December 11, 2025

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Plunge in English language learners foreshadows Connecticut school enrollment crisis.

For more than a decade, Connecticut’s English Language Learner (ELL) student population has acted as a critical buffer, masking a broader, underlying decline in overall public school enrollment. That period has officially ended, delivering a fiscal one-two punch that towns across the state have been dreading.

For the first time in over a decade, the number of ELL students statewide has dropped significantly, declining by over 2,000 students from 57,055 to 54,915 this year.

Many are attributing this decline to families’ fears of immigration enforcement. Others say it is due to a shortage of housing, school choice and repeal of the religious immunization exception.

Overall public school enrollment in Connecticut is falling and the recent decline in English language learners will only accelerate this trend.

At least one county in Florida has a similar problem, but it doesn’t seem to be related to illegals: “The potential for school closures underscores the difficult crosscurrents buffeting the district, as families opt for private school using the state’s generous voucher program and nonprofit charter schools seek space in underused campuses.”

Posted at 12:45 pm by Stephen Green

SKYNET SMILES: Time’s 2025 Person of the Year: The architects of AI.

Time magazine has unveiled its 2025 Person of the Year: The architects of AI.

“2025 was the year when artificial intelligence’s full potential roared into view, and when it became clear that there will be no turning back,” Time said in its announcement on Thursday morning. “For delivering the age of thinking machines, for wowing and worrying humanity, for transforming the present and transcending the possible, the Architects of AI are TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year.”

The magazine released two covers for its Person of the Year issue.

One, created by digital artist Jason Seiler, is a recreation of the “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper” photograph from 1932, replacing its ironworkers with executives at leading tech and AI companies, including Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Lisa Su (Advanced Micro Devices), Elon Musk (xAI), Jensen Huang (Nvidia), Sam Altman (Open AI), Demis Hassabis (DeepMind Technologies), Dario Amodei (Anthropic), and Fei-Fei Li (Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute). The other, by illustrator and graphics animator Peter Crowther, features the same leaders amid construction scaffolding that surrounds the letters AI.

The magazine has bestowed its Person of the Year title annually since 1927, though it was formally called Man of the Year (or Woman of the Year) until 1999.

“Person of the Year is a powerful way to focus the world’s attention on the people that shape our lives,” Time editor in chief Sam Jacobs wrote in an essay explaining the choice. “And this year, no one had a greater impact than the individuals who imagined, designed, and built AI.”

No doubt, AI’s potential is as bottomless as the PC was when it debuted in the mid-1970s, before Time declared it the “Machine of the Year” in 1982. But as usual in the post-Henry Luce era, the magazine plays it safe, and doesn’t wish to alienate its readers on the left. Because there was a far bolder option available to them:

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

COLONIZATION, STRAIGHT UP:

Posted at 11:58 am by Stephen Green

21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: Woman gives birth in San Francisco Waymo car.

A driverless Waymo vehicle turned into a temporary birthing center when a woman gave birth to a baby inside the car before she reached a hospital, according to the autonomous vehicle company.

The pregnant woman was apparently in labor and attempting to reach a University of California San Francisco hospital when the baby arrived.

Waymo’s remote Rider Support Team detected unusual activity, initiated a call to check on the rider, and contacted 911. The mother and her new baby arrived safely in the Waymo at the hospital, according to the company.

The newborn is likely the youngest-ever person to ride in a driverless vehicle in the Bay Area.

Well, there’s not much younger than newborn — but did the Waymo AI step up and help coach the mom?

Posted at 11:43 am by Stephen Green

JOURNOLISM:

Jarvis adds: “When the NYT gives MTG the Strange New Respect treatment you can bank on these two pics. Bookmark this. I bet MTG already has the sweater picked out.”

Bookmarked.

Posted at 10:56 am by Stephen Green

CHANGE:

60 years ago, Walter Cronkite and Daniel Schorr were claiming on air that Barry Goldwater was a crypto-Nazi, so the fact that CBS can now show empathy to an actual Republican is significant progress. I hope they can continue in this fashion.

But as Steve noted yesterday, Bari’s got her work cut out for her, and large percentage of staffers who openly despise her for not being as far to the left as they are: Bari Weiss Named a New CBS News Anchor, and the Response Is the Funniest News Ever.

UPDATE: Given how painfully Cronkite leaned into his biases on the air, this is absolutely perfect:

Posted at 10:50 am by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Colorado’s Public Utilities Commission living an energy fantasy.

Colorado’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has done it again — proving when regulators get together, they can create a fantasyland so detached from reality it makes Disneyland look like a documentary.

