Latest news with #Yang
Miami Herald
a day ago
- Miami Herald
California school district faces sex abuse lawsuit. Did LA's $4-billion payout open floodgates?
LOS ANGELES - Five California women sued a Fresno County school system Wednesday, alleging officials brushed aside claims they were being sexually assaulted by a second-grade teacher who was later convicted of similar abuse. The case against the Clovis Unified School District comes amid a tidal wave of sexual abuse litigation that has left lawmakers scrambling to stop misconduct - and schools struggling to pay settlements owed to victims suing over crimes that stretch back decades. The latest case dates back to the late 1990s and early 2000s. Plaintiff Samantha Muñoz, now a 28-year-old mother of two, is among those alleging she was abused by then-Fancher Creek Elementary School teacher Neng Yang. Muñoz claims in the lawsuit that Yang began molesting her in 2004, when she was his 7-year-old student. By that time, the lawsuit says, girls had been complaining to Clovis Unified School District officials about Yang for years. The teacher was eventually arrested for producing child pornography in 2012, and has spent the past decade in federal prison in San Pedro, where he is serving a 38-year term for sexual exploitation of a minor. "Clovis Unified was protecting this predator," said Muñoz. "They continued to have him teaching at that school knowing he was [assaulting students]." The Times does not typically identify victims of sexual assault, but Muñoz and two of her four co-plaintiffs said they wanted to speak out publicly about what happened. Kelly Avants, a spokeswoman for Clovis Unified, said the district had not yet received notice of the lawsuit. "We have not been served with the suit yet, but will review it when we are served and respond accordingly," Avants said. The public defender's office that represented Yang in his criminal case referred questions to federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of California. A spokesperson for that office said they could offer no comment. "When a teacher saw him showing me child pornography on his phone, school officials interrogated me and then encouraged me to say nothing," Muñoz said. "I was left in his classroom and he kept abusing me." The Fresno case follows a landmark $4-billion settlement this spring over sexual abuse in L.A. County's juvenile facilities, group and foster homes - believed to be the largest in U.S. history. On Tuesday, the state's largest school district, Los Angeles Unified, announced it would sell up to $500 million in bonds to help cover its anticipated sexual abuse liability. "There's tremendous cost pressures on school districts," said Michael Fine, head of California's Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, which published a report in January estimating state education agencies could be liable for $2 billion to $3 billion for past sexual misconduct. "No matter what, the money's coming out of their current resources." The payouts stem from a series of recent changes to California's statute of limitations for child sexual assault. Beginning with Assembly Bill 218 in 2019, the state opened a brief window for allegations going back as far as 1940. The law permanently extended the deadline for victims to file child sex abuse claims until age 40, or within five years of realizing a new illness or "psychological injury" as a result of abuse. "There are definitely school districts out there that feel the state changed the law so the state should pay," Fine said. Some in the debate argue only abusers - not cash-strapped schools - should be liable for misconduct. For most California school districts, the money is likely to come from a public entity risk pool, a collective pot that multiple agencies pay into to cover liabilities such as health insurance and workers' compensation. Many pools are assessing their members "retroactive premiums" in an attempt to cover sex abuse suits touched off by the change in the law, Fine said. That means even schools that haven't been sued face higher operating costs. "There's impacts to the classroom whether there's a claim or not, because they've got to pay the retroactive premiums somehow," he said. "If they were in the pool, they're on the hook." In its report, the agency recommended alternative ways the state and school districts might cover liabilities stemming from the law - including a modified form of receivership for agencies that can't pay, and a new state victim's compensation fund - as well as concrete steps to stem abuse. The latter have been enthusiastically adopted by California lawmakers, including state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Alhambra). But other suggestions have been ignored, Fine said. "There isn't a bill out there that carries the rest of our recommendations," he said. After months spent trying to understand the scale and the magnitude of the liability California institutions are facing, stories like those in the Clovis Unified