Orlando Pulse Club shooting latest: 50 dead. 53 wounded authorities confirm

Mayor Buddy Dyer of Orlando in a news conference a few minutes ago said ‘we are dealing with something we never imagined.” He confirmed a state of emergency had been issued in the city.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A gunman wielding an assault-type rifle and a handgun opened fire inside a crowded Florida nightclub early Sunday before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers, police said. Latest confirmed figures indicate the attack left about 50 people dead and 53 others wounded.

Authorities were investigating it as an act of terrorism.

The suspect exchanged gunfire with an officer working at the gay club known as Pulse Orlando around 2 a.m., when more than 300 people were inside. The gunman then went back inside and took hostages, Police Chief John Mina said.

Around 5 a.m., authorities sent in a SWAT team to rescue the hostages. Police have not determined an exact number of casualties, but Mina said “approximately 20” bodies were inside the club.

In addition to the guns, the shooter also had some sort of “suspicious device,” Mina said.

Authorities were looking into whether the attack was an act of domestic or international terror, and if the shooter acted alone, according to Danny Banks, an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

FBI is asking those who went to Pulse nightclub and left before the shooting to please call.

“This is an incident, as I see it, that we certainly classify as domestic terror incident,” Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said.

FBI agent Ron Hopper said there was no further threat to Orlando or the surrounding area.

When asked if the gunman had a connection to radical Islamic terrorism, Hopper said authorities had “suggestions that individual has leanings towards that.”

Police had said previously on Twitter that there was a “controlled explosion” at the scene of the shooting. Mina said that noise was caused by a device intended to distract the shooter.

A woman who was outside the dance club early Sunday was trying to contact her 30-year-old son, Eddie, who texted her when the shooting happened and asked her to call police. He told her he ran into a bathroom with other club patrons to hide. He then texted her: “He’s coming.”

“The next text said: ‘He has us, and he’s in here with us,'” Mina Justice said. “That was the last conversation.”

Dozens of police vehicles swarmed the area around the club. At least two police pickup trucks were seen taking what appeared to be shooting victims to the Orlando Regional Medical Center.

Pulse posted on its own Facebook page around 2 a.m.: “Everyone get out of pulse and keep running.” Just before 6 a.m., the club posted an update: “As soon as we have any information, we will update everyone. Please keep everyone in your prayers as we work through this tragic event. Thank you for your thoughts and love.”

Local, state and federal agencies were investigating.

President Barack Obama was briefed on the attack and has asked for regular updates on the investigation, the White House said.

The attack follows the fatal shooting late Friday of 22-year-old singer Christina Grimmie, who was killed after her concert in Orlando by a 27-year-old Florida man who later killed himself. Grimmie was a YouTube sensation and former contestant on “The Voice.”

Jon Alamo said he was at the back of one of the club’s rooms when a man holding a weapon came into the front of the room.

“I heard 20, 40, 50 shots,” Alamo said. “The music stopped.”

Club-goer Rob Rick said the shooting started just before closing time.

“Everybody was drinking their last sip,” he said.

He estimated more than 100 people were still inside when he heard shots, got on the ground and crawled toward a DJ booth. A bouncer knocked down a partition between the club area and an area in the back where only workers are allowed. People inside were able to then escape through the back of the club.

Christopher Hansen said he was in the VIP lounge when he heard gunshots. He continued to hear shooting even after he emerged and police urged people to back away from the club. He saw the wounded being tended to across the street.

“I was thinking, ‘Are you kidding me?’ So I just dropped down. I just said, ‘Please, please, please, I want to make it out,'” he said. “And when I did, I saw people shot. I saw blood. You hope and pray you don’t get shot.”

Muhammad Ali funeral: Rousing farewell at Louisville memorial

PHOTO: Well-wishers touch the hearse carrying the body of the late boxing champion.

Muslim, Christian, Jewish and other speakers spoke of his fight for civil rights, while a message from President Barack Obama praised his originality.

The interfaith event took place hours after thousands said farewell as his coffin passed through city streets.

Ali was buried in a private ceremony attended by friends and family.

The service, attended by dignitaries and by several thousand people who acquired free tickets, was held at the KFC Yum! Centre.

