; Credit: LA Johnson/NPR

When Congress allocated money for higher education in the coronavirus rescue package, it set aside nearly $350 million for colleges that had "significant unmet needs."

Most of that money has now been allotted by the U.S. Department of Education to small, private colleges that serve just a fraction of U.S. college students. Meanwhile, public colleges — which serve more than 70% of all college students — are facing a steep drop in state funding.

The 20 institutions that received the most amount of money from the unmet-need fund serve less than 3,000 students combined, and about half are religious schools — including Bible colleges and seminaries — several of which serve less than 100 students.

Don't see the graphic above? Click here.

Lawmakers designed this unmet-need fund to give priority to any higher education institution that has received less than $500,000 through the CARES Act's other pots of funding. As a result, a school like Virginia Beach Theological Seminary, which serves 47 students, is eligible to receive $496,930 in federal aid.

"Imagine you had a special reserve fund to deal with a big crisis and you spent over 90% of that in one fell swoop on vacation tickets," or something that "wasn't as necessary in the moment," says Ben Miller, the vice president for postsecondary education at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. Miller argues larger public colleges, including community colleges that serve tens of thousands of students, should be getting more financial support. He calculates the department allocated more than $320 million of the $350 million on relief for small colleges, most of them private.

"As a result, they only have about 8% of the dollars they originally got here left to help any other college in the country that might be most affected," he says.

As with other CARES Act funding, in order to receive the money, an institution would still need to request it from the Department of Education.

Much of the CARES Act's more than $14 billion for higher education is being distributed according to the number of full-time low-income students a college serves, which is measured through federal Pell Grants.

The $350-million unmet-need fund followed a different formula. Miller says for this particular pot, schools that did not receive $500,000 or more from other available CARES Act funds were given the difference between what they did receive and $500,000 limit.

"So the result is that the smaller you are and the less money you've already gotten, the more you get from this program," Miller says.

But $350 million can only go so far. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was given the discretion to choose which schools would benefit from the fund, and by how much.

Some schools were baffled when they learned they had been allotted hundreds of thousands of dollars in relief, and many weren't aware they were even eligible for the money. Brad Smith, the president of Bakke Graduate University in Dallas, which was allotted $497,338 in federal aid, says he didn't learn of his school's eligibility until he was contacted by NPR.

"I don't know anything about this," Smith says, noting that his school hadn't asked for additional federal help. "I'm taking responsibility to find out what it means."

An Education Department spokesperson tells NPR, "In order to receive this funding, an institution will need to request it. Any institution that does not need this money should simply decline to request it so schools will not be in the position of having to return unneeded funds."

The department says, once the requests are processed, any remaining funds will be redistributed through competitive grants.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Patt Morrison models a headdress from the movie "The Lone Ranger."; Credit: Michelle Lanz/KPCC

Trust me – you’re going to be seeing a lot of these between now and Halloween.

I went to “The Lone Ranger” premiere last month, and outside the theater, Disneyland began selling a version of the Tonto headdress dreamed up by Johnny Depp and his folks for his role in the film, which I found to be a rollicking, ironic version of the classic action adventure with some very sober scenes evoking Native Americans’ tragic history.

The inspiration, Depp says, was artist Kirby Sattler’s interpretive 2006 painting “I Am Crow.”

Depp himself has claimed Native American ancestry, and the bird atop his bean plays a substantial if silent role in the proceedings. It is an interpretive painting, as I said, not a literal rendering of any tribal makeup. In the Sattler painting, the bird is flying above the figure’s head, not perched on it.

But the movie’s invested in storytelling, not the fine points of accuracy. If it had been, it wouldn’t have made the historical solecisms of relocating both Monument Valley and the transcontinental railroad to … Texas.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Freshwater from salt water using only solar energy

; Credit: LA Johnson/NPR

When Congress allocated money for higher education in the coronavirus rescue package, it set aside nearly $350 million for colleges that had "significant unmet needs."

