Venezuelan worker becomes voice against coercion

Venezuelan worker becomes voice against coercion

CARACAS, Venezuela

Javier Hernandez knew he was going to be fired.

Everyone who worked with him in a state-run cement factory was told to vote last month in an election to choose delegates for a new constitutional assembly granting nearly unlimited powers to Venezuela’s ruling socialist party. With the opposition boycotting the vote, virtually all the candidates were government supporters. A vote was tantamount to a show of support for President Nicolas Maduro and his allies.

Resentful of what he saw as a rigged process, Hernandez flouted his supervisors’ order and didn’t vote. Last Wednesday, he was taken outside the building and informed that he was fired.

Now he has become a rare public voice speaking out against a phenomenon that government critics say was widespread in last month’s vote - Venezuelans were threatened with loss of their public benefits or state jobs if they didn’t participate.

Transgender camp teaches kids they’re ‘normal, not alone’

EL CERRITO, Calif.

In some ways, Rainbow Day Camp is very ordinary. Kids arrive with a packed lunch, make friendship bracelets, play basketball, sing songs and get silly. But it is also unique, from the moment campers arrive each morning.

At check-in each day, campers make a name tag with their pronoun of choice. Some opt for “she” or “he.” Or a combination of “she/he.” Or “they,” or no pronoun at all. Some change their name or pronouns daily, to see what feels right.

The camp in the San Francisco Bay Area city of El Cerrito caters to transgender and “gender fluid” children ages 4 to 12, making it one of the only camps of its kind in the world open to preschoolers, experts say. Enrollment has tripled to about 60 young campers since it opened three summers ago, with kids coming from as far as Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. – even Africa. Plans are underway to open a branch next summer in Colorado.

3rd Scout dies after sailboat strikes powerline on lake

AVINGER, Texas

A third Boy Scout has died from injuries suffered when a sailboat struck an overhanging power line on a lake east of Dallas, an official with Texas Parks & Wildlife said.

The 11-year-old Scout died Monday at a hospital in Shreveport, La., Texas Parks & Wildlife spokesman Steve Lightfoot said.

The boy was sailing in a catamaran Saturday with two older boys, one 17 and the other 16, when it struck the power line at Lake O’The Pines near Avinger, 150 miles from Dallas.

Authorities have not released the names of the victims.

Sept. 11 victim’s remains identified nearly 16 years later

NEW YORK

The remains of a man killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11 have been identified nearly 16 years after the terror attacks, medical examiners said Monday.

His name was withheld at his family’s request, the New York City medical examiner’s office said.

The announcement marked the first new identification made since March 2015 in the painstaking, ongoing effort. The office uses DNA testing and other means to match bone fragments to the 2,753 people killed by the hijackers who crashed airplanes into the trade center’s twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001.

Associated Press