Florida Sentinel Bulletin

AMMAN, JORDAN  — President Barack Obama says each of his proposed steps to reduce gun violence should get a vote in Congress – even an assault weapons ban that both parties agree stands little chance at passing.

Senate Democrats dropped the ban from the bill they plan to debate next month out of concern it could sink the whole package. Still, Pres. Obama says he’s pushing for it.

In his weekly radio and Internet address released Saturday, Pres. Obama says the U.S. has changed in the three months since the December school shooting in Newtown, Conn. He says Americans support the ban, plus limits on high-capacity ammunition magazines, school security funding and a crackdown on gun trafficking.

“Today there is still genuine disagreement among well-meaning people about what steps we should take to reduce the epidemic of gun violence in this country. But you, the American people, have spoken,” Pres. Obama said.

The White House said Saturday that Pres. Obama will make additional trips outside Washington to rally support for the measures, including the assault weapons ban. The White House also said that before Pres. Obama left for Israel earlier this week, his push for gun control was among the issues he raised with lawmakers from both parties as he embarked on a concerted effort to reach out to Congress.

CHICAGO — Tens of thousands of Chicago students, parents, and teachers learned Thursday their schools were on a long-feared list of 54 the city plans to close in an effort to stabilize an educational system facing a huge budget shortfall.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the closures are necessary because too many Chicago Public School buildings are half-empty, with 403,000 students in a system that has seats for more than 500,000. But opponents say the closures will further erode troubled neighborhoods and endanger students who may have to cross gang boundaries to attend school. The schools slated for closure are all elementary schools and are overwhelmingly Black and in low-income neighborhoods.

An alleged Orange County, Fla., prostitute was arrested and charged with attempted murder after nearly biting off a client’s penis. The cops were called to the Crestwood Suites on University Boulevard after multiple 911 calls complaining about screaming and growling sounds from a room on the second floor of the hotel.

When the cops arrived on the scene, they found a man covered in blood from several apparent injuries to his penis, testicles, leg, abdomen, chest and fingers, according to a police report. The victim was rushed to the Orlando Regional Medical Center trauma center.

The alleged attacker and escort, Priscilla Vaughn, “was nude, and had blood around her mouth, which had spread to her face and head,” the report states, adding Vaughn “growled and snarled” at the cops on the scene.

WASHINGTON  — Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced her support for gay marriage Monday, putting her in line with other potential Democratic presidential candidates on a social issue that is rapidly gaining public approval.

Clinton made the announcement in an online video released Monday morning by the gay rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign. She says in the five-minute video that gays and lesbians are “full and equal citizens and deserve the rights of citizenship.”

“That includes marriage,” she says, adding that she backs gay marriage both “personally and as a matter of policy and law.”

MICHIGAN — A Detroit woman claims that her home on the city’s southwest side was robbed twice and she got little help from the cops.

Ashley Ball says the first time her home was jacked was on Tuesday, when she arrived home to see that her door had been “pried open with a crowbar.”

“They ransacked my house, stole… electronics, jewelry, keepsakes,” she explained. “The Detroit Police came, and they had a team come out and dust the next day.”

But the crooks weren’t done. The very next day, Ball says she slowed her car to a creeping speed as she drove down the alley behind her home because she felt something fishy was going on. Her senses were right: the thieves were in her house with her goods and making their getaway as she crept closer to the house.

Ball drove after them.

“I called 911. I said I had the cars, I had the guys, described them and gave them the license plate,” Ball said.

ILLINOIS — Five men in Illinois have been charged in the armed robbery of attendees at a house party, overnight. Three of the suspects are on parole, and are accused of hitting a home in the Joliet Township, with police being called to the scene at around 3:30 a.m.

Rodney G. Parks, 22, Darius Strong, 24, Deathray Anderson, 22, Elijah Watson, 17, and Mitchell  M. Thompson, 18, were all charged with home invasion and robbery. Most of the suspects hail from Joliet, while Strong is from Chicago. Strong, Parks and Anderson are all currently on parole.

Four of the five entered the party wearing dark clothing, and used either scarves or masks, to hide their identities. Shortly after walking through the door, they began jacking guests for their wallets, cell phones, and money. The suspects fled the scene on foot.

Authorities were able to tie the men to a vehicle driven by  Strong. Further investigation revealed that Strong was not the owner and had not been given permission to drive of the vehicle. The car owner claimed to have no knowledge of the three people who returned to his home with the vehicle.

Black children are less likely to receive a prescription antibiotic than their non-Black counterparts — even when treated by the same health provider — according to a study published in Pediatrics.

The findings are based on 1.3 million doctor visits with the same 222 providers, and were independent of age, gender or type of insurance.

This is not the first time research has shown racial biases among health professionals. A smaller study at the University of Washington, showed that unconscious racial biases affected the amount of pain medication given to Black children when they needed it. And a Johns Hopkins study highlighted that primary physicians with unconscious racial biases tended to dominate conversations with Black patients, ignore their social needs and exclude them from the decision-making process.

STEUBENVILLE, OHIO — Two members of the high school football team that is the pride of Steubenville were found guilty Sunday of raping a drunken 16-year-old girl in a case that bitterly divided the Rust Belt city and led to accusations of a cover-up to protect the community’s athletes.

Steubenville High School students Trent Mays and Ma’Lik Richmond were sentenced to at least a year in juvenile jail, capping a case that came to light via a barrage of morning-after text messages, social media posts and online photos and video. Mays was sentenced to an additional year in jail on a charge of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material, to be served after his rape sentence is completed. The two teens broke down in tears after the verdict was read and later apologized to the victim. Both were emotional as they spoke, and Richmond began sobbing so heavily that he bent over and had to be helped back to his seat.

Richmond’s father, Nathaniel, also asked that the victim’s family “forgive Malik and Trent for the pain they put you through.” Mays, 17, and Richmond, 16, were charged with digitally penetrating the West Virginia girl, first in the back seat of a moving car after an alcohol-fueled party on Aug. 11, and then in the basement of a house.

BROOKLYN, NY — The cops who shot 16-year-old Brooklyn teen Kimani Gray have been accused of civil rights violations in federal lawsuits.

Sergeant Mourad Mourad and Officer Jovaniel Cordova racked up five such charges prior to their fatal confrontation with Gray on March 9. Mourad has been sued three times while working as a plainclothes officer in Staten Island, while Cordova was slapped twice while working in Brooklyn’s 70th Precinct.

Costing the city $215,000 in court settlements, the combined cases, save for one, were all dismissed and later sealed.  Attorney Brett Klein, a lawyer who filed four of the five lawsuits against the two, explains both Mourad and Cordova were accused of exploiting the controversial “stop-and-frisk” tactic and going outside the confines of the law to hide their involvement.