The District of Columbia National Guard celebrated the graduation of its first African-American female pilot.
First Lt. Demetria Elosiebo earned her Army aviator wings in February after completing Initial Entry Rotary Wing Flight School at Fort Rucker, Alabama. “This is an extraordinary, historical event for us,” said Maj. Gen. Errol R. Schwartz, commanding general of the D.C. National Guard. “We’re extremely proud of Lt. Elosiebo. She’s a fine officer, and now, an Army aviator.”
Schwartz said every pilot who graduates from Fort Rucker’s rigorous aviator training course – male or female, regardless of their race or ethnicity – has accomplished something special. He added that the military has moved well past the days when such accomplishments were unusual. “The diversity of our armed forces is what makes us strong,” Schwartz said.
While completing the course is no cake walk, Elosiebo had a leg up on most other students at Fort Rucker. In her civilian career, she previously earned her FAA commercial pilots license and became a certified flight instructor.
Elosiebo follows in the path of the famous Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American fighter pilots. Before World War II, black pilots were barred from earning their wings in the Army Air Corps. The Pentagon’s rationale was that African-Americans could not be taught to fly. But after being forced to go through pilot training three times before being sent to the fight, they became the best of the best. In the bomber escort missions they flew in Europe, they never lost a bomber.
Elosiebo has a strong connection to the Tuskegee Airmen. She received one of her many scholarships from one of their association chapters, and they supported her when she began pursuing her private pilot’s license at age 19. In addition, she has worked with, and been mentored by these living legends, including Herbert Jones, who formed the first African-American-owned airline in the U.S.
Posts tagged as “Washington DC”
The Africa-America Institute is launching a yearlong Speaker Series to provide a platform for domestic and global thought leaders to bring perspectives and expertise on issues relevant to U.S. policy toward Africa and African domestic policies.
This series, which will run from January through November 2014 in New York City and Washington, D.C., will be “a forum for innovative and visionary thought leaders to engage in dialogue on important issues of mutual concern to the African continent and United States to help inform and shape public policy and foster socio-economic development in Africa,” said Amini Kajunju, president and CEO of The Africa-America Institute.
The first event will kick off Jan. 30 with a panel discussion exploring the challenges and economic potential of President Barack Obama’s “Power Africa” Initiative. Kamran Khan, vice president of the Department of Compact Operations, Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) will moderate, and will be joined by participants Shari Berenbach, president & CEO, The U.S. African Development Foundation; Tony von der Muhll of Shift Into Green Energy ECUA; Ambassador Tuvako Manongi, permanent representative of Tanzania to the United Nations; and George Monyemangene, consul general of South Africa.
For more information, visit AAIOnline.org.
article by Janell Hazelwood via blackenterprise.com
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress has sent President Barack Obama a modest, bipartisan budget pact designed to avert another U.S. government shutdown and ease the harshest effects of automatic budget cuts. Obama’s signature was assured on the measure, which lawmakers in both parties and at opposite ends of the Capitol said they hoped would curb budget brinkmanship and prevent more shutdowns in the near future. The final vote on the measure was 64-36 in the Senate. The House approved the bill last week.
The product of intensive year-end talks, the measure met the short-term political needs of Republicans, Democrats and the White House. As a result, there was no suspense about the outcome of the vote in the Senate — only about fallout in the 2014 elections and, more immediately, its impact on future congressional disputes over spending and the nation’s debt limit.
The measure will restore $45 billion, half the amount scheduled to be automatically cut from the 2014 operating budgets of the Pentagon and some domestic agencies, lifting them above $1 trillion. An additional $18 billion for 2015 would provide enough relief to essentially freeze spending at those levels for the year. The budget deal marks a modest accomplishment for the divided and often dysfunctional Congress.
- President Barack Obama speaking at a World AIDS Day event. (EVAN VUCCI/AP)
President Barack Obama has announced a new initiative at the National Institutes of Health in pursuit of a cure for HIV. Obama says his administration is redirecting $100 million into the project to find a new generation of therapies. He said the United States should be at the forefront of discoveries to eliminate HIV or put it into remission without requiring lifelong therapy. Obama made the announcement Monday at a White House event marking World AIDS Day, which was Sunday.
The president also announced that the U.S. passed the ambitious goal he set last year to support 6 million people around the globe in getting access to anti-retroviral drugs. Obama said the U.S. helped 6.7 million people receive life-saving treatment.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker was sworn in as a Democratic senator from New Jersey on Thursday, taking the oath of office, exchanging hugs with Vice President Joe Biden and acknowledging the applause of friends and family members seated in the visitor’s gallery that rings the chamber. Booker became the second African American in the Senate, alongside Republican Tim Scott of South Carolina.
