Download Report

FRIDAY • APRIL 10 • 2015 • PAGE 1
Minnesota Teen Accepted to All Eight
Ivy League Schools
Daniella Silva
A Minnesota teen has achieved
the rare and prestigious honor of
being accepted to all eight Ivy
League schools.
Munira Khalif, a senior at Mounds
Park Academy in St. Paul, Minnesota,
told NBC affiliate KARE that she
was accepted to all eight Ivy League
schools — plus several other prestigious universities.
"I'm humbled to even be able to
have these choices because I know
that that's not the case for everyone," she said.
The eight Ivy League Schools are
Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale, Princeton and
the University of Pennsylvania.
Khalif was also accepted to Stan-
Mounds Park Academy (MPA) senior
Munira Khalif has a tough but awesome
decision ahead, after being accepted to
all eight Ivy League schools.
ford, Georgetown and the University
of Minnesota.
In addition to stellar grades and
test scores, Khalif — who is the
daughter of Somali immigrants— is
a recipient of the United Nations
Youth Courage Award and founder
of her own non-profit, Lighting the
Way. The organization is dedicated
to improving access to education for
East African youth.
"You're not accepted because of a
score you're accepted because of
the person that you are," she told
KARE.
Meanwhile in Utica, New York, a
Vietnamese immigrant and senior at
Thomas R. Proctor High School, was
accepted to all 13 schools she applied to — including 5 Ivies.
"I remember in third grade a
teacher asked me what I wanted to
be and I said: 'I want to go to the
Ivy League and I want to be president,'" Trinh Truong, 17, told NBC affiliate WKTV.
"Statistically I was not supposed
to succeed coming from such an adverse background," she added.
Truong was raised by a single
mother and came to the U.S. when
she was three years old.
The White House Just Did Something
Big in the Bathroom
Stacey Klein
For the first time in history, the
White House has designated a
gender-neutral restroom for visitors
and staffers—the latest in a series
of steps the administration has
taken to protect the rights of members of the LGBT community.
The gender-neutral restroom is
located in the Eisenhower Executive
Office Building which is near the
White House and home to many
staff offices and meetings.
The restroom is also a symbol of
the administration's efforts to include LGBT issues and concerns as
part of a broader national conversation on tolerance. On Wednesday, an
executive order went into effect
prohibiting companies that contract
The Eisenhower Executive Office
Building in Washington.
with the federal government from
discriminating against transgender
and gay employees.
"The White House allows staff
and guests to use restrooms consistent with their gender identity,
which is in keeping with the administration's existing legal guidance
on this issue," White House spokesman Jeff Tiller told NBC News.
Obama is the first president to
endorse same-sex marriage and he
addressed the struggles of those in
the gay community in his speech
last month in Selma, Alabama at the
50th anniversary of the one of the
most important civil rights movements. During the speech, Obama
drew comparisons to past gay rights
demonstrations, such as the Stonewall riots of 1969 and demonstrations in San Francisco after the
1978 assassination of city supervisor Harvey Milk.
"We're the gay Americans whose
blood ran in the streets of San
Francisco and New York, just as
blood ran down this bridge," Obama
said last month. "What it means to
love America" is to invoke the spirit
of change. The president said gay
Americans "came through those
doors" opened by civil rights activists a half-century ago.
Walter Scott
Shooting: Reformers
See Hope in City's
Swift Response
Jon Schuppe
Muhiydin D'Baha leads a group
protesting the shooting death of
Walter Scott at city hall in North
Charleston, S.C., Wednesday, April 8,
2015. Scott was killed by a North
Charleston police office after a
traffic stop on Saturday. The officer,
Michael Thomas Slager, has been
charged
with
murder.
(AP
Photo/Chuck Burton)
Among the many remarkable
things about the shooting of an apparently unarmed black man by a
white police officer in South Carolina was the speed with which the
officer was arrested for murder —
and how quickly local authorities
admitted that they had a problem.
"It goes to say how we work as a
community," Mayor Keith Summey
said Tuesday, announcing the arrest
at a press conference in which the
police chief, Eddie Driggers, nearly
broke down into tears. "When you're
wrong, you're wrong, and if you
make a bad decision, don't care if
you're behind the shield or just a
citizen on the street, you have to
live by that decision."
Laurie Robinson saw it, and was
impressed. She is the co-chair of
President Barack Obama's Task
Force on 21st Century Policing, created amid the civil unrest that followed a white police officer's killing
of an unarmed black man in Ferguson, Missouri.
Last month, Robinson's panel
proposed a set of sweeping reforms
aimed at rebuilding trust between
cops and the public. Among the recommendations was swifter, and
more candid, response to cases of
alleged police misconduct.
FRIDAY • APRIL 10 • 2015 • PAGE 2
Cubans Clash on Streets of Panama
Get the latest from NBC 6 South Florida
anywhere, anytime: iPhone/iPad App |
Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Instagram |
RSS
Cubans Clash on Streets of
Panama
Link to this video
Embed this video
More videos (1 of 9)
Cuban exiles from Miami clashed
with pro-government Cubans in
Panama Wednesday ahead of the
Summit of the Americas.
