12/16/2024
A jury has ordered a company to pay $310 million to the family of a Missouri teenager who died in 2022 after falling from a Florida amusement park ride.
Tyre Sampson, 14, was killed after falling to his death off a freefall tower drop ride at Orlando’s ICON Park. The ride has shut down since Sampson’s death.
Now, more than two years later, a jury has held the ride’s manufacturer, Austria-based Funtime Handels, accountable for the accident, awarding Tyre’s family $310 million.
President Joe Biden’s judicial appointments are making waves in his final weeks in office.
With the confirmation of Judge Tiffany Johnson to the Northern District of Georgia this week, Biden has now appointed 40 Black women to lifetime federal judgeships—more than any president in U.S. history, according to The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
In total, Biden has appointed 62 Black judges, the most by any president in a single term, according to The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
Among these appointments are historic firsts, such as Tiffany Cunningham, the first Black judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and Dana Douglas, the first Black woman on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Approximately 40 percent of Biden’s confirmed Black judges come from diverse professional backgrounds, including civil rights lawyers, public defenders, and others who have dedicated their careers to protecting civil and human rights.
This milestone is particularly significant in a judiciary long criticized for lacking diversity. However, with a divided Congress and the prospect of a second Trump presidency, Biden’s picks could serve as a critical counterweight to policies that might target civil rights and marginalized communities.
Read more about President Biden appointments at ESSENCE.com.
