Michael Jacques was convicted in April of various charges in connection with the fire, including conspiracy against civil rights. He is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court in Springfield. He faces 10 to 60 years in prison.

Prosecutors say Jacques and two friends burned down the Macedonia Church of God in Christ in Springfield the night of Obama’s 2008 election in an act of racism. Jacques has said he was at his parents’ house that night.

The two other men have pleaded guilty in connection with the fire.

No one was injured. The church has since been rebuilt.

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“Really a lot of women, African-American women, don’t really know what their partners are doing or their partners are keeping certain aspects of their life shielded from their female partners. [...]

If a person who doesn’t know they’re infected, who is completely asymptomatic, which a lot of people are in the early stages of disease, they may go about with their regular behaviors,” said Bashar. “They’re putting tremendous amount of risk to the general public.”

And of course, also betraying someone’s trust during one of life’s most vulnerable moments. A startling 60% of HIV-positive black women in Massachusetts caught the disease from partners who either did not know their HIV status, or knew but failed to inform them. Comparatively, the leading factor for HIV infection for white women is IV drugs.

This revelation underscores how important it is for black women to insist that their partners use condoms. Recently Will.i.am called women who keep condoms at home “tacky.” Is he trying to get people killed? Clearly, such women are powerfully self-protective and intelligent.

African-American women are being affected in legions by AIDS, contracting HIV at a rate only second to that of black men. Because of this, it is important that we take control of our health by using condoms every time we are intimate with the opposite sex, regardless of what other people think. No amount of social or sexual pressure is worth your life.

Women, do you use protection every time? If not, why?

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MANCHESTER, Conn. — There is no evidence to support a man’s claim that he was a victim of racism before he fatally shot eight co-workers at a beer distribution company last year, police said Thursday.

Omar Thornton, who was black, “did not seem to understand the concept of seniority” and therefore believed he was subjected to racism at Hartford Distributors, Manchester Police Chief Marc Montminy said. The company’s most senior drivers pick the best routes, leaving the remainder for less senior workers like Thornton, Montminy said.

Thornton shot 10 people, eight of them fatally, within three minutes Aug. 3 before killing himself in what Montminy said was the worst mass shooting ever in Connecticut.

Immediately before the shootings, Thornton was fired for stealing beer. Afterward, he called 911 and told an operator: “This place is a racist place. They’re treating me bad over here. And treat all other black employees bad over here, too. So I took it to my own hands and handled the problem. I wish I could have got more of the people.”

Montminy said investigators found no evidence of racism, but were told that a drawing of President Barack Obama with a noose around his neck was seen on a bathroom wall months before the shootings and was quickly removed by the company.

The union said last year that 14 of 69 dock workers, or 20 percent, were racial minorities — four black, nine Hispanic, one Asian.

The police report said Thornton had made racist comments himself. A co-worker told authorities that Thornton asked him if he knew any good white men and said, “You got to kill them before they go bad.”

Police say the shootings appeared random. Thornton, 34, shot several workers with whom he had disputes and others with whom he did not have much contact, Montminy said.

Thornton did not shoot two disabled workers, one who was in a wheelchair and the other who is mentally disabled, “when clearly he had the opportunity to shoot them,” the police chief said.

The report describes how Thornton moved quickly through the office and warehouse, shooting co-workers at close range. The first 911 call police received was from Steve Hollander, vice president of Hartford Distributors, who was injured in the shootings.

Surveillance video shows Thornton holding a gun and his lunchbox.

“He had the gun in one hand, the lunch pail in the other,” Montminy said. “People started to flee the building from every direction.”

As soon as police arrived, Thornton barricaded himself in an office and made two calls, one to his mother and the other to 911. He then fatally shot himself.

Officials did not include crime scene photos showing the victims, but parts of the report were gruesome. For example, it described one victim who was shot in the head and whose body was badly burned by a fire started by a forklift that was still running after its driver was shot.

Police said they found victims scattered throughout the property, including the driveway, a loading dock and at least three men who were shot and found on the floor.

The report said Thornton arrived at work the day of the shooting wearing a “Rocky” T-shirt, from the Sylvester Stallone movies, and carried a lunch box that later was found to have contained two Ruger 9 mm handguns, two extra magazines and two extra boxes of 9 mm ammunition.

Officials of Manchester, 10 miles east of Hartford, met Wednesday with families of the victims, Montminy said.

The police report describes Thornton as a hard worker who was likable but had learning disabilities. On one occasion at a previous job, he refused an order and walked off the job. He also was fired from a job for stealing $250 given to him to refuel a truck, police said.

He was hired at Hartford Distributors two years to the day before the shootings and told a fellow worker he was unhappy working in the warehouse because he believed he had been hired as a driver.

Thornton’s friends and loved ones have said he had long complained about racial injustice. His girlfriend said he showed her cell phone photos of racist drawings on a bathroom wall, but Montminy said police did not find the images on the cell phone.

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Belmont Lt. Rick Santangelo said the woman initially contacted police last week and reported that she was walking her dog when she saw the motorist nearly hit a man on a bicycle.

Santangelo said the motorist contacted police the next day to report being struck in the face with dog feces.

The woman was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, vandalism to property and disorderly conduct.

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Massachusetts education officials say the state’s black public high school students are outperforming their peers nationwide when it comes to the SAT.

Black students made strong gains in all three subjects in 2010 when compared with 2009, including an eight-point gain in critical reading, a nine-point gain in mathematics, and a seven-point gain in writing.

The math and writing gains outpaced national gains and means African-American students on average now outscore their peers nationally in both sections of the college entrance exam.

The result released by The College Board on Monday also show that Massachusetts scored 524 in math, an increase of two points from 2009, outscoring all other states where at least 60 percent of public school students participated.

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Itemlive has a story about the Lynn, Massachusetts Ministry program that is a regional finalist for World Magazine’s 2010 Hope Award for Effective Compassion.

Pastors Claire Sullivan and Eugene Schneeberg had no idea why WORLD Magazine wanted to meet up with their organization, Straight Ahead Ministries.

