EVANSVILLE, Ind. — An August house explosion that killed three people in a southern Indiana neighborhood has been ruled accidental after investigators traced the blast to a leaking natural gas line in the home’s basement, officials said Wednesday.
The Indiana State Fire Marshal said its joint investigation with the Evansville Fire Department into the Aug. 10 explosion determined the leaking gas line “was found uncapped, with the valve in the open position.”
Gas line meter data “showed a sharp increase in gas usage beginning two days before the blast,” the State Fire Marshal said in a news release. “No additional evidence was found to determine how the valve was opened; however, there is no indication of foul play.”
Investigators said testing found that the gas lines between the home’s meter and the mainlines of the local utility, CenterPoint Energy, were in “proper working order.” Testing also confirmed that the odorant additive Mercaptan was present in the gas line leading into the home.
“It could not be determined how the occupants were unaware of the gas accumulating in the home,” the news release states.
The cause of the deadly explosion was ruled accidental. Although investigators could not conclusively identify the ignition source that ultimately ignited the gas, they found that “electrical devices and other appliances in the home could have served as an ignition source.”
CenterPoint Energy said in a statement the State Fire Marshal’s report “further supports the company’s findings, determining that an accident inside the house, independent of CenterPoint Energy’s system, was the cause of the incident.”
The explosion, which was captured on video, launched wooden boards, window glass, insulation and other debris at least 100 feet (30 meters) into the air in Evansville, the Evansville Courier & Press reported.
Authorities said the explosion damaged 39 homes, leaving 11 of them uninhabitable in the Ohio River city about 170 miles (270 kilometers) southwest of Indianapolis.
A married couple, 43-year-old Charles Hite and 37-year-old Martina Hite, were killed when their house exploded. A neighbor, 29-year-old Jessica Teague, also died. The Hites died of blunt force trauma to their chests, while Teague died of compression asphyxia, the Vanderburgh County Coroner’s Office said.
Mike Larson, the division chief of the Evansville Fire Department, said Wednesday that he hopes the findings bring closure to all the people who were affected by the explosion.
“The investigation is complete, these are the findings and hopefully it will help everybody be able to move forward from this point,” he said.
NEW GLOUCESTER, Maine, November 2, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– Unity College sets a new enrollment record this fall as the institution welcomes more than 1,900 new students since August. This brings the college’s full-time equivalent student population to more than 4,600 students representing all 50 states.
“This time last year we were hoping to hit 5,000 full-time students within three years. We are elated to be on-pace to beat that number during the ’22-23 school year,” said Unity College President and CEO Dr. Melik Peter Khoury. “Compare that to 10 years ago, when we were at 540 students, and you can really see that we don’t just talk about flexibility and affordability – we have changed our entire model to provide better access for our students.”
In 2012, baccalaureate degree tuition at Unity College was $23,000; by 2018, that number had risen to $28,000 per year. Since moving to the College’s unique student-centered Enterprise Model, Unity tuition has fallen to an average of $13,000 per year.
This approach has allowed Unity College to attract a more diverse socioeconomic and multicultural student population. Now, the College now boasts a 22% self-disclosed diverse student population, that’s up from a 50-year average of 8%. The average student age has also grown from 19 to 28, as more place-bound adults have discovered Unity’s unique experiential online programming.
“As America’s Environmental College it is our responsibility to ensure we graduate thousands of culturally competent, well-educated individuals who can make an immediate impact in the environmental career space. It is our duty to make sure those students are not debt-ridden to the point that it prevents them from reaching their true potential,” said Dr. Khoury.
“We do not simply take our courses and put them online. At Unity College Distance Education our courses are designed to be experiential, which means our students are getting hands-on experience right in their own area of the country. Your community is your classroom,” said Distance Education Executive Director of Enrollment Management Denise Young.
This growth positions Unity College to continue exploring ground-breaking modes of learning for years to come. Unity’s high residency Hybrid Learning program continues to bring students to Unity, Maine for in-person learning, and staff at the new Technical Institute for Environmental Professions are planning to bring in its first cohort in the near future.
About Unity College The first institution of higher education in the nation to divest from fossil fuel investments, Unity College is changing the face of higher education. Sustainability science lies at the heart of its educational mission, offering environmentally-focused degrees on campus and online. For more information, visit unity.edu.
Media Inquiries: Contact Joseph Hegarty, jhegarty@unity.edu.
Yesterday, an hour and a half into the marathon hearings about whether colleges can use race as a factor in admissions decisions, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson began to rub her temples as she looked down at her notes.
“We’re entertaining a rule where some people can say what they want about who they are and have that valued in a system,” she said. “And I’m worried that that creates an inequity in the system with respect to being able to express our identity.” Black and Latino applicants would be limited if they can’t express their race in the selection process, she said. She almost laughed with exasperation. “Is that a crazy worry or is that something I should be thinking about and concerned about?”
In previous arguments this term, Jackson was a forceful voice on issues of racial discrimination and the intent of the constitutional amendments designed to protect against it. For many in favor of race-conscious admissions, she has been a welcome presence on the Court, asking, in a way, the question at the center of the cases: Have less than 50 years of affirmative action put enough of a dent in the inequality fostered over more than two centuries of racial discrimination in higher education to merit eliminating the practice?
For roughly five hours, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in cases of Students for Fair Admissions, a coalition of unnamed Asian American students brought together by the conservative legal strategist Edward Blum, against the University of North Carolina and Harvard. If the cases are successful and the justices side with SFFA—which a majority of the justices seemed quite open to in their questioning yesterday—the decision would overturn the precedent established in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke in 1978, which has been upheld for more than 40 years. Because of her previous tenure on Harvard’s Board of Overseers, Jackson recused herself from the Harvard case and sat for only the UNC case. But she did not waste the time she had.
Although relatively few colleges are selective enough to have reason to consider race in admitting students, there is significant evidence about what happens at those schools when such programs go away. Michigan and California, for example, saw precipitous declines in Black enrollment at their flagship campuses after those states banned the practice. (By SFFA’s own estimates, described during oral argument, Black enrollment at Harvard would fall from 14 to 10 percent without affirmative action.) In some ways, that’s the backdrop to Jackson’s questions. She was driving toward a fundamental statement about what the programs are for: Race-conscious admissions are designed to help students get into college, not to exclude students as a result of their existence.
Jackson’s point is well worn. In 1978, during the oral arguments in the Bakke case, Justice Thurgood Marshall identified it. In an exchange where he prodded Reynold Colvin, who argued for the plaintiff, Allan Bakke, Marshall pointed out, “You’re arguing about keeping somebody out and the other side is arguing about getting somebody in.” Colvin agreed. “So, it depends on which way you look at it, doesn’t it?”
Once again, Colvin agreed. “It depends on which way you look at the problem,” Colvin said.
Marshall’s voice changed. “It does?” he said, with a rise in inflection.
“The problem—” Colvin began to say before Marshall cut him off.
“It does?” Marshall said, frustrating Colvin. “You’re talking about your client’s rights; don’t these underprivileged people have rights too?”
Yesterday, Jackson was less direct, but no less potent, in an exchange with Patrick Strawbridge, the lawyer for SFFA. She offered a hypothetical to emphasize her point. There are two applicants who would like their family backgrounds recognized. One writes that their family has been in North Carolina since before the Civil War, and that if they were admitted to the university, they would be a fifth-generation student there. The other student is also a North Carolinian whose family has been in the state since before the Civil War—but their ancestors were enslaved and, because of years of systemic discrimination, were not allowed to attend the university. But now that they have the opportunity, they would like to attend. “As I understand your no-race-conscious-admissions rule, these two applicants would have a dramatically different opportunity to tell their family stories and to have them count.” Both applicants were qualified, Jackson offered, but the first applicant’s qualifications could be recognized in the process, whereas “the second one wouldn’t be able to [get credit for those qualifications] because his story is in many ways bound up with his race and the race of his ancestors.”
Strawbridge thought for a moment, then offered that UNC does not have to give a legacy benefit to the first applicant if it doesn’t want to. This is true, but it was not Jackson’s point: “No, but you said it was okay if they gave a legacy benefit.” Race, she said, would be the only thing that couldn’t be considered under that program. And that would disadvantage the Black student who, in a similar set of circumstances, wants “the fact that he has been in North Carolina for generations through his family” considered.
In a day filled with questions about the meaning of “true diversity” or the educational benefits of diversity, Jackson’s questions cut through the muck. Some students had historically been denied access to some of the nation’s most well-resourced institutions of higher education—feeder campuses for prominent roles throughout society–because of their race. If SFFA wins, that fact will be one of the only things a university cannot consider in its admissions process, as though that history never happened—as though the system is fair enough already.
Violent clashes broke out between security forces and student protesters at university campuses across Iran on Sunday, according to activist and human rights groups in the country.
Students continued to protest in large numbers at some of the country’s main universities despite a warning from the head of the country’s Revolutionary Guard Hossein Salami that Saturday was to be the last day of protest.
In a video obtained by CNN via the pro-reform activist outlet Iran Wire, two uniformed officers can be seen in what appears to be an attempt to arrest a protester. The video is said to be recorded at Sanandaj Technical College in northwestern Iran.
