Kyle Jensen, the director of Arizona State University’s writing programs, is gearing up for the fall semester. Jensen is one of a new breed of faculty who want to embrace generative AI even as they also seek to control its temptations. He believes strongly in the value of traditional writing but also in the potential of AI to facilitate education in a new way—in ASU’s case, one that improves access to higher education. (Bogost, The Atlantic)
Read MoreWhen her parents denied her food and water for eight days, the girl said that she knew she was going to die, just like her two younger siblings. For days, her parents had beaten her when they caught her sipping water or looking for food. Famished and frail, she said they dressed her in special attire worn for death. (Dahir, The New York Times)
Read MoreWitches are having a moment in Ukraine. Both feared and revered, these beings are thought to possess supernatural powers that can be used for good and bad. Over the centuries, witches have been blamed for all kinds of things happening to Ukrainians: droughts, floods, diseases. Now they have taken center stage in a dark musical comedy titled The Witch of Konotop, with performances selling out all summer at the historic Ivan Franko Theater in the capital Kyiv. (Westerman, NPR)
Read MoreHis sudden dismissal in 2021 upended his career as a psychotherapist just as it was about to begin and triggered a three-year legal battle that ended this week when he reached a settlement with the Metanoia Institute, a psychotherapy school in west London. The school admitted that its treatment of him was wrong and apologised. (Whitworth, The Times)
Read MoreThe emergency order allowed rulings by lower courts in Louisiana and Kentucky to remain in effect in about 10 states as litigation moves forward, maintaining a pause on new federal guidelines expanding protections for transgender students that had been enacted in nearly half the country on Aug. 1. The order came in response to a challenge by the Biden administration, which asked the Supreme Court to intervene after a number of Republican-led states sought to overturn the new rules. (VanSickle & Shear, The New York Times)
Read MoreThe University of California at Los Angeles blocked Jewish students from portions of campus when protests erupted in response to the Israel-Hamas War, a district judge has ruled, citing their faith as the sole factor. “Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith,” U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi said in granting a preliminary injunction Aug. 13 in the lawsuit filed by three Jewish students against the school. (Chandler, Baptist Press)
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