Straight Ahead, a national organization that has held a branch in Lynn for eight years, is being credited as part the reason that gang violence in the city seems to have declined this summer. The ministry is most noted for creating forgiveness and reconciliation between rival gangs, both inside and outside the penitentiary system. Straight Ahead leaders said they have reduced the rate of recidivism for Lynn youth from 85 to 15 percent.

Read The Whole Story

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Police in Massachusetts are investigating the mysterious disappearance of Trudie Hall, a pregnant Nantucket woman who has been missing for almost a month. Media reports suggest Hall may have been married to two men and leading a double life, but those who know her best say all that matters is getting her home safe.

“It has really been a very treacherous experience for all concerned,” the family pastor, the Rev. Donovan Kerr, told AOL News. “We are just waiting right now for the detectives to release whatever their findings are.”

Police describe Hall, a 23-year-old native of Jamaica, as black, 5 feet, 4 inches tall, weighing 160 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. She was last seen July 27, when she left her Nantucket home for a doctor’s appointment scheduled for the next day on Cape Cod. Hall spent the night at Bayside Resort in West Yarmouth, but vanished sometime before her appointment.

Text continues after Pics of the Week gallery:

Police in Massachusetts are investigating the mysterious disappearance of a pregnant Nantucket woman. Trudie Hall, shown in this undated handout photo, was last seen July 27.

Hall’s mother, Vivienne Walker, said it was out of character for her daughter to take off without notifying someone.

Read entire article at AOLnews.com

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The W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research presents its annual lecture series at the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown this evening, beginning at 5 pm.

Henry Louis Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr. will moderate Locked Up, Locked Out: Black Men in America tonight at the Old Whaling Church. Photo by Lynn Christoffers

For the past several years, the event has gathered distinguished intellectuals in an array of fields to discuss a topic chosen for its applicability to current events and the African American community. Last year’s topic, Achieving Equality in the Age of Obama, gathered an insightful array of perspectives on race and equality (and lack thereof) in the 21st century.

Text continues after Pictures of the Week gallery:

This year’s focus, Locked Out, Locked Up: Black Men in America, while perhaps more specialized, is equally as pervasive. For the hour and a half discussion, panelists will offer their perspectives on the epidemic of imprisoned black men in the United States.

Read entire article at MVTimes.com

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PROVINCETOWN, Mass. (CBS/AP) — How young is too young?

That’s the question a Massachusetts public school is facing as they have come under fire for making condoms available to all students, even those in elementary school.

Children start first grade between 5 and 7 years old.

Kris Mineau, president of the conservative Massachusetts Family Institute, calls the idea absurd.

But Provincetown School Board Chairman Peter Grosso defended the policy, saying there is no set age when sexual activity starts.

Under the policy, any student requesting a condom from a school nurse must first receive counseling, which includes information on abstinence. The policy does not require the school to contact parents.

The policy was approved by Provincetown’s school committee June 10. It takes effect in the fall.

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SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – One of three white men charged with burning down a predominantly black Massachusetts church hours after President Barack Obama’s election has pleaded guilty to civil rights charges.

Benjamin Haskell pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to charges of conspiracy and damaging religious property because of race, color or ethnic characteristics.

Under the terms of a plea deal with prosecutors, he faces a sentence of nine years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 29.

The 23-year-old Haskell is one of three men charged in connection with the fire that destroyed the Macedonia Church of God in Christ in Springfield, Mass. The fire was set in the early morning hours of Nov. 5, 2008, the morning after Obama was elected as the nation’s first black president.

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BOSTON (AP) — A person familiar with the investigation says one of three white men accused of torching a predominantly black Massachusetts church because they were angry with President Barack Obama’s election has agreed to plead guilty.

Benjamin Haskell is due for a change of plea hearing Tuesday in federal court in Springfield, Mass. The 23-year-old Haskell had pleaded not guilty to conspiracy charges.

A person informed of the change of plea tells The Associated Press that Haskell will plead guilty. The person spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the hearing.

Haskell’s attorney and federal prosecutors did not immediately return messages.

The fire destroyed the Macedonia Church of God in Christ in Springfield on Nov. 5, 2008, just hours after the election.

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From The Boston Globe

A complaint filed last week with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination alleges that a foreclosure notice placed in the New Bedford Standard-Times by a Newton law firm contained racist language.

The legal notice, which first appeared May 17 and drew its wording directly from the property’s deed, stated that ‘‘The said land shall not be sold, leased or rented to any person other than of the Caucasian race.’’

The statement was removed from later editions of the paper, and both the New Bedford Standard-Times and Harmon Law have issued apologies for the ad.

Click Here For More

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BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick says national Republicans are bordering on “sedition” as they oppose his good friend and party ally President Barack Obama.

The Democrat on Monday decried criticism of his governing efforts during a forum for students at Suffolk University’s Rappaport Center. But he says that “seems like child’s play compared to what’s going on in Washington.”

He says partisanship in the capital “is almost at the level of sedition,” or bordering on insurrection. He mocks Republicans by saying, “If the president says ‘up,’ we will say ‘down.’”

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The governor later called his sedition comment a “rhetorical flourish.”

The Republican National Committee hasn’t returned messages seeking a response to his remarks.

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BOSTON – The tea party movement is returning to the city from which its revolutionary spirit was born, with Sarah Palin headlining a final rally before the activists’ cross-country tour culminates in Washington on Tax Day.

A crowd of up to 10,000 was forecast Wednesday for Boston Common, just across town from Boston Harbor, where the original Tea Party occurred in 1773 among colonists upset about British taxation without government representation.

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Some 237 years later, the speaking roster included several conservative radio hosts, as well as Victoria Jackson of NBC-TV’s “Saturday Night Live” and Jim Labriola of ABC-TV’s “Home Improvement.”

Yet the event was equally noteworthy for its absences, including that of Sen. Scott Brown. The fiscally conservative, small government, anti-Obama movement has claimed the Republican as its proudest accomplishment after he upset Democrats in this historically blue state and claimed the U.S. Senate seat held for nearly a half-century by liberal iconEdward M. Kennedy.

Officially, Brown’s staff says he’s too busy with his congressional duties — but he also kept the movement at a respectful distance during his campaign last winter.

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If he gets too close, the freshman senator, who’s still getting used to his national profile, risks being aligned with the tea party’s more radical elements, which have questioned the legitimacy of everything from President Barack Obama’s U.S. birthplace to his college degree.