It started with a Koran reading in Arabic. Imam Hamzah Abdul Malik recited Sura Fosselat, Prostration chapter 41 verses 30-35, which includes the words: “Truly those who say our Lord is God and are righteous, the angels will descend upon them saying have neither fear nor sadness but rather rejoice in this paradise that you have been promised.”
Local Protestant minister Kevin Cosby said: “Before James Brown said ‘I’m black and I’m proud’, Muhammad Ali said ‘I’m black and I’m pretty’.”
Rabbi Michael Lerner attacked injustice against black people and Muslims, saying “the way to honour Muhammad Ali is to be Muhammad Ali today – speak out and refuse to follow the path of conformity.”Ali’s wife Lonnie told the crowd: “If Muhammad didn’t like the rules, he rewrote them. His religion, his beliefs, his name were his to fashion, no matter what the cost. Muhammad wants young people of every background to see his life as proof that adversity can make you stronger. It cannot rob you of the power to dream, and to reach your dreams.”
Former US President Bill Clinton described Ali as “a free man of faith”. He said: “I think he decided very young to write his own life story. I think he decided that he would not be ever disempowered. Not his race, not his place, not the expectations of others whether positive or negative would strip from him the power to write his own story.”
Valerie Jarrett, an aide to President Obama who knew the boxer personally, read a letter from the president describing Ali as “bigger, brighter and more influential than just about anyone in his era… Muhammad Ali was America. Muhammad Ali will always be America. What a man.” The president was not there, as he was attending his eldest daughter Malia’s graduation.
Comedian Billy Crystal said: “Thirty-five years after he stopped fighting, [Ali was] still the champion of the world. He was a tremendous bolt of lightning created by Mother Nature. Muhammad Ali struck us in the middle of America’s darkest night and his intense light shone on America and we were able to see clearly.”

Among those attending the service were King Abdullah of Jordan.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended Thursday’s prayer ceremony and had been due at the service, but cut short his visit to the US. The reasons for his departure are not clear, though there are reports of differences with the funeral’s organisers.

Police escort the hearse carrying the body of Muhammad Ali as it passes through the crowded

Pallbearers escort the casket of boxing legend Muhammad Ali during the Jenazah prayer service.

Rose petals

The motorcade procession began at about 10:35 local time (14:35 GMT), more than an hour behind schedule, and took the coffin past Ali’s childhood home, then the Ali Center, the Center for African American Heritage and then down Muhammad Ali Boulevard.

Onlookers lining the roadside waved, took photos and chanted “Ali, Ali” as a cortege led by the hearse carrying his coffin drove through the downtown area.

Fans threw flowers at the hearse and rose petals were scattered along the route.

In one neighbourhood, several young men ran alongside the vehicle carrying a placard which read: “Ali is the greatest, thanks 4 all the memories.”

Former President Bill Clinton described Ali as "a free man of faith" — Former President Bill Clinton described Ali as “a free man of faith”

Lonnie Ali, Muhammad's wife, said her husband rewrote the rules he didn't like — Lonnie Ali, Muhammad’s wife, said her husband rewrote the rules he didn’t like

The cortege then brought the coffin to the Cave Hill cemetery, where Muhammad Ali was buried in a private ceremony. Actor Will Smith and ex-boxer Lennox Lewis were among the pallbearers.

In 1964, Ali famously converted to Islam, changing his name from Cassius Clay, which he called his “slave name”.

He first joined the Nation of Islam, a controversial black separatist movement, before later converting to mainstream Islam.

In his boxing career, he fought a total of 61 times as a professional, losing five times and winning 37 bouts by knockout.

Soon after he retired, rumours began to circulate about the state of his health.

Parkinson’s Syndrome was eventually diagnosed but Ali continued to make public appearances, receiving warm welcomes wherever he travelled.

He lit the Olympic cauldron at the 1996 Games in Atlanta and carried the Olympic flag at the opening ceremony for the 2012 Games in London.

He was crowned “Sportsman of the Century” by Sports Illustrated and “Sports Personality of the Century” by the BBC.

Culled from the BBC

Kids, Kids, Kids Greet Ali on His Long Ride Home

A well-wisher holding a banner touches hearse carrying remains of Muhammad Ali during funeral procession for the three-time heavyweight boxing champion in Louisville, Kentucky, June 10, 2016.

Kids throwing feints with boxing gloves, kids displaying elaborately drawn pictures and kids chanting “Ali, Ali, Ali” greeted the champ’s 17-car motorcade Friday afternoon as it rolled through the neighborhood where boxing great Muhammad Ali grew up in Louisville, Kentucky.

The West End was hopping. Children ran alongside the long, black cars as they passed one by one, making no distinction between the one that carried Ali’s cherry-red casket, draped in an Islamic shroud, and the ones that carried his friends and family.

