13-year-old girl shot, killed in Harlem: cops
A gunman who killed a teenage girl and wounded an older woman survived a shootout with cops in Harlem Tuesday morning, police said.
13-year-old girl shot, killed in Harlem: cops
ROCCO PARASCANDOLA
Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:20:21 GMT
Harlem Earth Day
Date: April 22, 2012
Celebrate the Earth, learn about nature, and discover Harlem anew this spring with the first Harlem Earth Day!
Harlem Park to Park Initiative, a community improvement association formed in 2009, has organized a fun and educational mix of free public programs in multiple locations between Central Park, Morningside Park and Marcus Garvey Park.
Everyone will find something interesting to do in this exciting line-up of programs including a Earth Day Celebration Concert and planting workshop, Kids Yoga classes, art installations and arts & crafts, catch & release fishing, an urban gardening workshop, storytelling and instrument making. Pick up a Treasure Map at any of the participating locations and collect a stamp at each station you are visiting.
All ages welcome. No advance registration. For more information, please email info@harlemparktopark.org or call Land Yoga at (917) 270-8031.
Start time: 10:00 am
End time: 4:00 pm
Contact phone: (917) 270-8031
Location: The Great Hill (in Central Park),Morningside Park,Charles A. Dana Discovery Center (in Central Park),Marcus Garvey Park
Harlem Earth Day
Mon, 16 Apr 2012 04:00:11 GMT
Was a cop killer an FBI informant?
Morrison: Forty years ago this weekend, Police Office Phillip Cardillo was gunned down in Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam Mosque No. in Harlem. No one was ever convicted in the case. To the police rank and file, it is the greatest scandal in NYPD history — a story of murder, betrayal and coverup.
Was a cop killer an FBI informant?
Micah Morrison
Sun, 15 Apr 2012 08:51:56 GMT
Skittles Releases Statement On Trayvon Martin’s Murder
In the wake of the growing social media campaign to inundate the Sanford Police Department with Skittles to protest the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who was armed with a menacing pack of Skittles when he was gunned downed by neighborhood vigilante-murderer, George Zimmerman, a spokesperson for the company has issued a statement regarding the tragedy, reports MSNBC.
We are deeply saddened by the news of Trayvon Martin’s death and express our sincere condolences to his family and friends. We also respect their privacy and feel it inappropriate to get involved or comment further as we would never wish for our actions to be perceived as an attempt of commercial gain following this tragedy.”
Extremely classy and appropriate statement Skittles. The candy is currently produced and marketed by the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, a division of Mars, Inc.
Though there is growing backlash to the campaign, with many concerned supporters saying that the candy will do nothing but provide a snack for the Sanford PD, if you would still like to send an empty pack of Skittles to the police department, send it here:
Bill Lee
Chief of Police
815 West 13th Street
Sanford, Florida 32771
Phone: 407-688-5070
Fax: 407-688-5071
Skittles Releases Statement On Trayvon Martin’s Murder
Kirsten West Savali, Contrib. Editor
Fri, 23 Mar 2012 00:14:51 GMT
Empire State Building Won't Go Red For Cardinal Dolan
Rep. Michael Grimm, eager to shift attention away from his possibly super sketchy donations, is trying to convince the Empire State Building to light up in red to honor newly elevated Cardinal Timothy Dolan. But if the ESB isn't honoring Mother Theresa, why honor Dolan? [ more › ]
Empire State Building Won't Go Red For Cardinal Dolan
Jen Chung
Thu, 23 Feb 2012 23:22:08 GMT
Updated 9h 1m ago
WASHINGTON (AP) – For the past decade women in the U.S. military have served, fought and died on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By Patrick Baz, AFP/Getty Images
A U.S. female soldier shows the way to an Iraqi woman, as she arrives at an improvised clinic set up by the U.S. military, at a school on the al-Abara neighborhood of Baquba.
By Patrick Baz, AFP/Getty Images
A U.S. female soldier shows the way to an Iraqi woman, as she arrives at an improvised clinic set up by the U.S. military, at a school on the al-Abara neighborhood of Baquba.
On Thursday, Pentagon rules will catch up a bit with reality, recommending to Congress that women be allowed to serve in more jobs closer to the front lines.
According to defense officials, the new rules are expected to continue the long-held prohibition that prevents women from serving as infantry, armor and special operations forces. But they will formally allow women to serve in other jobs at the battalion level, which until now had been considered too close to combat.