suit haunt him, Fine said. "It's emotionally overwhelming," he said. Plaintiffs in the Clovis case described nearly identical abuse stretching back to 1998, when Yang was still a student teacher. According to Wednesday's complaint, then-second-grader Tiffany Thrailkill told the Francher Creek principal, vice principal and school counselor that Yang had groped her and forced her to perform oral sex. "In response, [officials] took the position that Tiffany was lying and referred her to psychological treatment," the suit alleged. Despite laws dating back to the 1980s that require abuse to be reported, school officials kept the allegations quiet and never investigated Yang, the suit said. "Instead of reporting Yang and protecting their students, it appears school officials blamed the girls, looked the other way, and enabled Yang to abuse their students for over a decade," said Jason Amala, the plaintiffs' attorney. Ultimately, Yang was caught by the Central California Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, a partnership between the Clovis Police Department and Homeland Security Investigations. For Muñoz, the teacher's conviction was cold comfort. While she believes speaking out about her experience will inspire other victims to come forward, she now faces the agonizing decision of whether to send her nonverbal 4-year-old for early intervention services at the same elementary school where her suit alleges her nightmare began. "Why would I want to go drop off my son at a place that's nothing but bad memories?" the mother said. "It's like signing my life away to the devil again." "I just need them to be accountable for who they protected," Muñoz said. Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
California school district faces sex abuse lawsuit. Did L.A.'s $4-billion payout open floodgates?
Five California women sued a Fresno County school system Wednesday, alleging officials brushed aside claims they were being sexually assaulted by a second-grade teacher who was later convicted of similar abuse. The case against the Clovis Unified School District comes amid a tidal wave of sexual abuse litigation that has left lawmakers scrambling to stop misconduct — and schools struggling to pay settlements owed to victims suing over crimes that stretch back decades. The latest case dates back to the late 1990s and early 2000s. Plaintiff Samantha Muñoz, now a 28-year-old mother of two, is among those alleging she was abused by then-Fancher Creek Elementary School teacher Neng Yang. Muñoz claims in the lawsuit that Yang began molesting her in 2004, when she was his 7-year-old student. By that time, the lawsuit says, girls had been complaining to Clovis Unified School District officials about Yang for years. The teacher was eventually arrested for producing child pornography in 2012, and has spent the past decade in federal prison in San Pedro, where he is serving a 38-year term for sexual exploitation of a minor. "Clovis Unified was protecting this predator," said Muñoz. "They continued to have him teaching at that school knowing he was [assaulting students]." The Times does not typically identify victims of sexual assault, but Muñoz and two of her four co-plaintiffs said they wanted to speak out publicly about what happened. Kelly Avants, a spokeswoman for Clovis Unified, said the district had not yet received notice of the lawsuit. "We have not been served with the suit yet, but will review it when we are served and respond accordingly," Avants said. The public defender's office that represented Yang in his criminal case referred questions to federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of California. A spokesperson for that office said they could offer no comment. "When a teacher saw him showing me child pornography on his phone, school officials interrogated me and then encouraged me to say nothing," Muñoz said. "I was left in his classroom and he kept abusing me." The Fresno case follows a landmark $4-billion settlement this spring over sexual abuse in L.A. County's juvenile facilities, group and foster homes — believed to be the largest in U.S. history. On Tuesday, the state's largest school district, Los Angeles Unified, announced it would sell up to $500 million in bonds to help cover its anticipated sexual abuse liability. "There's tremendous cost pressures on school districts," said Michael Fine, head of California's Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, which published a report in January estimating state education agencies could be liable for $2 billion to $3 billion for past sexual misconduct. "No matter what, the money's coming out of their current resources." The payouts stem from a series of recent changes to California's statute of limitations for child sexual assault. Beginning with Assembly Bill 218 in 2019, the state opened a brief window for allegations going back as far as 1940. The law permanently extended the deadline for victims to file child sex abuse claims until age 40, or within five years of realizing a new illness or "psychological injury" as a result of abuse. "There are definitely school districts out there that feel the state changed the law so the state should pay," Fine said. Some in the debate argue only abusers — not cash-strapped schools — should be liable for misconduct. For most California school districts, the money is likely to come from a public entity risk pool, a collective pot that multiple agencies pay into to cover liabilities such as health insurance and workers' compensation. Many pools are assessing their members "retroactive premiums" in an attempt to cover sex abuse suits touched off by the change in the law, Fine said. That means even schools that haven't been sued face higher operating costs. "There's impacts to the classroom whether there's a claim or not, because they've got to pay the retroactive premiums somehow," he said. "If they were in the pool, they're on the hook." In its report, the agency recommended alternative ways the state and school districts might cover liabilities stemming from the law — including a modified form of receivership for agencies that can't pay, and a new state victim's compensation fund — as well as concrete steps to stem abuse. The latter have been enthusiastically adopted by California lawmakers, including state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Alhambra). But other suggestions have been ignored, Fine said. "There isn't a bill out there that carries the rest of our recommendations," he said. After months spent trying to understand the scale and the magnitude of the liability California institutions are facing, stories like those in the Clovis Unified suit haunt him, Fine said. "It's emotionally overwhelming," he said. Plaintiffs in the Clovis case described nearly identical abuse stretching back to 1998, when Yang was still a student teacher. According to Wednesday's complaint, then-second-grader Tiffany Thrailkill told the Francher Creek principal, vice principal and school counselor that Yang had groped her and forced her to perform oral sex. "In response, [officials] took the position that Tiffany was lying and referred her to psychological treatment," the suit alleged. Despite laws dating back to the 1980s that require abuse to be reported, school officials kept the allegations quiet and never investigated Yang, the suit said. "Instead of reporting Yang and protecting their students, it appears school officials blamed the girls, looked the other way, and enabled Yang to abuse their students for over a decade,' said Jason Amala, the plaintiffs' attorney. Ultimately, Yang was caught by the Central California Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, a partnership between the Clovis Police Department and Homeland Security Investigations. For Muñoz, the teacher's conviction was cold comfort. While she believes speaking out about her experience will inspire other victims to come forward, she now faces the agonizing decision of whether to send her nonverbal 4-year-old for early intervention services at the same elementary school where her suit alleges her nightmare began. "Why would I want to go drop off my son at a place that's nothing but bad memories?" the mother said. "It's like signing my life away to the devil again." "I just need them to be accountable for who they protected," Muñoz said. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
a day ago
- Los Angeles Times
California school district faces sex abuse lawsuit. Did L.A.'s $4-billion payout open floodgates?
Five California women sued a Fresno County school system Wednesday, alleging officials brushed aside claims they were being sexually assaulted by a second-grade teacher who was later convicted of similar abuse. The case against the Clovis Unified School District comes amid a tidal wave of sexual abuse litigation that has left lawmakers scrambling to stop misconduct — and schools struggling to pay settlements owed to victims suing over crimes that stretch back decades. The latest case dates back to the late 1990s and early 2000s. Plaintiff Samantha Muñoz, now a 28-year-old mother of two, is among those alleging she was abused by then-Fancher Creek Elementary School teacher Neng Yang. Muñoz claims in the lawsuit that Yang began molesting her in 2004, when she was his 7-year-old student. By that time, the lawsuit says, girls had been complaining to Clovis Unified School District officials about Yang for years. The teacher was eventually arrested for producing child pornography in 2012, and has spent the past decade in federal prison in San Pedro, where he is serving a 38-year term for sexual exploitation of a minor. 'Clovis Unified was protecting this predator,' said Muñoz. 'They continued to have him teaching at that school knowing he was [assaulting students].' The Times does not typically identify victims of sexual assault, but Muñoz and two of her four co-plaintiffs said they wanted to speak out publicly about what happened. Kelly Avants, a spokeswoman for Clovis Unified, said the district had not yet received notice of the lawsuit. 'We have not been served with the suit yet, but will review it when we are served and respond accordingly,' Avants said. The public defender's office that represented Yang in his criminal case referred questions to federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of California. A spokesperson for that office said they could offer no comment. 'When a teacher saw him showing me child pornography on his phone, school officials interrogated me and then encouraged me to say nothing,' Muñoz said. 'I was left in his classroom and he kept abusing me.' The Fresno case follows a landmark $4-billion settlement this spring over sexual abuse in L.A. County's juvenile facilities, group and foster homes — believed to be the largest in U.S. history. On Tuesday, the state's largest school district, Los Angeles Unified, announced it would sell up to $500 million in bonds to help cover its anticipated sexual abuse liability. 'There's tremendous cost pressures on school districts,' said Michael Fine, head of California's Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, which published a report in January estimating state education agencies could be liable for $2 billion to $3 billion for past sexual misconduct. 'No matter what, the money's coming out of their current resources.' The payouts stem from a series of recent changes to California's statute of limitations for child sexual assault. Beginning with Assembly Bill 218 in 2019, the state opened a brief window for allegations going back as far as 1940. The law permanently extended the deadline for victims to file child sex abuse claims until age 40, or within five years of realizing a new illness or 'psychological injury' as a result of abuse. 'There are definitely school districts out there that feel the state changed the law so the state should pay,' Fine said. Some in the debate argue only abusers — not cash-strapped schools — should be liable for misconduct. For most California school districts, the money is likely to come from a public entity risk pool, a collective pot that multiple agencies pay into to cover liabilities such as health insurance and workers' compensation. Many pools are assessing their members 'retroactive premiums' in an attempt to cover sex abuse suits touched off by the change in the law, Fine said. That means even schools that haven't been sued face higher operating costs. 'There's impacts to the classroom whether there's a claim or not, because they've got to pay the retroactive premiums somehow,' he said. 'If they were in the pool, they're on the hook.' In its report, the agency recommended alternative ways the state and school districts might cover liabilities stemming from the law — including a modified form of receivership for agencies that can't pay, and a new state victim's compensation fund — as well as concrete steps to stem abuse. The latter have been enthusiastically adopted by California lawmakers, including state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Alhambra). But other suggestions have been ignored, Fine said. 'There isn't a bill out there that carries the rest of our recommendations,' he said. After months spent trying to understand the scale and the magnitude of the liability California institutions are facing, stories like those in the Clovis Unified suit haunt him, Fine said. 'It's emotionally overwhelming,' he said. Plaintiffs in the Clovis case described nearly identical abuse stretching back to 1998, when Yang was still a student teacher. According to Wednesday's complaint, then-second-grader Tiffany Thrailkill told the Francher Creek principal, vice principal and school counselor that Yang had groped her and forced her to perform oral sex. 'In response, [officials] took the position that Tiffany was lying and referred her to psychological treatment,' the suit alleged. Despite laws dating back to the 1980s that require abuse to be reported, school officials kept the allegations quiet and never investigated Yang, the suit said. 'Instead of reporting Yang and protecting their students, it appears school officials blamed the girls, looked the other way, and enabled Yang to abuse their students for over a decade,' said Jason Amala, the plaintiffs' attorney. Ultimately, Yang was caught by the Central California Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, a partnership between the Clovis Police Department and Homeland Security Investigations. For Muñoz, the teacher's conviction was cold comfort. While she believes speaking out about her experience will inspire other victims to come forward, she now faces the agonizing decision of whether to send her nonverbal 4-year-old for early intervention services at the same elementary school where her suit alleges her nightmare began. 'Why would I want to go drop off my son at a place that's nothing but bad memories?' the mother said. 'It's like signing my life away to the devil again.' 'I just need them to be accountable for who they protected,' Muñoz said.
South China Morning Post
a day ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Chinese couple running dog shelter walk down aisle flanked by canines, delighting many
A man in China, who operates a dog shelter, celebrated his wedding alongside his beloved rescued dogs, bringing joy to many on social media. Advertisement Yang, 31, from Tianjin City in northern China, was once a prosperous construction boss with assets exceeding 10 million yuan (US$1.4 million). However, in 2020, his business faced a devastating collapse. In a bid to honour his commitments and pay his employees, he sold nearly all of his possessions, including his house and two cars. After declaring bankruptcy, Yang resolved to dedicate his life to ensuring that dogs receive the love and care they deserve, a passion ignited by the heartbreak of losing five puppies to illness during his childhood. Starting with only 10 dogs and no staff in 2020, Yang has now rescued over 200 dogs and gathered 8,000 volunteers, with aspirations to expand further in the future. Photo: Interviewees/Baidu With his own savings, Yang began rescuing stray dogs and eventually established a modest shelter that initially housed 10 dogs. At first, he managed the operations single-handedly, without any volunteers.
American Military News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- American Military News
It's about time Tom Cruise got an Oscar, the academy decides — Dolly Parton, too
It's finally Oscar time for Tom Cruise, the Motion Picture Academy of Arts & Sciences has decided. Cruise, Dolly Parton, actor-producer-director-dancer Debbie Allen and production designer Wynn Thomas will receive Academy Honorary Awards for their ample (and as-yet unrecognized) contributions to big-screen culture. They are, according to a statement Tuesday from academy President Janet Yang, 'four legendary individuals whose extraordinary careers and commitment to our filmmaking community continue to leave a lasting impact.' Cruise (who famously does his own stunts) has 'inspired us all,' according to Yang, with his 'incredible commitment to our filmmaking community, to the theatrical experience, and to the stunts community.' Sometimes called Hollywood's last real movie star, Cruise has fueled box office revenue like few others, drawing crowds to the wildly successful 'Top Gun' and 'Mission Impossible' films, not to mention 'Rain Man,' 'War of the Worlds,' 'Risky Business' and 'Jerry Maguire.' He has been nominated for four Oscars in the past — twice for lead actor, once for supporting actor and once for best picture, for 'Top Gun: Maverick' — but hasn't taken one home. Allen is being honored for her nearly five-decade career, during which she has acted, sung, danced, directed, produced and executive-produced. In that time she has choreographed the globally televised Academy Awards ceremony seven times and performed as well. 'Debbie Allen is a trailblazing choreographer and actor, whose work has captivated generations and crossed genres,' Yang said. While much of the six-time Emmy winner's work has been in TV, film credits tagged to her many job descriptions include 'Ragtime,' 'Fame,' 'Amistad,' 'Forget Paris' and more. And without Thomas' work, Spike Lee wouldn't be who he is today. Thomas started his career as a production designer on the director's 1986 effort 'She's Gotta Have It,' then continued their collaboration on 'Do the Right Thing,' 'Jungle Fever,' 'School Daze,' 'Malcolm X' and 'Da 5 Bloods.' He also worked on 'Eddie Murphy: Raw,' Robert Townsend's 'The Five Heartbeats' and 'King Richard,' which delivered a lead actor Academy Award for Will Smith. Other films on Thomas' resume? 'Hidden Figures,' which was nominated for three Oscars, and 'A Beautiful Mind,' which won four. 'Thomas has brought some of the most enduring films to life through a visionary eye and mastery of his craft,' Yang said. Meanwhile, Parton will take home the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and its attendant Oscar statuette, an honor given 'to an individual in the motion picture arts and sciences whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry by promoting human welfare and contributing to rectifying inequities.' The singer and '9 to 5' star, whose husband, Carl Dean, died in March, has long put her fame to good use. Yang said Parton 'exemplifies the spirit' of the Hersholt award 'through her unwavering dedication to charitable efforts.' The woman behind Dollywood has been nominated for original song Oscars twice. The honors will be given out Nov. 16 at the academy's 16th Governors Awards in Hollywood. ___ © 2025 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
