Paul Schurick was found guilty of all four counts he faced, including conspiracy to influence or attempt to influence a voter’s decision whether to go to the polls through the use of fraud and conspiracy to publish campaign material without an authority line. A stoic Schurick comforted his wife in the courtroom after the Baltimore jury’s verdict was read, but declined to comment.

His attorney, A. Dwight Pettit, said they will appeal.

Prosecutors argued the calls that went out on the evening of Election Day to about 110,000 voters in Baltimore city and Prince George’s County – two jurisdictions with high percentages of black voters – were an effort by the Republican campaign to reduce the number of black Democrats voting in heavily Democratic Maryland.

“Hello. I’m calling to let everybody know that Governor O’Malley and President Obama have been successful,” the call said. “Our goals have been met. The polls were correct, and we took it back. We’re OK. Relax. Everything’s fine. The only thing left is to watch it on TV tonight. Congratulations, and thank you.”

Schurick testified that he rejected campaign consultant Julius Henson’s black voter suppression strategy dubbed “The Schurick Doctrine” but later approved the robocall script. He called it a counterintuitive attempt to mobilize crossover Democrats and said he didn’t know the authority line, which would have noted that the message came from Ehrlich’s campaign, would be left off. Henson, whose trial on similar charges is set to begin in February, has said he did not believe the calls were illegal and that they weren’t meant to suppress the vote.

O’Malley handily won last year’s rematch against the Republican Ehrlich, whom he had unseated in 2006.

These kinds of activities aren’t new, but have become more problematic recently, said State Prosecutor Emmet C. Davitt. He hoped the verdict would send a message that it is more than just “dirty tricks” and the law will be enforced, he said.

“The First Amendment does not protect fraudulent speech,” he said. “We think clearly that this was the case here. It was fraudulent. It wasn’t just political speech. It was fraudulent speech.”

The call was fraudulent because the language seemed to come from the point of view of Ehrlich’s opponent and lacked an authority line specifically telling the listener who was really sending the message, he said. He didn’t believe Schurick’s reverse psychology explanation, he said.

“I think it was ridiculous,” he said. “I just don’t buy it and evidently the jury didn’t buy it as well.”

However, Petit, the defense attorney, said “We don’t think the jury understood the issues of law in terms of the First Amendment and constitutional issues. If you allow the state to create arbitrary and capricious laws in terms of vagueness and in terms of what fraud is and allow that kind of prosecution to control free political speech, then you throw a dagger in the heart of our political system.”

Pettit noted that this is the first time someone has been charged under the statute that was revised in 2006 and said his client’s appeal could have an impact beyond the case of the former Ehrlich campaign manager.

“This has repercussions in terms of state elections, national elections across the board,” he said. “This is a very, very significant constitutional legal issue that has not been decided by the high courts of this nation.”

Pettit also said the campaign’s Republican political affiliation in a heavily Democratic state influenced the decision to pursue the prosecution.

“This was a political witch hunt from the beginning,” he said.

But Davitt disagreed, noting that the case was opened by his predecessor, who was appointed by Ehrlich.

In addition to the conspiracy charges, Schurick was also charged with attempting to influence a voter’s decision on whether to go to the polls through the use of fraud and failing to provide an authority line on distributed campaign material and two counts of conspiracy to violate state election laws. The authority line violations carry a maximum of a year in prison if convicted. The other charges carry up to five years in prison for each count.

Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Lawrence Fletcher-Hill dismissed an additional conspiracy count and one count of obstruction of justice for allegedly withholding documentation sought through a grand jury subpoena.

A presentencing investigation will be completed before a hearing scheduled for Feb. 16.

SEE ALSO:

Ginger White: Sex With Herman Cain Is Boring

Check out the video here

The opening line of the piece: “We met a man with an unusual name you’ve probably never heard of, but his message about education and America’s future is something we thought you should know.”

