Day: November 23, 2018

Audit: Cumberland Elementary PTO President Stole Nearly $18,000

Chris Butler

The former president of Cumberland Elementary School’s Parent Teacher Organization in Nashville stole nearly $18,000 from the school, according to a new audit from the Tennessee Comptrollers’ Office. This year the Davidson County Grand Jury indicted that man, LaRon Bridgeforth, on one count of theft over $10,000, auditors wrote. “The investigation began after the Metro Nashville Public Schools audit department reported questionable transactions in the PTO bank records. After the discovery of these transactions, Cumberland Elementary PTO operations were suspended,” according to a press release from the Comptrollers’ Office. Bridgeforth, auditors went on to say, stole at least $17,724.80 over a two-year period beginning in October 2014. “The majority of the cash ($17,025) was withdrawn from the PTO bank account and kept by Bridgeforth for his personal use. In one instance, he withdrew $1,000 while vacationing with his family in Florida,” the audit said. “Bridgeforth also used nearly $700 of the PTO’s money to purchase at least two gift cards. These gift cards were also used for his personal benefit.” In a statement Tennessee Comptroller Justin Wilson said state law requires school support organizations, such as PTOs, safeguard its finances. “In this situation, more oversight was needed,” Wilson said. “This…

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Despite Rebuke From Chief Justice, Trump Says Judges are Harming National Security

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by Kevin Daley   President Donald Trump defended his criticism of a federal judge who barred enforcement of his new asylum rules Wednesday, after Chief Justice John Roberts issued a statement rebuking the president’s broadsides. In a pair of afternoon tweets from his Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida, Trump said that a series of rulings that stalled his immigration agenda have jeopardized the security of the nation. Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have “Obama judges,” and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country. It would be great if the 9th Circuit was indeed an “independent judiciary,” but if it is why…… — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2018 …..are so many opposing view (on Border and Safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned. Please study the numbers, they are shocking. We need protection and security – these rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2018 Trump’s latest censure arose Tuesday when U.S. District Court Judge Jon Tigar stayed the administration’s new asylum rules, which in effect…

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The Anti-Vaccine Movement is Thriving In Some Counties

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by Peter J. Hotez   As a pediatrician-scientist who develops new vaccines for neglected diseases, I spent most of my career in the Boston-Washington, D.C. corridor. While working in the Northeast, I had heard a few things about the anti-vaccine movement. As both a vaccine scientist and a father of four, including a daughter diagnosed with autism and intellectual disabilities, I followed the emergence of doubt over vaccine safety in the general public. Ultimately, in scientific circles, any debate ended when an overwhelming body of scientific evidence demonstrated there was no association between vaccines and autism. But then, in 2011, I relocated to Houston’s Texas Medical Center. I soon learned that, unlike in the Northeast, where the anti-vaccine movement so far seems restricted to small groups, the Texas anti-vaccine movement is aggressive, well-organized and politically engaged. There are now at least 57,000 Texas schoolchildren being exempted from their vaccines for nonmedical reasons, about a 20-fold rise since 2003. I say “at least” because there is no data on the more than 300,000 homeschooled kids. I’m worried these children, who are mostly concentrated either in the Austin area and towns and cities in north Texas, including Plano and Forth Worth, are…

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Radical Experimental Plane With No Moving Parts Wows Scientists

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Some 115 years after the first powered flight, scientists have developed a radical new approach toward flying in the form of a small, lightweight and virtually noiseless airplane that gets airborne with no moving parts like propellers or turbine blades. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) engineers on Wednesday described successful flight tests at an indoor campus gymnasium of the unmanned airplane powered not by engines that burn fossils fuels but by ion wind propulsion, also called electro-aerodynamic thrust. The aircraft, called Version 2 EAD Airframe, or V2, weighs only 5.4 pounds (2.45 kg) with a wingspan of 16-1/2 feet (5 meters). “This is the first time that an airplane without moving parts has flown,” said MIT aerospace engineer Steven Barrett, who drew inspiration from fictional shuttlecraft from “Star Trek.” Electrical field strength near an array of thin filaments called emitters at the front of the wing ionizes air, meaning electrons are removed and charged molecules called ions are created. These positively charged ions are attracted to negatively charged structures on the plane called collectors. As they move towards the collectors, the ions collide with air molecules, transferring energy to them. This creates a flow of air that gives the plane…

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Two Koreas Connect Road Across DMZ

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North and South Korea have connected a road across their shared border for the first time in 14 years, Seoul’s defense ministry said Thursday in the latest reconciliation gesture between the neighbors. The dirt road, which is wholly within the Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula, will be used for joint operations next year to recover remains from the 1950-53 Korean War. The 12-meter-wide construction of the route in Cheorwon, near the midpoint of the DMZ, is one of several steps agreed to at the Pyongyang summit between the South’s President Moon Jae-in and the North’s leader Kim Jong Un in September. The neighbors also pledged to remove bunkers and weapons from the border truce village of Panmunjom. Different approaches to North Seoul and Washington are pursuing increasingly different approaches to the nuclear-armed North. The dovish Moon has pursued a policy of engagement with his isolated neighbor, while the U.S. insists pressure should be maintained on Pyongyang until it denuclearizes. Pictures handed out by Seoul’s defense ministry Thursday showed a South Korean soldier and a North Korean counterpart taking part in the “recent” roadwork holding their hands out toward each other, with their colleagues watching. “It is historically significant for…

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What is Augmented Reality, Anyway?

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by Maximilian Speicher   Augmented reality systems show virtual objects in the real world – like cat ears and whiskers on a Snapchat selfie, or how well a particular chair might fit in a room. The first big break for AR was the “Pokémon GO” game, released in 2016 with a feature that let players see virtual Pokémon standing in front of them, ready to be captured and played with. Now, technology companies like Microsoft and Mozilla – the company behind the Firefox browser – and even retail businesses like IKEA and Lego are exploring the potential of AR. Where I do research, an AR lab at the University of Michigan School of Information, it seems everyone knows about AR and is excited about the technology becoming popular among the general public. My colleagues and I watch videos of impressive AR demonstrations, try out new applications and play with new devices. The research community’s enthusiasm may be why several experts – including some I talk with – say they expect AR to be commonplace in five years, or envision AR glasses replacing smartphones within a decade. But as an AR researcher with expertise in both industry and academia, I disagree…

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Donald Trump Attire Disrupts Murfreesboro School

Chris Butler

A group of students wearing Donald Trump-inspired clothing at a Murfreesboro high school may have inspired their classmates to make violent threats, but school system officials say the story is untrue. In a Facebook post last week, Siegel High School student Sam Duffield said he and his friends decided to wear Trump flags as a cape as part of something called Matching Day for Senior Week. They did so, Duffield said, to “let everyone know that we love our country.” “We were then threatened by whole groups, called racist, and we never said anything to them. I was threatened to get jumped and spit on and I replied with ‘have a good day’ and another kid walked into our group and screamed ‘F*** Trump!’” Duffield wrote. “Teachers then proceeded to tell us that it’s our fault and that we’re inciting violence. Oh well… god bless the USA and Make America Great Again.” Duffield did not return The Tennessee Star’s requests for comment Monday. Rutherford County School System spokesman James Evans, however, told The Star Duffield’s account was “not an accurate description of what happened,” per Evan’s conversation with the school principal. “That is a gross exaggeration. There were some kids…

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