A 47-year-old man has been arrested and charged with murder in Georgia.

Police said Richard Sigman got into an argument with a man at a restaurant. The man reportedly claimed Sigman threatened to shoot him. Police said a security officer confronted Sigman and told him to leave.

The Carrollton Police Department says an investigation indicates Sigman walked into a parking deck and began shooting into a parked vehicle, striking
the victim who died after being taken to a hospital.

She has been identified as Anna Jones, a recent graduate of Mount Zion High School. She reportedly planned to attend the University of West Georgia, where Sigman was a professor.

"UWG has terminated the employment of Richard Sigman and continues to work with the city of Carrollton Police Department, which leads this ongoing investigation," university president Dr. Brendan Kelly said in a statement obtained by CBS News. "On behalf of the university, we wish to convey our deepest condolences to Anna's family and many friends."

The parents of a self-taught, visually-impaired artist are pushing the charity efforts of their son forward in Nebraska.

Jeff Hanson raised millions of dollars for charity before he died two years ago, all through his colorful works of art.

In the 27 years of his life, Hanson raised over $7 million for charity.

Hanson's style was defined by bold use of colors in high-contrast, heavily-textured canvases that pop off the walls. But there was a reason for Hanson's style; He was born with neurofibromatosis, which causes Hanson to have brain tumors that damaged his vision.

"He started painting simple watercolor notecards, and eventually, those watercolor notecards became heavily textured Acrylic on canvas," said Julie Hanson, Jeff's mother.

It is this style that a group of Creighton medical and art students sought to emulate on Tuesday, with Hanson's parents, on their own canvasses.

"For me personally, I'm blessed to be able to contribute to his art. He's a big donor of the community, and a lot of people know him," said Monty Khela, a Creighton medical student.

"Jeff's life was about love, kindness and generosity. So this giving of paintings to live charity auctions is how he became defined. He didn't wish to be defined as the kid down the street with a brain tumor," said Julie Hanson.

Hanson credited his poor vision for helping him create his style of art, which now hang in the homes of Warren Buffett and Elton John.

"Focus on what you can do, not what you can't do," said Julie Hanson.

Hanson's family has the goal of reaching $10 million for charity in honor of their son.

Watch the video above for the full story.

The process of getting into college is changing. More schools are now offering admission to students who never applied.

"We're hearing students say like, 'Is this real?' You know, they get so much marketing and brochures from so many sources. And when I say, actually, 'No on the EAB match platform, the messages you get are real admission offers, they're bona fide admission offers.' And yeah, it's often disbelief followed by elation," said Joe Morrison, who serves as the managing director of Concourse at EAB.

The platform offers reverse admissions. Students get into the system through their school counselor.

The students stay anonymous to the university, which makes an offer based on criteria including grades and interests.

It's up to the students to accept the offer.

A growing number of other organizations are also doing what's known as direct admissions where students also get offers from schools. However, they have to go through an application process still.

The people behind these alternative admission models say it's about making the process more student-centric.

"For a lot of students, they get offers from colleges that they hadn't considered, or sometimes even heard of," Morrison said. "They realized, in many cases, that they're eligible for more in scholarships than they thought. So really, it's enabling a path to college that a lot of students didn't think they were able to access, and probably wouldn't have even applied for."

EAB's platform is free for counselors and students. Universities pay a fee when they get a match with a student.

Many parents who send their kids to college want to know that their children will be in stable housing.

A 2022 report that surveyed students at historically Black colleges and universities shows that more than half of students said they struggled to maintain safe, affordable, and consistent housing.

Fisk University, an HBCU in Nashville, Tennessee, has a plan to address the issue. Decommissioned shipping containers are being retrofitted into dorm rooms for the 2023 fall semester.

Fisk University Executive Vice President Jens Frederiksen says a trustee brought the solution to the table as an affordable way to help the university house its growing population.

"The reality is we've grown so fast,” Frederiksen said. “Enrollment has grown roughly 41%-42% in four-and-a-half years."

The inside of each container will have a bed, lounge area, kitchen and bathroom.

"I think the beauty of it is you can actually stack them up to levels of four is what we had originally looked at,” Frederiksen said. “These are stacked in levels of two. So you could basically upload two more containers on top and create a total of 200-bed availability."

It's not an entirely new idea. The College of Idaho was the first school in the nation to transform shipping containers into dorm rooms in 2020.

Frederiksen said students like how it's a sustainable solution. Sophomore Gift Eni says sustainability is very important to many students.