See also: Jay-Z Talks Kanye West Collaboration And Baby With Beyonce

See also: Caribbean Culture has Influenced Miami For Over 100 years

Correspondent Byron Pitts then asked Hrabowski a question I was certainly wondering: How did a black man wind up with the name Hrabowski?

“My grandfather’s grandfather was the Polish slave master in rural Alabama,” Hrabowski said.

“I am the third, Freeman Hrabowski the third,” the good president said. “And my grandfather was the first one born a free man as opposed to having to be freed.”

Hrabowski became president of the university in 1992.

Read more at Washington Post

See also: Why I Dropped My Bank And Switched To A Credit Union

See also: Destinations for Outdoor Lovers

Korthneigh McCoy was stabbed in the throat and head Saturday and died early Sunday morning. The woman accused of fatally stabbing McCoy, Shanee Liggins, told authorities someone else did the stabbing.

For now, there are conflicting accounts of what happened. Witnesses told police a fight broke out during a party at an off-campus house where Liggins lives. Others said McCoy and her friends were thrown out of the party after one of them began arguing with Liggins. Police were also told that Liggins and McCoy were seen fighting.

Read more at WBAL.com

RELATED:

Ousted! Legendary Coach Fired Amid Scandal

After several passengers complained a woman confronted the man an the bus river intervened in the conflict and was subsequently stabbed by the man.

Bus Driver Sued After Attacking Teenager For Being Short On Fare

Teens Attack Pregnant Woman On City Bus

My Fox DC reports:

Authorities say the driver was picking up passengers at the Silver Spring station when he was told by several patrons that a man in the back of the bus had exposed himself and was masturbating.

As the bus approached the Wheaton station, police say the man got into a confrontation with a woman on the bus. The driver intervened and later realized he had been stabbed.

Read More At My Fox DC

Metro Bus Driver Stabbed Near Wheaton Station: MyFoxDC.com

Pregnant Mom And Daughter Attack 71-Year-Old Man In Walmart

Cops Say Pregnant Woman Went Into Labor While Robbing Walmart

Fire officials say 19 people had to be taken to hospitals, although only one was thought to have serious injuries. That person was taken to the Wilmer Eye Institute with a potentially serious eye injury.

Fire officials were called to the store in the Baltimore suburb of Arbutus shortly before 11 a.m. Saturday.

Fire Department spokesman Glenn Blackwell says one person was arrested and charges are pending.

Also read: Police Arrest Suspect In Stray Bullet Shooting Of A 2-Year-Old

State police said early Friday that Prince George’s County police received a call for a report of a cutting at the Christa McAuliffe Residential Community building about 8 p.m. Thursday and responded with university officers.

Police say the victim, Dominique Frazier of Washington, was found unconscious in a second-floor hallway of the dorm.

Authorities say Frazier was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead a short time later.

The roommate, who has not been charged, fled the scene but turned herself in to county police about four hours after the incident.

The university canceled all classes Friday.

RELATED:

Woman Caught On Tape Beating Transgender Woman In McDonald’s Sentenced

The Grio reports:

After spending about six months in the hospital, Reggie took honors courses and advanced classes, ended up with a GPA above 3.0 and was back on track.

Reggie said having the support of family and friends kept him going.

In the fall, Reggie is heading to Loyola University and plans to major in communication with an emphasis in digital media.

RELATED: First Lady Michelle Obama Speaks At Spelman’s Graduation

Assistant Attorney General Campbell Killifer, while representing the Maryland Higher Education Commission, argued that the state should be let off the hook for the continuing disparities between traditionally black colleges and predominantly white schools. While Maryland has admitted to practicing discrimination in the past, state leadership maintains that it has addressed this issue sufficiently to level the playing field completely and that any differences in quality that continue must be due to other factors. Killifer seeks to shift the burden of proof for the accusation of racism to the struggling black organizations crying out for solutions to persistent inequalities.

