Category: National News

Affiliates of Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Johnson Publishing Company “were unable to reach a definitive agreement” in a business deal that would have allowed the former basketball star to own a controlling stake in the family-owned company, Journal-isms.com reported. Talks of the HIV-activist’s interest in buying the publishing company, which owns Ebony and Jet magazines, […]

At 1 year old, President Obama’s signature cure for the ailing economy has not yet gained even footing—especially within communities of color, advocates say. However, contrary to mostly Republican criticisms, the $800 billion stimulus has had some positive impact. “It’s working pretty much exactly as advertized,” said Josh Bivens, an economist with the Washington, D.C.-based […]

Three major Black Methodist denominations will come together from March 1 to March 3 to discuss issues facing Black males and their roles in Black families and communities. Representatives from the African Methodist Episcopal, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion and the Christian Methodist Episcopal churches held a press conference at the National Press Club in […]

It was a crime so heinous, so hideous, that it defied many, if not most people’s imagination. A disturbed Washington, D.C., mother had apparently killed her four African-American daughters, ages 5 to 17, and left their bodies rotting in their home for seven months while she went about her daily routine. The bodies were discovered […]

A Texas man flew his small plane into an Austin federal office building on February 18 in an apparent suicide attack on offices of the Internal Revenue Service located inside. Two people were killed and two hospitalized after Joseph Stack, 53, flew his Piper Cherokee PA-28 into the seven-story office building. The office contains an […]

The Rev. Jesse Jackson denounced the shooting of Aaron Campbell in Portland, Ore., calling the incident an outright “execution” and expressing anger that another unarmed Black man has been gunned down by police. Campbell, 25, was killed January 29 by a White police officer after stepping out of an apartment with his hands over his […]

Eight of the 10 Americans detained in Haiti have been freed on their word by a Haitian judge and have returned to the U.S., according to The Grio.com. The missionaries from Idaho were charged with kidnapping for trying to take 33 children from the country. The two remaining Americans remain in custody while the judge […]

A soldier facing a court-martial for allegedly making threats in a rap video he sent to the Pentagon can be sent overseas to go on trial in Iraq, a federal judge ruled on February 17. Lawyers for U.S. Army Spc. Marc Hall requested that the soldier’s trial take place in the United States and not […]

Five New York City Police officers will not face civil rights charges in the 2006 shooting death of Sean Bell, the U.S. Justice Department announced February 16. Bell, 23, was shot leaving his bachelor party at a strip club in the early morning hours of November 25, 2006, his wedding day. A review of the […]

A coalition of civil rights groups is bringing a new challenge to a California law that prohibits the state from considering race in state university admissions. The lawsuit was filed in Oakland on Feb. 16 by the Michigan based Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means […]

While the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation raised more than $55 million between 2004 and 2008, only $1 million went to the caucus’s political action committee, according to an article published February 13 in The New York Times. The remainder of the funds was used for the caucus’s unregulated non-profit dealings, according to the Times, which […]

NEW YORK – The NAACP Board of Directors unanimously elected Roslyn Brock as its new chairman during its annual meeting in New York on February 20. Brock, 44, of Elkridge, Md., became the fourth woman and the youngest person to assume the helm of the 100-year-old civil rights organization. “It is a very humbling moment […]