"It's repurposing something that was old and making it new," Eni said. “As soon as the videos dropped, like they did the tour of the inside and we were all 'I don't know how we apply to this, but I need to apply to it immediately. I need to be living here like yesterday.'"

Frederiksen said other universities are already reaching out with interest in doing something similar.

With real estate prices continuing to soar nationwide, he said creative solutions to house students are necessary.

"Real estate prices are, at this point, a prohibitive factor, which then means students to live off campus would live 35, 40 minutes away," Frederiksen said.

"I feel like it makes school more accessible,” Eni said. “That's important. And you have to be able to get to school on time when you need to be here."

The only challenge now is deciding who will be the first to live in the shipping containers.

"I think to date, we've probably had 30 prospective students who called and said, 'If I choose Fisk, do I get to be in the containers?’" Frederiksen said. “And we're like, 'No, we can't leverage that as a decision-making tool'. The reality is we're going to end up doing some kind of lottery."

 

Darius Garland had 24 points and nine assists, Donovan Mitchell scored 20 points and the Cleveland Cavaliers never trailed in a 117-94 victory over the Washington Wizards on Friday night.

Evan Mobley had 20 points, eight rebounds and four blocked shots for the Cavaliers. They built a 21-point lead in the second quarter and didn't allow Washington to get closer than seven.

Cleveland (45-28) moved three games ahead of New York and 4 1/2 in front of Brooklyn in the battle for fourth place in the East and home-court advantage in the opening round of the playoffs. The Cavaliers’ next two games are in Brooklyn.

The victory assured Cleveland of its winningest season since 2018, when it last made the playoffs and was swept in the NBA Finals by Golden State. Starting center Jarrett Allen missed his fourth straight game with a right eye contusion.

Bradley Beal scored 22 points and Kristaps Porzingis had 20 points and nine rebounds for the Wizards. Washington (32-38) lost for the sixth time in eight games and fell into a tie with Indiana and Chicago for the final East play-in tournament spot.

The Cavaliers only made 4 of 19 3-pointers with Mitchell and Garland combining to miss their first 10 attempts. Caris LeVert had 15 points off the bench and Ricky Rubio added eight points and five assists.

Wizards forward Kyle Kuzma had seven points after missing a game with a sore right knee. Corey Kispert scored 12 points and Monte Morris had 10 points, but Washington committed 17 turnovers that cost it 21 points.

Cleveland swept the three-game season series.

CAUTIOUS COACH

The Cavaliers are closing in on their first playoff berth without LeBron James on the roster since 1998, but coach J.B. Bickerstaff refuses to look too far ahead.

“We’ve got to go out and finish what we’ve started,” Bickerstaff said. “That’s our focus.”

Cleveland lost 10 of its final 13 games last season, including two in the play-in tournament, to finish 44-38 and extend its playoff drought to four years since James’ joined the Lakers.

TIP-INS

Wizards: F Xavier Cooks -- named MVP of Australia’s National Basketball League last month -- signed a multi-year contract before the game. The 6-foot-8, 183-pound Australian went undrafted in 2018 after graduating from Winthrop. “Xavier is coming off a championship run (with the Sydney Kings) and had another excellent season,” coach Wes Unseld Jr. said. “He did enough to get noticed.” Cooks is making his NBA debut.

Cavaliers: F Danny Green has only logged 41 minutes over five games since being signed Feb. 15 after his release by Houston. The three-time NBA champion has made 5 of 9 3-pointers with Cleveland. “There are guys who need reps and I’ve been talking to Danny about that,” Bickerstaff said. “I need to get him more five-on-five time.” … F Dean Wade, who made nine starts, has not appeared in five of the last six games.

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Trending stories at Scrippsnews.com

EVANSTON, Ill. -- Scientists at Northwestern University have developed a wearable device that can spot coronavirus symptoms before the person does.

The wireless sensor monitors coughs, fever and respiratory activity. The hope is that the data can help physicians better understand and treat COVID-19.

It looks like a small band-aid, but researchers say the little silicone patch can detect COVID-19 symptoms and record data right to your smartphone or tablet.

“It's a fully wireless battery-operated device that can communicate with any standard Bluetooth-enabled consumer gadget,” said John Rogers, Bioengineering and Neurological Surgery Professor at Northwestern.

The wireless, rechargeable battery-operated device sits just below the suprasternal notch at the base of the throat. From that location, it monitors coughing intensity, respiratory sounds, heartrate and body temperature.

