The parents of an 8-year-old student who killed himself after being persistently bullied can move forward with a lawsuit against the Cincinnati school district that alleges wrongful death and other charges, a federal appeals panel ruled Tuesday.

The lawsuit's allegations also charge school officials with intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress and failure to report child abuse. The lawsuit says Taye was bullied at his elementary school starting in first grade, with the bullying escalating in his third grade year.

Other students punched and kicked him in assaults and on Jan. 24, 2017, knocked him unconscious by throwing him against a bathroom wall, the parents say in the lawsuit.

He stayed home sick the next day, returned to school Jan. 26 and was bullied again in the bathroom by students who took his water bottle and tried to flush it down the toilet, his parents say. He killed himself that evening in his bedroom.

New data suggests that a smaller percentage of patients with COVID-19 are being admitted to hospitals because the nation's healthcare systems are being overwhelmed by the staggering number of new infections.

Two sets of data show that the percentage of those who are admitted to the hospital once testing positive is decreasing.

Hospitals are being forced to tighten their restrictions on who is admitted, suggesting that some patients who may have been hospitalized for treatment during the spring and summer wave are now being turned away as deaths from the virus also increase.

The seven-day average for reported COVID-19 deaths rose to 2,123, the researchers found - surpassing the previous high of 2,116 recorded on April 21.

'Given data drops and spikes on and after Thanksgiving, the seven-day-average is an especially useful metric to watch right now,' their analysts warned.

My husband and I are in our early 50s and married for nine years. I hate to say this, but the way he dresses embarrasses me to tears, and it’s hurting our relationship.

Is it acceptable for a man to wear tights and nothing else? I’m not talking yoga pants; I mean ballerina dancer sheer tights that leave NOTHING to the imagination. He mainly wears them in our garage (where people who drive by can see), but lately I’ve caught him standing talking to neighbors like that. Am I overreacting by telling him he can’t wear things like that outside the house? If it isn’t the tights, it’s skin-tight biker-type shorts or shorts made from a mesh material that shows it ALL if there’s a light source behind him.

We have gone rounds over this almost daily. He promises he will stop, but it’s only a matter of hours before he’s back in costume. Is it OK to wear things like that now? I don’t see women wearing tights that show off as much as his do. I’m at the point I want to gather up all offending clothing and head to the dumpster. If you say let him wear what he wants, I will, and I will keep my eyes and mouth shut. -- MORTIFIED IN CALIFORNIA

You probably already know the ins-and-outs of how to protect yourself from COVID-19 when it comes to dealing with other human beings. If you do have to be around people, don’t get too close, wear a mask, and try to stay outside. But, having a friendly dog can make those interactions tricker. After all, many dog owners have been dragged across the street to meet a new fuzzy friend and their owner, whether they like it or not.

One study recently published in Environmental Research found that pet owners who take their dogs on walks have a 78 percent higher chance of catching COVID-19 compared to pup-less peers in a survey of over 2000 people. That’s higher than even that of people still going onsite to work.

As the nation cracks down on group activities so close to the Thanksgiving holiday, Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, has told Oregon's residents to call the cops if they see coronavirus violations.

“This is no different than what happens if there's a party down the street and it's keeping everyone awake,” Brown said in an interview Friday. “What do neighbors do [in that case]? They call law enforcement because it's too noisy. This is just like that. It's like a violation of a noise ordinance.”

“Oregon is on a steep and stark slope of rising coronavirus cases,” said Patrick Allen, director of the health department. “But we aren’t powerless in the face of this virus. Because it depends on us to slow the spread. Your choices make a difference.”

My husband and I (as well as our daughter, “Chloe”) moved to a new state about a year and a half ago. We live in an extremely White suburb that is surrounded by a large, non-White city. We wanted to live in the city, but the crime rate caused us to look elsewhere. As a result, everyone in our neighborhood is White. There are eight other children that live in our neighborhood that are around my daughter’s age (she’s 7). The first few months were great, and she was constantly going over to other kids’ houses to play or inviting them here. She was a little socially behind in our last town, so I was happy she had made friends. But then I started to notice that her friends were terribly racist, and after inviting the kids’ parents over for dinner … the parents are racist too. Not just microaggressions or an off-color joke (which would be bad enough by itself), but just full-on, blatant racism. Even my husband, who is from a small town that still has Klan activity, was shocked and appalled.

I don’t want my daughter spending time with these children. When the pandemic happened, we didn’t have to worry about it too much because no one was seeing anyone. But the neighborhood kids have started spending time together again (at a distance), and my daughter has been asking to go outside and play. The kids have also come and knocked on the door a few times asking for my daughter, but I made up an excuse. On the one hand, I don’t want to deprive my daughter of friends (she goes to an extremely small magnet school and isn’t really fitting in there, not to mention her classmates live 30-plus minutes away). On the other hand, I don’t want her to befriend racists! My daughter recently told me she had been feeling left out. What do I do?

—Not Raising a Racist

Dear Amy:

Recently, I noticed that the 13-year-old daughter of some close friends has been posting sexually provocative photos of herself on Instagram.

This is a public account, and strange men make sexual comments on her posts and she responds with lewd remarks that couldn’t be printed in a family newspaper.

I find it alarming, and so I notified the girl’s mother (who’s not on social media) and she thanked me for speaking up, but she also gave an excuse along the lines of “she’s just precocious.”

Meanwhile, the content continues. I think this is dangerous for the girl, but I also feel like it’s in the parents’ hands now. Is it right to continue to stay silent, once I’ve said my piece?

Historic wildfires which ravaged California throughout August and September may cause 3,000 early deaths, according to research from academics at Stanford University.

This year there have been over 8,100 wildfires that have burned well over 3.7 million acres in California. Since August 15, when California's fire activity elevated, there have been 26 fatalities and over 7,000 structures destroyed.

On Sunday, 17,000 firefighters were still at work, battling 25 wildfires in the state.

Now academics have concluded that the wildfires, from August 1 to September 10, were responsible already for at least 1,200 deaths in California - and may, over the next month, cause a total of 3,000 deaths.

Much of Orange County is transporting homeless people into Santa Ana, placing an unfair burden on that city to address the county’s homelessness crisis, city officials allege in court documents filed Monday.

The filing marks the city’s latest effort seeking legal relief over this issue. And this time, officials have some numbers and additional data that they hope will prove their point that many other cities in the county are “dumping” their homeless in Santa Ana.

“We now have better evidence that the county did not stop this practice. It’s just being done in other ways,” Santa Ana City Manager Kristine Ridge said.

Santa Ana officials and residents have long complained that they’ve become a dumping ground for the homeless.

Santa Ana officials said transfers from other communities have led to to a disproportionate number of homeless people in their city. From 2017 to 2019, homelessness in Orange County increased by 43 %; but in Santa Ana, homelessness increased by 77 %, according to the lawsuit. As of April 2019, more than 25 % of the county’s homeless lived in Santa Ana.

User "Dave" from CanyonChasers.net shared footage from his outdoor WYZE cam to help illustrate how the whole thing went down. At the start of the video, the little kid struggled to balance himself on his bike as his mother shadowed him from a distance. Dave's driveway makes for the perfect spot for the tyke to safely spread his wings as they make their way around the block.

Seeing the footage, Dave went on a bit of an emotional journey. "Every night I would get an alert from my driveway security camera, and at first I was a bit annoyed, but then I found myself looking forward to the evening alert," wrote Dave.

"And then inspiration struck, in the form of my wife giving me this great idea.

With California firefighters strapped for resources, residents have organized to put out flames themselves in a large swath of land burning south of San Francisco, defending their homes despite orders to evacuate and pleas by officials to get out of danger.

They are going in despite California’s firefighting agency repeatedly warning people that it’s not safe and actually illegal to go into evacuated areas, and they can hinder official efforts to stop the flames. The former head of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said the effort near a cluster of wildfires around the city of Santa Cruz is larger and more organized than he recalls in previous blazes.

“People are frustrated with the lack of resources available. People are always going to try to sneak back in, but it sounds like this is growing to a new level,” said Ken Pimlott, who retired as director of the Cal Fire in 2018. “I haven’t seen people re-engage to this scale, particularly with the level of organization.”

The guests arrived at the Lucerne Hotel, two blocks from Central Park, carrying their belongings, stepping off buses and filling the hotel’s empty rooms, which typically cost more than $200 a night.

They were not tourists nor business travelers but residents of homeless shelters whom the city sent to the Lucerne to contain the spread of the coronavirus in the crowded shelter system. Over three days, 283 men moved into the hotel.

Their arrival has become a flash point and a test of values for the Upper West Side — a neighborhood with a reputation as one of the most liberal enclaves in New York and in the entire country.

One day after the men began moving into the Lucerne, on West 79th Street, a private Facebook group — Upper West Siders for Safer Streets — was created by residents who were up in arms. The group has more than 8,700 members.

Many commenters said the men menaced pedestrians, urinated and defecated on the street and used and sold drugs in the open.

In interviews, some longtime residents said the hotel’s conversion into a shelter had dimmed the quality of life and evoked memories of an era when the neighborhood was filled with single room occupancy hotels that helped fuel crime.