NFL commissioner Goodell does not rule out Ray Rice return to football: 'He has paid the price’

We begin our July Fourth special broadcast with the words of Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. On July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, Douglass gave one of his most famous speeches, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” He was addressing the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society. James Earl Jones reads the historic address during a performance of Voices of a People’s History of the United States, which was co-edited by Howard Zinn. The late great historian introduces the address.

Jazmine Solis worked for Four Oaks Family & Children’s Services as a full-time youth counselor from March 2021 until she was fired in March 2023. At the time of her termination, she was one of four staff members working in a housing unit for 10 youth ages 11 to 15.

According to state records, on March 6, some of the Four Oaks clients surrounded a staff member and Solis came to her colleague’s assistance. One of the youths then said to Solis, “We’re going to beat your f—ing a–,” at which point Solis allegedly said, “What gives you the right to beat my f—ing a—, but I can’t hit you back?”

Four people, including an infant girl, drowned in the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass over the holiday weekend, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

DPS spokesperson Lt. Chris Olivarez wrote on Twitter on Monday that the department’s Tactical Marine Unit and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission deployed two airboats in response to a possible infant drowning. The department’s Tactical Marine Unit recovered the bodies of the infant and a female adult Saturday but found them to be unresponsive.

“TMU operators immediately performed chest compressions on the two,” Olivarez tweeted Monday. “Medical staff arrived on the scene and transported both to Fort Duncan Regional Medical Center, where both were pronounced deceased.”

State officials recovered four people floating in the river, including the two deceased. The two survivors were turned over to the U.S. Border Patrol. Neither DPS nor Customs and Border Protection would comment on Tuesday.

On Sunday and Monday, two more bodies — a male and female — were recovered from the river. Olivarez said their identities are unknown since neither had identification documents.

DPS troopers also found two young children from Guatemala on Monday who were alone in Eagle Pass. Olivarez said the children, 8 and 11, told troopers that a woman left them at the edge of the river in Mexico and instructed them to cross.

The Rio Grande is notoriously dangerous for migrants to use as a route into the U.S. Last September, nine migrants drowned while attempting to cross the border.