A partnership works to create and implement a district-wide NGSS-aligned science curriculum and instructional model.

In the wake of falling reading scores on the test known as the Nation's Report Card, 12 major education groups are calling on schools to adopt evidence-based reading instruction.

For the 2020 RHSU Public Influence finale, we reveal the top 10 finishers for various academic disciplines, as well as the top junior faculty in the country.

The Netherlands equalled Spain's record of three U17 EURO titles: the story of the finals in England at a glance.

France's Adil Aouchiche equalled a record shared by Michel Platini with his nine U17 EURO finals goals.

The Netherlands beat Italy for the second final running to become the first four-time Under-17 EURO champions.

Behavioral economics applies key principles from psychology and economics to address obstacles to behavior change. The important topic of pediatric firearm injuries has not yet been explored through a behavioral economic lens. Pediatric firearm-related injuries are a significant public health problem in the United States. Despite American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines advising that firearms be stored unloaded, in a locked box or with a locking device, and separate from ammunition, estimates suggest that ~4.6 million children live in homes with at least 1 loaded and unlocked firearm. In this article, we use behavioral economic theory to identify specific cognitive biases (ie, present bias; in-group, out-group bias; and the availability heuristic) that may influence parental decision-making around firearm storage. We illustrate situations in which these biases may occur and highlight implementation prompts, in-group messengers, and increased salience as behaviorally informed strategies that may counter these biases and subsequently enhance safe firearm storage. We also describe other opportunities to leverage the behavioral economic tool kit. By better understanding the individual behavioral levers that may impact decision-making around firearm storage, behavioral scientists, pediatric providers, and public health practitioners can partner to design and test tailored interventions aimed at decreasing pediatric firearm injuries. Further empirical study is warranted to identify the presence of specific biases and heuristics and determine the most effective behavior change strategies for different subpopulations.

Source: www.youtube.com - Wednesday, May 06, 2020

Students and faculty members at Penn State Behrend's Black School of Business are contributing to and assessing a financial literacy curriculum that is being taught at nearly 400 high schools in eight states.

The Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, in conjunction with several Penn State colleges, awarded more than $725,000 in seed grants to fund 32 new computational and data sciences projects. The 57 researchers involved in the awards represent 12 Penn State colleges and 31 academic departments.

After months of hard work and preparation, nearly a dozen Penn State Hazleton seniors are now one step closer to graduating after presenting their Capstone Research and Design Thesis projects.

What gets tested gets taught, so performance assessments that measure the competencies that matter can lead to instruction that yields those competencies, argues Ben Kornell of Envision Learning Partners.

The Center on Education Policy has two new reports pinpointing trouble spots in implementation of waiver plans under the No Child Left Behind Act.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has been warning against a GOP NCLB rewrite bill that's slated to pass the House next week.

The forthcoming bullying debate will prompt the first votes on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the right to same-sex marriage.

School superintendents, principals, and school board members found a lot to like in a draft bill to renew the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

A look back at prior attempts to renew the federal law makes one thing clear: We're drifting further and further away from the idea of a strong federal role in K-12 accountability.

The U.S. Department of Education continues to quietly approve and negotiate over states' teacher-evaluation systems as part of its No Child Left Behind Act waiver process.

House leaders may hold off on a final vote on a Republican-backed bill to rewrite the No Child Left Behind law, amid pushback from powerful GOP lobbying groups

Bouillabaisse, cassoulet, truffle omelette: the names of the French dishes alone make your mouth water. What sounds wonderful, also tastes delicious. The best way to see for yourself is to be there yourself – a culinary voyage of discovery through south...

California, which has a mixed history when it comes to evidence-based reading instruction, has a plan to use federal funds for literacy programs that some say are out of sync with the science.

A new research study, released just a few days before the U.S. military killed a top Iranian military commander and escalated international tensions, looked at connections between sudden national security crises and education policymaking in Washington.

A freestyle world champion stars in an incredible keepy-up video across Europe to launch UEFA's #PlayAnywhere campaign, which also features eight top women's players and 13 unique locations.

Ivana Martinčić, once a player in the Croatian women's top division, speaks about her pride at being selected to referee the 2018 Women's U19 EURO final.