In the capital Tehran, activist groups claimed clashes broke out between protesters, members of the Basij militia and police officers in plain clothes at Azad University but CNN cannot independently verify whether those in the clashes are security forces.
Protests have swept through the Islamic Republic for weeks following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died on September 16 after being detained by “morality police” and taken to a “re-education center,” allegedly for not abiding by the country’s conservative dress code.
In a video posted by activist group 1500 tasvir, a large crowd of protesters can be seen, with some holding sticks. Tear gas appears to be thrown across the crowd but it’s unclear who it is thrown by.
In another video obtained by CNN via the pro-reform activist outlet IranWire, students at another university in the capital, the University of Tehran can be seen marching and chanting: “It’s not the time for mourning. It’s time for anger.”
Official state news agency IRNA reported a “large gathering” of students and professors at the University of Tehran “in response to the recent events and terrorist attack on the shrine of “Shahcheragh,” which took place in the southern city of Shiraz on Wednesday.
Also, in Sanandaj, gunshots can be heard in a video posted by Kurdish rights group Hengaw, said to be recorded near the University of Kurdistan.
Activist group 1500 Tasvir also posted a video showing security forces outside another educational facility in the province, the Sanandaj Technical College for Girls on Sunday.
Iran Human Right (IHRNGO), an NGO based in Norway, condemned “the encroachment of university campuses by armed plainclothes forces and the violent crackdown on peaceful student protests,” in a statement Sunday.
“With the continuation of nationwide protests, Islamic Republic armed plainclothes forces have entered university campuses to violently crush and arrest protesting students,” IHRNGO said.
IHRNGO Director and University of Oslo Professor, Mahmoud Amiry-Moghaddam, called on “universities and academic institutions around the world to support student demands and condemn the outrageous violation of university campuses by Islamic Republic forces.”
On Saturday the head of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Hossein Salami called on Iranian young people specifically to desist from protesting.
“Today is the last day of the riots. Do not come to the streets again. What do you want from this nation?” Salami said.
LANSING, Mich. — A judge has dismissed part of a lawsuit filed by eight women alleging sexual harassment and assault by a former University of Michigan lecturer.
Judge Thomas Cameron of the Michigan Court of Claims ruled Friday that the plaintiffs failed to file timely notices of intent to sue the University of Michigan, its board of regents and Bruce Conforth as required by law, The Detroit News reported.
“This is a final order that resolves the last pending claim and closes the case,” Cameron wrote.
Attorney Daniel Barnett, whose firm represents the women, said the decision only dismisses the case against the university and its regents.
A portion of the lawsuit filed in Washtenaw County Circuit Court against Conforth remains, Barnett said, as does a state civil rights claim against the university and its board by the women.
Barnett said he plans to appeal the ruling.
The Associated Press left phone messages and sent emails Saturday requesting comment from a university spokeswoman and an attorney representing Conforth.
Conforth taught American culture at the university. He resigned in 2017, university officials said.
For nearly 60 years, institutions of higher education have been able to give limited preference to people of color and women with admissions.
The practice, advocates say, has afforded marginalized people a fair chance to attend colleges and universities that may have otherwise overlooked them. It has also been a tool to prevent discrimination at institutions, many of which historically only admitted White students.
Now the fate of affirmative action is in the hands of the conservative majority Supreme Court. On Monday, justices will hear arguments for two cases at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
The challenges are being spearheaded by conservative activist Edwin Blum who filed the lawsuits in2014.
The Harvard challenge cites Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits schools receiving federal funds from discriminating based on race. The UNC lawsuit also claims Title VI grounds, as well as a violation of the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection of the law, which covers state institutions.
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights is among the groups that will be defending the constitutionality of affirmative action before the Supreme Court.
Genevieve Bonadies Torres, associate director for the Educational Opportunities Project for the committee, said affirmative action has led to college campuses becoming more diverse. In return, Black and brown students are able to achieve “profound economic mobility” and uplift their communities, Torres said.
“What we know from both experience and research is that when colleges stop considering race, they have seen steep declines in the number of Black and Hispanic students who gain access,” Torres said. “Students of color are less likely to apply once they stop considering race because they see them as less inclusive and welcoming.”
Torres said in 2015 students at both Harvard and UNC got involved in the cases by submitting letters and testifying about their experience on each campus and the importance of diversity.
CNN spoke with three of the college graduates involved about why they believe affirmative action should be upheld.
Cecilia Polanco grew up in a working-class family to parents who immigrated to the United States from El Salvador. Polanco said her father worked construction and her mother was a seamstress who also cleaned homes to provide for their family.
She said her parents allowed her to focus on school because they wanted a better life for her. Neither had the opportunity to finish school in El Salvador.
Polanco said she worked twice as hard and took AP courses in high school. She knew that as a Latina child of immigrants, she didn’t have the same resources as her White counterparts.
In 2011, Polanco was selected as a Morehead-Cain Scholar at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill which offered her a full ride scholarship.
Polanco said she believes affirmative action helped “level the playing field” so that students of color like herself could receive such a prestigious scholarship.
“If we had a more equitable and just society, we wouldn’t need something like affirmative action,” Polanco said. “But we do because our society is unjust.”
Polanco recounted being one of few students of color in some of her college classes and reading hurtful comments online from people who said she only got into UNC because the school had to meet a diversity quota.
But she didn’t let it deter her. She ultimately became a staunch advocate for affirmative action and was eager to contribute to the court case.
Now Polanco works as a community organizer in Durham, North Carolina where she focuses on philanthropy, racial equity and youth organizing.
“I think affirmative action helps see the ways in which I didn’t have some of the same opportunities as other people, as my White counterparts,” Polanco said. “There are many valuable life experiences that I had that made me a valuable asset to UNC.”
Polanco plans to be in Washington D.C. today as the Supreme Court hears arguments in the case. She believes the high court will ultimately uphold the practice.
“I’m definitely feeling optimistic,” Polanco said. “I feel like I’d be surprised if it went the other way.”
Andrew Brennen said he has always faced reminders that he is Black.
From high school peers asking why he didn’t fit the stereotypical Black teen to being one of few Black students in his classes at UNC, Brennen said he never felt completely accepted.
He recounted one class discussion about affirmative action at UNC when a White student questioned whether some Black students were fully qualified to be at the university. Brennen also witnessed the protests on UNC’s campus when the “Silent Sam” Confederate statue was toppled.
With college campuses still battling racism, Brennen fears that overturning affirmative action could only make matters worse.
“The evidence is pretty clear that when admissions officers are not able to take race into account, diversity on campus suffers,” Brennen said. “These efforts to hold folks accountable for the history and current day racism on campus are led by students of color. And the reality is that our schools need to be as diverse as the workplaces and societies that we are supposed to be preparing to move into.”
Brennen said he was eager to offer his perspective when the North Carolina Justice Center asked him to write a letter in support of affirmative action for the case.
Brennen, the son of two attorneys, credited affirmative action for the success of his family. His parents, he said, both grew up poorbut were able to attend law school and pursue legal careers.
Brennen said his parents instilled the importance of education in him and taught him how affirmative action had helped many Black families prosper.
Brennen graduated from UNC in 2019 with a degree in political science. He now works for a social change venture.
“There are people out there who want to exploit the fact that affirmative action somehow means that your White kid is going to suffer,” Brennen said. “I think that hugely mischaracterizes what affirmative action is doing.”
Affirmative action, he said, gives everyone, regardless of race, a fair shot at a quality education and success.
Brennen said he worries that the conservative majority Supreme Court won’t agree.
“While I’m confident that our attorneys are making strong, constitutionally-backed, precedent-based arguments in support of affirmative action, I’m nervous that this court doesn’t care,” Brennen said.
Thang Diep experienced confusion over his identity throughout his childhood.
Diep said he immigrated with his family from Vietnam to the U.S. (Los Angeles) at the age of 8 and didn’t speak much English. As he gradually learned the language, he still had a thick accent and classmates teased him throughout the grade school. Some would call him Chinese when really he was Vietnamese. As Diep settled into American life, he watched his father travel back and forth to Vietnam for work so he could still provide for the family. Diep’s mom didn’t work and stayed home.
When it came time to apply for colleges, Harvard was not on Diep’s radar.
“It seemed out of reach and this impossible thing,” Diep said.
But three days before the admissions application was due, his mother encouraged him to take a chance and apply. Diep said in his admissions essay, he wrote about his struggles with racial identity and fitting in during grade school.
Diep ultimately was accepted and studied neuroscience at Harvard.
When Diep was asked to write a letter in support of affirmative action while attending Harvard, Diep jumped at the opportunity. He believed Asian Americans, particularly Southeast Asian Americans, had been left out of the conversation and wanted the world to know that they too support affirmative action. Asian Americans, he said, are not a monolith. Contrary to the “model minority” stereotype, some Asian Americans come from working- class families like he did, Diep said.
“I think we live in society where race plays a critical role in our experiences and what access to resources we have,” Diep said. “One way we can make the education system better is to acknowledge and take into account these barriers.”
