Society
US Elite Colleges Slip on Math as an American Tourist Goes Missing in Kyoto
Two US-angle stories landed together: a report that University of California faculty want standardized math scores reinstated after a thirtyfold jump in students testing below high-school level, and the search for a 20-year-old American man who went missing in Kyoto during a family trip. Japanese readers treated the first as vindication of merit-based testing over 'diversity first,' while reactions to the missing-person case mixed sober concern about mountainous terrain with the family's account of a pre-disappearance argument.