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Dave Grohl has responded to a question about whether Foo Fighters will be performing at the upcoming FireAid Relief benefit concert supporting those affected by the Los Angeles fires.TMZ caught…

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“We have heard the complaints,” said a spokesman for the mayor, “and we are changing tactics.”

All funds from your sea lion adoption go directly to helping the zoo care for and feed its animals for a year.

by Sergio Hernández, Nat Lash and Ken Schwencke

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Join us Jan. 31 at 3 p.m. Eastern for a live demonstration of this database’s features.

Private schools in the United States are, on the whole, whiter than public schools, with fewer Black, Hispanic or Latino students. This may not be a surprising statistic because private schools can often be expensive and exclusionary, but it’s not a simple one to pin down. There is no central list of private schools in the country, and the only demographic data about them comes from a little-known voluntary survey administered by the federal government.

While reporting our project on Segregation Academies in the South last year, we relied on that survey to find private schools founded during desegregation and analyzed their demographics compared to local public school districts. Our analysis of that survey revealed, among other things, Amite County, Mississippi, where about 900 children attend the local public schools — which, as of 2021, were 16% white. By comparison, the two private schools in the county, with more than 600 children, were 96% white.

In the course of our reporting, we realized that this data and analysis were illuminating and useful — even outside the South. We decided to create a database to allow anyone to look up a school and view years worth of data.

Today, we are releasing the Private School Demographics database. This is the first time anyone has taken past surveys and made them this easy to explore. Moreover, we’ve matched these schools to the surrounding public school districts, enabling parents, researchers and journalists to directly compare the makeup of private schools to local public systems.

Until now, much of this data was difficult to analyze: While the National Center for Education Statistics, which collects the data, provides a tool to view the most recent year of Private School Universe Survey data, there was no easy way to examine historical trends without wrangling large, unwieldy text files.

As debates over school choice, vouchers and privatization of education intensify, making this repository of private school data accessible is more important than ever. The information is self-reported, but we have attempted to flag or correct some obvious inaccuracies wherever possible.

How to Use the App

Searching: You can search for private schools or public school districts by name and drill down on results using several filter options.

For schools, you can filter results by state, religious affiliation, school type and enrollment range. For some schools, you can also filter by founding year. By default, we only show results for schools that have responded to the survey at least once in the last few years, but you can turn off this filter to also include older data in your search results.

For public school districts, users can filter by state and sort results to see where the most students are attending private schools, as well as the gap between the district’s largest racial group and the school’s share of those same students. Because private schools can draw students from different districts, comparing their racial composition to a single district’s public schools is imperfect. Still, these comparisons can offer valuable insights into broader patterns of segregation and access.

Looking up a private school: On each private school’s page, you’ll find basic information about the school (its name; location; the type of school and its religious affiliation, if any; and what grades it teaches), and we’ve also included a summary and visualization of how the school’s demographics compare to the public school district’s.

There’s also a compilation of the demographic data the school provided to the survey, which you can download for your own analysis:

Exploring a district or state: On district and state pages, you’ll find more general information about private schools in those areas. (Search for districts here, and see links for each state here.)

You can find areas where private schools aren’t out of step demographically with their nearby public schools. In Osceola County, Florida, south of Orlando, both the local public school district and the private schools are mostly Hispanic or Latino.

Both state and district pages include breakdowns of private schools by religious orientation and school type, and a list of all private schools in the state or district. State pages also show a list of all school districts in the state.

District pages include some additional features, such as:

• A searchable map of private schools in the district’s boundaries, color coded by the predominant race of each school’s student body. (Use the lookup tool next to the map to search for schools by name, or click on the “Use Your Current Location” button to zoom in on schools near you. Clicking on a school’s address will fly the map to its location, and clicking on a school’s name will take you to that school’s page.)

• An interactive line chart that shows how public and private school enrollment have changed over time for each race category. Use the dropdown to change race categories and explore trends for different groups.

If you find something notable, we’d love to hear about it. We’d also like to hear your ideas for improving the app, including new features or data you’d like to see. And if you spot something you believe is an error, each page has a button you can use to report that to us.

Tyson released a statement thanking emergency personnel for their quick response and stating that operations had already been resumed.

Earlier this week, a St. Louis Circuit Court judge signed an arrest warrant for a Glasgow Village man accused of starting a fire last summer inside a senior apartment building.

by Sergio Hernández, Nat Lash and Brandon Roberts

Private schools in the United States are, on the whole, whiter, less Black and less Hispanic or Latino than public schools.

With our new Private School Demographics database, we’re enabling parents, researchers and journalists to directly compare the makeup of private schools to local public schools.

As debates over school choice, vouchers and privatization of education intensify, making this repository of private school data accessible is more important than ever.

🔎 Look up private schools near you.

Illinois lawmakers have introduced a bill that would decriminalize prostitution and create a sex worker's bill of rights.

As I noted when the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court handed down its original decision back in 2023, I didn’t care much for the plaintiff, but I did care quite a bit about the First Amendment. Less-than-ideal litigants make some pretty good caselaw, and that’s how it went here. The plaintiff challenging Oregon’s surreptitious recording law […]

David Bowie’s ninth studio album, Young Americans, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and the milestone will be marked with the release of a new reissue.The album will be released as…

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Sadie Weiss, who joined the St. Louis Board of Education in 2023, announced her resignation on Tuesday night, citing “disrespect and unprofessional behavior” from board colleagues.

CHICAGO - The 2025 tax season is quickly approaching, and the Illinois Department of Revenue (IDOR) announced today it will begin accepting and processing 2025 tax returns on Monday, January 27, the same date the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) begins accepting federal income tax returns. Illinois will participate in the IRS Direct File program this year. Eligible taxpayers will be able to use the program to electronically complete their 2024 federal tax returns for free. Eligibility can be confirmed by visiting https://directfile.irs.gov . After filing a federal return using Direct File, the program will connect taxpayers to Illinois’ free state income tax filing system, MyTax Illinois , allowing them to file and complete their Illinois state returns. "Taxpayers are encouraged to file electronically as early as possible in the tax season and choose direct deposit in order to ensure the fastest processing and issuance of any refunds," IDOR Director David Harris said. "Eligible

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The new leader of the U.S. Senate’s agriculture committee, Arkansas’ John Boozman, has several ties to meatpacking behemoths, including Tyson Foods, and has recently resisted efforts by his fellow Republicans to reign in their economic power. New Democratic leadership on the committee also has strong agriculture ties, as Sen. Amy Klobuchar has received thousands from […]

CHICAGO - Attorney General Kwame Raoul, in partnership with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, filed a lawsuit today against Deere and Company (Deere), arguing the agricultural equipment manufacturer’s use of unfair practices has driven up equipment repair costs for farmers while also depriving farmers of the ability to make timely repairs on critical farming equipment, including tractors. “With the price of farming equipment continuing to rise, farmers should have increased flexibility to repair and maintain their equipment and not be forced to utilize expensive authorized dealers,” Raoul said. “I will continue to advocate for increased marketplace competition and stand for the rights of Illinois consumers.” In their lawsuit, Raoul and the coalition allege that for decades, Deere’s unlawful practices have limited the ability of farmers and independent repair providers to repair Deere equipment, forcing

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In Illinois, 33 counties have voted to leave the state. Getting them into Indiana is incredibly unlikely.