More Quotes
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Regan Dunn, a paleobotanist and curator at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, describing what makes the site irreplaceable and what makes moving its 3.5 million fossils for a two-year renovation so daunting. The museum closes July 6 for a massive overhaul, with every bone requiring a custom foam shell, before reopening in 2028 as the Samuel Oschin Global Center for Ice Age Research. (Los Angeles Times)
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Mandy Drogin, a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, defending proposals before the Texas State Board of Education that would embed biblical figures in social studies standards and add Scripture passages to a required student reading list — changes critics say give Christianity privileged status over other faiths in public schools. The foundation, which championed several of the policies, gave a $70,000 grant to a university department whose faculty member helped lead the social studies standards overhaul. (Dallas Morning News)
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Mark Jones, a spokesperson for the Missouri National Education Association, describing a $1.9 million contribution to the campaign pushing Missouri voters to replace the state income tax with expanded sales taxes. The measure on the Aug. 4 ballot is a top priority for Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe. The money came from Missouri Promise Inc., a nonprofit incorporated in Delaware just weeks before the 2026 legislative session began, with a mailbox address in St. Louis and no publicly identifiable donors. When the Kansas City Star asked the attorney general's office about the contribution, the response was that state law prohibits revealing the identity of any entity under investigation, leaving voters with no way to know who is bankrolling one of the most consequential tax decisions in Missouri's recent history. (Kansas City Star)
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Jonathan Alexander, president of Pittsburgh's Sheraden neighborhood community council, putting his finger on why fixing missed garbage pickups, which have more than tripled in 311 complaints since 2019, won't solve the waste problem in neighborhoods like his. Illegal dumpsites are the deeper issue. The nonprofit Allegheny CleanWays has identified more than 2,000 such sites across the city, with about 10 in Sheraden alone, and residents say sanitation trucks sometimes leave an area messier than they found it after rummaging animals or broken bags scatter debris that workers aren't required to clean up. The city's garbage fleet hasn't grown since before the pandemic even as 311 missed-collection requests have climbed steadily. (Pittsburgh Public Source)
