Cornell University, Princeton University and Dartmouth College are among 11 private schools that have joined the Say Yes to Education program best known for providing high school students a tuition-free path to college.
The new additions bring the number to 54 in the Say Yes Higher Education Compact, whose members waive tuition for eligible students, Say Yes founder George Weiss said Wednesday.
he gunman in the mass shootings at the Washington Navy Yard, Aaron Alexis, had a history of violent outbursts, was at least twice accused of firing guns in anger and was in the early stages of treatment for serious mental problems, according to court records and U.S. law enforcement officials.
But Alexis apparently managed to exploit seams in the nation’s patchwork of complicated gun laws designed to keep weapons out of the hands of dangerous people. He was able to buy a shotgun in Virginia with out-of-state identification, even though that would have prevented him from buying a handgun.
Aaron Alexis seems a study in contradictions: a former Navy reservist, a Defense Department contractor, a convert to Buddhism who was taking an online course in aeronautics. But he also had flashes of temper that led to run-ins with police over shootings in Fort Worth and Seattle.
A profile began to emerge Monday of the man authorities identified as the gunman in a mass shooting at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., that left 13 people dead, including the 34-year-old man. While some neighbors and acquaintances described him as “nice,” his father once told detectives in Seattle that his son had anger management problems related to post-traumatic stress brought on by the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He also complained about the Navy and being a victim of discrimination.
At least one gunman opened fire inside a building at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday morning, and officials said several people were killed and as many as 10 were wounded, including a law enforcement officer.
A shooter was “contained” but not yet in custody, according to a Defense Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Two other officials — one with the Defense Department and the other with law enforcement — said police were looking into the possibility of a second shooter.
The madcap carnival on the Las Vegas Strip is getting another over-the-top addition: the world’s largest Ferris wheel.
The outer wheel of the 55-story High Roller ride is scheduled to be hoisted into place Tuesday.
The gargantuan project is now visible from all over the city, including the airport. Early next year, it will be outfitted with 1,500 LED lights, and start its slow spin.
President Barack Obama told a war-weary nation Tuesday night that diplomacy suddenly holds “the potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons” in Syria without the use of force. But he also vowed the U.S. military will be ready to strike against President Bashar Assad if other measures fail.
For now, Obama said he had asked congressional leaders to postpone a vote on legislation he has been seeking to authorize the use of military force against Syria.
In a 16-minute speech, the president repeatedly offered reassurances that even the failure of diplomacy — in promised talks at the United Nations or elsewhere — would not plunge America into another war.
Battling stiff resistance in Congress, President Barack Obama conceded Monday night he might lose his fight for congressional support of a military strike against Syria, and declined to say what he would do if lawmakers reject his call to back retaliation for a chemical weapons attack last month.
The president made his comments as a glimmer of a possible diplomatic solution appeared after months of defiance from the Russian-backed government of President Bashar Assad in Syria. In a rapid response, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid cited “international discussions” in unexpectedly postponing a test vote originally set for Wednesday on Obama’s call for legislation backing a military strike.
In a series of six network interviews planned as part of a furious lobbying campaign in Congress, Obama said statements suggesting that Syria might agree to surrender control of its chemical weapons stockpile were a potentially positive development.
President Barack Obama gained ground Tuesday in his drive for congressional backing of a military strike against Syria, winning critical support from House Speaker John Boehner while key Senate Democrats and Republicans agreed to back a no-combat-troops-on-the-ground action in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack.
Officials said the emerging Senate measure would receive a vote Wednesday in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Approval is likely.
The NFL has reached a tentative $765 million settlement over concussion-related brain injuries among its 18,000 retired players, agreeing to compensate victims, pay for medical exams and underwrite research.
A federal judge announced the agreement Thursday after months of court-ordered mediation. It came just days before the start of the 2013 season.
Baylor University took part in a nationwide event, remembering both the 1963 march on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.’s historical “I Have a Dream” speech.
More than 20 students, faculty and staff gathered in front of Pat Neff Hall at 2 p.m. Wednesday, the approximate time King delivered his speech 50 years ago, and listened to the Baylor McLane Carillon bells. Baylor’s carillonneur Lynnette Geary performed, “We Shall Overcome,” and “Lift Every Voice and Sing” to commemorate the day.
Many college graduates have high expectations for a job right out of college. The reality is, many of those expectations won’t be met.
“In today’s economy, recent college graduates are taking the first job that offers a paycheck – not necessarily the job their college education prepared them for,” said Baylor graduate Kevin Blair.
“The current job market has forced people to find refuge in a collegiate setting, only to accumulate debt that must be paid off,” said Arlington sophomore Kacie Evans.
Rhode Island on Thursday became the nation’s 10th state to allow gay and lesbian couples to wed, as a 16-year effort to extend marriage rights in this heavily Roman Catholic state ended with the triumphant cheers of hundreds of gays, lesbians, their families and friends.
A 2-year-old girl born without a windpipe now has a new one grown from her own stem cells, the youngest patient in the world to benefit from the experimental treatment.
