From NPR: For the first time, new federal science standards due out this month will recommend teaching K-12 students about climate change. Educators say many teachers have shied away from the polarizing topic, and an organized campaign to promote it as "controversial" leaves many students confused.
Kentucky: Some Murray State faculty members are in the early stages of starting a local chapter of an educators union following a Board of Regents vote against extending current president Randy Dunn’s contract. Legislative leaders have passed two bills to shore up the state's underfunded pension systems, effectively staving off a special session on the issue. Lawmakers have achieved a compromise that would set up a regulatory framework should the federal government legalize industrial hemp. Kentucky military personnel serving overseas will be able to get ballots electronically under legislation approved late Tuesday in the Kentucky General Assembly. Lawmakers have overridden a gubernatorial veto of the so-called religious freedom bill on the last day of the legislative session. Kentucky State Police say an escaped inmate was found riding as a passenger in a car stopped by police.
Tennessee: Tennessee lawmakers came into the legislative session fired up about rejecting new federal gun laws, but even symbolic shots are failing to get support.