Diep now works for a nonprofit that works to combat domestic violence.
Diep said he will be in Washington D.C. rallying around affirmative action with other college graduates and students. He said he stands in solidarity with all communities of color that are fighting to keep affirmative action.
“I feel like there is some sense of optimism,” Diep said. “I hope that this will become an educational opportunity to spread awareness about the impact.”
Aliyah Boston of South Carolina and Caitlin Clark of Iowa were unanimous picks for The Associated Press preseason women’s basketball All-America team released Tuesday.
Boston led South Carolina to its second national championship and swept nearly ever major award last season. Expectations are high once again for the top-ranked Gamecocks and Boston, who was on all 30 ballots from the national media panel that selects the AP Top 25 each week.
“I don’t think all the awards define who she is but also puts her in a position of she’s in a more relaxed mode because she accomplished those things. She’s still in a place of hunger,” South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said. “She still wants to be the best. When you’ve proven that at such an early stage of your career, you want more and more. She’s entered a phase of wanting more yet is confident in who she is, since she was able to accomplish it.”
Seniors Haley Jones of Stanford, Ashley Joens of Iowa State and Elizabeth Kitley of Virginia Tech were also selected for the team as was sophomore Aneesah Morrow of DePaul.
Boston, who averaged 16.8 points and 12.4 rebounds, and Clark were both on the preseason team last year. Clark followed up a fantastic first season with an even better one as a sophomore, averaging 27 points, eight rebounds and eight assists for the Hawkeyes, who are ranked fourth in the preseason poll for their best mark since 1994.
“She worked on a little bit more emotional control in her leadership. I think that’s really important,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. “You want those officials to be your best friends let’s treat them like that.”
Bluder also said Clark has added some post moves to her game: “That may sound silly with Monika (Czinano) on the block. She’s almost 5-foot-10 and no reason she can’t post up. She’s looking for that a lot more.”
Joens opted to stay at Iowa State for another year, passing up a chance to enter the WNBA draft. She averaged 20.3 points and 9.5 rebounds last season and is the first preseason All-American in school history.
“This is a great honor for Ashley and the entire Iowa State program,” coach Bill Fennelly said. “To be recognized with such a great group of players is an outstanding accomplishment. I know she will continue to work hard to play at an All-American level this season.”
Jones helped Stanford go 32-4 before falling to UConn in the Final Four. She averaged 13.2 points, 7.9 rebounds and 3.7 assists for the Cardinal. Last season, coach Tara VanDerveer called her star the “Magic Johnson of women’s basketball.”
Kitley had a stellar year, averaging 18.1 points and 9.8 rebounds for the Hokies. Her return is a big reason why the team is ranked No. 13 in the preseason, its best mark since the final poll of 1999 when the school was also 13th.
She is the first player from the school to be honored as a preseason All-American.
“She’s the hardest working kid I’ve been around,” Virginia Tech coach Kenny Brooks said. ‘If she doesn’t do something, she has FOMO (fear of missing out). She’s added so much to her game to make us the best we can be. My responsibility is to prepare her for the next level.”
Morrow had an incredible first season, averaging 21.9 points and 13.5 rebounds for the Blue Demons. She is the first DePaul player to earn preseason honors since Latasha Byears did it in 1995.
“She earns it through her daily work ethic and competitiveness,” DePaul coach Doug Bruno said of Morrow.
All six players were honored last spring on the AP All-America teams. Boston, Clark and Jones were on the first team while Joens and Morrow were on the second. Kitley made the third team.
The AP started choosing a preseason All-America team before the 1994-95 season.
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The Associated Press’ 2022-23 preseason All-America women’s basketball team, with school, height, year and votes from a 30-member national media panel (key 2021-22 statistics in parentheses):
Aliyah Boston, South Carolina, 6-5, senior, 30 of 30 votes (16.8 ppg, 12.5 rpg, 2.4 bpg.)
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Norway’s domestic security agency has detained a man who entered the country as a Brazilian citizen but is suspected of being a Russian spy, a Norwegian broadcaster reported Tuesday.
The man was arrested Monday in the Arctic city of Tromsoe, Norwegian public broadcaster NRK said, adding that investigators believe he was in Norway under a false name and identity while working for one of Russia’s intelligence services.
Norwegian Police Security Service deputy chief Hedvig Moe told NRK that the man had been based at the Arctic University of Norway in Tromsoe as “a Brazilian researcher” and would be expelled from the Scandinavian country “because we believe he represents a threat to fundamental national interests.”
The security service, known as PST, “is concerned that he may have acquired a network and information about Norway’s policy in the northern region,” Moe said, according to NRK. “Even if this network or the information bit by bit is a threat to the security of the kingdom, we are worried that the information could be misused by Russia.”
PST representatives were not immediately available to comment. In a statement, Arctic University of Norway administrator Jørgen Fossland said the person in question was “a guest lecturer” at the school. Fossland referred other questions to the security service.
Several Russian citizens have been detained in Norway in recent weeks. They include three men and a woman who were seen allegedly taking photos in central Norway of objects covered under a photography ban. They have since been released.
European nations have heightened security around key energy, internet and power infrastructure following underwater explosions that ruptured two natural gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea that were built to deliver Russian gas to Germany.
The damaged Nord Stream pipelines off Sweden and Denmark discharged huge amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the air.
NEW YORK — When Daniella Malave started working for Chipotle at 17, the main benefit she was seeking was free food. As it turned out, she also got a free college education.
While working full time for the chain, Malave completed two years of community college with annual stipends of $5,250 from Chipotle. After that, she enrolled in the company’s free online college program, through which she earned a bachelor’s degree in business management from Wilmington University in 2020.
“I didn’t have to pay for my education,” said Malave, 24, who now works as a recruiting analyst for Chipotle in New Jersey. “Every time I say it out loud, I’m like, ‘Is this real?’”
Chipotle is one of more than a dozen companies that have launched free or almost-free college programs for their front-line workers over the last decade. Since 2021 alone, Walmart, Amazon, Target, Macy’s, Citi and Lowe’s have made free college available to more than 3 million U.S. workers.
Companies see the programs as a way to recruit and retain workers in a tight labor market or train them for management positions. For hourly employees, the programs remove the financial barriers of obtaining a degree.
Thousands of people are now taking advantage of the benefits. Starbucks, which operates an online college program through Arizona State University, says 22,000 workers are currently enrolled in its program. Guild Education, which administers programs for Walmart, Hilton, Disney and others and offers online programs at more than 140 schools, says it worked with 130,000 students over the last year.
But some critics question whether the programs are papering over deeper problems, like pay so low that workers can’t afford college without them or hours so erratic that it’s too hard to go to school in person.
“I do think they are providing these programs to skirt around the issue of just paying people more, giving people more certainty, improving their quality of life,” said Stephanie Hall, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank.
Hall said a lack of data also makes it difficult to judge the programs’ effectiveness. Chipotle, Walmart, Amazon and Starbucks, for example, don’t share graduation rates, in part because they’re hard to calculate because students often take a semester off or take more than four years to earn a degree. Rachel Carlson, CEO for Guild Education, which also doesn’t reveal graduation rates, says the more relevant data is whether college classes help employees get promotions or wage increases.
Others question the quality of the online programs and whether students’ degrees will be marketable or help them pursue other careers, especially since many companies limit what employees can study. Discover only fully funds 18 bachelor’s degrees at eight universities through Guild, for example.
“My sense is that most of these programs are hoping that employees would stay with the company,” said Katharine Meyer, a fellow in the governance studies program for the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution.
Amazon for its part touts college programs that offer opportunities outside the company, like nursing. But Walmart pared down the number of programs it offers to 60 from 100 because it wanted to focus on skills that would align with careers at the company.
More than 89,000 workers have participated in Walmart’s college program and more than 15,000 have graduated, said Lorraine Stomski, Walmart’s senior vice president of associate learning and leadership.
Tanner Humphreys is one of them. He started working at Walmart in 2016, bouncing around hourly jobs as he tried to accommodate his in-person class schedule at Idaho State University. But under the company’s online program, which it launched with Guild in 2018, he transferred his credits to Southern New Hampshire University and graduated in February with a bachelor’s degree in computer science. At 27, he now works at Walmart’s headquarters for its cybersecurity team as a salaried employee.
“I was working paycheck to paycheck, living with a whole bunch of friends to pay my rent and stuff,” he said. “The change from an hourly to salary is truly life changing.”
Companies paying for college or graduate school isn’t new. But for decades, the benefit was mostly offered to salaried professionals. In many cases, workers were required to spend thousands of dollars for tuition up front and then get reimbursed by their company.
Starbucks’ program, which launched in 2014, was initially a tuition-reimbursement program, but in 2021, it began covering tuition costs upfront. Now, 85% of the company’s stores have at least one employee in the program, which will celebrate its 10,000th graduate in December.
Carlson said companies see an average return of $2 to $3 for every dollar they put into education because it saves recruitment and retention costs. Walmart said participants leave the company at a rate four times lower than non-participants and are twice as likely to be promoted.
