An emerging body of evidence suggests that integrating STEMM fields (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine) with the humanities and arts in higher education is associated with positive learning outcomes that may help students enter the workforce, live enriched lives, and become active and informed citizens, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

The current process for planetary protection policy development is inadequate to respond to increasingly complex solar system exploration missions, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine highlights the dynamic process of learning throughout the life span and identifies frontiers in which more research is needed to pursue an even deeper understanding of human learning.

To achieve goals for climate and economic growth, “negative emissions technologies” (NETs) that remove and sequester carbon dioxide from the air will need to play a significant role in mitigating climate change, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Given the current state of quantum computing and the significant challenges that still need to be overcome, it is highly unlikely that a quantum computer that can compromise public-key cryptography – a basis for the security of most of today’s computers and networks – will be built within the next decade, says a new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Frank Romero with one of his French paintings, in his home in the South of France. But every year, he and his wife Sharon throw a big studio sale for Christmas, and you're invited.; Credit: John Rabe

"Live! Life's a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!" - Auntie Mame.

Your calendar is filling up, but here are four holiday events you'll want to make room for:

Every year, pioneering Chicano artist Frank Romero and his wife Sharon throw a big studio sale that includes works by a wide group of artists, and a lot of food and drink. It's just as much a party as a sales event, and Frank and the other artists are always there to meet and greet. And now that the couple is spending more time at their home in France, it's a chance for their old friends to catch up with them, so who knows who you'll see from L.A.'s arts community.

RELATED: See Frank's new works - French scenes with an East LA flavor

The Romero Studio annual Christmas party and sale is Saturday, Dec. 6, 6-10pm; and Sunday, Dec. 7, 1-5pm, at Plaza de la Raza, Boathouse Gallery, 3540 North Mission Rd., LA CA 90031 (in Lincoln Park across from the DMV — which BTW is a very good DMV).

Then, on Sunday, Dec. 14, at 4:30pm,  it's the Advent Procession of Lessons and Carols, at St. James Episcopal Church, which a friend describes as "one of the truly beautiful choral events of the season," and the highlight of the Choir of St. James' season. It's free and it's at St. James' Episcopal Church in Koreatown (3903 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles 90010).
 

"Auntie Mame," the 1958 Rosalind Russell movie with more quotable quips than a weekend getaway with Oscar Wilde, has become something of a Christmas tradition. It's screening at the American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theatre on Wednesday, Dec. 17, at 7:30. As delightful as this movie is any day of the week on your TV at home, this is a film to be seen in 35mm with a theater full of people reacting to every bon mot and heart-touching moment.

GO INSIDE: The Disney Hall organ, "Hurricane Mama," turns 10

Last year, my husband and I blindly went to Disney Hall for the Holiday Organ Spectacular. We expected some music and a little fun. But it really was spectacular. It's back this year, on Friday, Dec. 19, with organist David Higgs leading the evening from the console of Hurricane Mama.

If you've never seen or heard the organ in person, this is a great evening because Higgs — a teacher as well as master organist — gives you a guided tour of every stop, and every mood the organ can produce, from cathedral-loud to country-church-quiet. At the end of the night, he breaks the audience into parts to sing "The Twelve Days of Christmas," and you may sing as loud as you like.

These are just a few curated selections, but they're just the tip of the iceberg in Southern California; please make your own holiday event recommendations in the comments below. 

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

California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks to the press in the spin room after the sixth Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season co-hosted by PBS NewsHour & Politico at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California on December 19, 2019. ; Credit: AGUSTIN PAULLIER/AFP via Getty Images

After nearly two months of “safer at home” during the COVID-19 outbreak, the state of California appears to be taking its first steps towards reopening businesses and restarting the economy.

Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Monday during the daily press briefing he has held since the start of the outbreak that California will be entering the first phase of its four-stage plan and allowing certain retail businesses like bookstores, music stores, sporting goods stores and florists to reopen for pickup as early as Friday. Manufacturing and logistics can start in the retail supply chain again as well. There are also local control measures in effect that allow certain municipalities to decide themselves whether to move farther ahead in the process and reopen certain things like restaurant dining rooms, though anyone deciding to do so would have to submit “containment plans” to the state. Two cities in Orange County, which has been involved in a back-and-forth with Sacramento over his order last week closing all state and local beaches in OC, have been cleared to reopen their beaches after they submitted plans to the state last week for how they’d reopen the beaches while safely controlling crowds.

