The Death of a Family, and an American Dream

His younger daughter was the last to go into the ground. Before her had gone her sister, her younger brother and the baby, William. Too small for his own coffin, he lay nestled beside their mother.

After American soil had covered his family???s coffins, Yilin Zhuo had nothing left to stay for. In early December, he abandoned his adopted home, Brooklyn, for the Chinese village he had come from two decades ago.

NYTimes

To Keep Teenagers Alert, Schools Let Them Sleep In

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Jilly Dos Santos really did try to get to school on time. She set three successive alarms on her phone. Skipped breakfast. Hastily applied makeup while her fuming father drove. But last year she rarely made it into the frantic scrum at the doors of Rock Bridge High School here by the first bell, at 7:50 a.m.

Then she heard that the school board was about to make the day start even earlier, at 7:20 a.m.

“I thought, if that happens, I will die,” recalled Jilly, 17. “I will drop out of school!”

That was when the sleep-deprived teenager turned into a sleep activist. She was determined to convince the board of a truth she knew in the core of her tired, lanky body: Teenagers are developmentally driven to be late to bed, late to rise. Could the board realign the first bell with that biological reality?

NYTimes