Most of that money has now been allotted by the U.S. Department of Education to small, private colleges that serve just a fraction of U.S. college students. Meanwhile, public colleges — which serve more than 70% of all college students — are facing a steep drop in state funding.

The 20 institutions that received the most amount of money from the unmet-need fund serve less than 3,000 students combined, and about half are religious schools — including Bible colleges and seminaries — several of which serve less than 100 students.

Don't see the graphic above? Click here.

Lawmakers designed this unmet-need fund to give priority to any higher education institution that has received less than $500,000 through the CARES Act's other pots of funding. As a result, a school like Virginia Beach Theological Seminary, which serves 47 students, is eligible to receive $496,930 in federal aid.

"Imagine you had a special reserve fund to deal with a big crisis and you spent over 90% of that in one fell swoop on vacation tickets," or something that "wasn't as necessary in the moment," says Ben Miller, the vice president for postsecondary education at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. Miller argues larger public colleges, including community colleges that serve tens of thousands of students, should be getting more financial support. He calculates the department allocated more than $320 million of the $350 million on relief for small colleges, most of them private.

"As a result, they only have about 8% of the dollars they originally got here left to help any other college in the country that might be most affected," he says.

As with other CARES Act funding, in order to receive the money, an institution would still need to request it from the Department of Education.

Much of the CARES Act's more than $14 billion for higher education is being distributed according to the number of full-time low-income students a college serves, which is measured through federal Pell Grants.

The $350-million unmet-need fund followed a different formula. Miller says for this particular pot, schools that did not receive $500,000 or more from other available CARES Act funds were given the difference between what they did receive and $500,000 limit.

"So the result is that the smaller you are and the less money you've already gotten, the more you get from this program," Miller says.

But $350 million can only go so far. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was given the discretion to choose which schools would benefit from the fund, and by how much.

Some schools were baffled when they learned they had been allotted hundreds of thousands of dollars in relief, and many weren't aware they were even eligible for the money. Brad Smith, the president of Bakke Graduate University in Dallas, which was allotted $497,338 in federal aid, says he didn't learn of his school's eligibility until he was contacted by NPR.

"I don't know anything about this," Smith says, noting that his school hadn't asked for additional federal help. "I'm taking responsibility to find out what it means."

An Education Department spokesperson tells NPR, "In order to receive this funding, an institution will need to request it. Any institution that does not need this money should simply decline to request it so schools will not be in the position of having to return unneeded funds."

The department says, once the requests are processed, any remaining funds will be redistributed through competitive grants.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

The Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments remotely this week, and for the first time the arguments were streamed live to the public.; Credit: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

For the first time in its 231-year history, the Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments remotely by phone and made the audio available live.

The new setup went off largely without difficulties, but produced some memorable moments, including one justice forgetting to unmute and an ill-timed bathroom break.

Here are the top five can't-miss moments from this week's history-making oral arguments.

A second week of arguments begin on Monday at 10 a.m. ET. Here's a rundown of the cases and how to listen.

1. Justice Clarence Thomas speaks ... a lot

Supreme Court oral arguments are verbal jousting matches. The justices pepper the lawyers with questions, interrupting counsel repeatedly and sometimes even interrupting each other.

Justice Clarence Thomas, who has sat on the bench for nearly 30 years, has made his dislike of the chaotic process well known, at one point not asking a question for a full decade.

But with no line of sight, the telephone arguments have to be rigidly organized, and each justice, in order of seniority, has an allotted 2 minutes for questioning.

It turn out that Thomas, second in seniority, may just have been waiting his turn. Rather than passing, as had been expected, he has been Mr. Chatty Cathy, using every one of his turns at bat so far.

Thomas broke a year-long silence on Monday in a trademark case testing whether a company can trademark by adding .com to a generic term. In this case, Booking.com.

"Could Booking acquire an 800 number, for example, that's a vanity number — 1-800-BOOKING, for example?" Thomas asked.

