is a revealing catalog of the administration's efforts to redefine religious liberty. The sprawling list, released to coincide with America's 250th anniversary, claims to provide "250 reasons why Trump is the most pro-faith, pro-life, and pro-religious liberty president in American history." "Trump was electedpresident, not pastor in chief, and has long forgotten he took an oath to defend and support a Constitution that is godless and separates religion from government," comments Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president. "This inappropriate list is pure pandering to his white Christian nationalist base."
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has reviewed the list. Far from documenting 250 distinct advances for religious freedom, it mixes a handful of legitimate protections for free exercise of religion with a deluge of Christian nationalist initiatives, culture-war policies, unfinished investigations and proposed rules, ceremonial proclamations, repetitious claims and assertions that omit crucial context.
"These are not 250 victories for religious liberty. They are a remarkably candid accounting of this administration's campaign to privilege religion, especially conservative Christianity, through the machinery of what is supposed to be a secular government," adds FFRF Co-President Dan Barker. "Religious freedom means every American is free to believe or disbelieve as conscience dictates. It does not mean the president gets to enlist the federal government in promoting religion."
Most revealingly, the White House repeatedly calls the government's promotion of religion a "victory." The administration celebrates establishing the White House Faith Office and faith centers throughout the federal government, creating its so-called Religious Liberty Commission and Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias, expanding government funding opportunities for religious organizations, promoting prayer and religion in public schools, organizing Christian worship services at the Pentagon and using the federal government to encourage Americans to pray.
FFRF has repeatedly sounded the alarm about many of the very actions the White House now boasts about.
When Trump established the White House Faith Office and Anti-Christian Bias Task Force in February 2025, FFRF warned that the initiatives threatened to privilege religion rather than protect genuine religious liberty. The Faith Office was tasked not merely with accommodating religious exercise but with helping faith-based organizations obtain government grants and influencing federal policy.
FFRF has also closely monitored Trump's Religious Liberty Commission, which features overwhelmingly conservative religious voices and has repeatedly promoted greater religious involvement in government and public education. Its recently released report attacks the First Amendment's Establishment Clause and recommends expanding government entanglement with religion. FFRF has called the report a roadmap for transforming religious freedom from a shield protecting individual conscience into a sword for securing religious privilege.
The White House's assertion that the commission represents "every major faith" is impossible to square with its official roster. The commission's identified religious leadership is predominantly conservative Christian while the broader advisory structure contains barely any religious diversity.
Government promotion of religion becomes a 'victory'
Some of the administration's proudest entries illustrate exactly why FFRF is concerned.
The White House counts its "America Prays" initiative as a religious-liberty accomplishment. That government-backed campaign calls on Americans to organize weekly prayer gatherings as part of the nation's 250th anniversary. FFRF objected when it was unveiled, warning that the White House was improperly using government resources and prestige to organize and encourage worship, which is outside governmental purview.
The administration similarly boasts of "Rededicate 250," the National Mall May prayer rally at which Americans were called upon to rededicate the nation as "one nation under God." FFRF protested the event and documented its overwhelmingly Christian character and participation by top government officials.
The list celebrates Trump and administration officials publicly reading Scripture during "America Reads the Bible," something FFRF previously criticized as yet another example of the administration misusing public office to promote Christianity.
And the White House counts as a "victory" Trump's Religious Freedom Day proclamation pledging to promote faith throughout American life. FFRF pointed out at the time that Religious Freedom Day actually commemorates the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, one of the foundational American statements against government-sponsored religion.
Pentagon proselytizing is celebrated as 'spiritual support'
The list also touts Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's religious activities as an achievement, including monthly Pentagon worship services and Hegseth's encouragement that service members "lean into their faith" and "rely on God."
FFRF has repeatedly objected to Hegseth using his government office to promote Christianity. It first challenged his Pentagon prayer meetings in May 2025 after learning that a Christian nationalist pastor had been invited to preach at the Pentagon, proselytize and lead attendees in the Lord's Prayer.
FFRF has since documented Hegseth's escalating sectarian rhetoric, including his declaration that "we are in God we trust" while attacking "godless" Americans, and called on him to resign after he invoked Scripture at a Pentagon prayer service while framing military conflict in explicitly religious terms.
The Constitution protects every service member's right to practice a religion or no religion. It does not authorize the secretary of defense to turn the Pentagon into a platform for his personal theology.
The White House even claims victories that did not occur
The list is not merely ideological. Several entries are misleading or badly overstated.
Two entries celebrate efforts to weaken the Johnson Amendment, the federal law that prohibits tax-exempt nonprofits, including churches, from intervening in partisan elections. The White House says the Justice Department "reached an agreement" protecting houses of worship and separately credits the Treasury Department with announcing forthcoming guidance.
But the proposed agreement was never approved. On March 31, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit before considering the proposed settlement. FFRF applauded that ruling and subsequently warned Treasury and the IRS against attempting administratively to accomplish what the unsuccessful litigation did not. The White House list omits that consequential fact.
Another entry claims the administration eliminated a restriction that forced faith-based organizations to "ban religious aspects of their programs" to receive federal funds. That seriously mischaracterizes the previous rules. Religious organizations were free to retain their religious identity, names, symbols, governance and privately funded religious activities. The restriction generally prevented direct federal assistance from paying for worship, religious instruction or proselytizing.
In other words, the supposed burden on religious freedom was actually a safeguard preventing taxpayers from being compelled to subsidize religious worship.
Other "victories" are not victories at all. The list repeatedly counts investigations, lawsuits, proposed rules, statements, proclamations and requests to Congress as accomplishments. It even counts NASA astronauts talking about their personal faith and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nominating Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Religious freedom belongs to everyone
FFRF concedes that a few items on the White House list represent legitimate government functions that protect religious freedom. Prosecuting attacks against synagogues, protecting houses of worship from violence and reasonably accommodating employees' religious practices can help safeguard constitutional rights. That makes the administration's conflation of legitimate protections with government-sponsored prayer and preferential treatment for religion all the more troubling.
And religious Americans do not speak with one voice on abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, vaccines, education or the numerous other policy disputes that the White House packages as "victories for people of faith." The administration's own list demonstrates the problem with treating "people of faith" as a political constituency whose interests supposedly coincide with one particular theological and ideological agenda.
Religious liberty protects Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and members of every other faith -- but it equally protects atheists, agnostics and Americans who want nothing to do with religion.
"The First Amendment does not contain a 'people of faith' clause," says Barker. "It protects freedom of conscience for all of us. The White House seems to believe religious liberty means asking what conservative Christian activists want and then using government power to give it to them. That turns the First Amendment on its head."
FFRF will continue monitoring and challenging administration actions that cross the constitutional line between protecting private religious exercise and using public office, public money and governmental power to promote religion.
* * *
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 41,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
* * *
Original text here: https://ffrf.org/news/releases/ffrf-dissects-trumps-250-victories-for-people-of-faith/
[Category: Religion]
The Lesson Nikole Hannah-Jones Didn't Mean to Teach
ATLANTA, Georgia, Sept. 24 -- The Georgia Public Policy Foundation posted the following news release:
* * *
The Lesson Nikole Hannah-Jones Didn't Mean to Teach
*
Choice is powerful, but it brings no guarantees. Sometimes we learn that the hard way.
