SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A UC Santa Barbara student’s proposal to get professors to provide a written or oral heads-up before they cover graphic material has become part of a national debate over the use of “trigger warnings” in higher education.
Student Bailey Loverin says giving individuals who have been sexually assaulted, survived war or touched by other traumas advance notice before they are exposed to those topics in class is not too much to expect.
The USCB student government passed a resolution in February endorsing the idea and calling on faculty to come up with guidelines.
This year, students at the University of Michigan, Oberlin in Ohio, Rutgers in New Jersey, Scripps in California and Wellesley in Massachusetts are seeking trigger warnings on potentially troubling readings, films, lectures and works of art.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The credit-card bank operated by Nebraska outdoor retailer Cabela’s has been fined $1 million by banking regulators and ordered to pay cardholders restitution for deceptive and unfair acts.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. posted a March 10 enforcement order to its website Friday showing that Lincoln-based World’s Foremost Bank agreed to the sanctions. The bank did not admit or deny violations.
The order comes more than three years after Cabela’s agreed to pay nearly $10.4 million and reform its credit card practices as part of a settlement with the FDIC over assessing improper fees and other issues.
In the order released Friday, the FDIC said World’s Foremost Bank must refund certain interest charges to cardholders and to repay others for add-on credit card services, such as identity-theft protection.
JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – A coalition of education organizations representing teachers, administrators and school board members objects to student transfer legislation because it could lead to students attending private schools at taxpayers’ expense.
Lawmakers are trying to overhaul a transfer law that requires struggling districts to pay for students to attend better-performing public schools. The legislation also would allow students to transfer to nonreligious private schools. Unaccredited districts would pay private school tuition using local tax revenue.
The coalition says using public funds for private school education is unconstitutional and that private schools are not accountable to taxpayers in the same way as public schools.
The transfer bill could be debated by the House this week. House Majority Leader John Diehl says many lawmakers support the bill because of the private option.
KANSAS CITY (AP) – Cab drivers in Kansas City and St. Louis are among those pushing back against a new rideshare service.
The company known as Lyft began operating Thursday in Kansas City. Like rivals Uber and Sidecar, Lyft uses a mobile app to connect ordinary drivers with customers needing a ride.
Cabbies say the service operates outside government regulations.
The Kansas City Star reports city officials say the service isn’t legal in the city. In St. Louis, Lyft was the target of a recent court order that temporarily bars it from operating there.
Lyft drivers attach big pink mustaches to the grills of their cars.
In Kansas City, that’s made it easy for officials to identify Lyft drivers and tell them they need permits to work in the city.
JOPLIN (AP) – Mercy Health System of Joplin will receive $23 million in federal grants for rebuilding connected to the May 2011 tornado.
Sen. Claire McCaskill announced the grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday.
The Joplin Globe reports the assistance will be offered to Mercy Health of Joplin for the demolition and rebuilding of four sites, including St. John’s Regional Medical Center, that were damaged by the tornado.
Shelly Hunter, chief financial officer says Mercy Hospital Joplin, says the system expects to receive the funds between August and December.
Hunter says the $23 million is only for demolition and emergency costs.
McCaskill’s office says Joplin has received more than $350 million in federal resources since the tornado, which killed 161 people.
TOPEKA, KAN. – On Friday NASA announced the winner of the NASA Exploration Design Challenge. Among the five finalhigh school teams was Team Erion from Erie High School. Last month, the group of four female students from Erie High School advanced to the final round to build and test designs for radiation shields for NASA’s new Orion spacecraft.
“These students deserve a huge congratulations,” said Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins (KS-02). “Erie High School and the State of Kansas are incredibly proud of their achievements. They were competing against our nation’s brightest young engineers, that had more funding and more resources, but with hard work and ingenuity they stood out over 100,000 entries to become one of five finalists. It is truly inspiring to follow stories like this coming from Eastern Kansas, and I am particularly pleased to see this was an all-female team in a field that is currently dominated by males. I challenge them to not let their ideas and creativity end this week and continue to be a role model for all of us.”
Items to Note:
Out of 127,000 initial entries submitted worldwide, only five teams were selected by NASA engineers to move on to the final phase of the competition.
The high school teams were asked to design shielding to protect a radiation component for the Orion spacecraft. Today, NASA engineers at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va, picked the winning design, which will be launched into space on Orion later this year. This flight will be the first spaceflight test of the capsule that will one day carry astronauts to an asteroid and Mars.
The announcement was made at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, at the USA Science and Engineering Festival.
KANSAS CITY (AP) – A man who shot his victim more than 20 times at a Kansas City car wash has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Thirty-year-old Timothy McClendon, of Kansas City, also was sentenced Friday to a consecutive term of 30 years for armed criminal action.
McClendon killed Jose O. Jenkins in September 2011. Surveillance video showed that after Jenkins was first shot and fell to the ground, McClendon reloaded his gun, drove up to Jenkins and shot him several more times.
McClendon had previously been charged with killing two women but the case was dropped after key witnesses could not be found to testify.
JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Some lawmakers hope to make Missouri the second state to drop new education benchmarks and write its own student performance standards.
Legislation scheduled for debate this week on the Senate floor would form a panel to develop goals to replace the Common Core State Standards. The bill previously passed the House.
Under the bill, workgroups composed of parents and educators would recommend standards for English, math, science and history to the State Board of Education in 2015. Those standards would then be implemented by the 2016-17 academic year.
Earlier this year, Indiana became the first state to dump Common Core after initially adopting the standards. More than 40 other states have also adopted the benchmarks for reading, writing and math.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A section of the Midwest stretching from Texas to South Dakota is at risk for large hail, strong wind gusts and tornadoes Saturday afternoon and evening.
The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., says isolated to scattered severe storms are expected to develop across the central and southern Plains Saturday afternoon and continue into the overnight hours.
The main threat will be large hail and damaging wind gusts. The strongest area for storm potential is along a dryline in northern Texas and southwestern Oklahoma
On Sunday, an outbreak of severe storms is possible across parts of the central U.S. Large hail, damaging winds and tornadoes are possible.
The greatest risk for tornadoes on Sunday will be in Arkansas as well as parts of Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A UC Santa Barbara student’s proposal to get professors to provide a written or oral heads-up before they cover graphic material has become part of a national debate over the use of “trigger warnings” in higher education.
