Author: Reporter

The country’s largest Christian university was fined $37.7 million by the federal government amid accusations that it misled students about the cost of its graduate programs. Grand Canyon University, which has more than 100,000 students, mostly in online programs, faces the largest fine of its kind ever issued by the U.S. Education Department. The university dismissed the allegations as “lies and deceptive statements.” An Education Department investigation found that Grand Canyon lied to more than 7,500 current and former students about the cost of its doctoral programs. As far back as 2017, the university told students its doctoral programs...

Storms, floods, fires and other extreme weather events led to more than 43 million displacements involving children between 2016 and 2021, according to a United Nations report. More than 113 million displacements of children will occur in the next three decades, estimated the UNICEF report released on October 6, which took into account risks from flooding rivers, cyclonic winds and floods that follow a storm. Some children, like 10-year-old Shukri Mohamed Ibrahim, are already on the move. Her family left their home in Somalia after dawn prayers on a Saturday morning five months ago. The worst drought in more...

Earth is exceeding its “safe operating space for humanity” in six of nine key measurements of its health, and two of the remaining three are headed in the wrong direction, a new study said. Earth’s climate, biodiversity, land, freshwater, nutrient pollution and “novel” chemicals (human-made compounds like microplastics and nuclear waste) are all out of whack, a group of international scientists said in September’s journal Science Advances. Only the acidity of the oceans, the health of the air and the ozone layer are within the boundaries considered safe, and both ocean and air pollution are heading in the wrong...

Community leaders along the Mississippi River worried that dry southwestern states will someday try to take the river’s water may soon take their first step toward blocking such a diversion. Mayors from cities along the river are expected to vote on whether to support a new compact among the river’s 10 states at this week’s annual meeting of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative, according to its executive director Colin Wellenkamp. Supporters of a compact hope it will strengthen the region’s collective power around shared goals like stopping water from leaving the corridor. “It is the most important...

A mass deportation operation. A new Muslim ban. Tariffs on all imported goods and “freedom cities” built on federal land. Much of the 2024 presidential campaign has been dominated by the myriad investigations into former President Donald Trump and the subsequent charges against him. But with less than a year until Election Day, Trump is dominating the race for the Republican nomination and has already laid out a sweeping set of policy goals should he win a second term. His ideas, and even the issues he focuses on most, are wildly different from President Joe Biden’s proposals. If implemented,...

After Ohio Republicans bolstered their statehouse majority in 2022 due to their dominating showing in the midterm elections, they split into rival camps over who should lead the lower chamber. The division between younger, more impatient conservatives and more traditional ones was only settled when Democrats crossed party lines to end a standoff over who would become speaker of the Ohio House. Since then, despite their power over all levels of state government, Ohio Republicans have been convulsed by infighting as party leaders censured everyone who had voted for their new speaker, Republican Jason Stephens. Amid the divisions, the...