Most of the members taking part in the working group developing new standards for teaching African American history in Florida reportedly didn’t agree to the parts of the controversial measure which has drawn strong rebukes. Three members of the group have told NBC News that this includes the policy that middle school students should be taught that enslaved people developed “skills” that they were able to use for their “personal benefit”. The members, who chose to remain anonymous, told the network that most of the working group didn’t want the inclusion of language stating that high school students should be taught about violence carried out “by African Americans” during lessons about issues such as the race massacres in Ocoee and Tulsa. “Most of us did not want that language,” one of the members told NBC, noting that two out of the group’s 13 members pushed for the inclusion of those two items. The work group’s standards were unanimously approved by the Florida Board of Education on 19 July. They are now set to be instituted in teaching kindergarten through 12th grade. The standards have been slammed as propaganda and pushing a sanitized version of US history. Critics argue that the standards are attempting to conceal the horrors of slavery, such as rape, murder, and forced labour in an attempt to make it seem like an apprenticeship. “These extremist, so-called leaders should model what we know to be the correct and right approach if we really are invested in the well-being of our children,” Vice President Kamala Harris said last week. “They dare to push propaganda to our children. This is the United States of America. We’re not supposed to do that.” The members of the working group who spoke to NBC News told the network that only two members wanted the inclusion of the controversial language. Those members, William Allen and Frances Presley Rice, said in a joint statement last week that the new standards set guidance for “comprehensive and rigorous instruction on African American history”. “The intent of this particular benchmark clarification is to show that some slaves developed highly specialized trades from which they benefitted,” they said. “This is factual and well documented.” The members said that Dr Allen pushed for including that slaves benefitted from the skills that they learned and that Dr Presley Rice argued for the inclusion of “violence perpetrated against and by African Americans”. “People were very vocal,” one group member said, questioning “how there could be a benefit to slavery”. “However, Dr Allen is focusing on the few slaves who actually did learn something and keeps alluding to Frederick Douglass,” one work group member told NBC. “What he is saying is not accurate for most of the slaves.” The three group members said separately that Dr Allen is “persuasive” and “knowledgeable” and that the working group ended up deferring to him. Two of the members said the issue was tabled to be discussed at a later time and didn’t remember that it ever came up for a vote. One member said the language was “problematic” and that the group “could have done a better job” if given more time. Dr Presley Rice told NBC: “I recommend highly that you get in touch with the communications department at the Department of Education, and all your questions will be answered.” The Independent has reached out to the department for comment. The changes were put in place to satisfy a new law signed by Florida Governor and Republican Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, who has distanced himself from the process of creating the new standards even as he defended them. “You should talk to them about it,” he said about the group last week. “I didn’t do it. I wasn’t involved in it.” “What they’re doing is, they’re probably going to show some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life.” “Any attempt to reduce slaves to just victims of oppression fails to recognize their strength, courage and resiliency during a difficult time in American history,” Dr Allen and Dr Presely Rice said in their statement. “Florida students deserve to learn how slaves took advantage of whatever circumstances they were in to benefit themselves and the community of African descendants,” they added. Dr Presley Rice wrote on 22 July on Facebook that “It saddens me to observe how falsehoods are being perpetuated now by some people with questionable intent, using cherry-picked language, taken out of context, to undermine the fact-based Academic Standards crafted by the Workgroup I was a part of, due to my decades-long quest to have the full, unvarnished history told about African Americans”. Dr Allen previously told NBC that the group “deliberated between February and the end of April to review the curriculum standards and to propose new benchmarks and standards”. “I think we may have had, over the course of the period from February to April, three or four meetings,” he added. Mr DeSantis said last week that the new curriculum “is rooted in whatever is factual”. “They listed everything out,” he added. “And if you have any questions about it, just ask the Department of Education. You can talk about those folks but I mean, these were scholars who put that together. It was not anything that was done politically.” The president of the Florida Education Association, Andrew Spar, told NBC last week that “Right now we are working to bring people together to get these standards changed or overturned”. “We are concerned about the conflict that teachers have — we are required to be honest and ethical in our dealings and we are required to teach the standards. What do we do if the standards are not honest and ethical?” he asked. Read More Historically Black fraternity drops Florida for convention because of DeSantis policies DeSantis car crash revealed misuse of government vehicles for 2024 campaign, report claims Water is refreshing in the heat, right? In parts of Florida this past week, not so much CLIMATE GLIMPSE: Here's what you need to see and know today Historically Black fraternity drops Florida for convention because of DeSantis policies Seven in 10 US adults believe in angels, new poll shows

