P1/P3: Small correctness fixes (empty translation, dead `??`, hardcoded path, redundant echo)

[Herm71]

Roadmap items 11, 13, 22, 25. Grouped: each is a small, independent, low-risk correction. One PR.

Roadmap item 11 (P1, verified) — esc_html__( '', 'ucsc' )

Translating the empty string returns the PO file's metadata header (Project-Id-Version: …), not ''. Whatever this label is meant to be, it should either be a real string or not call a translation function at all.

📍 src/Blocks/Query_Loop.php:102

Roadmap item 13 (P1) — dead null-coalesce on posts_per_page

(int) get_field( 'posts_per_page' ) ?? self::PER_PAGE

A cast never yields null, so ?? is unreachable. When the field is missing — which is the case for News blocks inserted before the field was added — the expression is 0, which flows into array_slice( …, 0, 0 ) and renders an empty block.

Fix: resolve the field first, then fall back when it is empty/non-numeric, and cast after.

📍 src/Components/News_Block_Controller.php:42

Roadmap item 22 (P3) — hardcoded plugin path

Settings page hardcodes WP_PLUGIN_DIR . '/ucsc-custom-functionality/plugin.php', which breaks if the plugin directory is renamed (it is, on some installs and in some deploy flows).

Fix: derive from plugin_dir_path() / plugin_basename() or a constant defined in plugin.php.

📍 lib/functions/settings.php:42

Roadmap item 25 (P3) — echo _e( … )

_e() already echoes; the surrounding echo prints its void return. Harmless but phpcs-flagged.

📍 src/views/news-block/index.php:37

Acceptance

• All four corrected
• News block with no posts_per_page value renders the default count, not zero posts
• Settings page resolves correctly with the plugin directory renamed
• phpcs clean on the touched lines

[Herm71]

Two of the four items in this issue have landed incidentally while clearing the lint backlog (#116):

roadmap item	status	where
11 — esc_html__( '', 'ucsc' ) returning the PO metadata header	✅ done	#128
25 — echo _e( … ) redundant echo	✅ done	#126
13 — (int) get_field( 'posts_per_page' ) ?? self::PER_PAGE (dead ??, empty block)	open	—
22 — hardcoded WP_PLUGIN_DIR . '/ucsc-custom-functionality/plugin.php'	open	—

Remaining scope is items 13 and 22 only. Both are still one-liners, and neither is lint-visible, so they will not be picked up by any further tooling pass — they need doing deliberately.

Item 13 is the one with user-visible impact: News blocks inserted before the posts_per_page field existed have no saved value, which resolves to 0 and renders an empty block.