That's the undercurrent of an eye-opening recent essay in the New York Times Magazine by Nikole Hannah-Jones. I've never been one to praise Hannah-Jones, best known as the creator of the 1619 Project, and there are some material problems with her latest work as well. But it does offer proof of the power of choice, particularly for education. Just ... Show Full Article ATLANTA, Georgia, Sept. 24 -- The Georgia Public Policy Foundation posted the following news release: * * * The Lesson Nikole Hannah-Jones Didn't Mean to Teach * Choice is powerful, but it brings no guarantees. Sometimes we learn that the hard way. That's the undercurrent of an eye-opening recent essay in the New York Times Magazine by Nikole Hannah-Jones. I've never been one to praise Hannah-Jones, best known as the creator of the 1619 Project, and there are some material problems with her latest work as well. But it does offer proof of the power of choice, particularly for education. Justnot the way she intended.
The gist of the story is this: Hannah-Jones and her husband, Faraji, have strong beliefs about racial segregation and fiscal disparities among New York City's public schools. So strong are their beliefs that they choose to send their only child to P.S. 307, which she describes as "the type of school that wealthier families with choices uniformly avoid - one that is low-income and mostly Black." Their own parents made different choices for them, and Hannah-Jones credits those choices for setting them up for success. Nevertheless, they send their daughter, Najya, to P.S. 307 in the belief that all of the school's students would benefit from their "connections and time and status," the example they would set for others, even their donations to the P.T.A.
By the time Najya reaches first grade, she complains of chaotic scenes at P.S. 307. The story continues through academic neglect in the elementary years, leading her parents to doubt (but not change) their decision. Middle school seems a breath of fresh air, until one day Najya confronts her mother:
"Did you know my school was bad like this when you decided to put me here?"
Wrestling with the consequences of the choice she had made for her daughter, Hannah-Jones decides to let Najya choose her own high school. To her chagrin, Najya opts for one that is "heavily white and (academically) screen(s) their students, the type of public schools I had spent my career arguing against." Now a junior, Najya has spent her high school years trying to make up for what she missed along the way.
A reader's first reaction may be to scorn the parents and feel sympathy for the daughter. That reaction is not wrong, but it is too limited.
In reality, the most sympathetic figures in this story go largely ignored except in the abstract and in aggregate. They are the hundreds of other children at P.S. 307 whose parents might have chosen differently if they'd only had the same opportunities as the Hannah-Jones family.
Those other parents did not sacrifice their children on some altar of ideology. For the most part, they simply lacked the economic means to make a different choice. And most of their children will not get the second chance that one suspects Najya will end up getting.
Nothing was ever going to be different for their children just because they were classmates of a New York Times reporter's daughter. The arrogance it takes to believe otherwise is staggering. But even if it had been enough: What then? What then for the students who came after the would-be saviors moved on? And what then for the hundreds of such schools in New York City alone that lacked such a beneficent presence? Are we back to "Waiting for Superman," as another account of educational choices - and the lack thereof - in New York City was titled?
The notion that we will fix our public schools by insisting that fewer parents do what's best for their own children is not only misguided but dangerous. We do not advance the "collective good" by ignoring what's to our "individual advantage," to use Hannah-Jones' phrases. Quite the opposite: All of us will be better off when every parent has the agency to maximize each child's potential.
That requires more choice, not less. Left out of Hannah-Jones' piece, in which she laments that schools like P.S. 307 "have less" of everything, is how much money that school actually had. Last year, P.S. 307 spent almost $44,000 per pupil, not even including "central services" that tacked on another $14,000 - so, about $58,000 per pupil in all. So much for insufficient resources.
How does this relate to choice? The only reason a failing school can spend that much and survive is that lower-income families have nowhere else to go. With funding tied to enrollment, school administrators know plenty of money will remain in their budgets when parents lack choices.
Given real opportunity and high expectations, many disadvantaged students have beaten long odds. That makes privilege alone, or the lack of it, a poor excuse. Some families still face obstacles that make new choices hard to use. But every child who seizes an opportunity today will one day be a parent with more to give the next generation.
If systemic challenges still plague us, the answer is to let more students escape the system, not impound more of them within it. seizes opportunities now represents an expansion of privilege in the future, when they become parents themselves.
If systemic challenges still plague us, the imperative should be to let more students escape the system, not impound more of them within it.water, electricity and land use.
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School choiceEducational inequalityEducational policyNikole Hannah-JonesPS 307New YorkThe New York Times
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Original text here: https://www.georgiapolicy.org/news/the-lesson-nikole-hannah-jones-didnt-mean-to-teach/
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The Lesson Nikole Hannah-Jones Didn't Mean to Teach
*
Choice is powerful, but it brings no guarantees. Sometimes we learn that the hard way.
That's the undercurrent of an eye-opening recent essay in the New York Times Magazine by Nikole Hannah-Jones. I've never been one to praise Hannah-Jones, best known as the creator of the 1619 Project, and there are some material problems with her latest work as well. But it does offer proof of the power of choice, particularly for education. Just ... Show Full Article ATLANTA, Georgia, Sept. 24 -- The Georgia Public Policy Foundation posted the following news release: * * * The Lesson Nikole Hannah-Jones Didn't Mean to Teach * Choice is powerful, but it brings no guarantees. Sometimes we learn that the hard way. That's the undercurrent of an eye-opening recent essay in the New York Times Magazine by Nikole Hannah-Jones. I've never been one to praise Hannah-Jones, best known as the creator of the 1619 Project, and there are some material problems with her latest work as well. But it does offer proof of the power of choice, particularly for education. Justnot the way she intended.
The gist of the story is this: Hannah-Jones and her husband, Faraji, have strong beliefs about racial segregation and fiscal disparities among New York City's public schools. So strong are their beliefs that they choose to send their only child to P.S. 307, which she describes as "the type of school that wealthier families with choices uniformly avoid - one that is low-income and mostly Black." Their own parents made different choices for them, and Hannah-Jones credits those choices for setting them up for success. Nevertheless, they send their daughter, Najya, to P.S. 307 in the belief that all of the school's students would benefit from their "connections and time and status," the example they would set for others, even their donations to the P.T.A.
By the time Najya reaches first grade, she complains of chaotic scenes at P.S. 307. The story continues through academic neglect in the elementary years, leading her parents to doubt (but not change) their decision. Middle school seems a breath of fresh air, until one day Najya confronts her mother:
"Did you know my school was bad like this when you decided to put me here?"
Wrestling with the consequences of the choice she had made for her daughter, Hannah-Jones decides to let Najya choose her own high school. To her chagrin, Najya opts for one that is "heavily white and (academically) screen(s) their students, the type of public schools I had spent my career arguing against." Now a junior, Najya has spent her high school years trying to make up for what she missed along the way.
A reader's first reaction may be to scorn the parents and feel sympathy for the daughter. That reaction is not wrong, but it is too limited.
In reality, the most sympathetic figures in this story go largely ignored except in the abstract and in aggregate. They are the hundreds of other children at P.S. 307 whose parents might have chosen differently if they'd only had the same opportunities as the Hannah-Jones family.
Those other parents did not sacrifice their children on some altar of ideology. For the most part, they simply lacked the economic means to make a different choice. And most of their children will not get the second chance that one suspects Najya will end up getting.
Nothing was ever going to be different for their children just because they were classmates of a New York Times reporter's daughter. The arrogance it takes to believe otherwise is staggering. But even if it had been enough: What then? What then for the students who came after the would-be saviors moved on? And what then for the hundreds of such schools in New York City alone that lacked such a beneficent presence? Are we back to "Waiting for Superman," as another account of educational choices - and the lack thereof - in New York City was titled?
The notion that we will fix our public schools by insisting that fewer parents do what's best for their own children is not only misguided but dangerous. We do not advance the "collective good" by ignoring what's to our "individual advantage," to use Hannah-Jones' phrases. Quite the opposite: All of us will be better off when every parent has the agency to maximize each child's potential.
