Florida Sentinel Bulletin

MASSACHUSETTS — President Barack Obama’s uncle was stopped on suspicion of drunken driving, told police he planned to arrange bail through the White House and was being held without bail on an immigration detainer, authorities said Monday.

Onyango Obama was arrested last week in Framingham, after police said he made a rolling stop through a stop sign and nearly caused a cruiser to strike his sport utility vehicle.

Police said that after being booked at the police station, Obama was asked whether he wanted to make a telephone call to arrange for bail.

“I think I will call the White House,” he stated, according to a police report filed in Framingham District Court.

Police said Obama, who’s originally from Kenya and is the half-brother of the president’s late father, pleaded not guilty Friday and was being held without bail on a detainer from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In a court document, ICE said he had an earlier deportation or removal order.

Ninety-eight percent of Florida’s welfare applicants passed a new mandatory drug screening that was implemented by the state.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott said in June that it is “unfair for Florida taxpayers to subsidize drug addiction,” drawing criticism from the ACLU and numerous Democrats who see the new drug-screening law as unconstitutional.

Contrary to Scott’s assumptions, most of  the applicants did not test positive for any drugs.

TheRoot.com reports the costs of testing the applicants:
Cost of the tests averages about $30. Assuming that 1,000 to 1,500 applicants take the test every month, the state will owe about $28,800-$43,200 monthly in reimbursements to those who test drug-free.

Maybe Florida politicians are the ones who need to be tested to see if they’re under the influence of something (prejudice, perhaps?) that’s making them think this wasteful program is good public policy.

WASHINGTON – Former Secretary of State Colin Powell dismissed the criticism leveled at him and others in former Vice President Dick Cheney’s memoir, calling them “cheap shots.’’

It was the latest volley in a clash that stretches back to their first years in former President George W. Bush’s administration.

Powell said that if Cheney’s staff and others in Bush’s White House had been as forthcoming as the State Department in the case involving CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, the indictment and conviction of Cheney’s friend and former chief of staff wouldn’t have happened.

Powell made the remarks on “Face the Nation’’ ahead of the release of Cheney’s book, “In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir.’’

Cheney said in an earlier NBC interview that the book would cause “heads to explode’’ in Washington, a description Powell said he expected from a supermarket tabloid and not a former Vice President.

NEW YORK — A homeless man from the Bronx named Jeffrey Richards saved a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old from a burning house by climbing the building and pulling them down.

The fire injured 10 firefighters and caused a 2-alarm-blaze.

While many people were canceling trips to Washington, D.C. this weekend, Verrett Poole-Strickland braved her journey eastward because she wasn’t going to miss “one of the most memorable moments in history”.

The threat of the violent Hurricane Irene was very real for cities up and down the East Coast. Still, many African-Americans came from all over the country to honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Poole-Strickland, 49, even made sure her nephew and two children took the trip from St. Paul, Minn. with her.

“I appreciate it in a way,” she said about the hurricane warning that will postpone the official dedication of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial statue until sometime in the early fall.

A man accused of organizing a series of violent armed robberies in South Florida was sentenced to nine life sentences Friday, a Palm Beach County judge ruled.

James Herard, 22, was convicted of attempted murder and a slew of other charges for the string of robberies in 2008.

During a robbery at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Delray Beach, Herard allegedly shot Gerald Larkin in the face. As 75-year-old Larkin testified in court about how he has suffered since the incident, Herard laughed out loud, the Palm Beach Post reported.

Herard has also been implicated in several violent crimes in Broward, including an unprovoked killing of a man who was walking home from work and a murder at a Tamarac Dunkin’ Donuts.

Herard, who authorities claim is a leader in the notorious Crip gang, will still stand trial on murder charges in both cases and faces the death penalty if convicted.

OAKLAND, CA — The former leader of an California community group will spend the rest of his life in prison for ordering the killings of three men, including a local journalist.

An Alameda County judge sentenced 25-year-old Yusuf Bey IV to life in prison without possibility of parole Friday.

Prosecutors say Bey ordered workers at his Your Black Muslim Bakery to kill the men in separate 2007 attacks. One victim was Chauncey Bailey, the Oakland Post editor working on a story about the bakery’s financial troubles.

The prosecution’s star witness was a bakery handy man who acknowledged carrying out the Bailey killing on Bey’s orders with help from Antoine Mackey.

Mackey also was convicted of murder and sentenced to life without parole.

ST. LOUIS, MO — A woman was charged today with statutory rape, child molestation and sodomy after she was accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy in her neighborhood.

Levetrea Dione Atkins, 36, of the 5700 block of Theodore Avenue in St. Louis us facing some major jail time after having sexual relations with a boy who is barely a teenager. Court documents describe the boy as developmentally delayed.

The boy told authorities Atkins persuaded him to get money from his piggy bank and give it to her on June 24, according to court documents.  She then molested, sodomized and had sex with the boy.

Neighbors reported what happened to the teen’s father after Atkins bragged about it, documents say.

A cash-only bond has been set at $150,000. Atkins was not in custody early Thursday evening.

Bishop Eddie Long has issued a statement on reports that two of his accusers are releasing a tell-all book.

As previously reported, the embattled pastor is set to be the subject of a no holds barred book at the hands of Jamal Parris and Spencer LeGrande, two of the five men in total who accused The Bishop of sexual coercion.

Both Parris and LeGrande met with a Channel 2 investigative reporter to announce their plans to release a book which they say will detail ten years of abuse they felt at the hand of Long.

“Ten years of details, each person, it’s gonna be a book full of ‘wow’s’ and ‘ahh’s’ and ‘Oh my God’s.”

Now Long is speaking out to defend himself and posted a statement on the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church website.

His statement in full reads, “New Birth Members, We have a long history of dutifully serving those in need in the local and global communities and we will continue to do so. We are committed to the calling of a strong, viable and relevant ministry of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, we are in the media again and people are wondering what I am going to say. All I have to say is what we stated earlier. All parties involved decided to resolve the civil cases out of court. The decision was made to bring closure to this matter and allow us to move forward with the plans God has for this ministry.”