CHICAGO (WLS) — As the contest for president of the Chicago Board of Education heats up, a supporter of one candidate is urging officials to investigate how a do-not-hire designation connected to Jessica Biggs was reversed.

That reversal occurred while Macquline King was serving as Chicago Public Schools CEO and superintendent.

Before she was elected to the Chicago Board of Education, Biggs worked as interim principal at Burke Elementary School on the South Side. She was later dismissed over issues she has characterized as minor administrative violations.

“We were marking students tardy in cases when they may have arrived to school so late that they were absent for a half a day,” Biggs said.

Findings from the CPS Office of Inspector General also said Biggs violated district rules by not keeping driver’s license and insurance documentation for staff members who transported students.

“When a parent made a request and wanted help with a ride to school, there were cases where a staff member would go and pick students up,” Biggs said.

Biggs said she was fired in 2018 and, under CPS policy at the time, was automatically placed on the district’s do-not-hire list. She contends she was targeted because she was an outspoken principal on other issues.

Biggs appealed the designation in 2023 and was denied. She said a second appeal was also denied a year later. After being elected to the school board, she appealed again and was successful under King’s leadership.

Andre Smith, a former school board candidate who lost to Biggs and now supports her opponent, Victor Henderson, has questioned the circumstances surrounding the successful appeal.

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“The question is was it done with integrity or was it a back room deal? I’m calling for an investigation,” Smith said.

Smith alleges Biggs’ appeal was granted after she led the search process that selected King as CPS CEO and superintendent, despite not initially supporting her candidacy.

Biggs rejected the accusation.

“This is a false political attack. My appeal was sent to be reviewed by an outside counsel to avoid even an appearance of a conflict of interest. No one within the CEO’s office was able to even touch that appeal,” she said.

Other candidates in the race for school board president have also raised questions about the appeal process but said they are more concerned about the circumstances that led to Biggs’ firing.

In a written statement, Chicago Teachers Union-endorsed candidate Hilario Dominguez said, “The revelations are damning. It’s hard to imagine someone who got fired for how she ran her school being put in charge of running the whole district. It makes you ask why Ms. Biggs couldn’t follow the rules herself. And then worse, she may have used her power on the board for her personal benefit when she had the chance.”

While Smith has called for an investigation, Biggs has received endorsements from several current school board members who are not aligned with the Chicago Teachers Union, as well as from Service Employees International Union.

A 43-year-old California college freshman who previously served 14 years in state prison was arrested twice during his first week in a university dormitory — first on suspicion of sexual assault, and then for allegedly returning to campus despite a court order prohibiting him from doing so.

Delos Anthony Charles Moore was taken into custody on August 31 following the alleged assault at Cal Poly Humboldt, where he had recently enrolled as a forestry student and was living in the Hinarr Hu Moulik residence halls, according to the Lost Coast Outpost.

Authorities arrested Moore a second time after he allegedly went back to the dorms in violation of a court order barring him from campus. He was later released after posting $35,000 bond.

Before beginning his studies at Cal Poly Humboldt, Moore had spent years incarcerated for a 2007 robbery in Gardena, California.

In a 2024 podcast interview, Moore said he and two other men robbed a cigarette store and a water store. During the robbery, the owner was tied up and punched after trying to get away.

Moore was initially sentenced to two years but received an additional 10 years for gang-related enhancements.

He later served time at several California prisons, including High Desert State Prison, Kern Valley State Prison and the California Institute for Men.

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He also received another five-year sentence after prison officials discovered narcotics concealed inside a condom that his girlfriend had brought during a visit, according to the Lost Coast Outpost.

While incarcerated, Moore earned an associate degree in sociology from Lake Tahoe Community College.

He was released in 2021 after receiving credits for good behavior, according to the report, and moved into the entertainment industry, working as a production assistant on commercials and television projects.

Moore had also received support from an organization that helps formerly incarcerated people find employment and was recently awarded a scholarship to attend Cal Poly Humboldt, according to the Lost Coast Outpost.

The scholarship came less than three months before his arrest.

