Florida Sentinel Bulletin

NAIROBI, KENYA – Wangari Maathai, the first African woman recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, died after a long struggle with cancer, the environmental organization she founded said Monday. She was 71.

Kenya’s most recognizable woman, Maathai won the Nobel in 2004 for combining environmentalism and social activism. She was the founder of the Green Belt Movement, where over 30 years she mobilized poor women to plant 30 million trees.

In recognizing Maathai, the Nobel committee said that she had stood up to a former oppressive regime – a reference to former Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi – and that her “unique forms of action have contributed to drawing attention to political oppression.”

Reverend Jesse Jackson, founder and president of the Rainbow Push Coalition, has decided to follow in former President Lyndon B. Johnsons sentiment to fight the “War on Poverty.”

Jackson, says that Johnson introduced Medicare, Medicaid, and the Trial Nutrition Act. He says that we have an abundant agriculture system. Jackson believes, “Every child in school should have reading glasses, hearing assistance and dental care right now. A veteran returning home should have a place to stay and medicine.”

He talks about de-racializing poverty, to not focus on certain races or nationalities but poverty as a whole. Jackson believes that this goal is attainable: “If we can bailout banks if we can reconstruct Iran and Afghanistan then we can do a war on poverty that works.”

Republicans at the University of California, Berkeley are reportedly planning a bake sale with pricing that depends on race and gender, CNN.com is reporting.

The reasoning behind the bake sale is to protest against pending legislation that would allow California universities to consider race or national origin during the admissions process.

During the sale Tuesday, baked goods sold to white men for $2.00, Asian men for $1.50, Latino men for $1.00, Black men for $0.75 and Native American men for $0.25. All women will get $0.25 off those prices.

NEW YORK — Dominique Strauss-Kahn claimed Monday he has diplomatic immunity and asked a New York court to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the hotel maid who says he sexually assaulted her.

Attorneys for the former International Monetary Fund leader filed the motion in a Bronx court, arguing judges there do not have the ability to try the case because Strauss-Kahn’s time as head of the fund gives him immunity from the litigation.

The 62-year-old Strauss-Kahn was initially charged with attempted rape and held under pricey house arrest after the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, said he attacked her in his hotel suite May 14 and forced her to perform oral sex.

The case was eventually dismissed when prosecutors said they had lost faith in Diallo’s credibility after a series of lies she told them unrelated to the assault allegations.

Anthony Boyd, one of the men who accused mega-church pastor Bishop Eddie L. Long of sexual coercion, has escaped burglary charges after Long refused to testify.

Boyd, one of four men who accused the bishop of seducing them into sex with lavish gifts as teens, was charged in 2010 with breaking into Long’s office and stealing over $100,000 worth of the pastor’s belongings.

Now, the Dekalb County District Attorney in Georgia has dropped all charged because of Long’s refusal to go forward with the proceedings. Long requested in a letter to the District Attorney that all charges be dropped.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama told the Black Caucus and their guests on Saturday to quit crying and complaining and “put on your marching shoes” to follow him into battle for jobs and opportunity.

And though he didn’t say it directly, he sought their support for a second term, too.

Pres. Obama’s speech to the annual awards dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus was his answer to increasingly vocal griping from Black leaders that he’s been giving away too much in talks with Republicans — and not doing enough to fight Black unemployment, which is nearly double the national average at 16.7 percent.

“It gets folks discouraged. I know. I listen to you,” Pres. Obama told an audience of some 3,000 in a Washington convention center.

But he said Blacks need to have faith in the future — and understand that the fight won’t be won if they don’t rally to his side. “I need your help,” Pres. Obama said.

The president will need Black turnout to match its historic 2008 levels if he’s to have a shot at winning a second term, and Saturday’s speech was a chance to speak directly to inner-city concerns.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Gov. Rick Scott’s administration has acknowledged emails on the governor’s personal iPad were accidentally deleted, a potential violation of state law, an open-government advocacy organization said Friday.

A state information technology employee was trying to put an application on the tablet in May to retrieve and print out the emails to and from the governor’s transition team, but the 200 emails were deleted instead.

Attempts to retrieve them have been unsuccessful.

Christopher Kise, who worked for Scott’s transition team, pointed out that Scott had nothing to do with it. “The governor preserved the emails on his iPad,” Kise said.

Kise and other attorneys who work for Scott acknowledged the deletion in a meeting with the First Amendment Foundation this week.

ATLANTA, Ga. – Capital punishment critics are regrouping after the execution of Georgia inmate Troy Davis, trying to figure out the best way to harness the anti-death penalty sentiment the case created. Among the goals: get new like-minded people registered to vote.

“Tell them to get engaged in the political process because that’s where change is going to come,” said Helen Butler, executive director of the Atlanta-based Coalition For The Peoples’ Agenda.

Butler was among a group of about two dozen death penalty opponents who met Thursday night in Atlanta to discuss how they could abolish capital punishment in Georgia. They are a small piece of the hundreds of thousands of people the Davis case attracted, from well-known supporters like the pope and former president Jimmy Carter to those much-less politically active.

Laura Moye of Amnesty International said she expects the Davis execution to be used to rally repeal movements across the country. She plans to meet with activists in Georgia over the next few days to plot out an attempt to banish capital punishment there.

LAKELAND, Fla. — Publix Super Markets is hiring 500 seasonal employees in southwest Florida for the busy winter months.

The Lakeland-based grocery chain is looking for people to work 25 to 35 hours weekly in 21 stores in 12 Florida cities.

Jobs include cashiers, front-service clerks, and grocery, bakery, deli and produce clerks, as well as cake decorators, meat cutters and seafood specialists. Positions will last from December through April.

Interested candidates must be 18 or older and available to work any time, including evenings and weekends.