The story of The Boys depicts a bleak world filled with power-imbued superheroes who have become reckless, selfish and hedonistic, leaving citizens in danger. Thus, an angry, ultra-violent Englishman named Billy Butcher puts together his own team of ex-military personnel with black ops experience to watch the proverbial watchmen, calling themselves, you guessed it, the Boys.
Thus, in an extreme version of the Marvel Civil War scenario, the Boys run roughshod on corrupt costumers in a brutally sadistic manner. The comic series launched in 2006 under the DC-connected Wildstorm imprint, only to be quickly cancelled, purportedly due to its anti-superhero themes. Ennis would eventually continue the series with indie publisher Dynamite Entertainment, publishing the last series in the end of 2012.
The Boys made a surprise addition to its cast at New York Comic Con. Simon Pegg (of the Star Trek, Mission: Impossible series, and more) crashed the show's panel to announce that he is joining the series. Pegg will play the father of Hughie (Jack Quaid), a role that gives a nod to Pegg being the original inspiration for the comics version of the Hughie character for artist, Darick Robertson.
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Pegg joins a cast already headlined by Star Trek mate Karl Urban. Urban will be playing the role of Billy Butcher, the irate ringleader of the Boys team, whose surname was created to describe what he does to those who prey on the powerless, conventional criminals and otherwise. Billy is nursing a brutal secret agenda to change a world filled with corruption, where even its costumed superheroes need to be checked, recruiting a deadly array of highly-skilled people, dangling the proverbial carrot of vengeance.
Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) sued not only Harvard, but also the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The outcome of the UNC case could be as important as the one at Harvard. Critics of affirmative action hope to see the issue of college admissions return to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has in multiple cases upheld the right of colleges to consider -- under certain circumstances -- race and ethnicity in admissions. One path to the Supreme Court is for the Harvard case, whatever its outcome, to be appealed....and UNC is defending itself by arguing that diversity is good for institutions of higher education:
Another path could depend on the UNC case. While it's impossible to know whether the Supreme Court will take up any issue, differing interpretations of the Constitution in different federal circuits tend to draw the Supreme Court's involvement. And that involvement worries supporters of affirmative action, since Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, now retired, was a crucial vote for the right of colleges to consider race.
On Friday, both SFFA and UNC filed briefs in the case, outlining for the first time in detail their takes on the issues at Chapel Hill. Both sides want the court to rule in their favor without a full trial. Some of the issues are similar to those in the Harvard case. In short, SFFA argues that colleges like Harvard and UNC go beyond what the Supreme Court permits in considering race in admissions. UNC, like Harvard, argues that it evaluates all applicants as individuals -- through holistic admissions. UNC freely admits that it considers race and ethnicity in admissions decisions, but that it does so much more modestly than SFFA alleges.
In other ways, UNC is different from Harvard. Chapel Hill is a public institution in a state where the law bars public universities from admitting more than 18 percent of students from out of state. This means that the preference in admissions that is the most dramatic is based on state residency. The admit rate for undergraduate applications is 24 percent, making Carolina competitive but unlike Harvard, where single-digit admit rates have been the norm for years. But the 24 percent figure masks very different admit rates for those from the state (typically 41 to 43 percent) and from elsewhere (typically about 12 or 13 percent).
As a state institution, UNC also could consider approaches (such as plans that admit a set percentage of students from every high school) that haven't been embraced by elite private institutions. In this case, UNC offers evidence that it considered such a plan but that it wouldn't work. North Carolina also has different demographics than the nation. In the Tar Heel state, white people make up 71 percent of the population and black people make up 22 percent. Nationally, the population is more diverse (particularly among those of high school age), with Latino and Asian populations growing at fast rates.
In the end, the UNC brief makes the argument that has been crucial to past Supreme Court rulings on the issue -- that diversity has educational value for all students. "University professors report that diversity promotes discovery and innovation and expands fields of inquiry," the brief says. "A diverse student body also improves students’ capacity to work effectively with others: exposure to diversity breaks down stereotypes, creates common understandings, and encourages empathy."Until the Supreme Court takes up these cases and makes some definitive decisions, Students for Fair Admissions will continue to file suits against colleges and universities.
Bo Peep is back and this time, she’s no delicate porcelain figure. She’s traded her hoop skirt for pantaloons and her bonnet for a cute side ribbon in our first look at the long-missing toy in the latest Toy Story 4 teaser. After being absent from Toy Story 3, Bo Peep is making her big return with a brand new look.After that intense ending for Toy Story 3, I'll be interested to see where they go with the fourth installment.
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The long-lost friend (or maybe more) of Woody is returning in Toy Story 4, and she’s got an exciting new teaser and character poster to herald her comeback. But she is different than the delicate porcelain figure we last saw in Toy Story 2. Her exterior has become chipped and faded, but her attitude has not — “it turns out she’s an adventure-seeking free spirit who feels right at home on the road,” Disney writes. This free-spirited adventure reunites her with Woody “under unlikely circumstances” where they sadly realize they’ve “grown worlds apart when it comes to life as a toy.”
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| This is Molly |
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| The Kids, getting ready to take Molly to her forever home |
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| Meeting Molly at her foster home |
The University of South Florida at St. Petersburg admitted nearly 700 applicants in recent days, but human error is being blamed for more than 400 of those admissions offers having been sent out incorrectly. They have since been revoked.
The university issued this statement: “We were dismayed to learn about the acceptance emails that were mistakenly sent Saturday due to human error. All of us work in higher education because we care about students, and we understand the confusion and distress a mistake like this can cause. As soon as we found out about the situation, we immediately reviewed our process for communicating with prospective students and have changed our procedures to prevent this from happening again. In addition, our staff is calling each of the affected students to apologize and discuss their application status. They hope to contact all of the students by the end of this week.”
The report said its review of the evidence demonstrated that:The stakes are high, its co-authors conclude.
- Online education is the fastest-growing segment of higher education and its growth is overrepresented in the for-profit sector;
- Faculty and academic leaders, employers and the general public are skeptical about the quality and value of online education, which they view as inferior to face-to-face education;
- Students in online education, particularly underprepared and disadvantaged students, underperform and on average experience poor outcomes;
- Online education has failed to improve affordability, frequently costs more than in-person alternatives and does not produce a positive return on investment;
- Regular and substantive student-instructor interactivity is a key determinant of quality in online education, leading to improved student satisfaction, learning and outcomes.
“There is a real risk that both cost-cutting efforts and well-intentioned moves to expand access to higher education could lead to greater numbers of disadvantaged students being relegated to cheap and ineffective online instruction, with detrimental results, both in terms of outcomes and student loan defaults,” they wrote.
However, several experts who read the report said it relied mostly on old data and was overly broad in its conclusions.
The paper indiscriminately trashes online education, said Fiona Hollands, associate director and senior researcher at the Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education at Columbia University’s Teachers College.
“It's almost all old data, old news and not very even-handed,” she said via email, adding that the report “reads as advocacy more than research and conveniently skips out on some of the more recent and positive stories for students in online learning.”
Ray Schroeder, associate vice chancellor for online learning at the University of Illinois at Springfield, said the report by Protopsaltis and Baum painted online education with too broad a brush. For example, its comparisons between online programs and on-campus ones failed to acknowledge the low graduation rates and default rates of many traditional programs that enroll similarly high percentages of low-income, older students.
