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(NPR) News & Notes, May 24, 2007 · James Harris fathered a child when he was just 15, but the teen father didn't abandon his baby nor his dreams. On June 1, Harris will graduate from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and begin a five-year surgical residency at Johns Hopkins University. He talks to Farai Chideya about his unlikely journey. (listen to podcast here) More

Some background: (newsroom.ucla.edu) Prior to the enactment of Proposition 209, which banned the use of race, ethnicity and gender in admissions, UCLA had the highest number of African American freshmen admitted in the UC system. For fall 1995, when UCLA was still allowed to use affirmative action, 1,450 African American students applied, the campus admitted 693 African American applicants and 289 expressed their intent to enroll. Following the passage of Proposition ...More

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Supposedly, the departure of Sallie Mae CEO Tim Fitzpatrick, which was announced Tuesday, is a way for the embattled student loan giant to improve its image in Congress. This is critical, because both Democrats and President Bush want to slash the rich subsidies that student lenders, including Sallie Mae (Charts, Fortune 500), receive. That's obviously not in Sallie's best interest, particularly given Sallie's pending $25 billion ...More

I could not locate any pictures for the following individuals, but their names alone speak louder than any simple statistic. Baltimore, MD Murder Ink by Anna Ditkoff Murders This Week: 5 Murders This Year: 110 A person assaulted on May 10 died this week and has been added to the city's homicide rolls, but as of press time police wouldn't offer additional information. Monday, May 14 12:39 a.m. Nathaniel Hicks, a 30-year-old African-American man, ...More

If you are one of the few out there who is holding your breath for a reaction to see if the same folks who have been raising hell about Korans allegedly being flushed down the toilet in Guantanamo Bay to this latest development--breath! Found via Drudgereport.com, here are just two of many pictures found in a "how-to" guide for torture located somewhere in Iraq. MAY 24--In a recent raid on an ...More

(blacknews.com) Columbus, OH - Finding a Black expert can be difficult, which is part of the reason why you always see the same Black people (Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, T.D. Jakes, etc.) being interviewed on the news and speaking at various conferences. However, Diversity City Media, an 8-year old multicultural marketing and public relations firm, is seeking to change that. The company recently launched BlackExperts.com - a FREE online directory of ...More

The Crown & Glory Technique--By Robin Woods "Braid extensions will grow your hair beautifully if not put in too tight, too heavy, and kept moisturized and strengthened. The hair extensions protects, but also absorb an amount of your hair's natural moisture. I'll show you how to keep your hair in good condition, even in braid extensions. I grew my hair waist length with my Braid Regimen Technique--so can you regardless of ...More

(blackfilm.com) "When it comes to films in general, there are never enough roles for women on the screen, let enough leading roles, or roles for African American women, but so far this year, we have seen a good share of prominent roles go to Black women. While Halle Berry is the only one to have a leading role in “Perfect Stranger”, some supporting roles were given with Meagan Good in ...More

Should mayors take charge over public school systems? Kevin P. Chavous over at edspresso.com responds: Mayoral involvement cannot be lukewarm or tepid. It must be real and tangible. Such involvement has to be respectful of the local political and historical nuances of the city. Moreover, the mayor’s vision must be aligned with realistic goals and expectations that will ultimately lead to better educational opportunities for our children. Mayors also ...More

(wdsu.com) NEW ORLEANS -- A $14.4 billion rebuilding blueprint for New Orleans passed its first regulatory hurdle Tuesday, with the city planning commission approving the plan -- but the panel gave it a less-than-ringing endorsement. Commissioner Edward Robinson Sr. and other board members said the plan is an imperfect starting point to charting the recovery and rebuilding of New Orleans, but it's "movable." [...] The plan, which calls for such things as elevating ...More

(iht.com) WASHINGTON: A new poll of American Muslims reveals a group that is better assimilated, more content and less politically polarized than counterpart Muslim populations in Western Europe - but also smaller in number than some Muslim groups had estimated. For the survey, the Pew Research Center interviewed nearly 60,000 respondents - in Arabic, Urdu, Farsi or English - to find a representative sample of 1,050 respondents, for what appears to ...More

For the next couple of weeks or so, I will be doing a series of posts that will feature our young Black men or women who have had their lives cut short due to homicide from around the country. Rattling off gobs of homicide statistics is very easy--all you have to do is COPY and PASTE--BAM! You made your point. However, after all the debating is over there is still somebody ...More

[e-mailed by professor Carol M. Swain] We must separate the question of whether America is ready to elect a minority president from the individuals currently running on the Democratic ticket. In other words, the success or failure of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama says nothing about the willingness of the country to place its fate in the hands of its first female or first African-American leader. A March 2007 Gallup Poll shows ...More