Florida Sentinel Bulletin

An 18-year-old Phoenix, AZ man is accused of beating his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter to death. A Phoenix man brutally beat and bit his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter to death – and nearly did the same to her year-old sister, police said.

Martwane Mackey admitted to authorities he assaulted both girls, but denies killing the elder one. The 18-year-old claims young Ty’Shea Austin suffered a “choking and respiratory incident” while he was watching the girl and her little sister, Zariah, police said.

His girlfriend, Qnique Thues, was at work at the time. The couple lived together.

Mackey said he did not immediately call 911 or take the child to the hospital, but instead struck and bit the toddler to revive her, authorities said in a police report.

Mackey eventually called 911 from a pay phone around 2 a.m. Saturday, police said. When cops arrived, they found him with the 3-year-old in his arms.

“He’s a monster, and people need to know he’s a monster,” Rhonda Brown, Ty’Shea and Zariah’s grandmother, told ABC 15 News. “I don’t think death is good enough for him, I think he needs to be beaten like he beat her.”

Mackey was arrested and charged with first-degree murder and child abuse.

OAKLAND, CA — A San Francisco Bay area transit agency Tuesday agreed to pay $1.3 million to the mother of  22-year-old unarmed Oscar Grant who was fatally shot by a white transit officer in 2009.

The settlement between Bay Area Rapid Transit and Wanda Johnson resolves a $50 million wrongful death and civil rights suit filed in federal court by Grant’s family.

“No amount of money could replace Oscar. Not one dollar or $100 million,” said Johnson during a news conference in Oakland. “My heart feels broken for the loss of my son…It didn’t have to be this way.”

The House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) may well have doomed negotiations to raise the nation’s debt limit when they walked out over a dispute with

Democrats about raising revenues. Their theatrics bring the country closer to the brink of financial collapse, and observers have described the move as a “tamper tantrum” and “political grandstanding.” More details emerged about exactly what Republicans are willing to threaten the global economy over to defend.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), a member of the bipartisan debt discussion group led by Vice President Joe Biden, said Republicans chose to “protect taxpayer subsidies for big oil companies, tax breaks for corporate jets, and tax breaks for millionaires”:

Democrats want to close tax loopholes that benefit oil companies, and eliminate a tax preference that gives corporate aircraft a friendlier depreciation schedule than commercial aircraft. Additionally, Van Hollen said, Democrats were proposing to phase out tax deductions and certain credits for people making more than $500,000 a year. These would be paired with a reduction in the tax burden on lower earners, by eliminating existing limitations on their deductions. […]

Gary Foster, a black man and former vice president at Citigroup, is being accused of embezzling $18.4 million from the Wall Street giant. It was a one man heist that involved a series of secret money transfers, that resulted in his surrender at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Sunday night, directly off of a flight from Bangkok.

“According to a criminal complaint, Foster’s department financed loans and processed wire transfers within Citigroup. From May 2009 through to the end of last year, Foster siphoned funds from various Citigroup accounts, placed them in the bank’s cash account and then wired the money into his private account at another bank in New York,” The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

After helping himself to the company cash, he quit as VP of the treasury finance department in January before making a run for it. He had been travelling in southeast Asia when he heard that he’d been caught. He was released Monday on a $700,000 bond after appearing in federal court. Foster is now facing bank fraud charges that carry a maximum penalty of 30 years, the Herald reports.

At least this guy had the decency to quit while he was ahead, instead of being hauled out of his office for an even bigger spectacle. Either way, he obviously didn’t steal enough money to make sure he wouldn’t get caught.

PITTSBURGH – President Barack Obama called on Friday for a “renaissance in American manufacturing” that would replace shuttered steel mills with plants producing robotics, nanotechnology and other high-tech advances.

The president said this resurgence is how the country will create new jobs and stay competitive in a global marketplace where other countries are making great strides.

Speaking at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, a city that’s taken hits from the decline of traditional manufacturing sectors like steel, Pres. Obama called for a joint effort by industry, universities and the federal government to help reposition the United States as a leader in cutting-edge manufacturing.

One man of the cloth is coming forth and saying Bishop Eddie Long needs to confess his wrong doings to his congregation and repent his sins to Christ.

In a recent sermon Bishop Paul Morton called Bishop Long to task saying Long, owes his congregation an explanation after reportedly settling for $25 million in a sexual misconduct case.

“Show me some humility… Those that have stood with you, tell us something,” said Morton, referring to Long’s silence about the case. “Tell your church something.”

He added, “Some people are going to stay with you, some are going to leave you, but you have to leave that up to God.”

Morton goes on to say Long, who became a Bishop under him, has stopped answering his phone calls. He pleaded with Long to turn to God in repentance for his actions,  “All I’m waiting for Bishop…is for you to repent,” he said.

The Justice Policy Institute (JPI) released a report chronicling the political strategies of private prison companies “working to make money through harsh policies and longer sentences.”

The report’s authors note that while the total number of people in prison increased less than 16 percent, the number of people held in private federal and state facilities increased by 120 and 33 percent, correspondingly.

Government spending on corrections has soared since 1997 by 72 percent, up to $74 billion in 2007. And the private prison industry has raked in tremendous profits. Last year the two largest private prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group — made over $2.9 billion in revenue.

JPI claims the private industry hasn’t merely responded to the nation’s incarceration woes, it has actively sought to create the market conditions (ie. more prisoners) necessary to expand its business.

According to JPI, the private prison industry uses three strategies to influence public policy: lobbying, direct campaign contributions, and networking.

The three main companies have contributed $835,514 to federal candidates and over $6 million to state politicians.

A California school district is paying out $725,000 to the families of 12 Black students who sued the school alleging that the district did not protect them from racial harassment.

One racist incident allegedly lead to the shooting death of a 14-year-old student.

In the suit the group contends that the New Haven Unified School District turned their back, while the mostly Latino Decoto gang regularly entered school grounds and attacked Black students.

Vernon Eddins was shot to death outside of Barnard-White Middle School in December 2007, by what police described as young Latino men but charges have yet to be brought up in Eddins’ death.

Along with the quarter million-dollar settlement, the judge also mandated that all high school students and visitors carry ID on school grounds.

The school district will also start classes on gang violence and train teachers in gang-related topics.

PITTSBURGH — The NAACP is asking local prosecutors to bring charges against three white police officers who beat a black high school arts student last year in Pittsburgh.

NAACP general counsel Kim Keenan says national and local leaders of the group met with Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala on Tuesday.

Keenan says Zappala agreed to review evidence gathered by federal authorities who opted not to bring charges against the officers involved in the January 2010 beating of then-18-year-old Jordan Miles. A Zappala spokesman confirmed the meeting, but declined further comment.

Miles says he was chased and beaten by three plainclothes police officers who never identified themselves as police. The officers say Miles was acting suspiciously although he turned out to be unarmed.

Miles is pursuing a civil suit against the city.