ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Teachers in the Minneapolis School District walked off the job on Tuesday in a dispute over wages, class sizes and mental health support for students coping with two years of the coronavirus pandemic, at least temporarily pausing classes for about 29,000 students in one of Minnesota’s largest school districts. Union members said they could not reach agreement on wages, especially a “living wage” for education support professionals, as well as caps on class sizes and more mental health services for students. “We are on strike for safe and stable schools, we’re on strike for systemic change, we’re on strike for our students, the future of our city and the future of Minneapolis public schools,” Greta Cunningham, president of the teachers’ chapter of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, said Tuesday outside a south Minneapolis elementary school where more than 100 union members and supporters launched a morning picket line in freezing weather. The school district called the news disappointing but pledged to keep negotiating. Callahan said the union was also willing to resume bargaining, but no talks were scheduled.

 

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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — One teenager was killed and two others were critically wounded after gunfire that appeared to come from a passing vehicle struck them outside an Iowa school, authorities said. Des Moines police said in a news release that potential suspects have been detained in the Monday afternoon shooting on the grounds of East High School, near Des Moines’ downtown, about a half-mile (0.8 kilometers) from the Capitol. No charges were immediately filed. The district said in a news release that the school was immediately put into lockdown and students were kept inside while police investigated. They were dismissed around 3:30 p.m. after law enforcement gave an all clear. A motive was not immediately known, and Sgt. Paul Parizek provided no details on the potential suspects. He said witnesses were being interviewed and investigators were executing search warrants. Police said it was the fourth homicide in Des Moines this year.

 

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LONDON (Reuters) -- John Bercow, the former speaker of Britain’s House of Commons lower house of parliament, will be banned for life from holding a parliamentary pass after an independent panel found he was a “serial bully” of his employees.Bercow, whose shouts of “order, order” won him fame around the globe during years of parliamentary struggles over Brexit, was found to have repeatedly bullied his staff with “behavior which had no place in any workplace”, the Independent Expert Panel said on Tuesday. The panel, which adjudicates on complaints against lawmakers in parliament, also said his evidence showed he was “a serial liar”. “His behavior fell very far below that which the public has a right to expect from any member of parliament,” the panel said in a statement.  Bercow stepped down in October 2019 after 10 years in the Speaker’s chair, from which he refereed debates, ruled on procedural disputes and made sure lawmakers followed parliamentary rules. 

 

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STOCKHOLM, March 8 (Reuters) -- A Swedish application to join NATO would destabilize the current security situation in Europe, Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said on Tuesday. “If Sweden were to choose to send in an application to join NATO in the current situation, it would further destabilize this area of Europe and increase tensions,” Andersson told reporters.

 

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GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — About 370 residents were evacuated from the slopes of Guatemala’s Volcano of Fire Tuesday as red-hot rock and ash flowed down the slopes toward an area devastated by a deadly 2018 eruption. Guatemala’s disaster agency said shelters had been opened for the evacuees in the nearby town of Escuintla. The 12,300-foot (3,763-meter) high Volcano of Fire is one of the most active in Central America and an eruption in 2018 killed 194 people and left another 234 missing. The biggest danger from the volcano are lahars, a mixture of ash, rock, mud and debris, that can bury entire towns. 

 

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ABUJA (AFP) -- Gunmen have killed at least 57 members of a local self-defense vigilante group in clashes in northwestern Nigeria, a security source and local residents said on Tuesday. The attack was the latest involving heavily armed criminal gangs known locally as bandits who raid and loot villages, steal cattle and carry out mass kidnappings for ransom across northwest Nigeria. Police confirmed Monday’s violence in Zuru district of Kebbi State, without giving a casualty figure. But the security source said 57 bodies had been recovered while two local residents said 62 people were killed. Local residents often form informal vigilante units, known as Yansakai to protect villages from bandit raids, though some states banned them after they were accused of abuses and extra-judicial killings.

 

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KHARTOUM (Reuters) -- Prominent Sudanese politician Babiker Faisal, a member of a taskforce working to dismantle the country’s previous regime, was detained on Tuesday, his Unionist Association party said in a statement. Most of the taskforce’s most prominent members have been arrested recently on corruption charges following a call by military leaders for a review of its work after an October coup.