4A z MONDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2019 z USA TODAY NEWS
Public school students would be al-
lowed to cite the need for a mental
health dayas an excuse to miss school,
under a bill filed in the Florida Legisla-
ture for the 2020 session. The proposal
is part of a growing movement in mul-
tiple states aimed at improving stu-
dents' mental well-being.
Rep. Susan Valdes, D-Tampa, says
she wants to elevate mental and behav-
ior health issues to the same level as
the flu, colds and dental appointments
as a legitimate reason for students to
call in sick.
“It is time for us to take mental
health as a whole more seriously,” said
Valdes, as she explained that kids to-
day are under a lot of pressure.
Supporters of similar measures ap-
proved in other states cited studies that
indicate the mental health of teens and
young adults has dropped dramatically
in the past decade.
Florida House Bill 315 would allow
one mental health day per semester as
an excused absence. As is the custom, a
parental note would be required for the
missed day not to be counted as a pat-
tern of truancy, which could lead to
sanctions. A similar proposal was filed
last month in the New York State As-
sembly.
Oregonhas passed a bill that allows
five mental health days a year. This
year, the state of Utah and Montgomery
County Schools in Virginia adopted
policies that allow students to take
time off to focus on their mental well-
being.
“I hope Florida will join those states
in being at the forefront of overhauling
how we view mental health in our soci-
ety,” said Valdes, who worked with a
Hillsborough County school board
member to write the proposal.
“In the age of social media, the inter-
net, and constant bombardment of
negative news and events our children
are bearing the brunt of a quickly-changing society,” explained Valdes.
Valdes’ goal is to remove what she
sees as a stigma attached to mental
illness that hampers efforts to combat
depression and suicide. Studies indi-
cate that the rate of major depressive
episodes among 12- to 17-year-olds
has increased 52% since 2005.
Florida's Board of Education unan-
imously voted in July to require
schools to offer at least five hours of
mental health instruction to students
in 6th through 12th grade every year.
The Florida Legislature 2020 ses-
sion begins Jan. 14.Fla. bill would allow student mental health days
James Call
Tallahassee Democrat
USA TODAY NETWORK
Students would be allowed to miss class for a mental health day under
proposed legislation in Florida.CHINNAPONG/GETTY IMAGESPresident Donald Trump once again
took to Twitter to defend his decision
to pull U.S. troops out of northeastern
Syria, opening the door to a Turkish
assault on Kurds who had helped
America combat the Islamic State, but
in the process, he incorrectly identi-
fied his secretary of defense.
On Sunday,Trump quoted“Mark
Esperanto, Secretary of Defense” as
saying, “The ceasefire is holding up
very nicely” aside from “some minor
skirmishes that have ended quickly.”
But the man the president put in
charge of the Pentagon is named Mark
Esper, not Esperanto. And many ob-
servers do not share Esper/Esperan-
to’s certainty that the cease-fire the
Trump administration helped broker
between Turkey and the Kurdish Syri-
an Democratic Forces is holding up as
well as he and other White House offi-
cials have implied.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
told ABC News on Sunday that his
“senior leaders” had just informed him
that “there is relatively little fighting”
consisting of “little sporadic small
arms fire and a mortar or two.”
And Turkish President Recep Tayy-
ip Erdogan has emphatically denied
his forces were not abiding by the
agreement, which Turkey has charac-
terized as a “pause.”
“I don’t know where you’re getting
your news from. According to the news
I received from my defense minister,
there is no question of clashes,” he told
reporters in Istanbul on Friday, ac-
cording to Turkey’s official Anadolu
news agency. “These are all specula-
tion, disinformation.”
But SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali
said, “Turkey is violating the ceasefire
agreement by continuing to attack the
town since last night.”
And soon after the deal was an-
nounced Thursday, a U.S. official who
is not authorized to speak publicly told
USA TODAY that the cease-fire was
not holding.
TheSDF announced Sunday that
their fighters had finished evacuating
the northern town of Ras al-Ayn as
they had agreed to do under terms of
the cease-fire.
Though Trump has touted the five-
day cease-fire as a foreign policy tri-
umph, declaring its start to be a “great
day for civilization,” many critics have
condemned it as a capitulation that
ceded Kurdish territory to Turkey
while giving the U.S. little in return.
Pompeo said it was a “hard fought
negotiation” that “lasted hours” and
“achieved the outcome that President
Trump sent us to achieve.”
Pompeo and Vice President Mike
Pence were dispatched to Ankara late
Wednesday for talks with Erdogan.
Trump has stressed the need to
bring the troops home as one of his ra-
tionales for pulling them out of Syria.
At the end of his tweet on Sunday, he
declared, “Bringing soldiers home.”
But Esper told reporters that all U.S.
troops leaving Syria will go to western
Iraq.