The Consumerist Blog has spawned an interesting debate about this fight. Some readers are appalled that Maryland will not investigate whether discriminatory practices might still be taking place. Others contend that the decline of these HBCUs marks the moment for all black colleges’ timely demise. The relatively successful integration of elite universities like Harvard does de-emphasize the urgency of the HBCU’s original purpose. Plus, if even the administrators of Maryland’s black colleges admit that neighboring institutions are better, college bound African-American students could be harming their prospects by “going black.”

The benefits of attending an HBCU depend on one’s field of interest. Studies show black students do better in math and technology when they attend African-American establishments, and that HBCUs graduate a significant percentage of our nation’s black scientists – and political leaders. At a time when we need to see more of our youth move into the sciences, and leadership in our community is in crisis, these points are vital to consider.  But for the general job market, the economic benefit of attending an HBCU is non-existent. Attending a predominantly white school helps blacks earn 20% more than those graduating from HBCUs. This fact could account for the steady decline in HBCU attendance.

There are also internal reasons these schools are besieged. Dr. Boyce Watkins, writing on Thy Black Man, makes some interesting arguments:

We must also confess to the possibility that our HBCUs are not being run nearly as efficiently as they could be.  During a visit to The University of North Carolina Central and Howard University, I was shocked at how reluctant many HBCUs are to hire African American male faculty, particularly in business and the sciences.  According to a survey among readers of YourBlackWorld.com, over 40% of HBCU grads had less than five African American professors in fields outside of African American studies.  Many HBCUs are flush with foreign professors, some of whom either don’t care much about the black kids and/or collude to only hire faculty from their home countries.  This leaves our children without a sufficient number of classroom role models as they navigate their way to graduation.

There are also many stories about HBCU inefficiency as it pertains to financial aid, admissions and even hiring.  Many of these problems can be traced to inadequate funding, but some should be connected to the archaic and dysfunctional manner by which some of us choose to lead our institutions. The old school models of leadership for HBCUs should be forced out by those who care about our children’s futures.

The battle between the state of Maryland and its historically black colleges raises many grave questions.  The few benefits of attending HBCUs might not outweigh the tremendous costs to students who are not considering politics or a scientific career. While the plight of these black Maryland educators is unfair, it is alarming that the mismanagement of black schools has not been addressed as a contributing problem, even though scandals have rocked many HBCUs in recent years. The issues weighing on these bodies is rendering historically black colleges and universities nearly obsolete.

No infusion of cash can compensate for the tremendous challenges HBCUs face on many fronts. These complex tests can only be addressed by the creativity of their leaders. Hopefully the situation of Maryland’s HBCUs will stimulate black college administrators nationwide to start an internal crusade to keep these organizations alive.

RELATED: U.S. Offers To Relinquish Morris Brown College’s $9.4 Million Debt

Baltimore — 11 News in Baltimore is reporting that two bodies have been pulled from the Susquehanna River and one of them is missing teenager Phylicia Barnes from North Carolina.

See video on this story here

Barnes disappeared from her home on December 28th. The Monroe, N.C., 16-year-old was visiting family in northwest Baltimore over the Christmas holiday.

Her disappearance puzzled investigators and garnered national attention. Over the last few months, police conducted massive searches for Barnes that turned up no possible clues.An 11 News source said the girl’s family has been notified and that dental records confirmed her identity.

No immediate cause of death has been determined.

From WBAL-TV

RELATED:

Search continues for missing teen Phylicia Barnes

Phylicia Barnes offers $25,000 reward for info on her

Gladden said the name Negro Mountain has bothered her for years.

“Negro is a term that often has carried with it negative connotations about African-Americans,” Gladden told The Associated Press by telephone. “As we talk about inclusion and respect, Negro Mountain doesn’t fit.”

Yet lawmakers from the state’s mountainous western panhandle said the bill reflects political correctness taken to an extreme by legislators in Baltimore and Maryland’s Washington suburbs.

