Guess who jumped on the bar and performed at the Green the Block launch party recently. Hint: His self-titled album is scheduled for early next year, and he’ll be performing at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert later this year.
President Barack Obama is introduced by First Lady Michelle Obama (who reportedly stole the show) before he makes a presentation in support of Chicago as the host city for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games on Friday in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The Obamas’ hometown is in a tight race with Madrid, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro as leaders from Spain, Tokyo and Brazil also headed to Copenhagen in hopes of their cities hosting the Olympics.
Previously, the White House said the first lady would be going, but the President felt that the health care issue is in a place that his absence for one day will not have a negative impact.
UPDATE:
The International Olympic Committee today eliminated Chicago and Tokyo as contenders to host the 2016 Games. Rio de Janeiro will host the 2016 games.
Students from four D.C. public high schools walked out of class earlier this week and met at the school system’s headquarters Monday because they’re angry about the way they say their teachers are being treated with impending layoffs recently announced by D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee.
The layoffs are the result of the city council’s recent freeze of the school budget, which forced the students to also rally against Mayor Adrian Fenty, who said he was impressed with their show of civic action.
After exhibiting bizarre behavior at Geoffrey’s, a restaurant in Malibu, 24-year-old Mitrice Richardson was arrested for not paying $89.21 for a dinner of Kobe beef steak and an Ocean Breeze cocktail.
When sheriff’s deputies arrived, they found a small amount of marijuana in her car, impounded it and took her into custody on suspicion of defrauding an innkeeper and possession of the drug. According to the restaurant staff, Richardson “said she was from Mars and started speaking in a made-up language”. Restaurant owner Jeff Peterson said, “She did tell my valet at one point that she was here to avenge Michael Jackson’s death.”
Released on her own recognizance, Richardson had no car, no cellphone and no purse when she left the Los Angeles County sheriff’s substation in Calabasas about 1:25 a.m. That was September 17; she hasn’t been seen or heard from since.
President Barack Obama (pictured with Education Secretary Arne Duncan at his address to the nation’s school children earlier this month) says American children spend too little time in school which puts them at a disadvantage with others around the world.
In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Duncan said, “Our school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy and not too many of our kids are working the fields today.” The Presidents wants schools to add time to classes, to stay open late and to let kids in on weekends so they have a safe place to go.
“Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas. Not with Malia and Sasha, not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom,” the President said earlier this year.
NY Governor David Paterson said Sunday on Meet the Press that President Barack Obama never directly asked him to step aside, and he refused to discuss what presidential aides had told him confidentially.
Paterson, the state’s first black governor who’s also legally blind, said he’s heard the message from Democrats in New York and Washington: “I’m blind, I’m not oblivious. But I am running for governor. I don’t think I am a drag on the party. I think I’m fighting for the priorities of my party.”
Derrion Albert, a 16-year-old honors student at Fenger High School in Chicago, was beaten to death during a fight between two gangs that broke out on the street as he walked home from school last Thursday, and it was caught on tape.
Silvonus Shannon, 19, Eugene Riley, 18, and Eric Carson, 16, have been charged as adults of first-degree murder and were held without bail on Monday afternoon.
Albert was beaten to death with long planks of wood and when he fell to the ground, he was stomped in the head. Prosecutors say Albert was “merely a bystander” as two groups of students from different neighborhoods fought.
Mary Washington, who lives in the neighborhood, said it has long been plagued by gang violence. “They’re killing our children, our hope for the future. When will it stop?”
Police said that an amateur video helped detectives identify the participants in the melee outside the Agape Community Center. The video shows dozens of people punching, kicking and swinging wooden planks in a melee next to the community center and the adjacent street. At one point, four or five males — including one wielding a two-by-four — can be seen beating and stomping another person, believed to be Albert, who had fallen to the ground.
Actor and AIDS advocate Blair Underwood receives a picture of a D.C. intersection that completes his name during the grand opening of the first AIDS treatment center in Washington, D.C. by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF).
The Blair Underwood Clinic will be run by AHF, which came to D.C. because of its status as the “epicenter” of the disease. The city’s infection rate of 3 percent is the nation’s worst.
Johnson Publishing Company, the world’s largest African-American owned and operated publishing company, is seeking a buyer or investor for its flagship publication, Ebony, in an effort to secure the survival of the nation’s oldest African-American lifestyle magazine.
Johnson Publishing’s chairman, CEO and daughter of founder John H. Johnson, Linda Johnson Rice, has approached Time Inc., Viacom, and other private investors that include buyout firms.
Time Inc., the world’s largest periodical publisher, already owns Essence, while Viacom owns BET (Black Entertainment Television). No word on whether Jet would be included in the sale.