Guests:

Erika Ritchie, reporter for the Orange County Register covering South Orange County Coastal Communities; she tweets @lagunaini

Donald Wagner, Orange County Supervisor, 3rd District, which includes Anaheim Hills, Irvine, Orange, Tustin, and the unincorporated canyons; former Mayor of Irvine (2016-2019); tweets @DonWagnerCA 

Bob Whalen, mayor of Laguna Beach

Karen Farrer, mayor of the City of Malibu

Robert Garcia, mayor of Long Beach; he tweets @LongBeachMayor

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

; Credit: smartboy10/Getty Images

A for-profit college received millions of dollars from the federal government to help low-income students whose lives have been upended by the coronavirus outbreak, but that same school, Florida Career College (FCC), is also accused of defrauding students.

A federal class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of students in April calls FCC "a sham" and alleges that, long before the pandemic, the college was targeting economically vulnerable people of color. The plaintiffs say the vocational school enticed them with false promises of career training and job placement — but spent little on instruction while charging exorbitant prices and pushing students into loans they cannot repay.

The lawsuit comes as thousands of colleges across the country are receiving federal emergency relief in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Through the CARES Act, FCC has been allotted $17 million. The law requires that at least half of that money goes directly to students, but makes few stipulations for the rest of it.

Experts say the complaint against FCC raises serious concerns about the college's ability to safeguard taxpayer dollars, as well as its ability to serve its own students.

In a statement to NPR, Florida Career College General Counsel Aaron Mortensen says: "This lawsuit is baseless legally and factually. Though we cannot comment because the matter is in litigation, we will aggressively fight these false allegations."

Equipment was "at best limited, and at worse, nonexistent"

Plaintiff Kareem Britt was working as a cook when he noticed a Facebook ad for FCC.

"Are you tired of working minimum wage jobs? Eating ramen noodles?" the ad asked. "Are you ready to step up to steak? HVAC degrees make $16 to $23/hr."

An FCC representative told Britt that a degree could change his life and that the school would help him land a job. He qualified for a $6,000 federal Pell Grant and an FCC "scholarship loan" for $3,000. Britt decided to enroll in the HVAC training program.

After classes began, though, Britt says equipment necessary to learn the trade was in short supply. "Tools, machinery, and other learning devices were at best limited, and at worse, nonexistent," according to the complaint.

When it came time for the school to help Britt find a job, he says, FCC found him just two, two-week placements, and he failed to find HVAC work on his own. Making matters worse, once he'd finished school, Britt learned that he had also taken on federal loans worth $9,500, which he must now pay back as a hotel cook, the same kind of job he'd held before enrolling.

Reverse redlining

The complaint alleges that Florida Career College, along with its parent company, specifically targets economically vulnerable people of color.

"They are recruiting at majority Black high schools," says Toby Merrill, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School, one of the organizations representing the plaintiffs. "They are putting up billboards in towns where the population is mostly Black. And they're doing a lot of advertising on social media where you can choose to target your ad essentially by race."

Stephen Stewart is Jamaican and says he was drawn to an FCC ad on Instagram. He decided to visit campus, and says one word captures his experience: "pressure."

Like Britt, Stewart was considering FCC's HVAC program. After his tour, when a representative told him the program would cost more than $20,000, Stewart balked. He remembers the representative pushed, telling him: "'I know so many students that have went here... I'm talking about people with five, six kids in a worse situation than you're in.'" Stewart was 20 at the time and childless. "'You're telling me that they can go through this, make their payments and pay off their tuition, and you can't?'"

Stewart enrolled in FCC's HVAC program after being promised that, within a year, the school would find him a job in his field.

The complaint takes aim at these recruiting practices. It alleges that FCC is selling the promise of a career and financial success to cash-strapped communities of color where college feels out of reach, "discriminating against students on the basis of race by inducing them to purchase a worthless product by taking on debt they cannot repay."

