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      Understanding Lapses in Learning

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      More from our inbox:Will We Train Better Robots or Better Humans? Kendrick Brinson for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Have We Quit on Learning?,” by Dana Goldstein (news article, May 11):Governors are rising up — not giving up — on education as we know it. Education is the single best investment we can make in the future of our states and economy. This is a national conversation not being had enough in the halls of Washington by either party. But it is happening in the states — and it’s one we have to elevate nationally, before too many youngsters fall behind.States are passing nonpartisan, common-sense reforms, and it’s making a difference. Colorado passed free full-day kindergarten and universal preschool to prevent achievement gaps from forming in the first place, give our youngest learners a strong start and save parents and families thousands of dollars. We’ve deployed targeted tutoring and after-school opportunities for K-12 students, including an online math platform that is free for schools to use, and that increased scores after just one year.Governors from both parties are leading similar efforts to improve student performance in reading and math, with science-based initiatives generating real results in states such as Alabama, California, Louisiana and New York.Through an effort I’m leading with the National Governors Association known as Let’s Get Ready: Educating All Americans for Success, we’re looking at how we can best measure what skills and knowledge students need to thrive in school and beyond, invest in what works and change what doesn’t.In Colorado, Canon City and Poudre high schools are allowing ninth-grade students to choose a focus — including agriculture, the arts, engineering, health services, hospitality, skilled trades and more — to guide their studies. This program combines strong academics, technical education and real-world experience, and offers college credit and industry certifications.Technological change has made the job market unrecognizable compared with just a decade ago, and a decade from now, it will be more unrecognizable still. That’s why my main focus as governor is to ensure that our education system equips students with the skills they need to meet current and future needs. To keep up, schools have to evolve and innovate, too.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Four Former VW Managers Found Guilty in Emissions Trial

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      The men were accused of conspiring to conceal excess diesel emissions from regulators, helping to provoke a costly scandal.Four former Volkswagen executives were found guilty of fraud charges Monday for their role in an emissions-cheating scandal that shook the auto industry a decade ago and hastened a shift from fossil fuels to battery-powered cars.The four executives held high-ranking positions at the carmaker and were responsible for engine technology. A panel of judges in Braunschweig, Germany, a city near Volkswagen’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, reached the verdict after a trial lasting more than three years. The reading of the sentences lasted almost four hours.Two of the managers received multiyear prison sentences, and two received suspended sentences. Jens Hadler, who oversaw diesel engine development, received the longest prison sentence, at four and a half years. Another ex-manager who worked in engine electronics, Hanno Jelden, received two years and seven months. The two men given suspended sentences were Heinz-Jakob Neusser, who was responsible for components development and was sentenced to one year and three months, and a man identified as Thorsten D., an emissions specialist who received one year and 10 months.The chairman of the panel of judges, Christian Schütz, said that the ex-managers were found guilty of “particularly serious” fraud, referring to them at one point as a “gang.” According to Mr. Schütz, Mr. Hadler knew about the test results of the manipulated software since at least September 2007. Emails between managers suggested that these results were only intended to be known by a small group within the company.The verdict can be appealed within one week, and Philipp Gehrmann, who represents Mr. Jelden, told reporters that he believed the verdict was “wrong,” mainly because his client was cooperative.Volkswagen has admitted that some of its engineers installed software in diesel-powered vehicles that allowed the cars to recognize when they were being tested for emissions. If so, the cars increased their emission controls to be compliant with air-quality regulations. At other times, the cars were more polluting than long-haul trucks. The cars were not capable of consistently adhering to emissions rules.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Manhunt Underway for Former Police Chief Imprisoned for Murder and Rape

