Ohio Veterans group to honor Black soldiers. The Dayton African American Legacy Institute will for the first time honor Black soldiers at an Armistice Day memorial  program. The program honors local Blacks who died while serving their country, reports The Dayton Daily News. “Each year, I see celebrations for our veterans, but I never see observances for the Black soldiers who sacrificed for us,” said Bill C. Littlejohn, Dayton Municipal Court Judge and board president of the institute. “African-Americans fought in every war from the Revolution to the present day. The group recognizes that for decades Black soldiers returning from war were ostracized.  “We want to honor their heroism and their perseverance,” Littlejohn said. The group will hold a reception and program this evening called “African-American Veterans: A History of Service and Sacrifice.” They will present medals they received from the government posthumously to families of deceased veterans and to living veterans, Littlejohn said.  . 

Laura Bush and Michelle Obama meet. First lady Laura Bush shared some tips with Michelle Obama on how to survive in the White House - particularly with young daughters, according to Reuters. As she gave Michelle Obama a tour of the mansion that will soon be her home. “It was a bit of a momentous day,” Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters on a flight from Washington to Chicago about the Obamas visit to the White House Monday, less than one week after Barack Obama won a historic election to succeed President George W. Bush.  “I don’t know that I would characterize him as awestruck.” Read the rest here.
The High Court upholds “victims’-impact” evidence. By a slight majority the Supreme Court said on Monday that the lives of the victim can be weighed as evidence in determining the fate of the accusers. The justices turned down appeals from two Los Angeles convicted murderers who said it was unfair that videotapes of the victims’ lives were played for jurors before they decided the killers should die.  Defense lawyers had argued that this “cinematic evidence . . . designed to play on the jury’s emotions” should be excluded from a sentencing hearing in a capital case. In the first case, the justices rejected an appeal from Douglas Kelly, who was sentenced to death for the 1993 rape, robbery and murder of Sara Weir. She was found dead in a North Hollywood apartment after being stabbed 29 times. The justices turned down a similar appeal from Samuel Zamudio, who was convicted in 1997 of murdering an elderly couple in South Gate. In both cases, video of the victims were played for their jurors. However, Stevens wrote, “the videos added nothing relevant to the jury’s deliberations.”  Justices David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer agreed the court should take up the issue, but it takes four votes in the high court to grant an appeal.

Ohio community braces for an economic punch. A southern Ohio community is bracing for possible layoffs as DHL Express - the largest employer in the area - planned to announce its quarterly earnings report and restructuring details on Monday, according to CNN. DHL’s parent company, German-based Deutsche Post World Net, refused to comment on published reports that the international courier company is planning to lay off as many as 8,000 people. However, it does plan to announce plans for its U.S. operations to investors Monday, said spokesman Jonathan Baker.  The Deutsche Post has reported that the company ordered roughly 8,000 layoffs at DHL’s Wilmington hub. In the meantime, Ohio officials scramble over the weekend to offset possible job cuts to the community. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) sent a letter Friday to DHL Chief Executive Officer John Mullen asking for immediate information about layoffs in the Wilmington area. According to a statement from his office, Brown also called U.S. Deputy Secretary of Labor Howard Radzely plans “to seek immediate attention to a state of Ohio’s request for emergency funds to assist workers and communities affected by DHL’s loss in business since announcing a proposed outsourcing agreement with UPS.” Both local and federal officials say cuts that heavy would have a devastating economic impact on the community. 
D.C. Police arrest a Secret Service agent for solicitation. D.C. police Inspector Brian Bray says his squad arrested a secret service agent for solicitation while conducting a prostitution in northwest Washington early Saturday, WUSA-TV reports. The inspector says a marked Secret Service Uniformed Division patrol car pulled up to speak with an undercover female officer posing as a prostitute. The Secret Service sergeant, who was in uniform, allegedly asked what sex acts the undercover officer would perform. They agreed on a price of $20, and he drove to meet her. Then D.C. police arrested and charged him with solicitation for prostitution. Darrin Blackford, a Secret Service spokesman, says the agency’s internal affairs division is investigating the matter. He says the officer, whose name was not released, has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

Democrats claim the state of Ohio with Obama at the top of the ticket.

Cheers, tears and hugs are the only way I can describe the crowd’s reaction to the news the freshman Illinois Sen. Barack Obama had won Ohio. Read more at Pamela on Politics.

The state has set a time and date to execute Troy Anthony Davis, even as his advocates continue to insist Georgia is about to execute an innocent man, reports The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Davis’ case drew international attention after seven of nine key prosecution witnesses against him recanted their testimony. They claimed they had been pressured to say they saw Davis shoot MacPhail in a Burger King parking lot. On Wednesday  the Department of Corrections said on Oct. 27^th, Davis will be put to death for killing off-duty police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. This is Davis’ third execution date in little more than a year. The State Board of Pardons and Paroles stopped the first one the day before Davis was to die by lethal injection on July 17, 2007. The U.S. Supreme Court stopped Davis’ second execution two hours before he was to die on Sept. 23 so the justices could decide if they would hear Davis’ case. Tuesday, the high court declined to step into the contentious debate over whether Davis is the real killer. Read the rest at BET.com.

