With backing of unions, Pennsylvania public universities to slash over 1,500 jobs
The Board of Governors and chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) is moving forward with a restructuring plan that will merge six universities into two. The result will be the slashing of thousands of jobs and the erosion of the quality of education, even as tuition continues to rise.
PASSHE consists of 14 public universities across the state, enrolling over 95,000 students and employing over 11,000 workers and faculty. It ranks 48th in the nation in terms of public expenditure on higher education.
William Pitt Union at the University of Pittsburgh. (Photo: pitt.edu)
Hereâs a look at some of the area commencements and whoâs speaking
By Diana Bravo Globe Correspondent,Updated May 7, 2021, 11:30 a.m.
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A 2021 graduate cheered as he walked through a photo and light tunnel that was part of a graduation procession through Northeastern University s campus on Thursday.Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
With vaccines more widely available and restrictions on outdoor gatherings loosening up, some schools are hosting in-person commencement exercises this spring for the classes of 2020 and 2021, while some have planned online-only ceremonies. Others will strive for the best of both worlds in hybrid ceremonies.
Last modified on Sat 8 May 2021 08.06 EDT
At restaurants across the country â from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Fort Worth, Texas â the same sign is popping up: âWe are short staffed. Please be patient with the staff that did show up. No one wants to work any more.â
The implication is that the federal governmentâs expanded unemployment benefits of $300 each week are keeping people at home instead of behind cash registers and in fast-food kitchens.
Itâs a concern shared by independent business owners in interviews with local and national media, worried that their efforts to bump wages and increase benefits arenât luring in the workers they need as Covid-19 restrictions fall and consumer spending soars.
UMass Amherst team makes cancer ‘research breakthrough’
An exterior view of the Institute for Applied Life Sciences at University of Massachusetts Amherst is shown Oct. 21, 2016. GAZETTE FILE PHOTO
Published: 5/7/2021 5:35:06 PM
AMHERST Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have discovered a mechanism for more effectively delivering medical treatment to specific cells, representing a possible breakthrough in cancer treatment.
The research team at the university’s Center for Bioactive Delivery, based in the Institute for Applied Life Sciences, has managed to engineer a nanoparticle they say could revolutionize the way cancer-fighting drugs are delivered to specific cells. In a study published in the peer-reviewed journal of the German Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie, the scientists explained that the nanoparticle combines two different approaches to delivering treatment to cells.
You would never know how terrible the past year has been for many Americans by looking at Wall Street, which has been going gangbusters since the early days of the pandemic.
“On the streets, there are chants of ‘Stop killing Black people!’ and ‘No justice, no peace!’ Meanwhile, behind a computer, one of the millions of new day traders buys a stock because the chart is quickly moving higher,” wrote Chris Brown, the founder and managing member of the Ohio-based hedge fund Aristides Capital in a letter to investors in June 2020. “The cognitive dissonance is overwhelming at times.”
The market was temporarily shaken in March 2020, as stocks plunged for about a month at the outset of the Covid-19 outbreak, but then something strange happened. Even as hundreds of thousands of lives were lost, millions of people were laid off and businesses shuttered, protests against police violence erupted across the nation in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, and the outgoing preside