Florida Sentinel Bulletin

Students can sometimes find the transition into middle school stressful and challenging, so one eighth grader used his experience to create a road map for success.

Madu Eneli, of Harker Heights, Texas, published a book titled, “Am I Ready for Middle School?” Its chapters are dedicated to topics like handling a heavier workload, reaching out for academic help, and navigating the social aspects of lunch and recess.

The family of 38-year-old Melvin Dillard Jr. is suing a Delaware hospital, after Dillard went to their emergency room for chest pains and was released. Dillard ended up dying of a heart attack while he was waiting for a ride home in the medical center’s lobby, reports the Cape Gazette.

According to the lawsuit, the 38-year-old man was taken to Beebe Medical Center on June 26th, after he was suffering from pronounced chest pains. The EMS workers observed that Dillard demonstrated all of the signs that point to an impending heart attack. The young man had an abnormal EKG as well.

After being examined by the hospital staff, though, Dillard was allegedly told to go home and seek the medical services of a cardiologist.

When Dillard went to the hospital lobby to wait for a ride home, he later died of a heart attack at some point during the night and his body was discovered in the hospital’s lobby by a worker.

Dillard was reportedly in the lobby so long that rigor mortis (the stiffening of the joints and muscles of a body after death) had already begun to set in, states the lawsuit.

Dillard was then transported back to the emergency room, where he was pronounced dead.

The Department of Education has approved a program that provides morning-after pills or Plan B contraception to students at 13 New York City high schools.

The Plan B contraception program, Connecting Adolescents to Comprehensive Health (CATCH), was created to combat the epidemic problem of teen pregnancy throughout the city, which often results in girls dropping out of school.

The practice of dispensing free condoms to New York City high schoolers who are sexually active has already been in place for quite some time now.  But the city’s plan to provide youths with the hormonal contraceptive Plan B method, which can prevent pregnancy if ingested up to 72 hours after having unprotected sex, could very well be the nation’s first education institution-backed plan.

Brandi Worley was spit on, called the N-word and physically abused by a White male while monitoring hurricane cleanup in Grand Isle, La. She caught much of the assault on her cell phone.

Here is some of what the man, Josh Jambon, said on the cell phone recording: F**k you. F**k you, you Black muthaf***a. F**kin’ N***er.

When Jambon saw that Worley was recording his verbal abuse, he tossed her to the ground and spit on her. Worley said Jambon also hit two of her other coworkers. Grand Isle Police arrested Jambon and charged him with assault.

CHICAGO — President Barack Obama’s campaign is launching its first television advertisement targeting Mitt Romney’s comments about Americans who don’t pay income taxes, arguing the GOP nominee should stop attacking others on taxes and “come clean” on his own.

The ad signaled that Pres. Obama will keep making Romney’s personal finances a campaign issue even after the Republican released a second year of information about his taxes. The campaign will start running the ad Monday in Ohio, where Romney will campaign this week.

The 30-second ad opens with a video of Romney at a private fundraiser in May, where he told donors that 47 percent of Americans don’t pay income taxes, believe they are victims, and feel entitled to government assistance.

“My job is not to worry about those people,” Romney says in the video, which was taped without his knowledge.

A narrator in the Pres. Obama ad responds, “Isn’t it the president’s job to worry about everyone?”

WASHINGTON — California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters won’t be charged with ethics violations following allegations she steered a $12 million federal bailout to a bank where her husband owns stock.

House Ethics Committee members said Friday at a hearing their investigation found no violation by Waters, a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee. She could become the panel’s senior Democrat next year, or the chairwoman, if Democrats win control of the House.

However, the ethics panel said that Waters’ chief of staff, Mikael Moore, did take actions in Congress in an attempt to help the bank and that he violated House standards of conduct. Moore, who is also Waters’ grandson, likely will receive a letter admonishing him for his conduct but will not face more severe punishment, such as a reprimand, by the full House.

The next step is for the committee to vote to issue its final report and send Moore the letter.

LOS ANGELES  — Prosecutors are going to court Friday to seek dismissal of charges against a former gang member convicted of a drive-by murder in a gang infested neighborhood of Los Angeles 19 years ago.

John Edward Smith, who was 18 when he went to prison, was due in court with his lawyers. Sources in the district attorney’s office said that they expect his case against the now 38-year-old Smith to be dismissed.

Smith admitted he was a gang member at the time of the 1993 shooting that killed one man and injured another, but he maintained he was not involved in the shooting and was not present in the area when it happened. He was quickly convicted of murder and attempted murder.

Smith’s exoneration was pursued by Innocence Matters, a Torrance, Calif., public interest law firm. Attorney Deirdre O’Connor, who heads the group, said the sole witness whose testimony convicted Smith recently admitted he had lied at the trial. The witness was the shooting victim who survived.

Orane Gowans was trying to get his five-month-old daughter to stop sucking her thumb and so he allegedly struck the child on her hand, hoping that would stop the habit.

But he ended up braking it in several places instead. The 28-year-old was arrested and charged with child abuse. It has not been confirmed, but it is possible that the dad did not intentionally try and break her hand.

According to the Port St. Lucie Police Department, Gowans shares a residence with his wife and three young children, all under age five.

When Gowans’ wife returned home after the incident had occurred, she saw that her baby’s hand was swollen. When she attempted to touch the baby’s hand to see what was causing it to look so puffy, the child screamed.  The unidentified woman asked her husband, who had been watching the baby, what had happened to their daughter.

Authorities say that Gowans concocted a story, telling his wife that the baby had been bitten by a bug and urged her not to seek medical attention for the child. The wife decided to take the baby to the hospital where doctors discovered that the baby’s hand was broken in several spots.

NEW YORK  — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. says it expects to hire more than 50,000 temporary employees this holiday season and will be offering more hours to its existing workers.

The world’s largest retailer, based in Bentonville, Ark., says that this year’s holiday hiring will be up slightly from last year, although it declined to give a precise figure for the increase. The discounter operates more than 4,000 stores in the U.S. and employs about 1.4 million people nationwide.

Wal-Mart’s announcement Friday follows one by Kohl’s earlier this week indicating its stores will be hiring more than 52,700 people, up more than 10 percent from last year.