.This is the thread for non-political news and events.
German police detain suspect after deadly shooting outside synagogue
Two people were killed in a shooting in the eastern German city of Halle on Wednesday and police said they had detained one person.
Mass-selling daily Bild said the shooting took place in front of a synagogue, and that a hand grenade was also thrown into a Jewish cemetery. An eyewitness told n-tv television that a perpetrator had also fired shots into a kebab shop in Halle.
Lights out: Power cut in California to prevent deadly fires
Hope our Californians are doing OK.
Black student intake at Cambridge University increases by 50% after Stormzy funds scholarship places.
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A few points to take away here: first, Stormzy is obviously awesome.
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Second, he hasn’t sponsored all the 30 extra black students. He has sponsored two (or maybe four, the article is unclear) of them. It appears that the remaining 28 (or 26) additional black students applied for and won “regular” — i.e. open to both black and white — places. Places which have always been open to black students:
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Cambridge said that after Stormzy made his offer in 2018, the university “has seen an increase in the number of black students engage in its outreach activities and enquire about its courses”, leading to increasing numbers of applications.
Courtney Daniella, a Cambridge graduate and YouTube influencer, was also credited with helping encourage more applications, after she appeared in videos designed to challenge misconceptions around studying at the university.
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“The university has worked hard to get the message out that it is a welcoming place for students regardless of their ethnicity. This record rise in the number of black students is a credit to their hard work and ability: we have not lowered entry standards,” said Graham Virgo, the senior pro-vice-chancellor for education.
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Ok, that last quote is clumsily condescending. But what he’s basically saying is that places have *always* been available to black students. It seems that it’s just public perception that it’s *not* inclusive which has kept them away — and so the perception becomes self-fulfilling.
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It needed this combination of better publicity and the positive role model of Stormzy to let black kids know they can do this if they want to. And now it’s started, it should carry on. Black students will still be a minority this year, but every new one will show others that it’s “allowed” for them to apply to Cambridge, so hopefully it should grow naturally from here.
There’s always been an element with these things of people being able to see an opportunity for themselves.
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There’s a great story on Russell T Davies comprehensive school in Swansea in the late 70s and early 80s where a teacher decided they were going to send lots of their kids to Oxbridge. She drove on her own time to give the kids visits to see the universities. Stayed back to teach classes specifically on how to get through the entrance exams and interviews and it worked. They had an incredible record for that time with students being admitted.
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All of what she did though is basically part of the standard setup at a private school where students are expected to apply and get in.
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So it’s not to say prejudice in selection doesn’t exist, there are likely multiple elements at play, but it doesn’t seem to be the element that stopped those kids from Comps getting in before. Once they had been given the expectation to succeed and equal support they did. Of course the problem is that needed one teacher going above and beyond and once she retired it fell back again because the same resources aren’t to drive that expectation as at fee playing schools.
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It’s not exactly the same but you can see the parallels and I agree there’s a very high likelyhood that Stormzy publicising his scholarships means more black kids saw it as a realistic goal for them too.
I don’t know the man’s age; but whether he had sex with two 17-year-old males he met through a gay site, or two 17-year-old girls he met through a hetero site, I agree that his conduct was inappropriate for a man in his position as an authority in a primary school. Not an age thing or a sexual orientation thing; but definitely a “how should a head teacher conduct himself” thing.
Wait, so you’re saying having a threesome with two seventeen-year-olds is now out of bounds for any teacher?!
If it’s a Sun or Daily Mail story then can you give a little summary? I don’t click on anything by those shitrags. 
The whole thing is worth it for headlines like these.
Surely a respectable news outlet would never stoop to such crass commercialism!
Would they?
That’s the only angle that is interesting. I couldn’t give a flying fuck what they do.
Saw a tweet from BBC Radio Wales for opinions on the royal news. I had some pride restored when 90% of the answers were gifs with variations on this:
