NEWS BRIEFING
West Virginia teachers return to classroom after 9-day strike
A nine-day strike was declared over Tuesday after the Legislature passed and Gov. Jim Justice signed the pay raise to end what’s believed to be the longest strike in state history. The last major strike, in 1990, lasted eight days.
The walkout shut 277,000 students out of classrooms, forced their parents to scramble for child care and cast a national spotlight on government dysfunction in West Virginia.
These 35,000 public school employees, some of the lowest-paid in the nation, had gone four years without a salary increase.
Justice has asked county superintendents to be flexible as they decide how to meet the requirement of having 180 days of school, saying students “have suffered enough.” He wants families to have time for summer vacation and doesn’t want summer feeding programs placed in jeopardy if classes go too far into June.
Some superintendents are mulling whether to cut short spring break.
At Stonewall Jackson Middle School in Charleston, students filed past a hallway sign that read “Welcome back, let’s roll.”
After the layoff, Stonewall Jackson student Angel Davis said she tried to convince her sister that it’s good to be back in school.
“I was happy,” she said. “I said I want my education.”
Cohen got secret order against porn star Daniels, attorney says
The order came in a private Los Angeles arbitration proceeding Cohen initiated to enforce a deal reached with Daniels in the closing days of the 2016 presidential campaign. In return for keeping silent, Daniels received $130,000.
Asked whether Trump knew about the payment when it was made, Sanders responded: “Not that I’m aware of.”
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, filed a lawsuit against the president Tuesday seeking to void the October 2016 hush-money agreement, saying Trump never signed it.
British police: Nerve agent used in attack on former Russian spy
Mark Rowley, who heads Britain’s counterterrorism policing, said that a police officer, one of the first on the scene, was in serious condition in hospital.
On Sunday afternoon, Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, were found unconscious on a bench in the center of Salisbury, a cathedral city 90 miles southwest of London. The two were rushed to a hospital, where they remain critically ill.
Skripal, a former Russian spy, was jailed in 2006 for passing state secrets to Britain. He was released in 2010 as part of a high-profile spy swap.
Police: 1 student dead, 1 injured in shooting at Alabama school
Birmingham interim police Chief Orlando Wilson said investigators are still seeking to determine the circumstances of the shooting shortly before 3:30 p.m. at Huffman High School, adding they had begun seeking out witnesses and school surveillance video.
Wednesday's shooting prompted a brief lockdown at the magnet school. Students were subsequently released and authorities said they had determined that the shooting was not perpetrated by “someone from the outside” entering the school. Wilson declined to say who fired the gun.
Calif. decision expected soon on Manson corpse
Kern County Superior Court Commissioner Alisa Knight said Wednesday that she would rule in a few days on petitions to release Manson’s remains from the Bakersfield morgue, said deputy Kern County counsel Bryan Walters said.
Several would-be heirs and a former pen pal are vying for the corpse that’s been on ice since Manson died Nov. 19 in a hospital at age 83.
A man who claims he was fathered by Manson and another who says he’s a grandson are locked in a dispute with a friend who collects so-called Manson memorabilia.
Manson was serving a life sentence for orchestrating the 1969 killings of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and eight others.
Holocaust Museum pulls major award from Suu Kyi
The museum said Wednesday that the Elie Wiesel Award given to Suu Kyi in 2012 would be rescinded. The move is the latest in a series of blows to Suu Kyi’s international reputation, which has plummeted over the Rohingya massacres.
Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
The museum has embraced the plight of the Rohingya and published a report in November that said there was “mounting evidence of genocide” committed by the military and Buddhist extremists.