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Alex Derr had a new house and a son on the way when he landed a coveted job building massive fiberglass wind-turbine blades at a new factory in Fort Madison, Iowa. With well-paid work in a growing industry, he seemed to have it made.

‘Having a new family, I thought it was great,

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Technology and engineering, both critical dimensions of our global economy and society, require mastery in science and advanced math.

The good news: STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) occupations are expected to grow 17 percent in 2008-2018, versus 9.8 percent for non-STEM jobs, and earn 26 percent higher wages.

The bad news: An estimated 3 million STEM-related jobs remain unfilled because of learning and skills gaps.

The U.S. Defense Department has even identified the growing shortage of American engineers as a crisis that threatens our national security.

In the U.S., education reform efforts of the past 30 years, focused largely on reading and basic math, have mostly ignored science and such advanced math topics as algebra, geometry and calculus. Furthermore, the middle and high schools overlook many students’ latent talent in these areas.

While a seventh-grade algebra whiz, for example, would probably be steered into advanced high school math, physics and chemistry, struggling classmates would be ushered into a less challenging sequence. Once on the wrong path, affected kids don’t see the way up, and learning loses excitement, meaning and relevance.

Moreover, outdated, lecture-style STEM instruction that teaches to the test and relies on textbooks, abstracts and theoretical scenarios constricts curiosity and aptitude, stunts STEM engagement […]

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Michigan women will face new obstacles to legal abortion after Republican Gov. Rick Snyder signed into law wide-ranging restrictions in the last hours of that state’s legislative session Friday.

Under the new law, private medical offices where abortions are performed will be required to be licensed as surgical facilities; women seeking an abortion must first meet with a health-care professional to ensure they aren’t being coerced into the procedure; health-care providers can refuse service if their conscience so dictates; and new regulations will be imposed on how fetal remains are disposed.

Snyder surprised many by vetoing related legislation that would only allow insurance coverage of abortions through rider policies that companies could deny. A Planned Parenthood spokeswoman called this a ‘victory

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The U.S. Senate passed a bill on Friday that reauthorizes and extends the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, a law that was originally meant to retroactively grant legal immunity to the Bush administration and telecoms, along with temporary authorization to wiretap non-Americans inside the United States without first having to acquire a warrant.

The law was set to expire at midnight on Friday, but the Senate’s vote means it will almost certainly be extended through December 2017.

Before passing the extension by a vote of 73-23, lawmakers blocked amendments by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Jeff Merkley (R-OR) and Rand Paul (R-KY) that would have narrowed the window of reauthorization, added more oversight to the program and required annual reports to Congress on the privacy impacts of the program.

The extension continues warrantless wiretapping powers that apply even in the event that one person participating in the communication is an American citizen, despite the Fourth Amendment’s requirement for court oversight. It was originally passed in 2008 as a means of granting top Bush administration officials and the telecommunications companies legal immunity against suits over wiretaps that even the former president once claimed to be illegal.

The bill amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance […]

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WASHINGTON — When Chief Warrant Officer Charlie Morgan returned from a year-long deployment to Kuwait with the New Hampshire National Guard in 2010, her doctor didn’t have good news. The breast cancer thought to be in remission, the physician said, had returned, and the diagnosis was terminal.

That’s when Morgan began a new battle – to make sure her wife and their daughter receive the same survivor benefits that would go to any other married couple with children.

The US Supreme Court’s decision to take up the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) could have a considerable impact on the benefits of same-sex spouses of service members, who were largely invisible to the military until the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell

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