Yesterday, Washington, D.C.’s city council voted to legalize same sex marriages performed elsewhere in the United States. The decision was almost unanimous except for the nay vote of former Mayor Marion Barry, who represents a district in the southeastern quadrant of the city. “All hell will break loose,” said Barry, who is fiercely opposing the vote. “We may have a civil war,” he added. “The Black community is just adamant against this.” Outside of the chamber, a group of protesting ministers from D.C. and the Maryland suburbs caused an uproar after the decision. “What you’ve got to understand is 98 percent of my constituents are Black and we don’t have but a handful of openly gay residents,” Barry said. “Secondly, at least 70 percent of those who express themselves to me about this are opposed to anything dealing with this issue. The ministers think it is a sin, and I have to be sensitive to that.” Security guards were called in to calm the protests. Gay activists in D.C. are calling Barry, once a strong ally, a “hypocrite.” They say he is siding with protesters only because its politically convenient right for him now.

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The HIV and AIDS rate in the nation’s capital has reached alarming heights, according to a report released by the D.C. HIV/AIDS Administration.
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Prez-elect’s train leaves station this morning. The road to the White House for Barack Obama is actually a commuter train rail that he’s riding today from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. The specially reserved Amtrak car will carry America’s incoming 44^th president, the vice president and 40 everyday citizens for the 135-mile stretch across three states, stopping in Wilmington and Baltimore along the way. Obama’s guests aboard the train include social workers, an Iraq war vet and a factory worker who once took her sex discrimination suit to the Supreme Court, saying she wasn’t paid the same as men. While the trip is Obama’s last junket to mingle with the public discussing the nation’s challenges before he takes office, some suggest he may be tempting fate. The slow-moving train and its publicized route make Obama an easy target, say critics of the tour. But Secret Service officials counter that appropriate measures, such as preventing ships from traveling rivers the train will pass, were taken. In fact, ground, air and water security is all in place, they say. Following the Philadelphia departure, Obama’s train heads to a public event at the Wilmington train station, and then to a 1 p.m. rally at Baltimore’s War Memorial Plaza. Once in Washington, Obama will move into the Blair House, a quarters for incoming presidents and dignitaries, where he’ll await inauguration next week.

Aretha Franklin helps choir reach D.C. A choir whose performance impressed President-elect Barack Obama during his campaign has begun the journey to his inauguration. Students at Southfield High School will send their voices soaring at the nation’s capital after soul legend Aretha Franklin and the Detroit restaurant Seldom Blues chipped in so the youth could board a D.C.-bound bus. Obama heard the Southfield High choir and invited them to perform for him, but the students initially had trouble raising cash to cover the trip. After receiving the Queen of Soul’s support, the youth boarded the bus and left Michigan early Friday morning.

Is Oprah heading to D.C.? Oprah Winfrey, who definitely has the ear of President-elect Barack Obama, reportedly is eyeing a $50 million, nine-bedroom crib a relative stone’s throw from the White House, The New York Post reports. The speculation is that Winfrey, who used her well-documented mojo to help get Obama elected, would serve in his kitchen cabinet – an influential adviser without an official title. “She has never personally been to see [the home],” a source told the News. FOX News reports that the only home listing that fits the description is a $49 million, nine-bedroom, four-bathroom mansion on 3.5 acres, with a parking lot for 100 cars, a gatehouse, and additional building overlooking the Washington Monument.

Surrounded by members of his transition economic advisory board, Barack Obama held his first press briefing as president-elect in Chicago Friday afternoon. The briefing, which was held after Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden met with the advisors, addressed the United States’ struggling economy. Obama outlined four points he would focus on to help the economy when he gets into office stressing that he doesn’t, “underestimate the enormity of the crisis,” and that “the choices we make will be difficult.” The first policy he mentioned would be a rescue plan for the middle class, which would include extending unemployment benefits, in the wake of a job loss of 1.2 million in this country this year. Second would be another fiscal stimulus plan. Thirdly, he would review the Bush administration’s financial program to make sure that it’s helping regular families and not CEOs of big companies. And lastly, he and his team will look into policies to grow and strengthen the middle class, he said. Obama was quick to point out a couple times during the briefing that, since the nation only has one president at a time, he can’t really get anything done now. After the briefing he fielded questions on his family’s dog choice (they want a shelter dog, but it has to be hypoallergenic since one of his daughters is allergic) and school choice (Michelle Obama is looking into schools in D.C. now and is making a decision).

The neighbors say they were shocked by the discovery.
Historic D.C.-area church is defaced. Members of the First Baptist Church of Chesterbrook got the word last Sunday – the “N”-word, spray-painted in bold, block letters right next to the front door. “It was a very upsetting time,” Andre Johnson, a longtime member of the historic African-American church, told The Washington Post, adding that many of the congregants are concerned. “It was very disturbing to the membership” and “to me,” said James R. King, chairman of the board of deacons at the church, which traces its history to the Civil War era, when the neighborhood was known as Lincolnville. “That you would deface a house of worship . . . shocked us more than anything,” King said. It was the first racist incident he could recall in about 30 years – when somebody burned a cross on the front lawn of the edifice. The community has been very supportive, he said. “It’s a sick person who did that, [and] not an indication of what the community around us is like.”

White man files $6 million discrimination suit. Kevin Stevens, a 46-year-old air-conditioning maintenance worker, is suing the school board in Annapolis for $6 million, saying he’s been getting passed over for manager posts because he’s White. Stevens, who has been with the county school system for the past 28 years, says that he has been trying to move up for the past year and a half. “The hiring authority won’t allow me to advance,” Stevens told The Capital newspaper. “You work so hard, and you attain all these licenses and advanced education, and when no one will allow you to move, it’s very frustrating.” Stevens fixes heating and air-conditioning systems in county schools, but a year ago, he sought a post as night quality-control manager, according to his lawsuit. In that capacity, he would have been in charge of supervising night housekeeping crews in the schools. The Black man promoted instead worked under him for the past several years, says Stevens, noting that he has received high ratings on his evaluations and “has more letters of recommendation and more experience than the man who got the job,” the Capital reports. The supervisor of the operations division is also African American, which Stevens says is the reason he was not promoted.

Black weekly ceases printing amid money woes. After 16 years, The Bay View has bottled up the ink. From now on, according to founder Mary Ratcliff, the Oakland-based African-American weekly will be available online only. “This is not a goodbye to you, our beloved readers, though,” she promised her readers. “As the headline suggests, the Bay View’s not dead; we’ll see you on the Web! We’re pouring all our energy into improving our Web site, www.sfbayview.com, which has already recovered from a bad hacking enough to draw over a million hits a month.” She said that the printed version of the newspaper has been “a labor of love and the love,” but she and husband Willie Ratcliff were never able to make it profitable – or even sustainable. “Now we’ve had to face the reality that we’re flat out of funds or any source to tap.”