Florida Sentinel Bulletin

MARIETTA, Ga.  — An 18-year-old man accused of fatally shooting a baby in a stroller during a robbery attempt in coastal Georgia twice counted down from five and threatened the baby before the deadly shot, his teenage co-defendant testified Thursday.

Dominique Lang took the stand at the murder trial of De’Marquise Elkins, who is accused of shooting 13-month-old Antonio Santiago on March 21. Police say the 15-year-old Lang was an accomplice, and he is also charged with murder and will be tried at a later date.

The killing in the port city of Brunswick, not far from Savannah, drew national attention, and the trial was moved to the Atlanta suburb of Marietta owing to extensive publicity.   faces life in prison if convicted of murder. At the time of the shooting he was 17, too young to face the death penalty if convicted under Georgia law.

WASHINGTON — Fresh from a week-long vacation, President Barack Obama has to confront such issues as the crisis in Egypt and federal spending before getting back out on the road to sell his economic proposals.

Pres. Obama returned Sunday night from the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard. On Thursday, the President set out on a two-day bus trip through upstate New York and Pennsylvania to lay out ideas to help make a college education more affordable for the middle class.

Stops included the State University of New York at Buffalo and Henninger High School in Syracuse. On Friday, Pres. Obama answered questions at a town hall-style event at SUNY-Binghamton before a stop at Lackawanna College in Scranton, Pa. He is to be joined there by Vice President Joe Biden, a native of the northeastern Pennsylvania city.

Pres. Obama has a private meeting Monday with various financial regulators to discuss ongoing efforts to strengthen the financial system, including the implementation of the Dodd-Frank law revamping the nation’s financial system and the Consumer Protection Act.

Pres. Obama spoke publicly just once during his vacation, against the violence in Egypt that left scores of people dead. The White House is currently reconsidering all U.S. assistance to Egypt, and “will consider additional steps as we deem necessary,” National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlyn Hayden said Sunday.

Also competing for Pres. Obama’s attention will be negotiations with congressional Republicans to get a new spending plan in place by the Sept. 30th end of the federal budget year or risk a government shutdown, and to increase the government’s borrowing authority.

His week ahead also includes a White House recognition ceremony Tuesday for the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the only NFL team to achieve a perfect season.

The Dolphins, who went 17-0, never made it to the White House after their Super Bowl win 40 years ago in 1973. President Richard Nixon was immersed in the Watergate scandal at the time, and back then, White House visits by victorious professional and collegiate sports teams were not as common as they are today.

Many Dolphins team members are expected to attend, including fullback Larry Csonka and Hall of Fame coach Don Shula.

The March on Washington brought more than a quarter-million people to the nation’s capital on Aug. 28, 1963, for what many consider a key turning point in the civil-rights movement.

The historic rally was highlighted by the “I Have a Dream” speech delivered by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Few realized it at the time—King’s speech did not even make the front page of The Washington Post the next day—but the calls for equal justice that echoed across the National Mall 50 years ago would be at least partially realized a year later with enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“The response to our call to commemorate the March on Washington and my father’s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech has been overwhelming,” said Bernice A. King, who was exactly five months old when her father gave his best-known speech. “We expect hundreds of thousands of people to join us in the nation’s capital for this historic event, and many more to take part worldwide in their communities.”

King, who now heads the family’s King Center in Atlanta, has been the driving force behind the commemoration events that kicked off in Washington on Wednesday with a worship service at the Mt. Airy Baptist Church just north of the Capitol.

The biggest event in terms of participants will be the “Realize the Dream March and Rally” to be held Saturday on the National Mall. Organized by Martin Luther King III, King’s oldest son, and the Rev. Al Sharpton, leader of the National Action Network based in Harlem.

LOS ANGELOS – When most kids start their freshman year of college, it takes some time to get used to the small, cramped living spaces and to sharing a bathroom with a dozen people.

But not James Ward.

The Howard University student spent much of his childhood homeless, alternating between shelters and the street in LA’s dangerous Skid Row neighborhood.

“I used to hide it from people,” James admits. “But now, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized there was nothing to be embarrassed (about) to begin with.”

James’ journey to college began when Jessica Sutherland, who volunteers at LA’s Union Rescue Mission, found out that James had been accepted to Howard University, but couldn’t afford to go.

Although loans, scholarships, and grants covered about 70 percent of his tuition, James somehow had to come up with an additional $14,000. He thought it would never happen. That’s where Jessica, who was once homeless as well, stepped in.

