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In Loudoun County, Va., a group of parents led by a former Trump appointee are pushing to recall school board members after the school district called for mandatory teacher training in “systemic oppression and implicit bias.”

And across the country, Republican-led legislatures have passed bills recently to ban or limit schools from teaching that racism is infused in American institutions.

Republicans have focused their attacks on the influence of “critical race theory,” a graduate school framework that has found its way into K-12 public education. The concept argues that historical patterns of racism are ingrained in law and other modern institutions, and that the legacies of slavery, segregation and Jim Crow still create an uneven playing field for Black people and other people of color.

Researching more famous accounts of UFO sightings and purported alien abductions with students is how he’ll be spending the summer. And with the federal government’s report on “unidentified aerial phenomena” — or UAPs — expected as soon as this week, they’ll have new grainy videos to analyze and debate.

When former President Donald Trump signed a $2.3 trillion funding bill in December, educators were eye-balling the $54 billion in relief funds included for school reopening. But tucked into the more than 5,500 pages of legislative text was a Sen. Marco Rubio-sponsored provision directing Naval intelligence to uncover what they’ve been tracking in the skies. The bill asked for detailed reports of UAPs and knowledge of whether “a potential adversary may have achieved breakthrough aerospace capabilities” that might harm Earth, or at least the U.S. The report, combined with Navy pilots’ recent accounts of aircraft displaying unusual movements, provide fresh material for teachers who find that questions about alien visitors are a great way to engage students in science.

Highly trained military pilots admit they are taking the sightings of these unusual aircraft seriously — and think others should, too. With both Republicans and Democrats interested in the report’s findings and respected news shows like “60 Minutes” following the topic, the possibility that otherworldly beings are patrolling our atmosphere is no longer just the stuff of sci-fi movies and paranormal conventions.

There is something about Andrew Yang that makes him the candidate to beat in New York City's mayoral race. With less than two months to go before the Democratic primary on June 22, Yang continues to outpace his many rivals in a notoriously tough city.

Yang, who had a brief stint in corporate law, has more substantial experience in business. He worked for a number of start-ups, headed an education company and in 2011, founded the non-profit organization Venture for America in an attempt to create jobs and bring high-tech work to cities that were suffering from the Great Recession. While the Obama administration listed him as one of the 500 "Champions of Change" and a "Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship," Venture for America so far has failed to meet its own goal of creating 100,000 jobs by 2025.

But Yang has gained traction by pushing unconventional ideas like a universal basic income. His presidential bid centered around his proposal to offer $1,000 a month to everyone over 18 — a policy he has reworked and narrowed significantly to try to tackle extreme poverty in New York. He has also proposed the Big Apple Corps, an initiative in New York that would hire 10,000 aspiring college graduates to tutor 100,000 public school students.

Dr. Hogan is the director of undergraduate studies and Dr. Carter is the chairman of the philosophy department at Howard. They are both H.B.C.U. graduates.

Our approach to this issue is based in our perspective as philosophy professors at Howard who have reverence for the classics. Our department offers seminars on Plato and Aristotle alongside mandatory courses on the history of Africana philosophy. Classical texts have left an indelible mark on modern philosophy and there’s no question that, in an ideal world, Howard would have a large, thriving classics department.

Departments were assessed based on student interest, cost and benefit, and overall fit with the university’s mission. No one wanted to eliminate any programs, and none of us cheer the loss of the department, but this change was necessary. Anthony K. Wutoh, the university’s provost and chief academic officer, has explained why that is, but we’d like to offer additional insight.

President Biden argues that his ambitious domestic agenda — totaling some $6 trillion — is necessary to keep up with our primary geopolitical rival. As he told Congress last week: “We’re in competition with China and other countries to win the 21st century.”

In so doing, Biden harked back to the Cold War, when national security was often used as a justification for initiatives that had little to do with the Pentagon.

the competition with China today can pay major dividends if properly managed

Like their predecessors did at Columbine in 1999 and Aurora in 2012, some of Colorado’s top elected officials gathered Tuesday to mourn victims of a mass shooting.

