Public Sector, Education & Research

Denver – – September 16, 2026 -- Kaiser Permanente is committing more than $5 million over the next three years to Colorado school districts, targeting rising student chronic absence and staff burnout that have strained education budgets statewide.

Kaiser Permanente Targets Chronic Absence Tied to Health Conditions

The multiyear investment addresses chronic absence rates in Colorado schools that run higher than the national average, a trend the insurer links to underlying health conditions. Districts currently lack granular data to identify why students are missing class, limiting their ability to intervene before absences compound into long-term health and academic setbacks.

Brookings, S.D. – September 16, 2026 -- Northern Tool + Equipment has launched its fourth annual student vehicle build program at Flandreau Indian School, tasking 14 career and technical education (CTE) students with transforming a 1976 Ford F-350 utility truck into a rolling showcase of skilled-trades careers for display at the 2027 SEMA Show in Las Vegas.

Build IV marks the program's first placement at a tribal school and its first gender-balanced student team

Half of the Flandreau Indian School Build Team is female, a program first for Northern Tool's four-year-old initiative. Students will handle welding, fabrication, automotive repair, paint, bodywork and design work on the truck throughout the 2026-2027 school year, working directly alongside industry professionals rather than watching contractors complete the work.

Lincolnshire, Ill. – September 15, 2026 -- 95 Percent Group has launched 95 Principles to PracticeTM—Literacy, a facilitator toolkit aimed at closing the gap between science of reading training and actual classroom instruction in K-3 schools.

82% of K-3 teachers report science of reading training, but only 52% say instruction reflects it

The disparity, cited from a Fordham Institute report, illustrates what the company calls the "knowing-doing gap" in literacy education. Research reported by the International Dyslexia Association found that without dedicated implementation teams, it takes 17 years on average to embed roughly half of a new initiative into routine classroom practice.

Benghazi – September 15, 2026 -- The University of Benghazi reopened all its faculties and facilities on September 4, 2026, after an 11-year closure caused by war damage, following a reconstruction project led by the Libyan Fund for Development and Reconstruction.

Reconstruction took three years to rebuild an integrated university campus

The project, personally overseen by Fund Director-General engineer Belqasim Khalifa Haftar, restored the faculties of engineering, arts, law, science and languages, along with the central library, administrative buildings, laboratories, service facilities, student housing and internal infrastructure.

University serves nearly 100,000 students as one of Libya's oldest institutions

Known as the "Mother of Libyan Universities," the institution has provided free education for decades, training generations of scientists, academics, experts and officials who helped build Libya's state institutions.

New York – September 15, 2026 -- Food Bank For NYC, the largest hunger-relief organization in New York City, is urging Congress to delay a new federal SNAP cost-sharing mandate for two years and fully fund the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), warning that unmitigated new costs could destabilize food access for millions of residents.

New SNAP cost-sharing rules take effect October 1 under the federal budget law H.R. 1

Provisions enacted in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA), signed into law last year, require U.S. states to share SNAP program costs for the first time in the program's history. Starting October 1, New York State must cover a larger share of SNAP's administrative costs, adding an estimated $168 million in annual expenses for the state and $110 million annually for New York City.

Salt Lake City – September 15, 2026 -- Instructure has partnered with identity verification provider Veriff to build identity checks directly into Parchment by Instructure Transcript Services, targeting fraud that has cost U.S. community colleges $180 million in a single year through so-called "ghost student" schemes.

Parchment network spans 6,200 colleges and 6,700 K-12 schools

Parchment operates the largest academic credential network in the world, connecting more than 6,200 colleges and universities with 6,700 K-12 schools and districts, and has exchanged over 165 million credentials to date. The new verification layer places identity checks at the point of credential issuance, inside the same network institutions already use to send transcripts.

Salt Lake City – September 15, 2026 -- Instructure will launch Canvas Lite, a free version of its Canvas learning management system, on September 30, 2026, opening the platform to educators who operate outside institutional licenses.

Canvas Lite targets teachers without district or campus access

The product, available at canvaslite.instructure.com, gives homeschool educators, tutors, community instructors and teachers piloting new courses a way to build course content, invite students and manage assignments without IT deployment or procurement. Instructure said the free tier includes core Canvas tools at the course level, including module and page building, file and URL submissions, quizzes with rubrics, SpeedGrader with audio and video feedback, messaging and discussions, third-party integrations with Google Drive, Zoom and Microsoft Teams, and the Canvas Teacher and Canvas Student mobile apps.

Chicago – September 15, 2026 -- The National Public Housing Museum has secured a $1 million gift from the Baskin Family Foundation, prompting the renaming of its central civic space to the Shelly Baskin Living Room.

Baskin Family Foundation commits $1 million to Chicago museum

The National Public Housing Museum, described as the first U.S. cultural institution dedicated to interpreting the American experience of public housing, confirmed the gift on Sept. 9, 2026. The funds will support the Living Room, the museum's gathering space that has hosted free programs, performances, and community events since opening in 2025.

Berlin – September 15, 2026 -- Saxony recorded temperatures as high as 41.5 degrees Celsius this summer, with an estimated 550 heat-related deaths registered in the state by mid-August, according to the Robert Koch Institute. The German Environmental Aid organization (Deutsche Umwelthilfe, DUH) has conducted a heat-vulnerability assessment across Saxon municipalities in response, examining how prepared local governments are for extreme temperature events.

Record heat hit Klitzschen bei Torgau at 40.3 degrees and Bad Muskau at 41.5 degrees

The 2026 summer set new local temperature records in Saxony, with Klitzschen bei Torgau reaching 40.3 degrees Celsius and Bad Muskau reaching 41.5 degrees Celsius. The Robert Koch Institute attributed roughly 550 deaths in the state to heat exposure through mid-August.

Kathmandu – September 15, 2026 -- Two weeks after a devastating flash flood in Nepal, an estimated 540 children remain separated from their parents or unaccompanied, while roughly 630 children in the Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts are still missing, according to a joint assessment by Nepal's National Child Rights Council and child protection experts including Save the Children.

Assessment finds 1,233 children currently living in emergency shelters

Of those, 102 are unaccompanied and 439 have been separated from their parents but are being cared for by relatives, the assessment shows. The figures underscore the scale of family tracing and reunification work now required in the flood-hit region.