The procession was on a 19-mile drive past the places that were important to Ali: his boyhood home and the gym where he first learned to box.

“I love how he set up all this himself before his passing. To include everybody, that’s what’s so important. He wanted to include us and that’s what’s important, I think, to the city of Louisville, to be a part of this,” said bystander Glenda Victor.

What Ali planned before his passing has had a magical effect on his old neighborhood in the week since his death, according to Virginia Barger.

“There’s been no violence, there’s been no [bloodshed]. It’s just awesome,” she said. “His legacy is just of peace. It’ll live forever. It’s truly unbelievable that one man could impact a whole world like this.”

Barger said she was sitting at home when she saw the motorcade leaving the funeral home. “And I just had to be a part of it. It’s history.”

Taking it personally

For the elders in the crowd that lined the streets, it was not only a time to celebrate the great man who died last Friday at the age of 74, but time for personal reflections on what seemed like the passing of a generation.

Teacher and Episcopal priest Dan Dykstra saw Ali as a man on a journey. “He started off more conservative and orthodox than he ultimately became as a man that wanted to include everyone, so I do see him as a unifier and as an example for us to emulate.”

Dykstra compared Ali’s journey to his own.

Brandon Liggons, 2, (L) holds an image of Muhammad Ali during the funeral procession for the three-time heavyweight boxing champion in Louisville, Kentucky, June 10, 2016.

“My own father when I grew up was critical, but with time and watching his life and his person I’ve come to see him as a far more unifier than a separator and for me, that’s what I’m all about,” he said.

Ali, Dykstra said, made it possible “to allow ourselves to change.”

Projecting ahead

While Dystra was looking back, Victor had a vision of the future.

“I hope this will open up our youth’s eyes here in the city of Louisville to stop some of the violence and maybe go into boxing and have more boxing greats come from Louisville. Really following his footsteps, that’s what it means to me. To see the violence toned down and see our youth just following in his footsteps.”

As the procession wound its way out of the West End, people said their final farewells to Ali. Amid the continuous chants, mourners pumped fists, displayed signs, and tossed flowers on the hearse, almost completely covering its windshield.

The procession carrying Ali’s body ended at Cave Hill Cemetery, which he chose as his final resting place a decade ago and which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

How time flies: Malia Obama, 17, graduates from high school

WASHINGTON — President Obama has a plan for his daughter’s graduation: Wear sunglasses so no one can see him cry.

Malia Obama, 17, graduated from Sidwell Friends School in Washington Friday, and Obama told talk show host Jimmy Fallon that he expected to get weepy. “One more example of the president crying,” he said. “It’s going to be bad.”

The event did not appear on the president’s official schedule, but the White House confirmed that President and Mrs. Obama will attend the graduation Friday solely as proud parents.

“He will be there to see his first-born cross the stage and receive her diploma,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday. “And he and the First Lady are enormously proud of their daughter’s accomplishments.”

Sidwell Friends, a 133-year-old Quaker school, has been the alma mater of many presidential children, including Theodore Roosevelt, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Tuition is $39,360 a year.

Malia’s sister Sasha also attends the school, and the day marks a special occasion for her as well: She turns 15 on Friday.

The White House announced last month that Malia would attend Harvard University in 2017 after taking a “gap year.” In the Tonight Show interview broadcast Thursday night, Obama said Malia is “very eager” to leave the cocoon of the White House.

Despite growing up in the public eye, Obama said the girls are remarkably well adjusted.

“They’ve handled it so well. They’re wonderful girls. They’re smart and funny, but most importantly they’re kind. They don’t have an attitude. This was the thing that Michelle and I were most worried about when we got there. We thought, ‘How is this going to work?’ You’ve got these butlers, and guys saluting,” he said.

“And it’s a testimony to Michelle and my mother-in-law that they have turned out to be incredible kids. I could not be prouder.”

Clinton frames her historic win as a victory for women’s rights

Supporters for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spell the word “history” during a presidential primary election night rally, June 7, 2016, in New York. (photo: Julie Jacobson/ap)

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Hillary Clinton cemented her status as the first woman to become presumptive presidential nominee of a major American political party on Tuesday night, when the Associated Press projected her the winner in New Jersey’s Democratic primary.

