LOS ANGELES - Using the budget shortfall in Sacramento as cover, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board President Monica Garcia and LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy have recommended a draconian budget that cuts off all funding for adult education--the veritable lifelines for immigrant families, impoverished communities, and students of color. Unconscionable in any circumstances, their proposed budget is even more grievous given the hundreds of millions of dollars of public property and resources they have given away to private charter corporations over the past couple of years.

More than 345,000 students are currently enrolled in various adult education programs including English as a second language, high school graduation, occupational programs, and many others.

Efforts are underway to save these critical programs. So far thousands of signatures have been collected, hundreds of phone calls made, and various other means of trying to convince the LAUSD Board to save Adult Education have been employed. Moreover, it isn't just the students at these schools and community activists supporting adult education. Indeed, many local business support LAUSD Adult Education for reasons including providing workers from the community better prepared for positions.

Supporters are asking for signatures on the on-line petition, as well as for support at a demonstration this Thursday, February 9, at 1:30 at the LAUSD offices, 333 S Beaudry Ave in Los Angeles, 90017.

From the newswire: Even Local Businesses Support Efforts to Save LAUSD Adult Education by Robert D. Skeels

"The Kawaiisu Tribe of Tejon thanks Secretary Ken Salazar for 'Reaffirming' the Tribe to the list of Federally Recognized Tribes in the United States. 'Reaffirming of Recognition,' means that Congress and the President of the United States recognize the Tribe through the Treaty, because the Treaty represents prior Federal Recognition. The United States now is back in compliance with the Treaty, except for the Tejon Reservation and Graves issues. . . . They have been fighting a legal case for two years in California Federal Court, docket number 1:09-cv-01977, to stop development on their Indian Reservation at the Tejon Ranch near Los Angeles, that gives the corporation permission to unearth the burial remains and spiritual burial objects of thousands of their ancestors that died on the reservation. The timing of regaining recognition, while awaiting a ruling on the Federal Case is an unexpected gift that the Tribe embraces with gratitude. . . ."

More: Tribe Thanks Secretary Salazar For Righting Wrongs Of The Past by David Laughing Horse Robinson

Video: The Kawaiisu people and legal history of land by Kernvillekate | | More Information and videos: Kawaiisu Tribe of the Tejon (Blogspot)

Spring Festival, also known as Lunar New Year or Chinese New Year, is beyond a massive holiday; it impacts everyone in China. Nearly a billion people will travel back to home during the so-called 40-day Chunyun (春运) travel period, the world's largest human migration movement.This year's Chunyun will be expected to make up around 3.16 billion passenger trips means around a round-trip for every people in China (population approx.13.3 billion).

While middle classes can afford to take airplanes for the holiday, for average Chinese migrant workers and students, the less expensive railroad trip could be their only chance in a few years to return their home for the holidays. Train tickets are always very difficult to buy during the holiday seasons, and the trip could be very long. Some people could take up-to10-days trip from far nothen China to far southern China to meet their family.

Holidays also mean the need to bring year-long savings from work to families; however, not everyone is so lucky. Many workers also need to fight for their back-wages as well, right before the new year many company bosses also could cheating their worker's wages, they need to fight to get their money back.

The author also comments on the impact of international politics in China, including the steady rise of China's right wing pro-US/anti-communist neo-con/neo-liberal forces.

From the newswire: Journey to My Home--Happy Spring Festival (AKA Chinese New Year)! by Lee Siu Hin

SAN DIEGO - January 20 , 2012 - When 100 protesters from Occupy San Diego, Activist San Diego, Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and a wide variety of organizations arrived in the morning to hold a rally outside the Federal Building in downtown San Diego to protest the U.S. Supreme Court’s two-year-old Citizens United decision, they were in for a rude awakening. A phalanx of agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had parked four trucks outside the building — three ominously labeled “Homeland Security Federal Protective Service” and one, unmarked, topped with a satellite dish — and stationed themselves outside the building to ensure that the rally could not take place there. Instead the Homeland Security agents unilaterally moved the rally to an alcove by the side of the building two blocks away, in a far less visible location.

The rally went on anyway, with featured speakers Marjorie Cohn, professor at Thomas Jefferson College of Law and former head of the National Lawyers’ Guild,; Lori Saldaña, former California State Assembly member and current candidate for Congress against Republican incumbent Brian Bilbray; and Tara Ludwik, a 37-year-old single mother from Point Loma who described herself as “amazingly moderate” politically until last September, when she joined Occupy San Diego. Full Story: San Diegans Rally Against Citizens United Decision by Mark Gabrish Conlan

SAN DIEGO - January 20 , 2012 - When 100 protesters from Occupy San Diego, Activist San Diego, Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and a wide variety of organizations arrived in the morning to hold a rally outside the Federal Building in downtown San Diego to protest the U.S. Supreme Court's two-year-old Citizens United decision, they were in for a rude awakening. A phalanx of agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had parked four trucks outside the building three ominously labeled Homeland Security Federal Protective Service and one, unmarked, topped with a satellite dish and stationed themselves outside the building to ensure that the rally could not take place there. Instead the Homeland Security agents unilaterally moved the rally to an alcove by the side of the building two blocks away, in a far less visible location.

The rally went on anyway, with featured speakers Marjorie Cohn, professor at Thomas Jefferson College of Law and former head of the National Lawyers Guild,; Lori Salda, former California State Assembly member and current candidate for Congress against Republican incumbent Brian Bilbray; and Tara Ludwik, a 37-year-old single mother from Point Loma who described herself as amazingly moderate politically until last September, when she joined Occupy San Diego. Full Story: San Diegans Rally Against Citizens United Decision by Mark Gabrish Conlan

RELATED: Occupy Redlands Protests Citizens United Decision by Rockero