“His ‘business in Congress’ is getting re-elected in 2012, and to do that, he needs to present a moderate image. Going to a tea party rally is about the last thing he needs,” said Jeffrey Berry, a political science professor at Brown’s alma mater, Tufts University.

“Brown doesn’t want to turn his back on his potential supporters, but he doesn’t want any photographs in the midst of an overly enthusiastic or bombastic event,” the professor added.

The rally, being held across the street from the Massachusetts Statehouse, will be the next-to-last event in the 20-day, 47-city Tea Party Express tour concluding Thursday in Washington.

Palin also spoke on the first day in Searchlight, Nev., hometown of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democratic target of the movement.

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From the Washington Post:

President Obama on Wednesday blamed the Democrats’ stunning loss of their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate on his administration’s failure to give voice to the economic frustrations of the middle class, a disconnect that White House aides vowed to quickly address as they continue to work to advance the president’s agenda.

Obama said the relentless pursuit of his domestic policies — and a failure to adequately explain their virtues — had left Americans with a “feeling of remoteness and detachment” from the flurry of government actions in Washington.

“We were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

Click here to read more.

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BOSTON — In an epic upset in liberal Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown rode a wave of voter anger to win the U.S. Senate seat held by the late Edward M. Kennedy for nearly half a century, leaving President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul in doubt and marring the end of his first year in office.

Addressing an exuberant victory celebration Tuesday night, Brown declared he was “ready to go to Washington without delay” as the crowd chanted, “Seat him now.” Democrats indicated they would, deflating a budding controversy over whether they would try to block Brown long enough to complete congressional passage of the health care plan he has promised to oppose.

“The people of Massachusetts have spoken. We welcome Scott Brown to the Senate and will move to seat him as soon as the proper paperwork has been received,” said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin said he would notify the Senate on Wednesday that Brown had been elected.

The loss by the once-favored Democrat Martha Coakley in the Democratic stronghold was a stunning embarrassment for the White House after Obama rushed to Boston on Sunday to try to save the foundering candidate. Her defeat on Tuesday signaled big political problems for the president’s party this fall when House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates are on the ballot nationwide.

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Brown’s victory was the third major loss for Democrats in statewide elections since Obama became president. Republicans won governors’ seats in Virginia and New Jersey in November.

“I have no interest in sugarcoating what happened in Massachusetts,” said Sen. Robert Menendez, the head of the Senate Democrats’ campaign committee. “There is a lot of anxiety in the country right now. Americans are understandably impatient.”

Brown will become the 41st Republican in the 100-member Senate, which could allow the GOP to block the president’s health care legislation. Democrats needed Coakley to win for a 60th vote to thwart Republican filibusters. The trouble may go deeper: Democratic lawmakers could read the results as a vote against Obama’s broader agenda, weakening their support for the president. And the results could scare some Democrats from seeking office this fall.

The Republican will finish Kennedy’s unexpired term, facing re-election in 2012.

Brown led by 52 per cent to 47 percent with all but 3 percent of precincts counted. Turnout was exceptional for a special election in January, with light snow reported in parts of the state. More voters showed up at the polls Tuesday than in any non-presidential general election in Massachusetts since 1990.

One day shy of the first anniversary of Obama’s swearing-in, the election played out amid a backdrop of animosity and resentment from voters over persistently high unemployment, Wall Street bailouts, exploding federal budget deficits and partisan wrangling over health care.

“I voted for Obama because I wanted change. … I thought he’d bring it to us, but I just don’t like the direction that he’s heading,” said John Triolo, 38, a registered independent who voted in Fitchburg.

He said his frustrations, including what he considered the too-quick pace of health care legislation, led him to vote for Brown.

For weeks considered a long shot, Brown seized on voter discontent to overtake Coakley in the campaign’s final stretch. His candidacy energized Republicans, including backers of the “tea party” protest movement, while attracting disappointed Democrats and independents uneasy with where they felt the nation was heading.

A cornerstone of Brown’s campaign was his promise to vote against the health care plan.

Though the president wasn’t on the ballot, he was on many voters’ minds.

Coakley called Brown conceding the race, and Obama talked to both Brown and Coakley, congratulating them on the race.

The Democrat said the president told her: “We can’t win them all.”

Brown will be the first Republican senator from Massachusetts in 30 years.

RELATED: Sen. Ted Kennedy Dies At Age 77

Even before the first results were announced, administration officials were privately accusing Coakley of a poorly run campaign and playing down the notion that Obama or a toxic political landscape had much to do with the outcome.

Coakley’s supporters, in turn, blamed that very environment, saying her lead dropped significantly after the Senate passed health care reform shortly before Christmas and after the Christmas Day attempted airliner bombing that Obama himself said showed a failure of his administration.

Days before the polls closed, Democrats were fingerpointing and laying blame.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, head of the House Democrats’ campaign effort, said Coakley’s loss won’t deter his colleagues from continuing to blame the previous administration.

“President George W. Bush and House Republicans drove our economy into a ditch and tried to run away from the accident,” he said. “President Obama and congressional Democrats have been focused repairing the damage to our economy.”

At Boston’s Park Plaza Hotel, giddy Republicans cheered, chanted “USA” and waved the “tea party” version of the American flag.

Even before Brown won, the grass-roots network fueled by antiestablishment frustrations, sought credit for the victory, much like the liberal MoveOn.org did in the 2006 midterm elections when Democrats rose to power.

GOP chairman Michael Steele said Brown’s “message of lower taxes, smaller government and fiscal responsibility clearly resonated with independent-minded voters in Massachusetts who were looking for a solution to decades of failed Democrat leadership.”

Wall Street watched the election closely. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 116 points, and analysts attributed the increase to hopes the election would make it harder for Obama to make his changes to health care. That eased investor concerns that profits at companies such as insurers and drug makers would suffer.

Across Massachusetts, voters who had been bombarded with phone calls and dizzied with nonstop campaign commercials for Coakley and Brown gave a fitting turnout despite intermittent snow and rain statewide.

