Better Believe It......Because They Actually Happen(ed) Collection 60
Video shows teen attack school employee for taking teen's Nintendo Switch in class


By Natalie Neysa Alund


A 17-year-old high school student is facing felony assault charges after video showed him attacking a school employee who took away his Nintendo Switch device during class, according to law enforcement in Florida.

During the Feb. 21 attack in Palm Coast, the Matanzas High School employee was kicked unconscious by the teen, according to the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office.

Palm Coast is about 35 miles north of Daytona Beach.

According to a press release from the sheriff's office, the student stands 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighs 270 pounds.

“The student stated that he was upset because the victim took his Nintendo Switch away from him during class,” the release said.

A teen has been charged after the Flagler County Sheriff's Office said he attacked a school employee who took away a Nintendo Switch he was using during class. Flagler County Sheriff’s Office.


What the video shows

Video released by law enforcement shows the teen rushing toward the worker and pushing her to the ground. The woman goes limp, and appears to lose consciousness, according to a news release from the sheriff's office.

The video also captures the teen kicking the worker twice while she is on the ground and strike her more than a dozen times.

Full story at USA Today (February 2023)



'Woke' US schools scarier than North Korea, says defector


Author Yeonmi Park, who fled being a sex slave in North Korea, slams cancel culture at America's Ivy League universities

By Rozina Sabur


Yeonmi Park, who fled North Korea in 2007, said she was 'embarrassed' to study human rights in America


Yeonmi Park, who fled North Korea in 2007, said she was 'embarrassed' to study human rights in America

The curriculum taught in US schools is as frightening as the teachings of North Korea, a defector of the dictatorship has said.

Yeonmi Park, 29, who fled the hermit state as a young teenager in 2007, became a US citizen last year. She said she was "embarrassed" to study human rights in America. Her memoir, In Order To Live, detailing her perilous journey to freedom, gained her an international platform as a human rights activist.

However, since relocating to America, and earning a degree from Columbia University, she has sounded the alarm over "cancel culture" and political influences on the country's education system.

In her latest book, While Time Remains, she writes that she has discovered some of the same encroachments on freedom in America as in North Korea, from identity politics and authoritarian tendencies to elite hypocrisy.

'Racist' Maths

In an interview with The Telegraph, Ms Park said she was shocked by the political ideology promoted by professors and fellow students at the Ivy League university. She claimed that while studying for a human rights degree, she was taught that Jane Austen "promoted white supremacy", Maths was "racist" and debate over trans issues were silenced.

"They were demonising capitalism, free markets and Western civilisation. Anything that was white was bad," she said.

"I couldn't believe it. This is the same thing that I was learning in a North Korean classroom".

Full story at The Telegraph (March 2023)



Nashville school shooter who killed 6 was heavily armed, left ‘manifesto’


By Kim Mueller, Brittany Shammas, Ben Brasch And Holly Bailey


Surveillance video released on March 27 shows the shooter firing to enter Covenant School and moving through empty hallways while holding an assault rifle.


NASHVILLE — A shooter armed with two AR-style weapons and a handgun killed three students and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville on Monday, the latest deadly rampage in a nation anguished by the regularity of mass killings but deeply divided over how to stop them.

Police identified the shooter as Audrey Elizabeth Hale, 28, of Nashville. Hale was shot and killed by police who responded to the Covenant School, a small academy housed within a Presbyterian church that served about 200 students from preschool to sixth grade.

John Drake, chief of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, said law enforcement officials were working to determine a motive but said Hale had attended the school. During a search of Hale’s home, he said, officers recovered a “manifesto” and maps that appeared to include entry points for the school. Police later said they recovered additional material in a car Hale drove to the scene.

Drake said Hale was transgender. Asked if that had played a role in what he described as a “targeted attack,” Drake said it was part of the police investigation.

“There is some theory to that,” Drake said. But, he added, “We’re investigating all the leads, and once we know exactly, we will let you know.”

Don Aaron, a police spokesman, later clarified the chief’s remarks. “Audrey Hale is a biological woman who, on a social media profile, used male pronouns,” Aaron said in an email. The Post has not yet confirmed how Hale identified.