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      Grant Hardin, 56, escaped on Sunday from a high-security prison in Arkansas, where he was serving a decades-long sentence for first-degree murder and rape.A manhunt was underway in northern Arkansas after a former police chief convicted of first-degree murder and rape slipped out of a high-security prison, dressed in a fake law enforcement uniform.Grant Hardin, 56, who had previously served as the police chief in Gateway, Ark., escaped from the Calico Rock North Central Unit around 2:50 p.m. on Sunday, county officials said. He is considered extremely dangerous.An image released by the Stone County Sheriff’s Office on its Facebook page shows what it says is Mr. Hardin wearing clothes similar to a law enforcement uniform, escaping through a controlled gate while pushing a cart of utility materials.“It has been determined that Hardin was wearing a makeshift outfit designed to mimic law enforcement when he escaped the North Central Unit. He was not wearing a Department of Corrections uniform, and all DOC-issued equipment has been accounted for,” Rand Champion, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Corrections, said in a statement.Mr. Hardin was briefly the police chief in Gateway, a small town near the Missouri border. He held several other law enforcement positions in the state beginning in the 1990s, including as an elected constable, according to public records and local news reports. He was terminated multiple times, and was trailed by reports of using excessive force, poor performance and, in one instance, falsifying a police report, according to local news media.In 2017, Mr. Hardin was arrested and charged with shooting James Appleton just outside Gateway, where Mr. Appleton worked in the water department. According to the police affidavit, Mr. Appleton was pulled over in a pickup truck while he was on the phone with his brother-in-law, then was shot in the head at point-blank range with a shotgun.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What Is Swedish Culture? An Attempt to Answer Stirs Debate.

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      Is it Abba? Saunas? Plays by Strindberg? A government initiative to define an official cultural canon has unsettled many in the arts scene.What is Swedish culture? Some obvious answers might spring to mind: Abba, the films of Ingmar Bergman, Pippi Longstocking, IKEA. It’s an almost impossibly broad question — but one that Sweden’s government is trying to answer.In 2023, the government began an initiative called the Culture Canon, with two streams: an “experts” canon and a “people’s canon.” The first involves academics, journalists, historians and other authorities who will decide on 100 works or other items of cultural importance that have played a key role in shaping Swedish culture.The second will be made up of suggestions submitted by the Swedish public to the Culture Canon website, which can be drawn from the arts or can include everyday activities like the daily “fika” coffee and cake break or ideas like “Allemansrätten,” the Swedish right to explore nature, even on private land. So far, suggestions include saunas and the plays of August Strindberg, the 1361 Battle of Visby and Björn Borg’s five straight Wimbledon victories.A government committee will present a report to the two canons in the summer.Yet even the suggestion of such a definitive list is dividing opinion in Sweden. The Culture Canon is a pet project of a party with far-right roots that supports, but is not part of the government. Many in the arts scene fear that the results will project a narrow view of Swedish culture, glorifying an imagined past and shutting out the cultural contributions of minorities.A sauna in northern Sweden.Ola Lewitschnik for The New York TimesLars Trägårdh, a historian whom the government appointed to lead the project, said in an interview that the Culture Canon would be particularly useful for helping immigrants integrate. Sweden combined a “wonderful openness to immigration with a complete lack of policies that have been able to bring all these people into Swedish society,” he said. A canon, he added, would provide new arrivals “with a map and a compass.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Noem Visits Israel Amid Tensions Between Trump and Netanyahu

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      Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, expressed continued U.S. support for Israel despite recent disagreements.Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, met with officials in Israel on Sunday and Monday as she underscored American support for Israel amid policy disagreements between the two countries.Ms. Noem met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and attended a ceremony on Monday that commemorated two Israeli embassy aides who were killed last week in a shooting in Washington.Speaking at the ceremony, Ms. Noem said President Trump “extends his greetings and his grief to all of you, and he stands with you as we fight this hatred in the world.” She also spoke of “a unity among us that will help us defeat our enemies.”Israeli leaders presented her visit as proof of strong United States-Israel relations, following disagreements between Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu over how best to approach Iran and its proxies in Yemen, and Mr. Trump’s growing frustration with the continuation of the war in Gaza. Mr. Trump did not visit Israel during a recent tour of the Middle East, an omission interpreted as a sign of tension with Mr. Netanyahu.According to Mr. Netanyahu’s office, Ms. Noem spoke in a meeting on Sunday of her “unwavering support for the prime minister and the state of Israel.” She also expressed “great appreciation” for Mr. Netanyahu’s conduct of the war, his office said.Ms. Noem also met on Sunday with her Israeli counterpart, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the minister for national security. Mr. Ben-Gvir’s office said he “thanked his counterpart for American support for Israel and for President Trump’s immigration plan,” referring to the president’s proposal in February to displace Gaza’s residents while the United States leads the rebuilding of the territory. More

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      Trump Rebukes Putin, Calls Escalation of Attacks ‘Absolutely Crazy’

