List of All Articles with Tag 'me'

A new set of standards for African American history in Florida schools will teach middle schoolers how enslaved people “developed skills” that could be “applied for personal benefit”. Another guideline instructs high schoolers to be taught that a massacre led by white supremacists against Black residents in Ocoee to stop them from voting in 1920 included “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.” Members of the Florida Board of Education have defended the standards for African American history lessons they unanimously approved, with Ron DeSantis-appointed board member MaryLynn Magar assuring the attendees at a hearing in Orlando on 19 July that “everything is there” and that “the darkest parts of our history are addressed” in the curriculum. But civil rights advocates, educators and Democratic state lawmakers have warned that elements of the guidelines present a distorted, revisionist picture of the state’s history of racism. “The notion that enslaved people benefitted from being enslaved is inaccurate and a scary standard for us to establish in our education system,” Democratic state Rep Anna Eskamani told the board. State Senator Geraldine Thompson said that a recommendation suggesting that Black people sparked the Ocoee massacre is “blaming the victim”. Ms Thompson helped pass a law in 2020 that requires schools to teach lessons about the massacre. The Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said in a statement that the standards represent “a big step backward for a state that has required teaching African American history” for more than three decades. “Our children deserve nothing less than truth, justice, and the equity our ancestors shed blood, sweat, and tears for,” NAACP president Derrick Johnson added in a statement. “It is imperative that we understand that the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow were a violation of human rights and represent the darkest period in American history. We refuse to go back.” The new standards add another victory in the DeSantis administration’s radical education overhaul and a “parents’ rights” agenda that has restricted honest lessons of race and racism in state schools, reshaped local school boards, and banned public colleges from offering classes that “distort significant events” or “teach identity politics”. Florida’s Board of Education also adopted five rules targeting LGBT+ students, including punishing transgender students and staff who use restrooms that align with their gender and add barriers to students who want their names and pronouns respected in and out of the classroom. LGBT+ advocates have accused the board and the governor’s administration of weaponizing state agencies to implement the DeSantis agenda as he mounts a national campaign, fuelled in part by what opponents have called “Don’t Say Gay” legislation adopted by several other states. That bill, which Mr DeSantis signed into law in 2022 and expanded earlier this year, has sparked fears that its broad scope could be used to effectively block discussion of LGBT+ people, history and events from state schools, and threaten schools with potential lawsuits over perceived violations. “This politically motivated war on parents, students, and educators needs to stop,” said Jennifer Solomon with Equality Florida. “Our students deserve classrooms where all families are treated with the respect they deserve and all young people are welcomed,” she said in a statement. “Let parents be parents. Let educators be educators. And stop turning our kids’ classrooms into political battlefields to score cheap points.” The African American history curriculum advanced by the board does not fully adopt the recommendations from the African American History Task Force, which urged the board to consider “contemporary issues impacting Africans and African Americans”. Education Commissioner Manny Diaz defended the standards as an “in-depth, deep dive into African American history, which is clearly American history as Governor DeSantis has said, and what Florida has done is expand it.” Under the new standards, students will be taught to simply “identify” famous Black people, but it fails to add requirements for students to learn about their contributions, challenges and stories overall. “We must do better in offering a curriculum that is both age-appropriate and truthful,” according to Democratic state Rep Dianne Hart, chair of Florida’s Legislative Black Caucus. “Education is a critical part of an individual’s personal foundation and when you chose to build a foundation on falsehoods, lies, or by simply erasing history, you’ve laid a foundation that will ultimately fail,” she said in a statement. The board’s adoption of the standards follow the board’s decision to ban the teaching of Advanced Placement African American Studies in high schools, claiming that the course “significantly lacks educational value” and “inexplicably” contradicted Florida law. A letter dated 12 January from the Florida Department of Education to the College Board, which administers AP exams, said the board is welcome to return to the agency with “lawful, historically accurate content”. Read More DeSantis campaign video crossed a line for gay right-wing pundits despite governor’s record on LGBT+ rights Florida schools remove books by John Milton and Toni Morrison and restrict Shakespeare under DeSantis rules Jury awards Florida girl burned by McDonald's Chicken McNugget $800,000 in damages Florida rulings ease concerns about drag performers at Pride parades, drag queen story hours What are the 10 largest US lottery jackpots ever won?