Galvin, who discounted sporadic reports of voter irregularities throughout the day, predicted turnout ranging from 1.6 million to 2.2 million, 40 percent to 55 percent of registered voters. The Dec. 8 primary had a scant turnout of about 20 percent.

Voters considered national issues including health care and the federal budget deficits.

Fears about spending drove Karla Bunch, 49, to vote for Brown. “It’s time for the country, for the taxpayers, to take back their money,” she said. And Elizabeth Reddin, 65, voted for Brown because she said she was turned off by the Democrat’s negative advertisements, saying: “The Coakley stuff was disgusting.”

From Boston.com:

As the elders of the Myrtle Baptist Church in West Newton looked for a new pastor last year, they went to hear a young divinity student deliver a guest sermon at a church in Mattapan. They didn’t expect much: Brandon T. Crowley was only 23.

“Clearly the folks went out there and thought they were going to hear some whippersnapper, and when they went out and heard him, they were floored,’’ said Thomas Johnson Jr., a deacon and a trustee at Myrtle Baptist. The search committee was so impressed by Crowley’s preaching that they named him one of the finalists for the position. A few weeks later, Myrtle Baptist asked him to be its next pastor.

And so Crowley, just a year after receiving his undergraduate degree, last summer took over the leadership of the historic African-American congregation, founded in 1874 by freed slaves and the sons of former slaves, and housed in a Curve Street building named to the National Register of Historic Places a year ago. Crowley replaced the church’s longtime, and much beloved, pastor, the Rev. Howard M. Haywood, leaving for retirement.

“To be honest, I didn’t think I would get the church because I am 23 and the church is 135,’’ Crowley said, speaking in his office at Myrtle Baptist. Crowley splits his time between the church and Harvard Divinity School, where he is a Presidential Scholar and expects to graduate with a master of divinity degree next year.

Crowley says he is observing Myrtle before making any changes. “I’m doing a Louisiana tradition, and before adding anything to the gumbo I’m going to taste the gumbo,’’ he said.

But already, he is making his mark. He brought back a youth minister to the church, for the first time in at least 15 years, Johnson said. He is attracting more young people and families to the church. And his preaching, eloquent and forthright, is gaining attention.

“He’s a very unique combination of Southern-style preaching, but he brings an element of preaching to his Southern style that is very erudite,’’ said the Rev. John M. Borders III, pastor of Morning Star Baptist Church in Mattapan. “He is a brilliant young man and a brilliant theologian.’’

Click here to read more.

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From the NY Times:

NEWTON, Mass. — Setti Warren was a toddler out with his mother one day in the 1970s when white teenagers hurled rocks and racial epithets their way, prompting his outraged father to call City Hall.

Almost four decades later, Mr. Warren will be inaugurated next Friday as Newton’s first African-American mayor, taking charge of a city where blacks still make up only 3 percent of the population but where skin color played virtually no role, he said, in his race against a white opponent.

“I’m actually really proud of that,” he said last week, sitting in his empty transition office near the Massachusetts Turnpike. “People were willing to look beyond race in making their decision, and that’s a tribute to Newton and its progressive nature.”

Click here to read more.

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From HuffingtonPost.com:

A Boston woman suffered minor injuries when her purse got stuck in a departing “T” train and pulled her along the platform with it. As she was boarding, the doors abruptly shut, trapping her purse between them. The woman attempted to yank it out for about five seconds, but the momentum of the train sent her flying.

The train attendant who was responsible for monitoring the doorway was fired, while the driver was suspended for 10 days, William Mitchell, MBTA general manager, said in a statement.

This is the second train incident to happen in Boston recently. A drunk woman narrowly escaped being run over by a train when she fell onto the tracks last month.

Click here to read more.

WATCH the incredible video here:

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From the Daily Comet:

A bill before the legislature would require some of Massachusetts oldest banking, financial and insurance companies to look deep into their history – and the histories of subsidiaries and predecessor companies – to uncover links to the slave trade, as a condition of doing business with the state.

It also would authorize the secretary of state to produce a book documenting to what extent the state, since the times of the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies, benefited from slavery, whether through taxes or economic growth.

RELATED: Not So Fast, Senate: How Slavery Reparations Might Work

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Byron Rushing, D-Boston, said understanding that difficult history is key to any future discussion of apologies or reparation claims tied to slavery. He said most people underestimate the economic significance of slavery to the growth of the country and the state.

“Part of the problem is that people are ignorant of what slavery actually was,” he said. “Most people’s views of slavery are attached to abolition – not the ongoing horror of slavery, but the end of slavery.”

The focus on Massachusetts may seem misplaced at first. The state was the first to abolish slavery, recording no slaves in a 1790 federal census, Rushing said. Massachusetts also was a center of abolitionist activity in the years leading up to the Civil War.

A monument to the famed 54th Massachusetts regiment, the band of black soldiers who charged entrenched Confederates during an attack on South Carolina’s Battery Wagner, sits opposite the Statehouse.

But while the state distanced itself from slavery early in the nation’s history, some Massachusetts residents and institutions continued to profit from the trade up to and even after the Civil War when the trade continued to flourish outside the country, Rushing said.

RELATED: OPINION: Should Black People Be Grateful For Slavery?

One prime target is insurance companies that offered policies to slave owners covering their slaves.

Massachusetts isn’t the first state to consider untangling its historic economic ties to the slave trade.

California passed the nation’s first law forcing insurance companies that do business with the state to disclose their slavery ties. Illinois passed a similar insurance law in 2003, and Iowa has also begun requesting the same disclosures.

Click here to read more.

Law Professor Charles J. Ogletree Jr.’s name has emerged as one of the top candidates to fill Edward M. Kennedy’s ’54-’56 Senate seat in media reports, even as speculation swirled late last night that Mass. Governor Deval L. Patrick ’78 would instead pick Paul G. Kirk Jr., a longtime friend of Kennedy’s, as a stand-in for the late liberal senator.

According to media reports, Patrick is slated to announce his choice as early as tomorrow. The decision has garnered heightened scrutiny and pressure from Congressional Democrats who fear that a Senate majority without a vote from Kennedy’s former seat may not be sufficient to pass health-care reform.