“It's really that subtle motion of the surface of the skin,” said Rogers. “It's almost like a stethoscope in the way you can think about it, but fully digital and wireless in its operation and continuous, in terms of data collection.”

It can be worn 24/7 and produce continuous streams of data using artificial intelligence. All of that data transmits wirelessly to a HIPPA-protected cloud.

“We can determine not only when a cough occurred but whether that cough is a dry cough or a wet cough or whether you're having coughing fits,” said Rogers.

Scientists say the real-time data streaming from patients can give insights into their health not currently being captured or analyzed by traditional monitoring systems.

Another important feature is decontamination.

“Because it's entirely enclosed without any switches or data ports or any kind of openings, it allows us to do very rigorous sterilization, so we immerse these devices in hot alcohol,” said Rogers.

One thing it cannot do is measure blood oxygenation levels – a potentially important early indicator of the disease. But they say the they plan to add that capability to the next round of devices.

The ultimate goal is to be able to catch COVID-19 symptoms early, better understand its onset and progression, and hopefully save lives.

“What we've been able to do is create very thin lightweight soft device platforms that allow mounting on this very sensitive region of the body in a way that sends essentially physically imperceptible,” said Rogers. “So, you put it on and you kind of forget that it's there”

The next step is to find manufacturing partners to scale up production of the device. Rogers says that depending on volume, it could cost less than $100 per device.

BIDDEFORD, Maine — Students are returning to campuses as colleges reopen their doors. About one in four U.S. schools require those students to get vaccinated for COVID-19, following guidelines from the American College Health Association.

"American College Health Association believes that the best protection, the best way to bring our faculty, staff and students back safely, is to have a fully vaccinated campus," said Dr. Sarah Van Orman.

She helped create the COVID-19 protocols in use around the country.

"I think for most of us, it's about balancing a return to normal, and how do we do those safely? What mitigation systems do we need to have in place?" said Van Orman.

Vaccine mandates are working at the University of New England (UNE). The picturesque campus is home to nearly 4,000 students and 1,100 staff members.

For the university's president, James Herbert, it’s several thousand people he’s responsible for keeping safe from COVID-19.

“It’s been quite the roller coaster the past 18 months, a lot of ups and downs. But we’ve actually weathered the pandemic quite well overall,” said Herbert

He’s hoping the roller coaster ride, at least on campus, may be slowing down.

“Now, we’ve gotten to the point where we’re over 98% of our community is vaccinated and with just a handful of exemptions,” said Herbert.

It’s not just UNE. About 94% of students living on campus in the University of Maine system are vaccinated. Multiple other colleges in Maine are reporting near 100% vaccination rates as well.

The number is substantially higher than the overall rate for 18 to 24-year-olds in the U.S. Only 43.5% have received the vaccine.

Herbert says vaccine requirements are a driving force. A total of 34 of Maine’s 37 universities require students to get the shot.

“The majority of the students responded very well. They understood why we needed to have the vaccine,” said Herbert.

For medical school students Julia Marcus and Molly Cherny, it made the decision to come to school that much easier.

“I thought it was awesome that UNECOM or UNE, in general, was mandating vaccines just for the safety of all the students and all the faculty,” said Marcus

“I’m sure there was an exemption or two but for the most part, we never even questioned it in the past to have a hepatitis or a menegitis or measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, so it kind of was like I said, just another box for me to check off,” said Cherney.

But while schools with mandates have generally reported high vaccination rates, it's a mixed bag for the 3,000-plus schools that do not have a mandate in place. Many do not publicly report their vaccination rates.

"When we think about the vaccine rates at an institution, we have to understand where does that institution sit. What are the overall vaccine rates in the community," said Van Orman.

The University of Alabama system, with no vaccine requirement, is reporting a vaccination rate of around 58%.

But the University of Wisconsin, which also decided against a mandate, has vaccinated more than 90% of students.

"I think it's a good example of what you see when you have that strong vaccine infrastructure, and a community acceptance and awareness of the vaccine, versus a state where we have a longer way to go," said Van Orman.

Herbert has faced doubters on his campus. He says his team has responded with compassion.

“What we tried to do is meet people where they were at rather than hit them over the head with a bunch of facts and figures to listen to what their concerns were and to try and meet them where they were at,” said Herbert. “This is, right now, one of the safest places on planet earth that you could be in is our campus when we have almost 99% of the community vaccinated.”