“We have secured the oil,” Trump
also stated in his tweet, apparently re-
ferring to oil fields in eastern Syria that
had been under Kurdish control before
the Turkish military incursion.
Contributing: Deirdre Shesgreen,
Tom Vanden Brook, Kim Hjelmgaard
and David Jackson, USA TODAY; The
Associated PressAccountsdiffer overstate ofcease-fireWilliam Cummings
USA TODAYActing White House chief of staff
Mick Mulvaney on Sunday denied ever
saying that there had been a “quid pro
quo” in the release of military aid to Uk-
raine, days after sparking an uproar by
appearing to acknowledge exactly that
during a news briefing.
Citing concerns about corruption,
Mulvaney said Thursday that one rea-
son the aid was held up was because of
President Donald Trump's wish for an
investigation into atheory that Ukraine,
not Russia, was behind the theft of
Democratic National Committee emails
in 2016. Trump has insisted on pursuing
that theory despite the unanimous con-
clusion of the U.S. intelligence commu-
nity that Russia was behind the hack.
“Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wal-
lace asked Mulvaney why he said “that
aid to Ukraine depended on investigat-
ing the Democrats.” Mulvaney denied
that was what he had said.
“That’s what people said I said,” he
told Wallace. Mulvaney claimed “people
got sidetracked” at the news conference
and that he had said the aid was with-
held for two reasons: corruption con-
cerns and to pressure European nations
into giving Ukraine more aid.
He said the president had mentioned
the Democratic National Committee
server “from time to time” but “it wasn’t
connected to the aid.”
But Wallace was unpersuaded, tell-
ing Mulvaney, “I believe that anyone lis-
tening to what you said in that briefing
could come to only one conclusion.”
“No, you totally said that,” Wallace
said.
Trump is currently facing an im-
peachment inquiry over allegations that
he used the military aid as leverage to
pressure Ukraine into investigating for-
mer Vice President Joe Biden, a leading
candidate in the 2020 race.
Although Mulvaney denied the de-
mand for a Biden probe was ever con-
nected to the aid, his apparent admis-
sion that it had been withheld in part
because of Trump’s push for an investi-
gation into the 2016 election sparked an
uproar because it contradicted the ad-
ministration’s earlier position that there
had been no kind of “quid pro quo.”
Mulvaney, who also retracted his news
conference comments in a statement last
week, repeated his assertion that the aid
had been held up over corruption and to
push other countries to help.
He said the funds were released after
conducting “research on other countries’
aid to Ukraine” and they were satisfiedthat corruption was being addressed.
“There was never any connection
between the flow of money and the
server,” Mulvaney said.
“Mick, you know, I hate to go
through this, but you said what you
said,” Wallace told Mulvaney. He said
that later in the news conference Mul-
vaney had explicitly listed an investi-
gation into the DNC server as a third
reason for withholding aid.
Mulvaney said he “didn’t speak
clearly” and “folks misinterpreted
what I said.”
Wallace asked if Mulvaney had ever
considered submitting his resignation
amid the blowback from the news con-
ference.
“No, absolutely not,” he said. “I’m
very happy working there. Did I have
the perfect press conference? No. But
again, the facts were on our side.”Fox News’ Wallace grills
Mulvaney on ‘quid pro quo’
Acting chief of staff tries
to explain Ukraine aid
William Cummings
USA TODAY
Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told Chris Wallace on Sunday
people were “sidetracked” at a news conference.MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA-EFEJimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter
officially became the longest-married
presidential couple on Thursday, as an-
nounced by the former president’s non-
profit, The Carter Center.
At 26,765 days — that’s more than 73
years — the Carters surpassed the pre-
vious record held by former President
George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush.
The Carters married July 7, 1946, in a
Methodist church in their hometown of
Plains, Georgia, when he was 21 and she
was 18.
The Bushes wed Jan. 6, 1945. They
had been married 73 years and 111 days
when Barbara Bush died in April 2018.
“The best thing I ever did was marry
Rosalynn,” Jimmy Carter once said dur-
ing a C-SPAN interview at The Carter
Center. “That’s the pinnacle of my life.”
Even after more than seven decades
together, including four years in theWhite House, Jimmy and Rosalynn Car-
ter continue to stay in the public spot-
light, with their most recent appearance
in Nashville this month to help build 21
houses for a Habitat for Humanity
project.
The Carter Center announced the
milestone with a message on social
media:
“Congratulations to Jimmy & Rosa-
lynn Carter. They are now the longest
married presidential couple and still go-
ing strong at 26,765 days!”
Contributing: Joel Shannon; The As-
sociated PressCarter marriage makes history at 73 years
They are longest-married
presidential couple
Dustin Barnes
Nashville Tennessean
USA TODAY NETWORK
Former President Jimmy Carter holds
hands with his wife, Rosalynn, as they
work with Habitat for Humanity in
August in Mishawaka, Ind.AP