That requires more choice, not less. Left out of Hannah-Jones' piece, in which she laments that schools like P.S. 307 "have less" of everything, is how much money that school actually had. Last year, P.S. 307 spent almost $44,000 per pupil, not even including "central services" that tacked on another $14,000 - so, about $58,000 per pupil in all. So much for insufficient resources.
How does this relate to choice? The only reason a failing school can spend that much and survive is that lower-income families have nowhere else to go. With funding tied to enrollment, school administrators know plenty of money will remain in their budgets when parents lack choices.
Given real opportunity and high expectations, many disadvantaged students have beaten long odds. That makes privilege alone, or the lack of it, a poor excuse. Some families still face obstacles that make new choices hard to use. But every child who seizes an opportunity today will one day be a parent with more to give the next generation.
If systemic challenges still plague us, the answer is to let more students escape the system, not impound more of them within it. seizes opportunities now represents an expansion of privilege in the future, when they become parents themselves.
If systemic challenges still plague us, the imperative should be to let more students escape the system, not impound more of them within it.water, electricity and land use.
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Original text here: https://www.georgiapolicy.org/news/the-lesson-nikole-hannah-jones-didnt-mean-to-teach/
Reason Foundation: Flight Cancellations and Delays Show Dire State of US Air Traffic Control
LOS ANGELES, California, Sept. 24 -- The Reason Foundation issued the following news:
* * *
Flight cancellations and delays show dire state of US air traffic control
Simple failures caused over 1,000 flight cancellations, 6,000 delays, and negatively impacted tens of thousands of passengers.
Marc Scribner
Senior Transportation Policy Analyst
September 23, 2026
-
On Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA's) Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility suffered a failure in an aging telecommunications circuit. Apparently unbeknownst to the agency, a backup fiberoptic ... Show Full Article LOS ANGELES, California, Sept. 24 -- The Reason Foundation issued the following news: * * * Flight cancellations and delays show dire state of US air traffic control Simple failures caused over 1,000 flight cancellations, 6,000 delays, and negatively impacted tens of thousands of passengers. Marc Scribner Senior Transportation Policy Analyst September 23, 2026 - On Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA's) Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility suffered a failure in an aging telecommunications circuit. Apparently unbeknownst to the agency, a backup fiberopticline running in a railroad right-of-way had already been accidentally cut by a New Jersey Transit contractor. This loss of communications led the FAA to initiate ground stops at Philadelphia and New York area airports, causing over 1,000 flight cancellations, 6,000 delays, and negatively impacting tens of thousands of passengers.
This costly episode underscores the dire state of America's air traffic control system.
The aging copper circuit that failed at Philadelphia TRACON had been slated for replacement under the Trump administration's air traffic control modernization program. Congress has already allocated $12.5 billion to that effort, with telecommunications upgrades as a core focus. But the following day, at the Aero Club in Washington, D.C., Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy spoke of the need for tens of billions of dollars in additional air traffic control investment needs. Congress has so far demurred.
While Secretary Duffy is correct that additional investment in air traffic control modernization is badly needed, pouring more money into the same agencies and channels is unlikely to deliver better results. As we at Reason Foundation have long argued, the core problem is institutional design and management of the air traffic control system.
The FAA is responsible for both running air traffic control and regulating it. This dual role, where the same authority handles safety oversight and service provision, started in the United States many years ago and was copied in other countries. Decisions about investing in air traffic control depend on the priorities of lawmakers and federal transportation officials, who sometimes have different goals.
But by the 1980s, efforts to modernize air traffic control were running into problems around the world. In 1987, New Zealand became the first country in the world to separate air traffic control from its aviation safety regulator. It established a new government corporation that collected cost-based aviation user fees and made air traffic control investment decisions autonomously, all under arm's-length safety oversight.
This model allows air navigation service providers to self-finance improvements and technological upgrades, and do so all at once by issuing revenue bonds backed by predictable user fee collections. Their capital investment programs are not subject to the budgeting or political whims of legislators and government bureaucrats.
Today, by Reason Foundation's count, 96 countries, including most industrialized countries and a growing number of developing countries, have air traffic control provided by an air traffic control utility funded by user fees. Most of these are state-owned corporations, but a few are partially privatized or structured as nongovernmental user cooperatives, such as Nav Canada.
Countries that have transitioned to an air traffic control utility model have been able to adopt new technologies faster, such as fully replacing paper flight progress strips with digital alternatives, adopting space-based surveillance over oceanic and remote areas, and using remote/digital control towers that give controllers better visibility at lower cost. These technologies are mainstream or becoming so around the world, but FAA has yet to complete deployments of any of them--and in many cases, has yet to begin the upgrades that are years or decades behind.
To be sure, adopting the air traffic utility model is not a panacea for solving all potential problems. Good management and proper regulatory oversight remain important. But as longtime air traffic control executive John Kefaliotis put it in a recent Reason Foundation report, reforming governance enables the "transition from a tax-funded air traffic control system chronically short of adequate revenue and long-term financing to a sustainable, adaptable non-profit commercial structure capable of continuous modernization."
In the U.S., the current plan is to upgrade facilities and equipment just once, with no strategy for future updates that will soon be necessary. Government watchdogs are already questioning whether the FAA's upgrades will work, so the costly, yet limited and temporary benefits may never materialize.
Ultimately, in a state of "continuous modernization" is where we want the U.S. air navigation service provider to be, where air traffic control equipment is replaced on a regular schedule before it is completely obsolete, dilapidated and in need of a congressional bailout that may not arrive. Doubling down on the current FAA model, which is already expensive and decades behind on modernization projects, will not achieve that.
* * *
Marc Scribner is a senior transportation policy analyst at Reason Foundation.
* * *
Original text here: https://reason.org/commentary/flight-cancellations-and-delays-show-dire-state-of-us-air-traffic-control/
* * *
Flight cancellations and delays show dire state of US air traffic control
Simple failures caused over 1,000 flight cancellations, 6,000 delays, and negatively impacted tens of thousands of passengers.
Marc Scribner
Senior Transportation Policy Analyst
September 23, 2026
-
On Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA's) Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility suffered a failure in an aging telecommunications circuit. Apparently unbeknownst to the agency, a backup fiberoptic ... Show Full Article LOS ANGELES, California, Sept. 24 -- The Reason Foundation issued the following news: * * * Flight cancellations and delays show dire state of US air traffic control Simple failures caused over 1,000 flight cancellations, 6,000 delays, and negatively impacted tens of thousands of passengers. Marc Scribner Senior Transportation Policy Analyst September 23, 2026 - On Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA's) Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility suffered a failure in an aging telecommunications circuit. Apparently unbeknownst to the agency, a backup fiberopticline running in a railroad right-of-way had already been accidentally cut by a New Jersey Transit contractor. This loss of communications led the FAA to initiate ground stops at Philadelphia and New York area airports, causing over 1,000 flight cancellations, 6,000 delays, and negatively impacting tens of thousands of passengers.
This costly episode underscores the dire state of America's air traffic control system.
The aging copper circuit that failed at Philadelphia TRACON had been slated for replacement under the Trump administration's air traffic control modernization program. Congress has already allocated $12.5 billion to that effort, with telecommunications upgrades as a core focus. But the following day, at the Aero Club in Washington, D.C., Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy spoke of the need for tens of billions of dollars in additional air traffic control investment needs. Congress has so far demurred.
While Secretary Duffy is correct that additional investment in air traffic control modernization is badly needed, pouring more money into the same agencies and channels is unlikely to deliver better results. As we at Reason Foundation have long argued, the core problem is institutional design and management of the air traffic control system.
