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Children of the wealthy and connected get special admissions consideration at some elite U.S. universities, according to new filings in a class-action lawsuit originally brought against 17 schools. Georgetown’s then-president, for example, listed a prospective student on his “president’s list” after meeting her and her wealthy father at an Idaho conference known as “summer camp for billionaires,” according to Tuesday court filings in the price-fixing lawsuit filed in Chicago federal court in 2022. Although it’s always been assumed that such favoritism exists, the filings offer a rare peek at the often secret deliberations of university heads and admissions officials. They show how schools admit otherwise unqualified wealthy children because their parents have connections and could possibly donate large sums down the line, raising questions about fairness. Stuart Schmill, the dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote in a 2018 email that the university admitted four out of six applicants recommended by then-board chairman Robert Millard, including two who “we would really not have otherwise admitted.” The two others were not admitted because they were “not in the ball park, or the push from him was not as strong.” In the email, Schmill said Millard was careful to play down his influence on admissions decisions, but he said the chair also sent notes on all six students and later met with Schmill to share insight “into who he thought was more of a priority.” The filings are the latest salvo in a lawsuit that claims that 17 of the nation’s most prestigious colleges colluded to reduce the competition for prospective students and drive down the amount of financial aid they would offer, all while giving special preference to the children of wealthy donors. “That illegal collusion resulted in the defendants providing far less aid to students than would have been provided in a free market,” said Robert Gilbert, an attorney for the plaintiffs. Since the lawsuit was filed, 10 of the schools have reached settlements to pay out a total of $284 million, including payments of up to $2,000 to current or former students whose financial aid might have been shortchanged over a period of more than two decades. They are Brown, the University of Chicago, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt and Yale. Johns Hopkins is working on a settlement and the six schools still fighting the lawsuit are the California Institute of Technology, Cornell, Georgetown, MIT, Notre Dame and the University of Pennsylvania. MIT called the lawsuit and the claims about admissions favoritism baseless. “MIT has no history of wealth favoritism in its admissions; quite the opposite,” university spokesperson Kimberly Allen said. “After years of discovery in which millions of documents were produced that provide an overwhelming record of independence in our admissions process, plaintiffs could cite just a single instance in which the recommendation of a board member helped sway the decisions for two undergraduate applicants." In a statement, Penn also said the case is meritless that the evidence shows that it doesn't favor students whose families have donated or pledged money to the Ivy League school. “Plaintiffs’ whole case is an attempt to embarrass the University about its purported admission practices on issues totally unrelated to this case," the school said. Notre Dame officials also called the case baseless. “We are confident that every student admitted to Notre Dame is fully qualified and ready to succeed,” a university spokesperson said in a statement. The South Bend, Indiana, school, though, did apparently admit wealthy students with subpar academic backgrounds. According to the new court filings, Don Bishop, who was then associate vice president for enrollment at Notre Dame, bluntly wrote about the “special interest” admits in a 2012 email, saying that year's crop had poorer academic records than the previous year's. The 2012 group included 38 applicants who were given a “very low” academic rating, Bishop wrote. He said those students represented “massive allowances to the power of the family connections and funding history,” adding that “we allowed their high gifting or potential gifting to influence our choices more this year than last year.” The final line of his email: “Sure hope the wealthy next year raise a few more smart kids!” Some of the examples pointed to in this week's court filings showed that just being able to pay full tuition would give students an advantage. During a deposition, a former Vanderbilt admissions director said that in some cases, a student would get an edge on the waitlist if they didn’t need financial aid. The 17 schools were part of a decades-old group that got permission from Congress to come up with a shared approach to awarding financial aid. Such an arrangement might otherwise violate antitrust laws, but Congress allowed it as long as the colleges all had need-blind admissions policies, meaning they wouldn't consider a student’s financial situation when deciding who gets in. The lawsuit argues that many colleges claimed to be need-blind but routinely favored the children of alumni and donors. In doing so, the suit says, the colleges violated the Congressional exemption and tainted the entire organization. The group dissolved in recent years when the provision allowing the collaboration expired. The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org .818jl casino real money 。