“If I know it’s going to cost me $7,000 to have my cashier not show up tomorrow, I would rather spend our average of our partners today — $3,000 to $5000 — paying for her to go to college,” Carlson said.
Companies say the programs also give opportunities to minorities. Macy’s, which started its program with Guild earlier this year, said that half of the women enrolling are women of color.
Some companies, like Chipotle and JPMorgan Chase, offer online programs through Guild as well as stipends students can put toward in-person learning at local institutions. Amazon’s college programs offer a mixture of online and in-person learning at local community colleges or universities.
Hall said she would like to see more companies offer that kind of flexibility, since online learning isn’t ideal for everyone.
Zachary Hecker, 26, a Starbucks employee in New Braunfels, Texas, began working toward his bachelor’s in electrical engineering last summer through the company’s college program.
Hecker appreciates the free tuition, but he often wishes he could attend classes in person or have more choices beyond Arizona State. His classes are challenging, he said, and professors aren’t always to meet and offer guidance.
But Carlson said online classes are ideal for the average Guild enrollee, who is a 33-year-old woman with children. Carlson said students in its programs often lack consistent access to a car and need to be able to study anytime, like after kids are in bed.
The chance to earn a free degree can be life-changing. Angela Batista was 16 and homeless when she started working for a Starbucks in New York.
“College was never in my dream,” Batista said, now 38. “I didn’t even have the audacity to fantasize about it.”
This December, she will graduate from Arizona State University with a degree in organizational leadership paid for by Starbucks. And now her son, who also works at Starbucks, is starting work toward his own degree.
NEW YORK — When Daniella Malave started working for Chipotle at 17, the main benefit she was seeking was free food. As it turned out, she also got a free college education.
While working full time for the chain, Malave completed two years of community college with annual stipends of $5,250 from Chipotle. After that, she enrolled in the company’s free online college program, through which she earned a bachelor’s degree in business management from Wilmington University in 2020.
“I didn’t have to pay for my education,” said Malave, 24, who now works as a recruiting analyst for Chipotle in New Jersey. “Every time I say it out loud, I’m like, ‘Is this real?’”
Chipotle is one of more than a dozen companies that have launched free or almost-free college programs for their front-line workers over the last decade. Since 2021 alone, Walmart, Amazon, Target, Macy’s, Citi and Lowe’s have made free college available to more than 3 million U.S. workers.
Companies see the programs as a way to recruit and retain workers in a tight labor market or train them for management positions. For hourly employees, the programs remove the financial barriers of obtaining a degree.
Thousands of people are now taking advantage of the benefits. Starbucks, which operates an online college program through Arizona State University, says 22,000 workers are currently enrolled in its program. Guild Education, which administers programs for Walmart, Hilton, Disney and others and offers online programs at more than 140 schools, says it worked with 130,000 students over the last year.
But some critics question whether the programs are papering over deeper problems, like pay so low that workers can’t afford college without them or hours so erratic that it’s too hard to go to school in person.
“I do think they are providing these programs to skirt around the issue of just paying people more, giving people more certainty, improving their quality of life,” said Stephanie Hall, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank.
Hall said a lack of data also makes it difficult to judge the programs’ effectiveness. Chipotle, Walmart, Amazon and Starbucks, for example, don’t share graduation rates, in part because they’re hard to calculate because students often take a semester off or take more than four years to earn a degree. Rachel Carlson, CEO for Guild Education, which also doesn’t reveal graduation rates, says the more relevant data is whether college classes help employees get promotions or wage increases.
Others question the quality of the online programs and whether students’ degrees will be marketable or help them pursue other careers, especially since many companies limit what employees can study. Discover only fully funds 18 bachelor’s degrees at eight universities through Guild, for example.
“My sense is that most of these programs are hoping that employees would stay with the company,” said Katharine Meyer, a fellow in the governance studies program for the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution.
Amazon for its part touts college programs that offer opportunities outside the company, like nursing. But Walmart pared down the number of programs it offers to 60 from 100 because it wanted to focus on skills that would align with careers at the company.
More than 89,000 workers have participated in Walmart’s college program and more than 15,000 have graduated, said Lorraine Stomski, Walmart’s senior vice president of associate learning and leadership.
Tanner Humphreys is one of them. He started working at Walmart in 2016, bouncing around hourly jobs as he tried to accommodate his in-person class schedule at Idaho State University. But under the company’s online program, which it launched with Guild in 2018, he transferred his credits to Southern New Hampshire University and graduated in February with a bachelor’s degree in computer science. At 27, he now works at Walmart’s headquarters for its cybersecurity team as a salaried employee.
“I was working paycheck to paycheck, living with a whole bunch of friends to pay my rent and stuff,” he said. “The change from an hourly to salary is truly life changing.”
Companies paying for college or graduate school isn’t new. But for decades, the benefit was mostly offered to salaried professionals. In many cases, workers were required to spend thousands of dollars for tuition up front and then get reimbursed by their company.
Starbucks’ program, which launched in 2014, was initially a tuition-reimbursement program, but in 2021, it began covering tuition costs upfront. Now, 85% of the company’s stores have at least one employee in the program, which will celebrate its 10,000th graduate in December.
Carlson said companies see an average return of $2 to $3 for every dollar they put into education because it saves recruitment and retention costs. Walmart said participants leave the company at a rate four times lower than non-participants and are twice as likely to be promoted.
“If I know it’s going to cost me $7,000 to have my cashier not show up tomorrow, I would rather spend our average of our partners today — $3,000 to $5000 — paying for her to go to college,” Carlson said.
Companies say the programs also give opportunities to minorities. Macy’s, which started its program with Guild earlier this year, said that half of the women enrolling are women of color.
Some companies, like Chipotle and JPMorgan Chase, offer online programs through Guild as well as stipends students can put toward in-person learning at local institutions. Amazon’s college programs offer a mixture of online and in-person learning at local community colleges or universities.
Hall said she would like to see more companies offer that kind of flexibility, since online learning isn’t ideal for everyone.
Zachary Hecker, 26, a Starbucks employee in New Braunfels, Texas, began working toward his bachelor’s in electrical engineering last summer through the company’s college program.
Hecker appreciates the free tuition, but he often wishes he could attend classes in person or have more choices beyond Arizona State. His classes are challenging, he said, and professors aren’t always to meet and offer guidance.
But Carlson said online classes are ideal for the average Guild enrollee, who is a 33-year-old woman with children. Carlson said students in its programs often lack consistent access to a car and need to be able to study anytime, like after kids are in bed.
The chance to earn a free degree can be life-changing. Angela Batista was 16 and homeless when she started working for a Starbucks in New York.
“College was never in my dream,” Batista said, now 38. “I didn’t even have the audacity to fantasize about it.”
This December, she will graduate from Arizona State University with a degree in organizational leadership paid for by Starbucks. And now her son, who also works at Starbucks, is starting work toward his own degree.
Jolie’s nerves were running high as she walked into the campus of Goldsmiths, the University of London, last Friday morning. She’d planned to arrive early enough that the campus would be deserted, but her fellow students were already beginning to filter in to start their day.
In the hallway of an academic building, Jolie, who’d worn a face mask to obscure her identity, waited for the right moment to reach into her bag for the source of her nervousness – several pieces of A4-size paper she had printed out in the small hours of the night.
Finally, when she made sure none of the students – especially those who, like Jolie, come from China – were watching, she quickly pasted one of them on a notice board.
“Life not zero-Covid policy, freedom not martial-lawish lockdown, dignity not lies, reform not cultural revolution, votes not dictatorship, citizens not slaves,” it read, in English.
The day before, these words, in Chinese, had been handwritten in red paint on a banner hanging over a busy overpass thousands of miles away in Beijing, in a rare, bold protest against China’s top leader Xi Jinping.
Another banner on the Sitong Bridge denounced Xi as a “dictator” and “national traitor” and called for his removal – just days before a key Communist Party meeting at which he is set to secure a precedent-breaking third term.
Both banners were swiftly removed by police and all mentions of the protest wiped from the Chinese internet. But the short-lived display of political defiance – which is almost unimaginable in Xi’s authoritarian surveillance state–has resonated far beyond the Chinese capital, sparking acts of solidarity from Chinese nationals inside China and across the globe.
Over the past week, as party elites gathered in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People to extoll Xi and his policies at the 20th Party Congress, anti-Xi slogans echoing the Sitong Bridge banners have popped up in a growing number of Chinese cities and hundreds of universities worldwide.
In China, the slogans were scrawled on walls and doors in public bathrooms – one of the last places spared the watchful eyes of the country’s ubiquitous surveillance cameras.
Overseas, many anti-Xi posters were put up by Chinese students like Jolie, who have long learned to keep their critical political views to themselves due to a culture of fear. Under Xi, the party has ramped up surveillance and control of the Chinese diaspora, intimidating and harassing those who dare to speak out and threatening their families back home.
CNN spoke with two Chinese citizens who scribbled protest slogans in bathroom stalls and half a dozen overseas Chinese students who put up anti-Xi posters on their campuses. As with Jolie, CNN agreed to protect their identities with pseudonyms and anonymity due to the sensitivity of their actions.