Ten people, including one Boulder police officer, were killed at King Soopers in the city Monday. It’s not clear exactly how many witnesses, now survivors, were in the store, though video footage showed at least a dozen being escorted out.They now join the thousands of people that have survived shootings at schools and other public places in the Denver metro since Columbine. More than 1,800 students attended Columbine in 1999, plus staff. Thousands more, collectively, were at other such shootings, like Platte Canyon High School in 2006, Deer Creek Middle School in 2010, a movie theater in Aurora in 2012, a Walmart in Thornton in 2017, and STEM School in Highlands Ranch in 2019. 

A 2019 Denver Post analysis found that the Denver metro has the third-most mass shootings, per capita, of the country’s largest metro areas since 1999. Survivors and experts say there’s a cumulative effect to so many shootings: the circle of survivors, who may face a lifetime of recovery, grows larger with each incident. 

As online life expands, neighborhood life and social trust decline. As the social fabric decays, social isolation rises and online viciousness and swindling accumulate, you tell people that the state has to step in to restore trust. By a series of small ratcheted steps, you’ve been given permission to completely regulate their online life.

This, too, is essentially what is happening in China.As George Orwell and Aldous Huxley understood, if you want to be a good totalitarian, it isn’t enough to control behavior. To have total power you have to be able to control people’s minds. With modern information technology, the state can shape the intimate information pond in which we swim

Human history is a series of struggles for power. Every few generations, just for fun, the gods give us a new set of equipment that radically alters the game. We thought the new tools would democratize power, but they seem to have centralized it. It’s springtime for dictators

Since it opened in March, when China was still in the grip of Covid-19, the factory has struggled to find enough machinery operators or quality control technicians. Now workers are flocking to Changmingzhen, a once-quiet farming town ringed with green mountains and rice paddies, from which young people once fled for better jobs elsewhere.

But when China reports economic figures for 2020 on Monday, they are expected to show its economy grew despite losing early weeks to the lockdown.

The slight 50-year-old said she received a rent-free apartment, free cafeteria meals and other benefits, as Laoganma competes with other companies for workers. The menu isn’t always to her liking, but that’s a small price to pay.

net total of 144,00 jobs were lost in December, the clear effect of the continuing economic downturn. But while male employment increased slightly, 156,000 women lost their jobs, mainly in pandemic-hit sectors such as hospitality and education. And since the employment of white women actually increased, on net these losses fell on women of color.

These losses are unlikely to abate. Meanwhile, nearly three-quarters of those working at or below minimum wage in 2019 worked in services, mainly in food preparation and food service, which have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic.

Many of those who lost their jobs last month are trapped in a downward spiral. Research shows that workers of color are far more likely to be paid poverty-level wages than white workers, and they are more likely to have debts than to have savings. They may be at risk of eviction.

Mr. Ridenour, a social sciences and civics teacher at Dupo High School in southern Illinois, one of 40 states that require civics class for graduation, was used to having tough conversations with his civics students whose political views span both sides of the aisle, with more of them leaning to the right.

In a vigorous, civil debate, the teens looked up the definition to incite and discussed the constitutional right to protest and the 25th amendment.

he federal government annually spends about $3 million on civics education, according to an analysis of federal data by the National Council for the Social Studies.

More than half of Chinese in their 20s express a desire to start their own business. Others will climb up the ranks of the ruling Communist Party

How they understand their country’s past and what they ask of its future are essential to understand how they might one day lead China.

Youth often stands for trendsetting and rebellion. In China, the young must navigate an authoritarian state and a bruisingly competitive education system. This is when big life decisions are made and adult identities formed.

A week into his term, President Joe Biden is already making good on his campaign promise to reverse President Donald Trump's immigration policies, confront the nativism that infuses our treatment of immigrants, and pursue comprehensive reform that would provide a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.

The vast majority were brought to the United States as young children, by parents fleeing poverty and violence. In their journeys to become Americans, they tried hard to fit into a society that could be unwelcoming. They often forgot how to speak Spanish.

More than half graduated from high school; a quarter obtained a college degree.