“It’s just asinine,” Delegate Kevin Kelly, an Allegany Democrat, told the Cumberland Times-News.

The bill revives a debate that last peaked in the mid-1990s when the Domestic Names Committee of the U.S. Board of Geographic Names refused to rechristen Negro Mountain as Black Hero Mountain. The committee found that the mountain’s name was not applied in a derogatory sense.

Supporters say Negro Mountain is dedicated to the heroism of an 18th century black man, though details are unclear. There is little in the historical record on the origins of the name Polish Mountain.

Sen. Jennie Forehand, a Montgomery Democrat, said both Negro and Polish mountains should have prettier names.

“Maybe I don’t know the history of how those mountains got named but I think if they were in my district, I would like to have a name that was perhaps more scenic,” she told AP.

Gladden’s proposal doesn’t include a call to rename another Maryland peak, Big Savage Mountain, but she said she also finds that name objectionable.

Maryland — The mother of a girl struck and killed in a hit-and-run is asking for help from the public in finding the driver.

Alexandria Bergland, 14, described as a happy teen who loved to dance and listen to R&B singer Chris Brown, was crossing the 5200 block of Marlboro Pike in Capitol Heights, Md., to meet her mother at a bus stop last week when she was struck.

The Flowers High School freshman had a very close relationship with her mother. After breakfast, Alexandria would walk with her mother to the bus stop, and many evenings, she would meet her there again.

But at about 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 21, she was hit by two cars.

Read entire article at NBC.com

Share this post on Facebook! CLICK HERE:

Letter Written To Discovery Channel By Gunman

Montgomery County police say a gunman has entered the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring and has taken at least one person hostage.


WATCH LIVE COVERAGE:

Footage from WJLA-TV showed police SUVs and cruisers with their lights on.

Cpl. Dan Friz told the channel that a gunman was in the building.

A person inside the building told The Associated Press that the man had something strapped to his chest and has hostages. The person refused to be identified, saying people inside have been told not to speak to the media.

Police did not immediately return calls from The Associated Press.

Sheree Mixell, assistant special agent in charge of the Baltimore field division office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said agents are responding to the scene.

Click here to view photos:

RELATED:

Pirates Defy U.S. Navy Off Somalia, French Free Yacht

Sarkozy Says French Hostage Killed By Al-Qaeda In North Africa

NBC Washington is reporting that a school in Prince George’s Country, Maryland will officially be known as Barack Obama Elementary as of Monday.

The first school in the D.C. area named after the current president opens Monday morning as the school year begins in Prince George’s County.

Barack Obama Elementary School opens its doors in Upper Marlboro, Md., for the first time Monday. The school is being touted as being an environmentally friendly “green” school. There have been other schools named after President Obama in the country, but this will be a first in his own backyard in the D.C. region.

RELATED STORIES

House Passes Bill Saving 161,000 Teaching Jobs

Obama Writes A Letter To Bullied 5th Grader In Philly [VIDEO]

WASHINGTON — A minor earthquake shook residents awake in the DC area early Friday.

The quake hit at 5:04 a.m. EDT and had a magnitude of 3.6.

The quake was centered in the Rockville, Md., area said Randy Baldwin, a physicist with U.S. Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center.

Police in Washington and in nearby Montgomery County, Md., said there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

On the U.S. Geological Survey’s website, people as far away as Pennsylvania and West Virginia reported feeling the quake.

Lucille Baur, public information officer for the Montgomery County Police Department, said the department received a lot of calls from people wondering what had happened.

Debby Taylor Busse said she was in the basement of her home in Vienna, Va., in Fairfax County when she felt the quake hit. She was already awake watching television, but her husband had been asleep in a second-floor bedroom when the tremor woke him.

“I didn’t know what it was,” Busse said. “I have never been in an earthquake before. It felt like an airplane going overhead or thunder, but it wasn’t coming from above.”

She said it lasted just a few seconds and compared it to a strong thunder strike — enough to rattle the house, but not enough to knock anything over.