The FAA is responsible for both running air traffic control and regulating it. This dual role, where the same authority handles safety oversight and service provision, started in the United States many years ago and was copied in other countries. Decisions about investing in air traffic control depend on the priorities of lawmakers and federal transportation officials, who sometimes have different goals.
But by the 1980s, efforts to modernize air traffic control were running into problems around the world. In 1987, New Zealand became the first country in the world to separate air traffic control from its aviation safety regulator. It established a new government corporation that collected cost-based aviation user fees and made air traffic control investment decisions autonomously, all under arm's-length safety oversight.
This model allows air navigation service providers to self-finance improvements and technological upgrades, and do so all at once by issuing revenue bonds backed by predictable user fee collections. Their capital investment programs are not subject to the budgeting or political whims of legislators and government bureaucrats.
Today, by Reason Foundation's count, 96 countries, including most industrialized countries and a growing number of developing countries, have air traffic control provided by an air traffic control utility funded by user fees. Most of these are state-owned corporations, but a few are partially privatized or structured as nongovernmental user cooperatives, such as Nav Canada.
Countries that have transitioned to an air traffic control utility model have been able to adopt new technologies faster, such as fully replacing paper flight progress strips with digital alternatives, adopting space-based surveillance over oceanic and remote areas, and using remote/digital control towers that give controllers better visibility at lower cost. These technologies are mainstream or becoming so around the world, but FAA has yet to complete deployments of any of them--and in many cases, has yet to begin the upgrades that are years or decades behind.
To be sure, adopting the air traffic utility model is not a panacea for solving all potential problems. Good management and proper regulatory oversight remain important. But as longtime air traffic control executive John Kefaliotis put it in a recent Reason Foundation report, reforming governance enables the "transition from a tax-funded air traffic control system chronically short of adequate revenue and long-term financing to a sustainable, adaptable non-profit commercial structure capable of continuous modernization."
In the U.S., the current plan is to upgrade facilities and equipment just once, with no strategy for future updates that will soon be necessary. Government watchdogs are already questioning whether the FAA's upgrades will work, so the costly, yet limited and temporary benefits may never materialize.
Ultimately, in a state of "continuous modernization" is where we want the U.S. air navigation service provider to be, where air traffic control equipment is replaced on a regular schedule before it is completely obsolete, dilapidated and in need of a congressional bailout that may not arrive. Doubling down on the current FAA model, which is already expensive and decades behind on modernization projects, will not achieve that.
* * *
Marc Scribner is a senior transportation policy analyst at Reason Foundation.
* * *
Original text here: https://reason.org/commentary/flight-cancellations-and-delays-show-dire-state-of-us-air-traffic-control/
NFWF Announces $13.3 Million in Grants Through the Western Big Game Seasonal Habitat and Migration Corridors Fund
WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 -- The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation posted the following news release:
* * *
NFWF Announces $13.3 Million in Grants Through the Western Big Game Seasonal Habitat and Migration Corridors Fund
*
WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 24, 2026) - The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) today announced $13.3 million in funding for 14 grants that will conserve critical winter ranges and migration corridors for mule deer, elk, pronghorn, moose and other wildlife across Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming. ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 -- The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation posted the following news release: * * * NFWF Announces $13.3 Million in Grants Through the Western Big Game Seasonal Habitat and Migration Corridors Fund * WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 24, 2026) - The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) today announced $13.3 million in funding for 14 grants that will conserve critical winter ranges and migration corridors for mule deer, elk, pronghorn, moose and other wildlife across Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.The grants will leverage $3.8 million in matching contributions for a total conservation impact of $17.1 million.
The projects will restore and connect habitat across public, private and Tribal lands, helping wildlife move between seasonal ranges and access the food, water and habitat they need to survive. By improving habitat quality and reducing barriers to movement, the grants will strengthen some of the West's most iconic wildlife populations.
The grants were awarded through the Western Big Game Seasonal Habitat and Migration Corridors Fund, a partnership between NFWF and the Department of the Interior's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, ConocoPhillips, Cargill, Taco Bell and Native Americans in Philanthropy.
"Across the American West, vast herds of elk, mule deer and pronghorn have moved across the landscape for generations, shaping some of the region's most iconic wildlife spectacles," said Jeff Trandahl, executive director and CEO of NFWF. "Protecting these migrations requires partnership at every level. These grants support the voluntary efforts of private landowners, Tribes, state and federal agencies, conservation organizations and corporate partners working together to improve habitat connectivity across shared landscapes. Together, we are helping ensure that wildlife can continue to move freely while sustaining the working lands and communities that are vital to the West's future."
Together, the 14 projects are expected to:
* Improve habitat management on more than 206,000 acres of public, private and Tribal lands
* Restore more than 40,000 acres of habitat across priority big-game migration corridors and seasonal ranges
* Remove, install or improve 225 miles of fencing to wildlife-friendly standards
One of the grants announced today will support Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks in a large-scale effort to restore winter range and migration habitat for mule deer and elk across western Montana. Over the past century, conifer encroachment and invasive plants have steadily reduced the quality and extent of native grasslands and shrublands that provide essential forage and winter habitat for big game. Working across 16 sites on Wildlife Management Areas and adjacent public and private lands, the project will remove encroaching trees, treat invasive species, use prescribed fire to improve habitat conditions, and modify fencing to improve wildlife movement. The effort is expected to enhance nearly 9,000 acres of habitat and improve habitat conditions within priority migration corridors and seasonal ranges that support some of Montana's most iconic wildlife populations.
"Healthy, connected landscapes can support both wildlife and the ranching communities that care for them," said Carlos Saviani, Beef Sustainability Director, Cargill. "Cargill is proud to partner with NFWF and others to support the voluntary, locally led conservation work that can improve habitat, strengthen migration corridors, and keep working lands productive for generations to come. By bringing resources and expertise together, we can support ranchers in being more resilient and productive in producing beef while creating better conditions for wildlife to move and thrive."
Across the West, migratory wildlife face increasing pressures from habitat fragmentation, invasive species and changing land use patterns. These challenges can limit access to seasonal habitats and reduce the connectivity that big-game species depend upon throughout the year.
The projects funded through this program demonstrate how states, Tribes, private landowners, nonprofit organizations and federal agencies are working together to address these challenges at a landscape scale. From sagebrush country and mountain valleys to working ranchlands and Tribal lands, the projects will help maintain healthy habitats while keeping wildlife moving across the landscape.
"As a brand that serves millions of people across the country, Taco Bell understands the importance of being a partner to the communities and landscapes around us," said Missy Schaaphok, Taco Bell senior director of Global Food Innovation & Sustainability. "We're proud to support partnerships that bring ranchers and conservation groups together to care for these landscapes and protect the habitat for generations to come."
Since 2019, the Western Big Game Seasonal Habitat and Migration Corridors Fund has awarded $34.9 million across 100 projects, leveraging $71.1 million in matching contributions to generate a total conservation impact of more than $106 million. Together, these projects have contributed to the restoration of more than 176,000 acres of habitat, the protection of more than 109,000 acres through conservation easements, and improved more than 1,800 miles of fencing to support wildlife movement and habitat connectivity.
A complete list of the 2026 grants made through the Western Big Game Seasonal Habitat and Migration Corridors Fund is available here.
About the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) works with partners to foster sustainable and impactful conservation solutions so that people and nature thrive together. Chartered by Congress in 1984, NFWF has grown to become the nation's conservation foundation. NFWF works with the public and private sectors to sustain, restore and enhance the nation's fish, wildlife, plants and habitats for current and future generations. Since its founding, NFWF has supported more than 7,200 grantee organizations and funded more than 23,900 projects that have generated a total conservation impact of more than $12 billion. Learn more at nfwf.org.