REALTED: Sen. Ted Kennedy Dies At Age 77

The Massachusetts Senate approved a bill yesterday to authorize Patrick to appoint an interim Senator until a permanent successor can be chosen by special election. In what was seen as an effort to bolster Democratic efforts to pass a health-care reform package, Kennedy requested in the weeks before his death that the state legislature act to amend the law to allow for an interim successor to be put in place immediately after his death.

In addition to Kirk and Ogletree, media speculation points to former Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Murphy and former Governor Michael Dukakis as other potential candidates.

The Boston Globe reported yesterday that Kennedy’s widow, Victoria Kennedy, and his two sons, U.S. Representative Patrick J. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy Jr., have informed Patrick that Kirk, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is their first choice.

Senator Kennedy’s successor will serve until a permanent replacement is selected during a Jan. 19 special election.

RELATED: EDITORIAL: What Ted Kennedy Meant To Black Folks

Yesterday, Ogletree received a ringing endorsement from colleagues at the Law School who praised his qualities as a potential senator.

Law School Professor Laurence H. Tribe—a friend of Ogletree’s and a mentor to President Obama during his time at the Law School—said Ogletree would make an excellent replacement for Kennedy.

Tribe declined to comment as to whether he thought Ogletree was interested in the position, saying only that “[Ogletree] has said publicly that he is committed to the work that he is doing with the Hamilton Institute and that he has no other interests.”

But Law School Professor Alan M. Dershowitz offered a far less restrained assessment yesterday.

“It would be the most wonderful thing imaginable!” he said. “‘Tree’ would be a most distinguished senator—he brings every conceivable talent to bear: he’s brilliant, he’s politically sophisticated, and he has a heart of gold.”

As to whether Ogletree is interested in the position, Dershowitz said he could only hope that he would be willing to take on the role.

Click here to read more.

[SOURCE: The Harvard Crimson]

From the NY Times:

BOSTON — The push for swiftly naming an interim successor to Senator Edward M. Kennedy intensified Wednesday in the wake of his death, with Gov. Deval Patrick coming out strongly in favor of the idea and other top state lawmakers indicating they were reluctant to leave the seat vacant for months.

Mr. Kennedy, concerned about the loss of a Democratic vote during the fevered effort to pass a national health care overhaul — his most cherished legislative goal — had asked state leaders in a letter last week to make such a change possible.

RELATED: EDITORIAL: What Ted Kennedy Meant To Black Folks

Wednesday, Democrats in Washington stepped up pressure on the governor to see Mr. Kennedy’s wish fulfilled, and state legislative leaders said they would immerse themselves in the issue after a mourning period for Mr. Kennedy.

Under current law, a special election could not take place until at least 145 days after a Senate seat opens, in this case, mid-January. Mr. Kennedy’s proposal would let Mr. Patrick, a Democrat, appoint a temporary replacement sooner.

The governor said he would sign a change in the law if the legislature approved it. He said it was important for Massachusetts to have two voices in the Senate as Congress prepares to vote on overhauling the health care system — contentious legislation whose passage may well require every Democratic vote.

RELATED: VIDEO: President Obama Speaks About Ted Kennedy

“It’s a particularly timely request at a time when there are such profoundly important issues pending in the Congress,” Mr. Patrick told reporters outside the State House, adding that he had spoken with Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, earlier in the day about the importance of filling Mr. Kennedy’s seat. “I’m looking at the issues that are in front of the country right now and how important they are to all of us.”

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Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the last surviving brother in a political dynasty and one of the most influential senators in history, died Tuesday night at his home on Cape Cod after a year-long struggle with brain cancer. He was 77.

In nearly 50 years in the Senate, Kennedy, a liberal Democrat, served alongside 10 presidents — his brother John Fitzgerald Kennedy among them — compiling an impressive list of legislative achievements on health care, civil rights, education, immigration and more.

His only run for the White House ended in defeat in 1980. More than a quarter-century later, he handed then-Sen. Barack Obama an endorsement at a critical point in the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, explicitly likening the young contender to President Kennedy.

To the American public, Kennedy was best known as the last surviving son of America’s most glamorous political family, father figure and, memorably, eulogist of an Irish-American clan plagued again and again by tragedy.

Kennedy’s death triggered an outpouring of superlatives, from Democrats and Republicans as well as foreign leaders.

“An important chapter in our history has come to an end. Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States senator of our time,” Obama said in a written statement.

“For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well being of the American peoplebore his name and resulted from his efforts,” said Obama, vacationing at Martha’s Vineyard off the Massachusetts coast.

Kennedy’s family announced his death in a brief statement released early Wednesday.

“We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever,” the statement said. “We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all.”

A few hours later, two vans left the family compound at Hyannis Port in pre-dawn darkness. Both bore hearse license plates — with the word “hearse” blacked out.

There was no immediate word on funeral arrangements. Two of Kennedy’s brothers, John and Robert, are buried at Arlington National Cemetery across the Potomac River from Washington.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada issued a statement that said, “It was the thrill of my lifetime to work with Ted Kennedy…..The liberal lion’s mighty roar may now fall silent, but his dream shall never die.”

Former First Lady Nancy Reagan said that her husband and Kennedy “could always find common ground, and they had great respect for one another.”

Kennedy was elected to the Senate in 1962, taking the seat that his brother John had occupied before winning the White House, and served longer than all but two senators in history.

His own hopes of reaching the White House were damaged — perhaps doomed — in 1969 by the scandal that came to be known as Chappaquiddick, an auto accident that left a young woman dead. He sought the White House more than a decade later, lost the Democratic nomination to President Jimmy Carter, and bowed out with a stirring valedictory that echoed across the decades: “For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.”

Kennedy was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor in May 2008 and underwent surgery and a grueling regimen of radiation and chemotherapy.

He made a surprise return to the Capitol last summer to cast the decisive vote for the Democrats on Medicare. He made sure he was there again last January to see his former Senate colleague Barack Obamasworn in as the nation’s first black president, but suffered a seizure at a celebratory luncheon afterward.

He also made a surprise and forceful appearance at last summer’s Democratic National Convention, where he spoke of his own illness and said health care was the cause of his life. His death occurred precisely one year later, almost to the hour.

He was away from the Senate for much of this year, leaving Republicans and Democrats to speculate about the impact what his absence meant for the fate of Obama’s health care proposals.

