Playing to win (and help): Tri-B wins EC's first Biz Olympics

Advocates say schools increasingly are removing children with disabilities from the classroom because of behavior issues related to their disability but not recording the actions as suspension. The practice is known as informal removal, which advocates say amounts to a form of off-the-books, de facto denial of education that evades accountability. Because the removals aren’t recorded, there’s no way to quantify how often they happen. But the assistant secretary for the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, Catherine E. Lhamon, says the practice has "taken hold in a way that is dangerous for students and needs to be addressed.”

A Delaware judge says cigarette manufacturer ITG Brands assumed liability for tobacco settlement payments to the state of Florida when it acquired four brands from Reynolds American in 2015. Vice Chancellor Lori Will also said in Friday's ruling that ITG must compensate Reynolds American for losses due to that assumed liability. Reynolds sold the Kool, Winston, Salem and Maverick brands to ITG in 2014 to gain federal regulators' approval of Reynolds’ acquisition of Lorillard Inc. Before the sale closed, Reynolds American affiliate R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. was making payments under a preexisting settlement agreement with Florida for reimbursement of smoking-related health care costs.

North Carolina’s State Board of Elections is directing county election officials not to engage in signature matching when reviewing absentee ballot envelopes this fall after a judge rejected the GOP appeal of a state board ruling prohibiting the practice. According to a directive sent to county election directors from the board’s legal counsel Paul Cox, the judge’s ruling maintains the status quo outlined in state law. Superior Court Judge Stephan Futrell ruled from the bench Monday afternoon, denying the party’s motion for a temporary restraining order and preventing the use of signature matching in the 2022 general election, state board spokesperson Pat Gannon said.

Emergency responders are seeking to evacuate residents from the largest barrier island off Florida's Gulf Coast, and survivors there spoke of the terror of riding out Hurricane Ian in flooded homes and howling winds. A volunteer group, Medic Corps, was flying residents off Pine island by helicopter on Saturday. The bridge to Pine Island was heavily damaged by the hurricane, leaving it reachable only by boat or air. Some residents said they hadn’t seen anyone from outside the island for days and spoke of being trapped in flooded homes as boats and other debris crashed around their houses in the storm surge. Some feared they wouldn't make it.

As he turns 70 on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin finds himself in the eye of a storm of his own making: His army is suffering humiliating defeats in Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of Russians are fleeing his mobilization order, and his top lieutenants are publicly insulting military leaders. With his room for maneuvering narrowing, Putin has repeatedly signaled that he could resort to nuclear weapons to protect the Russian gains in Ukraine — a harrowing threat that shatters the claims of stability he has repeated throughout his 22-year rule. Andrei Kolesnikov is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment. He says Putin can't blame anyone but himself.

The Associated Press has learned that the head of the Organization of American States is facing an internal investigation into allegations he carried on a consensual relationship with a staffer that may have violated the organization’s code of ethics. The probe into a relationship between Secretary General Luis Almagro and a Mexican-born woman two decades his junior has not been reported before. But inside the Washington-based organization, some employees told the AP that the long-running romance has been an open secret, one that made them feel intimidated interacting with the boss’ alleged paramour. Almagro declined to comment. An OAS spokesman says Almagro was never the woman's supervisor.

Good news on the economy is still bad news for Wall Street. Stocks are falling in the early going Friday after a report on the U.S jobs market came in stronger than expected, raising concerns that the Federal Reserve will have no choice but continue its aggressive efforts to slow the economy with high interest rates, the bitter medicine it is using to fight inflation. The worry is that the economy will slow down so much it will enter a recession, putting people out of work and knocking down company profits. The S&P 500 fell 1.6% and the Dow fell 1.2%.

Police say an attacker killed two people and wounded six others in stabbings along the Las Vegas Strip. Yoni Barrios, 32, was booked on two counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder late Thursday. Police say three people are hospitalized in critical condition and another three are stable after the stabbings that started across the street from the Wynn casino and hotel. Police say Barrios used a large kitchen knife in Thursday morning's attack. Witnesses told Las Vegas TV stations that some of the victims appeared to be showgirls or street performers who take pictures with tourists on the Strip.