Video filmed by Panamanian
newspaper La Estrella showed the
fight on the streets of Panama City.
It was unknown what sparked the
fight or if anyone was injured.
Dissidents said moments before
the clash they held a silent, peaceful march to a park where there's a
Jose Marti monument.
Miami resident and co-founder of
the Cuban Democratic Directorate
Orlando Gutierrez was one of at
least three American citizens involved in the fracas.
South Florida politicians blamed
911 Calls Unanswered Before
Woman Shot, Paralyzed: Lawsuit
Get the latest from NBC DFW anywhere,
anytime News and Weather Apps with
Breaking News Push Alerts Twitter |
Facebook | Google+ | Instagram | RSS |
Newsletters Send Us News Tips
911 Calls Unanswered Before
Woman Shot...
Link to this video
Embed this video
More videos (1 of 9)
A paralyzed woman’s lawsuit
claims Dallas Police failed to respond to repeated calls for help before her ex-boyfriend shot her.
Once they did respond to the Jan.
19 shooting, Roxanna Mayo’s federal lawsuit says, Dallas officers
kicked her as she lay wounded because they did not believe she was
paralyzed.
“They said, 'If you’re paralyzed, do
you feel this?' And they were kicking
me in the front and the back,” Mayo
said.
The lawsuit claims Mayo ran a
successful salon in a Knox-Henderson
area
high-rise,
earning
$100,000 a year before the incident, but now she is unable to support her four children.
Mayo said she had known 28year-old boyfriend Quadriq Anthony
Sharper for six months at the time
of the January incident.
“He was drunk, and I knew I just
needed to stay clear away from him
that day,” she said.
Mayo said Sharper threatened
her and her children, so she, her
mother and her daughter called
911 for help repeatedly at about
4:30 p.m. The lawsuit claims that
police didn't respond until more
than an hour later when a neighbor
reported the shooting.
“If they’d have come out the first
five times we called I wouldn’t be
paralyzed. And my whole family
wouldn’t be destroyed and none of
this would have happened. I
wouldn’t be in this hospital for two
months,” Mayo said.
The lawsuit seeks more than $1
million, and in the meantime Mayo
is seeking GoFundMe donations to
cover staggering medical bills.
Spokespersons for the Dallas Police Department and the city attorney said the city declines comment
on pending litigation.
the violence on the pro-Castro side.
"Today, the Castro regime once
again demonstrated that it is the
same violent, terrorist dictatorship
that it has always been, as it continues to export its brand of thuggery and aggression anywhere that
it finds dissent," Congressman Mario
Diaz-Balart said.
"Today’s attack by Cuban regime
thugs on peaceful pro-democracy
protestors and U.S. citizens in
Panama is just another reminder of
the brutality of the Castro brothers
and their enablers," Rep. Ileana RosLehtinen said. "Even in the shadow
of the Summit of the Americas,
these serial oppressors cannot resist their impulse to beat innocent
men and women for practicing their
right to freedom of speech."
The two-day summit begins Friday and will be attended by President Barack Obama and Cuban
President Raul Castro.
NBC 6 reporter Julia Bagg is traveling to Panama to cover the summit. Watch her live reports
beginning Thursday.
Robert Durst Speaks in
Louisiana Court on Firearms
Charges: 'I Am Not Guilty'
Hannah Rappleye and Erik Ortiz
NEW ORLEANS — Real estate
scion Robert Durst told a criminal
court judge on Thursday, "I am not
guilty, your honor," in response to
firearms offenses stemming from
his arrest last month.
Durst, 71, was indicted Wednesday on two local weapons charges.
FBI agents who arrested him at his
New Orleans hotel in March said he
possessed a .38-caliber revolver,
five ounces of marijuana and
$42,000 in cash.
As a convicted felon, Durst is not
allowed to possess a firearm, prosecutors say.
At the time of the arrest, agents
were apprehending Durst on a
murder charge in the death of his
confidant, Susan Berman, who was
found fatally shot in her Beverly
Hills home in 2000.
His defense team has tried to get
the charges in Louisiana dropped in
order to focus on the murder charge
in Los Angeles. They have also ar-
gued that the weapons charges arrest was illegal because agents did
not have a warrant to search his
hotel room.
An evidentiary hearing has been
set for May 7.
But Durst is expected to be in
court sooner when he faces a federal judge on April 16 for a separate
federal charge of being a felon in
possession of a firearm. Durst's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, confirmed to
NBC News that a complaint has
been filed and he would appear in
court.
The Department of Justice in the
Eastern District of Louisiana has not
responded to requests for comment
about the charge.
An FBI affidavit obtained by NBC
News also reveals how Durst was
handcuffed to a table while agents
searched his hotel room. Durst told
agents that the "only money" he had
was in a backpack, according to the
affidavit, and when they opened it
they found a bag of pot, on top of a
"significant number" of $100 bills.