J.L. Chestnut Jr., the first Black lawyer in Selma and a prominent attorney in civil rights cases across a half century, has died at age 77, The Associated Press reports A Selma native who got his law degree at Howard University, Chestnut returned to his hometown in 1958 and became a key legal figure in the civil rights battles in Selma. Later, he defended Blacks in major voter fraud prosecutions and helped Black farmers make financial claims against the U.S. Agriculture Department. Read the rest at BET.com.

Ohio is ordered to verify eligible voters. A federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered Ohio’s top elections official to set up a system by Friday to verify the eligibility of newly registered voters and make the information available to the state’s 88 county election boards. Democrats see the move as a way of denying thousands of new voters, many of who are Black, their right to vote. Read more of what the stakeholders have to say here.

The Ohio Democratic lawmaker was revered by her constituents

Colleagues, friends and family of Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) are mourning her death. As a avid supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton, the Cleveland-based congresswoman seemed to have lost considerable clout among her Barack Obama-loving constituents. But she will be remembered as loyal, progressive and productive. Read more about what her fellow Congress members had to say at Pamela On Politics. More about how brain aneurysms affect Blacks and women more at Vital Signs. Send your condolences below.

Lima, Ohio, chief says the community needs to assist officers.

The head of the Lima, Ohio, Police Department acknowledged that there may be some lessons to be learned in the shooting death of a Black woman while she held her baby, an incident that widened the racial rift between cops and the Black community. Chief Greg Garlock, pressed by Lima’s African-American preachers, released a statement saying that the department will review the findings of the various investigations into the practices of the S.W.A.T. team and its member, Sgt. Joe Chavalia, who killed Tarika Wilson on Jan. 4. The officer was acquitted by a jury earlier this month. “It is my intent to take the information derived from all those investigations, along with an examination of ‘best practices’ of other SWAT teams in the United States, to determine what we can do to enhance our internal practices,” Garlock said in his statement. He said that the community plays a crucial role in helping police solve crimes. Speaking for the ministers’ group, Coalition for Change, the Rev. H. Frank Taylor, described Garlock’s actions as “a good step. It’s good we have gotten such a quick response. …I believe police are here to serve and protect citizens of this community. If there is a perceived high-risk threat to apprehend a person, police move that mission to secure and apprehend. Under no circumstances do police move to a search and destroy mission,” Taylor said.

.
College presidents: Let young people drink earlier

The presidents of many of America’s most prominent universities say it’s time to lower the drinking age a few years. The campus honchos, who hail from such institutions as Colgate, Duke, Dartmouth, Kenyon, Morehouse, Ohio State, Syracuse and Tufts, say that banning young people from drinking only encourages them to binge drink on campus, which the contend is much more dangerous. “This is a law that is routinely evaded,” said John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont. “It is a law that the people at whom it is directed believe is unjust and unfair and discriminatory.” But not everybody agrees. The activist anti-drinking group Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) says that it only stands to reason that dropping the drinking from 21 to 18, as the 100 college presidents are pushing for, would only mean more automobile deaths. “It’s very clear the 21-year-old drinking age will not be enforced at those campuses,” said Laura Dean-Mooney, national president of MADD. The Associated Press cites statistics showing that more than 40 percent of college students reported at least one symptom of alcohol abuse or dependence. “One study has estimated more than 500,000 full-time students at four-year colleges suffer injuries each year related in some way to drinking, and about 1,700 die in such accidents,” the news agency reports.

Georgia man is jailed for beating dog

DeKalb County Police in Georgia say that Lawrence Peterson is one mean sucker. He’s so mean, they say, that he grabbed a broken table leg and pummeled his roommate’s puppy to a pulp … because it wouldn’t stop barking. In fact, the 58-year-old Peterson beat the 6-week-old pit bull so badly that the dog had to be put to sleep. As of Monday afternoon, Peterson was in the DeKalb County Jail. He was charged with one count of animal cruelty, definitely the wrong crime to commit in Michael Vick country.

Judge rules in Kwame Kilpatrick’s favor this time around

Embattled Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick remains free after facing the same judge on Tuesday who ordered him to jail last week on a bond violation. A Detroit news outlet had published a photo of Kilpatrick at his mother’s home at the same time that his sister visited the house, raising questions of whether his presence there violated court restrictions.  Get the latest details at BET.com/News.

Money for MLK Memorial pours in.