Many said they were shocked and moved by the Sitong Bridge demonstration and felt compelled to show support for the lone protester, who has not been heard of since and is likely to face lifelong repercussions. He has come to be known as the “Bridge Man,” in a nod to the unidentified “Tank Man” who faced down a column of tanks on Beijing’s Avenue of Eternal Peace the day after the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989.
Few of them believe their political actions will lead to real changes on the ground. But with Xi emerging triumphant from the Party Congress with the potential for lifelong rule, the proliferation of anti-Xi slogans are a timely reminder that despite his relentless crushing of dissent, the powerful leader may always face undercurrents of resistance.
As China’s online censors went into overdrive last week to scrub out all discussions about the Sitong Bridge protest, some social media users shared an old Chinese saying: “A tiny spark can set the prairie ablaze.”
It would appear that the fire started by the “Bridge Man” has done just that, setting off an unprecedented show of dissent against Xi’s leadership and authoritarian rule among mainland Chinese nationals.
The Chinese government’s policies and actions have sparked outcries online and protests in the streets before. But in most cases, the anger has focused on local authorities and few have attacked Xi himself so directly or blatantly.
Critics of Xi have paid a heavy price. Two years ago, Ren Zhiqiang, a Chinese billionaire who criticized Xi’s handling of China’s initial Covid-19 outbreak and called the top leader a power-hungry “clown,” was jailed for 18 years on corruption charges.
But the risks of speaking out did not deter Raven Wu, a university senior in eastern China. Inspired by the “Bridge Man,” Wu left a message in English in a bathroom stall to share his call for freedom, dignity, reform, and democracy. Below the message, he drew a picture of Winnie the Pooh wearing a crown, with a “no” sign drawn over it. (Xi has been compared to the chubby cartoon bear by Chinese social media users.)
“I felt a long-lost sense of liberation when I was scribbling,” Wu said. “In this country of extreme cultural and political censorship, no political self-expression is allowed. I felt satisfied that for the first time in my life as a Chinese citizen, I did the right thing for the people.”
There was also the fear of being found out by the school – and the consequences, but he managed to push it aside. Wu, whose own political awakening came in high school when he heard about the Tiananmen Square massacre by chance, hoped his scribbles could cause a ripple of change – however small – among those who saw them.
He is deeply worried about China’s future. Over the past two years, “despairing news” has repeatedly shocked him, he said.
“Just like Xi’s nickname ‘the Accelerator-in-Chief,’ he is leading the country into the abyss … The most desperate thing is that through the [Party Congress], Xi Jinping will likely establish his status as the emperor and double down on his policies.”
Chen Qiang, a fresh graduate in southwestern China, shared that bleak outlook – the economy is faltering, and censorship is becoming ever more stringent, he said.
Chen had tried to share the Sitong Bridge protest on WeChat, China’s super app, but it kept getting censored. So he thought to himself: why don’t I write the slogans in nearby places to let more people know about him?
He found a public restroom and wrote the original Chinese version of the slogan on a toilet stall door. As he scrawled on, he was gripped by a paralyzing fear of being caught by the strict surveillance. But he forced himself to continue. “(The Beijing protester) had sacrificed his life or the freedom of the rest of his life to do what he did. I think we should also be obliged to do something that we can do,” he said.
Chen described himself as a patriot. “However I don’t love the (Communist) Party. I have feelings for China, but not the government.”
So far, the spread of the slogans appears limited.
A number of pro-democracy Instagram accounts run by anonymous Chinese nationals have been keeping track of the anti-Xi graffiti and posters. Citizensdailycn, an account with 32,000 followers, said it received around three dozen reports from mainland China, about half of which involved bathrooms. Northern_Square, with 42,000 followers, said it received eight reports of slogans in bathrooms, which users said were from cities including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Wuhan.
The movement has been dubbed by some as the “Toilet Revolution” – in a jibe against Xi’s campaign to improve the sanitary conditions at public restrooms in China, and a nod to the location of much of the anti-Xi messaging.
Wu, the student in Eastern China, applauded the term for its “ironic effect.” But he said it also offers an inspiration. “Even in a cramped space like the toilet, as long as you have a revolutionary heart, you can make your own contribution,” he said.
For Chen, the term is a stark reminder of the highly limited space of free expression in China.
“Due to censorship and surveillance, people can only express political opinions by writing slogans in places like toilets. It is sad that we have been oppressed to this extent,” Chen said.
For many overseas Chinese students, including Jolie, it is their first time to have taken political action, driven by a mixture of awe and guilt toward the “Bridge Man” and a sense of duty to show solidarity.
Among the posters on the notice boards of Goldsmiths, the University of London, is one with a photo of the Sitong Bridge protest, which showed a plume of dark smoke billowing up from the bridge.
Above it, a Chinese sentence printed in red reads: “The courage of one person should not be without echo.”
Putting up protest posters “is the smallest thing, but the biggest I can do now – not because of my ability but because of my lack of courage,” Jolie said,pointing to her relative safety acting outside China’s borders.
Others expressed a similar sense of guilt. “I feel ashamed. If I were in Beijing now, I would never have the courage to do such a thing,” said Yvonne Li, who graduated from Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands last year.
Li and a friend put up a hundred posters on campus and in the city center, including around China Town.
“I really wanted to cry when I first saw the protest on Instagram. I felt politically depressed reading Chinese news everyday. I couldn’t see any hope. But when I saw this brave man, I realized there is still a glimmer of light,” she said.
The two Instagram accounts, Citizensdailycn and Northern_square, said they each received more than 1,000 submissions of anti-Xi posters from the Chinese diaspora. According to Citizensdailycn’s tally, the posters have been sighted at 320 universities across the world.
Teng Biao, a human rights lawyer and visiting professor at the University of Chicago, said he is struck by how fast the overseas opposition to Xi has gathered pace and how far it has spread.
When Xi scrapped presidential term limits in 2018, posters featuring the slogan “Not My President” and Xi’s face had surfaced in some universities outside China – but the scale paled in comparison, Teng noted.
“In the past, there were only sporadic protests by overseas Chinese dissidents. Voices from university campuses were predominantly supporting the Chinese government and leadership,” he said.
In recent years, as Xi stoked nationalism at home and pursued an assertive foreign policy abroad, an increasing number of overseas Chinese students have stepped forward to defend Beijing from any criticism or perceived slights – sometimes with the blessing of Chinese embassies.
There were protests when a university invited the Dalai Lama to be a guest speaker; rebukes for professors perceived to have “anti-China” content in their lectures; and clashes when other campus groups expressed support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests.
But as the widespread anti-Xi posters have shown, the rising nationalistic sentiment is by no means representative of all Chinese students overseas. Most often, those who do not agree with the party and its policies simply choose to stay silent. For them, the stakes of openly criticizing Beijing are just too high. In past years, those who spoke out have faced harassment and intimidation, retaliation against family back home, and lengthy prison terms upon returning to China.
“Even liberal democracies are influenced by China’s long arm of repression. The Chinese government has a large amount of spies and informants, monitoring overseas Chinese through various United Front-linked organizations,” Teng said, referring to a party body responsible for influence and infiltration operations abroad.
Teng said Beijing has extended its grip on Chinese student bodies abroad to police the speech and actions of its nationals overseas – and to make sure the party line is observed even on foreign campuses.
“The fact that so many students are willing to take the risk shows how widespread the anger is over Xi’s decade of moving backward.”
Most students CNN spoke with said they were worried about being spotted with the posters by Beijing’s supporters, who they fear could expose them on Chinese social media or report them to the embassies.
“We were scared and kept looking around. I found it absurd at the time and reflected briefly upon it – what we were doing is completely legal here (in the Netherlands), but we were still afraid of being seen by other Chinese students,” said Chen, the recent graduate in Rotterdam.
The fear of being betrayed by peers has weighed heavily on Jolie, the student in London, in particular while growing up in China with views that differed from the party line. “I was feeling really lonely,” she said. “The horrible (thing) is that your friends and classmates may report you.”
But as she showed solidarity for the “Bridge Man,” she also found solidarity in others who did the same. In the day following the protest in Beijing, Jolie saw on Instagram an outpouring of photos showing protest posters from all over the world.
“I was so moved and also a little bit shocked that (I) have many friends, although I don’t know them, and I felt a very strong emotion,” she said. “I just thought – my friends, how can I contact you, how can I find you, how can we recognize each other?”
Sometimes, all it takes is a knowing smile from a fellow Chinese student – or a new protest poster that crops up on the same notice board – to make the students feel reassured.
“It’s important to tell each other that we’re not alone,” said a Chinese student at McGill University in Quebec.
“(After) I first hung the posters, I went back to see if they were still there and I would see another small poster hung by someone else and I just feel really safe and comforted.”
“I feel like it is my responsibility to do this,” they said. If they didn’t do anything, “it’s just going to be over, and I just don’t want it to be over so quickly without any consequences.”
In China, the party will also be watching closely for any consequences. Having tightened its grip on all aspects of life, launched a sweeping crackdown on dissent, wiped out much of civil society and built a high-tech surveillance state, the party’s hold on power appears firmer than ever.