Oregon officials have identified Jesse Lee Calhoun of Portland, as a person of interest in the mystery deaths of four women that police say are linked, law enforcement sources told The Associated Press. The 38-year-old has not been charged with any crimes related to the investigation. He is currently in prison on unrelated charges, after being arrested on 6 June for a parole violation. Court records show that Calhoun has an extensive criminal history including 2003 and 2008 convictions for assault. He was also sentenced to four years in 2019 for burglary. He was released early in July 2021 after being granted a “conditional commutation” by then-Oregon Governor Kate Brown, due to his service as an inmate firefighter during the wildfires and the fear of Covid-19 spreading in prisons. Meanwhile, a woman saying that she’s Calhoun’s girlfriend has said that he had links to two of the four victims, revealing that Calhoun and Ashley Real had been seeing each other on and off for about a year and that he would provide Bridget Webster with drugs in exchange for sex. Read More Woman claiming to be girlfriend of person of interest in Oregon killings reveals alleged links to victims An inmate was pardoned by Oregon’s governor. Two years on he’s a person of interest in four suspicious deaths Jesse Calhoun identified as person of interest in suspicious deaths of four women in Portland Mothers hope for answers as authorities announce 'person of interest' in deaths of 4 women in Oregon Portland police dismissed serial killer fears after the deaths of six women. Then came a chilling connection

Donald Trump could be indicted by a grand jury investigating his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the January 6 Capitol riot by Friday. The Independent learned that a possible indictment could be handed down as soon as this week, charging the former president in his third criminal case. Mr Trump announced on Tuesday that he had been sent a letter by special prosecutor Jack Smith informing him that he is the “target” of a grand jury investigation. The target letter cites three statutes under which he could be charged including conspiracy to commit offence or to defraud the United States, deprivation of rights under colour of law and tampering with a witness, victim or informant, multiple outlets reported. William Russell, a former White House aide who now works for the Trump presidential campaign and spent much of January 6 with the then-president, is scheduled to testify before the grand jury when it meets today. The former president was given until today to report to the Washington, DC, federal courthouse but with a midnight deadline is not expected to appear. Instead, he shared a fan video on Truth Social with a threatening mob boss feel using audio featuring an expletive and lifted from comments he made in 2020 on Iran. Read More Donald Trump brands US a ‘third-world hellhole’ run by ‘perverts’ and ‘thugs’ Ron DeSantis campaign fires staff as Florida governor trails Trump in the polls Fundraising takeaways: Trump and DeSantis in their own tier as Pence and other Republicans struggle RFK Jr revives antisemitic conspiracy theory that Covid-19 was ‘ethnically targeted’ to spare Jewish people

A woman in Florida has been arrested on aggravated manslaughter charges after a 10-month-old child she was caring for was found unresponsive in a car. Temperatures inside the car were in excess of 113F, according to Baker County Sheriff's officials. Rhonda Jewell has been accused of leaving the child unattended in the car for "at least five hours" while temperatures outside rose to 98F. The child died as a result. Ms Jewell was babysitting the infant and three other children on the day of the incident, according to CNN. She picked up the 10-month-old girl from her parents' home and drove to another location, where she planned to babysit all the children together. Ms Jewell told investigators that when she arrived, the child appeared to be sleeping, so she left the baby and went inside to see the other children. She said she forgot about the baby in the car. “It wasn’t until the decedent’s mother arrived at the address (…) to pick up her child, that the decedent’s mother found her to still be strapped in a car seat inside the hot vehicle,” the police report said. The mother arrived around 1pm and saw her child in the car, not breathing and with blue lips. She then called 911. The child was pronounced dead at the hospital. A detective examining the baby said the child's skin was "still very hot to the touch" even after she was taken to a hospital for treatment. Medical staff took the infant's internal temperature, which was 110F, but noted that 110 was the highest the thermometer could measure. Ms Jewell was subsequently arrested for aggravated manslaughter of a child resulting in death. She was booked into the Baker County Detention Centre on Thursday. Baker County Sheriff Scotty Rhoden issued a statement after the tragedy asking the community to be mindful of the victims when seeking out information about the incident. "Each of us are given the gift of life every morning we wake up and every evening when we finish our day, we are blessed if our family is safe and healthy. In the blink of an eye, our world can be turned upside down," he wrote. "Please be mindful of this when trying to understand the tragedy that took place in our small town yesterday." Read More Colorado police buy woman groceries after her partner made young children ‘watch him eat’ and go hungry Mother of kidnapped and murdered Alabama teen speaks out after she helped in search for Carlee Russell Father accused of killing his three sons ‘had plotted murders for months’

Some people browse TikTok and Instagram for recipes, memes and colorful takes on the news. Erin Coleman says her 14-year-old daughter uses these apps to search for videos about mental health diagnoses.