2. The unstoppable RBG

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg participated in Wednesday's argument from the hospital. In pain during Tuesday's arguments, the 87-year-old underwent non-surgical treatment for a gall bladder infection at Johns Hopkins Hospital later that day, according to a Supreme Court press release.

But she was ferocious on Wednesday morning, calling in from her hospital room in a case testing the Trump administration's new rule expanding exemptions from Obamacare's birth control mandate for nonprofits and some for-profit companies that have religious or moral objections to birth control.

"The glaring feature" of the Trump administration's new rules, is that they "toss to the winds entirely Congress' instruction that women need and shall have seamless, no-cost, comprehensive coverage," she said.

3. Who flushed?

During Wednesday's second oral argument, Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants, a case in which the justices weighed a First Amendment challenge to a federal rule than bans most robocalls, something very unexpected happened.

Partway through lawyer Roman Martinez's argument time, a toilet flush could be distinctly heard.

Martinez seemed unperturbed and continued speaking in spite of the awkward moment.

The flush quickly picked up steam online, becoming the first truly viral moment from the court's new livestream oral arguments.

4. Hello, where are you?

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, considered one of the most tech-savvy of the justices, experienced a couple of technical difficulties with her mute button.

In both Monday and Tuesday arguments, the first time she was at bat, there were prolonged pauses, prompting Chief Justice John Roberts to call, "Justice Sotomayor?" a few times before she hopped on with a brief, "Sorry, Chief," before launching into her questions.

By Wednesday she seemed to have gotten used to the new format, but the trouble then jumped to Thomas, who was entirely missing in action when his turn came. He ultimately went out of order Wednesday morning.

5. Running over time

Oral arguments usually run one hour almost exactly, with lawyers for each side having 30 minutes to make their case. In an attempt to stick as closely as possible to that format, the telephone rules allocate 2 minutes of questioning to each justice for each round of questioning.

Chief Justice John Roberts spent the week jumping into exchanges, cutting off both lawyers and justices in the process, to keep the proceedings on track. Even so the arguments ran longer than usual.

But in Wednesday's birth control case, oral arguments went a whopping 40 minutes longer than expected.

Justice Alito, for his part, hammered the lawyer challenging the Trump administration's new birth control rules for more than seven minutes, without interruption from the chief justice.

Referencing a decision he wrote in 2014, Alito said that "Hobby Lobby held that if a person sincerely believes that it is immoral to perform an act that has the effect of enabling another person to commit an immoral act, the federal court does not have the right to say that this person is wrong on the question of moral complicity. That is precisely the question here."

Christina Peck is NPR's legal affairs intern.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

The LAEDC helped Huy Fong Foods reach a compromise to keep operating its Sriracha factory in Irwindale ; Credit: Maya Sugarman/KPCC

Even as California loses manufacturing jobs, a program run by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation has fought to save some. 

When a company is considering relocating to take advantage of lower costs or an easier business climate, the LAEDC’s business assistance program steps in.  

It did so in the well-publicized case of Huy Fung Foods last year.  

When the city of Irwindale filed a lawsuit against the Sriracha sauce-maker because of bad smells, politicians from other states - most notably Texas - began to circle, offering the company a new home.  

Fighting against those suitors is a  familiar dance for the nonprofit Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. Many states and municipalities have similar agencies, whose job it is to try to attract and keep employers.

In the Sriracha case, the LAEDC prepared an economic impact analysis, met with the company and the South Coast Air Quality Management District and negotiated a compromise that kept the hot sauce manufacturer here, according to Carrie Rogers, Vice President of Business Assistance and Development with LAEDC.

"We all love Sriracha," she said, adding that she was happy to keep the "180 jobs and really to thwart the efforts of Governor Perry from Texas to try to lure our company away to their state."

The LAEDC estimates its business assistance program has played a role in keeping or luring 200,000 jobs since 1996, when it was formed. It's being recognized by the County Board of Supervisors for those efforts today.

But plenty of jobs still leave.

In a study published in July, the LAEDC said between 1990 and 2012, California lost about 40 percent of its manufacturing jobs – 842,180. 

