After school shopping for several weeks now and even considering a public school close to the White House, Barack and Michelle Obama have chosen the Sidwell Friends School for their two daughters to attend. It is a private Quaker school on Wisconsin Ave. in northwest Washington. Chelsea Clinton is an alum of the school. And both Attorney General nominee Eric Holder kids and Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s grandkids currently attend the school.  “A number of great schools were considered,” said Katie McCormick Lelyveld, a spokeswoman for Michelle Obama. “In the end, the Obamas selected the school that was the best fit for what their daughters need right now.” The school has promised privacy and security for the Obama kids.  

A N.Y. school is renamed for Obama. The Barack Obama name seems to be catching on everywhere - even at schools.  The former Ludlum Elementary School in Hempstead, New York, was renamed at a school board meeting Thursday - effective immediately - in honor of the president-elect.  The new name is the Barack Obama Elementary School. The school, which is made up of about 440 students, is mostly Black and Hispanic.

MLK Memorial may have hit a snag. Wal-Mart is kicking in a large chunk of change to help along plans for the Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington, D.C., The Associated Press reports. The Wal-Mart Foundation has announced a $12.5 million letter of credit for the planned memorial. The group working to build the King memorial says it has raised $100 million of the $120 million needed for the project. Meanwhile, the memorial may hit a snag over a disagreement about how to secure the site. The National Park Service wants the design to include security measures, feeling the memorial might be targeted by racist extremist groups, AP reports. But the National Capital Planning Commission doesn’t want the security barriers, saying it’s an affront to King’s legacy of inclusiveness.

Obama pool table selling on eBay for $500,000. Just about everything Obama touches seem to turn to “sold” these days.  The owner of the pool hall in West Virginia is planning to sell the  tournament-size pool table along with the cues, balls and lamp used by Obama during a campaign stop back in May. John Mawyer, the owner of the pool hall, posted the pool table on eBay with a starting price of $500,000. Some of the proceeds will go to charity.

Obamas seek perfect school for their girls. This week Michelle Obama visited schools in search of the perfect place for “First Family daughters” to attend.  While no decision has been released, on Monday Michelle Obama visited two private schools: Georgetown Day School and Chelsea Clinton’s alma mater, Sidwell Friends School. Read the rest here.

Steele is likely to seek  the top GOP post.  Michael Steele, former lieutenant governor of Maryland, has decided to run for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, reports FOX News. The Black Republican reportedly is talking with Newt Gingrich to win the former House speaker’s endorsement, FOX News says. Steele declined to comment, but a source close to him said Steele could announce his candidacy today. The source also contradicted a report in Tuesday’s Washington Times that Steele and Gingrich were competing for the RNC post. “There is no fight,” the source said. “This tension between Michael Steele and Newt Gingrich is totally fabricated and, in fact, Gingrich and Steele are working together to create a new strategy for the direction of the GOP.” In a statement issued by the former House speaker, Gingrich said he was not interested in the RNC chairmanship.

Family members continue search for survivors in Haiti. Days after a deadly school collapse in Haiti, the search for survivors continues. Family members of the students and teachers believed to be still under rubble brought shovels and hammers to the site Sunday to dig through the ruin, reports CNN. However, because of safety concerns surrounding the possibility of falling concrete, police had to intervene and keep them away. The school, College La Promesse Evangelique in Petionville, collapsed Friday morning during a school celebration reportedly killing at least 84 people and injuring 150. When the school collapsed, students (from 10 to 20 years old) were either playing outside or inside the building. It isn’t known exactly how many people remain trapped in the debris. At the time the three-story building collapsed, there were 700 people on school grounds, according to a Haitian official. However, a United Nations spokesman believes there were only 250 people inside the school when it collapsed, which would drop the number of people missing. Rescue workers were able to pull out several children alive from the wreckage on Saturday but also found the bodies of 20 students and their teachers. No one has been found alive since then. Some are still keeping hope alive, though. “Throughout history, there’re been people found … 48, 72 hours later – still alive, in good shape,” Michael Istvan, from the U.S. Agency for International Development (a group who is in Haiti helping with rescue efforts) told CNN. As worried parents, holding pictures of their children watched anxiously, rescue crews (from the U.S. and France) continue their effort, sending down cameras into the rubble to look for signs of life and using cranes to lift concrete. Haitian authorities questioned the school’s owner, Fortin Augustin, Sunday, according to Haiti’s Civil Protection Bureau. Augustin has not been charged with a crime. Haiti’s president, Rene Preval, called the building’s structure “really weak” and ordered that construction guidelines be reviewed.

