Markets drift as half-year comes to an end

LONDON (AP) ? Stocks drifted lower as the half-year came to an uninspiring climax Friday following a month of volatility that pushed many of the world's major stock indexes down from multi-year and record highs.

The coincidence of the end to the month, quarter and half year often prompts some volatility in trading, as investors try to make their portfolios look better for financial reports.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 0.45 percent at 6,215 while Germany's DAX fell 0.38 percent to 7,959. The CAC-40 in France was 0.62 percent lower at 3,738.

In midday trading in the U.S., the Dow Jones industrial average was down 0.4 percent at 14,962 while the broader S&P 500 index fell 0.26 percent to 1,609.

Friday's performance stood in marked contrast with much of what has taken place this week. The prevailing market mood has been calm, certainly compared with much of the last month ? the Dow for example has had 15 triple digit days in June alone.

The calmer backdrop has been due to a number of factors, including solid U.S. economic data and a seeming attempt by the U.S. Federal Reserve to ease investor concerns over the pace of any reduction in its monetary stimulus ? Fed officials appear to be trying to calm investor jitters over an upcoming reduction in the financial assets the central bank buys every month to help the economy. The so-called tapering of the purchases raised fears because the stimulus has been one of the drivers for stocks over recent years.

Given that there is continued uncertainty over the future of U.S. monetary policy, few in the markets think the recent calmer backdrop means the end to the volatility.

"The gains seen over the last few days have been more about traders seeking bargains rather than genuine optimism," said Max Cohen, a trader at Spreadex.

Earlier in Asia, investors were cheered by upbeat Japanese economic news ? industrial production rose 2 percent in May while, perhaps more importantly, the consumer price index stopped falling for the first time in seven months. That's important as the Bank of Japan is engaged on a massive monetary stimulus to get prices rising again after a near two-decade period of deflation.

The news gave Japan's main stock index, the Nikkei 225 index, a big lift as it finished 3.5 percent higher at 13,677.32.

The Nikkei's gains fed through across Asia. Hong Kong's Hang Seng advanced 1.8 percent to 20,803.29 while mainland Chinese shares also rose as fears eased of a credit crunch in China. The Shanghai Composite Index gained 1.5 percent to 1,979.21, while the smaller Shenzhen Composite Index edged up less than 0.1 percent to 887.68.

The central bank had allowed rates that banks pay to borrow from each other to soar last week, part of an attempt to clamp down on massive credit in the informal lending industry. Later, however, Chinese policymakers softened their stance with the promise to provide "liquidity support" if needed.

In currency markets, the dollar has been making further gains against the yen, trading up 0.97 percent at 99.29 yen on Friday. The euro was slightly down, 0.24 percent, at $1.3002.

Oil prices were steady too with the benchmark rate up 5 cents at $97.10 a barrel.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/markets-drift-half-comes-end-143200482.html

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Obama stresses food security in western Africa (Washington Bureau)

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Starting on Monday, Facebook's going to start stripping out ads from the more unsavory Facebook grou

Starting on Monday, Facebook's going to start stripping out ads from the more unsavory Facebook groups. No more worries about your wholesome ads popping up in "We Love Porno, LOL." Phew.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/9wKYlvIizO0/starting-on-monday-facebooks-going-to-start-stripping-610818532

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Obama starts Africa tour at slave port

By Mark Felsenthal

DAKAR, Senegal (Reuters) - Almost four centuries after Africans started being shipped to North America as slaves, the first U.S. president of African ancestry will on Thursday visit an infamous embarkation point for those destined for lives in chains.

In his first - and, many Africans say, long-overdue - extended tour of the continent, President Barack Obama will focus on political and economic issues, but is also paying homage to a painful chapter in American history.

On the first leg of his eight-day visit he is taking his family to the House of Slaves, a fort built in the late 18th century on Goree Island, off the coast of Senegal, as a transit point for the human traffic and now a museum.

The visit will be a sombre reminder of a shameful period in U.S. and world history and provide a powerful contrast between Obama's stature as leader of the world's most powerful nation and the historical status of Africans, once treated as property in the country he governs.

"We have moved from a society in which African Americans were not viewed as citizens, in which social, economic equality was not provided, to one in which we could elect an African American president," said Junius Rodriguez, a historian at Eureka College in Peoria, Illinois.

"It's a remarkable transformation that we've made."

Many Africans feel a bond with Obama but have voiced disappointment that he has not engaged with the continent as much as previous presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

During his first term, Obama's only African trip was a one-day stopover in Ghana and many Africans have been impatient for him to make an extended tour of the continent.

"It's a real pleasure for us, that the world has advanced enough that a black man can be president of the United States," said Abdoul Aziz Signane, a tailor, purchasing an Obama T-shirt at a shop in the Senegalese capital Dakar.

"It makes us very proud. That's why I came to buy a T-shirt so I can welcome him and tell him 'We love you Obama, a lot'."

APOLOGY UNLIKELY

While George W. Bush gave a speech at Goree Island in 2003 in which he called slavery a sin, Obama is not scheduled to use the occasion to make a speech.

The president's major address during his three-country swing through Africa is scheduled for Sunday at the University of Cape Town.

Obama - who visited Cape Coast Castle, another slave port, during his Ghana trip in 2009 - will meet civic leaders in Goree before returning to the mainland to talk with lawyers and judges, keeping the emphasis of his trip on African political stability and economic opportunities.

For all the symbolism involved in Obama's trip to Goree, it raises the question of whether the time has come for a U.S. president to apologise for slavery.

"The magnitude of slavery is unimaginable," Harvard historian Johnson said. "Can Obama heal that wound with a single speech and with the extraordinary symbolism of his visit as U.S. president, is that going to close the circle? Absolutely not."

But an apology is seen as unlikely. A sovereign admission of culpability would open the door to a reparations process, something the Obama administration is unlikely to initiate.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-starts-long-awaited-africa-tour-slave-port-112958834.html

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5 Content Marketing Tactics For Small Businesses - TribalCafe

Are small businesses using the right content marketing tactics to fuel their social media?

1. Small businesses need to get the basics in place ? objectives, keywords, listening, measures?
2. Small businesses have little time and money to invest and need to use content marketing effectively
3. Content helps fuel social media so getting the right tactics in place can save time and money, as well as deliver a focus for what works

The State of Small Businesses and Social Media

A report from Manta, an online business community, shows that crowds of American small businesses are turning to social media in the hope of generating new business. The problem though is that despite the time they are ploughing into it they are seeing little if any ROI.

