The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Civic Life and Leadership (SCiLL) aims to encourage its students to engage in civil public discourse and, in the words of Dean Jed Atkins, “learn how to disagree better,” despite a national culture increasingly mired by ideological division and censorship.

“SCiLL prepares students for the responsibilities of citizenship and civic leadership by fostering a free-speech culture and providing an education grounded in encouraging the human search for meaning and developing the capacities for civil discourse and wise decision-making,” Atkins, who formerly served at the helm of a similar program at Duke University, said, per the school’s website.

Its focus appears to deviate from schools that feed into the increasingly common concern that colleges and universities are becoming less welcoming of the free exchange of ideas.

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The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board hailed SCiLL as a “new bright spot for traditional liberal thought” in a piece published Tuesday, adding that its existence is a “victory over the progressive monolith that tried to prevent it.”

When the school was announced last year, UNC faculty members voiced their distaste for the board of trustees’ resolution to “accelerate” its creation.

One faculty member, quoted in the university’s newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, said he was “surprised” to find out about that resolution at the time.

Another was “flabbergasted,” with several faculty members arguing they should have been consulted for input.

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David Boliek, then-chairman of UNC’s board of trustees, spoke to “Fox & Friends” about the school’s creation in January 2023, saying there’s “no shortage of faculty with progressive, left-wing views [at UNC], like many campuses across the nation.”

“The same really can’t be said of right-of-center views,” he added, “So this is an effort to try to remedy that with the School of Civic Life and Leadership, which will provide equal opportunity for both views to be taught at the university.”

The WSJ piece quoted current UNC board of trustees Chairman John Preyer as saying he hopes the experimental program can “become the nation’s model for what academic freedom can do for higher education, and change the entire landscape.”

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University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus.  (Eros Hoagland/Getty Images)

SCiLL will offer courses in philosophy, politics, history, policy and more, according to a course breakdown on its site.

Some topics of study, according to the Wall Street Journal, will be the Lincoln-Douglas debates, the Federalist Papers, and the philosophies of rhetoricians like Aristotle and Montesquieu.

Georgia’s Zoo Atlanta is celebrating the birth of a Hoffmann’s two-toed sloth earlier this month.

The sloth infant, which has not yet been publicly named, was born Aug. 9 to its mother, Nutella, 7, and father Cocoa, 31, Zoo Atlanta said in an Aug. 14 press release. 

It is Nutella’s second child. Her first, a female named Olivia, was born in June 2023, the zoo said.

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“We are very excited about the birth of Nutella’s infant,” said Gina Ferrie, vice president of collections and conservation at Zoo Atlanta. 

Sloths, she said, “have so many fascinating adaptations and behaviors that we can share with our members and guests.” 

Sloth pregnancies last for approximately 11 months to a year, something the zoo said is “unusually long for the animal kingdom.” 

These pregnancies, the zoo added, “are not easily confirmed,” adding to the excitement over the new sloth baby’s arrival. 

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Although sloth pregnancies are very long, “sloth infants develop at a notably more rapid pace than do most other mammal babies,” said Zoo Atlanta.

Sloth infants are “born fully furred, with their eyes open and teeth already present and have fully developed claws for clinging to their mothers.” 

Sloths, said Zoo Atlanta, are born with their eyes open and are “fully furred.”  (Zoo Atlanta/TMX)

While Hoffmann’s two-toed sloths are “not currently classified as endangered,” Ferrie said, “they have an emerging conservation story that can help us appreciate the impact of human activities on wild animals and ecosystems.” 

Hoffmann’s two-toed sloths are native to Central and South America, according to Zoo Atlanta, and “face mounting threats in the wild” due to illegal logging practices and other human activities. 

The Hoffmann’s two-toed sloth is native to South and Central America. (Getty Images)

“Hundreds of sloths are electrocuted each year while attempting to use power lines to travel among fragmented forest patches,” Zoo Atlanta said.

Zoo Atlanta works with the Sloth Conservation Project, a Costa Rica-based organization that rescues, rehabilitates and releases sloths.

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Nutella and her newest offspring can be seen at the Summer Sloth Habitat. 

A Georgia deputy was killed Saturday night in what officials are saying appeared to be an “ambush” as he was responding to a domestic dispute call.

Paulding County Sheriff’s Deputy Brandon Cunningham, 30, succumbed to injuries at a hospital Saturday following the incident in Hiram, Georgia, Sheriff Gary Gulledge told reporters, according to Fox 5 Atlanta.

“He was a great deputy, a good young man,” the sheriff said.

Cunningham leaves behind two children.

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Two deputies responded shortly before 6:15 p.m. on Saturday to a home along Foggy Creek Lane, where they were immediately met with gunfire as they opened their patrol car doors, the sheriff’s office said. Additional deputies arrived at the scene a short time later and were also met with gunfire coming from the home.

Cunningham was shot during the incident and was rushed to a local hospital, where he ultimately died.

“It appears our deputies were ambushed,” Paulding County Sheriff’s Major Ashley Henson told reporters.

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Cunningham leaves behind two children. (iStock)

Investigators learned a woman had left the home and returned before being found with a gunshot wound, the sheriff’s office said, according to Fox 5 Atlanta. She was transported to a hospital in critical but stable condition.

A SWAT team later entered the home and found the gunman dead from an apparent gunshot wound.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has been asked to investigate the incident.