‘We’re still fighting,’ says mother of terminally ill 11-month-old baby
Jhalak Singh slipped her boat, created out of aluminum foil, into a plastic container filled with water. Then shewatched asAmber Smith-St. Louis began to fill it with blue marbles, counting aloud each time one dropped in.
The little boat didn’t sink under the weight of the marbles. Turns out Jhalak had fashioned a pretty strong little craft, so SmithSt. Louis kept going.
Jhalak raisedherhandsin the air, fists clenched, when Smith-St. Louis hit the 17marble mark. Defeat came a bit later, when the foil boat started to takeonwater at20 marbles.
As it sank, Jhalak tossed her hands on her head.
Still, it wasn’t a bad showing for the 13-year-old from Fairfax, Va.
“It was really fun,” she said afterward. “I liked it, because it was, like, intense and challenging.”
The foil boat testwas part of a summer camp for girls called FOCUS, lastmonth at GeorgeMasonUniversity.
The camp for middle school students, in its fourth year, centers around science, technology, engineering and mathematics, known as STEM, disciplines in which women have traditionally been underrepresented. It aims to showgirls that these fields can be cool and fun — and open to them.
FOCUS, which stands for “females of color and those underrepresented in STEM,” drew a diverse group of clever campers to Mason’s Fairfax campus. And those campers were met by a diverse group of counselors and organizers, eager to show what a future in STEMcould be.
Of about 100 participants, 44 percent were AfricanAmerican, 20percent AsianAmerican, 13 percent Hispanic, 6 percent of Middle Eastern descent and 4 percent white.
“At this camp, the girls are looking at college students who look like them,” said Danielle Blunt Craddock, one of the camp’s co-founders. “They’re looking at faculty and staff that look like them, and really showing them the possibilities of what they could become.”
The camp, sponsored by Mason’s STEM Accelerator program in collaboration with the nonprofit Girls Inspired & Ready to Lead, is open to rising sixth, seventh and eighth grade students.
FOCUS began as an attempt to “really inspire underrepresented girls in STEM,” said Craddock, founder and director of the nonprofit group. Craddock grew up near Mason and said there wasn’t anything like this at the time.
“I really wanted to give that to my community,” she said. “To show the girls, especially girls of color, role models and the path to careers in STEM.”
Data from2015 showthat 49 percent of scientists and engineers identified as white men, according to a National Science Foundation report.
About 18 percent were white women, the data showed. About 7 percent were Asian women, 2 percent Hispanic women and 2 percent African American women.
Kelly Knight, an assistant professor in Mason’s forensic science programand one of the camp’s co-founders, said FOCUS serves young girls at a crucial time, before they lose interest or grow discouraged.
When kids are at the elementary level, she said, they’re super excited about science. But sometimes their enthusiasm wanes by the time they reach ninth grade.
“So we feel like capturing them before they get to high school is important,” she said. “Because once you get to high school, the opportunities at the high school level, if you have an interest in STEM, are large.”
One day, girls at the camp gathered for a session on how to code apps. In another session, they clustered around tables, intently tinkering with little light bulbs
LONDON — The British parents of a terminally ill baby, facing another court hearing on his condition and care, said Sunday they hope he will receive the experimental treatment that previous rulings have prevented.
“If he’s still fighting, we’re still fighting,” said Connie Yates, the mother of 11-month-old Charlie Gard. Yates and Charlie’s father, Chris Gard, spoke outside London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital, where the baby is in intensive care and on life support.
The baby’s parents have received support from Pope Francis and President Donald Trump, but Charlie’s future remains in the hands of British courts charged with determining what is best for him.
“He’s our son, he’s our flesh and blood. We feel that it should be our right as parents to decide to give him a chance at life,” said Yates, carrying apetition signedby some 350,000 people supporting the couple’s quest. “There is nothing to lose; he deserves a chance.”
The case appeared to have reached its end last month, when the European Court of Human Rights refused to overturn British court rulings barring Charlie from traveling to the United States for treatment.
The hospital intended to turn off life support systems in favor of “palliative” care designed to ease any pain the baby might be experiencing.
But the case took a surprise turn when researchers at the Vatican’s children’s hospital, which has offered to treat Charlie, said new information suggested that the experimental treatment sought by the parents might be effective. That prompted the hospital to seek another High Court ruling.
Clinicians from the Vatican’s Bambino Gesu pediatric hospital’s neurosciences department said tests in mice and patients with a similar genetic condition as Charlie had shown that significant improvement is possible.
The boy has a rare inherited mitochondrial disease that has affected many of his vital organs and left him with brain damage.
Two politicians ofMoroccan ancestry will meet in a runoff to lead Israel’s Labor Party, an unprecedented showdown in the Europeanrooted movement that’s struggled to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu and reclaim its long-lost standing as the country’s defining force.
Amir Peretz, a former defense minister and labor federation head, will compete today against Avi Gabbay, ex-chief executive officer of Israel’s biggest telecommunications company, for the chance to head Labor’s slate in the next national election, scheduled forNovember 2019.
Peretzwas already talking about that next contest at a news conference on Wednesday.
“We are getting ready to conclude the campaign, win decisively and become the party’s candidate for prime minister,” Peretz said in Tel Aviv. “Netanyahu should startworrying.”
Peretz drew 32.7 percent of votes in Tuesday’s first round, according to results announced by party officials, followed by Gabbay with 27 percent. Incumbent Isaac Herzog came in third with 16.8 percent, losing his post as party chairman. Venture capitalist Erel Margalit, a member of parliament, trailed with 16.1 percent.
The contest is between Labor’s “old socialist guard and a professional in business management and efficiency,” said Mitchell Barak, a Jerusalem-based pollster and former aide to Netanyahu. “It’s very much a defining moment as to howLabor sees its future.”
The contest gives Peretz, 65, another chance at running for prime minister after he led Labor to a secondplace finish in 2006 and entered a government led by former Prime MinisterEhud Olmert. Gabbay, 50, the former CEO of Bezeq,an Israeli telecommunication company, resigned last year as environmental protection ministerunderNetanyahuto protest the firing of Defense MinisterMosheYa’alon.
Labor’s roots stretch back well before Israel’s founding in 1948, and it produced the nation’s first five prime ministers. Though it grew out of the socialistmovement, over time the party came to be seen as elitist and dominated by Israelis of European ancestry. In1977 it lostpower to the conservativeLikudParty, which had the support of working-class Israelis of Sephardic, or Middle Eastern andNorth African, origin.
The last Labor premier wasEhudBarak, whoserved less than two years and was unseated in 2001. Herzog, wholed the party to defeat in 2015 voting, has been eclipsed bymore charismatic leaders of other opposition parties. Whoever wins the runoff will represent a radical change from Herzog, an attorney whose grandfather served for decades as Israel’s Ashkenazi chief rabbi and whose father was the country’s president.