According to Education Department data, 85% of FCC's students are people of color.

This practice of discriminating by targeting students of color has a name: Reverse redlining — a reference to the historical practice of excluding African-American families from home ownership and denying them access to services. Reverse redlining is illegal, and it's what sets this suit apart from previous legal battles over alleged predatory practices by for-profit colleges.

"In a weekly memo to my board last Friday, I said, 'So the new angle of attack against our sector is that we are predatory to minority communities,'" says Steve Gunderson, head of Career Education Colleges and Universities, an organization that serves as the national voice for career education schools like FCC.

"We have always celebrated the fact that approximately 45 to 50% of the students in our schools are African American and Hispanic," he says. "We're proud of that."

"Classes were a scam"

Long before the federal government granted FCC $17 million in pandemic relief, the school was already largely government-dependent. According to federal data, the lion's share of FCC's revenue — 86% — comes from federal financial aid funds, namely Pell Grants and student loans.

At the same time, federal data also suggest that the college fails to prepare many students for their chosen professions. Under an Obama-era rule known as "gainful employment," schools could lose access to federal aid if graduates don't earn enough income to repay their student debts. According to the complaint, 16 of the 17 FCC programs evaluated under the gainful employment rule failed that metric, meaning graduates weren't able to repay their loans. (The gainful employment rule was repealed in 2019.)

The median annual earnings of FCC graduates who ultimately found employment ranged from $8,983 to $32,871, according to the suit, which helps explain why, according to the most recent federal data, just 23% of FCC students have been able to pay down any of their loans' original balance within three years of leaving.

"Classes were a scam, a waste of time," says Stephen Stewart. The equipment was "limited" and "outdated," he says, and the instructor admitted to the class that he had little experience with HVAC. Stewart's worst day, though, came near the end of his nine-month program when he visited the career services department to ask when they'd help him find a job as they had promised.

Stewart says he was given a list of possible HVAC companies and told, "'You gotta get your job.'" So he did, with no help. But Stewart says it was clear that FCC hadn't given him the skills he needed to keep up in the job, let alone succeed, and he ultimately left. Today, Stewart is $15,000 in debt and says he feels "shattered" by the whole experience.

"The thing that upsets me the most about this is how much it preys upon people's hopes and dreams," says Ben Miller, who studies higher education accountability at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. "You know, you have a lot of folks who want to make a better life for themselves. They have maybe one shot at college, and you rip them off and basically ruin it."

But Gunderson takes a very different view, as head of the national association for postsecondary career colleges.

"[This lawsuit] is so frustrating, because this is nothing more than an organized national effort to destroy the reputation of the [career college] sector," he says.

Gunderson insists that career colleges, including FCC, have been held to unrealistic standards. He points to the gainful employment rule, which he says measured students' incomes relatively soon after graduation. "You've got to go into the five- or 10-year mark before most of these occupations have what you and I would call our respectable salaries."

But federal data also show that, even 10 years after enrolling in FCC, more than half of its students still didn't earn more than the typical high school graduate.

Gunderson says this lawsuit is just the latest salvo in a decade-long fight to discredit for-profit, career colleges — a fight he calls "monotonous and disappointing."

"Even if you're doing a terrible job"

The law requires that at least half of the $17 million FCC is receiving through the CARES Act must go directly to students, but makes few stipulations for the rest of those funds. In a letter, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said institutions have "significant discretion" on how to award the assistance to students.

"We stand ready to deliver these funds," said Fardad Fateri, the head of FCC and its parent company, International Education Corporation, in a press release. "It is important we get these grants into the hands of our students right away, so they can better deal with this crisis."

FCC's $17 million is a small piece of the more than $14 billion lawmakers set aside in the CARES Act to help colleges and vulnerable students during the coronavirus pandemic. But Ben Miller says, in Congress' haste to help schools that serve low-income students, lawmakers are giving money to many schools with questionable records like FCC's.

"When there's no consideration of quality or outcomes, it's potentially a big award, even if you're doing a terrible job," Miller says.

Meanwhile DeVos has also championed separate policies that have made it easier for schools like FCC to continue to enroll students and receive federal student aid even as their graduates struggle. In 2019, DeVos repealed the Obama-era gainful employment rule that would have denied low-performing schools access to federal student aid.