About the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service works with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. For more information, visit www.fws.gov, and connect with us on social media: Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter), LinkedIn, Flickr and YouTube.
About the USDA Forest Service
The mission of the Forest Service is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation's forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. The agency manages 193 million acres of public land, provides assistance to state, private, and Tribal landowners, and maintains the largest forestry research organization in the world. Public lands the Forest Service manages contribute more than $13 billion to the economy each year through visitor spending alone. Those same lands provide 20 percent of the nation's clean water supply, a value estimated at $7.2 billion per year. The agency has either a direct or indirect role in stewardship of about 80 percent of the 850 million forested acres within the U.S., of which 100 million acres are urban forests where most Americans live. For more information, visit www.fs.usda.gov.
About the Bureau of Land Management
The BLM manages approximately 245 million acres of public land located primarily in 12 Western states, including Alaska. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. The agency's mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of America's public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.
About ConocoPhillips
ConocoPhillips is an independent exploration and production company headquartered in Houston, Texas. The company explores for, produces, transports and markets crude oil, bitumen, natural gas, natural gas liquids and liquefied natural gas worldwide. For more information, visit conocophillips.com.
About Cargill
Cargill is committed to providing food and agricultural solutions to nourish the world in a safe, responsible, and sustainable way. Sitting at the heart of the supply chain, we partner with farmers and customers to source, make and deliver products that are vital for living. Our 155,000 team members innovate with purpose, providing customers with life's essentials so businesses can grow, communities prosper, and consumers live well. With over 160 years of experience as a family company, we look ahead while remaining true to our values. We put people first. We reach higher. We do the right thing-today and for generations to come. For more information, visit Cargill.com and our News Center.
About Taco Bell Corp.
For more than 64 years, Taco Bell has brought innovative, craveable Mexican-inspired food to the masses, and was recently recognized as one of Fast Company's World's Most Innovative Companies, one of TIME's Most Influential Companies, and Nation's Restaurant News' Brand Icon. For more information about Taco Bell, visit our website at www.TacoBell.com, our Newsroom at www.TacoBell.com/news, or check out www.TacoBell.com/popular-links. You can also stay up to date on all things Taco Bell by following us on LinkedIn, TikTok, X, Instagram, Facebook and by subscribing to our YouTube channel.
About Native Americans in Philanthropy
For over thirty years, Native Americans in Philanthropy has promoted equitable and effective philanthropy in Native communities. They do this through leadership development, education, research, and strategic partnerships with funders and philanthropic organizations. The cornerstone of their work is their relatives and their networks. NAP supports several communities of stakeholders that work together to build knowledge, community, priorities, and power in the sector. These networks include Native professionals in philanthropy, elected Tribal leaders, Native youth leaders, Native philanthropic executives and board members, and Native nonprofit leaders.
Contact:
Matt Winter, 202-857-0166, matt.winter@nfwf.org
***
Original text here: https://www.nfwf.org/media-center/press-releases/nfwf-announces-13-3-million-grants-through-western-big-game-seasonal
* * *
NFWF Announces $13.3 Million in Grants Through the Western Big Game Seasonal Habitat and Migration Corridors Fund
*
WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 24, 2026) - The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) today announced $13.3 million in funding for 14 grants that will conserve critical winter ranges and migration corridors for mule deer, elk, pronghorn, moose and other wildlife across Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming. ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 -- The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation posted the following news release: * * * NFWF Announces $13.3 Million in Grants Through the Western Big Game Seasonal Habitat and Migration Corridors Fund * WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 24, 2026) - The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) today announced $13.3 million in funding for 14 grants that will conserve critical winter ranges and migration corridors for mule deer, elk, pronghorn, moose and other wildlife across Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming.The grants will leverage $3.8 million in matching contributions for a total conservation impact of $17.1 million.
The projects will restore and connect habitat across public, private and Tribal lands, helping wildlife move between seasonal ranges and access the food, water and habitat they need to survive. By improving habitat quality and reducing barriers to movement, the grants will strengthen some of the West's most iconic wildlife populations.
The grants were awarded through the Western Big Game Seasonal Habitat and Migration Corridors Fund, a partnership between NFWF and the Department of the Interior's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, ConocoPhillips, Cargill, Taco Bell and Native Americans in Philanthropy.
"Across the American West, vast herds of elk, mule deer and pronghorn have moved across the landscape for generations, shaping some of the region's most iconic wildlife spectacles," said Jeff Trandahl, executive director and CEO of NFWF. "Protecting these migrations requires partnership at every level. These grants support the voluntary efforts of private landowners, Tribes, state and federal agencies, conservation organizations and corporate partners working together to improve habitat connectivity across shared landscapes. Together, we are helping ensure that wildlife can continue to move freely while sustaining the working lands and communities that are vital to the West's future."
Together, the 14 projects are expected to:
* Improve habitat management on more than 206,000 acres of public, private and Tribal lands
* Restore more than 40,000 acres of habitat across priority big-game migration corridors and seasonal ranges
* Remove, install or improve 225 miles of fencing to wildlife-friendly standards
One of the grants announced today will support Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks in a large-scale effort to restore winter range and migration habitat for mule deer and elk across western Montana. Over the past century, conifer encroachment and invasive plants have steadily reduced the quality and extent of native grasslands and shrublands that provide essential forage and winter habitat for big game. Working across 16 sites on Wildlife Management Areas and adjacent public and private lands, the project will remove encroaching trees, treat invasive species, use prescribed fire to improve habitat conditions, and modify fencing to improve wildlife movement. The effort is expected to enhance nearly 9,000 acres of habitat and improve habitat conditions within priority migration corridors and seasonal ranges that support some of Montana's most iconic wildlife populations.
"Healthy, connected landscapes can support both wildlife and the ranching communities that care for them," said Carlos Saviani, Beef Sustainability Director, Cargill. "Cargill is proud to partner with NFWF and others to support the voluntary, locally led conservation work that can improve habitat, strengthen migration corridors, and keep working lands productive for generations to come. By bringing resources and expertise together, we can support ranchers in being more resilient and productive in producing beef while creating better conditions for wildlife to move and thrive."
Across the West, migratory wildlife face increasing pressures from habitat fragmentation, invasive species and changing land use patterns. These challenges can limit access to seasonal habitats and reduce the connectivity that big-game species depend upon throughout the year.
The projects funded through this program demonstrate how states, Tribes, private landowners, nonprofit organizations and federal agencies are working together to address these challenges at a landscape scale. From sagebrush country and mountain valleys to working ranchlands and Tribal lands, the projects will help maintain healthy habitats while keeping wildlife moving across the landscape.
"As a brand that serves millions of people across the country, Taco Bell understands the importance of being a partner to the communities and landscapes around us," said Missy Schaaphok, Taco Bell senior director of Global Food Innovation & Sustainability. "We're proud to support partnerships that bring ranchers and conservation groups together to care for these landscapes and protect the habitat for generations to come."
Since 2019, the Western Big Game Seasonal Habitat and Migration Corridors Fund has awarded $34.9 million across 100 projects, leveraging $71.1 million in matching contributions to generate a total conservation impact of more than $106 million. Together, these projects have contributed to the restoration of more than 176,000 acres of habitat, the protection of more than 109,000 acres through conservation easements, and improved more than 1,800 miles of fencing to support wildlife movement and habitat connectivity.
