WASHINGTON, Nov 11 (Reuters) – All recent U.S. military veterans and their families will now be offered in-state tuition rates to public colleges and universities throughout the country, the White House said on Wednesday.
Announced in honor of the U.S. federal holiday Veterans Day, which fell on Wednesday, the change is part of President Barack Obama‘s “steadfast commitment” to military families and aims to make sure veterans can both access and get the most out of higher education, administration officials said.
Officials also announced the launch of a revamped comparison tool to offer veteran-specific admissions statistics, which aims to help applicants better evaluate programs, and a new effort to curb deceptive enrollment tactics used by schools aiming to recruit veterans.
Cecilia Munoz, a top domestic policy adviser to the president, said while Obama is pressing his administration to push these changes forward quickly, he is also calling on Congress to move forward on three pieces of legislation to help improve veterans’ education.
“These pieces of legislation will really ensure that veterans have the opportunities and assistance to … realize the American dream,” Munoz told reporters on a conference call.
One bill would heighten standards for schools receiving G.I. Bill funds, while another would help protect G.I. Bill benefits for veterans whose schools close mid-term. A third, just introduced on Tuesday, would increase regulation of for-profit colleges, many of which target veterans.
“What we think this does is ramp up the accountability” of those schools, Munoz said, adding that it ensures “we are requiring a high-quality education for veterans that have served us well.”
article by Megan Cassella and Sandra Maler via huffingtonpost.com
Posts published in “News”
President Barack Obama, already known as the first U.S. president to advocate for gay rights during an inauguration speech, just became the first Commander-In-Chief to pose for the cover of an LGBT magazine.
Gracing the cover of OUT magazine’s OUT 100 issue as “Ally of the Year” comes as no surprise — Obama is likely to go down in history as one of the most progressive presidents, if not the only one who has fought so tirelessly for LGBTQ rights. Shortly after taking office, Obama signed a bill repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. And in June, after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage nationwide, Obama delivered an emotional address to the nation, calling it a “victory for America.”
“This is the first time a sitting president has been photographed for the cover of an LGBT title, a historic moment in itself, and a statement on how much his administration has done to advance a singularly volatile issue that tarnished the reputations of both President Clinton and President Bush,” OUT’s editor-in-chief Aaron Hicklin wrote.
Obama granted the magazine an interview that highlighted his own upbringing and how it affects his perspective on equality.
“My mom instilled in me the strong belief that every person is of equal worth,” Obama told Hicklin. “At the same time, growing up as a black guy with a funny name, I was often reminded of exactly what it felt like to be on the outside. One of the reasons I got involved in politics was to help deliver on our promise that we’re all created equal, and that no one should be excluded from the American dream just because of who they are. That’s why, in the Senate, I supported repealing DOMA [the Defense of Marriage Act]. It’s why, when I ran for president the first time, I publicly asked for the support of the LGBT community, and promised that we could bring about real change for LGBT Americans.”
He also discussed how daughters Sasha and Malia have helped him recognize the generational shift in attitudes towards the LGBTQ community, urging for the end of damaging conversion therapy for young people that doesn’t allow them “to be who they are.”
“To Malia and Sasha and their friends, discrimination in any form against anyone doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t dawn on them that friends who are gay or friends’ parents who are same-sex couples should be treated differently than anyone else,” Obama said. “That’s powerful. My sense is that a lot of parents across the country aren’t going to want to sit around the dinner table and try to justify to their kids why a gay teacher or a transgender best friend isn’t quite as equal as someone else. That’s also why it’s so important to end harmful practices like conversion therapy for young people and allow them to be who they are. The next generation is spurring change not just for future generations, but for my generation, too. As president, and as a dad, that makes me proud. It makes me hopeful.”
You can read the full interview here.
article by Christina Coleman via newsone.com
Suzan-Lori Parks, who teaches creative writing at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, has been chosen as the winner of the 2015 Gish Prize, established through the will of the late actress Lillian Gish. The prize, considered among the top honors in the arts, comes with a cash award valued at $300,000.
The Gish Prize Trust said that Parks’ work “challenges contemporary conceptions of race, sexuality, family and society, and is distinguished by its striking wordplay, vibrant wit, and uninhibited style.” Parks will be honored at a ceremony on November 30 at the Public Theater in New York.
Parks is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. She is a former MacArthur Foundation “Genius Award” winner. Professor Parks was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for her play “Topdog/Underdog.”
article via jbhe.com
Google.org, the philanthropic arm of the internet giant, has announced plans to dedicate $2.35 million in grants to community organizations combatting racial injustice in the U.S., according to USA Today.
