Black couple vow to buy most everything from black owned businesses.
It’s been two months since 2-year-old Cori pulled the gold stud from her left earlobe, and the piercing is threatening to close as her mother, Maggie Anderson, hunts for a replacement. It’s not that the earring was all that rare—but finding the right store has become a quest of Quixotic proportions. Maggie and John Anderson of Chicago vowed four months ago that for one year, they would try to patronize only black-owned businesses. The “Empowerment Experiment” is the reason John had to suffer for hours with a stomach ache and Maggie no longer gets that brand-name lather when she washes her hair. A grocery trip is a 14-mile odyssey.
MSNBC host Chris Matthews on Wednesday mocked Sarah Palin’s recently announced book deal, questioning if the Alaska governor is capable of writing it. “Sarah Palin — now, don’t laugh — is writing a book. Not just reading a book, writing a book,” Matthews said at the top of his show “Hardball.” “Actually, in the words of the publisher, she’s collaborating on a book,” he added. “I love the way that sounds. Does that mean that she answers questions of the writer, and then the writer writes the book?”
The mayor of Providence wants to slap a $150-per-semester tax on the 25,000 full-time students at Brown University and three other private colleges in the city, saying they use resources and should help ease the burden on struggling taxpayers. Mayor David Cicilline (sis-ah-LEEN-ee) said the fee would raise between $6 million and $8 million a year for the city, which is facing a $17 million deficit. If enacted, it would apparently be the first time a U.S. city has directly taxed students just for being enrolled.
President Obama didn’t shy away from the “snub” by Arizona State University officials who said he didn’t deserve an honorary degree because he hadn’t accomplished enough. In a commencement speech Wednesday to a stadium full of young graduates, he said the officials were right.
Unlike Notre Dame, Arizona State University will not award President Obama an honorary degree when he delivers the commencement address Wednesday night — but he gets a nice consolation prize. ASU is expanding its signature scholarship program and renaming it for the 44th president. And the President Barack Obama Scholars Program, as it now is called, will be tripled in size.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today will propose selling San Quentin Prison, the Los Angeles Coliseum and other state-owned properties in a bid to raise cash to counter the state’s daunting budget shortfall. He also wants to accelerate the sale of Agnews Developmental Center, the 81-acre facility on the north edge of San Jose that closed its doors in March after 120 years.
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It’s official — the school year is over for Fair Grove students. Interim Commissioner of Education Bert Schulte approved a waiver of the final nine days of school for the Fair Grove school district, after last week’s storm ripped off the high school roof and caused significant damage, said district spokeswoman Lisa Bernet. All Fair Grove elementary, middle school and high school students have officially completed the 2008-2009 school year.
Zombie fire ants may sound like a science-fiction movie, but they are the real deal for University of Texas, Austin and Texas A&M researchers. Their science experiments will help control the ant population. Tiny parasites called Phorid flies attack fire ants, take over their bodies and turn them into walking zombies.
A New Zealand woman was sent to prison for a year on Thursday after being charged with drunk driving for the 8th time when she was seven months pregnant. Rachael Brown, 38, was nearly two-and-a-half times over the legal limit when she was arrested after dodging a police checkpoint in Rotorua in July, the local court was told.
Hanover Park Trustee Toni Carter said she should be applauded, not criticized. Carter acknowledged she’d fallen behind on paying property taxes on her residence. She said she didn’t have the money to pay earlier because she funded a program for residents last December on surviving the economic crisis. She paid the $700 owed on her 2007 property tax bill Wednesday after being questioned by the Daily Herald.
Gov. Chris Gregoire has approved a tax break for the state’s troubled newspaper industry. The new law gives newspaper printers and publishers a 40 percent cut in the state’s main business tax. The discounted rate mirrors breaks given in years past to the Boeing Co. and the timber industry.
[Boeing and the timber industry do not report the “news” which is supposed to be neutral, unbiased and investigative in nature. This would include reporting on the very government and the officials who provided the tax breaks to assist these media outlets in keeping their doors open. So much for even a modicum of objectivity from here on out…..ed]
An inmate housed in a state prison at Tennesee Colony has been sentenced to 60 years for having a cell phone. Derrick Ross was found guilty of being in possession of a prohibited item in a correction facility, said Joe Willis, a prosecutor for the state’s Special Prosecution Unit. “This is one of the largest sentences in the state for possession of a cell phone,” Willis, said. Ross was already serving time for felony convictions. He could have received up to 99 years for having the cell phone.
Japan forces Google to reshoot street view pictures due to privacy concerns.
Google said Wednesday it will reshoot all photos in Japan for its Street View service after residents complained the 360-degree panoramic images provided a view over the fences around their homes. The Internet giant’s service has triggered privacy complaints around the world, including most recently in Greece, where it was banned Tuesday.
Swedish women will be permitted to abort their children based on the sex of the fetus, according to a ruling by Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare. The ruling was spurred by a request from Kai Wedenberg, head of the clinic where a woman twice requested, and received, an abortion based on sex.
Quote of the day.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
-Henry Louis Mencken