President Obama has sent the U.S Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to Chicago with with officials, parents and students from Christian Fenger Academy High School to discuss the gruesome death Derrion Albert, a 16-year-old honor student that has riveted the nation.

Holder said the federal government is looking to partner with local educators and law enforcement to make schools across America safer.

TheGrio.com

Moroccan Concert Stampede Kills 11
A stampede on the final day of the Mawazine festival in Morocco killed at least 11 people and wounded 30, reports CNN. Five women, four men and two children are among the victims of the stampede that took place in the nation’s capital city, Rabat, Saturday night, according to local reports. Thousands of people filled the Hay Nahda stadium that evening. Singers Alicia Keys and Stevie Wonder were among the performers at the eight-day music festival.

Attorney Gen. Eric Holder Returns to Caribbean Roots
Attorney General Eric Holder made a visit to Barbados this Memorial day weekend. But it wasn’t just a few days of fun in the sun that brought Holder to the Caribbean island. Holder met Saturday with attorneys general from several Caribbean nations. “They are talking about U.S.-Caribbean cooperation on narco-trafficking, crime, gangs and judicial law enforcement technical assistance,” Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller told The Miami Herald. Holder, whose father was born in Barbados, will also be honored by the nation. The government is set to rename the Tamarind Hall Municipal Complex “The Eric Holder Centre.” In addition, the Barbados Parliament held a reception in Holder’s honor following Saturday’s meeting.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who has made it clear that he will ensure that landmark laws particularly affecting Black Americans will be safe during the Obama administration, told a crowd in Selma, Ala., Sunday that the Voting Rights Act must be defended at all costs. The nation’s first Black attorney was speaking at the city’s bridge-crossing jubilee, marking 44 years of the Selma-to-Montgomery, Ala., march that led to the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act. Read more.

Obama Says Holder Misunderstood

President Barack Obama said Saturday that Attorney General Eric Holder probably could have chosen his words better when he called America a “nation of cowards” when it comes to discussing race relations. Read more.

Legendary Politician Dies
James Flournoy, who as a Republican candidate for California secretary of state became the first African American nominated by a major party for statewide office, has died. He was 93. Having suffered a long illness, he passed at his home in Moreno Valley, Calif., late last month, according to his wife, Marilyn. Flournoy, who was a renowned attorney in Los Angeles for many years, was a rare Republican politician at the time. “He was fairly moderate, pragmatic and a delightful person to be around with a great sense of humor,” Stuart K. Spencer, a political consultant who has been involved in nearly every California election since the 1960s, told The Associated Press. As his popularity surged, the GOP nominated him to run against Jerry Brown, a member of the L.A. Community College trustee’s board, who went on to become a two-term governor of California and two-term mayor of Oakland. Brown is now the state attorney general and is vying to take over again as governor. Brown beat Flournoy back in the day by an overwhelming 300,000 votes. “He was a wonderful man and a true gentleman,” Brown said of Flournoy, in an interview with The Times on Tuesday.

 America’s first Black attorney general ignited a firestorm Wednesday when he proclaimed that the United States is a “nation of cowards” when it comes to dealing with matters of race. “Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been and we – I believe – continue to be in too many ways essentially a nation of cowards,” Eric Holder told Department of Justice employees at an event Wednesday celebrating Black History Month. Read more here.

 The U.S. Senate, despite strong posturing by some Republicans, confirmed President Obama’s choice of Eric Holder Monday as the nation’s top prosecutor. While 75 lawmakers – including more than a dozen Republicans – agreed that Holder should be the first African-American attorney general, 21 Republicans cast a nay vote for the 58-year-old former deputy AG with the Clinton administration. Holder’s confirmation marks a dramatic shift in an agency that was the bane of the Democratic Party during the Bush administration. Read more here.

By the end of the day, the nation will likely have its first African-American attorney general. On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 17-2 to send the nomination of Attorney General-designate Eric Holder to the full Senate. Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter had signaled trouble for Obama’s nominee, questioning two weeks ago whether the former deputy attorney general under President Clinton was “fit for office.” He was referring to Holder’s refusal to investigate then-Vice President Al Gore’s fundraising practices. Specter was also critical of the 58-year-old nominee’s role in Clinton’s pardoning of fugitive financier Marc Rich.

Eric Holder, Sen. Barack Obama’s choice as the nation’s top prosecutor, said Thursday during his confirmation hearing that he would shut down the troubled detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He told the Senate Judiciary Committee that while closing the compound is not so tough, finding a place for the roughly 250 inmates residing there poses a more difficult dilemma. Some of them can be prosecuted, he said, but others would have to be sent to other countries.  He added, however, that some are in limbo, because they can’t be put on trial “for a variety of reasons” and can’t be released because they are too dangerous. That reality, he noted, would prevent the Obama administration from closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility “as soon as we’d like.” Holder also promised the committee that he would ban torture or any interrogation techniques that would violate America’s treaty obligations or be used by America’s enemies as a recruitment tool.

Eric Holder to be first Black attorney general. President-Elect Barack Obama, who is closing in on his cabinet choices, has apparently narrowed in on D.C. attorney and Clinton administration official Eric Holder as the nation’s top law enforcer. His appointment would have to be confirmed by Congress. If confirmed, he would be the nation’s senior law enforcement officer and deal with issues from crime to terrorism and the first African-American to head the Justice Department.

 President-elect Barack Obama is set to appoint Eric Holder attorney general, making him the first African American to hold the position, reports say. Holder, 57, served as deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration and was a legal advisor for Obama’s campaign. There is no official word yet from Obama’s camp, but according to Newsweek, after some discussions Obama made an offer to Holder and he accepted. “The announcement is not likely until after Obama announces his choices to lead the Treasury and State Department,” said the magazine. Holder has been publicly critical of the Bush adminstration in the past saying that to combat the “disastrous course” set under his reign, the United States should shut down Guantanamo Bay.