The announcement came Tuesday during a screening of 3 ½ Minutes, 10 Bullets at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre, the report says. The film examines the shooting death of Jordan Davis, 17, who was unarmed when he was shot and killed in 2012 by a White man, Michael Dunn, outside of a gas station in Jacksonville, Fla. for playing music too loud in a vehicle.
The grant program is part of a “larger giving effort over the course of the next year.” Via USA Today:
The technology giant’s philanthropic arm chose organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area taking on systemic racism in America’s criminal justice, prison and educational systems, says Justin Steele, who leads Google.org’s Bay Area giving efforts.
Steele says the grants are just the first for Google.org as it seeks to address the Bay Area’s growing economic gap that has only widened during the technology boom.
“We hope to build on this work and contribute to this movement for racial justice,” Steele said in an interview.
Google.org’s decision comes after the Mountain View, California tech giant announced plans this spring to recruit more women and people of color into one of the best paid growth industries in the nation.
Under the ambitious $150 million recruitment plan, half of the money is for outside organizations and communities to train and hire people of color, while the other half will be used on internal diversity efforts.
The changes did not come without pressure. For over a year, civil rights leaders called on Google and other tech companies to diversify their ranks at a time of high unemployment in communities of color.
article by Lynette Holloway via newsone.com
Iesha Thomas has been in and out of hospitals battling sickle cell disease since she was only 8 months old. This summer, 33-year-old Thomas became the first adult to be cured of sickle cell disease with a chemotherapy-free procedure at University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System (UI Health), the University reported. Thomas is one of 12 adult patients cured of sickle cell disease as part of a clinical trial at UI Health that used a unique procedure for stem cell transplantation from healthy tissue matched from a sibling donor.
Findings from phase I/II of the clinical trial are published online in the journal Biology of Blood & Marrow Transplantation.
Stem cell transplants have been used for years as a means of possibly curing sickle cell disease. However, before the stem cell transplant could be completed patients would have to endure a taxing course of drugs to kill the cancer cells, otherwise known as chemotherapy.
The more traditional form of stem cell transplant uses chemotherapy to destroy the patient’s own bone marrow, which shuts down their immune system and makes them vulnerable to infections.
The new technique – first developed and performed at the National Institutes of Health campus in Maryland – eliminates the need for chemotherapy to prepare the patient to receive the transplanted cells and offers the prospect of cure for tens of thousands of adults suffering from sickle cell disease – many of them Black Americans.
According to the National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute (NIH), about 1 in 13 African American babies is born with sickle cell trait. About 1 in every 365 black children is born with sickle cell disease.
About 90 percent of the approximately 450 patients who have received stem cell transplants for sickle cell disease have been children. Chemotherapy has been considered too risky for adult patients, who are often more weakened than children by the disease.
“Adults with sickle cell disease are now living on average until about age 50 with blood transfusions and drugs to help with pain crises, but their quality of life can be very low,” says Dr. Damiano Rondelli, chief of hematology/oncology and director of the blood and marrow transplant program at UI Health, and corresponding author on the paper.
“Now, with this chemotherapy-free transplant, we are curing adults with sickle cell disease, and we see that their quality of life improves vastly within just one month of the transplant,” said Rondelli, who is also the Michael Reese Professor of Hematology in the UIC College of Medicine.
The chemo-free transplant performed by UI is described in a news release:
In the reported trial, the researchers transplanted 13 patients, 17 to 40 years of age, with a stem cell preparation from the blood of a tissue-matched sibling. Healthy sibling donor-candidates and patients were tested for human leukocyte antigen, a set of markers found on cells in the body. Ten of these HLA markers must match between the donor and the recipient for the transplant to have the best chance of evading rejection.
In a further advance of the NIH procedure, physicians at UI Health successfully transplanted two patients with cells from siblings who matched for HLA but had a different blood type.
In all 13 patients, the transplanted cells successfully took up residence in the marrow and produced healthy red blood cells. One patient who failed to follow the post-transplant therapy regimen reverted to the original sickle cell condition.
In Thomas’ case, her sister was a match and following the transplantation she no longer required blood transfusions.
Further research on this type of stem cell transplant is needed, but doctors are hopeful for what early trials show for adults.
“Adults with sickle cell disease can be cured without chemotherapy – the main barrier that has stood in the way for them for so long,” Rondelli said. “Our data provide more support that this therapy is safe and effective and prevents patients from living shortened lives, condemned to pain and progressive complications.”
