HOUSTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday denied a request by a Black high school student in Texas for a court order that the student’s lawyers say would have allowed him to return to his high school without fear of having his previous punishment over his hairstyle resume.

Darryl George had sought to reenroll at his Houston-area high school in the Barbers Hill school district after leaving at the start of his senior year in August because district officials were set to continue punishing him for not cutting his hair. George had spent nearly all of his junior year serving in-school suspension over his hairstyle.

The district has argued that George’s long hair, which he wears to school in tied and twisted locs on top of his head, violates its policy because if let down, it would fall below his shirt collar, eyebrows or earlobes.

George, 19, had asked U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown in Galveston to issue a temporary restraining order that would have prevented district officials from further punishing him if he returned and while a federal lawsuit he filed proceeds.

But in a ruling issued late Friday afternoon, Brown denied George’s request, saying the student and his lawyers had waited too long to ask for the order.

George’s request had come after Brown in August dismissed most of the claims the student and his mother had filed in their federal lawsuit alleging school district officials committed racial and gender discrimination when they punished him.

The judge only let the gender discrimination claim stand.

In his ruling, Brown said he also denied George’s request for a temporary restraining order because the school district was more likely to prevail in the lawsuit’s remaining claim.

Brown’s ruling was coincidentally issued on George’s birthday. He turned 19 years old on Friday.

Allie Booker, an attorney for George, and a spokesperson for the Barbers Hill school district did not immediately return a call or email seeking comment.

George’s lawyer had said the student left Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu and transferred to another high school in a different Houston area district after suffering a nervous breakdown over the thought of facing another year of punishment.

In court documents filed this week, attorneys for the school district said George didn’t have legal standing to request the restraining order because he is no longer a student in the district.

The district has defended its dress code, which says its policies for students are meant to “teach grooming and hygiene, instill discipline, prevent disruption, avoid safety hazards and teach respect for authority.”

George’s federal lawsuit also alleged that his punishment violates the CROWN Act, a recent state law prohibiting race-based discrimination of hair. The CROWN Act, which was being discussed before the dispute over George’s hair and which took effect in September 2023, bars employers and schools from penalizing people because of hair texture or protective hairstyles including Afros, braids, locs, twists or Bantu knots.

In February, a state judge ruled in a lawsuit filed by the school district that its punishment does not violate the CROWN Act.

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Regarding Edwin Heathcote’s Weekend Essay on Stevenage and England’s postwar policy of building new towns (“My kind of towns”, Life & Arts, September 28), I grew up in Hitchin, around seven or so miles from Stevenage, and in 1999 was sent to the local state Catholic school in Stevenage, John Henry Newman.

During my secondary school years there, Stevenage was derided as (and was it true?) the teen pregnancy capital of Europe and the “armpit” of the UK. Its sometimes brutalist 1960s architecture and former estuary-inflected cockney inhabitants lent itself handily to this downbeat view. As a teenager from a different, better-off, town (now yet another homogenous grey-door faux-country desirable commuterville) I was encouraged to believe in this and, crucially, to avoid picking up the accent. Sadly, I was not clever enough then to dissent from this view, despite attending school with many from families who had benefited greatly from the idea and reality of Stevenage.

Now, looking back, I see Stevenage new town for what it was — a great deal of quality housing for people in need of homes, and probably the most extraordinary pedestrian and cycling infrastructure in the UK. We should all be so lucky.

Felicity Hawksley
York, North Yorkshire, UK

Some elements will feel familiar, while others introduce fresh innovations. However, much about the car remains under wraps — for now.

The new Renault 4 E-Tech will be based on the AmpR platform, which is also used for the Renault 5, its sister model.

Renault has confirmed that both vehicles will be manufactured in France, allowing them to avoid the EU’s tariffs, which are imposed on Chinese brands and vehicles produced in China.

The first Renault 4 E-Tech models are expected to arrive at dealerships across Europe by 2025.

As someone who has been interested in fashion since the 1970s, and aware of the sadly dull level of fashion journalism, I was enormously cheered by Kati Chitrakorn’s crystal-clear, expertly opinionated and informative piece on Paris fashion (Life & Arts, October 5). I almost felt as though I had been there with her. I also loved her wry comment about her realistic seating position “at the far back, while clients attending with unique, limited-edition Hermès bag styles enjoyed a clearer view of the show, thanks to their raked seating — let’s not kid ourselves, we know who the priority is here”! Chapeau!

Peter Tear
Saint-Omer, Pas-de-Calais, France

THEY are cute at any time of year but French mountain towns peak the two weeks before Christmas when streets are lined with decorated trees, covered in real snow.

In the third week of December last year, my family and I squeezed in some skiing at La Rosiere, a child-friendly resort 1,850m up in the Savoie region of the French Alps.

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Skiing in December can be a gamble weatherwise, but La Rosiere is very high up and better for snow than most, so the white stuff was at least a foot deep everywhere.

La Rosiere is particularly great for festive feels, as it’s a traditional town with plenty of old chalets and little cafes.

There is also very little traffic and scores of festive activities, including a Christmas market and a visit from Santa.

We were staying with package holiday company Ski Beat in one of its shared chalets right in the middle of the action — a blessing given that we were travelling with my five-year-old son.

The resort’s learner slopes were perfect for a first week.

On the first day with the Evolution 2 ski school, he learnt on a tiny hill of snow and by the second day, he was ready for the simplest of slopes.

Buoyed by his success we celebrated with tea and cake back at the chalet.

By the fourth day, he was taking the drag lifts halfway up the mountain and riding the kid-friendly green slopes, lined with little tunnels to whizz through and bells to ding on the way down.

On the fifth day, he was fine to try out one of the easiest blue runs.

There was plenty of ground for my boyfriend and I to cover while our son was in lessons, too.