"We compete internationally so a lot of our competitors have gone to Mexico," said Jeff Hynes, CEO of Covina-based Composites Horizons Incorporated, which makes ceramic structures for jet engines. "A week doesn’t go by that I don’t get a call from an economic development corp out of Texas or the South."

He scored a big contract recently and needed to expand fast to begin fulfilling orders. 

"Los Angeles  - in our particular industry - has a very good supplier base with materials and equipment," he said "but certainly facility costs are lower in other areas of the state and country."  

He said the LAEDC helped him get the permits quickly to buy and modify another building on its street and they decided to stay put. 

Composites Horizons currently employs 200 people but plans to add 50 employees this year and another 50 next year, he said. 

Rogers, of the LAEDC, said that may not seem like much, but it's important to support businesses like this one.

"When you take a step back and think about it, here’s a company that’s growing when many businesses aren’t," she said. "We know there are suppliers that feed into Composites Horizons. So when they get millions of dollars worth of contracts, we know that many more companies and employees around the county will be employed doing work directly for this company."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Full Text:

On August 17, 2017, scientists made history with the first direct observation of a merger between two neutron stars. It was the first cosmic event detected in both gravitational waves and the entire spectrum of light, from gamma rays to radio emissions. The impact also created a kilonova -- a turbocharged explosion that instantly forged several hundred planets’ worth of gold and platinum. The observations provided the first compelling evidence that kilonovae produce large quantities of heavy metals, a finding long predicted by theory. Astronomers suspect that all of the gold and platinum on Earth formed as a result of ancient kilonovae created during neutron star collisions. Based on data from the 2017 event, first spotted by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), astronomers began to adjust their assumptions of how a kilonova should appear to Earth-bound observers. A team of scientists reexamined data from a gamma-ray burst spotted in August 2016 and found new evidence for a kilonova that went unnoticed during the initial observations.

Image credit: NASA/ESA/E. Troja

Full Text:

Scientists have recovered the first genetic data from an extinct bird in the Caribbean, thanks to the remarkably preserved bones of a Creighton's caracara in a flooded sinkhole on Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas. Studies of ancient DNA from tropical birds have faced two formidable obstacles. Organic material quickly degrades when exposed to heat, light and oxygen. And birds' lightweight, hollow bones break easily, accelerating the decay of the DNA within. But the dark, oxygen-free depths of a 100-foot blue hole known as Sawmill Sink provided ideal preservation conditions for the bones of Caracara creightoni, a species of large carrion-eating falcon that disappeared soon after humans arrived in the Bahamas about 1,000 years ago. Florida Museum of Natural History researcher Jessica Oswald and her colleagues extracted and sequenced genetic material from the 2,500-year-old C. creightoni femur. Because ancient DNA is often fragmented or missing, the team had modest expectations for what they would find –- maybe one or two genes. But instead, the bone yielded 98.7% of the bird's mitochondrial genome, the DNA most living things inherit from their mothers. The mitochondrial genome showed that C. creightoni is closely related to the two remaining caracara species alive today: the crested caracara and the southern caracara. The three species last shared a common ancestor between 1.2 and 0.4 million years ago. "This project enhanced our understanding of the ecological and evolutionary implications of extinction, forged strong international partnerships, and trained the next generation of researchers," says Jessica Robin, a program director in National Science Foundation's Office of International Science and Engineering, which funded the study.

Image credit: Florida Museum photo by Kristen Grace

If left unpatched, a firmware flaw in some enterprise-class solid-state drives could make data on them unrecoverable as early as this fall

The post HPE issues fix to stop some SSDs from self‑destructing appeared first on WeLiveSecurity

With COVID-19 concerns canceling face-to-face meetings, be aware of the security risks of videoconferencing and how to easily overcome them

The post Work from home: Videoconferencing with security in mind appeared first on WeLiveSecurity

As work from home is the new norm in the coronavirus era, you’re probably thinking of enabling remote desktop connections for your off-site staff. Here’s how to do it securely.

