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Video: Vermont Made Child Care Affordable. Could It Lead by Example?

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Video: Vermont Made Child Care Affordable. Could It Lead by Example?

Vermont had a problem. Child care was too expensive. “We would be paying $3,500 a month, more than twice our mortgage.” Some parents were giving up their careers to stay home — “After daycare, you come home with maybe $60 extra a week. It’s just not even worth it at that point.” making it harder for local businesses to hire workers. Some businesses wanted the state to pay for childcare, but they faced a big obstacle. “The word tax. It’s a very volatile word.” Ultimately, Vermont did manage to make child care more affordable. So we’re here to find out how they’re doing it. This year’s midterm elections could turn on the issue of affordability. “Affordability.” “Affordability.” “Affordability.” “The affordability crisis.” Forty-four percent of voters said having a family was unaffordable in a recent Times-Siena poll. Alison Byrnes and her husband, for example, wanted a third kid. “It felt just like our family wasn’t complete.” But daycare for two kids here costs $3,500 a month, and Alison’s mom was already dipping into her retirement fund to help pay for that. “There’s no way we could make that work.” For years, Vermont’s working-age population has been shrinking, making businesses like Smugglers’ Notch Resort compete to find the workers they need. In 2022, the resort was short more than a dozen housekeepers. The managing director was fed up with the staffing shortage and decided to try something new. He offered free child care for employees. “We announced the new program on a Friday and by Tuesday, we were full. All the jobs had been taken, so we knew we were really on to something.” The child care benefit attracted employees like Becca Bishop, who wanted to rejoin the workforce after a few years as a stay-at-home mom. “I chose to start working here purely because of the child care that we have.” Now before work, she drops off her 3-year-old, Archer, at the on-site daycare and her 5-year-old son, Hunter, at ski camp, which is also free. Then she works full time managing the resort’s arcade. Once Bill solved his staffing problem, he started talking to other Vermont C.E.O.s about the benefits of child care and lobbying for a new tax that would fund it statewide. “When I was first back in Vermont working for the governor, I was talking to all kinds of Vermonters, and what I found was everything that they cared about actually linked back to child care. Aly Richards spent a decade expanding child care in Vermont. She said business leaders like Bill were a crucial part of the push. “Once we had them in here saying, ‘Look, if I paid in to fix child care in a systemic, sustainable way through, let’s say, a payroll tax,’ what happened was it gave permission to lawmakers to move forward on this issue. Often, businesses come into this building and say, ‘Please, do not raise taxes.’ In this case, it really was flipped on its head. They became the most powerful voices in advocating for public investment.” “What we should really do is try it and find out what happens.” The child care bill, Act 76, passed in 2023. It established a new 0.44 percent payroll tax on employers and generates about $125 million a year to fund child care subsidies. Families pay on a sliding scale. So a family of four with a modest income pays no tuition for child care. Higher-income families pay a co-pay that’s supposed to stay below roughly 10 percent of their income. The law has only fully been in place for a year, but already the new funding has led to more than 1,200 new child care slots for kids across Vermont. For years, child care centers were closing because they couldn’t cover their bills. Now, new ones are opening, like this one in the farming town of Addison. Michelle Bishop had dreamed of starting a place like this, but couldn’t afford to open until she could count on the state to pay more than $400 per child each week. “We have 16 children enrolled — 80 percent of them are receiving subsidy.” The additional funding also meant she could actually afford to pay her workers a livable wage. Statewide, Vermont still needs many more child care centers before it can fully meet demand. For now, though, the difference the new law has made for these Vermont residents is clear. Alison and her husband were finally able to have the third child they wanted because they knew their childcare costs would be about $30,000 a year less than it would have been without the new law. “We can’t imagine our family without that third kiddo. It’s literally life-changing. Like — she would not be here.” For Rebecca, free child care means she can afford to save for a new house that fits her family better. “We do plan on staying in Vermont, yes.” Michelle plans to expand into another room for toddlers this spring. “We hope to open in March or April. We’re almost finished.” And as for Bill, he says the New tax is nothing compared to what Vermont gets for it. “We didn’t put in a new tax and find that we couldn’t pay our bills. We’re still here.” “In Vermont, we really came together and it’s working.”

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Trump fires last members of election commission, inciting fears of midterm ‘chaos’

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Trump fires last members of election commission, inciting fears of midterm ‘chaos’

Donald Trump has terminated the remaining members of the independent, federal commission that assists election administration officials nationwide just a few months before the midterm elections, multiple outlets reported Thursday.

