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Delaware police investigating possible abuse of special needs students at elementary school

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Delaware police investigating possible abuse of special needs students at elementary school

Special needs children at a Delaware elementary school may have been abused inside the classroom by three teachers, according to police.

Families in Smyrna, Delaware, met with school administrators after learning their special needs children may have been the victims of abuse inside the classroom.

Smyrna Police are investigating the possibility that three teachers at Smyrna Elementary engaged in professional misconduct. Police are working with the state Attorney General’s Office Special Victims Unit, which is common for these kinds of investigations, according to Fox 29.

“Your child’s school is the last place you’d think something like this would ever happen,” parent Leslie Thomas told Fox 29. “It has to be a different school. My son is traumatized, even turning on the street leading to Smyrna Elementary, so I could never force him to go somewhere where he was traumatized.”

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Families in Smyrna, Delaware, met with school administrators after learning their special needs children may have been the victims of abuse inside the classroom. (Smyrna School District)

The Smyrna School District released a statement Wednesday saying a report was made on February 16 of possible professional misconduct.

“As part of our multi-faceted approach to keep our students safe, we have taken all precautions, including contacting law enforcement and providing alternative staff to instruct students,” the statement said. “The investigation is active and on-going.”

“While I cannot go into detail, due to the ongoing investigation, I can assure you that the professional misconduct being investigated is not sexual in nature,” the district said in a follow-up statement. “District staff were at the school to support students, employees, and affected parents.”

Some of the families spoke with police and were told the details of the allegations, including the children being locked in bathrooms and having objects thrown at them.

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Smyrna Police are investigating the possibility that three teachers engaged in professional misconduct. (Smyrna Police)

“They were being locked in the bathroom in the dark by themselves,” parent Tierre Thomas told Fox 29. “Their hair was being pulled. Objects were being thrown at them. They were being put in timeout physically and being held there.”

Leslie Thomas said she previously raised concerns to the district after observing changes in her son this school year. She and other parents are petitioning the district to move the students to another elementary school.

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“We’re seeing aggression in him, hitting, something he has never done before. He flinches. He’s afraid of the dark. These are all behaviors he has never exhibited before but consistent with the allegations that have been made,” she said. “Most of the parents have agreed on North Smyrna, so for right now I would like to see them create that setting and of course we all would like to see the charges coming very soon.”

The police investigation could last several months.

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Northeast

Blue state governor demands private airlines stop providing ICE flights after deadly Minneapolis shooting

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Blue state governor demands private airlines stop providing ICE flights after deadly Minneapolis shooting

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Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey on Thursday demanded that two private airline companies stop providing flights for ICE to quickly remove illegal immigrants who have been detained, citing the recent ICE-involved shooting in Minneapolis.

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In a letter to top executives of GlobalX Airlines and Eastern Air Express, Healey criticized the companies for “sever[ing illegal immigrants] from their family, friends, community, and legal counsel without due process of law.”

“They are hard-working, productive, and beloved members of our community who have been indiscriminately targeted for deportation proceedings,” Healey wrote. “Some have been United States citizens. Some have been children. And as we have seen in our communities and, most recently, in Minnesota, ICE’s tactics are increasingly chaotic, brutal, and even deadly. This doesn’t make our communities safer — it, in fact, makes us all less safe.”

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey is urging private airlines to cut ties with ICE. (Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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Twin Cities resident Renee Nicole Good, 37, was shot and killed Wednesday by an ICE agent after she allegedly accelerated her car toward him during an immigration operation.

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Healey also alleged the Trump administration’s use of private jets for ICE activity is costing taxpayers, while private airlines profit.

“On behalf of American taxpayers, I also find it incomprehensible that the Trump administration is choosing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on private jets to obstruct people’s due process at a time when they are denying hunger benefits, cutting health care access, and raising costs on everyone through costly tariffs,” she wrote. 

“This is not the justice we believe in or stand for in Massachusetts or as Americans. I hope your company agrees.”

ICE is conducting flights to remove illegal immigrants from the U.S. and back to their home countries. (ICE Seattle)

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The letter comes after Healey demanded that ICE halt ICE flights out of Hanscom Field airport, which is located roughly 20 miles outside Boston in Bedford, Massachusetts.

Avelo Airlines, a company that was previously chartering flights for ICE in Massachusetts, recently announced it had cut ties with the administration.

Migrants released from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center wear ankle monitors while waiting to board flights in Shreveport, La. (Wayan Barre/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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“One of your peer companies recently cut ties with ICE. It’s time for you to do the same,” Healey wrote in the letter.

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Healey’s office, GlobalX Airlines and Eastern Air Express did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.