Clinton’s victory in the Garden State ensures she will have more pledged delegates, unbound superdelegates and overall voters than her rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. She declared victory at a New York City rally in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

“Thanks to you, we’ve reached a milestone: the first time in our nation’s history that a woman will be a major party’s nominee,” Clinton told her supporters. “Tonight’s victory is not about one person. It belongs to generations of women and men who struggled and sacrificed and made this moment possible.”

The former first lady, senator and secretary of state technically earned her status on Monday, after the AP and multiple other media outlets projected that she earned firm commitments from enough Democratic superdelegates to secure the nomination at the party’s convention next month. However, the AP call was criticized as a “rush to judgment” by the Sanders campaign. Even Clinton’s own team argued that the real “milestone” would come after she secured a majority of the pledged delegates and primary voters.

In addition to New Jersey and North Dakota, voters also headed to the polls in California, New Mexico, Montana, and South Dakota on Tuesday. The AP projected Clinton the winner in New Mexico, but the other states results have not yet been declared. However, even a Sanders sweep would not affect the overall outcome of the race.

Clinton’s victory came just three days after the 97th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote the following year in 1920. Clinton said in her speech that her mother was born on the same day as the amendment’s passage. It was also eight years to the day after Clinton conceded the 2008 Democratic presidential primary to Barack Obama, with a speech in which she famously declared that her supporters helped her put “18 million cracks” in the “glass ceiling.” She referenced that speech Tuesday evening.

“It may be hard to see tonight, but we are all standing under a glass ceiling right now. But don’t worry, we’re not smashing this one,” Clinton quipped.

Hillary Clinton acknowledges celebratory cheers during a primary night event at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, June 7, 2016.

Clinton also invoked another key moment in feminist history. She noted the first women’s rights convention, in Seneca Falls, also took place in New York in 1948.

Earlier in the evening, her team released the video that played as an introduction to her remarks. It included footage from the women’s suffrage movement, interspersed with footage of female politicians and Clinton supporters. It concluded with a call to “keep making history.”

Sanders is also scheduled to speak on Tuesday evening at an event in California, where polls showed a tight race between him and Clinton. Though it was clear before any results were announced on Tuesday that it would be almost impossible for Sanders to earn more delegates than Clinton, he has pointed to national polls that show he would perform better against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. Sanders urged superdelegates who support Clinton to switch sides before the Democratic National Convention next month.

At a news conference Monday, Sanders said he would continue campaigning in the District of Columbia primary, which will be held on June 14. But Clinton is clearly ready to move on.

“I want to congratulate Sen. Sanders for the extraordinary campaign he has run,” she said, praising their primary battle as “very good for the Democratic Party and for America.”

Inside Clinton’s event, her supporters were excited by the significance of her win. Samson Ogunloye, a 70-year-old researcher at Columbia University, described it as a “historic night.”

“I really love it,” Ogunloye said. “After over 200 years, it’s about time.”

Brooklynite Karen Kietzman, 58, described Clinton’s pioneering role as “very important,” though she added, “That’s not the only thing I would vote on.”

Nicolas Santacruz, a nanny who was near the back of the packed crowd, said he was frustrated with the media for projecting Clinton’s victory the day before Tuesday’s election night.

“It’s extremely cool, although it’s annoying that the news took it away from us yesterday,” Santacruz said.

Many of Clinton’s supporters also expressed frustration with Sanders for remaining in the race. A large screen hanging over the crowd showed news broadcasts and audience members booed when NBC News projected Sanders the winner in North Dakota. Some members of the audience at Clinton’s event said they hoped Sanders would begin to get behind Clinton and help her win over the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

“I think he should try and express his platform and continue to express support for more liberal views, but I think it’s time for him to start working with her,” explained Kietzman. “And I think he will because I think she’s going to win big tonight.”

Andrea Zuniga pointed out Clinton quickly endorsed President Obama after she conceded the 2008 Democratic primary to him. Zuniga suggested that Sanders should “take a page from her book” and “work for party unity.”

Ogunloye, the researcher, has a slightly different perspective on Sanders. “What about him? Let him go away. He’s of no use,” he said.

The Clinton campaign certainly seems to be pivoting away from the primary fight against Sanders. Next week, Clinton is scheduled to campaign in Ohio and Pennsylvania, two major swing states in the general election. Clinton campaign aide Lily Adams offered a blunt response when Yahoo News asked if the trip represents a pivot towards the general election.

“Yeah, they’re battleground states,” Adams said.

