The artist Sedrick Huckaby and his wife, the photographer Letitia Huckaby, set about transforming his late grandmother’s home into a community arts space. Let’s go inside.
Major school districts press to reopen throughout Washington D.C. metro area
In lockstep with President Joe Biden’s push to reopen schools across the United States, school systems throughout the broader Washington D.C. metropolitan area have reopened or are in the process of reopening. The return to schools follows separate announcements by the governors of Virginia and Maryland calling on all schools to reopen in March.
Washington, DC (Source: Wikipedia/Library of Congress)
On January 21, the day after Biden was inaugurated, Maryland’s Republican Governor Larry Hogan announced in a bullying speech that all Maryland schools should return to at least hybrid instruction by March 1 and threatened action against teachers who did not return. During his press conference, Hogan pointed to Chicago, where the city locked out and withheld pay from teachers who did not return to schools, as well as South Carolina, where the state threatened to take away educators’ teaching licenses.
Nearing 500,000 US COVID-19 deaths | A look back at lives lost in DMV communities msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
From USA TODAY Network and wire reports
Alabama
Montgomery: The state is preparing to execute an inmate by lethal injection in what would be Alabama’s first death sentence carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic. Willie B. Smith III, 51, is scheduled to be put to death Thursday at a south Alabama prison for the 1991 shotgun slaying of Sharma Ruth Johnson. U.S. District Judge Austin Huffaker Jr. on Tuesday denied Smith’s lawyers’ request for a stay. The Alabama Supreme Court ruled the execution could go forward with precautions. Smith’s attorneys have sought a stay arguing that the pandemic and the prohibition on in-person prison visits had made it difficult for them to adequately represent him. They said Smith has been unable to receive the number of in-person visits from attorneys, friends and a pastor that death row inmates normally do before their date in the execution chamber. Attorneys also argued the execution would be a super-spreader event. Some COVID-19 cases have
Following Tuesday’s vote, union members and the American Federation of Teachers sent a letter to city officials that outlined six coronavirus-related requests.
Educators want the city to create a “situation room” to respond to emergency issues within 24 hours and to require a 24-hour immediate shut down for deep cleaning of any school where a coronavirus exposure has been confirmed, among other items.
The letter also mentioned Helen Marie White, a Ballou STAY Opportunity Academy teacher who died of the virus over the weekend.
“We must make sure schools are safe. What keeps me up at night is that the district is putting the health of our city’s educators and students at risk with in-school learning because of continuing exposures in schools, numerous reports of violations of agreed-upon safety protocols and, tragically, the death of a beloved teacher,” Elizabeth Davis, union president, said. “Our teachers are pleading with the mayor and chancellor to wake up to the