Moore had previously spoken publicly about his time in prison, including fights and his struggles with drugs, according to the outlet.

A 70-year-old Florida woman was confronted by police Thursday after she allegedly fired a gun inside the lobby of the Port Orange Police Department, according to the agency’s chief.

Officials said the situation, which began around 8:30 a.m. local time, did not pose an ongoing danger to the public. The department added that “all officers and employees are safe and accounted for.”

“Shortly after 8 o’clock this morning, we had an individual enter the main lobby of the police department. That person was a 70, roughly 70-year-old White female, holding a firearm, a handgun,” Port Orange Police Chief Manuel Marino told reporters at the scene.

Marino said the woman interacted with civilian employees near the department’s front records area before displaying the weapon. “She remains in the lobby for a bit of time, a few minutes, when ultimately she does fire a round inside the lobby in the direction where some of our civilian staff were working,” he said.

“A call went out over the radio, referenced an active shooter or shooting in progress. Our officers responded. She exits the front lobby and is confronted by the officers that are responding to the scene,” Marino added.

“At that point, there is an officer-involved shooting. The individual was transported to the hospital, but we’re not releasing her name actually pending next to kin notification at this point. We had the three officers were involved. Fortunately, none were injured. And none of our civilian staff suffered any injuries,” Marino also said.

READ MORE: Mark Sanchez Files Guilty Plea as Former NFL QB Awaits Sentencing in Brawl Case

The police chief said the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the shooting.

The suspect, according to Marino, was still holding her firearm when confronted by the officers.

Her condition is not immediately clear.

Mark Sanchez has moved to enter a guilty plea in connection with a violent downtown Indianapolis altercation that nearly turned deadly.

The former NFL quarterback was arrested last October after he was stabbed during a fight that also left 69-year-old truck driver Perry Tole injured.

Following his arrest, Sanchez was dismissed from his role at Fox Sports. He has since faced multiple charges, including battery causing serious injury, unauthorized entry of a motor vehicle and public intoxication.

According to FOX59, Sanchez filed a motion Thursday in Marion County Superior Court 21 requesting a guilty plea and sentencing hearing. The plea must still be approved by a judge, and it remains unclear which charge or charges Sanchez intends to admit to.

Sanchez’s jury trial, initially scheduled for March 12, has been postponed five times, with the latest date set for September 8. His attorneys are now asking the court to accept the plea agreement and sentence him on either November 9 or November 16.

The filing was called a ‘positive development’ by Sanchez’s legal advisor Nick Sanchez Jr.  

‘We are finalizing an agreement with the prosecutor’s office that provides a path toward resolving the state’s case,’ he told FOX59. 

‘We’re also encouraged by the constructive conversations taking place regarding the related civil matter. There is real momentum toward bringing this entire chapter to a close.’

An attorney representing Tole, Matt Goltiko, said: ‘We are pleased with the constructive and professional conversations we’ve had with Mr. Sanchez’s team. 

‘Our discussions have been productive and we’re on a positive path toward an agreement that will allow the parties to move forward. Mr. Tole appreciates the progress we have achieved and looks forward to an amicable resolution.’

During an alleged near-fatal brawl with Tole, Sanchez, 39, suffered multiple stab wounds to his upper right torso.

The ex-New York Jets star may have been under the influence of cocaine, fentanyl, marijuana and alcohol, according to a document filed by Tole’s attorneys in a related federal lawsuit.

Sanchez, who has been married to wife Perry Mattfeld since 2023, was in Indianapolis to cover the Colts’ game against the Las Vegas Raiders for Fox the following day when the altercation with Tole occurred.

After briefly being booked into jail upon his release from hospital, he was fired by the network in early November.

A police affidavit alleged that Sanchez, smelling of alcohol, accosted Tole, who had backed his truck into a hotel’s loading docks in downtown Indianapolis on October 4.

Tole claimed in a lawsuit that Sanchez entered the truck without permission, then physically blocked him. The driver responded by dousing him with pepper spray, he told police. 

When Sanchez advanced after being sprayed, Tole pulled a knife to defend himself, authorities said.

A picture of Tole that circulated online following the incident showed him in a neck brace on a hospital bed, covered in blood with a deep slash to the side of his face.

Tole, who has claimed self-defense and has not been charged, is suing Sanchez, Fox Sports and local restaurateur Huse Culinary in federal court.

Among the allegations against Sanchez are that he may have been under the influence of cocaine, fentanyl, marijuana and alcohol.

‘[Tole] has cause to believe that one or more of these substances may have been consumed in one of [the restaurant company’s] establishments which caused or contributed to Sanchez’s impairment and his subsequent negligent and/or knowing conduct,’ read the filing, obtained by the Daily Mail. 

Tole’s attorneys did not provide any evidence to support these claims and are instead calling for a further investigation to confirm the extent of Sanchez’s intoxication and whether any defendants had knowledge of him using additional intoxicants.

In a statement provided to Daily Mail, Sanchez’s attorney Andrew M. McNeil said: ‘These are allegations in a civil filing, nothing more, and they should be treated accordingly. Allegations are not evidence. The truth will be determined by facts and evidence presented at trial, and we look forward to presenting them at the appropriate time.’

The vertigo-inducing shots of sheer mountain faces look tailor-made for IMAX — those giant screens currently dominated, for the most part, by Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. The people clinging to those cliffs, however, are hardly the sort of marquee names who would rank among that film’s 20 most identifiable stars. That contrast is the strange appeal of Fall 2: Deadpoint: a big-screen survival thriller built from streaming-era scraps, a green-screened sequel to a movie that found much of its audience at home. It may be the year’s most effective collision of old-fashioned cinematic spectacle and unapologetic trash.

The first Fall became a hit in a way few low-budget thrillers do anymore. The indie film, centered on two women stranded atop a remote radio tower as they desperately try to call for help and stay alive, played like an open-air, shark-free cousin to the sleeper success 47 Meters Down. Lionsgate picked it up and gave it a theatrical release in 2022 after test audiences responded well. With little in the way of marketing muscle and no major stars to sell it, Fall still managed to become a modest global box office success, even though it never landed the IMAX screens its filmmakers had once hoped for. Variety described the movie as having been shot with “large-format cameras,” though what that meant in practice remains somewhat unclear, since it was not filmed with IMAX equipment. Then Netflix gave it a second life, pushing it up the streamer’s charts and introducing it to a wider audience. By then, Fall 2 had already been approved, and it arrives in theaters over Labor Day weekend — a fitting slot for another compact, modestly cast thriller that nevertheless aims for a surprisingly massive sense of scale.

It would have been simple enough for Fall 2: Deadpoint to recycle the original movie’s premise without tying itself too closely to what came before. Instead, the sequel leans into continuity and character mythology. That choice may come from creative ambition, or it may be a shrewd bit of franchise-building. As a Lionsgate release that sits close to horror without fully committing to gore, the film almost feels positioned as a lighter substitute for the studio’s signature Saw series, which has been stalled by creative disputes since the success of Saw X. The connection is strengthened by the hiring of the Spierig Brothers, genre veterans who directed the unsuccessful 2017 Saw semi-reboot Jigsaw. They take over from original director Scott Mann, who remains involved as a co-writer — a handoff that recalls the early Saw years, when writer Leigh Whannell and producer James Wan stayed with the franchise for several installments after Wan directed and Whannell wrote the first film.

Fall 2 centers on Jax (Harriet Slater), the grieving sister of Shiloh (Virginia Gardner), one of the women trapped in the original Fall. Still reeling from Shiloh’s sudden death, Jax crosses paths with Luce (Arsema Thomas), an old friend of her sister’s, who proposes a wildly risky tribute: complete one of the adventures Shiloh dreamed about but never got to attempt. That plan sends Jax to Thailand with someone she barely knows, bound for an illegal and dangerously fragile mountainside trail that requires an artificial walkway, a guide, and precisely placed anchors to navigate. Naturally, she agrees. As the trip escalates from reckless memorial to full-blown survival nightmare, Jax responds to far-flung, life-or-death crises with a reluctance that often feels less like terror on the edge of a jagged cliff and more like someone being asked to get out of bed at 6 a.m. — even after the rickety plank path beneath her has been destroyed.

That is indeed what happens in Fall 2. Jax and Luce go up the mountain with their guide, rocks fall, and the two women get stuck in a situation that arguably (and in proper sequel fashion) seems even worse than the one from the previous film.

This means that Fall 2: Deadpoint works largely the same way as Fall, which is to say it credibly evokes the stomach-dropping feeling of apprehension anyone might feel in the situation at hand. It’s a little faker-looking; though there are location shots throughout, imitating straight-down mountainside is not as straightforward a task as the first movie, which really did shoot far above the ground (just not as far, or as unsafe, as the characters looked). Still, the Spierigs use some inventive visual techniques, like repeated POV shots that capture the experience of looking straight down in the last place you’d ever want to do that, and the movie’s old standbys – trying to snare a stranded backpack; attempting to hang on to wobbly infrastructure that itself is just barely hanging on – work wonders.

Beyond the high-wobbling basics of its survival story, Fall 2 is pure B-movie: Awkwardly phrased expositional dialogue, weirdly elaborate backstories, and signposted but still ridiculous revelations. It doesn’t dare attempt to replicate the first movie’s twist (itself knocked off from another film), but throws in some wild turns of its own that should fail to distinguish it from any number of chintzy straight-to-streaming thrillers. By most contemporary standards, especially in a summer where the biggest success stories are movies as lavish as The Odyssey, or featuring characters as beloved as Spider-Man: Brand New Day, or as bespoke in their smallness as Obsession, Fall 2 shouldn’t seem like a theatrical event. Indeed, its eye is not on grosses measured in terms of a billion. The first one was a success when it crossed the $10 million mark worldwide. On the moviegoer side of things, if you’re planning on seeing one movie for the whole month of September, you probably don’t want to make it Fall 2.

But for more frequent moviegoers, it’s really a classic case of a shlocky film elevated by the circumstances of cinema: See it at the right size, and it transforms from a guilty borderline pleasure to a stupidly satisfying night out. The trick is finding an open screen big enough.

Dramatic video shows the moment a SWAT vehicle rammed into a tractor during a tense standoff with a suspect accused of opening fire near an Oregon home.

Erik Gordon Shunn, 53, allegedly fired at multiple tree workers Saturday afternoon in an area south of Portland before confronting law enforcement officers who responded to the scene, the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) said. Authorities said more than 200 rounds were fired over the course of the incident.

Footage recorded by a CCSO drone appeared to show Shunn firing repeatedly toward the aircraft, officials said.

Shunn was later spotted operating a compact tractor near the front of his home when a CCSO SWAT vehicle drove into it, pinning the tractor against the house. Several SWAT team members quickly exited the rear of the vehicle and moved in to take him into custody.

According to officials, the Clackamas County SWAT Team responded to a report of an armed neighbor firing at professional arborists hired to cut down trees in a rural residential and farm area.

The 911 caller told dispatchers they believed Shunn had several guns, while witnesses estimated he fired roughly 20 rounds at tree company employees, officials said.

When the authorities arrived, drones allegedly spotted Shunn in his driveway.

He was seen “knocking down trees with a tractor in an apparent attempt to create a barricade,” according to the CCSO.

Authorities said they ultimately decided to pin Shunn’s tractor after he became separated from his rifle while driving it near the front of the home.

“SWAT personnel used this window of opportunity because they believed it provided the highest likelihood of safely apprehending Shunn,” CCSO officials said.

Shunn was treated at the scene before being taken to a local hospital for evaluation.

“First responders also checked on neighbors and tree workers to confirm their safety and evacuate them from the area,” CCSO said.

No injuries were reported. Shunn’s mother, who was also at the home during the standoff, was also unharmed, according to the sheriff’s office.

Shunn was charged with second-degree attempted murder, first-degree attempted assault, recklessly endangering, unlawful use of a weapon, menacing, unlawful possession of firearms, first-degree attempted criminal mischief, and interfering with a peace officer.

He is currently being held without bail at the Clackamas County Jail.