Some key figures:

• The survey was taken from 1235 small business owner
• Nearly 50% have increased time on social media
• 55% are using Facebook and Twitter as their primary tools
• Around 60% have seen no ROI

Another survey conducted by Staples produced similar figures showing that 40% feel that their social media use has helped their business (60% didn?t). This report found that 51% of U.S. small business owners are either novices or don?t consider how social media can help their businesses.

The problem is that with the allure of seemingly ?FREE? there is the temptation to think it will be a silver bullet to ailing sales or other business problems. Expecting quick wins is unrealistic. The hope that social media might patch over a poor brand proposition, marketing plans or an ailing business is clearly flawed. With content marketing fueling social media developing a clear focus on your customers is critical.

The Basics of Social Media For Small Businesses

Businesses are built on relationships and trust. In this sense online is a direct reflection of offline, where your reputation, what you say and how you say it affect how and who you will attract. Traditional networking offline has not entirely been replaced but online makes it easier, faster and lowers costs. It also provides the perfect vehicle to more effectively target customers.

Our tolerance and dislike of poor sales people, processes and being interrupted are the same offline and online (probably our tolerance is lower). For these reasons small businesses need to recognize the basic principles of social media and online marketing.

Information comes to us easily. Search, RSS feeds and a variety of apps and media help with that. In this mass of media, devices and channels small businesses are having to compete for attention and that is competitive. Simply rocking up and saying hi will get you noticed and it may even help develop relationships, but it wont get across your brand/products/services and demonstrate how you can solve customer problems. In truth you need both ? good content and to be human.

The temptation to be random on social media is huge and without a good focus on content marketing it can easily fail. The basic guiding principles are again the same online as they are offline:

• Understand who your customers, your niche market
• Have clear goals and objectives ? offline is not different to online, focus on SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timed) objectives.
• Identify how your product or service relates to them e.g. what problem does it solve
• What makes you different ? what are your unique selling points (USP?s)
• How can you solve your customers problems, make their life easier and/or add value
• As in offline understand how you connect the marketing and sales process ? connect the dots between the two

These points underpin then how you develop content and use it to develop your business online. Content marketing is about being useful to your customers, it provides a backbone for your SEO and fuels your social media. It also translates into how you gain leads.

5 Content Marketing Tactics For Small Businesses

Here are 5 actionable content marketing tactics to help small businesses. These are based on the trends and insights from the main content marketing reports and experience.

1Get The Content Mix Right

Most people have heard the exercise of how you place large rocks, pebbles, sand and water into a glass jar (if you haven?t here is the link to explain it). It is a great metaphor for living life but also applies to many other situations. There is a nice comparison here to content marketing ? prioritize your content build out your high value content first.

Use Evergreen Content
Evergreen content is timeless, that never or at least rarely goes out of date. Unlike a Tweet, a Facebook post that simply has a moment in time. The key to good evergreen content is to make it relevant to your audience e.g.:

• Frequently asked questions ? not the ones you see that are 4-5 long and cover the obvious. You want to create FAQ?s that genuinely go deeply into the buying process or insights into the service or product.
• Lists of useful resources e.g. top 50 social media experts or 50 technical definitions explained.
• Checklists
• How to?s

Blend in and use other high value content first ? Slides, Infographics, Whitepapers/reports?. The majority of businesses are in services (in the UK accounting for over 75% of GDP). Why does this matter ? well many B2B businesses rely on using Slides some of which may have great content on that can be easily shared.

2Repurpose Content
Content can be used again and again saving time and money.

A survey or report can be turned into a blog post(s), used as a basis for an interview with the person who produced it or to garner opinion, form the basis of a presentation (SlideShare) ? all of which in turn can be Tweeted or posted on Facebook or Linkedin. Again this focuses on the need to produce the high value content first.

3Curate Content
Becoming an expert on a subject requires you to know about what is happening in your sector: trends, key tools, methods, key people, tensions e.g. different view points?All this can be difficult to keep on top of. Content curation involves pooling and filtering content so that you provide relevant high quality content to your audience saving them from having to search through the noise of the internet.

Curating content can relatively easy but remember to be specific to your niche in your subject e.g. social media daily (Paper.li) would be drowned out on the internet but social media marketing for salons could be useful if I was targeting Salon owners.

Some great content curation tools exist to help you produce regular content. Tip: many platforms now allow you to comment on the curated content ? don?t be afraid to add you own thoughts to demonstrate your breadth of knowledge/skills.

4Co-Create / Collaborate
Co-creating content sounds difficult but it is just like many other forms of collaboration. The key to it is a clear understanding of your objectives and the best method to achieve them. Here is a great slideshare that outlines the many methods and approaches that can be taken.

5Blend Your Media
A survey by by content strategy company, Content Science, found that people still come across a lot of unreliable information on the internet.
.

Many small businesses can use their expertise to interact with their target audience to build trust and demonstrate expertise. Some of the best ways to achieve this is to use media that helps you directly interact with you audience or that promotes your ideas, thoughts and shows the people behind the business.

Webinars have become one of the most effective ways of building an audience and for customer acquisition. Used well they can provide plenty of further fuel for blogs and further interaction. A useful approach to event marketing is to follow this approach:

• Pre-event: activities to build and promote the event e.g. unique hashtag for Twitter and now Facebook. This builds interaction.
• Event: the use of social media during the event
• Post event: follow up with content and actions from the event and developing the relationships with your target audience/customers

Summary

Content Marketing can seem daunting and time consuming. Certainly blogs do require a lot of commitment, but by putting in place the basics building blocks and making sure you cover the most important points first you can quickly lay down some great foundations to help your content marketing. Some of the best small businesses work with customers to co-create content not only using incentives e.g. photo contests, but because they are focused on helping promote the customers passions and interests.

Source: http://www.tribalcafe.co.uk/5-content-marketing-tactics-for-small-businesses/

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Nanny Cam Video Captures Brutal Home Invasion in New Jersey

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Turn to State Higher Education Offices for Scholarship Help

As you look for scholarships, financial aid and the perfect college fit, there are a lot of familiar resources. These include scholarship search engines, the federal student aid database and high school and college websites. But one useful source that plenty of students never think about is their state's office of higher education.

