By: Christina Hoag, Associated Press - LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three Los Angeles elementary school teachers accused of giving children portraits of O.J. Simpson, Dennis Rodman and RuPaul to carry in a Black History Month parade have been removed from their classrooms, a school district spokeswoman said Wednesday.
Children from other classes at the school displayed photos of more appropriate black role models, such as Nelson Mandela, Harriet Tubman and President Barack Obama, Los Angeles Unified School District spokeswoman Gayle Pollard-Terry said.
The incident occurred Friday at Wadsworth Avenue Elementary School in South Los Angeles, where the student body is more than 90 percent Latino.
District Superintendent Ramon Cortines placed the teachers — all white men who teach first, second and fourth grades — on administrative leave on Tuesday while an investigation is conducted, Pollard-Terry said. Read the full story here.
Jesse Washington, AP - Hispanic and black businesses are receiving a disproportionately small number of federal stimulus contracts, creating a rising chorus of demands for the Obama administration to be more inclusive and more closely track who receives government-financed work.
Latinos and blacks have faced obstacles to winning government contracts long before the stimulus. They own 6.8 and 5.2 percent of all businesses, respectively, according to census figures. Yet Latino-owned business have received only 1.7 percent of $46 billion in federal stimulus contracts recorded in U.S. government data, and black-owned businesses have received just 1.1 percent.
That pot of money is just a small fraction of the $862 billion economic stimulus law. Billions more have been given to states, which have used the money to award contracts of their own.
Although states record minority status when they award contracts to businesses, there is no central, consistent or public compilation of that data, according to Laura Barrett, director of the Transportation Equity Network. She and other minority advocates are calling for complete and publicly accessible demographic information on all contracts and jobs financed by the stimulus.
Minority businesses are often too small to compete for projects; do not have access to the necessary capital, equipment or bonding requirements; or lose bids to companies with well-established relationships. There also has been an emphasis on spending stimulus money quickly, which favors businesses that have won past contracts. Read the full story here
By Myranda Stephens, The Grio - Evelyn Rasco has been living a nightmare for more than 15 years.
"It's torture," she sobs over the phone from her Pensacola, Florida home. "It tortures me on a daily basis."
The nightmare began on Christmas Eve in 1993 when Rasco's two daughters, Jamie and Gladys Scott, left a mini-mart near their home in Scott County, Mississippi. Their car broke down, and they hitched a ride from two young men, one of whom they knew. But later that evening, the men were robbed at gunpoint by three teenagers in another car. The robbers got away with an estimated $11 and no one was hurt, but police accused the Scott sisters of setting the victims up.
Although the young women denied having any involvement and had no criminal record, a jury found them guilty of armed robbery. On October 13, 1994, a judge ordered them to each serve double-life sentences in the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, where they remain today. Read the full story here
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