• A large bronze statue of Congressman John Lewis, the late civil rights leader, was installed in Decatur, Georgia, where a monument to the Confederacy was removed in 2020.
• The confederate monument was a stone obelisk erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1908. It became the subject of protests over police violence following the death of George Floyd.
• John Lewis was known for his participation on the front lines of the civil rights movement. His statue will be officially unveiled on Aug. 24.

A large bronze statue of the late civil rights icon and Georgia congressman John Lewis was installed Friday, at the very spot where a contentious monument to the Confederacy stood for more than 110 years in the town square before it was dismantled in 2020.

Work crews gently rested the 12-foot-tall statue into place as the internationally acclaimed sculptor, Basil Watson, looked on carefully.

“It’s exciting to see it going up and exciting for the city because of what he represents and what it’s replacing,” Watson said, as he assisted with the installation process.

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Lewis was known for his role at the front lines of the civil rights movement and urged others to get in “good trouble” for a cause he saw as vital and necessary. In DeKalb County, where the Confederate monument stood for more than a century, protesters have invoked “good trouble” in calling for the swift removal of the obelisk.

Back in 2020, the stone obelisk was lifted from its base with straps amid jeers and chants of “Just drop it!” from onlookers in Decatur, Georgia, who were kept at a safe distance by sheriff’s deputies. The obelisk was erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1908.

Groups like the Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights and Hate Free Decatur had been pushing for the monument to be removed since the deadly 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The monument was among those around the country that became flashpoints for protests over police brutality and racial injustice, following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis. The city of Decatur then asked a Georgia judge to order the removal of the monument, which was often vandalized and marked by graffiti, saying it had become a threat to public safety.

The statue of Lewis will be officially unveiled on Aug. 24.

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.