But the extensive censorship around the Sitong Bridge protest also betrays its paranoia.
“Maybe (the bridge protester) is the only one with such courage and willingness to sacrifice, but there may be millions of other Chinese people who share his views,” said Matt, a Chinese student at Columbia University in New York.
“He let me realize that there are still such people in China, and I want others to know that, too. Not everyone is brainwashed. (We’re) still a nation with ideals and hopes.”
BATON ROUGE, La. — A Louisiana shooting injured 11 people at a fraternity house near Southern University’s campus, which is in the midst of celebrating its homecoming festivities, and two people are in custody, Baton Rouge police said.
Authorities initially said nine people were injured early Friday at the party held just off campus. At a news conference late Friday, Deputy Chief Myron Daniels confirmed that two others were wounded, The Advocate reported. Police said the 11 victims have injuries that are not life-threatening.
The two men arrested were identified as Daryl Stansberry, 28, and Miles Moss, 24, and each faces 11 counts of being accessories after attempted first-degree murder and illegal use of weapons, news outlets reported. It was unknown if either were represented by an attorney who could speak on their behalf. They’re being held in the East Baton Rouge Parish jail.
A motive for the shooting was not released, but Daniels said investigators believe it was “an isolated incident.” A police spokesman said it appeared to have resulted from something that happened at an annual party, hosted by Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, and not as a result of an ongoing feud.
It’s not the first time the “Kappa Luau” ended in gunfire. In 2018, LSU basketball player Wayde Sims was shot dead during an altercation at the off-campus party.
Southern University released a statement hours after Friday’s shooting, emphasizing that the party was not a school-sponsored event and that the shooting did not happen on the university’s grounds.
Southern University police said officers would beef up security at remaining homecoming events that included Saturday’s homecoming game against Virginia-Lynchburg. The game kicks off at 4 p.m.
ST. LOUIS — A federal judge in St. Louis on Thursday dismissed an effort by six Republican-led states to block the Biden administration’s plan to forgive student loan debt for tens of millions of Americans.
U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey wrote that because the six states — Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina — failed to establish they had standing, “the Court lacks jurisdiction to hear this case.”
Suzanne Gage, spokeswoman for Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson, said the states will appeal. She said in a statement that the states “continue to believe that they do in fact have standing to raise their important legal challenges.”
Democratic President Joe Biden announced in August that his administration would cancel up to $20,000 in education debt for huge numbers of borrowers. The announcement immediately became a major political issue ahead of the November midterm elections.
The states’ lawsuit is among a few that have been filed. Earlier Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected an appeal from a Wisconsin taxpayers group seeking to stop the debt cancellation program.
Barrett, who oversees emergency appeals from Wisconsin and neighboring states, did not comment in turning away the appeal from the Brown County Taxpayers Association. The group wrote in its Supreme Court filing that it needed an emergency order because the administration could begin canceling outstanding student debt as soon as Sunday.
In the lawsuit brought by the states, lawyers for the administration said the Department of Education has “broad authority to manage the federal student financial aid programs.” A court filing stated that the 2003 Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act, or HEROES Act, allows the secretary of education to waive or modify terms of federal student loans in times of war or national emergency.
“COVID-19 is such an emergency,” the filing stated.
The Congressional Budget Office has said the program will cost about $400 billion over the next three decades. James Campbell, an attorney for the Nebraska attorney general’s office, told Autrey at an Oct. 12 hearing that the administration is acting outside its authorities in a way that will cost states millions of dollars.
The plan would cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for those making less than $125,000 or households with less than $250,000 in income. Pell Grant recipients, who typically demonstrate more financial need, will get an additional $10,000 in debt forgiven.
Conservative attorneys, Republican lawmakers and business-oriented groups have asserted that Biden overstepped his authority in taking such sweeping action without the assent of Congress. They called it an unfair government giveaway for relatively affluent people at the expense of taxpayers who didn’t pursue higher education.
Chris Nuelle, spokesman for Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, said the plan “will unfairly burden working class families with even more economic woes.”
Many Democratic lawmakers facing tough reelection contests have distanced themselves from the plan.
The HEROES Act was enacted after 9/11 to help members of the military. The Justice Department says the law allows Biden to reduce or erase student loan debt during a national emergency. Republicans argue the administration is misinterpreting the law, in part because the pandemic no longer qualifies as a national emergency.
Justice Department attorney Brian Netter told Autrey that fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic is still rippling. He said student loan defaults have skyrocketed over the past 2 1/2 years.
The cancellation applies to federal student loans used to attend undergraduate and graduate school, along with Parent Plus loans. Current college students qualify if their loans were disbursed before July 1.
The plan makes 43 million borrowers eligible for some debt forgiveness, with 20 million who could get their debt erased entirely, according to the administration.
PRINCETON, N.J. — A Princeton University student from Ohio who went missing near campus roughly a week ago was found dead Thursday, Mercer County Prosecutor Angelo Onofri said.
Misrach Ewunetie, 20, was found by an employee at about 1 p.m. behind tennis courts on the campus facilities grounds, Onofri said. There were no obvious signs of injury “her death does not appear suspicious or criminal in nature,” but an official cause of death will be determined after a medical examiner’s review, he said.
“Misrach’s death is an unthinkable tragedy. Our hearts go out to her family, her friends and the many others who knew and loved her,” University Vice President W. Rochelle Calhoun said in a statement.
An extensive search was launched for Ewunetie after she was reported missing. A large law enforcement presence remained on campus and in nearby areas Thursday.
Ewunetie was last seen heading into her dorm room at the Ivy League school in the early morning hours of Oct. 14, school officials said. But when her roommate returned to the dorm about 90 minutes later, Ewunetie was not there.
Family and friends said they had not heard from Ewunetie. Appearing Thursday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” her brother, Universe Ewunetie, said his sister’s phone last pinged sometime after 3 a.m. Friday at a housing complex that’s about a 30-minute walk from her dorm, which he said was out of character for her to be in such a location.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Ewunetie was a junior pursuing a sociology degree with a computer applications certificate. She was valedictorian at Villa Angela-St. Joseph high school in Cleveland, Ohio, before accepting a full scholarship to Princeton.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — While there were myriad reasons Sally Kornbluth felt pulled to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it was the chance to help address some of the world’s greatest challenges that played perhaps the biggest role, the school’s new president said at an introductory news conference on Thursday.
“Maybe above all, I was drawn here because this is a moment when humanity faces huge global problems, problems that urgently demand the world’s most skillful minds and hands,” she said. “In short, I believe this is MIT’s moment. I could not imagine a greater privilege than helping the people of MIT seize its full potential.”
Kornbluth, a cell biologist who has spent the past eight years as provost at Duke University, was elected MIT’s 18th president on Thursday by the MIT Corporation, the school’s governing body.
She will officially take over on Jan. 1, succeeding L. Rafael Reif, who in February announced that he planned to step down after 10 years on the job. She is the second woman to lead MIT.
Kornbluth has been on the Duke faculty since 1994, and is currently a professor of biology. As provost at the North Carolina school since 2014, Kornbluth was responsible for carrying out Duke’s teaching and research missions; developing its intellectual priorities; and partnering with others to improve faculty and students.
It was her accomplishments at Duke that made her the clear frontrunner out of the four finalists for the MIT presidency, said Diane Greene, chair of the MIT Corporation.
“Dr. Kornbluth is an extraordinary find for MIT,” Greene said, noting that the vote was unanimous. “She’s an exceptional administrator, widely respected for her ability to create an environment that breaks barriers, and importantly, enables every student, faculty and staff member to contribute at their highest levels. She is known for her judgment, plain-spokenness, and integrity.”
Kornbluth also pledged to keep MIT a welcoming and comfortable environment where everyone can reach their potential.
“I’m absolutely committed to building a more diverse and increasingly inclusive environment here at MIT,” she said.
Kornbluth already has one strong tie to MIT. Her son, Alex, is a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering and computer science at the school. Her husband, Daniel Lew, is a professor of pharmacology and cancer biology at the Duke School of Medicine, and her daughter, Joey, is a medical student at the University of California at San Francisco.
She grew up in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, and has degrees from Williams College, Cambridge University, and Rockefeller University.
CORNVILLE, Ariz. — The leader has the name of her dead baby spelled out in beads on her left wrist, and standing before her is a mother so grief-choked by her young son’s death that she flips on her side at one point in this creekside yoga class and sobs. In the next row, a woman whose daughter died by suicide goes through the poses next to a man with a tattoo of three little ducks, one for each of the children who was murdered.
Just beyond, in the fields of this sanctuary for the grieving, is a sheep whose babies were snatched by coyotes, a goat saved from slaughter and a horse that was badly mistreated carrying loads at the Grand Canyon.
Soon, the morning fog will lift and the chorus of cicadas will end the quiet. But for a moment, all is still, as if nature has paused to acknowledge this gathering of worldly suffering.
“There’s a comfort in knowing,” says Suzy Elghanayan, the mother whose young son died earlier this year of a seizure, “that we’re all in the same place that we never wanted to be.”