Under state law, Kennedy’s successor will be chosen by special election. In his last known public act, the senator urged state officials to give Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick the power to name an interim replacement. But that appears unlikely, leaving Democrats in Washington with one less vote for the next several months as they struggle to pass Obama’s health care legislation.

His death came less than two weeks after that of his sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver on Aug. 11. Kennedy was not present for the funeral, an indication of the precariousness of his own health.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Kennedy’s son Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., said his father had defied the predictions of doctors by surviving more than a year with his fight against brain cancer.

The younger Kennedy said that gave family members a surprise blessing, as they were able to spend more time with the senator and to tell him how much he had meant to their lives.

“There are very few people who have touched the life of this nation in the same breadth and the same order of magnitude,” Obama said in April as he signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act into law.

Kennedy arrived at his place in the Senate after a string of family tragedies. He was the only one of the four Kennedy brothers to die of natural causes.

Kennedy’s eldest brother, Joseph, was killed in a plane crash in World War II. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down in Los Angeles as he campaigned for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination. Years later, in 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr. was killed in a plane crash at age 38 along with his wife.

It fell to Ted Kennedy to deliver the eulogies, to comfort his brothers’ widows, to mentor fatherless nieces and nephews. It was Ted Kennedy who walked JFK‘s daughter, Caroline, down the aisle at her wedding.

Tragedy had a way of bringing out his eloquence.

Kennedy sketched a dream of a better future as he laid to rest his brother Robert in 1968: “My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.”

After John Jr.’s death, the senator said: “We dared to think, in that other Irish phrase, that this John Kennedywould live to comb gray hair, with his beloved Carolyn by his side. But like his father, he had every gift but length of years.”

His own legacy was blighted on the night of July 18, 1969, when Kennedy drove his car off a bridge and into a pond on Chappaquiddick Island, on Martha’s Vineyard. Mary Jo Kopechne, a 28-year-old worker with RFK’s campaign, was found dead in the submerged car’s back seat 10 hours later.

Kennedy, then 37, pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and received a two-month suspended sentence and a year’s probation. A judge eventually determined there was “probable cause to believe that Kennedy operated his motor vehicle negligently … and that such operation appears to have contributed to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne.”

At the height of the scandal, Kennedy went on national television to explain himself in an extraordinary 13-minute address in which he denied driving drunk and rejected rumors of “immoral conduct” with Ms. Kopechne. He said he was haunted by “irrational” thoughts immediately after the accident, and wondered “whether some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys.” He said his failure to report the accident right away was “indefensible.”

After Chappaquiddick especially, Kennedy gained a reputation as a heavy drinker and a womanizer, a tragically flawed figure haunted by the fear that he did not quite measure up to his brothers. As his weight ballooned, he was lampooned by comics and cartoonists in the 1980s and ’90s as the very embodiment of government waste, bloat and decadence.

But in his later years, after he had remarried, he came to be regarded as a statesman on Capitol Hill, seen as one of the most effective, hardworking lawmakers Washington has ever seen.

A barrel-chested figure with a swath of white hair, a booming voice and a thick, widely imitated Boston accent, he coupled fist-pumping floor speeches with his well-honed Irish charm and formidable negotiating skills. He was both a passionate liberal and a clear-eyed pragmatist, willing to reach across the aisle to get things done.

Kennedy’s speech in accepting defeat to Carter electrified the Democratic convention and turned out to be a defining moment. At 48, he seemed liberated from the towering expectations and high hopes invested in him after the death of his brothers, and he plunged into his work in the Senate.

First elected to the Senate in 1962 to his brother John‘s seat, easily re-elected in 2006, Kennedy served close to 47 years, longer than all but two senators in history: Robert Byrd of West Virginia (50 years and counting) and the late Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who died after a tenure of nearly 47 1/2 years. Kennedy’s career spanned 10 presidencies.

His legislative achievements included bills to provide health insurance for children of the working poor, the landmark 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, Meals on Wheels for the elderly, abortion clinic access, family leave, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

He was also a key negotiator on legislation creating a Medicare prescription drug benefit for senior citizens and was a driving force for peace in Ireland and a persistent critic of the war in Iraq.

Kennedy did not always prevail. In late 2008, he unsuccessfully lobbied for niece Caroline’s appointment to the Senate from New York. New York Gov. David Paterson chose then-Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand instead.

Wildly popular among Democrats, Kennedy routinely won re-election by large margins. He grew comfortable in his role as Republican foil and leader of his party’s liberal wing.

President George W. Bush welcomed Kennedy to the Rose Garden on several occasions as he signed bills that the Democrat helped write.

“He’s the kind of person who will state his case, sometimes quite eloquently and vociferously, and then on another issue will come along and you can work with him,” Bush said shortly before his first term began in 2001.

But Bush was also the target of some of Kennedy’s sharpest attacks. Kennedy assailed the Iraq war as Bush’s Vietnam, a conflict “made up in Texas” and marketed by the Bush administration for political gain.

Kennedy and his niece Caroline shook up the Democratic establishment in January 2008 when they endorsed Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton for the nomination for president.

After Obama won in November, Kennedy renewed words once spoken by his brother John, declaring: “The world is changing. The old ways will not do. … It is time for a new generation of leadership.”

Born in 1932, the youngest of Joseph and Rose Kennedy’s nine children, Edward Moore Kennedy was part of a family bristling with political ambition, beginning with maternal grandfather John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, a congressman and mayor of Boston.

Round-cheeked Teddy was thrown out of Harvard in 1951 for cheating, after arranging for a classmate to take a freshman Spanish exam for him. He eventually returned, earning his degree in 1956.

He went on to the University of Virginia Law School, and in 1962, while his brother John was president, announced plans to run for the Senate seat JFK had vacated in 1960. A family friend had held the seat in the interim because Kennedy was not yet 30, the minimum age for a senator.

Kennedy was immediately involved in a bruising primary campaign against state Attorney General Edward J. McCormack, a nephew of U.S. House Speaker John W. McCormack.

“If your name was simply Edward Moore, your candidacy would be a joke,” chided McCormack.

Kennedy won the primary by 300,000 votes and went on to overwhelmingly defeat Republican George Cabot Lodge, son of the late Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, in the general election.