Brett Snyder, who lives in Gaithersburg, Md., told AP Radio he was awakened by the quake but said it wasn’t a big deal.

“It happened very instantaneously and then off to a day’s work,” Snyder said.

Click here to view photos:

RELATED:

Earthquake Accentuated Wealth Gap In Haiti

Haiti Struggles As Earth Quake Debris Clean-Up Continues

CBS Sports is reporting the Cleveland Cavalier guard, Delonte West will plead guilty to to carrying concealed weapons and transporting loaded weapons. West will not serve jail time but will undergo electronic monitoring, receive counseling and have to do community service.

Police say that West cut off a police officer on the highway with a three wheel ATV and had two handguns, a knife and a shotgun in a guitar case.

RELATED STORIES

NBA Player Delonte West Arrested On Gun Charges

REPORT: NBA’s Gilbert Pulled Gun On Teamate In Locker Room Argument

From Hometown Annapolis

Cape St. Claire Improvement Association board members are working to remove racially discriminatory language from covenants that date back to the 1940s.

The paragraph in question reads: “At no time shall any lot or any part thereof be sold, leased, transferred to or permitted to be occupied by any Negro, Chinaman, Japanese, or person of Negro, Chinese, or Japanese descent. This restriction is not intended to include servants or employees of the owner or occupant of said lot.”

Click Here For More

RELATED STORIES

Law Firm Puts Out “White Only” Real Estate Ad

VIDEO: All-White Basketball League Owner Defends Plan

FREDERICK, Md. – A Maryland man who went into a rage and threw a stranger’s teacup Chihuahua off a bridge, apparently to its death, has been sentenced to four months in jail.

Thirty-five-year-old David Beers was sentenced Monday in Frederick. The judge suspended a three-year prison term and ordered the unemployed cell tower technician to pay a $1,000 fine, perform 300 hours of community service and make restitution of $318 to Timothy and Caisha (KAH’-shah) Wantz.

Beers apologized for stealing the dog in a fit of anger after the Wantzes ordered him off their property in rural Jefferson last year.

They confronted Beers after he had pulled into their quarter-mile driveway to make a cell phone call. Beers, who pleaded guilty to felony animal cruelty, threw the dog into a creek on his way home.

RELATED STORIES

Man Charged With Stabbing “Racist” Dog

Teen Girl Gets Year In Jail For Killing Cat In Oven

ROCKVILLE, Md. – A Maryland woman who adopted three children despite a troubled past was convicted Monday of murdering two of the girls, whose bodies were stored in a freezer as the woman continued collecting payments meant to help with their care.

Renee Bowman, 44, kept the bodies of the two young girls on ice for months while she continued to collect subsidies paid to parents who adopt special-needs children in the District of Columbia, receiving a total of about $150,000 since adopting the girls.

The bodies were found after the third daughter escaped by jumping out a window. The girl, now 9 and living with new foster parents, testified in the murder trial last week about the abuse she and her sisters endured — being beaten with a baseball bat and shoes and choked until they lost consciousness.

The girl’s older sisters, Minnet and Jasmine Bowman, were both younger than 10 when they died, though authorities were never able to determine exactly when the murders occurred. Nobody knew they were missing, and there are no records the children were ever enrolled in school. Prosecutors said Bowman killed them while the family was living in Rockville and took the freezer with her when the family moved first to Charles County and later to Lusby, in Calvert County.

Bowman showed no emotion as she listened to the verdict — guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and three counts of first-degree child abuse. Jurors deliberated for about two hours.

Prosecutors said they would ask for life in prison without the possibility of parole when Bowman is sentenced March 22. Bowman’s attorneys did not immediately return a call seeking comment. She has already been sentenced to 25 years in prison in Calvert County for abusing the surviving girl.

Afterward, jurors said the main issue was whether to convict her of first- or second-degree murder. Bowman’s lawyer had argued the killings weren’t premeditated.

