Florida Sentinel Bulletin

After officially accepting his party’s presidential nomination, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney was secretly recorded in a video secured by news magazine Mother Jones at a fund-raising event.

While there, Romney talked with well-heeled campaign donors about voters who support President Barack Obama:

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.”

Romney then added:

“[M]y job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”We really shouldn’t be surprised by the new video showing the GOP candidate disparage “those people” and suggesting that, if his father was Mexican, he’d be ahead in the polls. But, in this new age of technology and high-tech snooping devices, one would think Romney would exercise more caution. But, as we all know, it is often too difficult to suppress one’s true feelings, especially among friends.

In this case, his deep pocket campaign donors. In the video, Romney reveals what he truly feels about “those people” he “tried” to woo at a recent NAACP convention and millions of other Americans with whom he struggles to strike a chord.

After a stand-off in the third-largest school district in the nation that had the Chicago Teachers Union in deep debate with Chicago Public Schools officials, the strike has ended. Union delegates voted Tuesday to suspend the nine-day strike, sending 26,000 teachers and 350,000 children back to school.

This summer, 9-year-old Joshua Smith’s lemonade stand raised over $3,000 to help Detroit.

Having learned that his city was in an economic crisis, Joshua decided to raise money to help clean up garbage and cut the grass in local parks.

Last Friday, Kevin Cook, an executive from Playworld Systems in Pennsylvania, arrived in Detroit on Joshua’s 10th birthday with exciting news: His company is going to build a $50,000 playground structure at a nearby park.

“Happy Birthday and we wanted to give this to you as part of your vision and for your birthday,” Cook told the surprised boy, revealing a colourful rendering of the playground set that is set to open on September 29.

Playworld Systems is currently in talks with the City of Detroit, finalizing details for the new Activo Playground.

Cook heard Joshua’s story on World News with Diane Sawyer several weeks ago.

“My wife was sitting on the couch with me and looked at me and said ‘Kevin, you are getting that young man a playground,” Cooke said.
Joshua’s proud parents were thrilled by the news.

“I thought about what Joshua did and always wondered, ‘Lord, how can we make this lasting? Not just a week in the summertime,'” Joshua’s mother, Rhonda Smith, said. “And so when Kevin called and said that they were actually going to have a playground for the children, I said, ‘Wow! This is something that’s lasting’ and so I was just pleased and overjoyed.”

WASHINGTON  — The Education Department is awarding $228 million in grants to historically black colleges and universities.

The five-year grants will go to schools in 19 states plus the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Schools can use the money to expand their campuses, acquire science equipment, develop counseling programs and train faculty.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan says the grants will enable historically black colleges to help students who grapple with financial challenges as they pursue post-secondary education. Most of the schools receiving grants are in the South.

The largest grants will go to Florida A&M University in Tallahassee; Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, La.; Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss.; and St. Philip’s College in San Antonio. Those schools will receive more than $5 million each.

The US News & World Report recently did an analysis of colleges and universities where students graduated with the least and the most amounts of debt debt. Clark Atlanta University ranks at the top of schools where students exit with most debt.

This finding is perhaps unsurprising, since 94 percent of students borrow money to attend the HBCU. The average debt of a 2011 Clark Atlanta graduate is a whopping $47,066. That could easily cripple someone with a well paying job, talk less of a recent college graduate.

The report calculated the average debt of graduating students, the percent of students who borrowed and their U.S. News National Universities rank.

On a more positive note, Howard University was ranked sixth on the list of colleges or universities with students graduating with the least debt at an average of $15,080.

BOSSIER CITY, La. — A woman trying to avoid an Air Force deployment to Asia had her husband shoot her before lying to investigators that an intruder was to blame, Bossier City police said.

Mark Natale, a police spokesman, said Staff Sgt. Judy Groomes, 25, was treated for wounds on both of her legs from one round from a handgun fired by her husband, Staff Sgt. Christopher Tyquan Groomes, 26. Both are active military based at nearby Barksdale Air Force Base.

Daycare worker Paris Ward has been charged with aggravated manslaughter in the death of 4-year-old Jordan Coleman, who was under her care when she allegedly left him sleeping in a sweltering SUV last month.

The child’s body temperature rose to a fatal 108 degrees when he was rushed to a Coral Springs., Fla., hospital, where he was pronounced dead as a result of hypothermia.

According to the arrest report, Ward was asked by the owner, Cecily Roberts, of the 3 C’s Daycare Academy to drive seven young children to her friend’s apartment because she was past her capacity as per state guidelines.  The day care, which has previously been cited and has a history of problems over safety concerns, has been shut down.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida is moving ahead with a plan to privatize nearly 3,000 jobs in the state’s prisons.

A legislative panel on Wednesday approved a proposal by the administration of Gov. Rick Scott to spend nearly $58 million in order to privatize prison health care operations by January.

The issue divided the panel with Democrats questioning the record of the private companies and questioning whether the state’s Legislative Budget Commission could legally approve the move.

But the Florida Department of Corrections contends it can move ahead with the privatization plan without approval of the full Legislature. Prison officials say privatizing health care operations for nearly 100,000 inmates will save the state money.

The union that represents state workers says it will sue to block the move.

President Barack Obama leads Mitt Romney in one of 2012’s most crucial swing states, according to a new poll.

Obama leads the Republican nominee 45 percent to 50 percent in Ohio, according to the latest survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling. The survey also found that Ohioans believe Democrats had the better national convention.

The 5-point lead in the latest PPP poll is an improvement for Obama, but still well within the margin of error — in its August poll of the state, the President held at 3-point lead over Romney, holding steady from July.

Pres. Obama, Romney To Attend Clinton Global Initiative
NEW YORK — President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney are set to address a major gathering of international philanthropists hosted by Bill Clinton.

The former president announced Monday that Pres. Obama and Romney would participate in the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative on Sept. 25 in New York.

Romney is scheduled to lead a panel looking at ways to redesign the global food production system. Pres. Obama is set to address a session later that day looking at how banks and other financial institutions can help the world’s poor.

Clinton supports Pres. Obama’s re-election bid and gave a rousing speech at the Democratic convention last week that criticized Romney. The former president said he was “grateful” that both Romney and Pres. Obama will participate in the meeting.