A complete list of the 2026 grants made through the Western Big Game Seasonal Habitat and Migration Corridors Fund is available here.
About the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) works with partners to foster sustainable and impactful conservation solutions so that people and nature thrive together. Chartered by Congress in 1984, NFWF has grown to become the nation's conservation foundation. NFWF works with the public and private sectors to sustain, restore and enhance the nation's fish, wildlife, plants and habitats for current and future generations. Since its founding, NFWF has supported more than 7,200 grantee organizations and funded more than 23,900 projects that have generated a total conservation impact of more than $12 billion. Learn more at nfwf.org.
About the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service works with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. For more information, visit www.fws.gov, and connect with us on social media: Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter), LinkedIn, Flickr and YouTube.
About the USDA Forest Service
The mission of the Forest Service is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation's forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. The agency manages 193 million acres of public land, provides assistance to state, private, and Tribal landowners, and maintains the largest forestry research organization in the world. Public lands the Forest Service manages contribute more than $13 billion to the economy each year through visitor spending alone. Those same lands provide 20 percent of the nation's clean water supply, a value estimated at $7.2 billion per year. The agency has either a direct or indirect role in stewardship of about 80 percent of the 850 million forested acres within the U.S., of which 100 million acres are urban forests where most Americans live. For more information, visit www.fs.usda.gov.
About the Bureau of Land Management
The BLM manages approximately 245 million acres of public land located primarily in 12 Western states, including Alaska. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. The agency's mission is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of America's public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.
About ConocoPhillips
ConocoPhillips is an independent exploration and production company headquartered in Houston, Texas. The company explores for, produces, transports and markets crude oil, bitumen, natural gas, natural gas liquids and liquefied natural gas worldwide. For more information, visit conocophillips.com.
About Cargill
Cargill is committed to providing food and agricultural solutions to nourish the world in a safe, responsible, and sustainable way. Sitting at the heart of the supply chain, we partner with farmers and customers to source, make and deliver products that are vital for living. Our 155,000 team members innovate with purpose, providing customers with life's essentials so businesses can grow, communities prosper, and consumers live well. With over 160 years of experience as a family company, we look ahead while remaining true to our values. We put people first. We reach higher. We do the right thing-today and for generations to come. For more information, visit Cargill.com and our News Center.
About Taco Bell Corp.
For more than 64 years, Taco Bell has brought innovative, craveable Mexican-inspired food to the masses, and was recently recognized as one of Fast Company's World's Most Innovative Companies, one of TIME's Most Influential Companies, and Nation's Restaurant News' Brand Icon. For more information about Taco Bell, visit our website at www.TacoBell.com, our Newsroom at www.TacoBell.com/news, or check out www.TacoBell.com/popular-links. You can also stay up to date on all things Taco Bell by following us on LinkedIn, TikTok, X, Instagram, Facebook and by subscribing to our YouTube channel.
About Native Americans in Philanthropy
For over thirty years, Native Americans in Philanthropy has promoted equitable and effective philanthropy in Native communities. They do this through leadership development, education, research, and strategic partnerships with funders and philanthropic organizations. The cornerstone of their work is their relatives and their networks. NAP supports several communities of stakeholders that work together to build knowledge, community, priorities, and power in the sector. These networks include Native professionals in philanthropy, elected Tribal leaders, Native youth leaders, Native philanthropic executives and board members, and Native nonprofit leaders.
Contact:
Matt Winter, 202-857-0166, matt.winter@nfwf.org
***
Original text here: https://www.nfwf.org/media-center/press-releases/nfwf-announces-13-3-million-grants-through-western-big-game-seasonal
Getty Announces Fall Events Featuring Performances, Food & Drinks and Family Fun
LOS ANGELES, California, Sept. 24 -- The J. Paul Getty Trust posted the following news release:
* * *
Getty Announces Fall Events Featuring Performances, Food & Drinks and Family Fun
*
The Getty Center and Getty Villa museums have a lively autumn lined up for visitors at the museums with an array of programs to fulfill a wide range of tastes. Familiar culinary and performance series events return this fall, along with art talks and all-ages workshops that complement new exhibitions.
Performances
On Oct. 4, Ever Present: A Moveable Feast of No: No Wave Women with Adele Bertei at the Center ... Show Full Article LOS ANGELES, California, Sept. 24 -- The J. Paul Getty Trust posted the following news release: * * * Getty Announces Fall Events Featuring Performances, Food & Drinks and Family Fun * The Getty Center and Getty Villa museums have a lively autumn lined up for visitors at the museums with an array of programs to fulfill a wide range of tastes. Familiar culinary and performance series events return this fall, along with art talks and all-ages workshops that complement new exhibitions. Performances On Oct. 4, Ever Present: A Moveable Feast of No: No Wave Women with Adele Bertei at the Centerrevisits the women of New York's punk and No Wave scenes with an evening of experimental music, performance, and wandering guitar players throughout the site. Headlining the event are downtown New York legends the Bush Tetras.
During Ever Present: NOVA '78 -with Julia Heyward and Aaron Brookner on Oct. 23 at the Center, view a special screening of "Nova '78," a documentary that chronicles the 1978 Nova Convention centered on William S. Burroughs and New York's downtown avant-garde. After the screening, Heyward performs her electronic-vocal monologue from the now-legendary event.
The Getty Research Institute's Latin American and Latinx Art Initiative (LALAI) has organized an indoor music performance weaving together chamber classical, folk, torch song, and experimental music for Canto de Todes: A Performance and Conversation with Dorian Wood on Nov. 14 at the Center.
Family Programs
On Oct. 17, bring the whole family to the Center for a vibrant lineup of mariachi, ballet folklorico and bilingual storytelling for this fall's Family Festival: LA and Mexico in Focus. This daylong event is inspired by current photography exhibitions which highlight moments and revelations of Mexican culture as well the Chicano/a communities in Los Angeles.
Ask questions and discover more as artist Alfonso Aceves demonstrates silkscreen printing in Artist-at-Work: Serigraphy and create Mexican photography-inspired art in Images and Imagination: Collage Workshop led by Kalli Arte Collective. These events will take place at the Center on Oct. 4, Nov. 8 and 22, Dec. 13, 2026. Family programming is always free and offered year-round at the museums.
At the Villa, join artist Andres Cortes for a live mosaic-making demonstration in Artist-at-Work: Making Mosaics. Meet the artist, ask questions, and discover different materials and techniques for constructing mosaics. Then make your own mosaic with a contemporary twist in the Modern Mosaics: Family Workshop. These bilingual (English/Spanish) events have several dates from Oct. 2026 to Jan. 2027.
Food & Drinks
Beer enthusiasts can visit the Getty Villa on Oct. 10 for modern brews inspired by ancient practices in Bacchus Uncorked: Beer in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. A ticket includes presentations on ancient beer culture, followed by brews, bites and conversation at the Villa's Cafe Terrace.
The popular "Tastemakers" series returns to the Center with two dates this fall. Experience Getty Supper Club: The Literary Gourmet on Oct. 11, and Getty Supper Club: La Belle Epoque on Nov. 22. "Tastemakers" is a series of communal exchanges inspired by cookbooks in the Getty Library, featuring meals led by chefs, scholars and culinary luminaries.
Exhibitions and Art Programs
Getty's exhibitions are accompanied by various educational opportunities to learn about the artwork currently on display during panels and lectures with experts. Many of the free art talks also offer the option to join online.
"Odilon Redon: Otherworldly Visions" highlights Getty's collection of the artist's moody charcoal drawings and vibrant pastels. Join curator Danielle Canter and conservator Michelle Sullivan on Oct. 4 to hear new insights into Redon's complex artistic methods in Seen/Unseen: A Closer Look at Odilon Redon Drawings.