Fans of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy novels have long, long, long, awaited the planned sixth entry in the series, The Winds of Winter. But after more than a decade of delays, even Martin is acknowledging the possibility that it may never come to be. “Unfortunately, I am 13 years late,” he told the outlet. “Every time I say that, I’m [like], ‘How could I be 13 years late?’ I don’t know, it happens a day at a time.” “But that’s still a priority," he continued. "A lot of people are already writing obituaries for me. [They’re saying] ‘Oh, he’ll never be finished.’ Maybe they’re right. I don’t know. I’m alive right now! I seem pretty vital!” It's only the latest in what's been an increasingly bleak wait for The Winds of Winter, with the most recent entry in the series, A Dance With Dragons, publishing in 2011. That's the same year that HBO premiered the insanely popular TV series Game of Thrones, which is based on the A Song of Ice and Fire series and drew a lot more eyes to the world of Westeros. Martin made the reveal in November 2023 that he's written 1,100 pages of The Winds of Winter, which wouldn't be so disappointing if it weren't the same number of pages he had written a year prior. Before that, in 2022 , he said he was "about three-quarters of the way done," and that the book would likely be more than 1,500 pages. Most recently, this past September, Martin admitted that he hadn't made as much progress as he would've liked to, as his various TV shows "ate up" much of his time. It's also worth mentioning that The Winds of Winter isn't even set to be the final book in A Song of Ice and Fire. A seventh novel, A Dream of Spring, was set to close out the series, although many fans have all but given up hope for that . ( Note : The THR article calls The Winds of Winter the "sixth and final book" in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, but we're assuming that's just a mistake; Martin's never formally canceled A Dream of Spring publicly). Still, in a glimmer of hope, Martin did note in the interview that he could never retire, as he's "not a golfer." So hey, there's that! Even if we never get The Winds of Winter, there's plenty happening in Westeros on the TV side. House of the Dragon is still on track for four seasons , with the third expected to start production early next year. Another spinoff, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, is set to arrive sometime in late 2025 , and there's even been early talk of a Game of Thrones movie . Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.Police release new photos as they search for the gunman who killed UnitedHealthcare CEO

As many companies are cutting back or ending diversity initiatives, Costco's Board of Trustees is pushing back on efforts to end the company's DEI programs. The Board urged its shareholders to vote against a proposal submitted by the National Center for Public Policy Research that called on Costco to eliminate DEI programs. The group claims that DEI programs are discriminatory and put the company at financial risk. "It's clear that DEI holds litigation, reputational and financial risks to the Company, and therefore financial risks to shareholders," the National Center for Public Policy Research wrote in its letter of support. RELATED STORY | US companies are rolling back DEI programs to critics' praise, but consumers don't agree, data shows In response, Costco's Board of Trustees voted unanimously to urge shareholders to decline the proposal. Shareholders will have their say on Jan. 23. "Our success at Costco Wholesale has been built on service to our critical stakeholders: employees, members, and suppliers," the Board wrote in response to the proposal. "Our efforts around diversity, equity and inclusion follow our code of ethics: For our employees, these efforts are built around inclusion – having all of our employees feel valued and respected. Our efforts at diversity, equity and inclusion remind and reinforce with everyone at our Company the importance of creating opportunities for all. "We believe that these efforts enhance our capacity to attract and retain employees who will help our business succeed. This capacity is critical because we owe our success to our now over 300,000 employees around the