Hannah Warren has been unable to breathe, eat, drink or swallow on her own since she was born in South Korea in 2010. Until the operation at a central Illinois hospital, she had spent her entire life in a hospital in Seoul. Doctors there told her parents there was no hope and they expected her to die.
A Mississippi man’s house is uninhabitable after investigators searched it but failed to find evidence of the deadly poison ricin, a lawyer said Monday, arguing that the government should repair the home.
Kevin Curtis was charged in the mailing of poisoned letters to President Barack Obama, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker and a Mississippi judge, but the charges were later dropped. The investigation shifted last week to another man who had a falling out with Curtis, and that suspect appeared in court Monday on a charge of making ricin.
The defense team representing the Boston Marathon bombing suspect got a major boost Monday with the addition of Judy Clarke, a San Diego lawyer who has managed to get life sentences instead of the death penalty for several high-profile clients, including the Unabomber and the gunman in the rampage that injured former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
Clarke’s appointment was approved Monday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler.
“The true college,” writes the African-American author W.E.B. DuBois (in words etched in stone in the walkway at Brooks Residential College), “will ever have one goal – not to earn meat, but to know the end and aim of that life which meat nourishes.”
In “The Souls of Black Folk,” which contains the most eloquent defenses of liberal education ever written by an American, DuBois opposed the exclusion of African-Americans from the right to vote and from civic equality. But he objected equally to the exclusion of African-Americans from the pursuit of a truly liberal education, to their being limited to a merely instrumental education, and education in a trade.
One year before enrolling at Baylor for the 2010 fall semester, hospital corpsman Rachael “Doc” Harrelson was rendering aid to fellow shipmates in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Now Harrelson is more concerned about financial aid than rendering aid.
Choosing which college is the best fit is tough. Tough because impacts your future. With the cost of higher education said to be on the rise, you’re not just choosing a brand name for your diploma – you’re choosing how much debt you may carry after graduation.
The choice isn’t easy.
Although many factors come into play when selecting a college, including location and size, local tutor Rachael Fineske, a 2000 alumna, said she chose to attend Baylor because of her religious background her family’s influence.
What do Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Michael Dell have in common?
They’re all incredibly successful, and all three dropped out of college.
Students attend college to learn, however in almost half of the country’s colleges, they are kept in the dark instead.
Since most colleges elect to keep student debt information private, there is no set national requirement. However, the national average student-load debt is increasing. In many cases, this leaves third-party watchdogs such as The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) to fill the gap. Colleges provide a common data set that these organizations use to gather their statistics.
While it’s undeniable that the amount of college loans is soaring, the government isn’t hurting from it. In fact, the government makes money on college loans, according to the 2011 Federal Education Budget Project report.
“The federal government disbursed $112 billion in student loans in 2012. Most of that will be paid back with interest. The interest rates and fees are set high enough that the government makes money,” Federal Education Budget Project Director Jason Delisle said in a New York Times article published Feb. 27, “Putting a Number on Federal Education Spending.”
Each year, 12 million Americans, or 60 percent of college students, borrow money to cover college-related expenses, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Yet many students remain uninformed of the differences between basic loan types and the effect of each on their financial future.
Medical and recreational marijuana may be legal in Colorado, but employers in the state can lawfully fire workers who test positive for the drug, even if it was used off duty, according to a court ruling Thursday.
The Colorado Court of Appeals found there is no employment protection for medical marijuana users in the state since the drug remains barred by the federal government.
The investigation into poisoned letters mailed to President Barack Obama and others has shifted from an Elvis impersonator to his longtime foe, and authorities must now figure out if an online feud between the two men might have escalated into something more sinister.
Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, was released from a north Mississippi jail on Tuesday and charges against him were dropped, nearly a week after authorities charged him with sending ricin-laced letters to the president, Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and an 80-year-old Lee County, Miss., Justice Court judge, Sadie Holland.
Rhode Island is on a path to becoming the 10th state to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry after a landmark vote in the state’s Senate on Wednesday.
The Senate passed gay marriage legislation by a comfortable 26-12 margin, following a House vote of approval in January.
There are photos of the suspect at the bomb scene, video footage of him dropping a knapsack at the site of one of the blasts, and perhaps most incriminating could be the written words of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev himself during questioning in a Boston hospital. A case with evidence like this may be the toughest challenge a lawyer can face: defending someone accused of an act of terror so horrific a nation cries out for swift, severe punishment.
More rain on Tuesday was the last thing flood fighters across the Midwest wanted to see, adding more water to swollen rivers that are now expected to remain high into next month.
Floodwaters were rising to record levels along the Illinois River in central Illinois. In Missouri, six small levees north of St. Louis were overtopped by the surging Mississippi River, though mostly farmland was affected.
Investigators haven’t found any ricin in the house of a Mississippi man accused of mailing poisoned letters to President Barack Obama, a U.S. senator and a local judge, according to testimony Monday from an FBI agent.
A court official says the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings is facing federal charges and has made an initial court appearance in his hospital room.
Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev lay hospitalized in serious condition under heavy guard Saturday as people around the city breathed easier and investigators tried to piece together the who and why of the deadly plot.