Swollen River Feeds Flooding Near Houston as Residents Flee

Aerial photos taken Sunday showed large swaths of Fort Bend County under water, and about 1,000 people had been evacuated from their homes there as of Tuesday morning, the Houston Chronicle reported. The skies were clear in the region on Tuesday, but an additional 1 to 3 inches of rain expected later this week could keep the Brazos in major flood stage into the weekend.

Associated press FORT WORTH, Texas — Residents of some rural southeastern Texas counties were bracing for more flooding Tuesday along a river that had reached a record-high crest just two years after it had run dry in places because of drought.

National Weather Service meteorologists predicted that the Brazos River would crest at 53.5 feet by midday Tuesday in Fort Bend County, which is just southwest of Houston and home to many suburbs. That would eclipse the previous record by three feet and exceed levels reached in 1994, when extensive flooding caused major damage.

Aerial photos taken Sunday showed large swaths of Fort Bend County under water, and about 1,000 people had been evacuated from their homes there as of Tuesday morning, the Houston Chronicle reported. The skies were clear in the region on Tuesday, but an additional 1 to 3 inches of rain expected later this week could keep the Brazos in major flood stage into the weekend.

During four days of torrential rain last week, six people died in floods along the Brazos, which runs from New Mexico to the Gulf of Mexico. A Brazos River Authority map showed that all 11 of the reservoirs fed by the Brazos were at 95 to 100 percent capacity.

Four of the six dead were recovered in Washington County, which is between Austin and Houston, County Judge John Brieden said Monday. Lake Somerville, one of the Brazos reservoirs, was “gushing uncontrollably” over the spillway and threatening people downriver, he said.

About 40 people were rescued Sunday and Monday from low-lying homes in a flooded neighborhood of Simonton, a Fort Bend County community of about 800 residents. The county had set up a pumping system to divert the water from the neighborhood, but it was overpowered by the flooding, county spokeswoman Beth Wolf said Monday.

Wolf said any additional rain in southeastern Texas would be a problem.

“The ditches are full, the river’s high, there’s nowhere else for that water to go,” she said.

In the Fort Bend County city of Rosenberg, about 150 households had been evacuated by Monday, and city officials were coordinating with the county’s office of emergency management to have rescue boats in place, city spokeswoman Jenny Pavlovich said Monday. In neighboring Richmond, a voluntary evacuation order was in place.

Scott Overpeck, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said Tuesday that the Brazos will recede in the coming days but that its levels will remain high for up to three weeks, in part because water will need to be released from the swollen reservoirs upriver.

“There’s so much water on the Brazos that it’s going to take a long time to drain through the whole river and drain out into the Gulf of Mexico,” Overpeck said.

Elsewhere, authorities continued searching for the body of an 11-year-old boy who fell into a creek in Wichita, Kansas, and is presumed dead. Relatives have identified the boy as Devon Dean Cooley, who disappeared Friday night.

Devon’s family, in a statement Monday, thanked firefighters for their tireless efforts to find the boy. The family held a cookout Monday evening to feed the rescue crews, followed by a candlelight vigil.

Black teen wearing African attire removed from high school graduation ceremony

Holmes said sheriff’s deputies were waiting for him at the bottom of the stage to escort him out of the arena. He wasn’t able to watch the rest of his classmates graduate or to participate in the end of the commencement ceremony, he said.

By Diana Lambert and Loretta Kalb (Sacramento (Calif.) Bee)

Nyree Holmes was escorted out of Sleep Train Arena on Tuesday by deputies before he could officially receive his high school diploma.

His crime: He refused to remove a kente cloth from atop his graduation robes. The 18-year-old student from Cosumnes Oaks High School in Elk Grove said he wanted to feel more connected to his ancestors, so he decided to wear the kente cloth – a piece of fabric that is worn during important occasions by certain cultures in Africa. Holmes identified it as a cultural cloth from Ghana.

School officials did not take kindly to his decision, saying it violated graduation dress requirements. Holmes said one tried to persuade him to take the kente cloth off, and when Holmes refused, he said the official called the Sheriff’s Department to have him escorted out.

“I’m a merit scholar and an AP student that is doing well,” said Holmes, who plans to study film at California State University, Fullerton. “I’m a very good kid.”

About 500 graduating seniors were at the 3:30 p.m. ceremony, along with hundreds of family and friends.

Holmes chronicled the event on his Twitter and Facebook accounts, drawing dozens of comments and national Internet attention. By Thursday, the story was trending on Facebook.