La Rosiere is relatively small, but with 83 runs of varying difficulty, it kept us very happy for a whole week.

And on one afternoon, my partner skied into Italy to try out their slopes . . .  and pasta.

That’s not to say there wasn’t delicious grub back at our chalet.

Ski Beat is very reasonably priced for the quality of the catering and chalet staff.

The young couple who ran our property were lovely and doted on our son, even when he fired questions at them pre-7am as they made everyone’s hot breakfast.

We had some of our favourite evening meals there, including an excellent tartiflette washed down by far too much red wine.

Delicious grub

The chalet was very comfortable and cosy with a modern look.

Our triple room had plenty of storage and a spacious en-suite bathroom, with a pared-back, natural palette.

Thanks to our location, it was easy to venture out for meals, too.

The Hotel Relais Du Petit Saint Bernard at the bottom of the main ski lifts was the perfect pit stop for a long lunch after the morning’s lessons.

After our dishes of steak hache and raclette, my partner and I sipped beer in the afternoon sunshine while our son dug holes in the snow with a gang of French children.

Meanwhile, the Caffe Latte tea room along the high street was a great place for a midafternoon hot chocolate and cookies, when my son and I bunked off skiing one afternoon to browse the souvenir shops for alpine-themed Christmas presents.

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But the absolute highlight of our meals-out was at L’Ancolie.

The log cabin-style restaurant, tucked away at the bottom of a ski slope, was weighed down under a foot of snow, with rustic wooden walls, open fires and red checked curtains.

We ordered fondue, of course, the delicious house special featuring wild mushrooms the chef-owner picked locally before the snow fell.

As a lifelong fondue fan, I thought that would be the highlight of the meal, but a pudding with meringue, chocolate sauce and ice cream was so delicious it still makes its way into family discussions.

Possibly the best part of the evening was the journey, though.

The restaurant is reached from the town by a 1km path through the forest, which was lined with multicoloured lights.

Away from the roads, it was the perfect festive evening walk as well as an opportunity for a drawn-out snowball fight.

When it was time to head home on December 23, it felt like we were preparing for Christmas round two, such was the extent of the eating, drinking and general fun-having we’d already enjoyed.

Israel said that it targeted Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut on Thursday night and that it killed about 250 fighters since the start of its ground operation in Lebanon this week.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said that its forces had also struck Hezbollah targets near the Masnaa crossing, which is on a key road in the east used by people fleeing the violence.

It claimed that the militia was using the road to smuggle weapons into Lebanon, while the UN say it is a crucial route for aid to enter Lebanon.

Ivo Freijsen, who is the representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Lebanon, said the bombing of a major road between Lebanon and Syria is a “very important and negative development,” as “just yesterday UNHCR received seven trucks of supplies through that very border crossing”.

More than 300,000 people have fled to Syria in the past 10 days, according to the Lebanese government, with 1.2 million civilians displaced from their homes as a result of the offensive, while the death toll in Lebanon has surpassed 2,000.

It comes as the Islamic Health Committee said 11 paramedics have been killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Friday.

In a statement on Telegram, it said seven paramedics died at the Marjayoun Governmental Hospital, and four others were killed in two separate attacks.

Israel’s military has said it struck Hezbollah infrastructure sites in the Beirut area over the past day, claiming it took measures to “to reduce harm to those not involved”.

It comes as three Lebanese hospitals have announced the suspension of work amid the continued Israeli bombardment, which has led to the deaths of dozens of on-duty medics in the past week, according to the WHO.

Meanwhile, the IDF said it targeted the intelligence headquarters of Hezbollah in the south of Beirut. Reports suggested that Hashem Safieddine – who has been widely touted as the successor to Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader assassinated last week – was targeted in the air attack.

The Axios website cited three Israeli officials as saying that Mr Safieddine, the head of Hezbollah’s executive council, had been targeted in an underground bunker.

Lieutenant-Colonel Nadav Shoshani, a spokesman for the IDF, said that it was still assessing the damage caused by the air strikes on Thursday night. Hezbollah has made no comment, but the strike follows recent assassinations of senior Hezbollah officials in Beirut, including Fuad Shukr, Ibrahim Aqil, Ibrahim Kobeissi, Mohammad Surur and Mr Nasrallah, the militia’s powerful and charismatic secretary-general, who developed it into a significant political force in Lebanon and the most heavily armed non-state group in the world.

The IDF reported that it had “eliminated” the head of Hezbollah’s communication networks, Mohammad Rashid Sakafi, in a “precise, intelligence-based strike”.

“As part of his position, Sakafi invested significant efforts to develop communication capabilities between all of Hezbollah’s units in order to maintain the flow of information throughout the terrorist organisation,” the military added.

The IDF also said that two of its soldiers from the Golani Brigade had been killed in combat, and two others severely wounded. Israeli media reported that the two soldiers were killed in a drone attack launched from Iraq at the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

It comes as US forces carried out strikes on 15 targets on Friday in areas of Yemen controlled by the Houthi rebels, the military said.

“US Central Command (CENTCOM) forces conducted strikes on 15 Houthi targets in Iranian-backed Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen today,” the military command responsible for US forces in the Middle East said on social media.

The UK Ministry of Defence said it was not involved in those air strikes after earlier reporting in the Israeli media claimed the UK had taken part of the attack.

Air strikes carried out by the US targeting three cities in Yemen, including the capital Sanaa and the port city of Hodeida, AFP reports, citing the Houthi-run Al Masirah television network.

Al Masirah reported several US strikes on Sanaa, Hodeida and Dhamar – there cities controlled by the Houthi rebel group.

The Iran-backed and Hamas allied group have been sending drones and launching boats towards commercial ships, claiming they will continue until Israel ends its war on Gaza.