In Miami on Saturday, survivors of the Parkland school shooting met James Shaw Jr, the man who grabbed the hot muzzle of an AR-15 and wrestled it away from a gunman who killed four people and injured four at a Waffle House in Tennessee.

Seventeen people were killed and 17 injured in the Florida shooting, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on 14 February. “I met one of my heros today,” Shaw tweeted, below a picture taken with Emma Gonzalez, one of the leaders of the Parkland students’ push for gun control reform which led to emotional speeches at the March for Our Lives in Washington in March.

Another prominent voice in that movement, David Hogg, tweeted his own selfie with Shaw, saying: “Wow just, wow @JamesShawJr9 lots of work ahead but the young people will win.” Shaw responded: “Thank you great meeting you all, let’s keep inspiring and bringing ppl together.” Another Parkland survivor, Samantha Fuentes, had something to celebrate. Three months after the attack, she said: “My face is finally shrapnel free!”

Fuentes tweeted a photo of her face on Saturday, showing a wide smile despite bruises and a hospital bandage stretching from her ear to her mouth. “Regardless of the fact I look like I lost a fight, inside I’m winning in a way. I’ve been struggling so hard to love my face again, thank you for all your support,” she wrote.(theguardian)…[+]

A Texas teacher has filed a lawsuit alleging she was put on leave and transferred after showing her class a photograph of her future wife. Stacy Bailey has twice been named teacher of the year at Charlotte Anderson elementary school in Arlington, Texas. Last August, at the start of a new school year, she put on a getting-to-know-you slideshow. It included pictures of her family and friends, including a woman Bailey described as her “future wife”.

Later in the week, according to a court filing, Bailey was told a parent had complained about the art teacher promoting a “homosexual agenda”. According to the lawsuit, a school district official met Bailey and told her: “You can’t promote your lifestyle in the classroom.” The suit says Bailey responded: “We plan to get married. When I have a wife, I should be able to say this is my wife without fear of harassment. When I state that, it is a fact about my life, not a political statement.” The official is quoted as replying: “Well right now it kind of is.”

The court document says Bailey was asked to resign in October but refused, and that the school district, Mansfield ISD, near Dallas, voted to renew her contract last month but plans to transfer her to a secondary school. The federal lawsuit seeks damages and alleges Bailey was put on administrative leave, endured improper public discussion of her employment status and was considered unsuitable to teach at elementary level “all because of her sexual orientation and status as a lesbian”. She married her fiancee, Julie Vazquez, earlier this year. “We’ve been in disbelief,” Vazquez said at a news conference. “We’ve been shocked. We’ve been hurt deeply.”(theguardian)…[+]

The South African photographer who captured the famous black-and-white picture of a dying 13-year-old activist shot by apartheid police during the 1976 Soweto uprising has died. Sam Nzima died aged 83 in hospital on Saturday in the country’s Mpumalanga province, the presidency said on Sunday.

His photograph of a dying Hector Pieterson being carried away by a distraught fellow student after security forces opened fire on young people protesting in Soweto township on 16 June 1976 turned the world’s attention to the brutality of the apartheid regime. Those riots, led by high school students, became a watershed in South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle. Over three days, at least 170 people were killed, with some estimates putting the death toll at several hundred over the following month.

Protests spread across South Africa and a new era of black activism emerged that eventually led to the fall of the apartheid regime and Nelson Mandela’s election as president in 1994.(theguardian)…[+]