She created The James Fund, a website that asked people to donate to James’ college efforts. Thanks to some endorsements from celebrities like rapper/actor Common, donations began to pour in. James even created a Tumblr blog, Homeless to Howard, to chronicle his journey. In just one week, James had enough money to pay for his freshman year.

For the first time in his life, he got on an airplane and headed to Washington, D.C., to begin his new life.

NEW YORK – When Chaneya Kelly was eight years old, her mother forced her to say that her father molested her.

It was October of 1997 and Chaneya was just two months shy of her ninth birthday when she made the claim that sent her father, Daryl Kelly, to prison.

But why would a mother ask her child to do something so vile?

Chaneya’s mother, Charade said that her drug habit was to blame. It was a habit so severe that she took to prostitution to finance it. At the time, Daryl was living with Charade, and their five children in Newburgh, N.Y. He also has a drug habit he was trying to kick while maintaining an electronics shop he owned. Beyond that, Daryl was just another military vet trying to make due.

But Chaneya remembers her mother asking her an odd question out of the blue one day before going to school. “She repeatedly asked me, has my dad touched me,” recalled Chaneya. “I was like, ‘What do you mean, did he touch me?’ And she was like, ‘Did he touch you in your no-no spot?’ And I would repeatedly say no.”

TALLAHASSEE – Claiming victory despite their failure to force a special legislative session on Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law, youthful protesters ended a 31-day occupation of the state Capitol’s ground floor on Thursday.

They vowed to take their demands to college campuses and state lawmakers’ campaign rallies in a long-term push for social change.

“I say to the young people here, you’re ending a protest because you started a movement,” Julian Bond, former chairman of the NAACP, said at a news conference in the Capitol rotunda.

“That movement is going to reverberate across the state of Florida and eventually to the adjoining states, until all of America knows something about the strength and the power that was demonstrated here.”

Calling themselves the Dream Defenders, the group began its sit-in four days after the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the fatal shooting of teenager Trayvon Martin in the central Florida town of Sanford.

Florida Governor Rick Scott rejected their demands for a special session, and efforts to get the Republican-run Legislature to convene one also fell short.

HARRISBURG, PA — A state judge issued an order Friday that is expected to block enforcement of Pennsylvania’s strict voter-identification law in the Nov. 5 general election.

Local poll workers can ask voters to show IDs if they have them and distribute written material about the law, but they may not tell voters at the polls that photo IDs could be required in future elections, Commonwealth Court Judge Bernard McGinley said.

“There is no value in inaccurate information, and the court does not deem inaccurate information ‘educational.’ It is not a matter of confusion — it is a matter of accuracy,” McGinley wrote.

McGinley’s ruling marked the third consecutive election in which enforcement of the law has been blocked by court order.

Johnnie Gooden Jr. was arrested and is being held on an assaulting a public servant charge for allegedly telling a bank teller he was the newly adopted son of First Lady Michelle Obama then asking for access to her bank account.

Gooden, reportedly walked in to a Bryan, Texas, Chase Manhattan bank and informed the teller that Mrs. Obama had just adopted him the day before. According to a probable cause statement, when the teller told Gooden that the First Lady did not bank at their financial institution, he still remained at the bank.

Chase employees reportedly summoned police, and when they arrived to question Gooden, he allegedly told them, “Mrs. Obama contacted him through Facebook and adopted him, and he was now trying to get money out of her bank account.”

When the police investigators challenged the 29-year-old man by trying to refute his story, he chose to remain mum and not utter another word.

Upon further investigation in to Gooden’s criminal background, it came to light that he had outstanding warrants for resisting arrest and assault on a public servant.

Mayor Bloomberg has a knack for drawing criticism and firing up conspiracy theorists. This week, Mr. Stop-And-Frisk suggested that all public housing residents should be fingerprinted to enter their homes, for their own safety.

Bloomberg made the comments on his weekly radio show on Friday, August 16. “The people that live there, most of them, want more police protection . . . if you have strangers walking in the halls of your apartment building, don’t you want somebody to stop and say, ‘Who are you?

He added, “What we really should have is fingerprinting to get in.”

The Mayor’s reps quickly made note that he was just sounding out an idea, not actually hoping to get fingerprint scanners in the projects. Mind you this is the same guy that supported the electronic fingerprinting of food stamp applicants as a means to combat fraud.