“I am not going to insult your intelligence and say to you that she did not hurt those children, that she did not abuse those children,” public defender Alan Drew told the jury. “Renee Bowman is not guilty of first-degree premeditated murder.”

However, prosecutors argued the killings were deliberate, and Bowman’s former cellmate testified that Bowman confided to her that she smothered them.

“She made a decision to go down, take a pillow, and smother these children,” Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said in his closing arguments.

During her testimony, the surviving girl clutched a Valentine’s Day teddy bear as she told the jury about the abuse she suffered at the hands of the woman she called her “ex-mother”

She said she and her sisters were kept in a locked room in their Rockville home.

“There was a bucket where we went to the bathroom because we weren’t allowed out of the room,” she said.

McCarthy asked the girl where she had been beaten the worst. Asked to demonstrate on the bear, she pointed to its backside and its crotch.
The girl often waved happily at her foster mother during the testimony and talked about the books she likes to read. That contrasted sharply to a photo McCarthy showed that was taken in the hospital after she was found. In the photo, she stares with frightened eyes and part of her lip is missing — a result of the abuse, authorities say.

Bowman was able to adopt the children despite being convicted of threatening a 72-year-old man over damage to her car. She also had filed for bankruptcy, even though D.C. officials said financial stability is a requirement for adoption.

RELATED STORIES

UPDATE: Woman Convicted Of Killing 4 Daughters

S.C. Man Shoots 8-Year-Old To Death

NEW YORK – The NAACP elected a health care executive as its youngest board chairman Saturday, continuing a youth movement for the nation’s oldest civil rights organization.

Roslyn M. Brock, 44, was chosen to succeed Julian Bond. She had been vice chairman since 2001 and a member of the NAACP for 25 years.

Text continues after gallery…

Brock works for Bon Secours Health Systems in Maryland as vice president for advocacy and government relations, and spent 10 years working on health issues for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. She joins Benjamin Todd Jealous, the 37-year-old CEO of the NAACP, as leader of the 500,000-member organization.

RELATED: NAACP Calls Pittsburgh Schools “Apartheid Education”

Brock said she plans to focus on pushing for policy changes to eliminate inequality, strengthening the relationship between the national and local NAACP branches and holding people accountable.

“It’s not always what someone is doing to us, but what we are doing for ourselves,” Brock said in an interview.

The departure of Bond, 70, after 10 years as board chairman marks a turning point for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Pepole.

Bond came of age in the segregated South, helped found the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and was on the front lines of the protests that led to the nation’s landmark civil rights laws. He is a symbol and icon of “the movement,” which was a defining experience for older generations.

In recent years the NAACP has endured criticism that it is old and out of touch. Then Bond brought in Jealous, then 34, as the NAACP’s youngest CEO, and endorsed Brock’s bid for board chairman.

RELATED: NAACP Protests Neighborhood Over “Whites Only” Deed

The selection of young leaders “is deliberate, but it’s also fortuitous,” Bond said. “We are lucky to have had this confluence of a young CEO and a young chair. I don’t think we plotted and planned that in 2010 the stars would align this way.”

Jealous said he belongs to a generation “whose greatest accomplishments are in front of them … who are even more hungry for change.”

Bond said the board asked him to run for another one-year term, but he declined.

“Frankly, this is the most difficult nonpaying job I’ve ever had,” said Bond, who has served in the Georgia state legislature, is a member of several corporate boards and a professor at American University and the University of Virginia.

Brock was selected in a vote by the 64-person NAACP board. Her opponent was Rev. Wendell Anthony, leader of the NAACP’s Detroit chapter, who withdrew Friday after he was not re-elected to his seat on the board.

Brock graduated from Virginia Union University and has an MBA from Northwestern, as well as master’s degrees in health care administration and divinity.

She described health care as her passion and said the current reform debate hinges on one fundamental question.

