Latest news with #fellowship
Reuters
6 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Skadden Foundation leader resigns following Trump deal
June 4 (Reuters) - The executive director of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom's fellowship foundation said on Wednesday she resigned from her position, more than two months after the law firm agreed to provide President Donald Trump with $100 million in free legal services. "I recently offered my resignation as executive director of the Skadden Foundation, rather than endorse actions that I believe will undermine its mission," Skadden Foundation executive director Kathleen Rubenstein said in a statement to Reuters. Rubenstein in her statement did not specify what actions she was asked to endorse, and she declined to comment further. She announced her resignation in a post on LinkedIn. The Skadden Foundation provides two-year fellowships to law school graduates who are interested in pursuing public interest law. These Skadden fellows "address unmet civil legal needs of people living in poverty in the U.S.," according to the group's website. The group's website said it has funded more than 1,000 fellowships since launching in 1988. "This moment in history calls on us to provide greater support for public interest lawyers and the clients they work alongside," Rubenstein said in her statement. A spokesperson for Skadden did not immediately provide comment. Skadden executive partner Jeremy London has said that Skadden engaged proactively with Trump in the interests of clients, employees and the firm. Rubenstein is the latest pro bono lawyer to resign from a major law firm that struck a deal with Trump to avoid punishing executive orders targeting their business. As part of those deals, Skadden and eight other law firms have pledged a total of $940 million in pro bono legal work to causes the White House supports. Steven Banks, who led the pro bono practice at Paul Weiss, said in mid-April he was leaving the firm to turn his attention to representing the Coalition for the Homeless with the Legal Aid Society. Skadden has been accused of limiting its lawyers' access to internal email lists to prevent them from discussing the firm's deal with Trump, a left-leaning advocacy group said in a complaint in April. More than 80 Skadden alumni, including two people who left the firm after its agreement with Trump, sent a letter to London in April saying the deal undermined core democratic values. Another lawyer who resigned from Skadden days before the agreement, Rachel Cohen, criticized the deals in testimony before an informal hearing of congressional Democrats.
Yahoo
31-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Two HBCU students selected for prestegious MIT Fellowship
The post Two HBCU students selected for prestegious MIT Fellowship appeared first on ClutchPoints. North Carolina A&T State University rising seniors Kani'ya Davis and Dasia Garner have been selected as the 2026 HBCU Science Journalism Fellows at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Only 10 students across the country were chosen, including Davis and Garner, who are majoring in mass communication and journalism at the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. As part of MIT's Knight Science Journalism Program, the fellowship supports journalists in developing their knowledge of science, health, technology, and the environment while promoting scientific journalism for the general public. Davis is the managing editor of the university's student-run newspaper, The A&T Register, and the director of community service for the campus branch of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ). In addition, she serves as the vice president of Black Period Project, a grassroots group that fights period poverty in the state. She is passionate about social and environmental justice and focuses her reporting on how low-income communities of color are affected by climate change in terms of livelihood and health. 'I'm most excited about learning how to research science-related topics and make them accessible to non-scientists,' said Davis. 'As someone who doesn't have a huge science background, I really want to learn how to make important scientific findings understandable for myself and my community.' Garner is executive producer of Aggie News, the student-run news channel at the university, and director of social media for NABJ. Her coverage of nutritional science is centered on the potential of food as medicine and the role integrative medicine plays in promoting a healthy way of living. 'I am excited to connect with science journalists and bring back engaging ways to tell science-based stories to my community,' said Garner. In June, the fellowship year begins with a week-long MIT scientific journalism summer camp. Students will interact with award-winning scientific journalists, take part in practical workshops, and meet editors from prestigious journals. In order to help fellows produce and pitch science-related stories to national and regional publications, expert scientific journalists will coach them one-on-one over the upcoming academic year. The fellowship compensates for all travel-related costs and comes with a $5,000 stipend. For other journalism students looking for similar opportunities, Davis and Garner both advise keeping contact with professors, taking part in extracurricular learning activities, and maintaining confidence in one's journalistic abilities.
The Guardian
23-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Award judges resign after Queensland state library strips writer's prize over Hamas tweet
At least four judges for the Queensland literary awards have resigned over the past 24 hours, protesting against the State Library of Queensland's decision to withdraw a prestigious $15,000 fellowship from First Nations writer Karen Wyld over comment she made last year about the Gaza conflict. The 2022 Stella award winning poet Evelyn Araluen, Wiradjuri academic and writer Dr Jeanine Leane, writer and reviewer Nigel Featherstone and Gamilaroi poet Luke Patterson all confirmed to Guardian Australia on Friday they have resigned from the awards' judging panels. It is believed several other judges have also resigned, but wish to remain anonymous. Wyld, who now writes under the name K A Ren Wyld, first learned her black&write! fellowship for her manuscript on the Stolen Generations had been withdrawn from a News Corp journalist on Tuesday morning, just hours before she was due to accept the award in Brisbane. Wyld said at a meeting called shortly after the journalist made contact, the library chief executive, Vicki McDonald, referred to a tweet Wyld had posted about the death of the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in October, which referred to him as a martyr. Wyld deleted the tweet shortly after posting it. On Friday, the State Library of Queensland confirmed it had received a written direction from the state arts minister, John-Paul Langbroek, on Monday stating: 'It is my firm view and direction under Section 23 of the Libraries Act 1988 and I am sure the view of most Queenslanders, that Ms Wyld should not receive the award in a Queensland Government or State Library of Queensland venue.' A spokesperson for Langbroek told the Guardian the minister supported the library's decision to postpone the awards, and stood by the comments he made in parliament where he said that taxpayer-funded awards should not be granted 'to individuals who justify terrorism'. Earlier this week, a statement by a spokesperson for McDonald said the library's decision to 'postpone the black&write! ceremony' had been made after Langbroek's comments in parliament, in which he said he had 'taken the decision that this award should not be presented' at the state library. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email In Araluen's letter of resignation to the library, the Dropbear author told McDonald she was 'disgusted' by the library's decision to rescind Wyld's fellowship and the Queensland government's 'flagrant ministerial overreach', and was withdrawing as a judge in the Queensland literary awards' Judith Wright Calanthe award. 'I will not participate in a system that values thought-policing and the silencing of anti-genocidal sentiments over the integrity of artists,' she wrote. 'By conceding to this flagrant weaponisation of the mere perception of a bad-faith assumption of anti-Semitism, wielded against a First Nations author who has been so central to the Blak literary community, the State Library have made themselves liable for the consequences of this decision. 'The reputational harm of this choice will not be ignored by the literary and First Nations community.' Featherstone, a judge in the awards' fiction category, said he was unwilling to participate in a process where a panel's recommendations could be overruled by the arts minister, 'in effect, imposing further political silencing'. He told the Guardian there were two 'eminently competitive' books nominated in the category he was judging that dealt directly with the conflict in Gaza. 'Should the panel decide that those titles and their authors be shortlisted, or if one is recommended as the winner, will the minister be overturning those decisions too?' he asked. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion Fellow fiction prize judge Leane said after careful thought she decided she had no other option than to resign. 'I cannot be complicit in this discourse that denies genocide and that tries to shut down any artist, not just First Nations, any artist or writer who wants to speak out against what is happening in Palestine,' she said. 'Ren's manuscript was not about Palestine, it was actually about the cultural genocide here … they're shutting down two discussions here … they're shutting down two truths.' The Australian Society of Authors said it intended to write to the Queensland premier and the arts minister to 'call for a strong stance on freedom of expression and independent arts funding processes'. 'This represents yet another alarming instance of the undermining of freedom of expression and arms-length arts funding,' the ASA said in a statement. 'It sets a dangerous precedent for creators – irrespective of their political views – that opportunities awarded on the basis of literary merit can be retracted if the creator is subject to complaints about their political ideas and expressions. It is vital that arts funding opportunities are independent from government interference.' The library declined to comment on the judges' resignations.
The Guardian
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
I've watched every single Nicolas Cage film made so far. Here's what I learned about him
When I was growing up, I always told my parents, 'Don't expect me to become a doctor.' But in high school I really liked the TV show House and I really liked solving problems. So I never knew what else I wanted to become except for a doctor. I've been a practising GP for years now. This means that, for a lot of my life, I've been science-focused. And I wasn't always a film watcher. I only really started watching movies seriously when I was living in the Gold Coast and studying for my fellowship exams during Covid. One day I sat down to watch The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, the film in which Nicolas Cage plays a fictional version of himself. I got about 20 minutes in and thought that the movie would benefit from having watched Cage's other films. So I turned it off then I went and did just that: I watched every single one. He's made more than 100. I had rules about how I watched them all. I had to watch them in chronological order. I was allowed to watch other movies during the Cage-watching period but never at my house – if I was home, I had to watch a Cage. If I was with friends and one of them asked me what we should watch, I had to name the next Cage movie. That was a crazy rule, probably. I watched them all in about three months. I grew to really respect and appreciate their star. I was only interested in his craft: for someone who has spent so much time with him, I know shockingly little about his personal life. I've been asked a couple of times if I'd want to meet him, and of course I would. But I don't know what that meeting would be about apart from discussing his movies. The vast majority of people have been exposed to the meme version of Cage. With the rise of YouTube that became what he was known for: the freak-outs. Which, when taken out of context, are ridiculous. But if you watch the movies those scenes are in it's not that crazy what he's doing. It makes sense. Cage has obviously made some famously bad movies. He got into a lot of debt in the 2000s and had to take most of the jobs sent his way. The one film I really hated was 211, a politically troubling cop drama. But overall I loved watching them all. I discovered that Cage is a really good romcom lead – he's so good in Moonstruck, and a movie called It Could Happen to You, which not as many people have seen. I'd love to see him make a romcom again. As I was watching all the films my friends were wondering whether it was some kind of sign of mental deterioration. It was the opposite, really. It was so good for me to have a project. It was an easy way to spend time with people, too. Everybody has an opinion about Cage. It's a really great way to talk to people. My job means I have to have a work persona and a personal one. As a doctor you're expected to be warm and personable without necessarily having a distinct personality. You're there to help. You're not there to share your life. But during this project, my Cage interest spilled over into my work persona. I have a Cage tattoo – a quote from his film Vampire's Kiss, one of my favourites – on the back of my arm, where it's often visible to my patients. So people would ask about it and the Cage project would come up. I never felt embarrassed about it, or worried about what patients would think. I discovered how warmly people feel about him when I was a contestant on the quiz show Mastermind. Cage was my specialist subject, naturally, and everybody at the TV studio was so excited to talk about him with me. When I started the project, the latest film he had made was Dream Scenario, which was the last one I watched. When it came out in cinemas, I got all my friends to come and watch it with me. I was sort of sad that my project was over. I've embarked on other film-watching projects since then. I saw Joker: Folie à Deux 10 times in cinemas. This wasn't because I was a big fan of the first Joker – I didn't even like it that much. Folie à Deux is better – four stars. This project wasn't about the movie itself so much. It was about watching the same film in as many formats as I could: I saw it in a drive-in, at the Imax, with friends, alone, once twice in a row. People really worried about my mental state during that project. But it was fun. There's so much content in the world that it's overwhelming to decide what to consume. These little projects make decision-making easier. And it's really nice to turn creative consumption into its own creative act. I have tried to watch the entire filmography of other actors since then but I never got all the way through. There's nobody like Nicolas Cage, I guess.