To learn more about ongoing sickle cell transplant trials at NIH (a participant in a trial will not be charged for a procedure) call 1-800-411-1222 or visit the NIH clinical trials registry at www.clinicaltrials.gov and search under ‘sickle cell disease.”
article by Gwendolyn Harris via blackdoctor.org
The United States Supreme Court will be looking into racial prejudice in jury selection Monday, with the justices considering a case of a black teenager who was sentenced to death by an all-white jury in Georgia, The Guardian reports.
According to the report, lawyers bringing forth the appeal on behalf of Timothy Foster, who admitted to participating in the murder of a 79-year-old white woman in 1987, say that he was sentenced to death because jurors, when recommending capital punishment, did not fairly consider evidence that he was intellectually disabled, The Guardian notes.
The prosecution has long insisted that race had nothing to do with the fact that five black individuals were excluded from the jury in the trial held in Rome, Ga. However, notes found almost two decades after Foster’s sentencing indicate that all the potential black jurors had a “B” marked next to their names by the prosecution, which had recommended the death penalty in order to “deter other people out there in the projects.”
“This is a pervasive problem,” the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s litigation director, Christina Swarns, told The Guardian. “It hasn’t gone away. This is not a problem that is limited to the Deep South.”
The Guardian notes that one black woman, Marilyn Garrett, was ruled out for the jury because she was too close in age to the defendant. Garrett was 34, while Foster was 19 at the time. Another black juror was ruled out for being a member of the Church of Christ, which prosecutors said was anti-death penalty, even though the prosecution itself had notes showing that the church had left such judgments up to members.
If the Supreme Court decides that the reasons for dismissing black jurors were not justified or credible, the case could have a huge impact on the U.S. judicial system, including a legal procedure referred to as the “Batson test,” which requires prosecutors to show nonracial reasons for eliminating a juror if a racial pattern can be found in the pre-emptory strikes.
“The criminal-justice system is the part of society least affected by the civil rights movement: Ninety-five percent of the prosecutors in this country are white,” Stephen Bright, Foster’s lawyer, told The Guardian. “When I go ’round the South [a lot has changed] in terms of who is on the school board, who is on the legislature … [but] I go to the courthouse, it’s just like 1940.”
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Monday will announce a series of measures designed to reduce obstacles facing former prisoners reintegrating into society, including an executive action directing federal employers to delay asking questions about a job applicant’s criminal history until later in the application process.
Many states, cities and private employers have already taken steps to “ban the box,” which refers to the checkbox on employment applications asking if the applicant has ever been convicted of a crime. However, some federal employers and contractors still ask the question. Obama’s executive action will apply to federal employers, but not to contractors.
Many states, cities and private employers have already taken steps to “ban the box,” which refers to the checkbox on employment applications asking if the applicant has ever been convicted of a crime. However, some federal employers and contractors still ask the question. Obama’s executive action will apply to federal employers, but not to contractors.
Civil rights activists have urged Obama to propose the measure, noting that such questions can limit the ability for people with a criminal record to gain employment and get their lives back on track after prison. Advocates argue that those formerly in prison should be allowed to prove their qualifications for a job instead of being eliminated early in the process due to their criminal background.
The issue has come up on the campaign trail, with all three Democratic presidential candidates pledging support for a “ban the box” policy.
Obama will also announce other initiatives designed to improve rehabilitation and re-entry for former inmates, including education and housing grants, as well as partnerships between local municipalities and private companies that would provide jobs and training in technology.
The issue has come up on the campaign trail, with all three Democratic presidential candidates pledging support for a “ban the box” policy.
Obama will also announce other initiatives designed to improve rehabilitation and re-entry for former inmates, including education and housing grants, as well as partnerships between local municipalities and private companies that would provide jobs and training in technology.
He will also propose more funding for legal aid programs and policies to reduce the legal hurdles for former prisoners applying for public housing, a process which also uses an applicant’s criminal history as a factor in determining eligibility.
Obama will unveil these policy proposals at an event in Newark, New Jersey, that will draw attention to success stories of former prisoners. While in Newark, Obama will appear with the city’s mayor, Ras Baraka (D), as well as Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who has introduced criminal justice reform legislation in the Senate. Obama will also visit a residential facility for individuals recovering from substance abuse and participate in a roundtable on criminal justice reform at the Newark campus of Rutgers University.
The announcement continues Obama’s recent efforts toward reforming the criminal justice system. As he approaches the end of his presidency, he has pledged to do more to address problems like mass incarceration, mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent offenders and police brutality. This summer, he became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison.
This story has been updated to clarify that the executive action will apply to federal employers, but not to contractors.
article by Marina Fang via huffingtonpost.com
The building of the National Museum of African American History and Culture is now complete, with interior work underway. Now marks the final countdown to the museum’s grand opening next Fall (exact dates have not yet been announced). Though an actual visit to the long-awaited museum is still many weeks away, visitors to the National Mall next month will get a taste of what’s to come when the museum’s façade will be transformed into a lively and spectacular display of video, music and light.