CINCINNATI —

Many college students will begin returning to campus and class next week.

The spring semester will be a little different for them. Modified start dates, virtual learning, COVID-19 testing, and in some cases, mandatory flu shots are factors coming into play.

At the University of Cincinnati, 70 percent of coursework will be online for the spring semester.

"We have a required return to campus testing for any student that's a residential student or has an interest in coming to campus for any reason," said Dr. Chris Lewis, vice provost for academic programs at UC.

Students can get tested on campus. Lewis said more than 1,800 have already done so.

"It's very easy for the students and very quick. I'm told that from the time they show up, they can walk out the door in 60 seconds," Lewis said.

Any UC student registered for more than six credit hours is also required to get the flu shot.

At Xavier University, students are not required to get the flu vaccine.

"It's something we're monitoring, but currently, we feel really good about the number of students who have the flu vaccine," said Jean Griffin, dean of students at Xavier University.

Before heading back to Xavier on Jan. 19, students are being asked to take several precautions.

"While they're at home, we're asking them to kind of limit their exposure to other people. Do self quarantine at home. Get a test if you can before you come back to campus, " Griffin said.

Ohio University launched a new testing program for the spring semester. All OU students are required to take an at-home saliva-based COVID-19 test before returning to campus. Students living on campus will be also required to get tested for COVID weekly. Off-campus students will be tested every other week.

Ohio State students will also have to complete an at-home COVID test prior to returning and then a second test once they arrive in Columbus.

OU and OSU do not require flu vaccinations.

Miami University says it will be testing all student for the coronavirus upon arrival back to campus. Miami does not require the flu shot.

A small device could one day be an alternative to gastric bypass surgery for people who are dangerously overweight.

Researchers at Texas A&M University created the device that is implanted into the patient's stomach. It makes you feel full by using light to stimulate the nerve endings that control hunger.

The device is controlled by a remote source, much like a pacemaker.

The lead researcher behind the device says it could be a safer option than a more invasive surgery.

“Gastric bypass surgery is the most popular approach to treat obesity. The thing is, it’s not a cost-effective solution, plus it involves side effects,” said Sung Il Park at Texas A&M University.

He says his team also gained a better understanding of how our body feels hungry.

Conventional wisdom is when the stomach expands, signals are sent to the brain that a person is full.

Park's team found it is possible to stimulate those nerves to make the body feel full, even when the stomach is empty.

“To be able to activate and manipulate individual neurons, we have to express light sensitive protein to the targeted region. So, such related research is ongoing,” said Park.

He says so far, they haven't found any technical problems with the device.

He says it could be a few years before it might be available for widespread use because they still have more research to do. And then it must go through the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process.

Miami University will require facial coverings in almost all cases on its campuses no matter their vaccination status beginning on Monday, the school announced today.

According to the Journal-News, Miami University President Gregory Crawford said the decision came because of concern about the spread of the delta variant of COVID-19 and recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Coverings will be required indoors beginning on Monday, except when exempted under the university’s COVID-19 policy. Students will not be required to wear masks inside their residence hall rooms.

“Our top priority is ensuring the health and safety of our campus community,” Crawford said. “Public health officials have advised us that the safest course of action for the successful completion of a robust, in-person semester is to take preventative actions now.”

Miami is urging anyone who is not vaccinated to get vaccinated immediately.

“Vaccines remain our best protective measure against the virus,” President Crawford said.

The first day of classes is Aug. 23.

Video above: Asian American health workers fight virus, attacks

As Dartmouth College sophomore Nicholas Sugiarto flipped through the course catalog last semester, two words caught his eye: "Asian American."

The 19-year-old Chinese Indonesian American didn't know Asian American-focused classes were even an option at the Hanover, New Hampshire, campus. The biomedical-engineering major ended up enrolling in "Gender and Sexuality in Asian American Literature" and now wishes he could minor in Asian American Studies.

"I never realized how long and storied the history of Asians in America has been," Sugiarto said. "You also hear about stories that just never made the news or never made it into the standard AP U.S. history textbooks."

That feeling of being seen resonates now more than ever for Asian American and Pacific Islander students and faculty at college campuses around the country. For all the "Stop AAPI Hate" hashtagging, accounts keep emerging of new incidents of Asian Americans being coronavirus scapegoats or made to feel like foreigners in their own country.

Ongoing anti-Asian attacks along with the March massage business shootings in Georgia that left six Asian women dead have provoked national conversations about visibility.