RELATED: NAACP Protests Racist Math Homework

“Am I my brother’s and my sister’s keeper?” Brock asked. “That’s the question that we’ve got to ask our legislators. Are we really, really concerned about our neighbors, and about their health, and their children’s health?”

While acknowledging the need to “retool our front line” and develop young civil rights activists, Brock said the wisdom of the older generation is still needed.

“If it were not for that ‘aging’ membership, the NAACP would not be who it is and what it is today,” she said.

Many conservatives question the need for an NAACP and say that an association for the advancement of white people would be considered racist.

Brock said the NAACP has erroneously been classified as a black group: “We are not. We are a multiracial, multiethnic organization. So as we move into our second century, our desire is to cast our net broader.”

“‘People of color’ or ‘colored people’ really speaks to those who are falling through the cracks … who feel locked out,” she said.

She said the nation was at a pivotal moment after electing the first black president.

“I’d be the first to say that at the NAACP we have to acknowledge how far we’ve come as a nation in terms of race relations, but also in that acknowledgment, understanding that we’re not where we ought to be, but we thank God we’re not what we used to be.

RELATED: NAACP Protests Obama Strip Club Banner

“We need to draw a line in the sand and say thank you, America … but also challenge America that we still have much more work to do.”

From BaltimoreSun.com:

Former state poet laureate Lucille Clifton, a National Book Award winner whose work was lauded for its “moral quality,” died Saturday at Johns Hopkins Hospital after a long battle with cancer and other illnesses. She was 73.
With a mix of profundity, earthiness and humor — amply evident in her 11 books of poetry — Ms. Clifton often defied conventional notions of poetic expression, but in many ways her themes were traditional, Wallace R. Peppers wrote in the Dictionary of Literary Biography.

“She writes of her family because she is greatly interested in making sense of their lives and relationships; she writes of adversity and success in the ghetto community; and she writes of her role as a poet,” according to Mr. Peppers.

Text continues after gallery…

Ms. Clifton, a resident of Columbia, was a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and was honored on many other occasions during her career. She was awarded honorary degrees from the University of Maryland and Towson University. She was the poet-in-residence at Coppin State College between 1971 and 1974.

Click here to read more.

RELATED:

OPINION: Are Hood Books Real Literature?

New Book Examines Black Womens’ Movie Stardom

From the Washington Post:

Travel along a two-block stretch of Central Avenue in Prince George’s County, and you’ll find a staggering 11 fast-food restaurants.

For community activist Arthur Turner and state Sen. David C. Harrington (D-Prince George’s), the strip is evidence of the proliferation of burger joints and Chinese takeouts in the county, especially in poorer, inner Capital Beltway communities.

Pointing to studies that rank Prince George’s residents among the least healthy in Maryland, Turner and Harrington want to limit new fast-food restaurants in the county, a far stricter approach than what has been enacted in such places as New York City and Montgomery County, which banned the use of trans fats in those establishments.

Click here to read more.

RELATED STORIES

Calorie Postings In Fast Food Restaurants Don’t Change Habits

OPINION: Blacks Need Health Food As Much As Health Care

WASHINGTON – A 29-year-old homeless woman has given birth to a baby girl after, police said, she was befriended by a Maryland woman who held her captive for several days and tried to cut the baby from her womb.

Officer Michelle Reedy, a spokeswoman for Prince George’s County police, said 40-year-old Veronica Deramous of Suitland, Md., has been charged with attempted first-degree murder, false imprisonment and other related charges. Police said Deramous befriended Teka Adams at a southeast Washington homeless shelter and persuaded her to come to her apartment on Dec. 1 with a promise of baby clothes and other items for the unborn child.

Once there, Reedy said, Deramous bound the woman, who was in her third trimester. Days later, the woman escaped after Deramous tried to cut the unborn baby from her body, Reedy said.

“She bound the victim’s hands and proceeded to try to cut the victim’s abdomen to try to get the baby out,” she said. “They believe she wanted the victim’s baby.”

