Double the achievement
Tuscaloosa News – July 27
Cathleen Hines set a goal for her twins, Sally Cate and Anne Rogers, to walk into the 1-year-old classroom at the Rise Center at the University of Alabama. Cathleen and Bo Hines first came to the Rise Center on the UA campus when their girls were still infants in a neonatal intensive care unit. The twins have Down syndrome, and the couple was researching the school, which is part of UA’s College of Human Environmental Sciences and offers an integrated program for preschool students with disabilities and their regularly developing peers. Cathleen and Bo Hines met with then-Rise director Martha Cook about the possibilities.
ABC 33/40 (Birmingham) – July 27
WVUA (Tuscaloosa) – July 27
Fox 6 (Birmingham) – July 27
NBC 12 (Montgomery) – July 27
WTOC 11 (Savannah, Georgia) – July 27
WDAM 7 (Moselle, Mississippi) – July 27
NBC 5 (Memphis, Tennessee) – July 27
NBC 10 (Albany, Georgia) – July 27
UA offers safety tips for viewing eclipse
Madison County Record – July 27
For the first time in 99 years, a total solar eclipse will move from coast to coast across the continental United States Aug. 21, and all of North America will experience a partial eclipse. Astronomers at the University of Alabama urge people to view the phases of the eclipse safely by not looking directly at the sun. Although the state of Alabama will not be under a total solar eclipse, an opportunity to view a partial solar eclipse will be available.
Win for re/insurers as White House drops border-adjustment tax
Reinsurance News – July 28
The White House announced yesterday that U.S. leaders will not consider a border-adjustment tax as part of the upcoming extensive tax reform, a move welcomed by think tank R Street as a victory for insurers, reinsurers, and their consumers, who all stand to benefit from a competitive and open U.S. market … R Street Senior Fellow & University of Alabama professor Lars Powell, said; “research underscored the deep concern that, if not properly structured to exempt financial services transactions, the proposed tax could have caused serious harm to U.S. and international insurance and reinsurance markets.”
R-Street.org – July 27
6 Ways An Internship Will Change Your Life
Her Campus – July 27
While internships can help you work on honing the skills you already have, they can also open the door to new experiences you may not have considered … Helmi Henkin, a senior at The University of Alabama who’s currently interning with a domestic violence advocacy group, found that her internship was even better than she thought it would be, “It is not a glamorous gig … and time at the office is usually not fast-paced or exciting to any stretch of the imagination.
Federal tax proposal could raise insurance costs in earthquake country
Orange County Register – July 27
California is called earthquake country for good reason. There are nearly 2,000 known fault lines crisscrossing the state, and scientists continue to discover new fault lines all the time. Nearly every Californian lives within 30 miles of an active fault line. (Wayne Winegarden, Ph.D., is a senior fellow in business and economics at the Pacific Research Institute and managing editor for EconoSTATS. Lars Powell, Ph.D., is director of the Alabama Center for Insurance Information and Research at the University of Alabama and a senior fellow of the R Street Institute. Opinions expressed in this report are Dr. Powell’s and do not represent those of the University of Alabama.)
US communities are still struggling with the legacy of Confederate monuments
The China Post – July 27
A tall, dark figure and his horse, immortalized in bronze, stand in newly renamed Emancipation Park, overlooking gardens filled with flowers. The statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee has been in the central Virginia city of Charlottesville almost 100 years, stoically watching over the community. But possibly not for much longer … One of the turning points that touched off the trend was the murder of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015, historian Lesley Gordon said. . . . Despite a public outcry over the city’s approval of the event, Gordon, chairwoman of southern history at the University of Alabama, said that while the KKK and its message of white supremacy are “abhorrent,” they have the right to express their views in public. “At the same time, it needs to be recognized just what they are advocating and why,” Gordon said.
Americans divided over Confederate monuments
Oman Observer – July 27
A tall, dark figure and his horse, immortalised in bronze, stand in newly renamed Emancipation Park, overlooking gardens filled with flowers. The statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee has been in the central Virginia city of Charlottesville almost 100 years, stoically watching over the community. But possibly not for much longer … Despite a public outcry over the city’s approval of the event, Gordon, chairwoman of southern history at the University of Alabama, said that while the KKK and its message of white supremacy are “abhorrent,” they have the right to express their views in public. “At the same time, it needs to be recognised just what they are advocating and why,” Gordon said.
HBO’s Slavery Drama ‘Confederate’ Faces Minefield Of “Fundamentally Problematic” Issues
Africa-News – July 27
Industry vets are hesitant to (publicly) judge so soon, but what makes the premise so controversial is “that it threatens to erase the actual history,” says activist Bree Newsome … University of Alabama history chair Joshua Rothman, who specializes in studying race and American slavery, says that most historians today believe that enslaved people played a significant role in their own emancipation. “As soon as the chance for real freedom presented itself, they were on it,” he says.
MSN.com – July 27
More kids are logging on to learn at cyber schools
90.5 WESA (Pittsburgh) – July 27
From the outside, it would be easy to mistake the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School for a place to get your taxes done or mail a package. The downtown Erie branch is tucked away in a strip mall, across from a Big Lots discount store and a U-Haul storage center … While there are individual success stories, “every time they do a study that looks purely at academics, the cyber charter schools underperform compared to the traditional public schools,” said Bryan Mann, an assistant professor of education policy at the University of Alabama. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on Pennsylvania cyber charter schools.
WBUR-FM (Boston) – “Marketplace” on National Public Radio
Democratic Senate hopefuls in Alabama pounce on Trump’s transgender military ban
Al.com – July 27
Democrats nationally on Thursday said they are unafraid of a political showdown with conservatives over transgender rights in states which President Donald Trump won last year … William Stewart, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Alabama, said the position on transgender rights is a “dilemma” for Alabama Democrats. “Their party nationally strongly supports gay/lesbian rights and now, more recently, transgender rights,” Stewart said. “But Alabama has not come close to recognizing the rights of people who are not ‘straight.’ We don’t even have a hate crimes law.”