Filipino hate-mailer is sentenced to nearly four years

Twenty years worth of hate mail - directed at Black men who married or dated White women - got David Tuason almost four years in prison. Read more at BET.com/News.

HBCU Spelman gets $17 million gift.

Historically Black Spelman College in Atlanta got a surprise package in the form of a $17 million gift to fund an endowment for that will help acquaint its students to the rest of the world. “In the context of an increasingly global economy and a world made smaller by technology, it is more important than ever that students, faculty and staff are prepared for active engagement with the international community,” said Spelman President Beverly Daniel Tatum in a statement. She said that the anonymous gift will help the all-women’s college establish Gordon-Zeto Endowed Fund for International Initiatives, named after Nora Gordon (the first Spelman graduate to teach in the Congo) and Flora Zeto (the first Congolese student to graduate from Spelman). Also covered under the endowment is the Gordon-Zeto Dean for International Inititiatives, who will be the senior administrator of Spelman’s international programs; the Nora Gordon Scholars Program, which will support study abroad programs for Pell grant eligible students, giving first priority to those interested in studying in Africa; and a travel fund to support short-term study trips by students and faculty.

A March for Jobs and Freedom. When hundreds of thousands of people descended on the capital for the March on Washington 45 years ago this week, it was the largest political gathering the nation had ever seen. The event was later recognized as the tipping point in the fight for civil rights. See the pictures here. 

The Minneapolis Police case will now go before a federal court to decide.

It doesn’t look like the five Minneapolis Police officers who were about to divvy up a $2 million settlement from a racial-discrimination lawsuit will get that cash any time soon. On Thursday, the City Council kicked the deal to the curb by refusing to vote on the settlement. The next step for the lawsuit is federal court, and that won’t happen until next year. The plaintiffs in the case say that they were passed over for promotions because of their race. All parties have been ordered by a judge to keep quiet about the particulars of the case, including why the deal collapsed.

Money men pledge $500 million for anti-smoking effort
Billionaires Bill Gates and New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced yesterday that they’ll contribute a combined $500 million to a worldwide antismoking campaign, The New York Times reports. The new campaign, dubbed Mpower, will receive $250 million from Bloomberg’s foundation during the next four years, in addition to $125 million already donated. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation plans to give $125 million during a five-year period. Bloomberg has spoken out against smoking for years, but this is a new effort by the Gates Foundation, the Times reports. The campaign will encourage governments to raise tobacco taxes, ban smoking in public places, outlaw cigarette giveaways and kid-directed advertising, start advertising campaigns against smoking, and offer people help in quitting.

Life expectancy rises for HIV patients
Since 1996, the life expectancy of HIV patients in developed countries taking antiviral therapy has increased more than 13 years, and deaths have dropped by almost 40 percent, researchers report. Despite these gains, life expectancy still falls short by some 20 years, compared with people in the general population. Life expectancy among injection-drug users and those who start their treatment late is even shorter, reports HealthDay.com. “People on [antiretroviral therapy] can live a fairly long life,” said lead researcher Robert Hogg, from the British Colombia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS in Vancouver. “If they are women, they can marry and have children, and see them grow up. If they’re going to school, they can graduate from university, or they can continue to have a full adult life expectancy.” The report was published in this week’s special HIV/AIDS issue of The Lancet. For the study, Hogg’s team collected data on 43,355 HIV patients from Europe and North America who participated in 14 studies. Among these patients, 18,587 started treatment in 1996 to 1999, another 13,914 began treatment in 2000 to 2002, and 10,584 started treatment between 2003 and 2005. Deaths decreased from 16.3 deaths per 1,000 person in 1996 to 1999 to 10 deaths per 1,000 person-years in 2003 to 2005. In addition, life expectancy for someone starting treatment at age 20 increased more than 13 years, from 56.1 years in 1996 to 1999 to 69.4 years in 2003 to 2005, the researchers found. Still, African Americans remain the largest group affected by HIV in America and tend to have shorter life expectancies because of being treated later in the disease cycle, health experts say. For those who start treatment later, life expectancy is 52.4 years, compared with 70.4 years for patients treated early. Also, life expectancy for injection drug users is also lower at 52.6 years, compared with people who acquired HIV is another way at 64.7 years.

Study to examine the South’s high cancer rates.
Researchers plan to recruit 90,000 people in 12 Southern states to learn why the South has become the cancer belt of the United States and why Blacks have higher rates of several kinds of cancer, United Press International reports. Brain cancer and lung cancer are among those that disproportionately affect people living in the South. “When you look at a map of brain cancer incidence in the United States the Southeast just lights up in red,” Dr. Reid Thompson, of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville said in a news release. The researchers will look at study participants’ lifestyles, family medical histories and risk factors for cancer and other serious diseases, UPI reported. “We’re asking patients about their diets, possible job-related exposure to cancer causing chemicals, and we’re collecting DNA samples,” Thompson said.