The world turns away from stories like theirs because it’s too hard to imagine burying a child. So mourning people from around the globe journey to this patch of farmland just outside the red rocks of Sedona.
There is no talk at Selah Carefarm of ending the pain of loss, just of building the emotional muscle to handle it.
Here, the names of the dead can be spoken and the agony of loss can be shown. No one turns away.
———
Joanne Cacciatore was a mother of three in a customer service job when her baby died during delivery.
Long after she closed the lid to the tiny pink casket, the grief consumed her. She’d sob for hours and withered to 90 lbs. She didn’t want to live. All she thought about was death.
“Every cell in my body aches,” she wrote in her journal a few months after the death in 1994. “I won’t smile as often as my old self. Smiling hurts now. Most everything hurts some days, even breathing.”
Cacciatore became consumed with understanding the abyss of heartache she inhabited. But counseling and bereavement groups were as disappointing as the body of research Cacciatore found on traumatic loss.
So, she set out on twin paths for answers: Enrolling in college for the first time, focusing her studies on grief, and starting a support group and foundation for others like her.
Today, all these years after the death that set her on this journey, those academic and therapeutic pursuits have converged on the vegan farm, which opened five years ago. As plans for Selah took shape, Cacciatore was reminded of the two dogs who stayed by her side even when the depths of her sorrow were too much for many friends. So the farm is home to dozens of animals, many rescued from abuse and neglect, that are central to many visitors’ experience here.
While most who come to Selah take part in counseling sessions, Cacciatore believes visitors’ experiences with the animals can be just as transformative. Across the farm, stories repeat of someone washed over by a wave of grief only to find an animal seem to offer comfort – a donkey nestling its face in a crying woman’s shoulder or a horse pressing its head against a grieving heart.
“There’s a resonance,” Cacciatore says. “There’s a symbiosis,”
The 10-acre swath of valley feels something like a bohemian enclave crossed with a kibbutz. In the day, the sprawling expanse is baked in sun, all the way back to the creek at the farm’s border, where a family of otters comes to play. At night, under star-flecked skies of indigo, paths are lit by lanterns and strings of bulbs glow, and all is quiet but the gentle flow of spring water snaking through irrigation ditches.
It is an oasis, but a constantly changing one, reinvented by each new visitor leaving their imprint.
On one tree, the grieving tie strips of fabric that rain like multicolored tickertape, remnants of their loved one’s favorite shirts and socks and pillowcases. Nearby, little medallions stamped with the names of the dead twinkle in the breeze. And in a grotto beneath an ash tree, the brokenhearted have clipped prayer cards to the branches, left objects including a baseball and a toy truck, and painted dozens of stones memorializing someone gone too soon.
For Andy, “My Twin Forever.” For Monica, “Loved Forever.” For Jade, “Forever One Day Old.”
Memories of the dead are everywhere. The farm’s guest house was made possible by donors, just like everything else here, and names of their lost ones are on everything from benches to butterfly gardens.
———
After a few days here, many find the stories of their beloved have become so stitched into the farm’s fabric it makes hallowed ground of earth on which the dead never set foot.
For Liz Castleman, it is a place she has come to feel her son Charlie’s presence even more than home. A rock with a dinosaur painted on it honors him and a wooden bird soars with his name. Strawberries at the farm have even been forever rebranded as Charlieberries in recognition of his favorite fruit.
Few in Castleman’s life can bear to hear about her son anymore, three years after he died before even reaching his third birthday. When she first came to the farm, part of her wondered if Cacciatore might somehow have the power to bring Charlie back. In a way, she did. She’s returned five more times because here, people relish hearing of the whip-smart boy who made friends wherever he went, who’d do anything to earn a laugh, who was so outgoing in class a teacher dubbed him “Mayor of Babytown.”
“All of the old safe spaces are gone. The farm, it really is the one safe space,” says 46-year-old Castleman, whose son died while under anesthesia during an MRI, likely due to an underlying genetic disorder. “There’s something, I don’t know if it’s magical, but you know that anything you say is OK and anything you feel is OK. It’s just a complete bubble from the rest of the world.”
Many who come here have been frustrated by communities and counselors who tell them to move on from their loss. They’ve been pushed to be medicated or plied with platitudes that hurt more than help. Friends tell a grieving mom that God needed an angel or ask a brokenhearted spouse why he’s still wearing his wedding ring. Again and again, they’re told to forget and move on.
Here, though, visitors learn the void will be with them, some way or another, forever.
“I’m picturing my life with my grief always with me and how I’m going to live life with that grief,” says 58-year-old Elghanayan, struggling to imagine her years unfolding without her 20-year-old son Luca, the compassionate, rock-climbing, surfing, piano-playing aspiring scientist. “I have to figure out how to get up and breathe every day and take one step every day and pray my years go by swiftly.”
If it seems counterintuitive that coming to a place where every story is sad could actually uplift, Selah’s adherents point to their own experiences on the farm and the inching progress they’ve made.
Erik Denton, a 35-year-old repeat visitor to Selah, is certain he can’t ever get over the deaths of his three children last year, but he’s functioning again. He does the dishes and makes his bed. He doesn’t hole up alone for days at a time. He’s again able to talk about the children he loves: 3-year-old Joanna, the firecracker who climbed trees and helped friends; 2-year-old Terry, the mischief maker who seemed to think no one was watching; and 6-month-old Sierra, the silly girl who just had begun to ooh and aah.
Denton’s ex-girlfriend, the children’s mother, has been charged in their drownings in a bathtub and sometimes repeating the story or hearing another mourner’s tragedy becomes too much for him. But mostly, Denton feels as if he can connect with people here more than anywhere else.
“Even though we’re surrounded by so much pain, we’re together,” he says.
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A sense of solidarity is inescapable at Selah. Guests eagerly trade stories of their lost loved ones. And when someone is hurting, human or animal, they can count on others being by their side.
This day, Cacciatore is shaken because Shirin, a chocolate brown sheep with a white stripe across her belly, has been growing sicker and can’t be coaxed to eat, not even her favorite cookies.
Shirin was rescued after her two babies were taken by coyotes. Her udders were full for lambs no longer around to feed. She remained so shaken by it all that no one could get close to her for weeks.
As Cacciatore awaits the veterinarian, she and a frequent farm guest, 57-year-old Jill Loforte Carroll, dote on the sheep. Cacciatore tries to coax Shirin to eat some leaves and Loforte Carroll cues a recording of “La Vie en Rose” sung by her daughter Sierra before the quietly observant, shyly funny 21-year-old died by suicide seven years ago.
For a moment, it’s just three mournful moms sharing a patch of field.
When the vet arrives, their fears are confirmed, and as injections to euthanize are given, Cacciatore massages the sheep, repeatedly cooing reassuring words as her tears fall to the dirt below.
“It’s OK, baby girl, it’s OK,” she says. “You’re the prettiest girl.”
By the time the vet looks up with a knowing nod, seven people crouch around Shirin, splayed across the field in such anguished drama it seems fit for a Renaissance painting. On a farm shaped by death, another has arrived, but those who gathered infused it with as much beauty and comfort as they could.
“It’s not our children,” Cacciatore says before burying Shirin beneath a hulking persimmon tree, “but it’s still hard.”
This is Cacciatore’s life now, one she never could have imagined before her own tragedy. She has a Ph.D. and a research professorship at Arizona State University. A book on loss, “Bearing the Unbearable,” was well received. A fiercely loyal following has found solace in her work and her counseling.
“I had a little girl who was born and who died, and it changed the trajectory of my life,” she says. “But I’d give it back in a minute just to have her back.”
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Matt Sedensky can be reached at msedensky@ap.org and https://twitter.com/sedensky
Arizona is refusing the federal government’s demand to take down double-stacked shipping containers it placed to fill gaps in the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, saying it won’t do so until the U.S. moves to construct a permanent barrier
PHOENIX — Arizona has refused the federal government’s demand to take down double-stacked shipping containers it placed to fill gaps in the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, saying it won’t do so until the U.S. moves to construct a permanent barrier instead.
The Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs dug in its heels in an Oct. 18 letter to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, saying “the containers will remain in place until specific details regarding construction are provided.” It was signed by Allen Clark, the department’s director.
A regional spokeswoman for the Bureau of Reclamation did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Arizona’s refusal in the most recent flap between the Biden administration and Republican-led border states over immigration policies.
The federal agency told Arizona officials in a letter last week that the containers were unauthorized and violated U.S. law. The bureau also demanded that no new containers be placed, saying it wanted to prevent conflicts with two federal contracts already awarded and two more still pending to fill border wall gaps near the Morelos Dam in the Yuma, Arizona, area.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey ordered installation of more than 100 double-stacked containers that were placed over the summer, saying he couldn’t wait for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to award the contracts it had announced for the work.
Migrants have continued to avoid the recently erected barriers by going around them, including through the Cocopah Indian Reservation. The Cocopah Indian Tribe has complained that Arizona acted against its wishes by placing 42 of the double stacks on its land.
The border wall promoted by former President Donald Trump continues to be a potent issue for Republican politicians hoping to show their support for border security.