"Instante/revelacion: Moments in Mexican Photography" and "Every Minute Is History: Five Views of Los Angeles" explore the cultural history of Mexico and Los Angeles through photography. Related art talks at the Center or online include On Photography: Patssi Valdez & Christina Fernandez on Oct. 18, a panel discussion on Laura Aguilar on Nov. 8, and a talk on legacies of Mexican photographers on Nov. 19.
"Sculpted Portraits from Ancient Egypt" features sculpture from a time of intense artistic revival and renewal in ancient Egypt. On Oct. 26, The Hidden Influence of Nubia in Ancient Egypt invites Egyptologist Kathryn Howley to uncover how a sub-Saharan kingdom left a lasting imprint on Egypt.
"Reggie Burrows Hodges: A Theater of Passions" displays a new series of paintings inspired by the art of father-and-daughter painters Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi in the Getty's collection. Join the artist for a conversation about his artistic practice, inspiration, and storied career in A Painterly Pursuit with Reggie Burrows Hodges on Oct. 27.
"The Holy Family at Home" presents works that highlight the late medieval view of the tender human relationships at the heart of the Christian story. A talk about the exhibition highlights Getty's recently acquired painting by Gerard David, while showcasing illuminated manuscripts and panel paintings in The Holy Family Goes Viral on Nov. 7 at the Center.
"A Light in the Dark: Joseph Wright of Derby" celebrates the artist's astonishing ability to capture the magic of light piercing the dark. Hear about his work at the conversation, Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter and Draftsman on Dec. 6 at the Center.
Additional art programs at the museums explore a variety of themes. These events include Edouard Manet, Jeanne Demarsy, and the Art of Parisian Chic on Sept. 26, Show and Tell: Yoko Ono Archive on Sept. 30, Lost, Found, and Beyond: Provenance at America's Museums with Victoria Reed on Oct. 13, A journey through the new Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo on Nov. 1 at the Villa, Art Break: An Ancient Beauty Contest Through a New Lens on Nov. 12 online, Provenance of Antiquities at the Getty: Discovering the Histories of Objects on Dec. 2 at the Villa, Non-Consenting Collaborators with Gala Porras Kim on Dec. 12 and a public panel featuring MacArthur Fellows on Dec. 13 at the Center.
General admission to the museum is free and requires a timed-entry reservation. Visit both the Getty Center and the Getty Villa through the Pay Once, Park Twice program, in which same-day parking at both sites is available for $25. Parking is $15 after 3 p.m. and $10 after 6 p.m.
For a full list of Getty's public programming, please visit our online calendar.
As previously announced, the Getty Center will temporarily close for renovations next year, beginning March 2027.
***
Original text here: https://www.getty.edu/news/getty-announces-fall-events-featuring-performances-food-drinks-and-family-fun
* * *
Getty Announces Fall Events Featuring Performances, Food & Drinks and Family Fun
*
The Getty Center and Getty Villa museums have a lively autumn lined up for visitors at the museums with an array of programs to fulfill a wide range of tastes. Familiar culinary and performance series events return this fall, along with art talks and all-ages workshops that complement new exhibitions.
Performances
On Oct. 4, Ever Present: A Moveable Feast of No: No Wave Women with Adele Bertei at the Center ... Show Full Article LOS ANGELES, California, Sept. 24 -- The J. Paul Getty Trust posted the following news release: * * * Getty Announces Fall Events Featuring Performances, Food & Drinks and Family Fun * The Getty Center and Getty Villa museums have a lively autumn lined up for visitors at the museums with an array of programs to fulfill a wide range of tastes. Familiar culinary and performance series events return this fall, along with art talks and all-ages workshops that complement new exhibitions. Performances On Oct. 4, Ever Present: A Moveable Feast of No: No Wave Women with Adele Bertei at the Centerrevisits the women of New York's punk and No Wave scenes with an evening of experimental music, performance, and wandering guitar players throughout the site. Headlining the event are downtown New York legends the Bush Tetras.
During Ever Present: NOVA '78 -with Julia Heyward and Aaron Brookner on Oct. 23 at the Center, view a special screening of "Nova '78," a documentary that chronicles the 1978 Nova Convention centered on William S. Burroughs and New York's downtown avant-garde. After the screening, Heyward performs her electronic-vocal monologue from the now-legendary event.
The Getty Research Institute's Latin American and Latinx Art Initiative (LALAI) has organized an indoor music performance weaving together chamber classical, folk, torch song, and experimental music for Canto de Todes: A Performance and Conversation with Dorian Wood on Nov. 14 at the Center.
Family Programs
On Oct. 17, bring the whole family to the Center for a vibrant lineup of mariachi, ballet folklorico and bilingual storytelling for this fall's Family Festival: LA and Mexico in Focus. This daylong event is inspired by current photography exhibitions which highlight moments and revelations of Mexican culture as well the Chicano/a communities in Los Angeles.
Ask questions and discover more as artist Alfonso Aceves demonstrates silkscreen printing in Artist-at-Work: Serigraphy and create Mexican photography-inspired art in Images and Imagination: Collage Workshop led by Kalli Arte Collective. These events will take place at the Center on Oct. 4, Nov. 8 and 22, Dec. 13, 2026. Family programming is always free and offered year-round at the museums.
At the Villa, join artist Andres Cortes for a live mosaic-making demonstration in Artist-at-Work: Making Mosaics. Meet the artist, ask questions, and discover different materials and techniques for constructing mosaics. Then make your own mosaic with a contemporary twist in the Modern Mosaics: Family Workshop. These bilingual (English/Spanish) events have several dates from Oct. 2026 to Jan. 2027.
Food & Drinks
Beer enthusiasts can visit the Getty Villa on Oct. 10 for modern brews inspired by ancient practices in Bacchus Uncorked: Beer in Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. A ticket includes presentations on ancient beer culture, followed by brews, bites and conversation at the Villa's Cafe Terrace.
The popular "Tastemakers" series returns to the Center with two dates this fall. Experience Getty Supper Club: The Literary Gourmet on Oct. 11, and Getty Supper Club: La Belle Epoque on Nov. 22. "Tastemakers" is a series of communal exchanges inspired by cookbooks in the Getty Library, featuring meals led by chefs, scholars and culinary luminaries.
Exhibitions and Art Programs
Getty's exhibitions are accompanied by various educational opportunities to learn about the artwork currently on display during panels and lectures with experts. Many of the free art talks also offer the option to join online.
"Odilon Redon: Otherworldly Visions" highlights Getty's collection of the artist's moody charcoal drawings and vibrant pastels. Join curator Danielle Canter and conservator Michelle Sullivan on Oct. 4 to hear new insights into Redon's complex artistic methods in Seen/Unseen: A Closer Look at Odilon Redon Drawings.
"Instante/revelacion: Moments in Mexican Photography" and "Every Minute Is History: Five Views of Los Angeles" explore the cultural history of Mexico and Los Angeles through photography. Related art talks at the Center or online include On Photography: Patssi Valdez & Christina Fernandez on Oct. 18, a panel discussion on Laura Aguilar on Nov. 8, and a talk on legacies of Mexican photographers on Nov. 19.
"Sculpted Portraits from Ancient Egypt" features sculpture from a time of intense artistic revival and renewal in ancient Egypt. On Oct. 26, The Hidden Influence of Nubia in Ancient Egypt invites Egyptologist Kathryn Howley to uncover how a sub-Saharan kingdom left a lasting imprint on Egypt.