When the sun goes down each evening between November 16 and 18, the museum’s south exterior, facing Madison Drive, and its west exterior, on 15th Street near the Washington Monument, will be illuminated by a seven-minute video, entitled “Commemorate and Celebrate Freedom.” Produced by the renowned filmmakers Stanley J. Nelson and Marcia Smith of Firelight Media, and animated by Quixotic Entertainment, the video projection will transform the museum into a five-story, block-long 3D canvas, according to museum officials.
“What we wanted to do was to metaphorically have the museum speak even before we open next year,” says Kinshasha Holman Conwill, deputy director of the museum.
“And the signal design element for our building is the corona: the three-tiered bronze colored element that has references in African sculpture and African American life and that identifies this building as something unique on the Mall. So to project on to that façade really gave us that opportunity to make the museum speak.”
The display, which the museum’s director Lonnie Bunch has called a “dynamic event,” will be accompanied by a soundtrack of historical music and spoken word, and will pay tribute to three significant moments in history: the culmination of the Civil War with the surrender at Appomattox on April 8, 1865; ratification of the 13th Amendment, which officially ended the institution of slavery on December 5, 1865; and the passage of the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965.
“One of the things that [the film connects] to is the notion and the vision that the museum would be a place for those who already revel in African American history and culture,” says Conwill. “But most importantly,” she adds that the museum seeks to also provide a unique “lens into what it means to be an American and that those milestones in American history, as viewed through that lens, really amplifies that notion.”
On its opening night, November 16, the state-of-the-art digital projection imagery will also be accompanied by a live, outdoor program, produced and directed by Ricardo Khan, former artistic director of the Tony Award-winning Crossroads Theatre Co. Actor Erik Todd Dellums will serve as master of the ceremonies, which will include remarks by other dignitaries, including Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser; and U.S. Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton.
“What we wanted to do was to metaphorically have the museum speak even before we open next year,” says Kinshasha Holman Conwill, deputy director of the museum.
“And the signal design element for our building is the corona: the three-tiered bronze colored element that has references in African sculpture and African American life and that identifies this building as something unique on the Mall. So to project on to that façade really gave us that opportunity to make the museum speak.”
The display, which the museum’s director Lonnie Bunch has called a “dynamic event,” will be accompanied by a soundtrack of historical music and spoken word, and will pay tribute to three significant moments in history: the culmination of the Civil War with the surrender at Appomattox on April 8, 1865; ratification of the 13th Amendment, which officially ended the institution of slavery on December 5, 1865; and the passage of the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965.
“One of the things that [the film connects] to is the notion and the vision that the museum would be a place for those who already revel in African American history and culture,” says Conwill. “But most importantly,” she adds that the museum seeks to also provide a unique “lens into what it means to be an American and that those milestones in American history, as viewed through that lens, really amplifies that notion.”
On its opening night, November 16, the state-of-the-art digital projection imagery will also be accompanied by a live, outdoor program, produced and directed by Ricardo Khan, former artistic director of the Tony Award-winning Crossroads Theatre Co. Actor Erik Todd Dellums will serve as master of the ceremonies, which will include remarks by other dignitaries, including Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser; and U.S. Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton.
GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — Simone Biles is human. The proof came halfway through her beam routine at the world championships Thursday night, when a front flip ended with Biles reaching forward and squeezing the piece of wood as hard as she could with both hands.
Twenty minutes later, Biles finished a tumbling run with her right foot so far out of bounds it might as well have landed in Edinburgh, an hour to the east.
“I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m not supposed to be on this,'” Biles said, laughing.
Not that it mattered. While Biles might indeed be human, she’s not beatable. Not now, and unless her peers do some serious cramming over the nine months, not at next summer’s Olympics, either.
Despite the flubs, the meet ended the way it always does when Biles is in the field, with the 18-year-old supernova standing on top of the podium with a gold medal around her neck kind of dumbstruck at how this keeps happening. Her third straight world title came by the biggest margin yet, 1.083 points over teammate, buddy and reigning Olympic champion Gabby Douglas and bronze medalist Larisa Iordache of Romania.
“If I could crawl out of my skin and see it, it would be really amazing,” she said.
Kind of.
Biles’ eight world championship gold medals are a record for an American, and she’ll have a chance to add to that total in event finals over the weekend. Whoever is behind Biles in customs when she returns to the U.S. next week might want to Netflix and chill.
“I just keep blowing my own mind because yes there are goals that I have and then I dream of it and then I make it a reality,” Biles said. “I’m just shocked by myself.”
It’s just that the result is no longer shocking. Biles is in the midst of a run unprecedented in this era of women’s gymnastics, when peaks are typically measured in months and not years. Yet she is still improving, still pushing the boundaries.
Her performances have become events during an unbeaten streak at more than two years and counting, one that doesn’t appear in danger of ending anytime soon. She combines groundbreaking tumbling — there’s even a move named after her on the floor exercise — with nearly flawless execution.
Yet while Biles will be the overwhelming favorite in Rio next August, her toughest competition will likely from her own ridiculously loaded team. Douglas became the first reigning Olympic gold medalist to reach the podium at worlds since the Soviet Union’s Yelena Davydova in 1981.
The 19-year-old showed flashes of the brilliance that made her a star in London three years ago, her uneven bars routine done with the kind of precision and grace that originally caught national team coordinator Martha Karolyi’s eye.
Douglas is well aware of the distance between Biles and the rest of the field. Though Douglas calls Biles “amazing,” she’s hardly ready to cede that gold in Rio is out of reach. Attempting to become the first Olympic champ in nearly 50 years to repeat, Douglas has a plan in place to make the upgrades necessary to catch Biles.
“I’m excited for the road ahead,” Douglas said. “I’ve got bigger skills coming along.”
Douglas and everyone else will need them if they want to end an undefeated run that’s now at 10 straight meets, even if this one seemed to come a little harder than most.
There was that weird stumble on beam — the event she’s the most inconsistent on — that ended with what coach Aimee Boorman called the “save of the century” and the misstep on floor, when her seemingly jet-pack powered tumbling run left her standing on the red out of bounds carpet wondering how she got there.
“I didn’t even know I could land on the red,” Biles said.
Twenty minutes later, Biles finished a tumbling run with her right foot so far out of bounds it might as well have landed in Edinburgh, an hour to the east.
“I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m not supposed to be on this,'” Biles said, laughing.
Not that it mattered. While Biles might indeed be human, she’s not beatable. Not now, and unless her peers do some serious cramming over the nine months, not at next summer’s Olympics, either.
Despite the flubs, the meet ended the way it always does when Biles is in the field, with the 18-year-old supernova standing on top of the podium with a gold medal around her neck kind of dumbstruck at how this keeps happening. Her third straight world title came by the biggest margin yet, 1.083 points over teammate, buddy and reigning Olympic champion Gabby Douglas and bronze medalist Larisa Iordache of Romania.
“If I could crawl out of my skin and see it, it would be really amazing,” she said.
Kind of.
Biles’ eight world championship gold medals are a record for an American, and she’ll have a chance to add to that total in event finals over the weekend. Whoever is behind Biles in customs when she returns to the U.S. next week might want to Netflix and chill.
“I just keep blowing my own mind because yes there are goals that I have and then I dream of it and then I make it a reality,” Biles said. “I’m just shocked by myself.”
It’s just that the result is no longer shocking. Biles is in the midst of a run unprecedented in this era of women’s gymnastics, when peaks are typically measured in months and not years. Yet she is still improving, still pushing the boundaries.
Her performances have become events during an unbeaten streak at more than two years and counting, one that doesn’t appear in danger of ending anytime soon. She combines groundbreaking tumbling — there’s even a move named after her on the floor exercise — with nearly flawless execution.
Yet while Biles will be the overwhelming favorite in Rio next August, her toughest competition will likely from her own ridiculously loaded team. Douglas became the first reigning Olympic gold medalist to reach the podium at worlds since the Soviet Union’s Yelena Davydova in 1981.
The 19-year-old showed flashes of the brilliance that made her a star in London three years ago, her uneven bars routine done with the kind of precision and grace that originally caught national team coordinator Martha Karolyi’s eye.
Douglas is well aware of the distance between Biles and the rest of the field. Though Douglas calls Biles “amazing,” she’s hardly ready to cede that gold in Rio is out of reach. Attempting to become the first Olympic champ in nearly 50 years to repeat, Douglas has a plan in place to make the upgrades necessary to catch Biles.
“I’m excited for the road ahead,” Douglas said. “I’ve got bigger skills coming along.”
Douglas and everyone else will need them if they want to end an undefeated run that’s now at 10 straight meets, even if this one seemed to come a little harder than most.
There was that weird stumble on beam — the event she’s the most inconsistent on — that ended with what coach Aimee Boorman called the “save of the century” and the misstep on floor, when her seemingly jet-pack powered tumbling run left her standing on the red out of bounds carpet wondering how she got there.
“I didn’t even know I could land on the red,” Biles said.
article by Will Graves, AP via usnews.com