Author: KnowledgeHippo

Next week, National Football League players, coaches, fans and executives will gather for an event that was almost unthinkable just 10 years ago: the Super Bowl in Las Vegas, the gambling capital of the United States.Since the Supreme Court struck down in 2018 a federal law that effectively banned sports betting outside of Nevada — a ban once championed by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell — the NFL has embraced the gambling industry. It has forged partnerships worth nearly $1 billion in five years with sports betting companies and allowed a sports book to operate at one of its stadiums. It…

But Mr. Moussa focused on one number: 3,892. This was his place on a waiting list of food vendors in New York.Like thousands of mobile food vendors in the city, Mr Moussa cannot get a license for his cart, Piata Halal. A long-standing cap limited the number of permits to 5,100, before the 2021 law began allowing 445 new permits per year for a decade. So far, the city has issued 71 new permits.Nearly 9,500 people were on waiting lists in January, according to the city’s health department. A spokesman said it had issued 1,074 applications – a prerequisite for…

But Mr. Moussa focused on one number: 3,892. This was his place on a waiting list of food vendors in New York.Like thousands of mobile food vendors in the city, Mr Moussa cannot get a license for his cart, Piata Halal. A long-standing cap limited the number of permits to 5,100, before the 2021 law began allowing 445 new permits per year for a decade. So far, the city has issued 71 new permits.Nearly 9,500 people were on waiting lists in January, according to the city’s health department. A spokesman said it had issued 1,074 applications – a prerequisite for…

Jerome H. Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, made it clear during a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday night that the central bank is moving to cut interest rates as inflation eases, but that policymakers should to see continued progress towards lower prices rising to make the first move.Mr. Powell was interviewed on Thursday, after the Fed’s meeting last week but ahead of Friday’s jobs report. He reiterated his message that lower borrowing costs are coming. But he also said the Fed’s next meeting in March is probably too early for policymakers to feel confident enough that inflation is…

In a report to a congressional committee released Friday, Harvard provided the most detailed account yet of its handling of plagiarism allegations against Claudine Gay, who resigned this month as the university’s president.The basic outlines of the saga were known, but Harvard had not released many details, which had led to questions about the impartiality and rigor of its investigation.In its account, Harvard defended the thoroughness of the plagiarism review. He said an outside panel had found that Dr. Gay was “sophisticated and original,” with “almost no indication of a deliberate claim of findings” that were not her own, even…

Astrid Delgado first wrote her college application essay about a death in her family. She then reshaped it around a Spanish book she read as a way to connect with her Dominican heritage. Deshayne Curley wanted to leave his Native ancestry out of his essay. But he reworked it to focus on an heirloom necklace that reminded him of his home on the Navajo reservation. Jyel Hollingsworth’s first draft of her essay explored her love of chess. The finale focused on the prejudice between her Korean and Black American families and the economic hardships she overcame. All three students said…

A Harvard task force on anti-Semitism got off to a rocky start, with complaints that the professor it chose to help the committee had signed a letter critical of Israel, describing it as an “apartheid regime” for its treatment of Palestinians.Harvard’s new interim president, Alan Garber, announced the creation of two “presidential task forces” on Friday, one to combat anti-Semitism and the other to combat Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias. The move came less than a month after his predecessor, Claudine Gay, was forced to resign amid accusations of plagiarism and criticism that she was weak in reining in anti-Semitism.But the…

For nearly a quarter century, a group of the nation’s most elite universities had a legal shield: They would be exempt from federal antitrust laws when they handed out formulas to measure the financial need of prospective students.But the provision included a critical requirement: that the partner universities’ admissions processes be “need-blind,” meaning they could not factor in whether a prospective student was wealthy enough to pay.A court filing Tuesday night revealed that five of those universities — Brown, Columbia, Duke, Emory and Yale — collectively agreed to pay $104.5 million to settle a lawsuit that accused them of, in…

Students can no longer take sociology to fulfill their core course requirements, Florida’s state university system decided Wednesday. Instead, his board approved “a lesson in historical reality” as a replacement.The 17-member board’s decision came after fierce opposition from sociology professors in the university system, which includes the University of Florida and Florida State.And it’s the latest move by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration to challenge the education establishment, and what the governor has portrayed as its liberal orthodoxy. Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, had tried to leverage his educational background in his failed presidential campaign.In a brief announcement Wednesday, Chancellor Ray Rodrigues…

The number of reported hate crimes at schools and colleges nearly doubled between 2018 and 2022, according to data released Monday by the FBIAbout 1,300 hate crimes were reported in elementary schools, secondary schools and colleges in 2022, up from 700 in 2018 — an increase of about 90 percent, according to the report, the first on the subject to be issued by the federal government.Black Americans were the most frequent victims, with a total of 1,690 hate crimes reported against them over the five-year period, followed by LGBTQ people with 900 offenses. Jewish Americans were third, with 745 reported…