Police said Deramous told some people she was pregnant even though she was not.

Police said Adams is expected to recover. Her daughter — named Miracle Sky — was delivered by emergency Cesarean section.
When police found Adams her “abdomen was cut and her intestines, stomach and placenta were exposed,” according a police report. In the apartment, officers found bloody towels and a bowl with water and washcloths on a bedroom floor. They also found a box cutter and some razor blades, which they believe Deramous used to cut Adams, Reedy said.

According to the police report, Deramous had her 17-year-old son hold Adams’ hands behind her back as she bound her with duct tape and then held her in a bedroom for several days. Her son has not been charged.

On Saturday, Deramous told Adams: “You’re strong, you can handle what I’m going to do to you,” the report said. She then turned up the volume of the TV in the bedroom, gagged Adams and began to cut her abdomen open. Adams moaned in pain and Deramous stopped, police said.

While Deramous slept early Sunday, Adams freed herself and fled the apartment. She went upstairs and knocked on doors before a neighbor called police. Deramous’ son told police after his mother saw Adams outside, the two women began fighting and neighbors came out, the report said. Deramous and her son then left before police arrived.

Deramous was later arrested in Virginia’s Arlington County. She remained in Virginia on Tuesday while she awaits being transported to Maryland to face the charges. There was no attorney listed for Deramous on online court records and prosecutors did not know of one.

A nun who answered the phone at the Queen of Peace, Missionaries of Charity shelter for pregnant women in southeast Washington told The Associated Press that the victim had stayed there for at least one month and left the shelter last week, but did not know Deramous.

The county Department of Social Services said it is accepting donations on behalf of the family, including clothing and money, after receiving several calls on Tuesday from those wanting to help.

Deramous was expected to appear in court on Wednesday.

Watch The Video

RELATED STORIES

Sunday School Teacher May Face Rape Charges in Killing of 8 Year Old

VIDEO: Woman Kills Son At Gun Range

From BaltimoreSun.com:

Baltimore would become home to the first East Coast museum devoted to Negro League baseball teams and players, under a $4.1 million plan that has been approved by the Dixon administration.

The plan calls for redeveloping Pennsylvania Avenue’s historic Sphinx Club and adjacent properties with a sports-themed museum, entertainment and dining complex designed to draw tourists and help rejuvenate the corridor.

The largest part of the project would be a three-story BALL House museum, which stands for Black Athletes and Lost Legends, at the northeast corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Bloom Street. The museum would contain displays about Negro League teams that played before major league baseball admitted African-Americans, including the Baltimore Elite Giants, as well as interactive exhibits such as a batting cage.

The museum would be connected to the Negro League Cafe at the Sphinx Club, a sports bar, restaurant and performance venue that would be created inside the once-vibrant Sphinx Club at 2105-07 Pennsylvania Ave. Planned by restaurateur Donald Curry, the cafe would feature autographed baseballs, photos and related Negro League memorabilia and host performances by jazz musicians and other entertainers.

Click here to read more.

RELATED:

Creator Of Iconic Obama Poster Admits Using An AP Photo

Legendary Black Artist, Ernie Barnes, Passes Away

BALTIMORE — A grand jury has indicted a man and two teenagers arrested last month on charges of beating an elderly black fisherman in a Baltimore park.

All three suspects are white. One, 27-year-old Calvin Lockner, is nicknamed “Hitler” and has a tattoo of the Nazi leader.

The victim, 76-year-old James Privott, was kicked, punched and beaten with a baseball bat. Authorities say his attackers yelled racial slurs and Lockner told police the beating would not have happened if the victim had been white.

Lockner, 17-year-old Zachary Watson and 16-year-old Emmanuel Miller were indicted Wednesday on charges including armed carjacking, armed robbery, first-degree assault and hate crime.

Privott lost two teeth and suffered a possible broken eye socket and spent a day in the hospital.