The money keeps on pouring in for the historic Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial in Washington, D.C. On Tuesday, organizers announced that donors, including $3 million from Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, had compelled them to raise the fundraising goal from $100 million to $120 million. Contributions for the memorial, which will be built on the National Mall, already has reached $99 million, according to Harry E. Johnson, Sr., president of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, the private group in charge of the effort. So why the new money goal? There are “a number of variables,” including changes in the structural plan, the addition of a bookstore and security costs as well as inflation for the rising cost estimate, Johnson says. After a stormy past few months over the design of the 28-foot statue of King, to be sculpted by Chinese artist Lei Yixin, the project appears on a positive track. Still, the project must win final approval for all aspects of the memorial site before construction can begin. The memorial is expected to take about 18-20 months to complete.

Muslim hate-crime victim leaves the hospital. The Muslim native of Uzbekistan, who was shot repeatedly while pumping gas at a Cleveland gas station, left the hospital Monday, nearly eight weeks after the tragic episode was captured on videotape. Police have been investigating the incident as a hate crime. As he left the MetroHealth Medical Center, 49-year-old Fazliddin Yakubov offered “a million, million thanks” for all the support he has received, The Plain Dealer newspaper reported Tuesday. He had been shot three times in the abdomen while his son was pumping gas. The video led to the arrest of 18-year-old William Neal of Cleveland, who’s charged with felonious assault and attempted murder. He’s being held in a Cuyahoga County jail on $250,000 bond.

The Ohio officer was acquitted by an all-White jury on Monday.
Two days after an all-White jury in Ohio acquitted a policeman who shot and killed an unarmed Black woman and wounded her infant son in front of her five other children, U.S. Justice Department officials say they might bring civil rights charges against the officer. The shooting, which took place in early January, drew national attention, as community activists and civil rights leaders, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, spoke out about the racial implications in the case. Lima Police Sgt. Joseph Chavalia, who fired the shot, is White; the victims, Tarika Wilson and her 13-month-old son, Sincere Wilson, are Black. Get more details at BET.com/News.

Black Ohio residents denied water get millions
A federal grand jury awarded residents of a Black neighborhood in Ohio almost $11 million last week because, for nearly five decades, they were forced to dig wells, haul water or collect rain so they could drink, cook and bathe, while Whites enjoyed the benefits of the public water system. The jury found that the 67 residents of the Coal Run community in Muskingum County in east-central Ohio were victims of longstanding discrimination and awarded them between $15,000 and $300,000, depending on how long they had lived there. The award is for “monetary losses and the residents’ pain and suffering between 1956, when water lines were first laid in the area, and 2003, when Coal Run got public water,” The Associated Press reports. The Ohio Civil Rights Commission found in 2003 that the residents had been discriminated against, which prompted the lawsuit. “As a child, I thought it was normal because everyone done it in my neighborhood,” said one of the plaintiffs, Cynthia Hale Hairston, 47. “But I realized as an adult it was wrong.” The city, county and water company, however, deny that any discrimination has occurred. Attorney Mark Landes, who represented the county and water district, described the suit as “a case that was started and filed by out-of-town lawyers who saw an opportunity for a cash settlement.”

Jury selection in the Nichols trial resumes today

Jury selection in the oft-delayed trial of Brian Nichols is back on track following a surprising weekend off. Last week, Judge James Bodiford made a big deal about the need to convene the court during weekends for the trial of Nichols, the man accused of escaping from an Atlanta courtroom in 2005 and killing a judge, court reporter and two other people during his escape and time on the lam. Lawyers, victim’s rights advocates and others have criticized the system for allowing the case to linger unresolved for so long. Bodiford is the second judge after taking the case over from Judge Hilton Fuller several months ago. Fuller, who stepped down amid controversy surrounding his statements that “everybody knows Nichols is guilty,” had placed the trial on hold for several weeks, honoring defense claims that the state had not adequately funded the defense of the death-penalty defendant. As many as 1,000 prospective jurors eventually will be called to the Fulton County Courthouse for questioning. During the first week of interviews last week, all but one from an initial batch of juror candidates had been called in. Bodiford said he could not justify asking the county to pay for opening the courthouse over the weekend for one interview. Legal observers say the Nichols trial, which is expected to last several months, could be the most costly in the state’s history. Already, the defense has spent at least $1.2 million representing their 38-year-old high-profile defendant.

The NAACP to host both presidential candidatates
The NAACP Convention kicked off its 99th national convention Cincinnati Saturday, uniting its 8,000 delegates around the diverse issues affecting people of color, including poverty, health, criminal justice, voting and home ownership. As an example of ideas anti-poverty proposals surfacing from the gathering, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg aims to redefine the standard of poverty to account for society’s rising costs. In other words, food, clothing, shelter and housing costs, and utilities expenses would be factored in, and the poverty line for those living in New York would go from $20,000 for a family of four to $26,000. Although the new formula would not affect federal social service programs, it would be used by city officials to develop initiatives within New York. This conference, whose official theme is “Power, Justice, Freedom, Vote,” is being held at the Duke Energy Center in downtown Cincinnati. The city’s African-American mayor, Mike Mallory, expects to generate an estimated $10 million from hotel room charges, meals, tips and other tourism-related activities by the time the event concludes on Thursday. Both presidential candidates, senators John McCain and Barack Obama, will speak at the event.