Great Falls News

Over the past week, Donald Trump has been forced to sit inside a frigid New York courtroom and listen to a parade of potential jurors in his criminal hush money trial share their unvarnished assessments of him. It's been a dramatic departure for the former president and presumptive GOP nominee turned criminal defendant. He's accustomed to spending his days in a cocoon of cheering crowds and constant adulation. Trump will instead spend the next several weeks subjected to strict rules that strip him of control over everything from what he is permitted to say to the temperature of the room.

A major argument for legalizing the adult use of cannabis after 75 years of prohibition was to stop the harm caused by disproportionate enforcement of drug laws in Black, Latino and other minority communities. But efforts to help those most affected participate in the newly legal sector have been halting. Legal adult use has spread to 24 states. Nearly all have “social equity” provisions designed to redress drug war damages. But legal challenges in some states have slowed implementation, and it remains difficult for applicants to find locations and obtain bank loans. A decade after opening its first stores, Washington is only now issuing social equity licenses.

Investments in public preschool have helped many parents through a child care crisis, in which quality options for early learners are often scarce and unaffordable. But some parents say the programs don't work for them. Some public preschools lack an all-day option. No state has a more ambitious plan for universal preschool than California, which plans to extend eligibility for so-called “transitional kindergarten” to all 4-year-olds by fall 2025. But even in California, not all schools hosting transitional kindergarten offer child care before or after instruction.