globe." The National Center for Public Policy Search said the Supreme Court decision reached in 2023 in SFFA v. Harvard indicated that companies' DEI programs could potentially be illegal. The Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action policies by colleges violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. RELATED STORY | Costco memberships grow despite price increase as profits surge Costco's Board countered that the group was incorrect on its belief that the company's DEI policies violate the law. "We believe that our diversity, equity and inclusion efforts are legally appropriate, and nothing in the proposal demonstrates otherwise. As part of our obeying the law, all decisions regarding recruiting, hiring, promotion, assignment, training, termination, and other terms and conditions of employment will be made without unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, age, pregnancy disability, work-related injury, covered military or veteran status, political ideology or expression, genetic information, marital status, or other protected status," Costco's Board said in response.CORVALLIS, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec 26, 2024-- NuScale Power Corporation (NuScale or the Company) (NYSE: SMR), the industry-leading provider of proprietary and innovative advanced small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear technology, today announced the appointment of Diana J. Walters to its Board of Directors, effective December 20, 2024. With the appointment of Walters, the Board comprises 10 directors, six of whom are independent. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241218569078/en/ Diana J. Walters (Photo: Business Wire) Walters brings more than 35 years of leadership experience in the natural resources sector. She has held prominent roles, including serving as President of Liberty Metals and Mining LLC, CFO of Tatham Offshore, Inc., as well as numerous roles in the investment banking, capital markets, and advisory sectors. Walters currently serves on the boards of Atmos Energy, Trilogy Metals Inc., and Platinum Group Metals Limited, where she is Chair. She also serves as a Senior Advisor at Independence Point Advisors. “We are thrilled to welcome Diana Walters to NuScale’s Board of Directors,” said John Hopkins, President and Chief Executive Officer of NuScale Power. “Diana’s financial acumen and natural resources experience will support continued strong stewardship of NuScale as we work towards advancing the commercial deployment of NuScale’s NRC-approved SMR technology.” Walters received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Plan II Honors and a Master of Arts degree in Energy and Mineral Resources from The University of Texas at Austin. About NuScale Power Founded in 2007, NuScale Power Corporation (NYSE: SMR) is the industry-leading provider of proprietary and innovative advanced small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear technology, with a mission to help power the global energy transition by delivering safe, scalable, and reliable carbon-free energy. The Company’s groundbreaking SMR technology is powered by the NuScale Power ModuleTM, a small, safe, pressurized water reactor that can each generate 77 megawatts of electricity (MWe) or 250 megawatts thermal (gross), and can be scaled to meet customer needs through an array of flexible configurations up to 924 MWe (12 modules) of output. As the first and only SMR to have its design certified by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NuScale is well-positioned to serve diverse customers across the world by supplying nuclear energy for electrical generation, data centers, district heating, desalination, commercial-scale hydrogen production, and other process heat applications. View source version on businesswire.com : https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241218569078/en/ CONTACT: Media contact Chuck Goodnight Vice President, Business Development media@nuscalepower.comInvestor contact Scott Kozak Director, Investor Relations ir@nuscalepower.com KEYWORD: OREGON UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA INDUSTRY KEYWORD: NUCLEAR ENERGY GREEN TECHNOLOGY ENVIRONMENT SOURCE: NuScale Power Copyright Business Wire 2024. PUB: 12/26/2024 04:25 PM/DISC: 12/26/2024 04:23 PM http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241218569078/en

