Lawsuit claims school district mishandled harassment complaints
DETROIT (AP) — A federal lawsuit says a Detroit-area school district mishandled numerous complaints from a teenage girl who eventually tried to kill herself to escape harassment from an ex-boyfriend.
The Detroit Free Press reports the lawsuit against Plymouth-Canton Community Schools says the now-17-year-old was stalked, bullied and sexually harassed for 16 months starting in the fall of 2016 at Canton High School and elsewhere.
The lawsuit says the girl and her mother made 10 complaints to the school, but harassment continued. Jennifer Salvatore, the girl’s attorney, tells WJBK-TV the district “just wanted to ignore” the allegations.
The district said it doesn’t tolerate harassment and such allegations “are taken seriously, are investigated thoroughly and responded to with appropriate action.”
Assessments show increasing property values in Detroit
DETROIT (AP) — Property values in Detroit are on the rise.
Data released Tuesday by the city Assessor's office shows the average increase in residential property value last year was 12 percent. Meanwhile, a citywide reappraisal shows commercial property values were up about 35 percent.
The Midtown and Brush Park areas had increases of more than 40 percent in residential value. Sixteen of Detroit’s 194 neighborhoods showed decreases of minus-1 percent to minus-15 percent.
The 2017 average citywide increase was about 5 percent. Residential property values had been dropping annually for 17 years.
Mayor Mark Duggan said the change shows the work the city is doing "is paying off."
Judge hears testimony on citizenship question
GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A federal judge in Maryland is hearing testimony for a trial involving the Trump administration's addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The plan has already been blocked by a different judge.
Former U.S. Census Bureau director John Thompson was the first plaintiffs' witness for the bench trial that started Tuesday before U.S. District Judge George Hazel in Greenbelt, Maryland. Plaintiffs include residents of Arizona, Florida, Nevada and Texas.
The trial began a week after a federal judge in New York ruled Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross acted in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner before deciding to add the citizenship question. The Justice Department is appealing that ruling.
A trial began earlier this month in San Francisco for a separate lawsuit over the same issue, filed by the state of California.
Cat rescued after sliding down dam’s spillway
HUNTINGTON, Ind. (AP) — A wayward cat is safe after it was rescued from a dam in Indiana.
The Huntington County Sheriff's Department writes on Facebook that a fisherman spotted the feline stranded on the spillway at the J. Edward Roush Lake dam.
Officers could not reach the animal, so Army Corps of Engineers workers decided to help.
The workers got permission to shut down the flow of water and they launched a boat. Video shows that when the boat reached the spillway, the cat slid all the way down into the arms of the rescuers before it hit the water.
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