Under the Trump administration, the Education Department has also changed the College Scorecard, a website meant to help prospective students compare colleges by price and performance. The department has removed easy access to schools' loan repayment rates. In 2018, it also removed another important metric: How the earnings of a school's graduates compared to the earnings of high school grads.

"Rather than highlighting institutions that show the best employment and loan repayment outcomes for students, this administration has made a concerted effort to hide this information from students with no explanation as to why," says Michael Itzkowitz, who was director of the College Scorecard during the Obama administration. "What's become more transparent is their willingness to prioritize certain institutions — namely for-profits — even if those aren't the best options for students choosing to pursue a postsecondary education."

The Education Department did not respond in time to requests for comment.

When students filed suit against the now-defunct for-profit Corinthian Colleges, claiming, like Britt and Stewart, that their schools had made promises about job placement and future earnings that they simply did not keep, DeVos revised another rule, known as "borrower defense," to make it more difficult for defrauded borrowers to get their money back. But the revision was so strict that 10 Senate Republicans joined with Democrats in March to rebuke the education secretary and reverse her decision.

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

Patt's Hats for Monday, April 8.; Credit: Michelle Lanz/KPCC

The twinset, in russet and camel colors, was my ‘homage’ to Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first woman prime minister, who died Monday at the Ritz Hotel in London.
 
If you're unfamiliar with a twinset, it's the classic matching sweater-duo ensemble, sleeveless or short-sleeved sweater under a cardigan, a style much favored in the U.S. by June Cleaver and sorority girls in the 1950s, like the classic insufferable rich sorority girl parody from “Auntie Mame":

And in Britain by a lady of a certain age and certain class. It is usually worn with pearls, ideally three strands. Odd numbers of strands are considered more chic than even numbers. It’s probably what she wore “off duty” as prime minister.

One can’t see her [see, I’m channeling her already!] lounging about Number 10 Downing Street in velour sweats, but on duty and on display in her prime ministerial position, though, she almost always wore a kind of uniform, a brightly colored suit, ladylike but not alluring, and not unlike what the Queen wears. [In the same spirit, the Queen wears twinsets when she’s off-duty and having fun, which is to say at some horsy event or another.] 

Because Thatcher was Britain’s first woman prime minister, Britons enjoyed handicapping the relationship between their head of state [the Queen] and the head of government [the prime minister]. Theirs was not the affectionate relationship of, for example, the Queen and Winston Churchill. And the best sartorial story about the relationship is the story – which has entered into myth if not into the annals of fact – that Mrs. Thatcher’s office once called Buckingham Palace in advance of a joint appearance to find out what the Queen would be wearing so Mrs. Thatcher wouldn’t commit lese majeste and wear the same color.

The Queen, Mrs. T’s office was informed, doesn’t take any notice of what other people are wearing.
 
I wrote about Mrs. T when she came here in 1991 to celebrate the 80th birthday of her “political soulmate,” former president Ronald Reagan. She visited the Reagan library, under construction, and the JPL, among other spots. You can read that account here.
 
And here’s my obituary of the former PM.
 
I last saw her in 2002, in St. Paul’s Cathedral, at the celebration of the Queen’s golden jubilee. I actually heard her before I saw her – that unmistakably clear voice whose pitch she worked hard to shape into the pitch and tone that became part of her political toolkit. Her funeral, next Wednesday, will be at St. Paul’s. 

Now back to my outfit! The skirt is a vintage Sonia Rykiel, which is worth the constant battle with moths to keep it in repair. I like vintage for myriad reasons: no one else is wearing what you’re wearing … the fabrics are usually of much better quality and more interesting than present-day ones … and unlike current store-bought things, vintage has the merit of being environmentally friendly.
 
I was tickled to see my viewpoint endorsed by the accomplished Vanessa Paradis, the charming and glamorous French singer and actress, Chanel model, Lagerfeld muse, and the new face of H&M’s new environmentally conscious line. Here she talks about embracing those virtues herself. Merci, Vanessa!
 