Canine-friendly bar Bark Social in Manayunk closed abruptly Thursday after the business declared bankruptcy, leaving dogs with one fewer social spot in Philly. The company explained in an Instagram post that its demise is the result of financing it had expected not materializing . The Manayunk bar, opened in April 2023 along the Schuylkill River next to Regal UA movie theater in the shopping center at 3720 Main St. It was one of five Bark Social locations. Others were in Baltimore and suburban Maryland and Washington, D.C. A sixth location had been planned to open in Los Angeles in 2025. "We know this is abrupt, but as a small start-up, Bark Social relies on investors to fuel its growth," the Instagram post states. The company also said it wanted to "do right by its team members." Fast Company reported Friday that Bark Social's employees were not offered severances . The company also will not be offering refunds to dog owners who had bought memberships to the bar, and Bark Social's director of marketing, Chris Rubacha, suggested members contact their banks to "inquire about chargebacks." Basic memberships for dog owners ranged from $50 per month and to $365 a year, and a premium membership, with additional perks, cost as much as $1,000 per year. The online calendar for the Manayunk Bark Social showed a comedy show, White Claw tasting and pet portraits had been scheduled to take place Friday. The location had indoor and outdoor spaces for guests and their pets. Bark Social also offered daycare services for dogs.Experts have emphasised the use of modern technology and skills to increase agricultural productivity in the country. Speaking on the Farmer's Day in a broadcast with Express News anchorperson Syed Muzammil Shah, they also highlighted that balanced use of fertilizers can significantly enhance crop yields. The agricultural experts called for a systematic framework involving the government, farmers and other stakeholders to determine support prices for crops. Syed Muzammil Shah said that in 2019, on the suggestion of Fatima Fertilizer, the federal government had decided to designate December 18 for farmers. Fatima Fertilizer Marketing and Sales Director Rabail Sadozai said that till the previous year, the agriculture sector's contribution in the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 24 per cent, which depicted that Rs25 trillion annually was being received from it. Apart from this, 38% of the rural population gets employment from this sector. She went on to say that 65% of the total exports were from agriculture and related products. "When we look at these statistics, it is clear how much significance this sector has in the country's economy, but when we look at the other side, whether these things are discussed, whether they are given importance, then we see a little gap here," she added. Naseerullah Khan, the Technical Service Manager of Fatima Fertilizer, said the purpose of celebrating the day was to acknowledge the efforts and contribution of farmers to the country's economy and food security. He added that the 8.2 million farmers take care of their crops and livestock so that they can secure their investment and ensure food security. Rabail Sadozai said water scarcity was a big issue at this point of time but no policy was being implemented in this regard yet. Regarding climate change, she said there had been more rainfall, the intensity of heat and cold had increased, which affected crops, but no research had been done in this regard apart from much needed research on seeds either. She said the determination of commodity prices affected farmers a lot but an organised structure in this regard was lacking. She stressed that the government, farmers and other stakeholders needed to sit together and decide on a method in this regard. Answering a question, she said 50% of workers in rural agricultural areas were women, with approximately 22 million women engaged in the sector. Many of them independently manage their farms. Integrating these women into broader agricultural networks is crucial for their personal development and for Pakistan's overall prosperity and progress, she added. Addressing a question on the significance of technology in agriculture, Naseerullah Khan stated that technology is now integral to every sector. He said agriculture's contribution to the GDP could easily be increased by 30 to 40%. COMMENTS Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive. For more information, please see ourLEE Mack's The 1% Club has returned for a festive special, with Christmas themed questions already catching out contestants. The ITV show sees contestants faced with questions designed to test how their brain works, rather than their intelligence level. They have to use their logic, reasoning and common sense as they are whittled down to one final question that only 1% of the country can answer correctly. This is all in an effort to try and take home the jackpot prize of up to £100,000. This year's Christmas special featured festive themed questions, but it wasn't long before those trying to win the money were stumped. With the second question focusing on a Christmas 'spot the difference', viewers at home were left stunned to find that 28 contestants had failed to get the answer right. More on The 1% Club The question pictured a festive scene where contestants had to spot what was differing between the two, with the