Universities Investigated, Jobs Up
Friday, May 2, 2014
Vol. 3, No. 122
Nation: Fifty-five colleges and universities from the Ivy League to small private colleges and big state schools are under investigation by the Education Department for the way they handle sexual assault complaints. The list includes Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, Swarthmore, UC Berkeley, Arizona State, and Catholic University in Washington.
The investigations are under the umbrella of Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination at schools that receive federal money, which is virtually every college and university.
Some students have said their schools are slow or reluctant to investigate complaints, proceedings take too long, and complainants sometimes have to continue living in the same dormitory with the accused.
Econ 101: The US economy added 288,000 jobs in April and the unemployment rate dropped to 6.3 percent, the lowest since 2008. Economic growth slowed during a particularly bitter winter but bounced up as predicted when the weather warmed.
Missing Jet: Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 was off the radar for 17 minutes before controllers in Vietnam and Malaysia raised any question, according to a Malaysian government report yesterday. What followed was confusion between several control centers, including one report that the jet was in Cambodian airspace and another from the airline itself that Flight 370 was on its planned path off the coast of Vietnam. The Kuala Lumpur rescue center was not called to action until at least four hours after the jet lost contact.
Ukraine: Two Ukrainian military helicopters were shot down during an offensive to take back the city of Sloviansk from pro-Russian forces. Three people were killed. One of the helicopters was shot down with a surface to air missile, suggesting that the occupying forces are not just untrained locals with rifles. In Moscow a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin said the attack by Ukraine forces “effectively destroyed the last hope for the implementation of the Geneva agreements” to defuse the crisis, even though Russia has made no discernable effort to live up to the agreement.
Several Western reporters including CBS correspondent Clarissa Ward were detained by pro-Russians for a time before being released. Ward described some scary moments as she was bound and questioned.
The Sterling Affair: The head of the Los Angeles Chapter of the NAACP has resigned in controversy over a plan to give a Lifetime Achievement award to LA Clippers owner Donald T. Sterling. Leon Jenkins is a disbarred lawyer and former Detroit judge who was acquitted of corruption charges. The award was cancelled. The NAACP previously gave Sterling an award at a time when he was accused of discrimination in his apartment buildings.
The NBA Board of Governors yesterday took a unanimous vote calling on all the club owners to force Sterling to sell his franchise. Sterling has not spoken in public since his suspension by the NBA. Reports have surfaced that he’s being treated for prostate cancer.
Dial Tone: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has proposed turning the city’s disused payphones into Wi-Fi hotspots, making New York the most connected city on the world. They’d have 10,000 connection spots. The booths would still be able to make phone calls and in particular, in New York, they would still be able to dial 911.
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