Oh, I spared the oysters and didn’t wear pearls with my twinset. Rose gold is the choice du jour.  Real? I wish!

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

; Credit: smartboy10/Getty Images

A for-profit college received millions of dollars from the federal government to help low-income students whose lives have been upended by the coronavirus outbreak, but that same school, Florida Career College (FCC), is also accused of defrauding students.

A federal class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of students in April calls FCC "a sham" and alleges that, long before the pandemic, the college was targeting economically vulnerable people of color. The plaintiffs say the vocational school enticed them with false promises of career training and job placement — but spent little on instruction while charging exorbitant prices and pushing students into loans they cannot repay.

The lawsuit comes as thousands of colleges across the country are receiving federal emergency relief in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Through the CARES Act, FCC has been allotted $17 million. The law requires that at least half of that money goes directly to students, but makes few stipulations for the rest of it.

Experts say the complaint against FCC raises serious concerns about the college's ability to safeguard taxpayer dollars, as well as its ability to serve its own students.

In a statement to NPR, Florida Career College General Counsel Aaron Mortensen says: "This lawsuit is baseless legally and factually. Though we cannot comment because the matter is in litigation, we will aggressively fight these false allegations."

Equipment was "at best limited, and at worse, nonexistent"

Plaintiff Kareem Britt was working as a cook when he noticed a Facebook ad for FCC.

"Are you tired of working minimum wage jobs? Eating ramen noodles?" the ad asked. "Are you ready to step up to steak? HVAC degrees make $16 to $23/hr."

An FCC representative told Britt that a degree could change his life and that the school would help him land a job. He qualified for a $6,000 federal Pell Grant and an FCC "scholarship loan" for $3,000. Britt decided to enroll in the HVAC training program.

After classes began, though, Britt says equipment necessary to learn the trade was in short supply. "Tools, machinery, and other learning devices were at best limited, and at worse, nonexistent," according to the complaint.

When it came time for the school to help Britt find a job, he says, FCC found him just two, two-week placements, and he failed to find HVAC work on his own. Making matters worse, once he'd finished school, Britt learned that he had also taken on federal loans worth $9,500, which he must now pay back as a hotel cook, the same kind of job he'd held before enrolling.

Reverse redlining

The complaint alleges that Florida Career College, along with its parent company, specifically targets economically vulnerable people of color.

"They are recruiting at majority Black high schools," says Toby Merrill, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School, one of the organizations representing the plaintiffs. "They are putting up billboards in towns where the population is mostly Black. And they're doing a lot of advertising on social media where you can choose to target your ad essentially by race."

Stephen Stewart is Jamaican and says he was drawn to an FCC ad on Instagram. He decided to visit campus, and says one word captures his experience: "pressure."

Like Britt, Stewart was considering FCC's HVAC program. After his tour, when a representative told him the program would cost more than $20,000, Stewart balked. He remembers the representative pushed, telling him: "'I know so many students that have went here... I'm talking about people with five, six kids in a worse situation than you're in.'" Stewart was 20 at the time and childless. "'You're telling me that they can go through this, make their payments and pay off their tuition, and you can't?'"

Stewart enrolled in FCC's HVAC program after being promised that, within a year, the school would find him a job in his field.

The complaint takes aim at these recruiting practices. It alleges that FCC is selling the promise of a career and financial success to cash-strapped communities of color where college feels out of reach, "discriminating against students on the basis of race by inducing them to purchase a worthless product by taking on debt they cannot repay."

According to Education Department data, 85% of FCC's students are people of color.

This practice of discriminating by targeting students of color has a name: Reverse redlining — a reference to the historical practice of excluding African-American families from home ownership and denying them access to services. Reverse redlining is illegal, and it's what sets this suit apart from previous legal battles over alleged predatory practices by for-profit colleges.

"In a weekly memo to my board last Friday, I said, 'So the new angle of attack against our sector is that we are predatory to minority communities,'" says Steve Gunderson, head of Career Education Colleges and Universities, an organization that serves as the national voice for career education schools like FCC.

"We have always celebrated the fact that approximately 45 to 50% of the students in our schools are African American and Hispanic," he says. "We're proud of that."

"Classes were a scam"

Long before the federal government granted FCC $17 million in pandemic relief, the school was already largely government-dependent. According to federal data, the lion's share of FCC's revenue — 86% — comes from federal financial aid funds, namely Pell Grants and student loans.

At the same time, federal data also suggest that the college fails to prepare many students for their chosen professions. Under an Obama-era rule known as "gainful employment," schools could lose access to federal aid if graduates don't earn enough income to repay their student debts. According to the complaint, 16 of the 17 FCC programs evaluated under the gainful employment rule failed that metric, meaning graduates weren't able to repay their loans. (The gainful employment rule was repealed in 2019.)

The median annual earnings of FCC graduates who ultimately found employment ranged from $8,983 to $32,871, according to the suit, which helps explain why, according to the most recent federal data, just 23% of FCC students have been able to pay down any of their loans' original balance within three years of leaving.

"Classes were a scam, a waste of time," says Stephen Stewart. The equipment was "limited" and "outdated," he says, and the instructor admitted to the class that he had little experience with HVAC. Stewart's worst day, though, came near the end of his nine-month program when he visited the career services department to ask when they'd help him find a job as they had promised.

Stewart says he was given a list of possible HVAC companies and told, "'You gotta get your job.'" So he did, with no help. But Stewart says it was clear that FCC hadn't given him the skills he needed to keep up in the job, let alone succeed, and he ultimately left. Today, Stewart is $15,000 in debt and says he feels "shattered" by the whole experience.

"The thing that upsets me the most about this is how much it preys upon people's hopes and dreams," says Ben Miller, who studies higher education accountability at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. "You know, you have a lot of folks who want to make a better life for themselves. They have maybe one shot at college, and you rip them off and basically ruin it."

But Gunderson takes a very different view, as head of the national association for postsecondary career colleges.

"[This lawsuit] is so frustrating, because this is nothing more than an organized national effort to destroy the reputation of the [career college] sector," he says.

Gunderson insists that career colleges, including FCC, have been held to unrealistic standards. He points to the gainful employment rule, which he says measured students' incomes relatively soon after graduation. "You've got to go into the five- or 10-year mark before most of these occupations have what you and I would call our respectable salaries."

But federal data also show that, even 10 years after enrolling in FCC, more than half of its students still didn't earn more than the typical high school graduate.

Gunderson says this lawsuit is just the latest salvo in a decade-long fight to discredit for-profit, career colleges — a fight he calls "monotonous and disappointing."

"Even if you're doing a terrible job"

The law requires that at least half of the $17 million FCC is receiving through the CARES Act must go directly to students, but makes few stipulations for the rest of those funds. In a letter, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said institutions have "significant discretion" on how to award the assistance to students.

"We stand ready to deliver these funds," said Fardad Fateri, the head of FCC and its parent company, International Education Corporation, in a press release. "It is important we get these grants into the hands of our students right away, so they can better deal with this crisis."

FCC's $17 million is a small piece of the more than $14 billion lawmakers set aside in the CARES Act to help colleges and vulnerable students during the coronavirus pandemic. But Ben Miller says, in Congress' haste to help schools that serve low-income students, lawmakers are giving money to many schools with questionable records like FCC's.

"When there's no consideration of quality or outcomes, it's potentially a big award, even if you're doing a terrible job," Miller says.

Meanwhile DeVos has also championed separate policies that have made it easier for schools like FCC to continue to enroll students and receive federal student aid even as their graduates struggle. In 2019, DeVos repealed the Obama-era gainful employment rule that would have denied low-performing schools access to federal student aid.

Under the Trump administration, the Education Department has also changed the College Scorecard, a website meant to help prospective students compare colleges by price and performance. The department has removed easy access to schools' loan repayment rates. In 2018, it also removed another important metric: How the earnings of a school's graduates compared to the earnings of high school grads.

"Rather than highlighting institutions that show the best employment and loan repayment outcomes for students, this administration has made a concerted effort to hide this information from students with no explanation as to why," says Michael Itzkowitz, who was director of the College Scorecard during the Obama administration. "What's become more transparent is their willingness to prioritize certain institutions — namely for-profits — even if those aren't the best options for students choosing to pursue a postsecondary education."