Checking out the office in your home state, as well as the states where you might go to college, should be part of your summer to-do list. Resources and the office's name vary by state. You can start with this list.

Wherever you go, look for links to student and family resources. Once you find those, focus on the following five valuable options.

[Follow these simple steps to maximize the summer scholarship search.]

1. Online guidance and planning tools: While websites differ, just about every state features online tools that can help you plan and pay for college. One of the best is Kentucky's KnowHow2GoKY site, which offers education planning advice for all ages.

The Iowa College Student Aid Commission's I Have A Plan site provides a wide view of everything from career exploration and test prep to financial aid and postgraduate activities.

Even if your state doesn't have a dedicated planning tool, it will likely have a student resource page, like this one from Massachusetts, where you can get started.

2. In-person and offline events: One advantage of these offices' local focus is that they can offer residents more face-to-face opportunities to connect and learn. The Minnesota Office of Higher Education will soon be supplementing its online tool set with "College Knowledge Month," a series of college planning and application events for high school seniors across the state.

The Maryland Higher Education Commission conducts monthly financial aid presentations at high schools and colleges. And higher education offices across the nation are often closely involved with College Goal Sunday efforts in January and February.

[Avoid making these costly college savings mistakes.]

3. Loan, grant and savings information: Most states offer education loans and grants to qualified students. These funds are usually managed by the higher education office, as are the states' college savings plans, known as 529 accounts. Minnesota provides a straightforward 529 website for students and parents, as well as offers a detailed look at the state's low interest rate SELF Loan program.

Washington's thorough state site covers all things 529 and features a wide array of grants and loans under the "Opportunity Pathways" banner.

4. Scholarship searches and applications: Washington also offers a unique resource called The WashBoard, which allows resident students to find scholarships from public and private-sector providers across the state. While this is the most ambitious search we've found, other states do feature online applications for government-funded programs or listings of statewide scholarships.

[Get advice on using scholarships as a college financial aid tool.]

5. Resources for military and veteran students: The U.S. Armed Forces provides a wide array of educational benefits to active-duty servicemen and women, reservists and veterans. But those benefits often come with confusing paperwork, restrictions or deadlines.

If you're a veteran or currently serving, your state higher education office can help you make sense of it all. Some states, like North Carolina and Massachusetts, have easy-to-find resources on their websites. If you can't find the information you need, reach out to your state's office.

No matter what your needs are, we recommend you contact state higher education offices with questions. Many are now active on social media, meaning a tweet, a Facebook message or an email can help you learn what you need to from these often-overlooked resources.

Matt Konrad has been with Scholarship America since 2005. He is an alumnus of the University of Minnesota and a former scholarship recipient.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/turn-state-higher-education-offices-scholarship-help-155726420.html

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Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini gets July 1st release date at Phones 4U, costs more than a GS3

Samsung's dinkier S4 variant will be available to buy in the UK, starting next week. Phones 4U promises that it'll be posting its Galaxy S4 Mini preorders on Monday July 1st, while smaller phone sellers like Unlocked Mobiles and Handtec are promising to start sales this weekend. Launching priced at £420 in Phones 4U, it's arriving at a higher cost than last year's Galaxy S III, currently £400 on the same site, which could make the S4 Mini (barring those looking for an incrementally smaller phone ) a very tough sell to customers. While borrowing some design cues from the Galaxy S 4, the Mini drops down to a 1.7GHz dual-core processor and a pretty underwhelming 4.3-inch qHD AMOLED display, both less than you'd get on the GSIII. Of course, the price could drop substantially after release and EE is already offering S4 Mini preorder customers a free Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 to sweeten the deal.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung

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Via: CNET UK

Source: Phones 4U

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What manner of marking scheme? - Vanguard

By Josef Omorotionmwan
NIGERIA today is fast drifting toward Plato?s definition of a degenerating society; a society that permits the voice of the mob to determine the affairs of government. By accepting unbridled protests as a way of life, we have tacitly suggested that the great issues of our time are best decided by posturing and shouting matches on the streets.

The other day, the Senate invited Alhaji Abdulrasheed Maina to shed some light on aspects of the Customs, Immigration and Prisons Pensions Fund, which he was overseeing. Not only did he refuse to honour the? invitation, but just about when he was expected to appear at the Senate Chambers, his rented crowd was at the entrance of the National Assembly, pouring invectives on the senators for daring to invite their principal.

You can also imagine the ease with which students these days embark on the destruction of government property. More amazing still is the ease with which these lawbreakers are let off the hook.??? Sometimes they are asked, in a most palliative way, to pay the cost of replacing the damaged property. This merely begs the question.

We must learn to develop zero-tolerance for lawlessness. Once an individual has deliberately violated the criminal law, such should be removed from the academic community, which in the first place, is not equipped to deal with the argument of force; and placed in the larger society, which has both the aptitude and determination for the task. A crime is no less a crime simply because it has been committed by a student. No lawbreaker should be treated with kid gloves.

Students who relish in the destruction of the Comrade Buses and those Red Roof School Buildings, which are acknowledged all over as unprecedented revolution, will learn the correct lessons after they spend time at Kirikiri or Oko Prison.

The penultimate week, Edo State finally got to the point of doing what various other states have done ? the partial ban on commercial motorcycle operators ? in Oredo, Ikpoba Okha and Egor local government areas.

The day after the ban, there was the mother of all demonstrations at the Oba Ovonramwen Square, Benin City, bringing traffic and all commercial activities to a halt.

The era of appeasement must end! When peace comes through appeasement and capitulation to the likes of the Okada riders by trading away sound security principles, the peace thus purchased cannot be worth the price.

If we may ask, how is all this different from the present exercise in which the Oga at the top is personally writing his own testimonial? Certainly, Nigerians are gullible and most times, easy to please. In the unfolding theatricals, the President suddenly starts to speak of marking scheme, which is understandable, knowing where he is coming from as a former lecturer.

He goes on national television to accuse everyone of not giving him a marking scheme. He suddenly throws up what looks more like a report card (and so variously described), which is available only to him and some members of his kitchen cabinet, and proclaims: ?Here is my marking scheme?. By any standard of academic judgement, that which he calls a marking scheme can, at best, only pass for an examination script.