answer being a missing pair of Santa's legs. Taking to X, one viewer wrote: " 28 people getting the second question wrong!" Another shared: "28 people. Wow". "What on earth were those 28 people looking at?" asked another baffled viewer. Most read in News TV This wasn't the only question that viewers at home were shocked to see the contestants struggling with, as some questioned whether the Christmas special quiz had been made 'easier'. One viewer shared on social media: "these questions are exceptionally easy . how anyone’s getting them wrong i’ll never know." Another simply put: "Too easy." The festive special sees comedian Lee Mack back at the helm of the quiz show, which won Best Quiz Game Show for the third year in a row at the NTA Awards. The series has also been recommissioned for a fifth series , with ITV bringing back the show for this festive special and also a charity one for Soccer Aid . A source previously told us: "The show has well and truly proved its popularity with viewers, and so it’s only natural to bring it back for not one, but two more rounds. "This will also include two Christmas specials, which will air on ITV after the main series have run." Previous episodes of The 1% Club are available on ITVX .Probe into harassment claims about Netanyahu's wife

All the fun and drama you could possibly need for a new children's classic. There's a scene in Jeff Fowler's Sonic the Hedgehog 3 where the rising sun washes over its conflicted villain, the Keanu Reeves-voiced Shadow the Hedgehog, recalling an earlier moment of Shadow sitting under the stars with his now long-dead best friend, a young girl named Maria (a mischievous Alyla Browne), whose demise has driven him to anger. It's tragic, wistful, and moving, and just typing this out makes me feel like I'm losing my mind. The video game-based live action hybrid isn't just good, it may very well be great. You could mention it in the same breath as recent animated works like Flow and The Wild Robot — fun and touching action-dramas that could become classics in time — and it wouldn't feel out of place. There's no getting around how limp and lifeless those first two Sonic movies are — works that take for granted that featuring a familiar character is effort enough. That's all some viewers need: babies, and adults who act like them, and if that sounds bitter and condescending, it's only because I was on the receiving end of online threats and a doxing bounty for not liking the last one of these. What a relief, then, that Sonic the Hedgehog 3 not only works like a charm, but overcomes nearly every flaw of its predecessors, and often tackles them head-on. Things kick off inside a prison facility off the coast of Japan. Its name is delightfully silly: Prison Island, overseen by a donut-munching Jorma Taccone. Shadow, a black-furred hedgehog with red streaks, has been kept in stasis for 50 years, floating in a liquid tank under armed guard, but something, or someone, has suddenly awoken him. He breaks out, kicks the asses of about 30 SWAT members (with powers that resemble teleportation) and heads for Tokyo, where he realizes how much time has passed. The rain pours down on the scowling creature, his soaking fur — a tough thing to animate — awash in the deep purples and neons of light-up billboards all around him, in a scene distinctly reminiscent of the John Wick movies. "I've been asleep for 50 years?" Reeves rasps, completing the comparison. There isn't a beat out of place in this dramatic prologue, which is itself a whiplash-inducing notion, given the plainness and broad comedy of the previous entries. It's fitting, then, that in order to aid our transition to the threequel, the very next scene takes us back to rural Montana, where much of the series has unfolded. Here, the found family trio of Sonic (Ben Schwartz), Tails the Fox (Colleen O'Shaughnessey), and Knuckles the warrior echidna (Idris Elba) engage in sibling roughhousing (really, rough-racing) and some aw-shucks banter with their adoptive parents, the good-natured Tom and Maddie Wachowski (James Marsden and Tika Sumpter). It would perhaps be giving the filmmakers too much credit to say the dull color palette of this setting — which carries over from Sonic s 1 and 2 — is owed to some genius meta-commentary, but that it's slowly replaced by more vibrancy as the film proceeds (in the characters' fur especially) is at least worth noting. A key issue with the previous Sonic films is that Sonic himself was never really well-defined beyond quips and catchphrases, but the movie kick-starts an intriguing emotional journey when he and Tom discuss the alien planet from which he hails, and whether his long, lost adoptive mother, the wise owl Longclaw, would be proud of the blue speedster. The doe-eyed Marsden reminds him, as any good kids' movie parent should, that he's defined by his choices. As the family sits around a campfire, tech-wiz