Florida Sentinel Bulletin

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is offering warm wishes to newly elected Pope Francis.

Obama says the selection of the first pope from the Americas speaks to the strength and vitality of the region. He says millions of Hispanic Americans join him in praying for the new pope.

Cardinals in Rome on Wednesday elected 76-year-old Jorge Bergoglio, who chose the papal name Francis. An Argentinian, Bergoglio is also the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium.

Obama says the pope serves as a champion of the poor and vulnerable and represents the love and compassion that has inspired the world throughout the Catholic Church’s history.

He says he looks forward to working with the pope to promote peace, security and dignity for people of all faiths.

DETROIT  — Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was convicted Monday of corruption charges, ensuring a return to prison for a man once among the nation’s youngest big-city leaders.

Jurors convicted Kilpatrick of a raft of crimes, including a racketeering conspiracy charge that carries a maximum punishment of 20 years behind bars. He was portrayed during a five-month trial as an unscrupulous politician who took bribes, rigged contracts and lived far beyond his means while in office until fall 2008.

Kilpatrick wore a surprised, puzzled look at times as U. S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds read the jury’s verdict: guilty of 24 charges, not guilty on three and no consensus on three more. Kilpatrick declined to speak to reporters as he left the courthouse.

Prosecutors said Kilpatrick ran a “private profit machine” out of Detroit’s City Hall. The government presented evidence to show he got a share of the spoils after ensuring that Bobby Ferguson’s excavating company was awarded millions in work from the water department.

Business owners said they were forced to hire Ferguson as a subcontractor or risk losing city contracts. Separately, fundraiser Emma Bell said she gave Kilpatrick more than $200,000 as his personal cut of political donations, pulling cash from her bra during private meetings. A high-ranking aide, Derrick Miller, told jurors that he often was the middle man, passing bribes from others.

WARREN, OH — Two teens who escaped a crash that killed six friends in a swampy pond wriggled out of the wreckage by smashing a rear window and swimming away from the SUV, a state trooper said Monday.

The inside of the sport utility vehicle was entirely under water within minutes of the crash, said State Highway Patrol Lt. Brian Holt.

Investigators don’t yet know why the eight were in the speeding vehicle without permission when it smashed into a guardrail and flipped over into the pond Sunday morning around daybreak, Holt said.

No one in the group had asked to take the vehicle and its owner was not related to any of the teens, Holt said. The vehicle was licensed to a resident of Youngstown, about 20 miles away.

The two teens who escaped have talked with investigators, Holt said. The two boys ran a quarter-mile to a home to call 911, the highway patrol said.

The two survivors, 18-year-old Brian Henry and 15-year-old Asher Lewis, both of Warren, were treated for bruising and other injuries and released, she said.

All those killed were ages 14 to 19, authorities said. State police identified the others as the 19-year-old driver Alexis Cayson; Andrique Bennett, 14; Brandon Murray, 14; and Kirklan Behner, Ramone White and Derrick Ray, all 15.

Pictured: Leaman Joe, left, hugs Michael Parker, at the crash site that killed their friends on Park Ave. in Warren, Ohio on Sunday, March 10, 2013. 

SOUTH AFRICA — Following the wishes of his dead namesake, 8-year-old Sanele Masilela got hitched to Helen Shabangu, 61, who is a Mother of five, in their village of Tshwane, South Africa.

The wedding announcement sent shock waves throughout the town, but according to the boy’s parents, the child was merely respecting the wishes of his dead grandfather. Masilela, who is named after his grandfather, supposedly told by the elder to have a white lavish wedding, because he never had one before he died.

Fearing that there would be some sort of doom brought upon him if he did not follow through with his grandfather’s wishes, the boy agreed to marry the woman he loved, Shabangu.

JOHANNESBURG, S. AFRICA — Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader and Nobel laureate returned to his Johannesburg home on Sunday after spending a night in a hospital for what presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said was a “successful” medical exam. Maharaj said Mandela was “well.”

The 94-year-old, however, has grown increasingly frail over the years. In December, he spent three weeks in a hospital, where he was treated for a lung infection and had a procedure to remove gallstones.

The revered leader’s brief hospitalization comes at a time when South Africa is struggling to live up to the promise that Mandela has come to symbolize.

ILLINOIS — A Illinois police department is standing behind its decision to arrest an 8-year-old special needs student.

