USA Today, by Jefferson Graham

Yik Yak, the once-popular and ultra controversial app favored by college and high school students, prepared to shut down Friday, a victim of management miscues, fickle users and school bans. "We'll begin winding down the Yik Yak app over the coming week as we start tin-kering around with what's ahead for our brand, our technology, and ourselves," co-founders Tyler Droll and Brooks Buffington wrote in a blog post.  Yik Yak, which started in 2013 as a way to connect students on campus and quickly rode its way to the top 10 most-downloaded app charts, grew to $400 million in market value. But the feature of being anonymous, an initial selling point, created issues-namley complaints about bullying, harassment and threats. Yik Yak was banned at several schools, while others were forced to shut down for days because of anonymous threats made against students on Yik Yak.  

Washingtonian, by Dan Reed

As developers partner with universities, they get to build on school land, and the schools get to help shape vibrant neighborhoods. In the early 2000s, when the area started to gentrify, Abdo Development and Bozzuto signed on to 11 acres of the Catholic University in Brookland's university grounds to build a complex of residences, shops and artist studios next to the Brook-land Metro. Gallaudet is taking an even more active role in revitalizing its environs. It has partnered with JBG to redevelop seven school-owned acres into a neighborhood tailored to the deaf. UMD is at the forefront of Washington's largest college-led neighborhood transformation. The College Park City-University Partnership aims to make the neighborhood around the university one of the nations best college towns by 2020. It's working with developers to recast Route 1, long known for seedy motels and dive bars.  

Inside Higher Ed, by Jake New

National and campus awareness campaigns about men-tal health have led to increasing numbers of students who seek help at college counseling centers, according to a new report released by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health. That increase in demand, however, may be leading counseling centers to redirect their limited funding away from ongoing treatment in order to more rapidly address the needs of a growing number of at-risk students. Over the last six years, counseling centers have provided 28 percent more "rapid-access" service hours per student, the center found, and devoted 7.6 per-cent fewer hours to routine services like ongoing counseling. The center's sixth annual report includes data from nearly 140 institutions and 150,483 students and is based on information collected during more than a million clinical appointments on college campuses in the 2015-16 academic year.  

  Daily Local News, by Bill Rettew Jr.

The borough's Business Improvement District is one of the three winners of the 2017 Great American Main Street Award from the National Main Street Center Inc. West Chester is the first Pennsylvania community to be recognized with this distinction in nearly 20 years. The borough was recognized for its efforts to preserve the area's historic and cultural heritage while modernizing the downtown into a fine-dining destination. West Chester's revival began approximately 17 years ago when the West Chester Business Improvement District was established. The BID successfully secured a Keystone Commu-nities designation through the Department of Community and Economic Development's Keystone Communities Program, which helps encourage public and private sector partnerships that support economic development and local revitalization efforts specific to the communities needs.   

Kansas City InfoZine, by Staff Writers

As bicycling becomes a more popular form of transpor-tation, cities that do not make strides to accommodate cyclists could get left behind, according to a city plan-ning expert at Kansas State University. "Communities that don't become bicycle-friendly will lose out because people will choose other places to live and visit," said Jason Brody, associate professor of regional & commu-nity planning at Kansas State University. "We won't see a change from one day to the next, but eventually, people will move to places with multiple transportation options." Brody says cities and towns that implement bicycle-friendly elements, such as bike lanes and bike racks, may experience many benefits, including less congested and longer-lasting roadways; cleaner air; decreased need for additional driving lanes; more efficient use of roads; and a positive image as a forward-thinking community. 

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