Change to education law OK’d in Congress

Change to education law OK’d in Congress

WASHINGTON

Those federally mandated math and reading tests will continue, but a sweeping rewrite of the nation’s education law will now give states – not the U.S. government – authority to decide how to use the results in evaluating teachers and schools.

The Senate on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly, 85-12, to approve legislation rewriting the landmark No Child Left Behind education law of 2002. Today, President Barack Obama will sign it into law.

One key feature of No Child remains: Public school students still will take the federally required statewide reading and math exams. But the new law encourages states to limit the time students spend on testing, and it will diminish the high stakes for underperforming schools.

Secret Santa brings gifts to Ferguson

FERGUSON, Mo.

Gherica Lewis expected the worst when five squad cars –sirens blaring – stopped suddenly as she walked with her 10-month-old daughter and the girl’s father along the street in Ferguson, Mo., where riot police clashed with protesters for months after Michael Brown’s shooting death, making widespread arrests and deploying tear gas to control sometimes violent crowds.

“I thought I was going to jail,” she said.

Instead, Lewis, 24, and Kimoni Griffin, 23, received several $100 bills from a secret Santa who chose Ferguson for the Wednesday afternoon holiday cash giveaway to help the community recover after the August 2014 fatal shooting of Brown, who was black, by former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, who is white.

The anonymous benefactor, a Kansas City businessman, asked to not be publicly identified to focus attention on the importance of charity rather than his own background.

3rd gunman in Bataclan attack ID’d

PARIS

The third gunman who terrorized Paris’ Bataclan concert hall before being killed last month in the attack was identified Wednesday as a Frenchman who left for Syria in 2013. The development came after his mother received a text message announcing his death and gave a DNA sample to police.

The news was further confirmation that the deadly Paris attacks were carried out largely, if not entirely, by Europeans trained by the Islamic State group in Syria.

Study: Grumpiness won’t shorten life

LONDON

There’s good news for grumpy women: Being happy apparently has no effect on how long you might live.

That’s the conclusion of the latest attempt to find out if happy people live longer. Previous studies have linked happiness to longevity but researchers now say there’s no such scientific connection. So though being sick makes you unhappy, just being grouchy isn’t enough to make you ill or shorten your life.

The results are based on questionnaires from more than 715,000 British women age 50 to 69 who were enrolled in a national breast- cancer screening program in the late 1990s.

Northwest storm

PORTLAND, Ore.

Torrential rains pummeled parts of the Pacific Northwest early Wednesday, causing mudslides and flooding roads, leaving an Oregon woman dead after a tree fell onto her house and sweeping seven people into a Washington river, where they were rescued.

A large Douglas fir tree crashed into a Portland home early Wednesday, killing a 60-year-old woman who was in bed.

Associated Press