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      “He’s sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don’t like it at all,” President Trump said of his Russian counterpart.President Trump on Sunday condemned the decision by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to unleash one of the largest offensives in Russia’s war against Ukraine, and said he was considering imposing more sanctions on Russia in response.Speaking to reporters in New Jersey before boarding Air Force One, Mr. Trump said he was “not happy” with Mr. Putin escalating his attacks, especially as the two countries negotiate a cease-fire deal to bring the three-year war to an end.“He’s killing a lot of people, and I don’t know what the hell happened to Putin,” Mr. Trump said. “I’ve known him a long time. Always gotten along with him. But he’s sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don’t like it at all.”He added, “We’re in the middle of talking, and he’s shooting rockets into Kyiv and other cities.”Mr. Trump continued criticizing Mr. Putin hours later, writing on social media that his Russian counterpart “has gone absolutely CRAZY” and was shooting missiles and drones into Ukraine’s cities, “for no reason whatsoever.”“He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about soldiers,” Mr. Trump wrote.Mr. Trump, who has largely focused on trade and other benefits to Russia if it ended its war against Ukraine, also wrote that Mr. Putin’s continued incursion could have dire consequences.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Last of Us’ Season 2 Finale Recap: The Monster at the End

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      Dina learns the truth. Ellie learns a hard lesson about the unintended consequences of vengeance.‘The Last of Us’ Season 2, Episode 7In an interview with Collider last week, “The Last of Us” co-showrunner Craig Mazin estimated that it will take four seasons for him and the video game’s co-creator Neil Druckmann to adapt the two “Last of Us” games properly. I found this comment a bit surprising. Mazin and Druckmann covered most of the first “Last of Us” game in an action-packed Season 1. After this week’s Season 2 finale, is there enough story left in “The Last of Us Part II” for two more seasons?Having never played the game, I do not know the answer to this. But I do know that Season 2 — as good as it has generally been — has raised some questions about where this show is ultimately headed. Season 1 was something of a quest saga, about a one-of-a-kind hero traveling to the place where she was meant to sacrifice herself and save the world. Then Joel ripped up that script. In the Season 1 finale, Joel didn’t just move the narrative goal posts, he tore them down.So what’s the endpoint now? What does a “chosen one” do when she is no longer chosen?The Season 2 finale wrestles with these questions in ways both exciting and somewhat perplexing, before ending in someplace unexpected and potentially promising. If nothing else, the episode does have a strong arc for Ellie, as she realizes that missions of vengeance are messy and unsatisfying.We begin with Ellie’s return from Lakehill Hospital, where — contrary to how it appeared in last week’s episode — she did not club the infected Nora to death. As Ellie explains to Dina, she beat on Nora until she gave up clues Abby’s location. (The words “whale” and “wheel” were mumbled.) Then Ellie took off, leaving Nora to get zombified.Ellie says all this in hushed, even tones, admitting that torturing Nora was easier for her to do than she had expected. Still in a confessing mood — and in an especially vulnerable place, as Dina is washing the wounds on her bare back — Ellie finally tells Dina why Abby and her crew came after Joel in the first place. Dina’s icy reply? “We need to go home.”After this opening, much of the first half of the episode follows Ellie and Jesse as they head out to find Tommy so that the Jackson contingent can get the heck out of Seattle. This is not a happy journey. Jesse, understandably, is in no mood for Ellie’s flippant attitude; and Ellie does not have much use for Jesse’s sanctimony.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Texas Doctor Who Filed $118 Million in Fraudulent Medical Claims Gets 10 Years in Prison

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      Jorge Zamora-Quezada falsely diagnosed patients with a chronic disease and subjected them to unnecessary treatments to help fund his lavish lifestyle, officials said.For nearly 20 years, a Texas doctor falsely diagnosed patients as having a chronic disease, administered unnecessary, toxic treatments and filed more than $118 million in fraudulent health insurance claims to fund his lavish lifestyle, which included a private jet, luxury cars and high-end properties, prosecutors said.The doctor, Jorge Zamora-Quezada, 68, of Mission, Texas, was sentenced to 10 years in prison this week, according to the Justice Department.From 2000 to 2018, he falsely diagnosed patients with rheumatoid arthritis and administered dangerous, medically unnecessary treatments to defraud federal and private health insurance companies, the Justice Department said.Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic disease that causes a person’s immune system to attack healthy tissue. Some of Mr. Zamora-Quezada’s patients were as young as 13, the Justice Department said.Mr. Zamora-Quezada’s medical license was canceled in 2021, according to Texas Medical Board records.His scheme funded what prosecutors described in court documents as his “lavish and opulent lifestyle,” with properties across the United States and Mexico, as well as a private jet and a Maserati that he used to travel between his offices in the Rio Grande Valley and San Antonio.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More