The Education Department did not respond in time to requests for comment.

When students filed suit against the now-defunct for-profit Corinthian Colleges, claiming, like Britt and Stewart, that their schools had made promises about job placement and future earnings that they simply did not keep, DeVos revised another rule, known as "borrower defense," to make it more difficult for defrauded borrowers to get their money back. But the revision was so strict that 10 Senate Republicans joined with Democrats in March to rebuke the education secretary and reverse her decision.

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

…and why are they selling it to other security vendors and product testers?

The post Professional data leakage: How did that security vendor get my personal data? appeared first on WeLiveSecurity

The world’s ocean ecosystems will suffer warming, increased acidity, low oxygen and reduced primary food supply as a result of rising CO2 and this is likely to have dramatic environmental and social impacts, a new study concludes. It predicts that the most vulnerable low-income countries, where 870 million people are dependent on marine ecosystems, would be affected if CO2 emissions are not tackled.

The challenge of measuring the ‘absence of waste’ makes it particularly difficult to monitor and evaluate waste prevention policies. Researchers have examined the strengths and weaknesses of nine methods of assessing waste prevention, and recommend a hybrid approach, which combines the best of many methods, as particularly valuable.

Composts containing biodegradable plastics may hinder rather than help plant growth, according to a recent study by university scientists in Poland. These findings have implications for waste management practices within the EU.

‘Perovskite solar cells’ (PSCs) are less costly than conventional silicon solar cells, but one of their key components is energy-intensive to manufacture as high temperatures are needed. Now researchers have identified new alternative materials for this component which cut energy demands as they can be produced at low temperatures.

1800s, astronomers surveying the night sky in the Southern Hemisphere noticed something strange: Over the course of a few years, a previously inconspicuous star named Eta Carinae grew brighter and brighter, eventually outshining all other stars except Sirius, before fading again over the next decade, becoming too dim to be seen with the naked eye.

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You just received the promotion you have worked so hard for, but you overhear a co-worker say that you got it because the boss only gives the easy projects to you while the hard ones are dumped on everyone else. Some of your envious co-workers come to congratulate you with the aim of being seen with you for reputational benefits, but some others may be less kind in their response.

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Subsidies support economic sectors and grant advantages to consumers, but can harm the environment. A new study has tested a number of existing tools for assessing environmentally harmful subsidies (EHS), developed a comprehensive methodology for identifying and analysing EHS and highlighted opportunities for reforming them.

Microbes found in groundwater may be resilient to periods of drought. A new study measured the enzyme activity of microbes, which shows whether they are alive and active, in a groundwater well. No significant difference in enzyme activity was found between those microbes that had experienced drought for four months and those that had not.

Available evidence from the last decade, describing the nature, behaviour and effect of engineered nanoparticles (ENPs) in the environment, has been reviewed. It identified factors that influence ENP distribution and fate and highlighted the existence of significant research gaps which, if filled, would help in understanding the impacts of long-term accumulation of nanomaterials and the changes that occur to them when they are released into the environment.

Thanks to the intervention of Cloud-based tech tools, professionals no longer need to visit their offices to engage in business transactions.

The litter size of the endangered European mink is less than half of that of its main competitor, the invasive American mink, research shows. The higher fertility of the American mink may allow rapid population growth of this species, threatening European mink with extinction.

Biodiversity offset policies may inadvertently incentivise behaviours which actually accelerate biodiversity loss, new research has found. The study’s authors identify four ways this can occur and make recommendations for prevention.

Protected areas that allow local people to use the resources in a sustainable way are better for biodiversity conservation than excluding people entirely, a new study suggests. In a review of over 160 scientific studies, the researchers found that protected areas which were managed to allow sustainable access yielded greater socioeconomic benefits. Importantly, those with greater socioeconomic benefits were also more likely to report biodiversity benefits.

Animal-train collisions are an important cause of animal mortality. This study tested the ability of a device that emits natural warning calls to reduce risk of animals being hit by trains in central Poland. Animals, including roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and brown hare (Lepus europaeus) escaped in most cases. The authors say the device is an effective means of risk reduction as it allows animals to escape train tracks earlier and more often.

