Summary

The Department of Transportation (DOT) has issued a memo prioritizing federal funding for communities with marriage and birth rates above the national average.

The directive, which applies to grants, loans, and contracts, also prioritizes projects benefiting families with young children.

A congressional aide criticized the policy, saying, ā€œConsidering fertility rates when prioritizing federal grants? We obviously have no idea what the full impact of that will beā€¦ Itā€™s absolutely creepy. Itā€™s a little ā€˜Chinese government.ā€™ā€

The memo also blocks mask mandates and requires compliance with immigration enforcement.

  • Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works
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    20 days ago

    Both spellings are correct and do not impact the meaning. ā€œLedeā€ has only this one meaning whilst ā€œLeadā€ can mean a few different things.

    • go $fsck yourself@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      For more context, the phrase started as ā€œleadā€ then was changed by journalists to ā€œledeā€ in the 70ā€™s to help differentiate between ā€œleadā€, ā€œleadā€, and ā€œleadā€.

    • spongebue@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      But ā€œburying the ledeā€ is a common term in journalism for exactly this kind of thing. ā€œBurying the leadā€ is common only in that itā€™s a mistake people say because itā€™s phonetically similar (plus ā€œledeā€ is an uncommon word, Iā€™ll admit)

      Kind of like shouldā€™ve vs should of. Have and of are both words, but one is very wrong.

      • Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works
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        20 days ago

        No. Iā€™m sorry, you are wrong. Both spellings are equally valid. In English-speaking newsrooms across the globe either spelling is acceptable.

    • stormdelay@sh.itjust.works
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      19 days ago

      I didnā€™t realize! I thought in this context lede was the only correct spelling, I suppose I should thank Cunninghamā€™s Law for learning something

      • Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works
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        9 days ago

        Hello again,

        Iā€™ve just been talking to my friend who is an editor of a US paper and she says (and I donā€™t doubt) that ā€œledeā€ is the only correct spelling of the word in the US - but the rest of the English speaking world has the choice of spelling both ways with no hard and fast rule.

        Guess we were both right - and both wrong - at the same time.