African-American News

Georgetown University students are slamming a humor magazine for an online satirical piece they say is racist and not funny.

Bernanke is the 56-year-old chairman of the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the U.S., the most important and least understood force shaping the American — and global — economy.

A bald man with a gray beard and tired eyes is sitting in his oversize Washington office, talking about the economy. He doesn't have a commanding presence. He isn't a mesmerizing speaker.

He has none of the look-at-me swagger or listen-to-me charisma so common among men with oversize Washington offices. His arguments aren't partisan or ideological; they're methodical, grounded in data and the latest academic literature. When he doesn't know something, he doesn't bluster or bluff. He's professorial, which makes sense, because he spent most of his career as a professor.

He is not, in other words, a typical Beltway power broker.

(FinalCall.com) - Quick, name a professional athlete who received extensive national media coverage because of a sex scandal. Name two. OK, name a baseball player involved in a steroid use scandal.

Did the names Kobe Bryant and Tiger Woods go through your mind? How about Barry Bonds?

More than likely the images and names conjured up when speaking of athletes in trouble are of Blacks and other athletes of color, not the Tom Bradys, Ben Rothlisbergers or Mark McGuires of the athletic world who work alongside the Black standouts.

NEW YORK - With the health care debate preoccupying the mainstream media, it has gone virtually unreported that the Barack Obama administration is quietly supporting renewal of provisions of the George W. Bush-era U.S.A. Patriot Act that civil libertarians say infringe on basic freedoms.

And it is reportedly doing so over the objections of some prominent Democrats.

When a panicky Congress passed the act 45 days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, three contentious parts of the law were scheduled to expire at the end of December, and opponents of these sections have been pushing Congress to substitute new provisions with substantially strengthened civil liberties protections.

The tragic case of five-year-old Shaniya Davis, whose funeral was paid for by pro basketball star Shaquille O'Neal, brought focus to the problems of sexual selling and children.

Every year nearly 300,000 children are at risk to sexual exploitation in the U.S. and an estimated 500,000 incidents are not reported. This has made the U.S. the number one destination for child sex trafficking in the world.

Federal prosecutors in New York said Nov. 25 that a young woman from Mexico was smuggled over the border and forced to work as a prostitute for years in Brooklyn. The remains of an infant were found in concrete at the home where she was held prisoner, federal prosecutors added.

The woman was beaten so frequently by her captors, sometimes with bricks and wooden boards, that scars and bruises covered her body, according to a federal affidavit.

Attorney Phillip Aaron said after hearing the emotional stories of victims of sexual abuse by religious authorities within the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church in Chicago, he felt obligated to help.

Mr. Aaron, a legal representative for dozens of Black men who allegedly were sexually abused by Catholic priests while in their teens, is leading the charge on behalf of his clients, who claim the religious hierarchy was slow to respond to their complaints, and once responding, were uneven in their dispensation of financial compensation and subsequent counseling services that were made available to White victims.

“Somebody had to help these guys,” Atty. Aaron told The Final Call “I think that I would die if I didn't.”

For the last nine years, Atty. Aaron has worked on behalf of at least 50 Black victims of pedophiles. Some say the abuse began when they were as young as age nine.

David Nolan, now 42, said his sordid tale of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest began when he was 13 years old. He said the priest used his position of authority and power to have sex with dozens of young boys at will, and seemingly without fear of punishment.

“We put them (priests) on pedestals almost to the point where I thought they were more than superhuman in a sense,” said Mr. Nolan. At one time, Mr. Nolan tried to tell, however, when he went to the Chicago Police, they called him a liar and laughed at him. Scared with no resources and no protection, Mr. Nolan's victimizer forced him to recant. Even after many complaints by members of the congregation, his victimizer was transferred to a bigger church on Chicago's Southside.

Washington (CNN) -- Computer technicians have recovered about 22 million Bush administration e-mails that the Bush White House had said were missing, two watchdog groups that sued over the documents announced Monday.

The e-mails date from 2003 to 2005, and had been "mislabeled and effectively lost," according to the National Security Archive, a research group based at George Washington University. But Melanie Sloan, executive director of the liberal-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said it could be years before most of the e-mails are made public.

ATLANTA - Hundreds of thousands of swine flu shots for children have been recalled because tests indicate the vaccine doses lost some strength, government health officials said Tuesday.

The shots, made by Sanofi Pasteur, were distributed across the country last month and most have already been used, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The 800,000 pre-filled syringes that were recalled are for young children, ages 6 months to nearly 3 years.

Hmmmmm. Do you still trust this vaccine? Have you injected it into your bloodstream? Will you now continue to vaccinate your children?

SHENANDOAH, Pa. (AP) -- After taking part in a fight that left a Mexican immigrant mortally wounded on the street, teenagers Brandon Piekarsky and Derrick Donchak fled. They didn't get very far before running into two police officers responding to a 911 call about the assault.