The remaining three commissioners of the four-member bipartisan commission ⁠were forced out on Thursday in different ways. The one Republican appointee resigned and the other ⁠two, Democratic appointees were notified of their terminations via email from ​the White House presidential personnel office.

“On ‌behalf of President ‌Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position ‌as Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” the email, seen by Reuters, said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Election Assistance Commission serves as a “national clearinghouse of information on election ‌administration”, accredits testing laboratories and certifies voting systems, and maintains the national mail-voter registration form developed by the National ​Voter Registration Act of 1993, according to the commission’s website. The terminations follow Trump and top administration officials’ advocacy to change vote-by-mail requirements and investigations into the 2020 election outcome, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

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“It is ⁠irresponsible and dangerous that this Administration remains dead set on ​causing chaos for ​our election officials across this ​country,” Arizona secretary of state Adrian Fontes said in a ​Thursday statement. “This ‌move undermines the integrity ​of nonpartisan ​election administration.”

The 2002 law that established the commission, the Help America Vote Act, states the president can appoint replacements to the commission.

It is unclear how Trump will move ahead with the commission.

Reuters contributed reporting

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Former Olympian pleads not guilty in reflecting pool vandalism charges

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Former Olympian pleads not guilty in reflecting pool vandalism charges

Former U.S. Olympian David Hearn (left) walks with his attorney Norman Eisen to speak to reporters and protesters gathered after his arraignment at the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

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Former U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn pleaded not guilty to damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in D.C. Superior Court Thursday morning.

Federal prosecutors charged Hearn with a single count of destruction of property causing more than $1,000 in damage to the pool.

Hearn has previously claimed, which his attorneys repeated during a short press conference outside the court, that he simply touched the water in the pool out of curiosity.

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The Trump administration had just completed a $14 million renovation of the pool.

But shortly after the work finished, peeling paint and algae gathered in the water. The remodel has been largely criticized as a massive failure and waste of taxpayer dollars.

Superior Court Judge Carmen McLean released Hearn on his own recognizance. His next hearing is scheduled for Aug. 5.

Norm Eisen, one of Hearn’s attorneys, spoke to reporters outside of court following the hearing. He said the administration is using Hearn as a “scapegoat … for their own failures.”

“It is not a crime to touch the reflecting pool, to touch water in the United States of America,” he said.

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Prosecutors say there is a host of evidence against Hearn.

This is a developing story.

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

Three more people have been criminally charged with destruction of property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Officers say they detained Cameron Thiers, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Justin Carreno one Saturday afternoon in June and described in court documents witnessing them peeling and removing pieces of blue paint from the Reflecting Pool.

One officer “witnessed Carreno reach down into the reflecting pool and pull up a piece of the blue paint,” according to the court documents.

The officer who detained Dennison-Gibby “found 1 additional piece of the reflecting pool liner” in her purse, the documents said.

All three incidents were recorded on the officers’ body worn cameras, they said in the court documents.

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Several “partnering law enforcement agencies assigned to the Reflecting Pool” working with US Park Police were involved in detaining the two men and one woman — including officers from Texas, Oklahoma, Montana and California.

One of the officers said in court documents that Thiers “admitted to removing a piece of blue sealant from the Reflecting Pool and still had it in his hand when I made contact with him.”

The three defendants were arraigned in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charges of destruction of property with a value less than $1,000. The judge ordered them to stay away from the Reflecting Pool.

Lawyers for Thiers and Dennison-Gibby declined to comment. CNN has reached out to Carreno’s attorney.

If found guilty of destruction of property, the defendants could be fined up to $1,000 and face a maximum of 180 days behind bars.

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The New York Times first reported that three additional people had been charged with damaging the Reflecting Pool.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that vandals caused major damage to the pool by gashing the lining after his administration spent more than $14 million on renovations, though he has not provided evidence to support that claim. The officers who charged Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby did not accuse them of gashing the lining.

Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was indicted by a grand jury in Washington, DC, last week for allegedly damaging the Reflecting Pool. Hearn — unlike Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby – was charged with destruction of property with a value of more than $1,000 which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, if convicted. He is set to be arraigned in court Thursday.

Crews began draining the Reflecting Pool over the weekend to make repairs, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for the second time in three months.

The move comes after weeks of problems – algae blooms, green-hued water, a chipping bottom and the administration’s allegations of vandalism – that have plagued the iconic landmark, making its woes the subject of national interest.

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