The debate has renewed an appetite at some colleges for Asian American Studies programs. As student diversity grows, so does the desire for representation in the syllabus. But qualified professors of color say such programs won't last if they aren't being offered permanent decision-making power.

Inspired by his literature class, Sugiarto added his signature to the nearly 1,000 on a petition calling on Dartmouth to establish an Asian American Studies major, a challenge that's been brought to the Ivy League school on and off for four decades.

Sugiarto and his classmates hope this time will be different given recent events.

Eng-Beng Lim, the Dartmouth professor who taught Sugiarto's class, said the petition gained momentum after the massage business killings, and even fueled discussions with administrators.

Those talks recently stalled, though Lim still described it as a "promising and critical impasse."

"When U.S. universities refuse to support Asian American Studies that are framed in a way that we have framed it, it's really a missed opportunity to think about how we might have a more nuanced understanding of American racism beyond binary terms of Black and white," Lim said.

Pawan Dhingra, a professor at Amherst College and the incoming president of the Association for Asian American Studies, said he is aware of a few other East Coast schools either considering Asian American Studies or renewing their commitment to it.

"A lot of ethnic studies programs grew out of student demand during key inflection points in American history," Dhingra said. "This is an inflection point. The push for ethnic studies — in this case Asian American Studies — fits the tradition of how these programs come to be. It's rarely the brainchild of administrators or faculty."

The concept of ethnic studies is believed to have started in California, where it became state law in August that California State University students take one ethnic studies course to graduate.

In 1968, students of color at San Francisco State University, which was named San Francisco State College at the time, joined Black classmates demanding a curriculum that wasn't just Euro-centric. What followed was five months of protests — the longest student strike in U.S. history — and hundreds of arrests.

In March 1969, after intense negotiations, the university officially launched a College of Ethnic Studies. Other schools also devised similar programs.

Alumni who were on strike 53 years ago see parallels with today's "Stop Asian Hate" rallies, said Mai-Nhung Le, chair of San Francisco State University's Asian American Studies program. Young Asian Americans are again demanding classes relevant to them — not just history but everything from popular culture to environmental justice.

But while the backdrop in the '60s was the Vietnam War, today it's "two concurrent pandemics": COVID-19 and structural racism, Le said.

Establishing an Asian American Studies department is one thing — nurturing it is another. Ethnic studies programs are on shaky ground if schools don't recruit instructors who can plan courses and mentor students.

Of more than 428,000 faculty who were tenured or on tenure-track at degree-granting institutions nationwide in 2019, 70% were white, 11% were Asian or Pacific Islander, 5% were Black, and 5% were Latino. Native Americans and Alaska Natives comprised just 0.4%, according to data gathered by the National Center for Education Statistics.

A furor erupted at Dartmouth in 2016 when Aimee Bahng, an assistant English professor, was denied tenure. She had unanimous support from a departmental committee but not with higher-ranking campus officials. The rejection came as students were making another push for Asian American Studies. Bahng had even started planning potential classes.

She recalls receiving hundreds of sympathetic messages from female academics in the U.S. and abroad.

"I had an electronic folder of just women or women of color who had been denied tenure," said Bahng, who now teaches at Pomona College. "It was amazing but also depressing. ... I always know when it's tenure-denial season because I still get a handful of emails."

Dartmouth freshman Anais Zhang, 18, never gave Asian American Studies much thought until she was assigned to write about it for the school newspaper after the Atlanta-area massage business shootings. In her research, Zhang learned of all the attempts to start a program that ultimately went nowhere. It left her frustrated.

"I talked to a lot of my friends about the article and my shock at how we really don't have an institutionalized program and just my reaction learning about how previous students had put so much effort in petitioning the college and hiring professors ... only to have this support trickle away and have all this progress undone in the subsequent years," Zhang said.

A lot of times fledgling ethnic studies programs decline because junior professors who aren't full time or permanent have to carry them, according to Dhingra.

"It's just creating extra labor for faculty that burns people out and it isn't able to grow because it wasn't created with enough infrastructure in the first place," Dhingra said.

At the University of Arizona in Tucson, an Asian Pacific American Studies minor launched last month. While it is an "example of the way the university is combating anti-Asian hate and ignorance," it was a culmination of efforts that started several years before the pandemic, said Brett Esaki, an assistant professor who helped come up with the coursework.

"The short- and long-term goals are definitely about stability," said Esaki, who is not tenured. "We can't just hope for another disaster to get people to say, 'You're important.'"