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Strong earthquake hits China. A powerful earthquake hit northwest China Monday, reports The Associated Press. The 6.5-magnitude quake hit a remote area in the nation’s Qinghai province, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Its epicenter was 35 miles east of the Da Qaidam district, and tremors from the quake were felt in Golmud (100 miles from the quake’s epicenter), which has a population of 270,000, is the second largest city in the province. A local official said authorities sent 180 people to investigate damage from the quake, but there have been no deaths yet reported.  The western part of the nation is no stranger to earthquakes; just in May, a 7.9-magnitude earthquake hit the region (the Sichuan province), killing 70,000 people and displacing 5 million.

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).

He says that the media and police are transfixed on finding White females.
Nine months have passed since a 16-year-old Black girl was reportedly kidnapped from her southern California high school, but there has been no massive public outcry from law-enforcement agencies or the media like that afforded missing White females, an NAACP official said Thursday. Find out more about her disappearance and what you can do at BET.com/News. Anyone with information about Chimoa should contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST.

He has been allowed to enroll in a Georgia high school to play football.

One of the six Black teens charged in the infamous Jena, La., beating case two years ago is getting a fresh start in life. Robert Bailey, Jr., whose case highlighted the Black-White racial rift in the tiny central Louisiana community, has learned that he will be allowed to play for Shaw High School in Columbus, Ga. He and five other Black youths, dubbed the “Jena Six,” initially were charged with attempted murder after a fight with a White student, Justin Barker. Last September, tens of thousands of protestors converged on Jena, arguing that the teens were being prosecuted too harshly for a schoolyard scrap. The charges were later reduced to second-degree battery. Five of the six teens, including Bailey, are still awaiting trial. On Monday, the Georgia High School Association approved Bailey’s appeal to be granted eligibility for the upcoming school year. Four similar appeals were rejected by the executive committee.

Black kids get more in-school spankings than Whites.

If the adage that sparing the rod spoils the child, Black schoolchildren are a lot less spoiled than their White counterparts. A new study shows that of the more than 200,000 children who got spanked at school last year, Black and Native American and kids with disabilities got more than their fair share. You can find more about the findings at BET.com/News. 

Study says Blacks are treated fairly in sentencing. Researchers at the University of Nevada-Reno say that, contrary to the common perception, African American defendants do not get a raw deal from the justice system when it comes to sentencing. When such factors as socio-economic status, education, criminal history and drug use, there is no indication that the courts favor White defendants over Blacks, the researchers said. “A similarly situated African American or Caucasian or Hispanic appeared to be treated fairly in the same way across the board,” said Judge Douglas Herndon. The results of the study, revealed Monday at a legislative hearing, reviewed the circumstances of Black and White inmates currently serving time. It did not explore issues other than their race and incarceration. Gary Peck, of the American Civil Liberties Union, told Channel 8 Eyewitness News that the researchers are wrong if they believe that Blacks and Whites are treated fairly by the courts. “It would be wrong to conclude on that basis that the system is devoid of race-based iniquities or institutional racism,” said Peck. The fact that people of color are far more likely to be arrested amplifies the magnitude of the race problem.

One in three schools are in “pollution danger zones.” One in three U.S. public schools are in the “air pollution danger zone,” according to new research from the University of Cincinnati (UC). More than 30 percent of American public schools are within 400 meters, or a quarter mile, of major highways that consistently serve as main truck and traffic routes, the researchers found. And studies have shown that proximity to major highways—and thus environmental pollutants, such as aerosolizing diesel exhaust particles—can leave school-age children more susceptible to respiratory diseases such as asthma later in life. “This is a major public health concern that should be given serious consideration in future urban development, transportation planning and environmental policies,” says Sergey Grinshpun, PhD, principal investigator of the study and professor of environmental health at UC. To protect the health of young children with developing lungs, he says new schools should be built further from major highways. “Health risk can be mitigated through proper urban planning, but that doesn’t erase the immediate risk to school-age children attending schools that are too close to highways right now,” he adds. “Existing schools should be retrofitted with air filtration systems that will reduce students’ exposure to traffic pollutants.”

As we mourn the death of Rep. Tubbs, we learn more about brain aneurysm. Vital Signs: As we morn the death of Rep. Tubbs, we learn more about brain aneurysm. Vital Signs tells why they are more common among women.

The former dorm matron has been accused of assaulting the pupils

The trial for the former dorm boss at Oprah Winfrey’s school for girls in South Africa , who is accused of physically and sexually abusing students, began Tuesday. The prosecutor in the case argues that Tiny Virginia Makopo, 28, assaulted six teens and a fellow dorm matron at the Johannesburg-based school for disadvantaged girls. The alleged victims, whom prosecutor Etienne Venter described as “very scared and very, very emotional,” will give their testimony behind closed doors. Makopo pleaded not guilty. Winfrey, herself a victim of child abuse, founded the school with $40 million in January 2007. The institute aims to prepare girls as future leaders.