‘I feel like it's going to change the world': Maryland IDs could soon feature butterflies for those with hidden disabilities
SILVER SPRING, Md. () — Maryland licenses and IDs may soon feature butterflies for those with hidden disabilities.
This comes after a Silver Spring man with autism and his mother successfully pushed the General Assembly to pass 'Eric's ID Law.'
The law will allow people to voluntarily opt in to feature a butterfly symbol on their identification in order to communicate that they have a hidden disability.
Stretch Your Dollar: Avocado prices fluctuate in this week's Grocery Price Check
'The butterfly represents hope, peace, freedom and change,' said Eric Carpenter-Grantham, a man with autism who helped create the bill. 'Inside the wings is the colors that represent all hidden disabilities.'
The butterfly is a symbol that Carpenter-Grantham hopes will help those with autism, mental health issues and developmental disabilities.
'Some people do not know that people with autism don't like looking at you,' he explained. [People have] sensory issues — they do not like to be touched — and they don't like loud noises.'
Carpenter-Grantham said these things can be misinterpreted by others — especially in high-stress situations, like interactions with law enforcement.
'When Mr. George Floyd was killed in 2020, I realize then … I have an African American son whom I am very afraid for being stopped by law enforcement,' said Linda Carpenter-Grantham, Eric's mother.
She instructed her son about what to do and not to do when interacting with police.
'I told him, put your hands up, don't reach for your phone — that could become very dangerous. Yell out 'I have Autism,'' she said.
She said that her son started to cry and said he was worried about his friends who have autism being shot by police.
That's when Eric Carpenter-Grantham came up with an idea to help others like him.
Linda Carpenter-Grantham recalled her son saying they should put something on IDs and driver's licenses so that police know who might have autism.
'I said, 'That's a great idea,'' she said.
'I won't stop trying': Senator travels to El Salvador to secure return of wrongly deported man
For two years, they fought for Eric's ID Law.
It finally passed the Maryland General Assembly last month.
'I feel like it's going to change the world,' said Eric. 'I feel like it's going to help law enforcement, help first responders. It's going to help a lot of people.'
Montgomery County Police said it welcomes all opportunities that may help officers better interact with members of the community.
Meanwhile, the bill is awaiting Gov. Wes Moore's signature and the mother-son duo are working to pass Eric's ID Law across the country.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Stocks rally as Trump-Musk feud cools down
Stocks rally as Trump-Musk feud cools down originally appeared on TheStreet. Crypto stocks bounced back on June 7 as both President Donald Trump and Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) boss Elon Musk retreated from their big, ugly feud from the previous day. Strategy (Nasdaq: MSTR), which had dipped around 6% yesterday, was trading at $375.01 at press time, up 1.69% a day. Helmed by Michael Saylor, the company is the largest public Bitcoin treasury company. The largest U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase (Nasdaq: COIN) had slipped as much as 10% the day before. The stock, which made it to the much-coveted spot on the S&P 500 in May, was trading at $254.31, up 4% a day. The crypto and stock trading exchange Robinhood (Nasdaq: HOOD) dipped around 8% on the day of the feud. It was trading at $76.24, up 5% a day. The story of Bitcoin miners was no different as the two men engaged in a heated public exchange over social media and press briefings on June 6. MARA Holdings (MARA) fell as much as 7% yesterday but was trading at $15.93, up 7.02% a day. Hut 8 Group (HUT) had similarly slipped by 7% the day before but rallied an impressive 14.83% to trade at $18.74. HIVE Digital (Nasdaq: HIVE) had slid around 9% yesterday and made the same recovery of 9% today to trade at $2.0042. Bitdeer (Nasdaq: BTDR) had also slipped 9% and successfully recovered by 11% to trade at $14.07 today. Notably, the stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Group (NYSE: CRCL) made an impressive debut on the day of the feud. CRCL was trading at $116.07 at press time, up 40% a day. Musk, who quit the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) by the end of May, has been criticizing Trump's "big, beautiful bill" since then. The disagreement escalated into an ugly public exchange the previous day that shook the markets. Stocks rally as Trump-Musk feud cools down first appeared on TheStreet on Jun 6, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Jun 6, 2025, where it first appeared. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Strong jobs report, Tesla rebound buoy markets as S&P 500 nears all-time highs
The S&P 500 jumped 1% on Friday amid a positive jobs report and a rebound in Tesla's stock after a disastrous Thursday in which Elon Musk and President Donald Trump battled on social media. The markets have their mojo back. After the Bureau of Labor Statistics published a strong jobs report on Friday, the S&P 500 posted a daily gain of 1% and weekly rise of 1.8%. The Nasdaq jumped 1.2%, and the Dow Jones rose 1%. The S&P 500 crossed against the 6,000-point mark, just 2.4% below the all-time highs it posted in February. Economists polled by FactSet had predicted that the U.S. would add only 130,000 jobs in May amid President Donald Trump's ongoing trade war, a marked decrease from the 177,000 reported in April. On Friday, the U.S. government announced an addition of 139,000 jobs last month and revised down the number it said were added over March and April by 95,000. The federal agency also said that the unemployment rate in May stayed flat at 4.2%. Analysts are closely watching that number to see whether Trump's suite of severe tariffs were having an impact on the economy. 