Tails roasts his marshmallow to perfection with a blowtorch, while Knuckles, the brutish lunk, burns his to a crisp — comic beats that broadly define each hero — but Sonic sulks in silence. Like the series thus far, he doesn't seem to know who he is either. The furry trio is tested in more ways than one by Shadow. It isn't long before the furry trio is called up by the military organization G.U.N. (Guardian Units of Nations) to help track down and subdue Shadow in Japan, a battle that tests their mettle as a team, but leaves them in the dirt. What becomes immediately clear is that Shadow is quite possibly one of the coolest characters in recent children's cinema, not just because of his intense brooding — he's moody and adolescent on the surface, but reveals meaningful depth — but because he's so much goddamn fun to watch. The way he's animated and lit (sometime with flame) makes him feel like a living, breathing part of the environment, and he can also extend his abilities to objects by electrifying them, resulting in Sonic having to chase him down on a super-swift bike that Shadow Akira -slides up the side of a building. Tom Cruise, eat your heart out (though not before you admire the movie's many Mission: Impossible homages in its heist-heavy final act). The movie's visual references to other works (like Tron: Legacy ) help move it quickly along. It seldom slows down, even as it spends much of its first hour introducing and re-introducing characters ad nauseam. Jim Carrey's scheming Dr. Ivo Robotnik is back, as is his lovelorn henchman Agent Stone (Lee Majdoub), whose crush on Robotnik is played much more meaningfully than a fleeting gag. In fact, it's the center of its own subplot that ties into the movie's larger themes, which slowly come to light when Robotnik is forced to team up with Sonic & co. to find out who's been using the mad doctor's technology to free Shadow and wreak havoc on G.U.N. The real culprit turns out to be Robotnik's long lost grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, who's also played by Carrey, offering the '90s comedy mainstay the chance to let loose as his silliest, rubber-face-iest self. Gerland, it turns out, has a history with Shadow that's slowly revealed over the course of the film, via flashbacks filled with surprising drama. The villainous hedgehog was once an experiment, and teetered on the edge of becoming a monster, but it was Maria's kindness that made him feel at home, even if temporarily. But something went wrong. Maria is dead, and Shadow blames not only G.U.N., but the world at large, yielding an uncontainable anger born from a loveless void. Perhaps it's passé to say that "love is the answer" — then again, the Interstellar re-release did just rake in the big bucks — but it's a fitting theme for a film like this one, where the leading trio are essentially stuffed animals in motion, who sing the praises of teamwork. The notion emanates outward. Stone, though he helps Robotnik, finds himself constantly rejected — a story told through delightful use of blocking and performance — while Robotnik fills his own lifelong void by teaming up with his manipulative grandfather, for some Ocean's 12 -inspired heist shenanigans. How does Sonic fit into all this? Atop it all is the question of how Sonic fits into all this, despite the film and the series bearing his name. It's a conundrum, because he really is an awkward fit for such an otherwise sincere movie. When his teammates make jokes emanating from character traits (like Knuckles' literal-mindedness), Sonic tends to add noise with quips that re-explain the gags in question. It's not quite an intentional look at the character's tone, but even as a failure to fully integrate him into his own movie at first, it paves the path for a genuinely meaningful story. What separates Sonic and Shadow, two aliens who made Earth their home, is that one found a new family, while the other — though he also did at first — was left only with pain. But what happens when Sonic is forced to make major decisions after being shouldered with a similar emotional burden? The last two films were mostly fluff, to the point of introducing concepts like "chaos emeralds" and Sonic's super-charged "golden god" mode without imbuing them with meaning. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 , on the other hand, re-fashions the series' previous ideas, through the lens of rigorous emotional dilemmas — even Shadow's powers seem connected to his rage — super-charging all the action in the process, while still making enough room for some goofy antics. Few recent studio films occupying this children’s video game niche have been led by this much heart and pathos. It's hard not to be swept up in the emotions of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 , and ever harder not to give yourself over to its thrilling childlike glee. Video Games Movies Science Fiction