Devastated by his brothers’ assassinations and injured in a 1964 plane crash that left him with back pain that would plague him for decades, Kennedy temporarily withdrew from public life in 1968. But he re-emerged in 1969 to be elected majority whip of the Senate.

Then came Chappaquiddick.

Kennedy still handily won re-election in 1970, but he lost his leadership job. He remained outspoken in his opposition to the Vietnam War and support of social programs but ruled out a 1976 presidential bid.

In the summer of 1978, a Gallup Poll showed that Democrats preferred Kennedy over President Carter 54 percent to 32 percent. A year later, Kennedy decided to run for the White House with a campaign that accused Carter of turning his back on the Democratic agenda.

The difficult task of dislodging a sitting president was compounded by Kennedy’s fumbling answer to a question posed by CBS’ Roger Mudd: Why do you want to be president?

“Well, it’s um, you know you have to come to grips with the different issues that, ah, we’re facing,” Kennedy said. “I mean, we can, we have to deal with each of the various questions of the economy, whether it’s in the area of energy …”

He bowed out of the race after getting roundly beaten by Carter in the primaries and losing a rules battle at the Democratic convention. Later, when asked to assess the campaign, he replied: “Well, I learned to lose, and for a Kennedy that’s hard.”

Kennedy married Virginia Joan Bennett, known as Joan, in 1958. They divorced in 1982. In 1992, he married Washington lawyer Victoria Reggie. His survivors include a daughter, Kara Kennedy Allen; two sons, Edward Jr. and Patrick, a congressman from Rhode Island; and two stepchildren, Caroline and Curran Raclin.

In 1991, Kennedy roused his nephew William Kennedy Smith and his son Patrick from bed to go out for drinks while staying at the family’s Palm Beach, Fla., estate. Later that night, a woman Smith met at a bar accused him of raping her at the home.

Smith was acquitted, but the senator’s carousing — and testimony about him wandering about the house in his shirttails and no pants — further damaged his reputation.

Kennedy offered a mea culpa in a speech at Harvard that October, recognizing “my own shortcomings, the faults in the conduct of my private life.”

Later on, his second wife appeared to have a calming influence on him, helping him rehabilitate his image.

Kennedy’s family life has been marked by illness.

Edward Jr. lost a leg to bone cancer in 1973 at age 12. Kara had a cancerous tumor removed from her lung in 2003. In 1988, Patrick had a noncancerous tumor pressing on his spine removed. He has also struggled with depression and addiction and announced in June that he was re-entering rehab.

Kennedy’s memoir, “True Compass,” is set to be published in the fall.

From the NYTimes.com:

THINGS for President Obama to do when on vacation here next week: shoot some hoops, view the majestic Aquinnah Cliffs, peruse the Featherstone Flea Market and, if the owner of C’est la Vie, a clothing store here, has his way, buy the T-shirt that lays out all these options.

The Obamas are vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard, and the only ones working harder than Secret Service agents to get ready are the souvenir shop, restaurant and other store owners scrambling to stock and sell T-shirts, posters and muffins commemorating the Obamas’ first vacation as first family.

“Look at that, an ‘Obamarita,’ ” said Kathy Santaniello, a tourist from Wilbraham, Mass. as she walked past Sharky’s Cantina here, which advertised the drink — a margarita made with crushed mandarin oranges (rumored to be Mr. Obama’s favorite fruit), pineapple juice (a nod to his Hawaiian heritage), triple sec and tequila.

Eric Godbout, a bartender, said the drink had been selling briskly ever since the White House announced the president will arrive here Aug. 23. Michelle Obama and their daughters are expected to arrive earlier.

Click here for full story.

Eight participants in a federal program aimed at helping ex-convicts stay off drugs will be honored by their friends and families at a graduation ceremony with a special guest: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr.

Holder is scheduled to speak to graduates of the Court Assisted Recovery Effort at a ceremony Thursday in U.S. District Court.

The yearlong program is for inmates who have completed federal prison terms and are on supervised release. It requires participants to meet with a judge weekly to talk about their efforts to find jobs and stay out of trouble. Participants also are referred for treatment, job training and counseling.

Boston was one of the first federal court districts to have such a program. There are now more than a dozen other districts running similar programs.

UPDATE 5/26/09

From the New York Post

A brilliant scholar from Brooklyn is being eyed as the possible link between a slain pot dealer and three men who killed him in her Harvard dorm last week, sources said.

Chanequa Campbell, 21, has been banned from the campus and told she won’t be graduating with her class next month as authorities continue to investigate the murder of Justin Cosby, her lawyer said.

“I’m hurt and I’m confused,” Campbell told The Post last night. “For me not to be graduating is frustrating.

“Harvard is doing this to me because I’m black, I’m poor and I’m from Brooklyn.”

“This is incredibly hurtful to know it’s only me that has been kicked off campus,” Campbell said. “I’m feeling I’m being scapegoated and I can’t defend myself.”

She admitted to knowing Copney, but only through Smith.

Campbell, who suffers from the autoimmune disease lupus, is a sociology major and National Merit Scholar. She has won scholarships from Goldman Sachs, Coca-Cola and The New York Times.

Read the Whole Story

Harvard Murder Exposes Campus Drug Trade

UPDATE 5/25/09

From the New York Post

A young Harlem woman who won a scholarship to Harvard was identified yesterday by sources at the university as the girlfriend of the New York City man accused of killing a drug dealer at a campus dorm.

Brittany Smith, 22, has left the Harvard residence hall where the gun used to kill pot dealer Justin Cosby last week had been stashed and is now in hiding until she graduates next week, sources said.

An aspiring lawyer who majored in sociology and minored in African-American studies, Smith “is a very kind, intelligent girl,” a fellow student said.

“She is enormously grounded, and everyone is surprised that she is caught up in this.”

He, another student and a professor said Smith — a 2005 graduate of Frederick Douglass Academy in Harlem who had won a Harvard volunteer award — had been dating accused killer Jabrai Jordan Copney, also of Harlem

From the Boston Globe

A “drug rip-off” over a pound of marijuana and $1,000 in cash led to the fatal shooting this week of a man inside a residence hall at Harvard University, according to Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone Jr.