Based on the wrong marking scheme, he proceeds to rate himself an A++ Student and his administration, most excellent; in the tradition of the lizard which falls from a great height and seeing that nobody is appreciating it, nods approvingly: ?If no one praises me, I must praise myself?.

But who says we have not given the President a marking scheme? Should he, in fact, be marking his own scripts, based on his own scheme? How can he be the examiner and the examinee? We are the examiners and we are aware of at least a thousand marking schemes in our hands.

If nothing else, the annual Appropriation Act given to the President is one bold scheme on which the evaluation of his administration can be based. For all we know, under a scheme in which, year after year, the recurrent budget performs at close to 100 percent while the capital budget hovers around the 20 percent level, there is an abysmal failure!

It gets even worse as we approach the sectoral levels.? The Federal Government may have given up in some areas. One such surrender is in the area of roads. Our President was at the requiem mass for General Andrew Azazi, the former National Security Adviser, NSA, in Yenegoa, Bayelsa State.

The officiating minister, Bishop Hyacinth Egbebor, accused the Federal Government of neglecting roads, which is responsible for the number of accidents and death of many Nigerians. But our President retorted that accidents occur more on good roads than on bad ones. What a clever design to abdicate one?s responsibility!

There can be no better marking scheme here than what millions of Nigerian road users have permanently in their hands and they mark the scripts on a daily basis. Those citizens who ply the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and most other highways throughout the Federation cannot award you a pass mark after the day?s ordeal on those death traps.

In the energy sector, no one is expecting every Nigerian to become an electrical engineer but a man expects that when he return home at the end of a day?s hard work, at the touch of a button, light goes on and when he is going to bed, he touches the same button and light goes off; he will award you a pass mark but if the situation is such that he is perpetually sentenced to darkness; to the extent that on festive occasions, neighborhoods have turned mortuaries because of the absence of power supply; the cottage industries he once knew have moved to neighbouring countries, he must grade you poorly. That is where we are now.

Jonathan?s marking scheme is his latest exercise in self-delusion, which carries him nowhere. Neither can it change this reverse-gear!

?

?

Source: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/06/what-manner-of-marking-scheme/

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Video game tech used to steer cockroaches on autopilot

June 25, 2013 ? North Carolina State University researchers are using video game technology to remotely control cockroaches on autopilot, with a computer steering the cockroach through a controlled environment. The researchers are using the technology to track how roaches respond to the remote control, with the goal of developing ways that roaches on autopilot can be used to map dynamic environments -- such as collapsed buildings.

The researchers have incorporated Microsoft's motion-sensing Kinect system into an electronic interface developed at NC State that can remotely control cockroaches. The researchers plug in a digitally plotted path for the roach, and use Kinect to identify and track the insect's progress. The program then uses the Kinect tracking data to automatically steer the roach along the desired path.?

The program also uses Kinect to collect data on how the roaches respond to the electrical impulses from the remote-control interface. This data will help the researchers fine-tune the steering parameters needed to control the roaches more precisely.

"Our goal is to be able to guide these roaches as efficiently as possible, and our work with Kinect is helping us do that," says Dr. Alper Bozkurt, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper on the work.

"We want to build on this program, incorporating mapping and radio frequency techniques that will allow us to use a small group of cockroaches to explore and map disaster sites," Bozkurt says. "The autopilot program would control the roaches, sending them on the most efficient routes to provide rescuers with a comprehensive view of the situation."

The roaches would also be equipped with sensors, such as microphones, to detect survivors in collapsed buildings or other disaster areas. "We may even be able to attach small speakers, which would allow rescuers to communicate with anyone who is trapped," Bozkurt says.

Bozkurt's team had previously developed the technology that would allow users to steer cockroaches remotely, but the use of Kinect to develop an autopilot program and track the precise response of roaches to electrical impulses is new.

The interface that controls the roach is wired to the roach's antennae and cerci. The cerci are sensory organs on the roach's abdomen, which are normally used to detect movement in the air that could indicate a predator is approaching -- causing the roach to scurry away. But the researchers use the wires attached to the cerci to spur the roach into motion. The wires attached to the antennae send small charges that trick the roach into thinking the antennae are in contact with a barrier and steering them in the opposite direction.

The paper, "Kinect-based System for Automated Control of Terrestrial Insect Biobots," will be presented at the Remote Controlled Insect Biobots Minisymposium at the 35th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society July 4 in Osaka, Japan. Lead author of the paper is NC State undergraduate Eric Whitmire. Co-authors are Bozkurt and NC State graduate student Tahmid Latif. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/INaQYtNvF54/130625121233.htm

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Grim milestone: Texas set to execute 500th inmate

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) ? Jim Willett remembers the night of Dec. 6, 1982, when he was assigned to guard a mortuary van that had arrived at the death house at the Huntsville prison.

"I remember thinking: We're really going to do this. This is really going to happen," says Willett, who was a captain for the Texas Department of Corrections.

When the van pulled away early the next morning, it carried to a nearby funeral home the body of convicted killer Charlie Brooks, who had just become the first Texas prisoner executed since a Supreme Court ruling six years earlier allowed the death penalty to resume in the United States.

What was unusual then has become rote. On Wednesday, barring a reprieve, Kimberly McCarthy will become the 500th convicted killer in Texas to receive a lethal injection.

The number far outpaces the execution total in any other state. But it also reflects the reality of capital punishment in the United States today: While some states have halted the practice in recent years because of concern about wrongful convictions, executions continue at a steady pace in many others.

The death penalty is on the books in 32 states. On average, Texas executes an inmate about every three weeks.

Still, even as McCarthy prepares to die at the Huntsville Unit, it's clear that Texas, too, has been affected by the debate over capital punishment. In recent years, state lawmakers have provided more sentencing options for juries and courts have narrowed the cases in which the death penalty can be applied. In guaranteeing DNA testing for inmates and providing for sentences of life without parole, Texas could well be on a slower track to execute its next 500 inmates.

"It's a very fragile system" as attitudes change, said Mark White, who was Texas attorney general when Brooks was executed and then presided over 19 executions as governor from 1983 to 1987.

"There's a big difference between fair and harsh. ... I think you have (Texas) getting a reputation for being bloodthirsty, and that's not good."

