Florida Sentinel Bulletin

ROSEDALE, Md. — An 18-year-old woman has been charged in an attack on a transgender woman over using a McDonald’s restroom in a Baltimore suburb —an incident captured on video by a McDonald’s employee.

Police announced that Teonna Monae Brown was arrested Friday and charged with first- and second-degree assault.

A video of the April 18 fight posted online shows two young women kicking and punching 22-year-old Chrissy Lee Polis in the head until she appears to have a seizure.

Polis said that before she was attacked she heard a teen say she was a man using the women’s restroom. According to charging documents, a 14-year-old girl who also faces charges as a juvenile in the case told police that she and Brown fought with Polis over using the restroom.

“They kicked me in my face. They really hurt me really bad and I’m just afraid to go outside now because of stuff like this,” Polis said.

One woman who tried to intervene, Vicky L. Thoms, was also assaulted, according to court documents.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and his family attended Easter service Sunday at a Washington church founded in 1863 by freed slaves.

The first family entered Shiloh Baptist Church to a round of applause on a sun-splashed day in the nation’s capital as members of a choir dressed in black, white and gold sang “Total Praise.”

Pres. Obama shook a few hands and hugged some members of the congregation as he and his wife, Michelle, and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, walked to a second-row pew.

According to the church’s pastor, Dr. Wallace Charles Smith, 21 freed slaves made it to the nation’s capital from Fredericksburg, Va., to establish a place where they could worship freely and where “they could reach others with the good news of their salvation.”

Smith wrote last September, on the church’s 147th anniversary, that the group “could not see the way ahead … but went forth to a land they felt God had given them.”

The weather is getting warmer, the birds are beginning to chirp, and for some, it is the perfect time to find a summer love.

Online dating is becoming more popular, especially for African-Americans. Paul Carrick Brunson, 35, is founder of OneDegreeFrom.Me, a matchmaking company. He calls himself the modern day hitch, predominantly focusing on matching African-Americans. His company has grown tremendously since 2009 when it first started, and even though it isn’t an online dating site, Brunson says it is still very connected to the Internet.

And his company is following the trend. They throw mixers and dating events in several cities, and even are expanding coaching globally. Brunson says the rate of growth for African-Americans participating in online dating has increased.

Black people participate about the same as other ethnicities on the dating site OkCupid.com. The site has about 600,000 African-Americans registered; two thirds are between the ages of 18 and 34, a number that is comparable to the other ethnic groups, just slightly skewed younger.

Brunson has seen firsthand how the Internet is a huge benefit when it comes to matchmaking.

NEW YORK — Real estate mogul Donald Trump suggested in an interview Monday that President Barack Obama had been a poor student who did not deserve to be admitted to the Ivy League universities he attended. Trump, who is mulling a bid for the Republican presidential nomination, offered no proof for his claim but said he would continue to press the matter as he has the legitimacy of the president’s birth certificate.

“I heard he was a terrible student, terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?” Trump said in an interview. “I’m thinking about it, I’m certainly looking into it. Let him show his records.”

Obama graduated from Columbia University in New York in 1983 with a degree in political science after transferring from Occidental College in California. He went on to Harvard Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude 1991 and was the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review.

Obama’s 2008 campaign did not release his college transcripts, and in his best-selling memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” Obama indicated he hadn’t always been an academic star.

MIAMI — A cook at T.G.I. Friday’s was the victim of a brutal murder after he was stabbed multiple times in the parking lot of his job and police believe it was over his gold necklace.

Antione Gracius, 53, was killed on April 14 outside of the T.G.I.F. on Pines Boulevard and University Drive.

Surveillance cameras from the restaurant captured Gracius leaving out the front doors of the diner after his shift at around 1:30 a.m.

Moments later, he returns to the doors holding his stomach and banging on the glass for help. His blood drenched hands left stains on the door as he stumbled away and eventually collapsed in the parking lot.

A witness originally thought Gracius was the victim of a hit and run after he saw a black vehicle speed away from the scene, but it didn’t take long to figure out Gracius was a murder victim, police said.

Gracius, who moved to the U.S. from Haiti in 2002, leaves behind a wife and nine children.

NEW YORK — The new head of the nation’s largest school district said Thursday he would look into the case of a 7-year-old special needs boy who was handcuffed by police after he became violent while working on an Easter art project and threatened teachers with scissors.

First-grader Joseph Anderson became upset last week at his Queens elementary school because his art project, Easter egg painting, didn’t look the way he wanted. Department of Education officials said the school tried to defuse the situation and then called police when there was a concern the boy would harm himself or others. Police said he was violent and threatening, biting and spitting, and officers restrained him and took him to a hospital for evaluation.

The boy’s mother, Jessica Anderson, said he has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, delayed speech and emotional problems. She said she is upset that he was taken to a hospital in handcuffs even though she said she was on her way to get him.

“If he hears an ambulance, he runs under the bed and screams, ‘They’re going to get me’.”

ST. LOUIS — A “knuckle-headed corrections officer” is to blame for the escape of two men who apparently climbed down a homemade rope Friday morning to escape from a St. Louis detention center, the mayor’s chief said.

Vernon Collins, 34, and David White, 33, were discovered missing just before 7 a.m., but police believe they might have been gone for 90 minutes by that time. Both were still at large late Friday morning.

Collins was in jail on a charge of assaulting a law enforcement officer, while White was being held on charges of assault, burglary and property damage. Collins also is accused of overpowering a corrections officer.

IOWA — Lucinda V. Kinder, 32, of Coralville, has been arrested for domestic abuse assault without intent causing injury after police responded to an incident at her home.

Coralville Police responded to the scene for a 911 hangup, where they found that Kinder and the male victim had been arguing. Kinder allegedly punched the victim, scratched his left shoulder, and then bit his penis, police reports said.

Reports indicate that Kinder and the alleged victim have been in an intimate relationship for over a year and reside together.

Kinder was being held Thursday at the Johnson County Jail on a $2,500 cash bond.

NEWARK, NJ — A Newark, New Jersey high school is one of six schools nationwide competing for the chance to get President Barack Obama as a commencement speaker.

A public review and rating period began Thursday on the White House website.

Newark’s Science Park High School is one of the six finalists.

Voters can watch three-minute videos about the schools and rate them from 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest. Viewers are encouraged to rank the schools based on educational success, the ability of the school to engage students, and the success of the school in preparing students to graduate.

Pictured: President Barack Obama works the crowd following his remarks at a fundraiser at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, Calif., Thursday, April 21, 2011.