Fair and balanced: Avoyelles Parish officials are on the verge of climbing out from under federal oversight of the parish public school system. They hope to convince a judge that it has eliminated a past practice of sending black students to inferior schools. If the school system does prove it has reached and embraced unitary status, The (Alexandria) Town Talk reports, it will be among the minority of school districts in Louisiana, where an estimated 40 of the state’s 70 districts operate under some level of federal oversight.
On the stand: As the federal fraud trial of R. Allen Stanford enters its fourth week today, the big question is: Will the Texas tycoon accused of perpetuating a $7 billion Ponzi scheme testify on his own behalf? The Houston Chronicle reports federal prosecutors told U.S. District Judge David Hittner late Friday that they plan to wrap up their case on Tuesday, signaling the defense to begin their case and bring in witnesses that will present Stanford’s side this week. Although defense lawyers have said twice that Stanford, 62, will testify, they could change their mind at any time. Stanford faces 14 related fraud charges. He denies them all. Stanford’s defense team has thus far pushed a theory that Stanford International Bank would have been profitable today and its investments safe if federal regulators had not shut down the bank on Feb. 17, 2009.
Going to the core: Apple announced this morning that an independent group, the Fair Labor Association, has started inspecting the working conditions in the Chinese factories where its iPads and iPhones are assembled. The FLA team began the inspections this morning at Foxconn City in Shenzhen, China, Apple says. The complex employs and houses hundreds of thousands of workers. Foxconn, a unit of Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., employs an estimated 1 million to 1.1 million people in China at a series of huge factory campuses. Working conditions at the factories have been the focus of rising criticism in U.S. media reports.