'The unemployment rate should be more important than payrolls, given potential disruptions to labor supply,' wrote analysts for Bank of America Securities in a Friday research note before the jobs data was published. Meanwhile, Tesla, the electric car manufacturing giant, saw its stock rebound 3.7% on Friday. Elon Musk, Tesla's CEO and a former close Trump confidante, had a dramatic break with the 47th president on Thursday after he criticized the commander-in-chief's tariffs and proposed budget. 'The Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year,' he wrote on X, the social media platform he owns. A record $150 billion-plus was wiped off Tesla's market capitalization on Thursday and Musk saw his net worth drop $34 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Still, Tesla's share price rebounded Friday amid the broader market surge. Other tech titans were also up. Meta saw its shares jump 1.9%, Apple was up 1.6%, and Microsoft rose 0.6%. And Circle, a stablecoin issuer that just went public on Thursday, continued to ride its red-hot IPO as its shares rocketed 30% to end the week. Friday's positive gains capped a chaotic week that also saw investors watch Trump's negotiations with the Chinese government over tariffs. On Thursday, the U.S. president spoke with Xi Jinping, the president of the People's Republic, in an effort to deescalate a trade war between the two countries. This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Federal panel rules in favor of state in Arkansas congressional redistricting lawsuit
(Getty Images) A three-judge federal court panel on Friday dismissed with prejudice a case challenging Arkansas' congressional district map. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas by a group of voters and the Christian Ministerial Alliance. It claimed boundaries for Arkansas' 2nd Congressional District were racially gerrymandered and diluted the votes of Black Arkansans. Congressional and state legislative districts are redrawn after the U.S. Census each decade in a process known as redistricting. The goal is to create districts that contain roughly the same population. The Ministerial Alliance's lawsuit was one of four filed to challenge Arkansas' 2021 redistricting process and the only one that hadn't been dismissed. On Friday, U.S. Circuit Judge David Stras, U.S. District Judge D.P. Marshall Jr. and U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr. granted the state's motion for summary judgment, saying there was not enough evidence to support the plaintiffs' racial discrimination claims. 'Multiple Arkansas citizens challenge how the General Assembly redrew the state's congressional district lines,' Friday's order states. 'Although their allegations were plausible enough to survive a motion to dismiss [Docs. 35, 42], the evidence does not back up their claims of racial discrimination. For that reason, we grant summary judgment to Secretary of State John Thurston.' Thurston, who was secretary of state when the lawsuit was filed in 2023, was elected state treasurer in 2024 during a special election. The governor appointed Cole Jester to succeed Thurston. Previously, the entirety of Pulaski County was included in Arkansas' Second Congressional District, which is represented by Republican U.S. Rep. French Hill. During the 2021 redistricting process, Pulaski County was split between three congressional districts. Plaintiffs alleged the General Assembly considered racial data when redrawing district lines and unconstitutionally 'cracked' the Black voting bloc in southeast Pulaski County. The state's attorneys submitted a motion for summary judgment in favor of the state last October. According to Friday's order, the original complaint alleged two constitutional claims — one for racial gerrymandering under the Fourteenth Amendment and one for vote dilution under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The federal panel said race needed to be 'the predominant factor' motivating the General Assembly's decision and that awareness or acceptance of a 'racially disparate impact is not enough.' Three-judge panel hears arguments but doesn't rule in Arkansas redistricting lawsuit Creating 'an alternative map' is one way to prove redrawn boundaries were racially motivated, the panel said. However, that only works if the alternative map still accomplishes the Legislature's partisan goals. 'If it does not, then it just highlights how the pursuit of a nonracial aim — like retention, partisanship, or geography — could have led to an unintended racial disparity,' the panel wrote. 'All three of the plaintiffs' alternatives fall short in exactly this way.' Citing a U.S. Supreme Court reversal of a decision by a three-judge panel that found South Carolina had discriminated against Black voters in a 2023 redistricting lawsuit, Stras and his counterparts noted the high court emphasized that the courts must 'start with the presumption that the legislature acted in good faith.' 'Absent direct evidence of racial discrimination and with only weak circumstantial evidence supporting the plaintiffs' case, the presumption of legislative good faith tips the balance,' Stras wrote. That coupled with the fact that no alternative map achieves the General Assembly's goals with 'significantly greater racial balance,' meant the judges could not reasonably find that the plaintiffs had proved enough for their claim of racial gerrymandering to survive summary judgment, according to the ruling. The primary obstacle of the presumption of good faith holds true for the plaintiffs' vote-dilution claim, according to Friday's order. While the vote-dilution claim requires race to be a 'motivating factor' instead of the predominant one, the panel argued 'the plaintiffs do not have enough evidence to get there.' 'Most of what the plaintiffs offer are the materials we have already discussed: maps, statistics, and legislative history, none of which are enough to infer a racial motivation,' the panel wrote. The federal judges acknowledged as evidence a report from a university doctoral candidate that describes Arkansas' 'long history' with racism and resistance to Black voters, but wrote that much of that predates the passage of the 1964 Voting Rights Act. 'Even if he identifies a few scattered examples since then, none are 'reasonably contemporaneous with the challenged decision,' giving us little insight into what the General Assembly may have been thinking four years ago,' the panel wrote. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