Texas has accounted for nearly 40 percent of the more than 1,300 executions carried out since murderer Gary Gilmore went before a Utah firing squad in 1977 and became the first U.S. inmate executed following the Supreme Court's clarification of death penalty laws. (Texas had more than 300 executions before the pause.) Virginia is a distant second, nearly 400 executions behind. Texas' standing stems both from its size, with the nation's second largest population, and its tradition of tough justice for killers.

Still awaiting punishment in Texas are 282 convicted murderers.

Some may be spared. Supreme Court rulings have now excluded mentally impaired people or those who were under 18 at the time of their crime. Legal battles continue over the lethal drugs used in the process, mental competence of inmates, professional competence of defense lawyers and sufficiency of evidence in light of DNA forensics technology.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has presided over more than half of the state's executions, said that the recent changes have helped make Texas' system fairer. In addition to the new sentencing options, he signed bills to allow post-conviction DNA testing for inmates and establish minimum qualifications for court-appointed defense attorneys.

"I think our process works just fine," Perry said last year during his unsuccessful presidential campaign. "You may not agree with them, but we believe in our form of justice. ... We think it is clearly appropriate."

So do most Texans.

A 2012 poll from the Texas Tribune and the University of Texas showed only 21 percent opposed to capital punishment.

Still, re-examinations of convictions have raised questions about whether some of those executed may have been innocent. The suspect cases included the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham for the arson deaths of his three young children. Arson experts consulted by a state panel determined evidence used to gain the conviction did not meet scientific standards. But Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott later barred the panel from further review of the trial evidence.

Over the years, the Texas execution list has provided a portrait of violent crime in a state where many people are armed, both good and bad, and juries have little tolerance for murderers.

Those executed have ranged from relatively common cases ? robbers who killed store clerks, drug users who killed other drug users, spouses killing each other ? to the bizarre and sensational. Ronald Clark O'Bryan, nicknamed the "Candy Man," poisoned his son's Halloween candy to collect on an insurance policy. Angel Resendez, a serial killer, rode the rails, stopping along the way to murder strangers. Lawrence Russell Brewer dragged a black man behind a pickup truck in a racist killing.

In the prison town of Huntsville, executions have become a well-worn ritual.

For more than 20 years, Dennis Longmire has been a fixture outside the fortress-like prison on execution evenings, holding a lit candle on a street corner. Hundreds of demonstrators once gathered there but interest has long since subsided.

"Texas continues to march to a different beat," as other states drop the death penalty, says Longmire, a criminal justice professor at nearby Sam Houston State University. He calls the execution total "staggering."

McCarthy, convicted of killing a 71-year-old neighbor during a robbery in 1997, is among eight inmates scheduled for execution over the next four months. She would be the first female put to death in the U.S. in three years and the 13th woman since the Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume.

McCarthy, 52, was condemned for using a butcher knife and candelabra to beat and fatally stab retired college professor Dorothy Booth at the victim's Lancaster home. Evidence showed the former nursing home therapist used the knife to sever Booth's finger to steal her wedding ring.

McCarthy, who is linked to two other slayings, already has had her execution date pushed back twice this year. Her attorney, Maurie Levin, is trying to halt her execution again, contending black jurors improperly were excluded from her trial by Dallas County prosecutors.

Levin said there has been a "pervasive influence of race in administration of the death penalty and the inadequacy of counsel ? a longstanding issue here."

Even remarkable incidents in the death ritual can become mundane in the steady procession.

In 2000, Ponchai Wilkerson stunned officials when he spit out a small handcuff key he had kept hidden in his mouth as he prepared to die.

"In another state you live with that for a long time," said Willett, who became warden at the Huntsville Unit in 1998 and oversaw 89 executions. "Here in Texas, another one is coming a few days later and you've forgotten that one before."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/grim-milestone-texas-set-execute-500th-inmate-162259097.html

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Ahron Hakimi Named Mineta Transportation Institute Alumnus of the Year

SAN JOSE, Calif., June 25, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Ahron R. Hakimi, executive director of the Kern Council of Governments, has been named the first Alumnus of the Year for the Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI). He earned his Master of Science in Transportation Management (MSTM) in 2003 through the MTI program at San Jose State University. His award was given at a scholarship banquet and convocation on campus Saturday evening, June 22.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100318/MTILOGO)

"The MTI Alumni Association members nominated candidates online," said Peter Haas, PhD, education director for MTI. "Criteria were stringent, and the Institute is pleased to have such an outstanding transportation professional rise to the top. Even as a student, Ahron demonstrated notable leadership abilities, which he has continued to carry into his impressive career."

Mr. Hakimi assumed his position with the Kern Council of Governments (COG) in June 2012. A colonel in the Army Reserve's Logistics Corps and a supervising transportation engineer with Caltrans, he was previously the lead state official for the Thomas Road Improvement Program (TRIP), a unique multi-agency coalition comprising the City of Bakersfield, County of Kern, Caltrans and Kern COG.

Arriving in Bakersfield in 1991, Mr. Hakimi worked in the local Caltrans office, reporting to District 6 officials in Fresno. In 2003, he began working on joint projects with the city of Bakersfield. He has been personally accountable for delivering several high-profile, politically sensitive federal highway projects valued at more than $1.5 billion, including auxiliary lanes installed at the State Route 58/99 interchange in 2007, easing traffic flow for thousands of drivers.

Mr. Hakimi has served as a TRIP liaison among Bakersfield City Council members, Kern County supervisors, and state and federal legislators to ensure projects are completed on schedule and within budget, including the Westside Parkway now under construction.

With more than 26 years of military service, including combat tours in Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, he was awarded the Bronze Star in 2005 and has received the Meritorious Service Medal four times.?In addition to his MSTM, Mr. Hakimi received his Master of Strategic Studies from the US Army War College and a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from the Polytechnic University in Brooklyn NY.

Walter Allen, a transportation planner with Parsons Transportation Group and president of the MTI Alumni Association, said, "Ahron exemplifies all the necessary criteria for this award. He has attained notable achievements in his career; succeeded in other areas of professional or personal excellence; and demonstrated distinguished commitment and leadership within the transportation industry. The Alumni Association is very happy to inaugurate this annual award with someone of Ahron's caliber."