An 18-year-old Florida mother is accused of trying to hire someone to kill her three-year-old son. Jazmin Paez has been charged with first-degree solicitation of murder and third-degree using a communications device for an unlawful use, according to court documents obtained by NBC6. Ms Paez went on a parody website called rentahitman.com and requested a hitman to kill her son by Thursday, according to arrest documents obtained by the outlet. The publications spoke to the website’s owner, Robert Innes, who said Ms Paez sent pictures of the boy and the exact location of where the child was going to be — which he found to be unusually specific. Mr Innes told the outlet that the site sometimes receives fake requests but this one seemed to be a real one: “The ability to research names and addresses and verify the intended target lived in a particular address. That to me is a red flag. If that information is corroborated, to me that is something that needs to be looked at and that’s why I referred it.” Investigators used the information Ms Paez provided on the website, like the address and the child’s photo. They visited the address and spoke to the boy’s grandmother, and saw that the boy was safe at home. Police also traced the IP of the computer that was used to make the request with the website to track down Ms Paez, according to CBS News. They then pretended to be the hired hitman and talked to Ms Paez, who agreed to pay $3,000 to have her son murdered, the outlet added. NBC6 reported that her bond was set for $15,000. She bailed out of jail as of Thursday, according to CBS News. Read More Daughter of British expat accused of murdering terminally-ill wife in Cyprus issues plea for his release Mother of kidnapped and murdered Alabama teen speaks out after she helped in search for Carlee Russell Father accused of killing his three sons ‘had plotted murders for months’

After years of speculation and observation, residents of a leafy section of Brooklyn managed to discover that a veteran New York police officer was behind a string of bizarre littering incidents on a street in Greenpoint. “Now, I’m sure we all have random papers in our weekly recycling bin,” one resident wrote on the local site Greenpointers. “But I need to stress to those who have yet to experience this phenomenon with their own eyes the SHEER VOLUME of papers floating down the street. It looks like the work of someone with an enormous collection of old books who spends their weekend tearing apart pages before scattering them in the wind.” Residents told Gothamist that for years on end, they would wake to find find pile after pile of meticulously sliced book pages strewn across Noble Street, ranging from selections of the Bible to 1970s porn magazines to a book on Greco-Roman art. “Sometimes things would be underlined or highlighted on the pages, and we would try to figure out if there was a message,” former block association president Molly FitzSimons told the outlet. “We really could not imagine who would do this … It was just this shadowy mystery.” “It made me just feel compassion for this person who clearly was processing something difficult.” Others didn’t take so kindly to the document dumps. Neighbours began actively trying to catch the person they dubbed the “book bandit,” with one resident deploying their surveillance camera to the effort, and another arranging for a private security firm to stake out the street in the hopes of catching the serial litterer. Security footage obtained by WNYC shows the man in action, driving slowly in the dark and dumping an armful of paper into the road. Eventually, the citizen efforts helped yield a licence plate number, prompting the NYPD to investigate Sergeant John Trzcinski, a veteran officer who joined the force in 1994 and earned $177,516, according to public records. When asked about the littering allegations, the NYPD directed The Independent to a database of disciplinary actions, which showed Sergeant Trzcinski was disciplined on 30 May for littering, losing a vacation day. The Independent has contacted the officer and the police union for comment. The city Department of Sanitation confirmed to Gothamist that Sergeant Trzcinski, who lives in Long Island, hasn’t been fined for littering or illegal dumping. Litterers need to be caught in the act by police or sanitation personnel, and the bundles of papers Sergeant Trzcinski left in the street weren’t large enough to qualify as illegal dumping. Sergeant Trzcinski has been awarded multiple awards for police service, and hasn’t been previously disciplined, according to public records. Read More Veteran police official Edward Caban becomes first Latino to head the NYPD Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect named as Rex Heuermann after arrest for Long Island murders New York City's Rikers Island, facing possible federal takeover, found violating safety standards

Amid fears of another botched execution, Alabama plans to put James Barber to death on Thursday or early Friday after a federal appeals court upheld a decision not to halt his execution despite his claim that lethal injection could result in cruel and unusual punishment.

Extreme heat in the summer has become America's brutal new reality. But local, state and federal aid programs and infrastructure to help people cool down haven't kept up with the country's record-shattering temperatures.

In a private call with former President Donald Trump, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he personally backed the idea of expunging Trump's two impeachments and would bring it up to the conference to gauge support, a source said. He did not promise to bring it to the floor, the source added.

By Hannah Lang (Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Reserve has launched a long-awaited service which will aim to modernize the country's

Yevgeny Prigozhin says "there will be no reduction in our programmes" in the continent.