In reality, however, the necessity of war has already propelled women to the front lines — often as medics, military police or intelligence officers. So, while they couldn't be assigned as an infantryman in a battalion or company going out on patrol, they could fly the helicopter supporting the unit, or move in to provide medical aid if troops were injured.
A student at IS 208 in Bellerose, Queens, allegedly sold pot brownies to her schoolmates.
Exterior of PS/IS 208 on Commonwealth Blvd.
A Queens public school went to pot last week when an eighth-grader sold her classmates marijuana-laced brownies, the Daily News has learned.
Twenty students at Intermediate School 208 in Bellerose were caught munching on the psychedelic treats that a girl peddled out of her backpack, officials confirmed.
The youngsters scooped them up for $3 each — or two for $5 — in the cafeteria during lunch on Thursday and Friday, said a parent of one of the kids, who estimated the baked baker raked in about $250.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/jr-high-school-daze-article-1.1017024#ixzz1lQK6uWe2
Jan 26, 2012: January HPNG Latino Leaders Networking Event at Elmo @ The Lounge
Dear Colleague:
You're invited to the HPNG Latino Leaders Networking Event on January 26th in New York.
For many of us, a New Year often brings new plans, new goals and new hope for our future. Connecting with people that inspire you to stay focused on those new plans will go a long way in fulfilling your new goals.
Please join us as we proudly welcome:
Ms. Lucinda Martinez
Vice President, Domestic Network Distribution & Multicultural Marketing
HBO
Lucinda Martinez was named vice president, Domestic Network Distribution & Multicultural Marketing in 2006 and oversees all subscriber growth and retention strategies for HBO, HBO Latino and Cinemax brands and products, as well as targeted marketing efforts to the largest growing segments including African American, Latino, Asian and Gay/Lesbian markets.
Martinez first joined HBO in 1995, leaving in 1996 to relocate to Los Angeles. She rejoined HBO in 2003 as director, Direct Marketing, and named director, Strategic Partnerships and Emerging Markets in 2005.
Prior to rejoining HBO, Martinez worked for Comedy Central for over five years as affiliate sales and marketing director, and for GEMS International Television, from 1996 to 1998, as manager, Affiliate Sales and Marketing, Western Region. She began her career in consumer package goods for Avon Products in New York City in 1992 as merchandising/ethnic marketing manager.
Don't miss it, I'll see you there!
- Ali
Ali T. Curi
President
HPNG
New York | Miami | Chicago
OPEN BAR courtesy of Dewar's (www.dewars.com)
SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR SPONSOR: STATE FARM
http://www.hpng.net/ent/statefarm.php
THANKS TO OUR MEDIA PARTNERS: ETPNetwork.com, NocheLatina.com, MiguelRosario.com, LaCosmopolatina.com, LatinTrends.com, CafeMagazine.com, NSHMBA.org/newyork, doslives.com, hispaniceventsusa.com/
Jan 26, 2012: January HPNG Latino Leaders Networking Event at Elmo @ The Lounge
Sat, 21 Jan 2012 02:01:07 GMT
Newt Gingrich Uses Racist “Southern Strategy” In S.C. Primary
WASHINGTON — Newt Gingrich is leaning into his argument that President Barack Obama is a “food stamp president” and that poor people should want paychecks, not handouts.
The pitch earned him a standing ovation in South Carolina during a presidential debate on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Gingrich has turned the moment into a TV ad as he works to claw his way to the top of the leader board in the closing days of the campaign for South Carolina’s primary on Saturday.
But that type of rhetoric is stoking concerns among some blacks that the political discourse is rewinding to the days of “Southern strategy” campaigning, when blacks were used as scapegoats to attract white votes.
Newt Gingrich Uses Racist “Southern Strategy” In S.C. Primary
Associated Press
Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:59:24 GMT
January 13, 2012 8:14am | By Andrea Swalec, DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
GREENWICH VILLAGE — Jazz club the Blue Note has been a Greenwich Village institution for more than three decades, and now it's trying to get a musical foothold on the Meatpacking District.
The club's owner is planning a three-floor venue at 22 Little W. 12th St., with dining rooms on the landmarked building's sixth and seventh floors and a small live music venue in the basement, he said at a Thursday night meeting of Community Board 2's State Liquor Authority advisory committee.
"The late-night jam session in New York — we're hoping to reestablish that in this location," said Steve Bensusan, who owns Blue Note, B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in Midtown and the Highline Ballroom in Chelsea.
The 80-person-capacity basement club would feature "jazz, live music and R&B" and provide "room to develop new artists," he said.