There has been a lot of misunderstanding about the incident, said Elk Grove Unified spokeswoman Xanthi Pinkerton on Friday after a news conference at Cosumnes Oaks High School. She said Holmes was allowed to walk across the stage when his name was called and received a certificate holder for his diploma. He shook hands with school district officials and posed for a picture with principal Maria Osborne while wearing his kente cloth.

I’m a merit scholar and an AP student that is doing well. I’m a very good kid.

Nyree Holmes, who was escorted out of Sleep Train Arena during graduation

Holmes said sheriff’s deputies were waiting for him at the bottom of the stage to escort him out of the arena. He wasn’t able to watch the rest of his classmates graduate or to participate in the end of the commencement ceremony, he said.

“I did walk the stage, but they tried to stop me,” Holmes told The Sacramento Bee. “The police did not get there in time for that to happen.”

A security guard later helped him to get back into the arena to retrieve his diploma, which all students were to receive after the ceremonies, he said. “He told me to continue achieving,” Holmes said.

Pinkerton said it was unfortunate that Holmes was escorted out of the commencement. “We would have preferred that the student would have complied. We wouldn’t have even gone here with that. It would have been nice not to have the image of a police escort.”

Cosumnes Oaks staff sent multiple reminders warning that students who did not comply with the dress requirements would not be allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony. The email specified that caps and gowns were not allowed to be decorated or adorned other than with medals, cords or pins received though the school.

Bobbie Singh-Allen, president of the Elk Grove school board, said the district “regrets how events unfolded in this instance; however there was no intent to discriminate against the student as the same rules applied to every graduate.”

Singh-Allen said she favors a review of the district’s policy “so that there is clear understanding of the differences between religious accommodations and acceptable dress code.”

Cosumnes Oaks staff sent multiple reminders to family members warning that students who did not comply with the dress requirements would not be allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony, Pinkerton said. The email specified that caps and gowns were not allowed to be decorated or adorned other than with medals, cords or pins received though the school.

“Despite multiple requests the student didn’t do what we asked,” she said

Precious Lao, 18, learned about the incident involving her co-worker from Facebook. The new graduates both work at Rockin’ Jump, a trampoline park in Elk Grove, Lao said.

“The schools don’t let us wear anything but the cords and the pins we earn from school,” said Lao, who also graduated Tuesday. Lao attended Monterey Trail High School in Elk Grove. “They don’t say why.”

Lao, who is Hmong, was surprised to hear about the dress code during a meeting about graduation attended by students and their parents. “My mom was disappointed,” she said. “I’m sure my mom would have given me some traditional jewelry to wear. … I was disappointed and shocked to learn that we couldn’t wear anything to represent who we are.”

Lao doesn’t agree with the decision to remove Holmes from the commencement ceremony, but she doesn’t think the decision was made because he is African American. “I think the district and the school are trying to protect students from representing gangs or other things that may distract from the ceremony,” she said. “But the school, in turn, shouldn’t have gone to the length of escorting him out in front of the entire school.”

Novella Coleman, attorney for the ACLU of Northern California, said it could be problematic for a school district to allow students to wear any accoutrements not associated with the school, but then disallow another form of personal expression, such as a kente cloth.

Pinkerton said that each school establishes its own rules about graduation attire.

San Juan and Folsom Cordova unified school districts spokesmen said their schools also issue guidelines for what students may wear on their caps and gowns for graduation.

Trent Allen at San Juan said the district has no written policy. But he said, “Our practice is that students are not allowed to wear anything on the outside of their gowns and caps that is not issued as part of the school’s graduation program.” Twin Rivers Unified’s executive director of student engagement, Craig Murray, said graduation ceremonies are an opportunity for students to be recognized for their academic achievements with sashes and cords. “We don’t allow students to decorate their gowns and caps,” he said.

Holmes said he doesn’t regret wearing the kente cloth. “I was able to acknowledge my culture, my ancestry,” he said. “I want people to know that it’s not OK to not have a discussion about culture and religion in America. We are a very diverse country and we need to stop accommodating just one people.”

He hopes his newfound celebrity will encourage others to show pride in their culture. He plans to Skype with schoolchildren in Ghana who are following the conversation on Twitter.

Every graduation season controversy erupts over whether American Indian students can wear eagle feathers during commencement ceremonies. Last year students at high schools in Grand Forks, N.D., fought back against school district policy banning personal additions to graduation attire. The students wanted to wear eagle feathers, considered to be sacred in American Indian culture. They started a petition on Change.org and started a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #LetTheFeathersFly.

After a meeting between American Indian

Rose petals

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