"Reggie Burrows Hodges: A Theater of Passions" displays a new series of paintings inspired by the art of father-and-daughter painters Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi in the Getty's collection. Join the artist for a conversation about his artistic practice, inspiration, and storied career in A Painterly Pursuit with Reggie Burrows Hodges on Oct. 27.
"The Holy Family at Home" presents works that highlight the late medieval view of the tender human relationships at the heart of the Christian story. A talk about the exhibition highlights Getty's recently acquired painting by Gerard David, while showcasing illuminated manuscripts and panel paintings in The Holy Family Goes Viral on Nov. 7 at the Center.
"A Light in the Dark: Joseph Wright of Derby" celebrates the artist's astonishing ability to capture the magic of light piercing the dark. Hear about his work at the conversation, Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter and Draftsman on Dec. 6 at the Center.
Additional art programs at the museums explore a variety of themes. These events include Edouard Manet, Jeanne Demarsy, and the Art of Parisian Chic on Sept. 26, Show and Tell: Yoko Ono Archive on Sept. 30, Lost, Found, and Beyond: Provenance at America's Museums with Victoria Reed on Oct. 13, A journey through the new Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo on Nov. 1 at the Villa, Art Break: An Ancient Beauty Contest Through a New Lens on Nov. 12 online, Provenance of Antiquities at the Getty: Discovering the Histories of Objects on Dec. 2 at the Villa, Non-Consenting Collaborators with Gala Porras Kim on Dec. 12 and a public panel featuring MacArthur Fellows on Dec. 13 at the Center.
General admission to the museum is free and requires a timed-entry reservation. Visit both the Getty Center and the Getty Villa through the Pay Once, Park Twice program, in which same-day parking at both sites is available for $25. Parking is $15 after 3 p.m. and $10 after 6 p.m.
For a full list of Getty's public programming, please visit our online calendar.
As previously announced, the Getty Center will temporarily close for renovations next year, beginning March 2027.
***
Original text here: https://www.getty.edu/news/getty-announces-fall-events-featuring-performances-food-drinks-and-family-fun
FFRF's Advocacy Removes Cross From Calif. Fourth-Grade Classroom
MADISON, Wisconsin, Sept. 24 -- The Freedom From Religion Foundation issued the following news release:
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September 23, 2026
FFRF's advocacy removes cross from Calif. fourth-grade classroom
-
The Lodi Unified School District in California has removed a Christian cross displayed by a teacher in her fourth-grade classroom following objections by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
A parent who informed the state/church watchdog about the cross personally observed it during a July 29 back-to-school event at Erma B. Reese Elementary School. According to the parent, the 12 by 16 inch tall ... Show Full Article MADISON, Wisconsin, Sept. 24 -- The Freedom From Religion Foundation issued the following news release: * * * September 23, 2026 FFRF's advocacy removes cross from Calif. fourth-grade classroom - The Lodi Unified School District in California has removed a Christian cross displayed by a teacher in her fourth-grade classroom following objections by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. A parent who informed the state/church watchdog about the cross personally observed it during a July 29 back-to-school event at Erma B. Reese Elementary School. According to the parent, the 12 by 16 inch tallcross was displayed on a wall where the teacher's fourth-grade students couldn't avoid it.
For the parent, the concern was not abstract.
"Any child in that classroom who does not follow a Christian-based religion has to look at that cross and know their teacher's religion is different than their own," the parent told FFRF. The parent expressed dismay over the fact that a child "may feel that [the teacher] disapproves of them or does not accept them or their own religious beliefs." The parent was particularly concerned that their own child could be treated differently if the teacher learned that the child was not Christian.
To protect the First Amendment rights of conscience of these young and impressionable students, FFRF immediately contacted the district to ensure the removal of the religious symbol.
"By prominently displaying a cross on her classroom wall where students will inevitably see it, [the teacher], and thus the district, signals clear favoritism toward religion over nonreligion and Christianity over all other faiths," FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence wrote to Superintendent Neil Young.
Religion is a divisive force in public schools, and the classroom cross, an unmistakably sectarian message, clearly crossed a constitutional line. The display also needlessly marginalized fourth-graders, such as the child of FFRF's parent complainant, who is among the 43 percent of Generation Z members who are religiously unaffiliated.
FFRF is pleased to report that corrective action promptly followed FFRF's letter. A representative of the district confirmed via email, "The issue brought to our attention has been addressed, and the cross is no longer displayed."
"This is one of the more shocking violations of the separation between religion and government that we have encountered in a public school classroom," says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. "A fourth-grade classroom is not a Sunday school, or a venue for an overzealous teacher to espouse their personal religious views. We are glad that Lodi Unified took this egregious violation seriously."
* * *
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with 41,000 members and several chapters nationwide, including more than 5,100 members and two local chapters in California. FFRF's purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
* * *
Original text here: https://ffrf.org/news/releases/ffrfs-advocacy-removes-cross-from-calif-fourth-grade-classroom/
[Category: Religion]
* * *
September 23, 2026
FFRF's advocacy removes cross from Calif. fourth-grade classroom
-
The Lodi Unified School District in California has removed a Christian cross displayed by a teacher in her fourth-grade classroom following objections by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
A parent who informed the state/church watchdog about the cross personally observed it during a July 29 back-to-school event at Erma B. Reese Elementary School. According to the parent, the 12 by 16 inch tall ... Show Full Article MADISON, Wisconsin, Sept. 24 -- The Freedom From Religion Foundation issued the following news release: * * * September 23, 2026 FFRF's advocacy removes cross from Calif. fourth-grade classroom - The Lodi Unified School District in California has removed a Christian cross displayed by a teacher in her fourth-grade classroom following objections by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. A parent who informed the state/church watchdog about the cross personally observed it during a July 29 back-to-school event at Erma B. Reese Elementary School. According to the parent, the 12 by 16 inch tallcross was displayed on a wall where the teacher's fourth-grade students couldn't avoid it.
For the parent, the concern was not abstract.
"Any child in that classroom who does not follow a Christian-based religion has to look at that cross and know their teacher's religion is different than their own," the parent told FFRF. The parent expressed dismay over the fact that a child "may feel that [the teacher] disapproves of them or does not accept them or their own religious beliefs." The parent was particularly concerned that their own child could be treated differently if the teacher learned that the child was not Christian.
To protect the First Amendment rights of conscience of these young and impressionable students, FFRF immediately contacted the district to ensure the removal of the religious symbol.
"By prominently displaying a cross on her classroom wall where students will inevitably see it, [the teacher], and thus the district, signals clear favoritism toward religion over nonreligion and Christianity over all other faiths," FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence wrote to Superintendent Neil Young.
Religion is a divisive force in public schools, and the classroom cross, an unmistakably sectarian message, clearly crossed a constitutional line. The display also needlessly marginalized fourth-graders, such as the child of FFRF's parent complainant, who is among the 43 percent of Generation Z members who are religiously unaffiliated.
FFRF is pleased to report that corrective action promptly followed FFRF's letter. A representative of the district confirmed via email, "The issue brought to our attention has been addressed, and the cross is no longer displayed."
"This is one of the more shocking violations of the separation between religion and government that we have encountered in a public school classroom," says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. "A fourth-grade classroom is not a Sunday school, or a venue for an overzealous teacher to espouse their personal religious views. We are glad that Lodi Unified took this egregious violation seriously."
* * *
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with 41,000 members and several chapters nationwide, including more than 5,100 members and two local chapters in California. FFRF's purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
* * *
Original text here: https://ffrf.org/news/releases/ffrfs-advocacy-removes-cross-from-calif-fourth-grade-classroom/
[Category: Religion]