CPB announced today it will grant a total of $110,000 to four licensees for them to expand local outreach related to pubTV's Ready to Learn early-childhood education initiative.

In a citation honoring Maine Public TV’s Kelly Luoma as the Charles Impaglia Programmer of the Year, PTPA lauded her “for tirelessly advocating for the audience and the programming community within public television, even when it is not politically correct . . . [and for] the singular achievement of increasing a station’s viewership every year since the digital transition, while the system has shown whole week and primetime declines.” In another award presented during last month’s PTPA meeting in Miami Beach, Fla., Kentucky Educational Television’s Craig Cornwell was lauded for achievements in local scheduling. TRAC Media Services, which manages PTPA, cited Cornwell “for ensuring that local productions always get prime placement, for understanding a market where Best of the Joy of Painting often equals the Antiques Roadshow repeat on Saturday .

The ongoing shakeup at Houston Public Media continues, with the termination of two more employees, reports Culture Map Houston. Gone are Debra Fraser, director of operations and stations manager, who joined KUHF in 1988 and had also served as news director, reporter and  local host of All Things Considered; and Emily Binetti, director of communications, who has been with the station since 2006. “Houston Public Media began a major restructuring of its personnel and operations in October 2011,” Richard Bonnin, University of Houston’s marketing and communications interim associate vice president, told Culture Map Houston. “Today’s action, in which the positions of two employees were eliminated, is a continuation of that restructuring initiative to position Houston Public Media for the future.”

Ron Weaver, a former operations director and producer for Children’s Television Workshop who played an instrumental role in creating some of the production house’s most iconic programs, died May 15 in Los Angeles. He was 75.

Haynes Johnson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who was an original panel member on pubTV’s Washington Week in Review, died May 24 in Bethesda from a heart attack. He was 81.

Andrea Seabrook, former Congressional correspondent for NPR, will be honored by the White House today as a "Crowdfunding Champion of Change."

PBS has honored its former chair Alberto Ibargüen for his contributions to civic engagement. Ibargüen, c.e.o. of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and former PBS Board chair, received the PBS “Be More” Award celebrating individuals in pubTV who embody the spirit of helping Americans discover more, experience more and “be more.” The former publisher of the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald leads Knight Foundation efforts to promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. “PBS applauds his commitment to informed and engaged communities, integrity and independence in journalism, and helping people reach their highest potential by ensuring that everyone has access to information that helps them understand more and be more,” said PBS President Paula Kerger.

As public television’s chief program exec and top producers unveiled highlights of the fall 2013 primetime schedule at the PBS Annual Meeting May 13–16 in Miami Beach, Fla., the network also signaled its willingness to invest in genres with track records of building viewership and differentiating public TV from its cable competitors. PBS paired with BBC Worldwide to acquire Last Tango in Halifax, a hit contemporary British drama starring Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid as childhood sweethearts who reunite after 60 years apart. Call the Midwife, a drama that PBS chief programmer Beth Hoppe bought to boost Sunday-night viewership in fall 2012, will return for a third season in 2014.

In a single video, for the song “All Is Not Lost,” rock band OK Go performed both the last-ever Tiny Desk concert at the former NPR headquarters and the first-ever concert at its new building. As Bob Boilen, Robin Hilton, Carl Kasell and others packed up and moved equipment from one location to another, the band played continuously (with the help of some creative editing) and even worked in some public radio–specific lyrics. OK Go, whose bandleader Damien Kulash formerly worked as an engineer for Chicago Public Radio, filmed the bit over two days in late March during NPR’s actual crosstown move.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), the last World War II veteran to serve in the Senate and a longtime supporter of public broadcasting, died today from complications of viral pneumonia. The five-term senator was 89.

Journalist and educator John Dinges will receive this year’s Leo C. Lee Award for significant contributions to public radio news. As head of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism’s radio curriculum, Dinges revamped the program to emphasize public radio journalism and helped launch the careers of award-winning pubradio journalists “from Wyoming to Washington, D.C.,” according to PRNDI’s award announcement. Earlier in his career, Dinges was a freelance correspondent in Latin America and contributed to Time, the Washington Post, ABC Radio, the Miami Herald and other news organizations. He became an assistant editor on the foreign desk at the Washington Post and later joined NPR to help bolster its foreign coverage.

Beginning July 1, the BBC’s Newshour will alter its show clock, ceding 4.5 additional minutes from its newscast for local cutaways. The change boosts the total allowance of local minutes within each Newshour broadcast to 16.

When Southern country singer Brad Paisley shared his awkward view of race relations in his controversial song “Accidental Racist” last month, the team at NPR’s Code Switch couldn’t have asked for better timing. The unit devoted to multimedia reporting and opinionating on matters of race, culture and ethnicity had just debuted on NPR’s website and social media under the Code Switch banner April 7. Two days later, Paisley’s cringe-inducing tune, which also featured LL Cool J delivering the lines “If you won’t judge my do-rag / I won’t judge your red flag,” whipped up a frenzy of dumbfounded disgust on Facebook and Twitter.

Assignment: The World, the longest-running social-studies instructional TV program in the country, broadcast its last episode May 23. WXXI in Rochester, N.Y., which produced the ITV series for 54 years, announced the cancellation May 20. “Assignment: The World has experienced an increase in news acquisition costs, which were unfortunately not offset by program funding,” said Elissa Orlando, WXXI v.p. for television, in the announcement. “WXXI is saddened by this decision, but will continue to discover new ways to serve the educational needs of students.” Every season, students could watch 32 weekly episodes, 15 minutes in length, in classrooms, either on the air or on-demand over the Internet.