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UK school principal Nicholas Hewlett plans to come out during online assembly
The principal of an exclusive private school plans to make history in the UK by coming out as gay during an online assembly. Nicholas Hewlett, the head of the $25,000-a-year St. Dunstan’s College in Catford, southeast London, told the Sunday Times of London that he plans to discuss his sexuality and marriage to another teacher during an assembly Monday. It is thought to be the first time a principal will come out in front of his pupils and staff in the UK, the paper said. Hewlett, 41, said he was inspired by a pupil who recently discussed how comfortable they were being gay. “I was so blown away by the…
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Latino college enrollment was increasing until the pandemic hit
Then the pandemic hit. Alvarez’s mother lost her restaurant job, and Alvarez, who is Mexican American and lives in Nashville, had to start taking care of her younger siblings, guiding them through remote school. Her own attendance suffered. And her grades dropped, plunging from B’s and A’s to straight D’s. Alvarez began questioning her plans to apply — anywhere. “I feel like I wouldn’t get into any colleges [because of] my grades being down,” she said in December. “I also think about my parents having to pay, if I don’t end up getting a scholarship — and I probably won’t now.” The steady stream of Latino students arriving on college…
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This Ammonite Was Fossilized Outside Its Shell
If anxious humans have nightmares of being naked in public, an anxious ammonite may have dreamed about swimming around without its shell, its soft body exposed to the elements and the leering eyes of predators. For one unfortunate ammonite in the Late Jurassic, this was no dream but a harsh reality. The animal died utterly unclad, outside its whorled shell, and was buried this way. According to a study published recently in the Swiss Journal of Palaeontology, the ammonite’s death made it an extraordinary fossil — one of very few records of soft tissue in a creature that is most often immortalized as a shell. “We know millions and millions…
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The U.S. may have lost jobs again in January, but the economy is ripe for rebound
The U.S. jobs market could also use a shot in the arm, just like the millions of Americans getting potentially life-saving vaccines against the coronavirus. The economy lost jobs in December for the first time since the onset of the pandemic and employment could fall again in January when the Labor Department reports next Friday. The Wall Street consensus points to a meager 55,000 increase, but plenty of forecasters think a second straight decline is in the cards. See: MarketWatch Economic Calendar If that’s the case, job losses are likely to be concentrated again in leisure and hospitality. That is, restaurants, bars, theaters, amusement parks and hotels. Employment sank by…
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The vaccines are here. Trust the science
With more than 25 million U.S. cases, more than 430,000 deaths and thousands dying per day, the expanding distribution of two vaccines is bringing excitement and hope for many in the United States that this may finally be what we need to get control of this pandemic. That said, an important question remains: How many people will actually take it? The first responders, nurses and doctors will take the vaccine because they trust the rigorous scientific process vaccines are subjected to during clinical trials. They will take the vaccine because it has the potential to save their lives, so they can continue to save ours. These brave individuals are risking…
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Avery Nichols to lead education journalism nonprofit Chalkbeat
Nicole Avery Nichols — the editor who has led COVID-19 coverage and other important work for nearly two decades at the Detroit Free Press — has been named editor-in-chief of Chalkbeat, the nationwide journalism nonprofit dedicated to telling the story of American education. Avery Nichols has been an editor at the Free Press since 2003 and has supervised coverage, as she puts it, “from courts and corruption to immigration, race, gender, public health, pop culture, politics and much more.” “I will always cherish my experiences working at the Detroit Free Press,” she says. “I have worked with and learned from some of the most talented and dedicated journalists in the business. In all…
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Women push to curb sexual harassment in trade job apprenticeships
The job on the light rail platform was to be one of her last as an apprentice sheet metal worker, and Vanessa Carman was relieved. She was one year shy of achieving journeywoman status and the higher pay and better treatment it typically afforded — at least to men, who account for virtually all her coworkers. Carman, a muscular 5 feet 8 with raven hair, had endured a litany of injustices since entering construction. On her first job as an apprentice in 2008, men called her “the pookie princess” after the sealant she used to close ducts that snaked along the ceilings of the tract homes where she worked south of…
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