Names and face

Names and faces

Zachary Cruz is shown in this photo.
Zachary Cruz is shown in this photo.

Zachary Cruz, the younger brother of Florida school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz, began an anti-bullying campaign Thursday, saying he witnessed mistreatment of his brother that may have been a key factor in the Feb. 14 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Zachary Cruz, 18, said the new initiative will work to set up anti-bullying student chapters at schools across the country, create a 24-hour national telephone hotline for bullying victims to call for help and provide sustained attention to the problem. Nexus Services, the Virginia company that provided Zachary Cruz with a job and living quarters after his own scrape with the law, is sponsoring the effort. The WIN initiative -- "We Isolate No One" -- was unveiled at a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington. "I cannot sit by and watch another tragedy happen," Cruz told reporters. "At the end of the day, bullying and isolation is a national crisis. Kids are dying. The kids know. Since we know, it's our responsibility to make changes." Zachary Cruz has said that he and others bullied his brother, who is charged with 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder. In cellphone videos prosecutors say were recorded by Nikolas Cruz before the shooting, the 19-year-old makes reference to being bullied and ostracized during much of his life. Zachary Cruz said he had no apologies to make for his brother's actions. But he said Nikolas is not alone. "Our schools all over the country have ticking time bombs," he said.

• Summer is coming and the season in Britain is being marked by a return to the airwaves of the Beach Boys' "Fun, Fun, Fun" with a new version featuring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The raucous teenage classic has been reborn with a classical twist, one of 16 Beach Boys tunes given a new lease on life on a CD recorded at Abbey Road, a London landmark forever associated with another great '60s band, the Beatles. Beach Boys singer Mike Love seems somewhat mystified by the continuing appeal of tunes he helped pen with cousin and fellow Beach Boy Brian Wilson more than five decades ago. "They're playing 'Fun, Fun, Fun' on the radio these days, which is great," says Love, who was in Britain for days of live performances. "Brian and I wrote that years and years ago. I said, Brian, 'we ought to do a song about a girl who borrows her dad's car and goes cruising to it rather than to the library.'" The song's latest incarnation combines the band's early sound with a premier orchestra. "They've done a great job of honoring the original vocal performances and complementing them with the orchestrations," said Love.

photo

AP/Kirsty Wigglesworth

Beach Boys musician Mike Love is shown in this photo.

A Section on 06/15/2018

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