ABOUT THE MINETA TRANSPORTATION INSTITUTE (MTI):
MTI conducts research, education, and information transfer programs focusing on surface transportation policy and management issues, especially related to transit. MTI was established by Congress in 1991 as part of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act and won national re-designation competitions in 2002, 2006 and 2011. The Institute is funded by Congress through the US DOT Research and Innovative Technology Administration, by the California Legislature through Caltrans, and public and private grants. In 2006 the US Department of Homeland Security selected MTI as a National Transportation Security Center of Excellence. The internationally respected members of the MTI Board of Trustees represent all major surface transportation modes. MTI is affiliated with San Jose (CA) State University's College of Business. Visit transweb.sjsu.edu

ABOUT THE MASTER OF SCIENCE IN TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT (MSTM):
The College of Business at San Jose State University,?with support from the Mineta Transportation Institute, offers a Master of Science degree and three graduate certificate programs.?The curriculum is led by nationally recognized instructors who are academic or industry experts. The MSTM program is fully accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). The program is accelerated, enabling students to complete an MSTM degree in five semesters. Classes are held in the evening so students can continue to work full time while earning their degrees. The program is available statewide at designated Caltrans district offices and other participating transportation agencies. Classes are delivered by two-way video conferencing supplemented by video streaming and web courseware. Visit transweb.sjsu.edu and go to the Education tab.

Contact: Donna Maurillo
MTI Communications Director
831-234-4009 (mobile)
donna.maurillo (at) sjsu.edu

SOURCE Mineta Transportation Institute

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ahron-hakimi-named-mineta-transportation-institute-alumnus-223700985.html

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?Our Sisters in Headscarves?

A supporter of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip?Erdo?an during a rally on June 16, 2013, in Istanbul

Photo by Ozan Kose/AFP/Getty Images

On Sunday, June 16, with Istanbul?s Taksim Square in a fog of tear gas five miles away, thousands of supporters of Recep Tayyip Erdo?an gathered on seaside fair grounds to hear their embattled prime minister speak. For nearly three weeks protesters had filled Taksim and the adjacent Gezi Park, chanting "Tayyip, resign." Now police had cleared the square, and it was Erdo?an?s turn to show that not all Turkish citizens wanted him gone.

"Gezi Park and Taksim Square have been returned to the people," Erdo?an shouted, pacing across a large stage. He condemned foreign media, called the protesters terrorists, and reminded the crowd of what he and his party, the AKP, had done for them over the past decade. He addressed his female supporters, many of whom are religiously conservative and cover their heads, warning that the occupiers of Gezi Park were threatening "our sisters in headscarves." This was not a perfunctory aside. For years Turkey had a long-standing partial ban on the headscarf, but under Erdo?an things have changed: Women can now attend university in headscarves, and they are more visible in the workplace and in the streets. The prime minister knows that his religious supporters fear a new regime would reinstate the ban. And so he gives that shoutout to his base, and each headscarf in the crowd is a potent symbol of his bond with them.

At the same time, the Taksim Square protesters were hyping their own covered women. These were women who sat in the park in spite of things that might typically turn them off, like drinking. They were there even though many secularists see the headscarf as a direct challenge to the principles of Mustafa Kemal Atat?rk, Turkey?s first president and an inspiration to the opposition movement (portraits of Atat?rk hung throughout Gezi Park). To the protesters, these women?even in small numbers?represent a shifting tide in Turkey. A headscarf signifies religious devotion, but after 10 years of Erdo?an and more than three weeks of arrogance and police brutality, it may not indicate political affiliation.

In Turkey, the headscarf is a deeply controversial symbol, considered by many, rather superficially, to be evidence of the country's Islamization. For secular women, unveiling was an important part of a package of rights?including suffrage and the outlawing of polygamy?granted to them in the early years of the Turkish Republic. Atat?rk emphasized education for women, and the act of living in public?of unveiling and being seen?was considered an expression of modern, republican ideals.

But the strict secular ideology?some of which was codified after the 1980 military coup, when all opposition, including religious, was violently suppressed?marginalized women who wanted to cover. They viewed it as oppression, not liberation. Turkish anthropologist Esra ?zy?rek spent years interviewing Turkish citizens who were young at the founding of the Republic. One interview with a retired teacher named Vedia, which ?zy?rek writes about in her book Nostalgia for the Modern, shows how abrupt the shift was. "In those days in Izmir, if women went out in veils, young men would grab their veils and rip them off," Vedia said. "Or these women would have to pay a fine of sixty or seventy liras for veiling. After several months, veiling totally disappeared."

These days, a lot of women wear a headscarf in Turkey, including Erdo?an's wife and the wife of President Abdullah G?l. A thriving fashion industry caters to religious women, and they have taken their place among Turkey's growing middle class. They are, in short, integrated into society. But, as the past month has shown, they also still shoulder a great burden to be symbols on one side or the other of a divided nation.

"Most of the Western media, at the beginning, covered this as secular versus religious,? Zeynep Alemdar, a professor of international relations at Okan University who has been active in the protest movement, told me. ?But we have been trying to show that this is not about secularism." A reliable way of doing this is to claim the covered women in the crowd?both identifying them and welcoming them?and Alemdar views it as positive approach. It's certainly time-honored. ?This is not a new phenomenon,? Alemdar said. ?It?s not unique to the Gezi protesters to, let?s say, co-opt these women.?

That some see religious women as symbols (as opposed to, say, individuals, with nuanced views of politics and religion) might be why there were reports of headscarved women being harassed at the protests. During the second week, when the atmosphere of Gezi Park was still pretty upbeat, I met Deniz Bayram, a lawyer and feminist activist, by the Istanbul Feminist Collective tent. Turkish feminists tend to be divided on the headscarf issue?some see it as inherently oppressive while others view it as a matter of choice. Bayram was adamant that the feminist movement there was inclusive. "Women have been in the streets, in front of the TOMA trucks," she said (TOMAs are police trucks with mounted water cannons). Among these, she said, were "many" women in headscarves. To unite religious and secular women, the collective was working on a manifesto, part of which would denounce the harassment of religiously conservative women at the protests.

Erdo?an?s failures on women's rights may just help the opposition bring more of these women into its camp. He brazenly denounces abortion rights, famously suggested that women should populate Turkey by having three children, and has disregarded the high rate of violence against women. "When it comes to violence against women, secular and religious women are together," Alemdar said.