The post Work from home: Securing RDP and remote access appeared first on WeLiveSecurity

The median loss to fraudulent schemes that exploit the global health crisis is almost US$600

The post Americans report US$13 million in losses from coronavirus scams appeared first on WeLiveSecurity

Being at your beck and call is central to the "personality" of your digital friend, but there are situations when the device could use some time off

The post Work from home: Should your digital assistant be on or off? appeared first on WeLiveSecurity

A new study has conducted a preliminary investigation into the design of reserves that would help protect coral reefs from climate change. The results indicate that, 15 per cent of coral reefs in the Bahamas, the study area, would be able to withstand rising temperature, and would therefore be appropriately placed in reserves.

City dwellers who grow their own fruit and vegetables may be consuming high levels of pollutants. In a recent study, researchers found that vegetables grown on plots in Berlin, Germany, often contained higher concentrations of some heavy metals than shop-bought vegetables, with those grown close to busy roads containing the greatest quantities.

A recent study compared the decentralised treatment of pharmaceutical contaminants in wastewater at hospitals with centralised treatment at conventional and upgraded wastewater plants. The results suggest that additional (post) treatments may not always provide significant benefits.

The development of Green Infrastructure (GI) in a UK case study has been researched in a recent study. Some issues caused by an imbalance in stakeholder power and conflicting roles played by major stakeholders were identified with the project. Stakeholder participation is central to the concept of GI and the research reiterates the importance for those implementing GI to ensure that participation is effective and balanced.

Damage caused by boats anchoring in seagrass meadows off the coast of Sardinia continues despite restrictions, new research shows. The study's authors provide a number of recommendations to help protect seagrass. These include creating special anchoring areas in seagrass-free locations, and limiting the number of boats that enter a marine protected area.

A survey of over 600 private boats docked in marinas throughout the Mediterranean showed that 71% are carrying non-indigenous species. In certain cases, non-indigenous species can become ‘invasive’ and have enormous and long-lasting impacts on ecosystems. The findings suggest that a common monitoring strategy may be necessary to prevent further disruptions to natural ecosystems.

Improved public communications and standardised collection systems can greatly increase uptake of safe and sustainable waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) disposal and recycling. This is according to new insights from Italy and Romania, where WEEE collection rates have risen in response to these measures.

Increasing resource efficiency is a central aim of European environmental policy, and effective waste management must play a key role in this. A new report assesses waste management in 32 European countries, and identifies key lessons. Landfill taxes and mandatory separate collections of different waste types are highlighted as particularly successful policy instruments.

‘Payment for ecosystem services’ (PES) has become a commonly used term in recent years, yet the concept is not well defined. A new study reviewing PES theory, concepts and practice from around the world provides a valuable overview, concluding that more can be done to share learning.

A hacking group has started to flood a dark web hacking marketplace with databases containing a combined total of 73.2 million user records over 11 different companies. [...]

New research from Sweden identifies the characteristics of substance flow analyses that make them useful to policy makers. Substance flow analyses that focus on measuring rather than modelling pollution and which are aligned to existing measures are more likely to influence policy.

The risk of small or medium oil spills from ships, pipelines, storage facilities and refineries is higher than from oil exploration and production. However, the risk of severe oil spills is highest from exploration and production, according to a recent study. Furthermore, the study suggests that the Deepwater Horizon accident, the largest recorded oil spill, cannot be considered as a particularly rare event.

Researchers from the University of Oxford's Bodleian Libraries and from universities in the Netherlands have used high-tech imaging to uncover the details of a rare Mexican codex dating from before the colonization of the Americas. The newly revealed codex, or book, has been hidden from view for almost 500 years, concealed beneath a layer of plaster and chalk on the back of a later manuscript known as the Codex Selden, which is housed at the Bodleian Libraries. Scientists have used hyperspectral imaging to reveal pictographic scenes from this remarkable document and have published their findings in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

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A rare small-bodied pterosaur, a flying reptile from the Late Cretaceous period approximately 77 million years ago, is the first of its kind to have been discovered on the west coast of North America.

read more

An extinct reptile related to crocodiles that lived 212 million years ago in present day New Mexico has been named as a new species, Vivaron haydeni, in a paper published this week by Virginia Tech's Department of Geosciences researchers.

read more

New research in France has analysed the effectiveness of legal instruments and environmental assessments to protect natural areas against the impacts of roads. The Natura 2000 network appears to be the most effective, but the study calls for environmental assessments to take place earlier on in decision-making process for road projects to better protect natural areas.

