Tuesday, November 25, 2008 |
Mary Hopkins, 36, will soon graduate with a math doctorate from Florida Atlantic University, one of five math PhDs expected to go to the largest class of women in the school’s history. She also will be the first black woman to earn a doctorate in math from FAU and only the third among all state universities since at least 1990.
“I just had very encouraging teachers. I’ve heard of math teachers not encouraging females, especially minorities, but all of my professors are so great, and they’re all old white men,” said Hopkins, who spent a full hour last week working out a lengthy math question in front of her classmates and professors.
FAU will award four other women with math PhDs: Bashak Ay, Marcela Chiorescu, Zhihua Liu and Viktoria Villanyi. FAU math administrators said they didn’t do anything special to recruit more women into their doctoral program and believe there’s a natural increase of women studying math as traditional stereotypes fall away.
TEEN COMMITS SUICIDE ON WEBCAM
Abraham K. Biggs, a 19-year old member of Bodybuilding.com — screen name: Candy Junkie, purposely overdosed on pills while streaming a video of himself live on Justin.tv. He left a virtual suicide note on Bodybuilding.com, which was removed once he was found dead.
He committed suicide by taking pills, turning on his webcam and lying on his bed. Moderators at Bodybuilding.com did not take him seriously because he had made similar threats in the past. Several forum members even encouraged him to kill himself. After several hours, viewers realized he wasn’t joking and called the police who found a dead body and shut off the webcam.
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Friday, November 21, 2008 |
A man wears a hat inscribed with the word ‘hope’ with the Barack Obama presidential campaign’s trademark logo of the rising sun as about 1,000 people from cities such as New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, gather to challenge President-elect Barack Obama to put an end to the AIDS epidemic in the United States and around the world at a rally in McPhearson Square on Thursday in Washington, DC.
The demonstrators marched to the White House and called on Obama to help people living with HIV and AIDS gain access to affordable housing, Medicare and Medicaid, and to increase funding for needle exchange and other prevention programs.
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Saturday, November 15, 2008 |
International tennis player Serena Williams (pictured with Kenya’s education minister Sam Ongeri) cuts the ribbon at the Serena Williams Secondary School in Matooni, Kenya on Friday afternoon.
Built through a partnership between the Build African Schools initiative and Hewlett Packard, the school is designed to empower African students through education.
“We are indeed honored to have Ms Williams visit Kenya at this momentous time in American history when we have a new President elect who has roots in Kenya,” said Mr Dickson Mutaiti, the Director of Projects Build African Schools in Kenya.
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Thursday, November 13, 2008 |
Sgt. Jan Pawel Pietrzak and his wife, Quiana, were tortured and killed execution-style in their California home allegedly by four Marines under his command.
The couple were found bound and gagged in the ransacked house and each had been shot in the head.
Pietrzak’s mother, Henryka Pietrzak-Varga, said she prepared herself “for the possibility that my son could die in Iraq, but to die like this, in their own home? They were good kids. They didn’t deserve to die like this.”
“She was our only child and my best friend,” Faye Jenkins, Quiana’s mother said. “He was like my son. He was so proud to be a Marine. But when he was off the base, he was my son.”
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Wednesday, November 5, 2008 |
( Credit: AFP/Getty Images )
Sen. Barack Obama speaks to over 125,000 crowd members in Chicago’s Grant Park, minutes after being elected the 44th president of the United States, becoming the nation’s first black person to be elected president.
Obama, the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas and a first-term Democratic senator from Illinois, defeated second-time Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain. The election proved even more victorious for Democrats, which now have the majority in both the House and Senate, the first time since 1994.
In case you missed it, check out President-Elect Obama’s acceptance speech.
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Monday, November 3, 2008 |
Def Jam Executive Vice President Shakir Stewart, 34, died Saturday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound near Atlanta.
Stewart was found around 4 p.m. Saturday in the bathroom of his home in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, Cobb County police spokeswoman Cassie Reece said Sunday. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
He was promoted to Executive VP in June following the resignation of Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter. He also retained his duties as senior VP of A&R at Island Def Jam.
On Sunday, his fiancée, Michelle Rivers, released a joint statement with his family:
“We would like to thank Shakir’s friends for the tremendous outpouring of love and support we have received during this difficult time,” the statement reads. “It has helped us to cope with our overwhelming grief and sadness. It is difficult to express or explain in words what led to the tragic occurrence on Saturday. Over the past several weeks, Shakir’s behavior was inconsistent with the man we all know and love. As much as we all tried to help him, Shakir was in deep pain and largely suffering in silence. Please remember Shakir for who he was … a wonderful father, partner, son and friend.”
HUDSON MEMORIAL
Hundreds lined the street in front of Pleasant Gift Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago to pay their respects in a public memorial to Jennifer Hudson’s mother, brother and nephew.
During the service, several mourners spoke, sang and offered recollections of 57-year-old Darnell Donerson, 29-year-old Jason Hudson and 7-year-old Julian King.
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Wednesday, October 29, 2008 |
The Obama-Biden campaign ran a 30-minute TV ad, which was shown simultaneously on various broadcast and cable networks Wednesday night. The video is above, in case you missed it.
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