THE INNER-CITY NEWS
An opportunity to invest in world-class education
Oscar Recap
MARCH 07, 2018
2018
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MARCH 13, 2018
except white males. Kumali Nanjiani, the star of The Big Sick, took delight in chastising them. ‘Now, straight white dudes can watch movies starring me, and relate to that,” he said. As usual, the In Memoriam montage failed to pay tribute to a number of Hollywood icons. Among the dearly departed omitted were Adam West, Rose Marie, Della Reese, director Tobe Hooper, Robert Guillame, David Cassidy, Glen Campbell, Miguel Ferrer, Oscar-winner Dorothy Malone, Nanette Fabray, Dina Merrill and Jim Nabors. Gone but not forgotten, may they rest in peace.
by Kam Williams
University of Connecticut $152,000,000*
Special Obligation Student Fee Revenue Bonds 2018 Series A The University of Connecticut Special Obligation Student Fee Revenue Bonds, 2018 Series A are special obligations of the University of Connecticut, a body politic and corporate constituting a public instrumentality and agency of the State of Connecticut. The Bonds are being issued pursuant to the UConn 2000 Infrastructure Improvement Program, which is a $4.6 billion, 32-year program to renew, rebuild and enhance the University’s campuses.
Retail Order Period:*
Institutional Pricing:*
Monday, March 12, 2018 Tuesday, March 13, 2018
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
Expected Maturities:* 2018 – 2047
Interest is exempt from federal and Connecticut state-income tax.** Ratings from Moody’s and S&P are expected prior to the Retail Order Period
For further information, including copies of the Preliminary Official Statement for the Bonds, please visit the websites or call any of the firms below:
uconnbonds.com buy bonds.com
Jefferies
800-567-8567 Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC 917-343-7900
J.P. Morgan
855-231-8873 Piper Jaffray & Co. 800-552-0614
Barclays Capital Blaylock Van, LLC KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. Loop Capital Markets NW Capital Markets Inc. 888-227-2275 877-591-7072 866-227-6479 888-294-8898 201-526-2761 Ramirez & Co., Inc. RBC Capital Markets Oppenheimer & Co. PNC Capital Markets LLC Prager & Co., LLC 800-624-6450 800-336-4020 855-289-2663 800-243-2478 866-208-1368 Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co., L.L.C. Stern Brothers TD Securities Wells Fargo Securities 800-529-3133 800-288-2471 212-827-7172 866-287-3221 *Preliminary, subject to change and availability. **Before purchasing bonds, you should consult with your tax advisor concerning your particular tax situation. These Bonds may not be sold, nor may offers to buy be accepted, prior to the time an Official Statement is delivered in final form. Under no circumstances shall this announcement constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of the Bonds in any jurisdiction in which an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. The Bonds will only be sold by means of an Official Statement.
The Shape of Water Wins Best Picture Diversity-Themed Evening Celebrates Inclusion in Hollywood The Shape of Water was the big winner at the 90th Academy Awards, netting four Oscars, including Best Picture. Mexican directors have now won four of the past five years, with Guillermo del Toro joining his compadres Alejandro Inarritu (Birdman and The Revenant) and Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity) in the elite fraternity. “I am an immigrant,” del Toro began his emotional acceptance speech suggesting that we should be “erasing the lines in the sand” instead of building walls, a thinly-veiled criticism of President Trump. He was not the only person to weigh-in on the issue. Earlier in the evening, co-presenters Kenyan Lupita Nyong’o and Pakistani Kumail Nanjiani defiantly declared themselves “Dreamers” before assuring DACA participants with “We stand with you.” Others also turned the podium into a soapbox for a political platform For instance, moments before handing Guillermo his statue, Emma Stone bemoaned the fact that the nominees in the directing category were “four men and Greta Gerwig,” implying that females had been slighted. But that jab ignored the fact that a Latino and an African-American, Jordan Peele, were among the contenders. It was almost as if last year’s cause
celebre, #OscarsSoWhite, had been supplanted by #MeToo and #TimesUp, hashtag movements supporting victims of sexual harassment. Jordan Peele did walk away with an Oscar for Get Out’s screenplay, but he and Kobe Bryant (Best Animated Short Film, “Dear Basketball”) were the only African-American winners from among the dozen nominated. Did anybody else notice that there were fewer white men among the presenters? Yes, they still dominated the ranks of the Academy Award winners, but that didn’t discourage others in attendance from taking potshots at them. At times, it felt like a celebration of cultural diversity, with the immigrant, feminist, black and LGBTQ communities sharing the limelight, everyone
Con’t from page 18
The Student Loan Debt Crisis
to make student aid more costly for students rather than hold institutions accountable for what they do with the aid reflects either a catastrophic misunderstanding of the root causes of this issue or something more disturbing: the blatant effort to recreate the system we had before the HEA was enacted. In this system, traditional college was by and large only accessible to the wealthy, who were usually White. Fixing our broken student debt system should not mean un-doing years of progress since the HEA or saddling marginalized groups with a lifetime of debt. Instead, we need to hold student loan servicers, debt collectors, and institutions of all kinds accountable for their practices. Afri-
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can Americans, Latinos and low-income students from all backgrounds need more income-based grants, loans, financial assistance, and admissions policies that tear down barriers of color, culture, and class, not support them. Helping college graduates to repay their loans isn’t the only challenge. The challenge is enabling and empowering all our young people to make their fullest contribution to our country. This is, in the last analysis, a debt that all Americans owe to ourselves and our nation’s future. Wade Henderson is a founding board member of the Center for Responsible Lending. You can follow Wade on Twitter @Wade4Justice.
Con’t from page 18
Home-grown
Much attention has been paid to the Russian interference in our 2016 presidential election. Surely it is bizarre that President Donald Trump’s State Department has spent not one cent of the millions appropriated for countering Russian cyber subversion of our election. Steps to protect a true vote and to expose and limit foreign intervention in our elections are vital. But we should be clear: The greatest attack on the right to vote comes not from the Russians but from homegrown reactionaries who want to make it harder for African Americans, Latinos, the young and working people to vote, and easier for big money to influence our elections. The democratic revival that accompanied the passage of the 15th Amendment after the Civil War was met with a fierce reaction that ended up imposing segregation – legalized apartheid – across the South. The democratic revival that followed passage of the Voting Rights Act and the civil rights movement has similarly been met with a fierce reaction that is undermining voting rights in states across the country. Now the question is whether that reaction will spark a new movement to protect the right to vote. Voter suppression matters. The purge of the voter rolls in Florida surely cost Al Gore the presidency in 2000. The new laws that helped suppress black votes in Wisconsin helped cost Hillary Clinton the presidency in 2016. The right to vote is fundamental to our democracy, but it is neither explicitly guaranteed in the Constitution nor guaranteed in practice. It is once more under attack, and once more must be defended and extended.