Full story at The Washington Post (March 2023)



Teachers in England reject pay offer, announce further strikes


Teachers attend a march during strike action in a dispute over pay, in London, Britain March 15, 2023. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls


By Kylie Maclellan


LONDON (Reuters) - Teachers in England have overwhelmingly rejected a pay offer from the British government aimed at ending a series of disruptive strikes, their trade union said on Monday, announcing two further days of walkouts.

The National Education Union, Britain's largest education union, said 98% of teachers who voted in the ballot followed its advice to reject the offer of a one-off payment this year of 1,000 pounds and an average pay rise of 4.5% in the next financial year.

"This resounding rejection of the government's offer should leave (education minister) Gillian Keegan in no doubt that she will need to come back to the negotiating table with a much better proposal," NEU joint General Secretaries Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney said in a statement.

Tens of thousands of teachers across Britain have taken strike action this year in demand of an above-inflation pay award, leaving classrooms empty and heaping pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to help resolve the dispute.

The union said teachers would take two further days of strike action, on April 27 and May 2.

Full story at Reuters (April 2023)



Teacher at girls’ school forced to apologise after saying ‘good afternoon girls’




By Charlie Herbert


Pupils demanded the teacher ‘acknowledge’ their pronouns

A teacher says she has been left “humiliated” after she was told to apologise to her class at a private girls’ school for saying “good afternoon girls.”

Her pupils complained because not everyone in the class identified as female, with one pupil challenging the teacher to “acknowledge” their pronouns.

The day after she said “good afternoon girls” at the start of the lesson, the pupils wrote all their names and pronouns on the board, with one of the children using they/them pronouns.

But the teacher refused to acknowledge their requests, saying that she would need to involve parents if a student’s preferred pronouns differed from their biological sex.

This prompted the class to hold a lunchtime protest, the MailOnline reports.

The philosophy and religious studies teacher has since said she believes she was “managed out” by senior staff at the school, which is part of the independent Girls’ Day School Trust.

The teacher, who has requested anonymity to protect the pupils, was giving evidence last week as part of an ongoing review into child and adolescent gender dysphoria care, led by paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass.

Full story at JOE (April 2023)



Segamat Law Student Sets Himself on Fire at a Petrol Station After Failing Exams 3 Times


By Renushara


Source: Provided to WOB & Polis Daerah Segamat | Facebook


A 24-year-old law student is currently in the Segamat Hospital for treatment after he had attempted to burn himself alive at a petrol station there.

According to the Segamat District Police Chief, Superintendent Ahmad Zamry Bin Marinsah, his party received a report on April 17 (Monday), informing them that the man had doused himself in petrol and had lit himself on fire with a lighter.

Despite the petrol station owner putting the man out with a fire extinguisher, the man then ran out to the middle of the road and sat down in hopes that a car would hit him, in another attempt at suicide.

Vehicles had managed to stop before they hit him but this caused an collision between a car and a lorry.

“The victim, in a state of having burns almost all over his body, was sent to the Segamat Hospital using an ambulance to receive treatment,” he said.

Full story at World of Buzz (April 2023)

Indian students banned or limited as Australian unis crack down on bogus applicants


By Clay Lucas And Nicole Precel


At least five Australian universities have introduced bans or restrictions on students from specific Indian states in response to a surge of applications from South Asia and an accompanying rise in what the Home Affairs Department described as fradulent applications.

An investigation by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald has obtained emails from within Victoria University, Edith Cowan University, the University of Wollongong, Torrens University, and agents working for Southern Cross University that show the crackdown on applications from Indian students.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on a chariot with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi before the fourth cricket Test between their nations in Ahmedabad in March


Australia is on track for its biggest-ever annual intake of Indian students, topping 2019's high watermark of 75,000. But the current surge has prompted concerns from government MPs and the education sector about the integrity of Australia's immigration system and the long-term impact on the nation's lucrative education international education market.

“The volume of students arriving has come back a lot stronger than anyone was expecting,” said Jon Chew from global education firm Navitas. “We knew there would be a lot of pent-up demand, but there has also been a surge in non-genuine students.”

With many applications deemed by universities not to meet Australian visa requirements that they be a “genuine temporary entrant” coming solely for education, universities are putting restrictions in place to pre-empt their “risk rating” being downgraded.

Full story at The Sydney Morning Herald (April 2023)