The PUC just adopted a new rule ordering power utilities to slash greenhouse emissions 41% by 2035, a big jump from the legislature’s original “let’s try not to panic anyone” target of 22% by 2030. And they tied the whole package to Colorado’s statewide goal of eliminating greenhouse gases by 2050.

Eliminating — as in zero. As in, “Natural gas and coal, thanks for your service, appreciate you heating our homes and powering two-thirds of our electricity. Now pack your things.”

Back in 2021, lawmakers required utilities to file “clean heat plans.” The idea was simple: reduce emissions a little, tinker around the system, maybe switch a few customers to electric heat pumps. In politician-speak, this is called incremental change. In real life, it’s called fine, whatever.

But this is no longer a clean heat plan, instead it’s a Dear John letter to your furnace. You see, “eliminating greenhouse gases” means eliminating all coal and natural gas, and therefore most all our electricity too.

No plan survives first contact with reality — or with Gov. Polis’ Colorado Energy Office, which in July suggested the PUC (also appointed by Polis) raise the target to 41%. Utilities fought the idea. Consumer advocates fought it. Even the unions said, “Um, guys?”

The PUC responded, “Great feedback, everyone. We’re doing it anyway.”

My advice to my fellow Coloradans is: either buy lots of blankets or rent a U-Haul.

Posted at 10:41 am by Stephen Green

DAVID SOLWAY: What’s in an (Indigenous) Name? Canada’s Latest Scandal. “The latest installment of such obvious chicanery, primarily in the province of British Columbia, is the conflict between Fee Simple Rights — property owners’ absolute rights to land and buildings purchased in good faith and according to the law — and Aboriginal Title Rights — the collective right of Indigenous Peoples to land and harvesting privileges not granted by the state, but considered inherent. Thanks largely to the worst provincial premier in Canada, David Eby, a woke socialist intent on surrendering his province back to the Indians, and the trouble-making Supreme Court Justice Barbara Young, proprietors in portions of the district of Richmond, part of Metro Vancouver, have just learned that they no longer own the properties that they own.”

Posted at 10:10 am by Stephen Green

SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS ENJOYING A SECOND MAI TAI AT THE SWIM-UP BAR: Democrats Are Behind Your Crippling Electricity Bills, Report Confirms.

The new report, first provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation, found that blue states generally have higher electricity costs than red states. Titled “Blue States, High Rates. Electricity Prices: Elections Have Consequences,” IER’s report notes that all but one of the top 10 most expensive states for energy — measured by cost per kilowatt hour — are governed by Democrats.

In contrast, 80% of the states with the most affordable electricity costs per kilowatt hour are “reliably red,” according to IER. Twenty of the 25 states with the lowest electricity prices are red states, while only four are blue, and one is purple, the report states.

Always on Energy Research partnered with IER on the report.

“This is a blue state problem,” IER President Tom Pyle told the DCNF, arguing that prescribing any blame to President Donald Trump for soaring electricity costs is misplaced.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 9:39 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: What, Me Worry?’ — Taking the Alfred E. Neuman Approach to 2026. “This is a point that I have been making about President Trump and this administration from the beginning — there’s always been a plan to undo the damage that the Puppet Biden Cabal did. They’re going about it methodically too. It’s not easy to rebuild after the wrecking ball has had four years to destroy the place.”

Posted at 9:08 am by Stephen Green

THE SPIRIT OF LIBERTY:

Posted at 8:55 am by Glenn Reynolds

SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO TUCKER?

I mean, even if he was bat-guano the whole time, he used to do a much better job at hiding it.

Unlike Joy Reid, who never bothered.

Posted at 8:52 am by Stephen Green

CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN: Trump Admin Buys Fleet of Deportation Jets.

The Department of Homeland Security has signed a contract of nearly $140 million to purchase six Boeing 737 planes for deportations.

DHS will shift from relying solely on charter services to operating its own aircraft after Congress approved a major funding increase for President Donald Trump’s border and immigration agenda, according to The Washington Post.

Two officials familiar with the contract and records reviewed by the Post said ICE may have broader plans for the aircraft.

Congress authorized $170 billion for immigration and border operations over four years as part of the GOP tax bill, and the plane funding comes from that package.

The infusion of money is tied to the administration’s effort to expand enforcement and meet its stated goal of deporting 1 million people by the end of Trump’s first year in office.

And with fuel prices so low on Trump’s watch, it’s a real bargain.

Posted at 8:37 am by Stephen Green