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03_26_25_headlines Jackie Sedley
DOGE Public Media Hearing
The heads of the nation’s two largest public broadcasters are testifying before Congress today to a Department of Government Efficiency subcommittee.
National Public Radio (NPR)’s Katherine Maher and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS)’s Paula Kerger will represent their respective networks and defend the value of public media.
Rocky Mountain PBS says on its website that the hearing is expected to be confrontational, centering on alleged liberal bias in the two networks. The subcommittee has named the hearing, quote, “Anti-American Airwaves: holding the heads of NPR and PBS accountable.” It’s chaired by Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, who will lead the hearing. Greene said in a statement ahead of the hearing that she QUOTE “wants to hear why NPR and PBS think they should ever again receive a single cent from the American taxpayer.”
In just a few months time, the Department of Government Efficiency – or DOGE – has fired thousands of federal workers, and rescinded millions of dollars in government funding.
DOGE says it has saved the federal government at least 115 billion dollars so far. Fortune magazine, however, along with a site called the DOGE tracker, say the agency has inflated those numbers and posted inaccurate information on its website.
To listen in, here’s a link to the hearing’s livestream.
Federal prosecutors defend ICE’s fight to deport Jeanette Vizguerra
Federal prosecutors are standing behind U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) as they work aggressively to deport Jeanette Vizguerra.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado filed the response Monday night, to voice its opinion on an emergency petition filed by Vizguerra’s legal team for a writ of habeas corpus. That’s a request for a court to determine the validity of a person’s detention.
While they stand by ICE’s actions, the federal prosecutors are also arguing that the petition is being litigated in the wrong court, and that it should be dealt with the in 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals instead. Vizguerra’s lawyers have also filed a petition for review in the 10th Circuit.
The 53-year-old immigrant advocate and activist was detained by ICE agents on March 17 while she was working at a Target store in metro Denver. She’s currently being held at the ICE GEO Detention Facility in Aurora.
The Trump administration is currently asking U.S. District Judge Nina Wang to deny Vizguerra’s challenge to a separate removal order that was reinstated in 2013 against her. Before that, Wang ordered ICE to keep Vizguerra in Colorado, while the court considers legal arguments.
A hearing on Vizguerra’s case is set for Friday, in federal court in Denver.
That’s all according to The Denver Post.
Lyons Opposes Greenway
The Lyons town board has voted to oppose Rocky Mountain Greenway’s new trail plan, due to environmental concerns. The town joins the cities of Broomfield, Superior, and Westminster, all of which have already withdrawn their support.
The regional trail would connect the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge adjacent to Denver and Commerce City, as well as the Two Ponds National Wildlife Refuge in Arvada.
The Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge would bring public traction to the former plutonium trigger weapons manufacturing site. The contentious Greenway trail plan has received intense pushback from environmental activists and local researchers, who have expressed serious concerns that the trail will kick up contaminated soil.
The federal government spent an estimated $7 billion to clean the site, but the space surrounding it – which includes over 20,000 acres of open space, residential developments and agricultural lands – has not been. That’s because several agencies decided that those areas were not contaminated enough to require cleanup.
That’s all according to reporting from The Daily Camera.
East HS Dean Sues
A dean injured in the 2023 shooting inside East High School is suing Denver Public Schools and its Board of Education.
Eric Sinclair filed his lawsuit last Friday in Denver District Court. The suit alleges that the district’s discipline policies were QUOTE “unclear and inconsistently applied,” and that staff were not properly trained to search students for weapons.
East High administrator Wayne Mason filed a similar suit against the district earlier last week. Both Sinclair and Mason were shot by student Austin Lyle inside the school back in March of 2023. Sinclair was shot twice, in the thigh and through his stomach and chest, and lost his spleen as a result.
The lawsuit also alleges that since the 2020 removal of police presence in schools, the district and board have “shifted the responsibility to faculty and staff to manage, search, disarm and de-escalate, potentially violent or volatile students.” The suit goes on to say DPS’s discipline policies weren’t always implemented as written, and that as a result students who presented a danger to the schools weren’t able to be suspended or expelled.
The lawsuit has been filed under Colorado’s Claire Davis School Safety Act, which says schools can be held liable if they fail to provide “reasonable care” to protect students and employees from violence that is “reasonable foreseeable.”
