HuffPo: “Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that he plans to defund diversity, equity and inclusion programs in every Florida university, another move in his push to upend higher education in the state. The governor and potential 2024 presidential hopeful laid out a list of higher education “reforms” his administration aims to carry out, including banning DEI programs that…

WaPo: “Students arrived in some Florida public school classrooms this month to find their teachers’ bookshelves wrapped in paper — or entirely barren of books — after district officials launched a review of the texts’ appropriateness under a new state law. School officials in at least two counties, Manatee and Duval, have directed teachers this…

Political Wire: “Cementing what has been in the works for months, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will formally announce she is running for president and will seek the Republican nomination for her party’s 2024 ticket,” the Charleston Post and Courier reports. “According to an invitation soon going out to her backers, Haley’s advertised ‘special announcement’ will…

NY Times: “After heavy criticism from Gov. Ron DeSantis, the College Board released on Wednesday an official curriculum for its new Advanced Placement course in African American Studies — stripped of much of the subject matter that had angered the governor and other conservatives. The College Board purged the names of many Black writers and scholars associated…

Reuters: “The specialized police unit that included the five Memphis officers charged with the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols was disbanded on Saturday as more protests took place in U.S. cities a day after harrowing video of the attack was released. The police department said in a statement it was permanently deactivating the SCORPION unit…

WDRB: “The share of unionized workers in Kentucky ticked up in 2022, bucking the national trend, according to federal data released this month. It marks the first increase in the state’s share of union workers in six years, though the rate is still well below the level of unionization in Kentucky prior to 2017’s right-to-work…

NC Policy Watch: “Some folks measure the value of higher education solely by how much its graduates make. Most of us know there’s a lot more to it. In a column last week, John Hood of the John Locke Foundation contends that North Carolinians don’t receive an adequate return on what he calls a “relatively large” investment in…

Slate: “As soon as President Joe Biden entered the White House, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an unprecedented campaign of obstruction to block his agenda in the courts. Paxton took advantage of a quirk—really, a loophole—in the federal judiciary: A state can pick the specific judge who will oversee its case by filing in…

AR Times: “Arkansas Democrats, that downtrodden but determined crew, met this weekend to elect officers. Exhausted Chairman Grant Tennille had tried to hand over the job in December, but got sweet-talked into staying by party luminaries Joyce Elliott and Keith Ingram, a press release about their Saturday meeting said. The party is in the black…

NC Policy Watch: “The NC Department of Environmental Quality is investigating the discharge of an estimated 30,000 gallons of hog waste from a farm owned by Murphy-Brown, according to a press release from state officials. The farm is in Bladen County, northwest of Ammon and southwest of Roseboro. It has a state permit to raise…