Lead Stories
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According to a May report in the New York Times, an industry has sprung up in New York City over the past few years: that of advisers who counsel parents on how to get a child accepted at a prestigious nursery school (practically a prerequisite for admission to a prestigious kindergarten). The advisers charge as much as $300 an hour (or a flat $3,000), and though figures like these–and the $300,000 price tag of a complete 14-year ride in tony private schools–could easily discourage the most devoted mom and dad, the best nursery schools are still swamped with hopefuls. Columbia Grammar, a notch below the even more competitive “Baby Ivies,” recently received more than 500 applications for 34 kindergarten slots.
In May, ambulance driver Mike Ferguson–a 36-year veteran with a clean license–was ticketed twice by speed cameras on England’s A1 highway between Leeds and Cambridge as he rushed a liver to transplant. (Cameras in two different jurisdictions caught him at 104 mph.) After Ferguson explained himself to police in Cambridgeshire they dismissed his ticket, but the Lincolnshire police have insisted on sending the case to prosecutors; a court date has been set for October.
South Carolina’s house of representatives is working on a resolution to commission a statue, to be raised on the grounds of the statehouse, that would recognize the state’s antiabortion movement; in the original resolution, pulled in late April, the statue was to be a six-foot fetus. (Some supporters have suggested that a better way to celebrate unborn children might be to focus on a later developmental stage–they’ve proposed a design featuring a few kids at play.)
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