It was around noon on Tuesday, Feb. 10, that I checked my cell phone messages after participating in an intense executive seminar all morning. One of the messages was from Corey Ealons, director of African American media during President Obama's transition, who still works in a similar role at the White House.
Corey was asking me to call him immediately. The urgency in his voice befuddled me. After all, this was the White House calling...

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- The longtime opposition party that has joined Zimbabwe's coalition government was told Monday that a prominent member of the party would be held by police two more days without charge.
Roy Bennett was arrested three days ago. Representatives of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, had hoped to see him in court Monday....

Bellevue Community College's Black Student Union presents two acclaimed hip-hop artists, an internationally-noted hip-hop scholar and a Washington state legislator with expertise in civic responsibility and social change, in a series of four free, public Black History Month lectures.

• Mohammed Bilal,
• Boots Riley,
• State Rep. Eric Pettigrew,
• Prof. Tricia Rose

Freedom Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption to promote and protect individual freedom, announced that it has recently filed a complaint against the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve for failing to turn over information under the Freedom of Information Act regarding the first half of the $700 billion dollar bailout.
Freedom Watch's initial FOIA request sought to provide an answer as to where, exactly, the money went and in what amounts specific various companies and parties received those funds. The group says it's concerned that the money, which cannot be accounted for by the government, was doled out based on political influence and graft. ...

OAKLAND (NNPA) - A judge has granted $3 million bail to the former BART officer who shot and killed Oscar Grant, III, on a station platform on New Year's Day. However, at press time Johannes Mehserle had not yet posted the $300,000 bail and was still in custody.
Dozens of Grant supporters packed the hallways of the Alameda County Superior Court, trying to gain entrance to the Jan. 30 hearing while others demonstrated outside. Some of them wore t-shirts displaying Mr. Grant's photograph and they also chanted, "We are Oscar Grant!" and waved signs that read, "No bail! Keep him in jail!" ...

In a formal and tradition-clad ceremony at the Martin Luther King Jr. Chapel, President Robert Franklin Michael Jr. '75 was inaugurated 10th president of Morehouse College on February 15. "I come to this moment in my life with a profound humility matched by my determination to see our great school rise to new heights of accomplishment, " Franklin said.
Photo credit: Morehouse.edu
Part of the mission of the nation's historically Black institutions is to provide a college education for a disproportionate number of students who can't afford to go to most traditionally White institutions. . . .

For years, the juvenile court system in Wilkes-Barre operated like a conveyor belt: Youngsters were brought before judges without a lawyer, given hearings that lasted only a minute or two, and then sent off to juvenile prison for months for minor offenses.
The explanation, prosecutors say, was corruption on the bench. . . .

U.S. Sen. Roland Burris insisted Monday he voluntarily sent state lawmakers an affidavit outlining contacts with ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich's brother prior to his Senate appointment and was not prompted by federal agents investigating the former governor.
"It was done because we promised the (impeachment) committee we would supplement information in case we missed anything,'' Burris said outside a South Side church before meeting with religious leaders.
Burris released an affidavit over the weekend in which he admitted Blagojevich's brother asked him for campaign fundraising help before Blagojevich appointed him to the Senate.
The disclosure is at odds with Burris' testimony in January . . .

The Oregon Progress Board's latest Benchmark Highlights Report shows that the state continues to do well in public safety and the "built environment," but aspects of education, civic engagement, social support and the natural environment show the same challenges seen in the 2007 report.  The economy received a negative grade for the first time in a benchmark report. . . .

President Barack Obama put his own indelible imprint on the nation's distressed economy Tuesday, preparing to sign the huge recovery package into law, readying a $50 billion proposal to help homeowners fend off foreclosure and awaiting emergency restructuring plans from flailing automakers. Obama was traveling to Denver to sign the stimulus bill, which congressional Democrats pushed to passage last week over near-unanimous opposition from Republicans. Obama's first major piece of legislation, it's a $787 billion mix of tax cuts and one of the biggest public spending programs since World War II. The setting for the signing was the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, underscoring the investments the new law will make in "green'' energy-related jobs. . . .