Florida Sentinel Bulletin

As the enrollment date of the Affordable Care Act is set to open Oct. 1, African-Americans, both insured and uninsured, will be positively impacted by the sweeping changes of the law.

In an effort to educate the public, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has made several efforts to simplify the finer points of the Act.

NewsOne heard from a trio of Health department officials regarding the Act during a recent phone conference, and asked them about their efforts to cater the flood of information for varying levels of literacy and the like. We were told that heavy steps have been made to provide individuals with assistance at their level of comprehension. Also, a customer assistance telephone service will provide translation services and other needs in over 150 languages.

Via the website HealthCare.gov, persons can learn more about individual or family coverage. Small business owners may also seek more information about coverage. The Health department’s Health Care Marketplace will be hosted at the site for the 2014 open enrollment period, which begins in October and ends on March 31, 2014.

For those 7.3 million African-Americans already insured, the Act will bolster their insurance by providing much-needed preventive services such as wellness visits, cancer screenings and diabetes treatment at no extra cost. As noted by the Health department, 1 out of 4 African-Americans die from heart disease–a preventable condition.

And while Medicare does not fall under Affordable Care Act’s Marketplace plan, 4.5 African-Americans who are covered under Medicare can now enjoy a variety of preventive services for free.

PHILADELPHIA — A Philadelphia woman has turned up alive nearly 14 days after her family held a funeral and burial.

Sharolyn Jackson, 50, showed up at a mental health facility last Friday.

Services were held Aug. 3 after the Philadelphia medical examiner signed a death certificate for Jackson.

A spokesman for the Philadelphia Health Department says Jackson’s own son, as well as a social worker who knows her, viewed pictures of a body and identified it as belonging to Jackson. The body had been found July 20 on a Philadelphia street.

The body buried in what was thought to be Jackson’s grave will be exhumed in hopes of identifying the remains.

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.