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Boston, MA

When will the big nor’easters return? Boston in midst of second-longest streak without hefty snowfalls. – The Boston Globe

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When will the big nor’easters return? Boston in midst of second-longest streak without hefty snowfalls. – The Boston Globe


Have you noticed a lack of major snowstorms over the past several winters here in New England? Perhaps you’re wondering if this is a new permanent pattern. Snowfall across New England is highly variable, particularly here in the Boston area and the rest of Southern New England, where we lie on the southern edge of consistent snowfall.

First, let’s look at how radically different winter snowfall can be. On Feb. 25, 2022, Boston received 8½ inches of snow. That was the last time the city saw a 6-inch snowfall, which is meteorologically considered a “major snowfall” in New England (accumulation of at least 6 inches of snow). Roughly 1,414 days later and counting, we are now in the midst of our second-longest streak devoid of 6-inch snowfalls, since data was first recorded in 1872. You have to go back to 1988-92 to find a similar “major snow” drought. That streak lasted 1,772 days.

As a side note, the Boston area would have to make it through this entire winter without a major snowstorm to move into the No. 1 spot. Will we do it?

These gaps in significant snowstorms might be considered mini snow droughts, but when they end, the winter weather pattern tends to shift in the other direction. For example, when that streak ended in 1992, it ushered in three of four blockbuster winters, including one that dumped over 107 inches of snow in the winter of 1995-96.

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This very snowy mid-’90s was followed by highly variable snowfall seasons with as little as 15 inches of snow in 2001-02 and as much as nearly 87 inches of snow several years later during the 2004-05 winter season.

Snowiest decade on record (2008-18) vs. least snowfall (2015-present)

Then, starting in 2008 and lasting until 2018, we experienced the snowiest decade on record in Greater Boston with a total of 543 inches of snowfall.

If you move the starting point to winter 2015-16 and conclude through 2025, we received only 333 inches of snow, marking the lowest 10-year period of snowfall on record. This is where we currently sit, and it makes sense with the lack of major nor’easters nearing New England over the past several winters.

Even winter storm warnings issued by the National Weather Service have fallen. Check out the chart below, and you’ll notice that the past several years have seen fewer than six winter storm warnings issued.

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The number of winter storm warnings each year, from 2005-2025.Iowa Environmental Mesonet (IEM)

All of this should not lull you into a false sense that we are in some new paradigm without major coastal storms or that it’s not going to be snowy again. On the contrary, nor’easters are actually getting stronger and are generating more precipitation than they used to. According to research published last summer on the intensification of the strongest nor’easters, noted climate scientist Michael Mann and five of his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania looked at how our famous coastal storms have changed over the past several decades.

“Our analysis of nor’easter characteristics reveals that the strongest nor’easters are becoming stronger, with both the maximum wind speeds of the most intense nor’easters and hourly precipitation rates increasing since 1940,” the researchers said.

This NOAA GOES-16 satellite image captures a powerful nor’easter off the East Coast on Jan. 4, 2018.NOAA

The reason why I’m mentioning this while also talking about the lack of snow in our region is that both can be true. As we have seen, snowfall itself is very cyclical. That cycle is occurring amid a backdrop of a warming climate. With more and more anthropogenic CO2 — carbon dioxide emissions resulting from human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels — average temperatures have increased, and that rise has led to an availability of more energy for coastal storms.

‘Climate change has made crippling snow and flooding rain more likely despite the recent dearth of these types of storms locally. ’

As the oceans warm, they provide more latent heat or fuel for these nor’easters. Additionally, with warmer temperatures and still an availability of cold air to the north, there’s an increase in temperature contrast, or what meteorologists call “baroclinicity.” This is a critical feature and aids in the rapid intensification or bombogenesis of low-pressure areas east of the Atlantic Seaboard.

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The Perfect Storm back in 1991, the Storm of the Century in 1993, the so-named Snowmageddons in February 2010 and winter 2015, and the January 2018 blizzard are all examples of unusually strong nor’easters.

Map of four notable nor’easters. Dots along the tracks indicate storm intensity at each 6-hour time interval, color-coded by the maximum 10-m wind speed.Michael Mann, et al/UPenn

The trend in maximum wind speed in nor’easters has increased since the middle of the last century. You can see from the Mann paper some of the actual data used to reach this conclusion.

In addition, hourly precipitation has also increased in these coastal storms. This means that crippling snow and flooding rain are becoming more likely in spite of the recent dearth of these types of storms locally.

In the same way that we haven’t had a hurricane reach the shores of New England since 1991, so too are we overdue for a major nor’easter. Both are in our future. It’s just a matter of when.

Sign up here for our daily Globe Weather Forecast that will arrive straight into your inbox bright and early each weekday morning.





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Pittsburg, PA

Curtain Calls: Pittsburg Community Theatre unites behind powerful musical ‘The Color Purple’

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Curtain Calls: Pittsburg Community Theatre unites behind powerful musical ‘The Color Purple’


A celebration of hope, love and the healing power of community starts off Pittsburg Community Theatre’s new year with the powerful musical “The Color Purple.”



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