President Joe Biden halted wall construction his first day in office, leaving billions of dollars of work unfinished but still under contract. The Biden administration has made a few exceptions for small projects at areas deemed unsafe for people to cross, including the gaps near Yuma.
The Center for Biological Diversity raised a different objection to the shipping containers on Wednesday, filing a notice of intent to sue Ducey’s administration over what the environmental group said are plans to erect more shipping containers along the border. The group said the move will obstruct a critical jaguar and ocelot migration corridor.
Ducey’s office said it could not comment because it had not received an official notice from the center.
IRVINE, California — President Joe Biden is highlighting his administration’s efforts to lower prescription drug costs on Friday as part of his three-state Western tour this week, as he confronts a sobering inflation report in the waning weeks before midterm elections.
Biden visited a community college in Irvine, California, to meet with older adults and tout his administration’s efforts to reduce inflation and drive down costs. The trip comes on the heels of an announcement that millions of Social Security recipients will get an 8.7% boost in their benefits in 2023, a historic increase but a gain that will be eaten up in part by the rising cost of everyday living.
Biden said that still, seniors “are going to get ahead of inflation next year. For the first time in 10 years Social Security checks are going to go up while Medicare premiums go down.”
“It’s a big deal for seniors,” he added.
Despite the president’s efforts, inflation is rising, and Republicans are capitalizing on higher prices, seeing openings in California and elsewhere to potentially pick up U.S. House seats. The president will also travel to Oregon before heading back East as the usually Democratic-leaning governor’s race closes with an independent splitting votes.
Consumer prices, excluding volatile food and energy costs, jumped 6.6% in September from a year ago — the fastest pace in four decades. And on a month-to-month basis, such “core” prices soared 0.6% for a second straight time, defying expectations for a slowdown and signaling that the Fed’s multiple rate hikes have yet to ease inflation pressures. Core prices typically provide a clearer picture of underlying price trends.
Biden acknowledged the issue on Thursday, saying that “Americans are squeezed by the cost of living. It’s been true for years, and folks don’t need a report to tell them they’re being squeezed.”
He also returned to a metaphor he used often during his first year in office, talking about issues that Americans talk about around the “kitchen table,” touting his administration’s efforts to lower costs even as inflation rises.
“From prescription drugs, to health insurance, to energy bills, and so much more,” he said. “We’re standing up for working people and their right to get a raise and get a better job.”
Biden also signed an executive order that will direct the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to look for additional ways to lower drug costs.
The Inflation Reduction Act signed into law earlier this year already requires that Medicare begin bargaining over the price of a handful of drugs starting next year. The agency is fine-tuning how that process will work, hiring new employees for a drug pricing division and is expected to pick the first 10 drugs that will be negotiated in 2023.
The new law will lower drug costs for the 49 million people on Medicare in a number of other ways that have been less controversial. It makes vaccines free, caps monthly out-of-pocket insulin costs at $35, and limits out-of-pocket drug expenses at $2,000 starting in 2025.
“We took on big pharma and we beat them, finally,” Biden said, but called on Congress to go even further to bring insulin prices down for all Americans, not just those on Medicare.
“Imagine being a parent, imagine not having enough insurance, not being able to afford it, and looking at your son and daughter and know if they can’t get the insulin they could be permanently scarred” and die, Biden added.
Any additional proposals to curb the cost of drug prices are likely to be met with resistance.
That newly-acquired power to negotiate drug prices is controversial, with the powerful pharmaceutical industry lobbying against the rule and considering legal actions to prevent its implementation. Republicans have already proposed legislation that would strip Medicare’s negotiation ability before the haggling has even begun.
Starting next year, drug companies will also have to pay penalties to Medicare if they raise the cost of their products at a rate that outpaces inflation.
Biden also used the opportunity to provide a boost to Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, who is facing a close re-election fight this year. He praised the lawmaker as a “fighter,” adding that, “No drug company wants to testify in congress before Katie.”
Biden added, “she is incredible at what she does.”
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Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Amanda Seitz contributed to this report from Washington.
TUCSON, Ariz. — A former University of Arizona graduate student arrested in the fatal shooting of a hydrology professor was being held without bond Friday after a judge ruled there was enough evidence to try him on charges of first degree murder and aggravated assault.
An interim complaint in the case released Friday says Thomas Meixner, who headed the school’s Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences, was shot four times on Wednesday afternoon. The shooting happened inside the Harshbarger Building, which houses the hydrology department. Meixner was pronounced dead at a hospital.
According to the complaint, a second person, whose name was blacked out, was treated at the scene after being struck by a bullet fragment.
The complaint signed by a judge late Thursday at Pima County Justice Court said there was reasonable cause to proceed in the case against 46-year-old Murad Dervish. In Arizona, charges are not filed until a preliminary hearing takes place, and there was no word on when that would happen.
The Pima County Public Defender’s Office confirmed it received the case but has not yet assigned an attorney who can speak on Dervish’s behalf.
Campus police said a female called 911 around 2 p.m. Wednesday asking for police to escort a former student from the Harshbarger Building. Officers were on their way when they received reports that a man had shot someone then fled.
Campus alerts instructed people to avoid the area, which was under lockdown. Classes, activities and other campus events were canceled for the rest of the day.
State troopers arrested Dervish a few hours later about 120 miles (190 kilometers) northwest of the Tucson campus.
The complaint said officials found a 9mm handgun in the vehicle, along with ammunition consistent with the 11 casings found at the shooting scene.
The relationship between Dervish and Meixner remains unclear, but the interim complaint said a flyer with a photograph of Dervish, a former graduate student, had been circulated to university staff in February with instructions to call 911 if he ever entered the building. It also said he was “expelled” and “barred from being on University of Arizona property.”
“Dervish has been the subject of several reports of harassment and threats to staff members working at Harshbarger,” the complaint said.
Meixner was an expert on desert water issues. Faculty and former students described as a kind and brilliant colleague.
“This incident is a deep shock to our community, and it is a tragedy,” University President Robert Robbins said in a statement late Wednesday.
Meixner earned a doctorate in hydrology and water resources from the university in 1999 and joined the faculty in 2005 before becoming the department head in 2019.
Twenty years ago this month, a disgruntled University of Arizona nursing student shot and killed three nursing professors before taking his own life.
TUCSON, Ariz. — The University of Arizona has released the name of a professor who authorities said was fatally shot on campus by a former graduate student.
University President Robert Robbins identified the victim late Wednesday as Thomas Meixner, who had headed the school’s Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences.
“This incident is a deep shock to our community, and it is a tragedy,” Robbins said in a statement. “I have no words that can undo it, but I grieve with you for the loss, and I am pained especially for Tom’s family members, colleagues and students.”
Police said Meixner was shot Wednesday afternoon inside the Harshbarger Building, which houses the hydrology department.
Meixner was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
A few hours after the shooting, state troopers stopped a former graduate student, 46-year-old Murad Dervish, in a van about 120 miles (193 kilometers) northwest of the Tucson campus, university Police Chief Paula Balafas said during a news conference.
Dervish was being held at the Pima County jail awaiting his initial court appearance. It wasn’t immediately clear what charges he might be face or whether he has a lawyer yet who could speak on his behalf.
According to campus police, a female called 911 at around 2 p.m. Wednesday asking for police to escort a former student out of the Harshbarger Building. Balafas said someone recognized Dervish “and knew that he was not allowed inside the building,” although Balafas didn’t explain why.
Officers were on their way to the building when they received reports that a man shot and wounded someone before fleeing, Balafas said.
The building is near the university bookstore and student union, and campus alerts instructed people to avoid the area, which was under lockdown.
Classes, activities and other campus events were canceled for the rest of the day. Classes resumed on Thursday, but Balafas said the building where the shooting happened might remain closed.
When asked how well Dervish and Meixner knew one another, Balafas said she didn’t know.
Meixner earned a doctorate in hydrology and water resources from the university in 1999 and joined the faculty in 2005 before becoming the department head in 2019. He was considered an expert on desert water issues.
Various faculty members and former students took to social media to praise Meixner as a kind and brilliant colleague.
Karletta Chief, director of the university’s Indigenous Resilience Center, said she met Meixner when she was a graduate student in 2001 and he was new to the faculty. While she was not one of his students, her research in hydrology led to frequent collaborations. The last time she saw Meixner, who was a big supporter of Native American and indigenous communities researching water issues, was a week ago at a seminar his department co-sponsored.
Chief said she emailed Meixner and several others in the hydrology department after the shooting, and that she was devastated to learn he was the one who had been shot.
“It’s just unimaginable that anybody would have any direct anger toward him. He was completely the opposite of that. He was just so kind and positive and always wanting to help,” said Chief, who noted that Meixner never mentioned to her if there had been any trouble with a current or former student.
Meixner was also generous outside of campus, Chief said. He once gave money for a marathon that she ran to benefit the Lymphoma Society.
“He shared that he was thankful for me doing this run and he was a cancer survivor,” she said.
It was 20 years ago this month that a disgruntled University of Arizona nursing student shot and killed three nursing professors before taking his own life.
