Category: Afro Briefs

WASHINGTON (AP) — Majority Democrats in the Senate won approval Tuesday for one of President Barack Obama’s key judicial nominees, the first of his picks to win confirmation since they weakened the chamber’s filibuster rules. Senators voted 56-38 to approve Washington lawyer Patricia Millett to join the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of […]

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — President Barack Obama shook hands with Cuban President Raul Castro Tuesday at a memorial service for Nelson Mandela, a simple gesture that signaled possible thawing between the leaders of two Cold War foes. The brief encounter between the U.S. and Cuban president came during a ceremony that celebrated the former South African […]

DALLAS (AP) — A Texas woman and former actress pleaded guilty Tuesday to sending ricin-laced letters to President Barack Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, under a deal that her attorney has said would cap prison time at 18 years. Shannon Guess Richardson entered her plea in federal court in Texarkana, Texas, to a […]

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — Uruguay’s Senate was finishing its final debate Tuesday before voting on an audacious and risky plan to create the world’s first national marijuana market, with the state regulating the entire process of growing, selling and using a drug that is illegal almost everywhere else. Approval late Tuesday was all but assured, […]

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. (AP) — An Olympic gold medal won by Jesse Owens at the 1936 Berlin Games has sold for a record $1.4 million in an online auction. SCP Auctions said Pittsburgh Penguins co-owner Ron Burkle paid $1,466,574, the highest price for a piece of Olympic memorabilia. The online auction ended Sunday. “We just […]

Thousands of Marylanders, mostly African-American, are denied housing based on their source of income, but efforts to mitigate such discrimination are finally making headway, advocates say. For 20 years, advocates have been waging a battle to pass legislation, the Maryland Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME) Act, to stop source- of-income discrimination across the state. Many […]

Pastor Edward Montgomery, a marriage counselor at Full Gospel Christian Assemblies International in Hazel Crest, Ill., allegedly shot himself inside his home Nov. 30. According to news accounts, his mother and son were present at his home at the time. Montgomery, 48, also a railroad conductor, had been mourning the death of his wife, Prophetess […]

The gap between American high school students and teens in other developed countries is widening when it comes to literacy in mathematics according to results from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The results of the exam that was administered to 510,000 students in 65 different nations in 2012 painted a global picture of […]

A former top official of a British Petroleum Oil Co. division headquartered in California says she was fired after being warned to reserve dashikis and braided hairstyles for special observances in the workplace. Melphine Evans, recently dismissed from her position as chief financial officer for BP said in a lawsuit filed in California’s Orange County […]

A Minneapolis community college educator was reprimanded recently for bringing up the topic of racism with her students during her communications class at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. After a presentation on structural racism, three white students filed a complaint against their English instructor, Shannon Gibney, after they questioned whether or not racism should be […]

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Here is the schedule of arrangements for the laying to rest of Nelson Mandela, as announced by South African President Jacob Zuma and the government communications office on Friday: — Sunday, Dec. 8: National day of prayer and reflection. “We call upon all our people to gather in halls, churches, mosques, temples, […]

African Americans have been pummeled by the recent financial crisis, including facing the most adverse consequences of credit card debt, and higher interest rates, according to a recently released study by the NAACP and Demos, a U.S.-based research and policy center. Findings from “The Challenge of Credit Card Debt for the African American Middle Class,” […]