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Ukraine’s military claimed on Monday that it had killed the commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in a strike on Crimea — a blow that, if confirmed, would be among the most damaging suffered by the Russian Navy since the sinking of the fleet’s flagship last year.Citing “new information about the losses of the enemy as a result of the special operation,” Ukraine’s special operations forces said in a statement that the strike on Friday killed 34 officers, including the fleet commander, and wounded 105 others. It did not name the naval leader, but the commander of the Black Sea Fleet is Adm. Viktor Sokolov, one of the most senior officers in Russia’s Navy.The attack came during a meeting of Russian commanders, Ukraine’s military said, and badly damaged a headquarters of the Russian fleet in S...

In the urgent debate over how U.S. schools teach children to read, few figures have been as central as Lucy Calkins, the literacy professor and curriculum entrepreneur.For four decades, her organization, the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, and her widely purchased curriculum inspired passion among many educators. But there was also fierce pushback. Critics said Dr. Calkins downplayed phonics and overlooked a large body of scientific research on how children become skilled readers.Now her group has been dissolved by Teachers College, Columbia University, according to a recent announcement. Her organization, which was housed on campus and consisted of a nonprofit branch and several private companies, has long shared some of its revenues from consulting and publications with the...

Matteo Messina Denaro, a convicted killer and high-ranking mobster with the Sicilian Cosa Nostra who had eluded capture for three decades, died on Monday in a hospital in the central Italian city of L’Aquila, where he had been serving time in a maximum-security prison. He was 61.Alessandro Cerella, an attorney for Mr. Messina Denaro, confirmed the death, which he said was from colon cancer. Mr. Messina Denaro had been undergoing treatment for several years, and on Friday he fell into a coma that doctors said was irreversible. Mr. Messina Denaro was arrested in January while waiting to undergo chemotherapy at a private clinic in Palermo. He had been using a fake identity, and investigators discovered that he was being treated for cancer when they found a scrap of paper with his medical his...

A Black high school student in Texas who was suspended because of the way he wears his hair, along with his mother, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on Saturday against the state’s governor and attorney general.Darryl George, 17, and his mother, Darresha George, said in the lawsuit that the state leaders failed to enforce a new Texas law that makes it illegal for schools and employers to discriminate against people with hairstyles “commonly or historically associated with race.”The law, called the CROWN Act, went into effect on Sept. 1. The day before, Darryl was given an in-school suspension because officials at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, Texas, said that his hair violated the district’s dress code, according to the lawsuit.Darryl, a high school junior, has locs, or lon...