Many here in Massachusetts started social distancing about a month ago and we have no end in sight yet. If you live alone, maybe you are ready to match up with someone after you get through this hardship. Today's guest blogger, Toshi Takeuchi, has a perfect algorithm for you. I love that this was inspired by a problem that, at first glance, doesn't seem very technical or relevant. But it is!... read more >>

Pesticides and biocides can cause serious harm to aquatic ecosystems. A study by Swiss researchers has found that the levels of some common biocides entering wastewater and rivers from urban environments are similar to those of pesticides from agricultural land. Although smaller quantities are used in urban areas, similar total amounts escaped into surface waters.

Beetles that are helpful to farmers can be poisoned if they feed on slugs that have eaten crops treated with neonicotinoids, a new study reports. The slugs themselves are not harmed by neonicotinoids. In American field trials, researchers found that plots planted with neonicotinoid-treated soybeans contained more slugs, fewer beetle predators and had 5% lower yields. The insecticide may be reducing the beetles’ effectiveness as a natural control of slug pests.

PFASs — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — are a family of chemicals used in a wide range of industrial and consumer applications. Due to concerns about their persistence, bioaccumulation and toxicity, long-chain PFASs are increasingly being phased out, creating a growing market for alternatives. Researchers have developed a novel method, based on molecular simulation techniques, to estimate the rate at which novel PFASs interact and bind with particular proteins (‘binding affinity’) — an important factor in determining a substance’s bioaccumulation potential in organisms. The method indicates that replacement PFASs may be just as bioaccumulative as original (legacy) PFASs and are, therefore, not necessarily safer. If correct, this finding has significant policy implications.

Myke has read _Triggers_, Grey tries to deal with a backlog, and they have amazing new merch available.

Cutting edge neural network and artificial intelligence technologies, combined with the imaginative work of the $1 million Zillow Prize winners, creates most accurate Zestimate ever

000
WTNT64 KNHC 110400
TCUAT4

Tropical Storm Michael Tropical Cyclone Update
NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL AL142018
1200 AM EDT Thu Oct 11 2018

...12 AM EDT POSITION UPDATE...
...MICHAEL WEAKENS TO A TROPICAL STORM OVER CENTRAL GEORGIA...
...DAMAGING WINDS STILL OCCURRING INLAND...

NOAA Doppler weather radar data indicate that the center of Michael
is now moving into south-central Georgia. Tropical storm-force
winds continue over central and southern Georgia, and are spreading
across the coast of southeastern Georgia.

This will be the last hourly position update issued by the National
Hurricane Center on Michael. The next intermediate advisory will be
issued at 2 AM EDT...0600 UTC.


SUMMARY OF 1200 AM EDT...0400 UTC...INFORMATION
-----------------------------------------------
LOCATION...32.3N 83.6W
ABOUT 30 MI...45 KM SSW OF MACON GEORGIA
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...70 MPH...115 KM/H
PRESENT MOVEMENT...NE OR 40 DEGREES AT 17 MPH...28 KM/H
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...975 MB...28.79 INCHES

$$
Forecaster Beven

...

Humans like to think of themselves as monogamous, but when it comes to true fidelity, many animals engage in true monogamy.

Once a luxurious yacht and a racing steamer, this rusty ship is now mired in a creek off the Ohio River.

Why is Venus rotating 6.5 minutes slower than it was just 16 years ago?

Consider this an Earth-bound travel guide to the solar system, places on Earth that closely resemble landscapes of other planets.

From the neurobiology of attraction to the hard truth about online dating, these five books offer fresh takes on our quest for love.

The same-sex marriage rulings by the Supreme Court are but the most recent in a long history of cases that reshaped the family structure.

For many wild creatures the line between male and female is decidedly blurry.

What good can an additional serving of fruit or vegetables a day do?

Antarctica ice loss was only contributing 0.2 millimeters per year to sea level rise, but that number has jumped to 0.6 millimeters since 2012.

In Beijing, a city lousy with haunted spots, one historic mansion in need of some TLC just can't seem to catch a break due to its ghostly reputation.

A young poet from the Marshall Islands reportedly 'brought world leaders to tears' at the U.N. Climate Summit.