Man, 30, charged with capital murder
HOUSTON – Prosecutors on Saturday charged a 30-year-old man with capital murder in the killing of a sheriff’s deputy who was gunned down from behind while filling up his patrol car at a suburban Houston gas station.
Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman identified the man as Shannon J. Miles, who had a previous record including charges of resisting arrest and trespassing. He is charged with killing Darren Goforth, 47, a 10-year veteran of the force.
Goforth said the motive for the killing had not been determined, but investigators would look at whether Miles, who is black, was motivated by anger about recent killings elsewhere of black men by police that have spawned the “Black Lives Matter” protest movement.
Goforth, who was white, was pumping gas Friday night when the gunman approached him from behind and fired multiple shots, continuing to fire after the deputy had fallen to the ground.
Common Core results come trickling in
LOS ANGELES – Results for some of the states that participated in Common Core-aligned testing for the first time this spring are out, with overall scores higher than expected though still below what many parents may be accustomed to seeing.
Full or preliminary scores have been released for Connecticut, Idaho, Missouri, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia. They all participated in the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, one of two groups of states awarded $330 million by the U.S. Department of Education in 2010 to develop exams to test students on the Common Core state standards in math and English language arts.
Even when all the results are available, it will not be possible to compare student performance across a majority of states, one of Common Core’s fundamental goals.
President to make historic visit to Alaska
WASHINGTON – With melting glaciers and rising seas as his backdrop, President Barack Obama will visit Alaska this week to press for urgent global action to combat climate change, even as he carefully calibrates his message in a state heavily dependent on oil.
Obama will become the first sitting president to visit the Alaska Arctic when he travels to Kotzebue – population 3,153 – just north of the Arctic Circle at the end of his three-day trip. He’ll kick off the visit Monday with a speech to a State Department-hosted conference on climate change and the Arctic.
The unambiguous goal of the president’s trip is to use dramatic and alarming changes to Alaska’s climate to instill fresh urgency into his global warming agenda. Obama hopes those powerful images will illustrate the threat to natural wonders and livelihoods and serve as a global call to action.
Associated Press
