The College Board announced it would be dropping its controversial "adversity score" on the SAT college entrance exam that informed schools of the socio-economic background of students taking the test.


Instead of providing a single score that was expected to convey information such as crime rate of students' neighborhoods or poverty levels of their high schools, the College Board will use a new tool called "Landscape," the company announced Tuesday.

"We listened to thoughtful criticism and made Landscape better and more transparent," said David Coleman, CEO of the College Board. "Landscape provides admissions officers more consistent background information so they can fairly consider every student, no matter where they live and learn."

Prior to taking on his post at the College Board, Coleman served as the "architect" of the Common Core State Standards.

The Adversity Score was offered in the midst of the college admissions cheating scandal that has seen prominent parents, including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, involved in a scheme to pay thousands of dollars for their children to gain entrance to elite schools.

Conservatives are digging through reporters' social media histories to find "potentially embarrassing" posts that could be used to discredit their employers, MSM has discovered to its horror - only they are allowed to do that!

"A loose network of conservative operatives" is sifting through journalists' social media histories, looking for inflammatory nuggets that can be used to discredit the organizations they work for, the New York Times warned earlier this week, noting that this band of marauding internet sleuths has already exposed sensitive information about reporters from CNN, the Washington Post, and the Times itself.

Much of it, they claim, "has been professionally harmful to its targets."

Migrants from Africa demanding the right to travel to the US and Canada clashed with Mexican military police after Mexico cracked down on free migration in response to US threats of economic retaliation.

Nationals of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Angola, Senegal, Cameroon, and several other African countries, stuck in southern Mexico after the government clamped down on northward migration in response to US pressure, are protesting for the right to continue their journey. They are demanding travel documents and government support, so that they can enter the US. On Tuesday, their demonstrations turned violent.

Around 25 soldiers of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces were killed Tuesday during a large-scale attack launched by the Houthi rebels in the country's northern province of Saada, a military official told Xinhua.

"The Houthi group set up an ambush for a number of advancing military units of the government forces in Saada's eastern area of Kataf," the military official said on condition of anonymity.

He said the attack left 25 soldiers killed and scores of others injured, adding that the Houthis captured a number of soldiers.

Hadi Tarshan, the governor of Saada, confirmed to Xinhua that intense armed confrontations have been underway near Kataf for the third consecutive day.

It has long been agreed that athletes should not use performance enhancers like steroids. What hasn't been discussed is the similar effect of transgender athletes who, biologically, have the natural equivalent of steroid enhancers without having consumed any drugs.

A recent BBC article, celebrating the accomplishments of Kelly Morgan in the sport of rugby, focuses on the social advances that Ms. Morgan has accomplished and glosses over the question of biological disadvantages she brought to the sport.

Ms. Morgan's history, as described in the article, includes mention of an injury sustained prior to transitioning to the opposite gender. According to the BBC, "injury ended that initial involvement with the sport but, after a decade wrestling with gender identity and transitioning to female, Kelly is back playing — and loving it."

Vulnerable spadefoot tadpoles eat their smaller competitors to speed towards toadhood as quickly as possible. Gulls and pelicans are among bird species that eat hatchlings for food or to prevent the spread of disease. In insect species such as the praying mantis or the Australian redback spider, males offer their bodies as a final gift to females after mating.

It's more common than you'd think in mammals too. Many rodent mothers may eat some of their young if they're sick, dead, or too numerous to feed. Bears and lions kill and eat the offspring of adult females to make them more receptive to mating. Chimpanzees sometimes cannibalise unlucky rivals, usually infants, seemingly for the mere opportunity of some extra protein.

For humans though, cannibalism is the ultimate taboo. In fact, our aversion to cannibalism is so strong that consent and ethics count for little.

In one of our own experiments, participants were asked to consider the hypothetical case of a man who gave permission to his friend to eat parts of him once he died of natural causes.

Participants read that this occurred in a culture that permitted the act, that the act was meant to honour the deceased, and that the flesh was cooked so that there was no chance of disease. Despite this careful description, about half of the participants still insisted that the act was invariably wrong.

Even in the starkest of situations, the act of eating another human's flesh remains almost beyond contemplation. Survivors of the famous 1972 Andes plane crash waited until near starvation before succumbing to reason and eating those who had already died.

One survivor, Roberto Canessa, felt that to eat his fellow passengers would be "stealing their souls" and descending towards "ultimate indignity" - despite recalling that in the aftermath of the crash, he like many others had declared that he would be glad for his body to aid the communal survival mission.

Lebanon has accused Israel of being behind a drone strike on the office of Hezbollah near Beirut on 25 August, followed by another on Palestinian militant positions in eastern Lebanon.

Lebanon's army has opened fire at an Israeli drone in the south of the country, Reuters reported, citing Lebanese security sources.

According to the source, the troops fired shots from M16 assault rifles.

In her new documentary film, Gaza Fights for Freedom, journalist Abby Martin places the Gaza Strip under a microscope for the viewers to see. The result is an excellent movie that is difficult to watch, and disturbing at times, precisely because it presents a true, realistic view of life in Gaza. The movie shows how a small, courageous nation — locked up in the world's largest concentration camp, facing inexcusable, unjustifiable and unforgivable violence — refuses to give up on its hopes and dreams and continues to fight for life.

Nothing left but bones

Heroism and cliches aside, the conditions in the Gaza Strip are horrifying. As one father interviewed in the movie says: "We are alive only by name... Gaza is no longer Gaza; all that is left of it are bones." He may be referring to the distant past when the city of Gaza was one of the most important, prosperous and prestigious cities not only in Palestine but in the entire Middle East.

Perhaps what is most refreshing about Martin's work is that the voices one hears are clear, authentic, Gazan voices. She makes no attempt to create the artificial "balance" one too often has to endure in movies and reports about Palestine in general and Gaza in particular. As though the Israelis who kill and maim and keep 2.2 million civilians caged and under siege in the Gaza Strip have a right to be heard. As though an explanation or justification can be given to the sheer cruelty and brutality exercised by Israel.

The political and cultural upheaval of the last four years has divided the country on ever-hardening partisan and generational lines, but one feeling unites Americans as much as it did before the 2016 election.

They're still angry. And still unsettled about the future.

The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that — despite Americans' overall satisfaction with the state of the U.S. economy and their own personal finances — a majority say they are angry at the nation's political and financial establishment, anxious about its economic future, and pessimistic about the country they're leaving for the next generation.

"Four years ago, we uncovered a deep and boiling anger across the country engulfing our political system," said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, which conducted this survey in partnership with the Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies. "Four years later, with a very different political leader in place, that anger remains at the same level."

The poll finds that 70 percent of Americans say they feel angry "because our political system seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power, like those on Wall Street or in Washington." Forty-three percent say that statement describes them "very well."

Russia estimates that some 3,000 individuals with links to the Daesh terror group and its affiliates still remain in Syria, but there are other terrorist groups operating in the country, Russia's Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Gennady Kuzmin said on Tuesday.

"Presently, the overall number of Islamic State[Daesh] members and their affiliates in Syria amounts to approximately 3,000 people", Kuzmin told a UN Security Council meeting. "Furthermore in Syria, there is a multitude of other terrorist groups that are present, the most combat-ready of which is still Jabhat al Nusra".

Kuzmin said that the ground in Syria remains fertile for further destabilization an announcement of a coalition draw-down.