culture

CNN: Two Twisters Touch Down in Mississippi CSM: Taliban Suicide Bomber Kills 11 in Pakistan IHT: France Urges N. Korea to Avoid Missile Test Because, You Know, Kim Jong Il Is a Lunatic SJMN: Oakland Leaders Gather in Response to Violent Weekend; Buzz Makes No ‘Snitch’ Reference WP: Hospitals Slow to Go to Electronic Records;…

John Hope Franklin, one of the most prolific and well-respected chroniclers of America’s torturous racial odyssey, died of congestive heart failure yesterday at the age of 94 in a Durham, N.C., hospital. It was more than Franklin’s voluminous writings that cemented his reputation among academics, politicians and civil rights figures as an inestimable historian. It…

It used to be easy to define soul food—black cuisine with a Southern flair. Simmered collard greens with ham hocks or smoked turkey legs immediately spring to mind, steaming on a plate next to fried chicken and macaroni and cheese. But a new generation of chefs is changing what soul food means and Bryant Terry,…

NYDN: MTA Raising Fare to $2.50; Thankfully, Cutting Service As Well NYT: E.U. Prez Calls U.S. Stimulus the ‘Way to Hell, Wonders Why Disneyworld Trip Has Hit Snag NYT: UN Officials Call Darfur Aid ‘Tenuous’, Barack Obama Bi-Racial JTA: Netanyahu Call His Gov’t “Partner for Peace”; Palestine Says, “Oh Word?” WP: House Dems Slash $100B…

Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia are unlikely pop stars. They’re a middle-aged couple from Mali’s capital city, Bamako, who started playing together in a house band for the city’s Institute for Young Blind People, where Amadou was a music teacher and Mariam a Braille student. Thirty years later, they’ve emerged as global pop’s band to…

In the opening scene of Touchstone Pictures Confessions of a Shopaholic, financial journalist Rebecca Bloomwood has a flashback to an event in her childhood in which she is shopping for shoes with her mother. Her extremely frugal mom buys her what could only be described as a horrific-looking pair of shoes because they were on…

WP: Geithner Asks Congress for More Power to Seize Firms, They Say “When Your Jacket Fits” WSJ: Obama Dials Down Wall St. Criticism, Leaves It to the ‘Internet Stans’ NYT: With No Foreign Aid Workers Left, Sudanese Take to Shooting Domestic Aid Workers USNWR: Study IDs Variation in Black, White Genomes; Maybe Race Isn’t a…

After four days of close, intense games and some memorable last-second shots, the NCAA Men’s College Basketball Championship Tournament, aka March Madness, has narrowed the field from 64 to 16 teams, and the results are surprisingly predictable. In each of the four regions, the top-three seeds are still playing; two fourth seeds, Xavier University and…

MSNBC: Tips for Making College Affordable—Step One: Have Money AJE: Deadly Attack on Iraq Funeral (Yeah, It’s Reaaallly Time for Us to Go) CNN: Tyra Gets Her Robin Givens On, Talks to Oprah of Abuse WH: Obama Talks Green Jobs *Live* IS: Indiana Near Top of Black Homicide Rate; Buzz Didn’t Know Hoosiers Were That…

MONDAY WP: AIG Discloses Use of Bailout Funds; You Didn’t Get Any, But an Incompetent Did Times of London: Thousands of Girls Mutilated in Britain WSJ: Having Little Interest in Being Opposed, Chavez Sends Navy to Venezuela’s Seaport to Make This Clear AP: Imus Has Prostate Cancer; Rev. Al Sharpton to Protest This in Some…