Still, Erdo?an has legitimate claims to being the liberator of covered women?lifting bans and normalizing the scarf?and for this many are reluctant to turn away from him. The day after Erdo?an's rally, I explored ?sk?dar, a conservative neighborhood on Istanbul's Asian side. I met Serife, a religious woman in her 40s who supports Erdo?an and succinctly revealed how the phrase ?women?s rights? means different things to different women. "He's given women a lot of rights. We are more free," she told me.

Nearby, in an upscale coffee shop, four female university students?political science majors?were eating sticky deserts in an end-of-term celebration. Three were covered in varying styles, one in a conservative brown scarf and long black sleeves. As students, access to education was a personal issue. "Now we can go to universities," a student named Kubra said. "Other students don't react to us as strongly." The girls were eager to talk about their political ideas?all were AKP supporters?and their religious beliefs, and just as eager to dispel the notion that their head coverings were concrete indicators of either.

I heard a similar sentiment from a 20-year-old sociology major named Sumeyye. Her grey headscarf was draped loosely around her neck, and a tight black headband kept her hairline out of sight. "My religion isn't political," she told me. "I am mostly an environmentalist." As a covered woman who doesn't fit the mold, she often feels out of place, so has been supporting the opposition from afar. "It sometimes bothers me that [leftists and other environmentalists] see me first as religious and second as environmentalist," she told me. "Most of my friends are like me."

Sumeyye is grateful to Erdo?an for lifting part of the headscarf ban, but she doesn?t support the AKP. "It's a false assumption that women in headscarves vote for the AKP," she told me. As an environmentalist, she objects to the development of Turkey (opposition to development is what started this whole protest movement), and, ironically, she feels that Erdo?an has not made liberating religious women a priority. Women still cannot wear a headscarf in many public buildings. So what does she plan to do about it? "Muslims don't get angry," she said. "We are patient. But now women in headscarves can get an education?and we think more critically." Which means that each side is going to have to start making a more sophisticated pitch.?

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/06/in_turkey_erdogan_and_the_opposition_agree_every_headscarf_counts.html

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Gay marriage support reverberates for Republican senator (Star Tribune)

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Web Inventor Berners-Lee Warns Forces Are ... - Business Insider

REUTERS/Pascal Lauener

Tim Berners-Lee, director of World Wide Web Foundation, attends the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos January 25, 2013.

Companies and governments ?trying to take control of the internet? are undermining the founding principles of the web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee has warned.

The inventor of the World Wide Web said the internet is facing a ?major? threat from ?people who want to control it on the sly? through ?worrying laws? such as SOPA, the US anti-piracy act, and through the actions of internet giants.

?If you can control [the internet], if you can start tweaking what people say, or intercepting communications, it's very, very powerful...it's the sort of power that if you give it to a corrupt government, you give them the ability to stay in power forever.?

Sir Tim was speaking as it emerged that the US government has been collecting huge amounts of personal information from Google, Facebook, Apple and other internet companies.

There have also been reports that British spies have been gathering intelligence from the internet giants "through a covertly run operation set up by America's top spy agency"

?Unwarranted government surveillance is an intrusion on basic human rights that threatens the very foundations of a democratic society,? Sir Tim said. ?I call on all web users to demand better legal protection and due process safeguards for the privacy of their online communications, including their right to be informed when someone requests or stores their data.

?Over the last two decades, the web has become an integral part of our lives. A trace of our use of it can reveal very intimate personal things. A store of this information about each person is a huge liability: Whom would you trust to decide when to access it, or even to keep it secure??

Sir Tim added that a ?wake up call? had been delivered when former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak cut off communications services during the uprising that ousted him.

?A lot of people thought the internet was like the air, it just flows. [After this] people asked, 'who could turn off my internet'??

Sir Tim said "companies and governments in different places all over the world trying to take control of the internet in different ways" is a much bigger threat to its development than fears over any one company having an online monopoly.

"If you remember [web browser] Netscape, people thought, oh the web is great but here's a completely controlling web company, what are we going to do? Then one morning they weren't worried about Netscape any more, it was Microsoft. Then suddenly, wait a moment the browser wasn't the issue, it was the search engine. Then, it's wait a moment, it's the social network.

"If you look at it broadly, yes a monopoly slows innovation, reduces competition. That's why it's important this is an open platform. But monopolies come and go all the time."

Sir Tim called for governments to protect the neutrality and independence of the web and compared its democratic importance to the freedom of the press.

He said "organisations that keep the internet running" should be "connected to government but at arms length. That's really important and as years have gone by that's got more and more important. Once you have an open internet, with an open world wide web on top of it, I'm very optimistic".

Sir Tim was speaking in Monte Carlo at the Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year competition. He likened the determination he needed when developing the web to the single mindedness exhibited by successful entrepreneurs.

?With the web, it was a paradigm shift. It's a well used phrased but it means that afterwards the world is so different, there weren't the words in the old word to describe the new world. People didn't understand clicks and links and web pages ? we didn't have words.

?You just need to stick with it and work with a few people with in a twinkle in their eye because they get it. Some people will respond with excitement ? not everybody, maybe three in three hundred will get it. The web took off because a few people around the world had the twinkle in their eye and said they could understand what it would be like if all the information in the world was [online].?

He added that while about "25pc of the world" now uses the web, "a massive gap" remains. "There are number of languages where there isn't a lot of stuff on the web, and a lot of culture that isn't represented. A lot of countries haven't got the backbone for a good internet-based democracy.

"The change for the world will be massive when we go from only 20pc of the world having it to 80pc of the world. It is going to be a wonderful explosion in culture and participation and I hope that people of different cultures use it to understand each other as a result."

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/berners-lee-forces-are-trying-to-take-control-of-the-internet-2013-6

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Red panda Is missing from the National Zoo

The National Zoo?tweeted this morning?that a Red Panda who goes by Rusty was last seen around 6 p.m. last night, and zoo staff have apparently been searching trees around the zoo since 8 a.m. this morning, without success.?The zoo further?explained that Rusty "could be sick & hiding, or someone could have taken him" in one tweet, and while that last possibility seems grim, later tweets seemed to hope for the best.

Rusty is a relatively new addition to the zoo. The zoo announced that Rusty joined the habitat in a blog post on June 10. He will turn one year old next month, and was brought to the zoo to breed with their red panda named Shama. Their relationship was going well: "On the second day keepers saw the pair sharing space and even spied Shama grooming Rusty?a sign that this duo is doing well already."?