The name of the new venue would "most likely not be 'Blue Note,'" representative Frank Heidinger said. Rather, its name may evoke the Japanese food it plans to serve.
In a partnership with Johnnie Walker, the DOT is handing out 4,000 single-ride MetroCards and 1,500 $15 debit cards to use in the city’s 13,000-plus taxicabs, participating livery car services, MTA, PATH, NJ Transit or other ticketing machines from until noon on Jan. 1.
The free cards will be handed out today at 5 p.m. at the St. George Ferry Terminal at Staten Island and at the Fulton Mall in Downtown Brooklyn.
More free cards will be handed out Dec. 31 at 5 p.m. on the Upper East Side at 2nd Avenue at 86th Street and in Harlem at Broadway & 125th Street.
Guy Calaf for The New York Times
Katherine Davis said that when a man climbed through her living room window, the police did not take an official report.
Jill Korber walked into a drab police station in Queens in July to report that a passing bicyclist had groped her two days in a row. She left in tears, frustrated, she said, by the response of the first officer she encountered.
Jill Korber was frustrated by the Police Department's response after she was groped by a passing cyclist two days in a row.
“He told me it would be a waste of time, because I didn’t know who the guy was or where he worked or anything,” said Ms. Korber, 34, a schoolteacher. “His words to me were, ‘These things happen.’ He said those words.”
Written by News One on December 27, 2011 7:49 amClick for More
SEE ALSO: Take The 2011 News Quiz
As ubiquitous as champagne and confetti on New Year’s Eve, black-eyed peas are a staple in African-American homes come January 1.
Like its soul-food kin, hoppin’ John, as the peas are called when cooked with rice, is rooted in slave culture and has been eaten throughout the South for good luck on New Year’s Day (alongside collard greens, which are said to bring money, and cornbread for good health).
According to Andrew F. Smith’s “Oxford Companion To American Food And Drink,” the dish rose to prominence in South Carolina’s low country, where rice-growing slaves from West Africa prepared it in dishes based on those they made in their homeland. And though it started out as a tradition among slaves, its inclusion in an 1847 cookbook called “The Carolina Housewife” by Sarah Rutledge signaled its acceptance in upper-class kitchens as well.
For recipes to unlock the keys to prosperity and health in the New Year, click here!
Arizona Sheriff Discriminates Against Latinos, Feds Say
PHOENIX — The federal government issued a scathing report Thursday that outlines how Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office has committed a wide range of civil rights violations against Latinos, including a pattern of racial profiling and discrimination and carrying out heavy-handed immigration patrols based on racially charged citizen complaints.
The report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its release, is a result of the U.S. Justice Department’s three-year investigation of Arpaio’s office amid complaints of racial profiling and a culture of bias at the agency’s top level.
The Justice Department’s conclusions in the civil probe mark the federal government’s harshest rebuke of a national political fixture who has risen to prominence for his immigration crackdowns and became coveted endorsement among candidates in the GOP presidential field.
Apart from the civil rights probe, a federal grand jury also has been investigating Arpaio’s office on criminal abuse-of-power allegations since at least December 2009 and is specifically examining the investigative work of the sheriff’s anti-public corruption squad.
The civil rights report said federal authorities will continue to investigate complaints of deputies using excessive force against Latinos, whether the sheriff’s office failed to provide adequately police services in Hispanic communities and a large number of sex-crimes cases that were assigned to the agency but weren’t followed up on or investigated at all.
The report took the sheriff’s office to task for launching immigration patrols, known as “sweeps,” based on complaints that Latinos were merely gathering near a business without committing crimes. Federal authorities single out Arpaio himself and said his office, known as MCSO, has no clear policies to guard against the violations, even after he changed some of his top aides earlier this year.
“Arpaio’s own actions have helped nurture MCSO’s culture of bias,” wrote Thomas Perez, who heads the Justice Department’s civil rights division, adding that the sheriff frequently gave such racially charged letters to some of his top aides and saved them in his own files.
“MCSO is broken in a number of critical respects. The problems are deeply rooted in MCSO’s culture,” he said Thursday.
The Justice Department’s expert on measuring racial profiling said it’s the most egregious case of racial profiling in the nation that he has seen or reviewed in professional literature, Perez said.
Investigators interviewed more than 400 people, including Arpaio, reviewed thousands of documents and toured county jails as part of its probe, he said.
If the sheriff’s office doesn’t turn around its policies and practices, the federal government could pull millions of dollars of federal funding.
Arpaio’s office did not immediately respond to AP requests for comment.