The European Directive on the assessment and management of flood risks1 (the Floods Directive) represents a shift towards holistic and catchment-oriented management of flood risk and is likely to prompt changes to policy in many Member States. New research from Germany suggests that effective implementation of the Floods Directive is likely to be greatly aided by the participation of stakeholders and communication between groups.

A recent study compares the effects of organic, ‘natural’ fertilisers, such as compost, with mineral, synthetic fertilisers, such as urea, on N2O emissions from Mediterranean soil. It suggests that there is little difference between the fertilisers, but that pig slurry offers the best overall balance in terms of emissions and crop yield.

Reducing meat and dairy consumption would help reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from farming. A recent study describes the "ecological leftovers" approach to reducing livestock-related GHGs, which assumes that a sustainable number of livestock can be calculated on the basis of available marginal land, unsuitable for other purposes, and available agricultural by-products, which could be used as feed.

A number of standards and initiatives exist to minimise the negative environmental impacts of growing crops for biofuels. New research has reviewed these standards and recommended minimally acceptable criteria in the areas of biodiversity, agricultural practices, and mitigation of indirect land-use change.

Certain vegetables take up heavy metals from contaminated water used for irrigation, a new study finds. The researchers grew vegetables in greenhouses similar to field conditions in Greece and found that concentrations of nickel and chromium increased in potatoes and onions, but not in carrots, when irrigated with water containing contaminant levels similar to those found in industrial wastewater.

The health risks to humans of using recycled water to irrigate crops needs to be carefully managed. New research has demonstrated that ???managed aquifer recharge??? can be just as effective as conventional water treatments in improving the quality of recycled water for use in irrigation.

The application to crops of struvite (magnesium ammonium phosphate) recovered from waste water may cause antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) present in this fertiliser to enter the food chain. Chinese researchers who conducted this study on Brassica plants suggest that ARGs in struvite pass from the soil into the roots of the plant, and from the roots to the leaves, via the bacterial community already present. The results of this research highlight the need for struvite production methods and agricultural practices that minimise the risk of antibiotic-resistance transmission from struvite to humans or animals via the environment.

The presence of plastics in aquatic environments is a growing concern across the EU. This study explored the amount of microplastic particles present in raw and treated water at three water-treatment plants in the Czech Republic. While treated water contained fewer particles than raw1 fresh water, the amount found in treated water was not negligible, and largely comprised tiny particles of <10 micrometres (μm) in diameter. Ways to filter microplastics from potable water must be identified and their risk to humans, sources and routes into drinking water determined, say the researchers.

How environmental agencies can best engage with, and reap the benefits of, Environmental Enforcement Networks (EENs) has been identified in new research. The study used questionnaires and interviews with senior figures from eight environment agencies, spanning seven countries, to identify the key themes of, and ways of improving engagement with, EENs, to extract the maximum benefits. The input was then used to perform a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis of engaging with EENs, from which options for improved engagement could be developed.

New research has reviewed the Irish implementation of the first phase of the EU Noise Directive. So far 31 different organisations have been involved and this will increase throughout the second phase of the Directive's implementation. More standardisation is needed to harmonise activities, perhaps by establishing a national expert steering group.

Over a 20-year time period, the greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of shale gas is greater than that of coal, oil or conventional gas, according to a recent study. Methane emissions make up most of this footprint. This suggests that substituting conventional fossil fuels with shale gas may not have the desired effect to mitigate climate warming in the short-term.