Spain retained the Women's U19 title with a 1-0 win against Germany: the story of their victory in Switzerland.

Noise cancellation removes unwanted sounds. The best noise-cancelling headphones let you block out the world around you to enjoy your music...or the sweet sound of silence.

The Ausounds AU-Flex ANC earphones deliver solid noise cancellation and a powerful, sculpted audio experience in a neckband design.

The Marshall Monitor II ANC headphones deliver a solid audio experience and decent noise cancellation, but are priced a bit too high.

France won their fifth title in their record tenth final, beating Germany 2-1 to lift the trophy in Scotland.

The first tickets for the UEFA Women's Champions League final in Vienna on 24 May are now on sale.

Sanaa, Yemen, Mar 24, 2020 / 04:40 pm (CNA).- A Yemeni appeals court run by Houthi rebels on Sunday upheld the death sentence of a member of the Baha'i religion. The court also ordered the dissolution of Baha’i institutions.

Hamed bin Haydara was detained by Houthi rebels in 2013, and was denied access to a March 22 appeal hearing in Sanaa which upheld an earlier death sentence.

“This alarming decision is an egregious violation of religious freedom and the fundamental rights of Yemeni Baha’is,” Gayle Manchin, vice chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, said March 23. “USCIRF has been long concerned with the welfare of Mr. bin Haydara and the Yemeni Baha’i community. We call on Houthi authorities to immediately reverse this verdict and cease their baseless persecution of this peaceful religious minority.”

According to USCIRF, bin Haydara was charged with “with spying for Israel, teaching literacy classes deemed incompatible with Islam, and attempting to convert Muslims.”

The Baha'i International Community said it was "utterly dismayed at this outrageous verdict" and demanded the court reverse the decision, AFP reported.

"At a time when the international community is battling a global health crisis, it is incomprehensible that the authorities in Sanaa have upheld a death sentence against an innocent individual solely because of his beliefs instead of focusing on safeguarding the population, including Baha'is," said Diane Ala'i, a Baha’i representative to the United Nations in Geneva.

According to AFP, the Houthis have sought to ban the Baha’i religion.. The Houthi movement’s courts have started proceedings against 20 members of the religion, six of whom have been detained. The movement controls Sanaa and much of the westernmost part of the country.

In January, Pope Francis told Holy See diplomats that the crisis in Yemen is “one of the most serious humanitarian crises of recent history.”

The civil war between Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and a Saudi Arabian-led coalition has killed over 100,000 people since 2015. According to a Center of Strategic and International Studies report, the war has also caused nearly 24 million people to be in need of humanitarian assistance. 

Restraint on humanitarian organizations and aerial attacks has left 80% of Yemen’s population in need of food, fuel, and medicine, the CSIS Task Force on Humanitarian Access reported.

The Associated Press reported in February that half of the United Nations’ aid delivery programs had been blocked by the Houthi rebels. The rebels had requested that 2% of the humanitarian budget be given directly to them, heightening concerns that the group has been diverting charitable funds to finance the war.

In recent years, the pope has often asked for prayers for the Yemeni people in his public audiences.

“Pray hard, because there are children who are hungry, who are thirsty, who have no medicine, and are in danger of death,” Pope Francis said during an Angelus address in February 2019.

CNA Staff, May 2, 2020 / 04:30 pm (CNA).- A man claiming to have killed the murdered Nigerian seminarian Michael Nnadi has given an interview in which he says he executed the aspiring priest because he would not stop announcing the Christian faith in captivity.

Mustapha Mohammed, who is currently in jail, gave a telephone interview to the Nigerian newspaper Daily Sun on Friday. He took responsibility for the murder, according to the Daily Sun, because Nnadi, 18 years old, “continued preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ” to his captors.

According to the newspaper, Mustapha praised Nnadi’s “outstanding bravery,” and that the seminarian “told him to his face to change his evil ways or perish.”

Nnadi was kidnapped by gunmen from Good Shepherd Seminary in Kaduna on January 8, along with three other students. The seminary, home to some 270 seminarians, is located just off the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria Express Way. According to AFP, the area is “notorious for criminal gangs kidnapping travelers for ransom.”