Last year, the university produced a 96-page report that concluded slavery was “in every way imaginable . . . central to the project of designing, funding, building, and maintaining the school.”

U-Va.’s efforts come as dozens of universities across the country undertake similar examinations — and as America marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Jamestown. The dark milestone has spurred a reckoning with the awful reality of slavery and the myriad ways it shaped the nation.

Jefferson — who by then had served as both U.S. president and vice president — envisioned U-Va. as a breeding ground for the next generation of the country’s political elite, beneficiaries of his educational program molded in his image, Taylor said. Still, he wanted students to differentiate themselves in at least one important way: He wanted them to end slavery in America.

White confessed recently that his prosperous district is in the midst of an epidemic. “In my 35 years in education, I’ve never seen anything that has been so rapid and devastating to the health and well-being of students, nor so disruptive to the daily work of teachers and administrators in educating our students,

The Blue Valley schools serve a relatively upscale population in the suburbs of Kansas City. On an average day, more than 95 percent of Blue Valley students are in school. The graduation rate is 97 percent. The dropout rate, less than 1 percent. Every student in grade three and above has a computer.

in suing the company behind Juul, an insidious electronic nicotine delivery system designed to resemble a pocket-size data storage flash drive. The districts are joining other school boards across the country in seeking to recover their costs in time, trouble and technology spent fighting a public health disaster.

There were few signs at Friends that Jackson harbored any hatred, according to interviews with a dozen classmates, teachers and administrators. Most agreed to talk about Jackson only if they would not be identified because they did not want to be connected with his crime.

Jackson’s arrest made front-page news across the country. But prosecutors were surprised at how quickly the story faded.

Jackson belonged to a small group of more conservative students who stood out on campus, she said. “It was a really liberal school, so people shared a lot of assumptions,” she said. “He liked to challenge those.”

How will we remember the last 10 years? Above all, as a time of crises. During the 2010s, there have been crises of democracy and the economy; of the climate and poverty; of international relations and national identity; of privacy and technology

The world of the 2000s, she concluded, “has been swept away”. In place of centrist politicians and steady economic growth, the 2010s have brought shocks, revolts and extremists. Hung parliaments; rightwing populists in power; physical attacks on politicians; Russian influence on western elections; elderly leftists galvanising young Britons and Americans; rich, rightwing leaders in both countries captivating working-class voters – scenarios close to unimaginable a decade ago have become familiar, almost expected.

In the 2010s, it has often felt as if everything is up for grabs – from the future of capitalism to the future of the planet – and yet nothing has been decided. Between the decade’s sense of stasis and sense of possibility, an enormous tension has built up

It is a firmly established fact that a mere 250,000 native Americans were still alive in the territory of the United States at the end of the 19th century

Still in scholarly contention, however, is the number of Indians alive at the time of first contact with Europeans.

To sum up, European settlers came to the New World for a variety of reasons, but the thought of infecting the Indians with deadly pathogens was not one of them. As for the charge that the U.S. government should itself be held responsible for the demographic disaster that overtook the American-Indian population, it is unsupported by evidence or legitimate argument.

A look beneath the surface shows a deeper and more troubling trend for both the Chinese government and the entrepreneurs who powered the country out of its economic dark ages over the past four decades.

While China has more billionaires than the United States and India combined, about 600 million of its people earn $150 a month or less. While consumption in the first 11 months of this year fell about 5 percent nationally, China’s luxury consumption is expected to grow nearly 50 percent this year compared with 2019.

Young college graduates, even those with degrees from the United States, face limited white-collar job prospects and low wages.

No matter how encouraging the news, growing numbers of people said they would refuse to get the shot.

But over the past few weeks, as the vaccine went from a hypothetical to a reality, something happened. Fresh surveys show attitudes shifting and a clear majority of Americans now eager to get vaccinated.

In polls by Gallup, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Pew Research Center, the portion of people saying they are now likely or certain to take the vaccine has grown from about 50 percent this summer to more than 60 percent, and in one poll 73 percent — a figure that approaches what some public health experts say would be sufficient for herd immunity.