The victim, Justin Cosby, 21, had been selling drugs to students at Harvard and went to Kirkland House on Monday afternoon with the marijuana and money, Leone said today at a press conference at Cambridge police headquarters. Three men traveled to Cambridge from New York City with the intention of robbing Cosby, he said.

One of the men, Jabrai Jordan Copney, is scheduled to be arraigned today in Cambridge District Court in connection with the killing. The other two men returned to New York City and remain at large, Leone said.

“It was that encounter between the four men that went bad,” Leone said, adding, “The common denominator that led to the intent to rip-off Justin Cosby of both money and drugs was that Justin and Jordan were known to each other through Harvard students.”

Leone did not release the names of the two female students at Harvard who were the nexus between Cosby and Copney. They have not been charged with a crime.

Police recovered one pound of marijuana and $1,000 in cash near where Cosby was shot and have also found the handgun used in the shooting, Leone said. Cosby was shot inside the J entryway of Kirkland House around 5 p.m. After being hit, he ran up Dunster Street to Mount Auburn Street, where he collapsed. He died Tuesday morning in Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Watch a News Report

The Harvard Crimson Reports

A New York City man charged with fatally shooting a 21-year-old man at a Harvard University dormitory is headed to court.

Jabrai Jordan Copney is scheduled to be arraigned Friday in Cambridge District Court on charges of murder, accessory after the fact to murder and possession of a firearm.

Copney is credited with writing the 2004 New Edition song, “Feelin It” along with Ryan Leslie.

Authorities say the 20-year-old Copney turned himself in to police Thursday night.

Justin Cosby, who lived close to campus but did not attend Harvard, was shot in the abdomen Monday while standing on a stairway leading to a common area inside Kirkland House dorm. He died Tuesday.

Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone says Copney was visiting friends at Harvard and that Copney and others confronted Cosby. Leone says Cosby and Copney knew each other.From the Harvard Crimson

Two text messages and an interview with a student obtained by The Crimson today suggest that Justin Cosby, the 21-year old Cambridge man shot in a Kirkland entryway on Monday, may have been involved in drug sales to Harvard students—a development that comes amidst continued public uncertainty over what brought Cosby to the basement of a Harvard residential dorm earlier this week.

The May 5 message appears to be directed specifically to students. “Happy cinco de mayo too all my peoples &congrats on another skool year behind,” it begins. “got some crazy jak herrer bud n some caliMIST best of the best and still those 50s.”

The wording of another message, sent to the Harvard student’s phone on April 20—a date noted by marijuana enthusiasts as an occasion to smoke the drug in celebration—suggests that Cosby may have been selling something to his addressees.

“This text goes too all my peoples happy 420,” it reads. “Im gud allday today just hit me up asap stuffs gunna b goin fast.”

Read the Whole Story

The Crimson is also reporting that police are looking for 3 men who were seen leaving the crime scene with baseball hats

Editor’s Note

I am from Cambridge where the incident happened and know several people who know Justin Cosby. He is an African American male. There are reports that he was visiting his girlfriend at Harvard and that he was a victim of a robbery.

A 21-year-old man shot inside a Harvard University dormitory Monday while students studied for finals died Tuesday.

Justin Cosby, of Cambridge, was shot in the abdomen late Monday afternoon while standing on a stairway leading to a common area inside the Kirkland House, an undergraduate dorm. He was found outside the building by police.

The dorm has an electronic security system, and Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone said authorities were looking into how Cosby got into the building.

Cosby’s mother, Denise, said her son attended Salem State College. He lived a few blocks from the Harvard campus.

“It’s just so strange. He was fine, healthy yesterday,” Denise Cosby told The Boston Globe. “I just can’t believe my son is not here today. Inside I’m just torn up, I feel like someone has murdered me.”

No arrests had been made by Tuesday afternoon.

Harvard referred all questions to the district attorney. Leone said it appeared the shooting was isolated.

After the shooting, students were told to remain in the dorm for several hours as police interviewed potential witnesses.

Harvard police added security, mainly as a precaution, and students were allowed to move freely inside the dorm Tuesday.

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From BlackAmericaWeb.com:

Who is Jason Vassell, and will his case become the Jena Six case of 2009?

Ekwueme Michael Thelwell is a professor in the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Afro-American Studies department. When he was much younger, he worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee recruiting volunteers for the organization’s Freedom Summer in 1964 and with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Thelwell also edited “Ready For Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael/Kwame Ture.”

So it should be no surprise that Thelwell was a panelist at the symposium on black power that the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture sponsored the last two days of March. But the good professor didn’t just talk about black power or the good ol’ days/bad ol’ days when he was a SNCC activist. At the conclusion of his remarks, he urged members of the audience to come up and grab some Xeroxed copies of two stories about Vassell, who until last year was a UMass pre-med student.

Vassell is a black man, the 24-year-old son of Jamaican immigrants. In February of 2008, he was in his UMass dorm room when two inebriated fools knocked on his window and asked for directions.

CLICK HERE to find out what happened next.

Three Massachusetts men have been formally indicted in the torching of a predominantly black church hours after the election of President Barack Obama.

The three were arrested Jan. 16 on a charge of conspiracy to violate the rights of the congregation of the Macedonia Church of God in Christ, whose almost-finished new building was nearly destroyed.

A federal grand jury handed up the indictment Tuesday against 22-year-old Benjamin Haskell, 24-year-old Michael Jacques and 21-year-old Thomas Gleason of Springfield.

The men were freed on $100,000 bail under house arrest on Monday. They are scheduled for arraignment on Thursday.

The indictment alleges the men talked about their racial motives before setting the fire.

Read About Other Incidents of Racist Terrorism That Followed Obama’s Victory

Watch A Video on The Incident

An all-black Civil War infantry unit honored in the Oscar-winning movie “Glory” with Denzel Washington is making a real-life comeback.

The 54th Massachusetts — praised for a doomed charge in South Carolina in 1863 — will become a ceremonial unit for the state’s National Guard. A ceremony is scheduled for later Friday at the Massachusetts Statehouse.

As a ceremonial unit, the 54th will conduct military honors at state functions and funeral services for veterans.

Read About the 54th Regiment Here