Author: Reporter

Move over “Dick and Jane.” A different approach to teaching kids how to read is on the rise. For decades, two schools of thought have clashed on how to best teach children to read, with passionate backers on each side of the so-called reading wars. The battle has reached into homes via commercials for Hooked on Phonics materials and through shoebox dioramas assigned by teachers seeking to instill a love of literature. But momentum has shifted lately in favor of the “science of reading.” The term refers to decades of research in fields including brain science that point to...

David Daniel knows his son needs help. The 8-year-old spent first grade in remote learning and several weeks of second grade in quarantine. The best way to catch him up, research suggests, is to tutor him several times a week during school. But his Indianapolis school offers Saturday or after-school tutoring — programs that do not work for Daniel, a single father. The upshot is his son, now in third grade, isn’t getting the tutoring he needs. “I want him to have the help,” Daniel said. Without it, “next year is going to be really hard on him.” As...

U.S. deaths fell last year, and COVID-19 dropped to the nation’s No. 4 cause, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in May. COVID-19 deaths trailed those caused by heart disease, cancer and injuries such as drug overdoses, motor vehicle fatalities and shootings. In 2020 and 2021, only heart disease and cancer were ahead of the coronavirus. U.S. deaths usually rise year-to-year, in part because the nation’s population has been growing. The pandemic accelerated that trend, making 2021 the deadliest in U.S. history, with more than 3.4 million deaths. But 2022 saw the first drop in deaths since...

For the first time, the United Nations will officially commemorate the flight of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from what is now Israel on the 75th anniversary of their exodus, an action stemming from the U.N.’s partition of British-ruled Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is headlining the U.N. commemoration on May 15 of what Palestinians call the “Nakba” or “catastrophe.” Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, called the U.N. observance “historic” and significant because the General Assembly played a key role in the partition of Palestine. “It’s acknowledging the responsibility of the U.N....

Hollywood writers picketing to preserve pay and job security outside major studios and streamers braced for a long fight at the outset of a strike that immediately forced late-night shows into hiatus, put other productions on pause and had the entire industry slowing its roll. The first Hollywood strike in 15 years commenced on May 2 as the 11,500 members of the Writers Guild of America stopped working when their contract expired. The union is seeking higher minimum pay, more writers per show and less exclusivity on single projects, among other demands — all conditions it says have been...