State organizations that advocate for disabled residents in New Jersey and Arkansas announced this week that they will have to limit their work due to not receiving the full federal funds they are owed by the US federal government.

Each state, territory, and Washington, DC, has a protection and advocacy agency to support the rights of disabled people, including providing one-on-one legal services. These agencies were created by the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 1975, which means their work is federally mandated. It’s currently unclear whether all protection and advocacy agencies have been impacted by shortages in federal funds.

“Are we going to a worldview that just contracts all those social services and basically says people must stand on their own or fall on their own?”

NJ.com reported that Disability Rights New Jersey (DRNJ) has received only $1.6 million of the $3.1 million it needs this year to represent disabled people, including those in group homes and in prisons. As a result, the agency—which also receives some state funding—is shutting down its services until May 5, and says it will not be able to make payroll next month if it does not receive its designated federal funds. The White House did not respond to NJ.com‘s request for comment on funding issues.

In Steubenville, Ohio, many students are considered to be economically disadvantaged. But unlike some similar towns and cities across the United States, standardized testing doesn’t strike fear among members of the school board, principals, and superintendent.

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That’s because for the past two decades, 93 percent or more of students in Steubenville’s public schools have scored proficient on state reading tests by the time they’re in third grade.

“It was astonishing to me how amazing that elementary school was,” said Karin Chenoweth, who wrote about Steubenville in her 2009 book How It’s Being Done: Urgent Lessons From Unexpected Schools. According to research from the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University, Steubenville has routinely scored in the top 10 percent or better of schools nationwide for third-grade reading, sometimes scoring as high as the top 1 percent.

On Friday morning, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in New Orleans deported members of two families, including young children and a pregnant mother, under circumstances that have raised serious due process concerns. Among those deported were three children who are US citizens, including a two-year-old who was born in New Orleans and a child with a rare form of metastatic cancer who’d been receiving treatment in the US.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) alleges that ICE did not allow the mothers and children detained to have substantial or any contact with attorneys and family members, including with the two-year-old’s father.

“If this is what the Trump administration is orchestrating just three months in, we should all be terrified of what the next four years will bring.”

“These families were lawfully complying with ICE’s orders and for this they suffered cruel and traumatic separation,”  Mich P. Gonzalez, founding partner of Sanctuary of the South, which provides legal assistance, said in a statement. “If this is what the Trump administration is orchestrating just three months in, we should all be terrified of what the next four years will bring.”

This weekend is Dewey’s 24-Hour Readathon! It started in 2007, and I’ve participating every April and October for more than ten years. It’s a great excuse to clear my calendar for a day and read as much as I can. These days, I celebrate with a couple of my friends: the three of us snack and read together all day long (and most of the night!).

Over the years, I’ve learned some things about readathoning. For one thing, I don’t stay up the full 24 hours anymore. I’m too old for that. I also am still perfecting the exact perfect balance of snacks. Equally important to snacks, though, are the books. I usually read mostly graphic novels and novellas on readathon days, but there are a few more things I’ve learned about book selection. (Like every day of the year, of course, I mostly read queer books.)

Here are some of the best and worst choices of queer books to read in one sitting—at least, when it comes to my reading tastes.

March 14 – April 26, 2025

March 14 – April 26, 2025