WINGS Infant Care Center Opens In Santa Maria

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SANTA MARIA, Calif. (KEYT) - Santa Maria has a new childcare resource for infants from six weeks to two years old.

This will allow a lot of parents to return to work much sooner after having a baby.

Children’s Resource & Referral of Santa Barbara County (CRR) is hosting a ribbon‑cutting ceremony to celebrate the opening of its new WINGS Infant Center in Santa Maria. 

The event takes place from 3:30–4:30, and members of CRR will be joined by those of the Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce to cut the ribbon punctually at 4:00 p.m.

The WINGS Infant Center expands access to high‑quality, inclusive infant care for children ages six weeks to two years, particularly serving working families, low‑income households, and those involved in foster care.

The facility emphasizes inclusion, relationship‑based care, and whole‑child development.

Attendees will be able to tour the center, connect with community partners, and learn more about CRR’s mission to strengthen early childhood systems across Santa Barbara County.

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Santa Barbara Police to Step Up Seat Belt Enforcement May 18–31 as part of “Click It or Ticket” Campaign

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The Santa Barbara Police Department will deploy extra patrols May 18–31 to look for drivers and passengers not wearing seat belts, including vehicles where children are not secured in appropriate […]

The post Santa Barbara Police to Step Up Seat Belt Enforcement May 18–31 as part of “Click It or Ticket” Campaign appeared first on edhat.

Trump wants to rebrand ICE as NICE. Not everyone agrees

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ICE agents depart the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building on February 4

By Michael Williams, Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump has made clear on social media and in interviews that he thinks Immigration and Customs Enforcement needs a rebrand — more specifically, a new name: National Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or NICE.

Whether that change will move forward, in the form of an executive order, or whether it will just be a meme, has been the topic of internal debate at the White House and the Department of Homeland Security.

The idea to change the name of ICE — which would require an act of Congress, not simply an executive order — appears to have originated on social media. In late April, the president shared to his Truth Social account a screenshot of a suggestion made on X that the name be changed “so the media has to say NICE agents all day.”

“GREAT IDEA!!! DO IT,” the president wrote on Truth Social.

Since then, both the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, the Cabinet agency that oversees ICE, have shared memes to their social media accounts endorsing the name change. As the memes took off, officials at ICE remained on standby in case the White House chose to move forward with a name change and crunched numbers on what that would look like, from changing stationary to vests, per a source familiar.

Trump said he’s felt pushback from rank-and-file officers, along with the White House’s border czar, Tom Homan, who were not as enthusiastic.

“But I’m not sure that the guys liked it, because … I think they like their image of being strong, and they’ve done a great job,” he said during a Tuesday interview on WABC’s “Sid and Friends in the Morning.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that “the NICE men and women of ICE continue to risk their lives to arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens from American communities.”

ICE has been perhaps the most heavily and publicly scrutinized federal agency in Trump’s second term, as its agents have deployed nationwide to conduct at-times controversial immigration arrests.

Following the shooting of US citizen Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis in January, public opinion polling found that slightly more than half of Americans believed the agency was making US cities less safe.

Aware of that criticism, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has frequently said he wants to take a “quiet” approach to immigration enforcement while maintaining an aggressive posture.

“We’re staying focused on all illegals, without question,” Mullin, who took over DHS in March, told Newsmax last week. “We’re purposefully trying to be a little more quiet. … That doesn’t mean we’re slowing down even a little bit.”

ICE was created by the Homeland Security Act of 2002, the post-9/11 law enacted by Congress that also created the Department of Homeland Security. Because the agency was created by Congress, changing its name would require congressional action.

But such technicalities have not prevented the administration from acting outside of its authority to change agencies’ names in the past.

FDA chief to depart after Trump signed off on ousting him

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By Kaitlan Collins, Ben Tinker, Adam Cancryn, Sarah Owermohle, CNN

(CNN) — Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary is leaving the Trump administration, according to three people familiar with the situation, after President Donald Trump signed off on a plan to fire him last week.

The FDA chief had come under intense and sustained pressure from both within the administration — including over his resistance to approving the sale of flavored e-cigarettes, an episode that prompted Trump to confront him directly — and from outside allies, including in the pharmaceutical industry and anti-abortion interest groups. And he oversaw constant turnover within the agency’s senior ranks.

Makary’s resignation means Trump will now need to fill yet another vacancy in the top ranks of the US Health and Human Services Department. The administration already lacks a permanent leader atop the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a permanent surgeon general, who traditionally serves as the nation’s top doctor.

Makary’s departure comes one day before he was set to testify about the FDA’s proposed budget before the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Politico first reported his resignation.

A push to oust Makary had accelerated in recent days, driven by a faction of White House and HHS officials who had soured on an FDA that had been marked by constant chaos, internal clashes and policy confusion, people familiar with the matter said.

Makary over the last week sought to shore up his standing with Trump, telling associates at some points that he believed the president still retained confidence in him.

So it caught Makary and his allies by surprise when several reports surfaced Friday that Trump had approved a plan to fire him. That prompted widespread speculation within the administration over who was behind the push, as well as when and whether Trump would make his removal official.

Despite the widespread dissatisfaction with Makary’s performance, some Trump aides had argued that ousting yet another senior health official would amount to a political misstep — further angering a portion of the administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” base. It would also create another high-level vacancy, forcing the Senate to devote precious floor time to confirming a replacement ahead of the midterms.

Others within the White House and HHS, however, saw Makary’s departure as inevitable. And they welcomed the opportunity to reset leadership at the FDA and shore up relationships with key constituencies in the anti-abortion movement and drug industry before November.

In addition to Makary’s planned ouster, White House and HHS officials were also weighing a restructuring of the agency’s senior staff.

Makary, a surgeon and author, had pledged to accelerate FDA decisions on drugs, devices and vaccines following his confirmation in March 2025. But he frequently found himself mired in controversy over the subsequent year — both from pharmaceutical companies unhappy with his management of the drug approval process and administration officials who questioned his handling of other areas of FDA’s sweeping portfolio, including tobacco regulation.

In a recent flashpoint that renewed talk among Trump and his advisers about firing Makary, the FDA chief resisted internal efforts to approve the sale of fruit-flavored e-cigarettes. The issue prompted an angry Trump to directly press Makary over vapes decisions, two people fa

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