RELATED: In Quake, Zoo Animals React Much More Adorably Than Humans

Because Twitter is just that type of place, a bunch of people thought to make Edward Snowden jokes.

But all joking aside, the zoo's Twitter account cautioned that if you are the person who happens to find Rusty you should just call the zoo rather than approach.?

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rusty-red-panda-missing-national-zoo-161404696.html

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The Next Affirmative Action?

In this file photo, UC?Berkeley students walk through Sproul Plaza. A 1996 state proposition banned race-based affirmative action from the University of California.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The Supreme Court?s ruling in Fisher v. University of Texas won?t end race-based affirmative action. The court made it harder for schools to defend their policies but not impossible. Justice Anthony Kennedy said for the majority, about any court faced with a challenge to a university?s affirmative-action policy, "The reviewing court must ultimately be satisfied that no workable race-neutral alternatives would produce the educational benefits of diversity."

Still, this decision could?and should?lead to a smarter kind of affirmative action that is mostly based on class rather than race. Ten states have banned race-based affirmative action, usually by voter initiative. After the bans passed, an initial dip in minority enrollment often followed. But then in most of these states, schools created new programs to promote racial and ethnic diversity indirectly by giving an admissions preference to low-income students, boosting financial aid, and reducing reliance on test scores. I show this in a report I wrote with Halley Potter, A Better Affirmative Action: State Universities that Created Alternatives to Racial Preferences (PDF).

The new affirmative action, based primarily on economic disadvantage, better addresses the glaring inequities students face. As you can see from the chart below, a low-income student scores on average 399 points lower on the SAT than a wealthy student. By contrast, the average SAT difference between African-American and white students of the same socioeconomic status is only 56 points. In other words, the SAT class gap is seven times as large as the SAT race gap.

Source: Anthony P. Carnevale and Jeff Strohl, ?How Increasing College Access Is Increasing Inequality, and What to Do about It,? in Rewarding Strivers: Helping Low-Income Students Succeed in College, Richard D. Kahlenberg, ed., (New York: Century Foundation Press, 2010), 170, Table 3.7.

If universities wanted to be truly meritocratic in admissions, they would weight socioeconomic status heavily and race lightly. In fact, research shows that selective universities do the opposite.

Source: Thomas J. Espenshade and Alexandria Walton Radford, No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 92, Table 3.5.

Currently, selective schools boost the chances of admission of black and Hispanic students by 28 percentage points. That is, if a white candidate has a 30 percent chance of being admitted based on her record, an African-American or Latino student with the same record has a 58 percent chance. By contrast, low-income students receive no boost whatsoever.

Note: Figures refer to 1995 applicant pool. Adjusted admissions advantage for Bottom income quartile is calculated relative to middle quartiles. Source: William G. Bowen, Martin A. Kurzweil, and Eugene M. Tobin, Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2005), 105, Table 5.1.

Colleges and universities say they care about economic diversity among students. But 74 percent of students at the most selective 146 schools come from the top socioeconomic quarter of the population, while just 3 percent come from the poorest quarter. Put differently, you are 25 times as likely to run into a rich kid as a poor kid on these campuses.

Source: Anthony P. Carnevale and Stephen J. Rose, ?Socioeconomic Status, Race/Ethnicity and Selective College Admissions,? in Richard D. Kahlenberg (ed), America?s Untapped Resource: Low Income Students in Higher Education (The Century Foundation, 2004), p. 106, Table 3.1.

What happens to racial diversity when colleges stop using racial preferences in admissions? The numbers of minority students don?t necessarily drop. After the University of Texas at Austin was barred from considering race by a 1996 court decision, officials started factoring in socioeconomic status. Then the university began admitting students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school class. By 2004, these race-neutral plans, coupled with growing diversity statewide, produced more racial and ethnic diversity at UT?Austin than had been achieved in 1996 using race.

Source: Brief for Petitioner in Abigail Noel Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, et al., http://www.projectonfairrepresentation.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/Brief-for-Petitioner-Fisher-v-Univ-of-Texas.pdf

Texas is not alone. In Washington, Florida, Georgia, and Nebraska, where race-based affirmative action ended, new programs to provide a leg up to low-income students, improve outreach to them, and reduce the importance of test scores have boosted the number of black and Latino students at flagship campuses.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/datacenter/

Among the 10 leading public universities in states that banned racial preferences, three did not fully restore black and Latino representation using economic affirmative action and other race-neutral means. Those schools are UC?Berkeley, UCLA, and the University of Michigan. They are the three most selective schools in the study Halley Potter and I did, and the most likely to draw from a national pool of applicants. That?s important because Berkeley, UCLA, and Michigan were competing for minority students with other universities that could continue to use racial preferences in admission. Given that uneven playing field, it?s not surprising that these three universities have had difficulty in recruitment.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/datacenter/

Some studies find that income-based affirmative action won?t produce much racial diversity. That?s true in part because, on average, compared with whites of the same income level, black and Latino students face extra obstacles?they are more likely to live in neighborhoods with concentrated poverty, and to have less family wealth. UCLA Law School developed a definition of socioeconomic disadvantage that includes family wealth and neighborhood poverty, as well as income. Using those measures, the school admitted far more black and Latino students than it did using the regular admissions standards that didn?t include these factors.

Source: Karman Hsu, director of admissions, UCLA Law School, email to Halley Potter on September 4, 2012.

If schools admit more low-income students, will graduation rates drop (because of poor preparation in K?12)? A simulation of admissions at the most selective 146 universities shows that graduation rates would slightly rise if the proportion of students from the less wealthy half of the population rose increased from 10 percent to 38 percent, using admissions standards based on merit plus class-based affirmative action, and compared with current admissions policies that take into account merit, race, athletic status, and legacy status.

Source: Anthony P. Carnevale and Stephen J. Rose, ?Socioeconomic Status, Race/Ethnicity, and Selective College Admissions,? in America?s Untapped Resource: Low-Income Students in Higher Education, Richard D. Kahlenberg, ed. (New York: Century Foundation Press, 2004), 142, 149.

The Fisher decision could be something of a setback for upper-middle-class minority students, but it should be a boon for low-income students of all races as universities develop a new, and better, form of affirmative action based on class.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/06/fisher_v_university_of_texas_decision_at_the_supreme_court_affimative_action.html

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