These were no ordinary officers. Patrolman Jason Hayes dated Piekarsky's mother, and Lt. William Moyer's son played with Piekarsky on the high school football team. Their commanding officer, Chief Matthew Nestor, was a friend of Piekarsky's mother and even vacationed with her.

Rather than place the popular white football players under arrest, the officers let them go - beginning a cover-up in their racially tense coal town, federal prosecutors allege.

The Department of Justice said Tuesday that Hayes, Moyer and Nestor have been indicted on obstruction charges for trying to "impede, obstruct and influence the investigation" into the July 2008 beating death of Luis Ramirez by tampering with evidence and witnesses or lying to the FBI.

The former athletes, who were acquitted of the most serious state charges against them in May, are charged with a federal hate crime for attacking Ramirez in a park as they headed home from a party, the Department of Justice said.

A Black community in the southern Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro is trying to maintain its cultural heritage on nearly 600 acres granted to it by the government in 1999 as part of reparations to the descendants of slaves.

Tisha Taylor Murphy, the wife of actor/comedian Charlie Murphy — star of "Chappelle's Show" and older brother to Eddie — succumbed to a long battle with cancer, dying Sunday in her sleep at the couple's home in New Jersey.

"Tisha Taylor Murphy, wife of comedian and actor Charlie Murphy, passed away peacefully on Sunday with family at her side after facing the challenges of cancer for the past two years," Murphy's publicist, Lyndsey Jacobs, confirmed to MTV News in a statement. "The Murphy Family appreciates all of the support they have received from friends and fans and requests privacy during this very difficult time."

The Murphys were married in 1997 and have two children together. Charlie Murphy has a third child from a previous relationship.

The future for black children and youth is worrisome. Even during supposedly "good" economic times too many black children grow up facing severe economic disadvantage. This normally bad situation is being made considerably worse by the recession. If we do not act quickly and effectively we should expect to see significant increases in negative physical, psychological, social and economic outcomes for black children and youth over the next decades.

While the mainstream media seems to be oblivious to the perception of a double standard or that they tend to focus on Black athletes who get in trouble, a lively discussion is taking place in the blogosphere.

More than a third (36 per cent) of 15 to 18-year old men held in youth custody in England and Wales are from black or other ethnic minority groups - and the number is growing. The Children and Young People in Custody 2008-2009 survey, also found nine out of ten young prisoners of all races said they had been expelled from school. A quarter of all young men and nearly half of young women in custody had spent time in local authority care.

It certainly conveys the message that the work of Black authors need not be taken seriously because it is somehow tribal and other. I am surprised that they didn’t put a bone through the models nose. Is it any wonder that Steve Harvey can publish a book in this climate? As long as we are not saying anything challenging, or speaking truth to power, then and only then, will our work garner attention.

That's the title to author Helena Andrews' new book and memoir. Due out in June of 2010, Bitch is the New Black takes a satirical look at the successful and accomplished lives of young black women living in Washington, D.C.

When Ms. Andrews pitched the book to publishers she described it as part "Bridget Jones Diary" and part "Sex and the City." Albeit brief, this description has definitely piqued my interest. This single, successful and accomplished sistah will definitely pick up a copy of Ms. Andrews' book next June. Maybe I'll see myself inside it's pages....maybe not.

In addition to landing a publishing deal with Harper Collins, Ms. Andrews' achieved another success: The film rights to her book were also sold and Shonda Rhimes, executive producer of "Grey's Anatomy," is set to produce the film. Ms. Andrews will serve as the film's screenwriter.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The United States spent blood and treasure on an Iraq invasion critics said was for oil, but U.S. oil majors were largely absent from an Iraqi auction of oil deals snapped up instead by Russian, Chinese and other firms.

Iraqi officials said this proved their independence from U.S. control, and that their two bidding rounds for deals to tap Iraq's vast oil reserves -- the world's third largest -- were free of foreign political interference.

The Oil Ministry on Saturday ended its second bidding round after awarding seven of the oilfields offered for development -- adding to deals from a first auction in June that could together take Iraq up to a capacity to pump 12 million barrels per day.

"For us in Iraq, it shows the government is fully free from outside influence. Neither Russia nor America could put pressure on anyone in Iraq -- it is a pure commercial, transparent competition," said government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh.

Better-than-expected reports on retail sales and consumer sentiment lifted big blue chip stocks Friday, but gains were limited by weakness in technology and the strength of the U.S. dollar.

A federal jury has awarded more than $200,000 to an Albuquerque man who claimed police violated his civil rights when they locked him in a police car for hours because he refused to answer their questions. Even after they had already caught the suspect they were looking for!

Why Import Workers Now? December 8th, 2009 At last week's Job Summit, there was talk of a second stimulus package, of tax credits for small businesses that hire new workers, of an Infrastructure Bank to select national priority pubic works projects like the Hoover Dam and TVA of yesteryear.