The report will require Arpaio to set up effective policies against discrimination, improve training and make other changes that would be monitored for compliance by a judge. Arpaio faces a Jan. 4 deadline for saying whether he wants to work out an agreement. If not, the federal government will sue him and let a judge decide the complaint.
Arpaio, the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America, has long denied the racial profiling allegation, saying people are stopped if deputies have probable cause to believe they have committed crimes and that deputies later find many of them are illegal immigrants.
Arpaio has built his reputation on jailing inmates in tents and dressing them in pink underwear, selling himself to voters as unceasingly tough on crime and pushing the bounds of how far local police can go to confront illegal immigration.
The report also said he and some top staffers tried to silence people who have spoken out against the sheriff’s office by arresting people without cause, filing meritless lawsuits against opponents and starting investigations of critics.
One example cited by the Justice Department is former top Arpaio aide David Hendershott, who filed bar complaints against attorneys critical of the agency along with bringing judicial complaints against judges who were at odds with the sheriff. All complaints were dismissed.
The anti-corruption squad’s cases against two county officials and a judge collapsed in court before going to trial and have been criticized by politicians at odds with the sheriff as trumped up. Arpaio has defended the investigations as a valid attempt at rooting out corruption in county government.
The civil rights report said Latinos are four to nine times more likely to be stopped in traffic stops in Maricopa County than non-Latinos and that the agency’s immigration policies treat Latinos as if they are all in the country illegally. Deputies on the immigrant-smuggling squad stop and arrest Latino drivers without good cause, the investigation found.
A review done as part of the investigation found that 20 percent of traffic reports handled by Arpaio’s immigrant-smuggling squad from March 2006 to March 2009 were stops – almost all involving Latino drivers – that were done without reasonable suspicion. The squad’s stops rarely led to smuggling arrests.
Deputies are encouraged to make high-volume traffic stops in targeted locations. There were Latinos who were in the U.S. legally who were arrested or detained without cause during the sweeps, according to the report.
During the sweeps, deputies flood an area of a city – in some cases, heavily Latino areas – over several days to seek out traffic violators and arrest other offenders. Illegal immigrants accounted for 57 percent of the 1,500 people arrested in the 20 sweeps conducted by his office since January 2008, according to figures provided by Arpaio’s office.
Police supervisors, including at least one smuggling-squad supervisor, often used county accounts to send emails that demeaned Latinos to fellow sheriff’s managers, deputies and volunteers in the sheriff’s posse. One such email had a photo of a mock driver’s license for a fictional state called “Mexifornia.”
The report said that the sheriff’s office launched an immigration operation two weeks after the sheriff received a letter in August 2009 letter about a person’s dismay over employees of a McDonald’s in the Phoenix suburb of Sun City who didn’t speak English. The tip laid out no criminal allegations. The sheriff wrote back to thank the writer “for the info,” said he would look into it and forwarded it to a top aide with a note of “for our operation.”
Federal investigators focused heavily on the language barriers in Arpaio’s jails.
Latino inmates with limited English skills were punished for failing to understand commands in English by being put in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day or keeping prisoners locked down in their jail pods for as long as 72 hours without a trip to the canteen area or making nonlegal phone calls.
The report said some jail officers used racial slurs for Latinos when talking among themselves and speaking to inmates.
Detention officers refused to accept forms requesting basic daily services and reporting mistreatment when the documents were completed in Spanish and pressured Latinos with limited English skills to sign forms that implicate their legal rights without language assistance.
The agency pressures Latinos with limited English skills to sign forms by yelling at them and keeping them in uncomfortably cold cells for long periods of time.
The Justice Department said it hadn’t yet established a pattern of alleged wrongdoing by the sheriff’s office in the three areas where they will continue to investigation: complaints of excessive force against Latinos, botched sex-crimes cases and immigration efforts that have hurt the agency’s trust with the Hispanic community.
Federal authorities will continue to investigate whether the sheriff’s office has limited the willingness of witnesses and victims to report crimes or talk to Arpaio’s office.
“MCSO has done almost nothing to build such a relationship with Mariciopa County’s Latino residents,” Perez wrote.
Arizona Sheriff Discriminates Against Latinos, Feds Say
Associated Press
Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:58:32 GMT
NORAD's Santa trackers pull out high-tech stops
NORAD is once again using its super high-tech tracking equipment to keep tabs on Santa Claus this year.
NORAD's Santa trackers pull out high-tech stops
Thu, 22 Dec 2011 23:05:59 GMT
