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Oscar Pistorius Found Guilty of Homicide
Oscar Pistorius—the double-amputee Olympic athlete on trial in South Africa for fatally shooting his model girlfriend—has been found guilty of culpable homicide and could face jail time. On Thursday Pistorius was found not guilty of two of the most serious murder charges, the New York Times reports. “Judge [Thokozile Matilda] Masipa cleared Mr. Pistorius of two…
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Missouri Mandates 72-Hour Waiting Period Before Abortion
Women in Missouri who decide to terminate their pregnancies now have to wait 72 hours after consulting with their doctors before going forward with the abortion, Al-Jazeera reports. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, initially tried to veto the piece of legislation mandating this 72-hour waiting period, but the state’s Republican-led Legislature overruled his veto Wednesday.…
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Bill Cosby: Blacks Must Prepare to Fight Voter Suppression
Author Mark Whitaker will release his much-anticipated biography of Bill Cosby this week, three decades after the comedian debuted The Cosby Show and single-handedly altered the portrayal of African Americans on television. Could Cosby have known back then that the NBC sitcom would become an immediate hit? “Oh sure, I recognized it,” he told The Root…
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How Do I Find Descendants of My Ancestor’s Slaves?
Through wills and census reports found during family research, I have discovered a couple sets of ancestors who owned slaves. Although most of the documents note slaves only by age and gender, I have come across three names: Sam, Dinah and Sutton, who were owned by James W. Hampton Sr. in Virginia around 1774. I…
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Ga. State Senator Is Outraged at Voting Location in Mall Popular With Blacks
Georgia state Sen. Fran Millar reportedly is outraged at the opening of an early-voting location in a mall patronized predominantly by African Americans. Millar, a Republican, voiced his opposition after DeKalb County announced that early voting would begin Oct. 26 and would have a location at the Gallery at South Dekalb Mall, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. According to…
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This Time, Mr. President, You Didn’t Make a Very Good Case for More War
Despite polls this week showing that the public is losing confidence in President Barack Obama’s handling of foreign policy, you can put me down in that dwindling category of folks who, up to now, actually think that his handling of the threat from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria—ISIS for short—has generally been about…
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Meet the Black Female Judge Who Is Deciding Oscar Pistorius’ Fate
Editor’s note: Verdicts in the Oscar Pistorius case are being rendered Thursday and Friday by Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa. The judge has already ruled that Pistorius is not guilty of the premeditated murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Masipa will continue to read her findings on lesser charges in court on Friday. Here is some…
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It’s Been Harder Than Obama Thought to End Our Middle East Wars
President Barack Obama has a problem. Just when he thought he was getting out of the Middle East, he keeps getting pulled back in. After declaring the successful conclusion of two wars initiated by his predecessor, the centerpiece of his foreign policy, external events have backed the president into a proverbial corner. And Wednesday night…
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Ebola Relief Workers: US, We Want Your Aid, Not Your Troops
The U.S., United Kingdom, European Union and the Gates Foundation are all donating money and resources to help curb the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, but aid workers on the ground have one main concern with the strings attached to America’s aid: The U.S. wants to dispatch a security detail to accompany the health care…
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Mike Tyson Goes Mike Tyson on a Reporter After ‘Convicted Rapist’ Remark
There’s a harrowing moment in Mike Tyson’s one-man stage play, Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth, when he describes how he was accused of, tried for and eventually convicted of raping 18-year-old Desiree Washington in 1992. He talks—sensitively—about how he wasn’t the first person Washington had accused of rape and how his agent at the time, Don King, hired…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