The girl was handcuffed at her Alton school on last Tuesday. Her guardian says he’s outraged his daughter was treated like a criminal.

Jmiyha Rickman was hauled off in the back of a police car from school to the Alton Police Department and was held for nearly two hours.

Police say they had no choice after Rickman took a swing at a school resource officer and tore up two classrooms.

Her guardian says the situation could have been handled better.

“I trusted the school to give her the adequate treatment and care she deserves and they failed us,” said Nehemiah Keeton, Rickman’s uncle and guardian.

Keeton says Rickman is autistic and suffers from separation anxiety and depression.

On Tuesday morning, he got a phone call from Love Joy Elementary School in Alton to pick her up because she was having a tantrum.  He says this has happened several times before.

Keeton was on his way to the school when he got a phone call from police saying Rickman was in custody.

Rickman says her hands and feet were handcuffed and had a belt around her waist.

MIAMI, FL — Emma Anderson, 82, was reportedly dragged off of the Miami Metrorail train system last month for allegedly singing religious hymns too loudly.

The incident involving the octogenarian occurred on February 20th and was captured via a passenger’s cell phone video.  The footage shows Anderson sitting in the corner seat of a railcar obliviously singing religious tunes and rhythmically tapping to them on her thigh with a rolled-up piece of paper.

An unnamed security guard spotted the senior, approached her, and repeatedly asked her to quiet down. Anderson continued to ignore the guard’s request. As the train stopped at Brikell station, the guard then grabbed Anderson’s cart roughly while Anderson tried to hold on for dear life.

The security guard then proceeded to drag both the cart and fragile old woman off the train. As the guard dragged Anderson along with her cart, roughshod, out of the railcar, Anderson fell on the platform.

According to a Miami-Dade County transit spokesperson, Karla Damian, the agency enforces a strict policy that no dancing, singing, or instrument playing is allowed on their railcars. The agency also released a public statement with regards to the Anderson incident:

We regret that Ms. Anderson had to eventually be escorted out, but regardless of age, all passengers need to abide by rules associated with using transit.

NEW YORK  — A man has been sentenced to 240 years in prison for terrorizing patrons at a New York City bar during a bizarre hostage ordeal more than a decade ago.

Steve Johnson cursed at the judge and railed about the economy during his sentencing Friday in the 2002 kidnapping at Bar Veloce in the East Village.

Johnson invaded the bar with three pistols, a samurai sword and a container of kerosene. He shot and wounded three people and sprayed kerosene on several customers.

A jury convicted Johnson last month of charges including attempted murder. Authorities say Johnson, who is black, targeted white patrons.

It was the 45-year-old’s third trial. The first trial deadlocked in 2004. The second resulted in a conviction and a 240-year prison sentence, but was overturned on appeal.

The drama around the $85 billion in federal government cuts due to start on March 1, known as the sequester, centers around one fundamental question: how much has President Obama’s victory in November changed the nation’s political dynamics on fiscal issues?

Since Election Day, President Obama has demanded Republicans back down from some of their strongest-held positions, arguing the American public handed him a mandate to rechart the country’s fiscal course by electing him a second time. Yes, the Republicans would allow higher taxes on the wealthy, Pres. Obama insisted, and the GOP eventually conceded. Yes, Republicans would allow the country to raise its debt limit without accompanying spend cuts, Pres. Obama insisted, and again the GOP relented.

With the sequester, the Republicans finally feel like they are in a fight they can win. They say the president, who is insisting the $85 billion in cuts this year be replaced by an agreement that includes both spending reductions and tax increases, can’t cast the GOP as a crazy, anti-tax party after Republicans just allowed a tax increase less than two months ago. And while allowing the sequester to occur could result in thousands of layoffs and furloughs for workers, Republicans won’t be blamed for a full economic meltdown, which could have resulted from going over the federal debt limit. In fact, the GOP can point out, as party leaders are, that the sequester was originally proposed by top Pres. Obama aides.

This fiscal debate is also much different than the other two issues consuming Washington: gun control and immigration. Republicans have a strong incentive to reach a deal on immigration, rather than oppose Pres. Obama, as they view taking that issue off the table as a starting point to winning more Latino voters in future elections. And the president’s main legislative priority on gun control, passing universal background checks, does not target a fundamental Republican value.

On the sequester, both parties’ positions are much more hardened. Pres. Obama argues correctly that the majority of the voting public shares his view that deficit reduction plans should include a combination of tax increases and spending cuts.