“Doomsday cult mom” Lori Vallow has been found guilty of the murders of her two children and conspiracy to murder her new husband’s first wife in a case that has horrified the nation for the last three years. Tylee Ryan, 16, and Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 8, vanished without a trace in September 2019, sparking a multi-state search while their mother jetted off to Hawaii to marry her fifth husband Chad Daybell. The children’s bodies were finally discovered nine months later buried in a pet cemetery on Mr Daybell’s property in Idaho. One month after the children disappeared, Mr Daybell’s wife Tammy was also murdered in her home. At the time, her sudden death –aged 49 – was ruled natural causes until an exhumation and autopsy revealed she died by asphyxiation. Vallow and Mr Daybell were ultimately charged over their murders, with prosecutors alleging that the couple conspired with Vallow’s brother Alex Cox to kill the victims – for both money, lust and to follow their own cult beliefs. Cox mysteriously died three months after the children’s disappearance. After a six-week trial, Vallow was convicted on Friday (12 May) on all charges over the deaths of Tylee, JJ and Tammy. The verdict may mark the culmination of a chilling case that spans bizarre cult beliefs, missing children, murder and mystery deaths, but the saga is still far from over. Here’s what’s coming next in the shocking case: Sentencing Vallow is facing life in prison at her sentencing. The 49-year-old had been facing the death penalty before a last-minute ruling by the judge just weeks before the trial took it off the table. Judge Steven Boyce said that the sentencing will take place within the next 90 days. Chad Daybell’s trial Vallow’s lover, fellow cult leader and alleged accomplice Mr Daybell is yet to stand trial for the three murders of Tylee, JJ and Tammy. He is facing the same charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy and grand theft in connection with the deaths of JJ and Tylee and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the death of Tammy. Mr Daybell is also charged with an additional count of the first-degree murder of Tammy. Mr Daybell is facing the death penalty on the charges. The doomsday cult couple were due to stand trial together before the judge ruled in March – just weeks before the trial was due to begin – that the cases would be severed. While Vallow’s trial began as planned in early April, this pushed Mr Daybell’s case back to a later date. In a scheduling conference in early May, the court set a rough date of June 2024 for his trial. Vallow’s trial over fourth husband’s murder Separate to her trial in Idaho, Vallow is also awaiting trial in Arizona in connection to the murder of her fourth husband Charles Vallow. On 11 July 2019 – two months before JJ and Tylee were murdered – Vallow’s brother Alex Cox shot and killed Charles at her home in Chandler, Arizona. Charles and Vallow had been married since 2006 and had together adopted JJ – who was the biological grandson of Vallow’s sister. In early 2019, they became estranged with Charles filing for divorce, saying that he feared for the safety of himself and the children and that Ms Vallow had threatened to kill him. That February, he had pleaded with authorities to stage a mental health intervention for his wife, warning that she believed she was a god preparing for a second coming. Court documents reveal that he had also learned about Vallow’s relationship with Mr Daybell that June and had emailed Tammy with the information. He and one of Ms Vallow’s other brothers were planning an intervention over her cult beliefs at the time of his death – an intervention she is believed to have been tipped off about. That morning, Charles had gone to Vallow’s home to pick up JJ when he was shot dead by Cox. Cox initially claimed self-defence, saying that Charles attacked him with a baseball bat. However, Cox did not perform CPR on Vallow and waited 43 minutes to call 911. Investigators say that Charles was also already down on the ground when Cox shot him a second time. At the time, Charles’ death was ruled self-defence. Almost two years later, a Maricopa County grand jury charged Vallow with conspiracy to commit murder in the first degree. She is accused of conspiring with Cox to murder Charles. The Maricopa County Attorney’s office announced that it did not charge Mr Daybell over Charles’ murder – but only because there was “no reasonable likelihood of conviction”. Read More Lori Vallow trial – live: ‘Cult mom’ turns on Chad Daybell in closing argument as murder verdict looms Lori Vallow is facing life in prison for her children’s murders. We only know one side of the story Lori Vallow turns on ‘nutty’ Chad Daybell in final bid to avoid murder conviction

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Google has been abusing its dominance for years, and may have to sell part of its business as a result, European regulators have said. Breaking the advertising technology business apart may be the only way to address regulators’ concerns, they said. The European Union said that Google has been favouring its own advertising technology over those of its competitors, using its dominance over the internet to further entrench that control. It has been abusing that dominant position since 2014, regulators said. As such, only selling part of that advertising technology business would be the way to avoid those concerns, it said. So-called “behavioural remedies” – which force the business to conduct itself in specific ways but without changing the ownership or structure of the company – would not work, regulators warned. More follows Read More Elon Musk refuses to pay Twitter’s Google bill, leaving site in peril Major Google Bard update allows it to not just write code, but execute it Artificial intelligence warning over human extinction labelled ‘publicity stunt’

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