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Assata Shakur’s Journey in Her Own Words
When President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. was restoring full diplomatic relations with Cuba, talk immediately turned to the fate of Assata Shakur, who evokes a sense of victory among some African Americans, primarily because she escaped imprisonment while serving a life sentence for a murder that many believe she did not commit. Shakur…
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President Obama’s Best 2014 Moments
This is by no means an exhaustive list. And I’m not suggesting that there’s consensus about the positives and negatives of President Barack Obama’s various initiatives—although I’m guessing that folks on both sides of the aisle were tickled by his exchange in October with that overzealous boyfriend in the Chicago voting station—but here are a…
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Stop Hating: 3 Reasons Why Standing in Line for Jordans Makes Sense
The Air Jordans pictured above are being rereleased Saturday. That may mean nothing to you, but to hordes of young men and women who slept outside for the opportunity to win the golden ticket—à la Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory—to purchase them, it means the world. There is a running narrative that lines up…
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US Reinterprets Law to Prohibit Workplace Discrimination Against Transgender Workers
The U.S. Justice Department has come to a different understanding of a law that governs whether it can penalize workplace discrimination against transgender people. On Thursday it announced that it will now be able to bring legal claims on behalf of transgender employees who say they’ve been discriminated against “by state and local public employers”…
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Treasury Department Wants More Contract Bids from Black and Hispanic Business Owners
The U.S. Department of Treasury does about $7 billion worth of business with outside contractors every year, and they recently released an online publication that encourages and educates African American, Hispanic, small and female business owners on how they can get in on the action and pitch their services to the Treasury Department as well.…
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Nonviolent Drug Inmates May Be Eligible for Obama’s Clemency Program
In addition to announcing a new chapter in the U.S. relationship with Cuba, the president on Wednesday drastically shortened the prison sentences of eight nonviolent drug offenders and pardoned 12 other convicts who were imprisoned for a variety of nonviolent offenses, the Associated Press reports. AP predicts that the initiative is likely a foreshadowing of…
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UN: Nearly 1 Million in West Africa at Risk of Going Hungry as Ebola Restrictions Cause Food Shortages
Approximately 1 million people living in the three West African nations most plagued by the Ebola outbreak—Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone—are at risk of going hungry because of major food shortages due to “border closures, quarantines and crop losses,” Al-Jazeera reports. Two food-monitoring groups, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the U.N. World…
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Obama Signs US Spending Bill, Avoids Government Shutdown
President Barack Obama on Saturday signed a trillion-dollar spending bill that will keep the government up and running for the next nine months, Al-Jazeera reports. “Passage of the 1,603-page bill on Saturday was a long, tough struggle in the Senate and the House of Representatives marked by bitter disputes over changes to banking regulations and Obama’s recent executive order…
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John Crawford’s Family Files Suit Against Wal-Mart, the City and the Police
John Crawford’s family filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday “charging negligence and violations of Crawford’s civil rights” in the fatal shooting of the 22-year-old inside a Beavercreek, Ohio, Wal-Mart, the Associated Press is reporting. The suit is levied against “the city of Beavercreek, the two Beavercreek officers involved, the police chief and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.” A…
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6 Dead in Philly-Area Killing Spree
Police officers were stationed on Monday outside the home of a Pennsylvania man who may have been involved in “a killing spree” in which six people were shot dead and one person severely injured, Al-Jazeera reports. “The [alleged] gunman was identified as 35-year-old Bradley William Stone and described by authorities as being armed and dangerous,” the…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
