Serving the UMN community since 1900

The Minnesota Daily

Serving the UMN community since 1900

The Minnesota Daily

Serving the UMN community since 1900

The Minnesota Daily

Daily Email Edition

Get MN Daily NEWS delivered to your inbox Monday through Friday!

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Daily Digest: U.N. inspectors invited to Iran, obesity research and UW Regents sued

The New York Times reports that Iran has extended an invitation to United Nations inspectors for a three-day visit in an attempt to cool tensions over Tehran’s burgeoning nuclear program.

Though the country claims the nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, Western leaders fear they could be developing nuclear weapons.

Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, told a state-run satellite broadcaster that Iranian scientists would install “their first locally produced fuel plates enriched to 20 percent purity to refuel a research reactor in Tehran.”

“Iran says it needs fuel enriched to that level to produce medical isotopes for the treatment of some 800,000 patients. But Western specialists say that because of the oddities of how uranium is enriched, those batches would be the easiest to convert for use in weapons.”

Researchers across the nation are exploring the paradoxical relationship between hunger and obesity. MPR News reports that obesity and food insecurity — “inconsistent access to enough healthy food — coexist only in women.”

A recent study from the University of Minnesota found that parents who struggle to get enough food for their families eat fewer fruits and vegetables and drink more sugary beverages than other parents.

Gwendolyn Smith told MPR that she worries about food. She skips meals to make sure her kids get enough to eat, but still struggles with obesity.

“If didn’t have enough, I would make sure that my kids ate,” Smith said. “And then I would just get me a cup of water.”

A nonprofit is suing the University of Wisconsin’s Board of Regents for not complying with the state’s open records laws after restricting access to the school’s syllabi, according to the Badger Herald.

The National Council on Teacher Quality, a nonprofit research group dedicated to examining policies and institutions, filed a complaint with the Jefferson County Circuit Court last Thursday.

“NCTQ is currently engaged in an unprecedented national review of teacher preparation programs — over 1,000 all across the country — that will be published later this year in partnership with U.S. News & World Report,” Arthur McKee, a director with the nonprofit, told the Badger Herald.

Researchers sent open records request seeking access to course syllabi from all the university’s schools of education to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the education program across all of the schools in the UW system.

UW spokesperson David Giroux said they did not wish to participate in the review because the deans of each UW System institution were concerned with the methodology of the NCTQ’s review.

The UW System is not the only institution that has denied request to participate in the review. So far, NCTQ is only seeking action against UW.

Leave a Comment

Accessibility Toolbar

Comments (0)

All The Minnesota Daily Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *