The young black poet made internationally famous by her recital during the inauguration of Joe Biden says she was followed home by a security guard because she looked “suspicious”.

Amanda Gorman , who was the US’s first National Youth Poet Laureate and was widely praised for her performance in January, says she was regarded as a “threat” because she is black.

She told her 1.5 million Twitter followers: “A security guard tailed me on my walk home tonight. He demanded if I lived there because ‘you look suspicious.’

“I showed my keys & buzzed myself into my building. He left, no apology. This is the reality of black girls: One day you’re called an icon, the next day, a threat.”

The identity of the security guard is unknown.

The 22-year-old from Los Angeles, who garnered worldwide attention due to her starring role in the presidential inauguration ceremony, also performed before the start of the Super Bowl , last month.

At the point she posted the tweet, she also reposted an earlier tweet referring to a Washington Post profile of her, in which she said: “Yes see me, but also see all other black girls who’ve been made invisible. I can not, will not, rise alone.”

She then went on to reflect on her earlier post, admitting she was in a way a threat – but to the “powers that be”.

The former Harvard University student added: “In a sense, he was right. I AM A THREAT: a threat to injustice, to inequality, to ignorance. Anyone who speaks the truth and walks with hope is an obvious and fatal danger to the powers that be.”

Gorman told NBC after her inauguration performance she felt an “enormous responsibility” to reflect on the violent US Capitol riots in the six-minute poem she spoke at the event.

After the ceremony, she topped Amazon’s best seller list for her debut poetry collection.

Her poem The Hill We Climb referenced everything from Biblical scripture to Hamilton, and at times echoed the oratory of John F Kennedy and the Rev Martin Luther King Jr.

She has said she plans to run for president herself in 2036 and in the poem described herself as “a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother [who] can dream of becoming president, only to find her self reciting for one”.

RIO Ferdinand rates wife Kate a 9 out of 10 teacher as a homeschool teacher

Rio , 42, praised his wife for being a patient teacher while admitting he can be “grumpy” when it comes to lessons with their kids, Tate, 12, Lorenz, 14, and Tia, nine, at their huge home in South East London.

He admitted his kids find him “stern” when he takes over from Kate , 29,  while discussing the new football-themed Numbers Game on the online education platform, Twinkl.

He said: “I have so much respect for what teachers do. It’s a hard job.

“The thing I’ve noticed is how intense it can be and how the teachers manage it all day and the pressures of managing all these different kids who have different ideas with the ways they want to learn.

“But one of the biggest things we’ve learnt to respect from teachers is their patience to deal with the kids.

“As a teacher I’m a three out of 10 because of my lack of patience. But Kate – I give her nine out of 10.”

The father-of-four admitted he is quicker to put his foot down if his “students” act up in his “class”.

He added: “I think I’ve learned a lot from Sir Alex Ferguson. I’ve not gone for the soft touch approach.

“It’s important to be disciplined with them during the school day, keeping on top of them.

“These are my own kids and I love them, but they can be difficult. You have to give them a bit of leeway but it’s important to follow the fine line.

“We were having dinner and Kate said, ‘tell your dad what you told me the other day’.

“They didn’t want to so Kate said, ‘sometimes you’re quite stern, hard and sometimes even grumpy'”.

Rio added: “They said it’s not all the time but during the daytime, and I told them that’s when you’ve got to be working and I can’t be seen sitting around and joking with you.

“I told them I am stern when they’re meant to be working.”

Kate was recently forced to hit back at trolls who an “offensive” claim that she could love her baby son Cree MORE than her step-children.

Although Cree is Kate’s first biological child, the beauty was already step-mum to Rio’s three children with late wife Rebecca.

The star has been open about her relationship with her step-children ever since she started dating Rio in 2017 – two years after Rebecca’s death.

In 2018, Kate admitted the kids used to tell friends she was their “aunt” when she picked them up from school at the beginning.

She added at the time: “Rebecca is their mum. You only have one and she is irreplaceable.”

Rio also asked his children’s permission to start a romance with Kate, and they played a key role in his 2018 proposal and the couple’s 2019 wedding.

CALGARY, Alberta —  The fossilized remains of two pterosaurs — winged reptiles that flew sky high during the dinosaur age — suggest that the soaring truck- and plane-size beasts were closely related to the gigantic Quetzalcoatlus northropi , the largest pterosaur on record, new research finds.

Both pterosaurs date back to the Maastrichtian, a period that occurred between 72 million and 66 million years ago. It ended when a 6-mile-wide (10 kilometers) asteroid slammed into Earth, ending the reign of the nonavian dinosaurs and countless reptiles, including the pterosaurs.

The newly unearthed pterosaurs were found in Jordan in 2005 and 2008, and both belong to a family of pterosaurs called Azhdarchids, which includes the famous Q. northropi — a pterosaur the size of an airplane, with an almost-40-foot (12 meters) wingspan. [ Photos of Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs ]

In general, pterosaurs had long wings supported by an elongated fourth digit (the ring finger on humans) and long, pointy beaks that helped them catch fish, and some had elaborate crests on their heads, said study lead researcher Kierstin Rosenbach, a doctoral student in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Michigan.

“The pterosaurs from Jordan are both very big,” Rosenbach told Live Science. “The ‘small’ one is a new species, and it would have had a wingspan of around 5 m [16 feet].” In contrast, the giant pterosaur was almost as humongous as Q. northropi , she said.

“It probably belongs to Arambourgiania philadelphiae , a giant pterosaur from Jordan first described in the 1950s,” Rosenbach said.

Unlike most pterosaur fossils, which are “totally crushed when we find them, because their bones are hollow, like birds’ bones,” the newfound pterosaurs bones are preserved in three dimensions, she noted.

“Since these bones retain their original shape, they can tell us a lot about how pterosaurs functioned,” Rosenbach said. “We’re going to study these fossils to understand more about internal bone structure and how it relates to things like body mass, flight capabilities and the pterosaur respiratory system.”

Many pterosaurs had bizarre teeth , but the Jordan duo are toothless, Rosenbach added. “It’s characteristic of their group,” she said. “We know the teeth aren’t just missing, because there are no tooth sockets in the jaw — [there’s] just a smooth, sharp edge.”

The findings are also remarkable because of where they were unearthed, the researchers said. During the Late Cretaceous, Africa was connected to Arabia as one continent. The two land masses had recently separated from what is now South America, India and Australia.

“But for some reason, we find way fewer fossils from Afro-Arabia than from its neighbors during this time,” Rosenbach said. “So, each new discovery from the Late Cretaceous of Afro-Arabia gives us valuable information about what this continent was like leading up to the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs and many other groups.”

Other fossil finds dating to the Maastrichtian of Jordan include marine vertebrates, such as sharks, turtles, mosasaurs, plesiosaurs and crocodilians, as well as nine specimens of A. philadelphiae , the researchers said.

This research — a joint collaboration of the University of Michigan and the Natural Resources Authority in Jordan — which has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, was presented here Aug. 23 at the 2017 Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting.

Original article on Live Science .

SINGAPORE: A maintenance employee of a swimming school in Jurong East discarded chlorine powder into a sewer on Friday (Mar 5), “unknowingly” causing a chemical reaction, said the founder of the school.

The chemical reaction “ignited a flare” and caused an “alarming sound”, Mr Tan Jian Yong, the founder of Happy Fish Swim School, said in a Facebook post on Saturday.

There were no students at the premises at the time of the incident, he said.

No injuries were reported, and the maintenance keeper was taken to the hospital for a check-up, he added.

“We are working closely with authorities as we recognise our responsibility here — to safeguard further precautionary steps to ensure the safety of our staff, students and the members of public,” said Mr Tan.

WHAT HAPPENED?

Mr Tan said the incident happened at about 8.30pm at one of the school’s branches in Jurong East.

Mr Tan said the school had hired a waste management company after noticing a strong smell from the chlorine drum, which had come in contact with moist air.

“Our maintenance keeper genuinely has mistaken the intention and took the initiative to discard the chlorine powder into the sewage without knowing that it will cause issues,” said Mr Tan.

“Chlorine is very reactive to germs, bacteria and other chemical compound(s) which can be found in general sewers, as a result inevitably caused a chemical reaction,” he said.

“A loud sound alarmed neighbouring residents. We apologise for that.”

Mr Tan said the police and the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) were alerted immediately after the incident.

CNA has reached out to SCDF and PUB for more information.

SCHOOL OPERATIONS UNAFFECTED

According to its website, the swimming school has five branches in Singapore.

Mr Tan said that its pool system and premises were unaffected by the incident, and classes will run as per normal.

Mr Tan also urged anyone who was affected by the incident to notify the school immediately.

Meanwhile, the school has instructed the waste management company to remove the chlorine drum on Monday. No damage has been reported to the sewage system and further investigation is pending, said Mr Tan.

A controversial and well-known figure in Toronto’s underground hip hop scene has been charged with accessory after the fact to murder in connection with the January shooting death of Hashim Omar Hashi , a senior police source confirms.

Hassan Ali, who records music as rapper Top5, was arrested over the weekend in Windsor with several other young men, the source said. They were transported back to Toronto and remained in custody Sunday night.

On Jan. 31 just before 9 p.m., Hashi, 20, was fatally shot attempting to drive his car into the garage of his apartment building in the Jane Street and Falstaff Avenue area.

The suspect car was later located engulfed in flames at Earl Bales Park.

Hashi was a promising accounting student who wasn’t involved in any criminal activities, Toronto police said.

“Mr. Hashi was not involved in any gang activity, nor was he involved in any gang affiliation,” homicide Det-Sgt. Ted Lioumanis said. “He had a promising future and he was a very well respected young man.”

Police were investigating whether his slaying was a case of mistaken identity or if Hashi was targeted just because he lived in the neighbourhood.

Last September, Ali, 23, was arrested and charged for mischief after allegedly stopping rush hour traffic on Highway 401 to shoot a music video.

When he was a teenager in Lawrence Heights, near Yorkdale, Ali’s profile got a big boost when Drake posted his photo on the superstar’s Instagram account.

Ali’s latest music video has 1.4 million views and his Instagram account tens of thousands of followers.

Police and community leaders have criticized Ali’s social media activity for stirring up trouble on the streets. Toronto’s Global News recently featured a short interview with Ali responding to criticism that his music celebrates crime and violence. He said that’s what sells.

Ali’s lawyer, Jordan Silver, said his client maintains his innocence. A bail hearing is currently being arranged.

“At this time, we’re still awaiting basic information surrounding this event and Mr. Ali’s involvement, if any,” he wrote in an email to the Star on Sunday night.