Mustapha, 26, identified himself as the leader of a 45-member gang that preyed along the highway. He gave the interview from a jail in Abuja, Nigeria, where he is in police custody.

On the evening of the abduction, gunmen, disguised in military camouflage, broke through the fence surrounding the seminarians' living quarters and opened fire. They stole laptops and phones before kidnapping the four young men.

Ten days after the abduction, one of the four seminarians was found on the side of a road, alive but seriously injured. On Jan. 31, an official at Good Shepherd Seminary announced that another two seminarians had been released, but that Nnadi remained missing and was presumed still in captivity.

On Feb. 1, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Diocese of Sokoto, Nigeria, announced that Nnadi had been killed.

“With a very heavy heart, I wish to inform you that our dear son, Michael was murdered by the bandits on a date we cannot confirm,” the bishop said, confirming that the rector of the seminary had identified Nnadi’s body.

The newspaper reported that from “the first day Nnadi was kidnapped alongside three of his other colleagues, he did not allow [Mustapha] to have peace,” because he insisted on announcing the gospel to him.

According to the newspaper, Mustapha “did not like the confidence displayed by the young man and decided to send him to an early grave.”

According to the Daily Sun, Mustapha targeted the seminary knowing it was a center for training priests, and that a gang member who lived nearby had helped conduct surveillance ahead of the attack. Mohammed believed that it would be a profitable target for theft and ransom.

Mohammed also said that the gang used Nnadi’s mobile telephone to issue their ransom demands, asking for more than $250,000, later reduced to $25,000, to secure the release of the three surviving students, Pius Kanwai, 19; Peter Umenukor, 23; and Stephen Amos, 23.

Nnadi’s murder is one of an series of attacks and killings on Christians in the country in recent months.

Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja called on Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari to address the violence and kidnappings in a homily March 1 at a Mass with the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria.

“We need to have access to our leaders; president, vice president. We need to work together to eradicate poverty, killings, bad governance and all sorts of challenges facing us as a nation,” Kaigama said.

In an Ash Wednesday letter to Nigerian Catholics, Archbishop Augustine Obiora Akubeze of Benin City called for Catholics to wear black in solidarity with victims and pray, in response to “repeated” executions of Christians by Boko Haram and “incessant” kidnappings “linked to the same groups.”

Other Christian villages have been attacked, farms set ablaze, vehicles carrying Christians attacked, men and women have been killed and kidnapped, and women have been taken as sex slaves and tortured—a “pattern,” he said, of targeting Christians.

On Feb. 27, U.S Ambassador at Large for Religious Freedom Sam Brownback told CNA that the situation in Nigeria was deteriorating.

“There's a lot of people getting killed in Nigeria, and we're afraid it is going to spread a great deal in that region,” he told CNA. “It is one that's really popped up on my radar screens -- in the last couple of years, but particularly this past year.”

“I think we’ve got to prod the [Nigerian President Muhammadu] Buhari government more. They can do more,” he said. “They’re not bringing these people to justice that are killing religious adherents. They don’t seem to have the sense of urgency to act.”

Intel has released some benchmarks for its next-gen Core i9 'Cascade Lake-X' processors, which will be arriving next month with a big price cut. The company is also slightly dropping prices on Core S-series chips that lack GPUs, and preparing to launch the Xeon W-2200 series.

Chances are good you're running an x64-based operating system, but what does that even mean?

MediaTek announces a competitor to Qualcomm's Snapdragon 765 for sub-$500 5G phones, but its success in the US will depend on whether carriers are okay with dropping millimeter-wave support.

Principals who also teach are a long tradition in a rural Maryland school system, where teachers and school leaders alike attest to the benefits. But some education leadership experts argue the double duty wouldn't work in all schools.

Seven universities are making major changes to how they train future principals, as part of $48.5 million Wallace Foundation initiative to redesign university-based principal-preparation programs, according to a new report from RAND.

Manchester City defeated Liverpool on penalties to set up a semi-final with Barcelona, victors at Atlético Madrid, while Porto beat Tottenham Hotspur and face Chelsea, who won at Real Madrid.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.

To view more press releases, please visit http://ir.wintrust.com/news.aspx?iid=1024452.