Booker, 44, was elected to fill out the term of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who died earlier this year. His first day in office was a busy one. Before taking the oath of office, he and his mother met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Minutes after being sworn in, he participated in his first roll call vote, supporting an attempt by Democrats to advance the nomination of Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C. to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Booker also was to meet later in the day with President Barack Obama at the White House. Booker placed his hand on his own Bible as Biden led him in reciting the oath of office. His oath-taking gave Democrats control of 55 Senate seats, counting two held by independents. Republicans hold 45.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press via thegrio.com
- Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin, told a Senate panel Tuesday that states must clarify their ‘stand your ground’ self-defense laws after the man who fatally shot her son was acquitted of manslaughter. (Matt Rourke/AP)
WASHINGTON — The mother of Travyon Martin, the Florida teen killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer, told a Senate panel today that stand your ground self-defense laws should be changed. Sybrina Fulton offered the tragic case of her son as Exhibit A of why she said such laws do not work. “He was simply going to the store to get snacks, nothing more, nothing less,” Fulton said of her son, who was shot dead by George Zimmerman in Sanford, Fla., in early 2012.
“He was minding his own business, he was not looking for any kind of trouble, he was not committing any kind of crime.” She added, “The person who shot and killed my son is walking the streets today. … The Law is not working.” Martin’s killing ignited a national debate about stand your ground laws and racial profiling. The debate grew even louder after Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges. More than two dozen states have some version of stand your ground laws, which let individuals use lethal force instead of retreating if they feel threatened with death or serious injury in public by another person.
Senate Democrats convened the hearing, which triggered a clash with Republicans on the Judiciary subcommittee who favor stand your ground laws. Sen. Dick Durban (D-Ill.) cited research that suggests about 600 homicides a year can be traced to such laws, with no apparent impact on overall crime deterrence. His view that such laws have done little else but accentuate a “shoot first” mentality among citizens was quickly disputed by the firebrand freshman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
Because children spend most of their time in classrooms, schools are an ideal setting for healthy behaviors to be taught and modeled. Therefore, parents are speaking up and getting involved in an effort to improve the health of their children at schools.
One Washington, D.C. mother of two Roots Charter School students recognized the need for her children’s school to incorporate more physical activities into the school day. “The obesity rate among children is at an all-time high, so getting our kids to be active is more crucial than ever,” said Michelle Jones. “I want to make sure my children live their lives to the fullest, and getting exercise can help them do that.”
Michelle banded together with other parents to form an advisory council that works with local schools to host events focusing on health and wellness. Activities like yoga, Zumba, and healthy eating inspires students, parents, and community members to be physically active and make healthier food choices.
Other schools are making healthy changes through programs with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which supports communities across the country by making healthy living easier where people live, work, learn, and play.
Through help from CDC, communities all over the country are making improvements. A New York City School District made 800,000 daily meals healthier by ensuring that foods and drinks meet certain standards for sodium, fat, and calories. A school district in Las Cruces, New Mexico has opened physical activity space to the community during after-school hours.
Such improvements can help prevent obesity—a serious and growing public health concern that increases an individual’s chance of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, several types of cancer, and other health problems.
Eating well and participating in regular physical activity not only has health benefits, but they have also been linked with better academic achievement by enhancing important skills like concentration and attentiveness. For example, students who eat foods rich in protein, vitamins, and minerals are more likely to perform better than students whose diets are heavy in unhealthy foods – like sweets and fried foods.
Although changes are already being made in some schools around the country, more can be accomplished. To support healthy schools, parents can recommend ways to increase physical activity during the day and ask that healthy food and drink options be made available to students throughout the school day.
Parents can learn more about improving health in their local schools and communities at www.MakingHealthEasier.org.
article by C. Brown via heartandsoul.com
Women won’t pay higher health bills simply for being women, and they will be able to get the medical care they need, particularly for breast cancer, under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), a leading women’s advocate says. “The Affordable Care Act will help us realize the promise of access for all,” said Eleanor Hinton Hoytt, president and CEO of the Black Women’s Health Imperative in Washington, D.C., which was founded 30 years ago as the National Black Women’s Health Project.
Open enrollment began this week under the ACA. Uninsured and underinsured Americans will gain greater access to a medical home with preventive care that can reduce the risk of a host of conditions including breast cancer, the second leading cause of death among women. “We know that prevention works, and mammogram screening is an essential health-care benefit,” said Hoytt, adding that Congressional efforts to stall or kill the ACA as part of a federal shutdown are “unconscionable.”
Black women are number two behind white women for developing breast cancer, but the gap is narrowing, according to a new study released this week for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. They are the only group of women to show increases in breast cancer — up 0.2 percent each year between 2006 and 2010 — and they also have the highest death rate. The American Cancer Society published the study, “Breast Cancer Statistics, 2013,” in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians and in aconsumer version.
Under the new healthcare law, women who are 40 and older are entitled to coverage for mammograms. Those who have a family history of breast cancer or ovarian cancer can also receive free counseling and testing for mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. Women with mutations are five times more likely to develop breast cancer — a fact highlighted by actress Angelina Jolie’s double mastectomy earlier this year.
Women facing genetic tests ranging up to $4,000 and other costs associated with breast cancer won’t have to worry about annual or lifetime spending limits, beginning in 2014. “You can now be insured with pre-existing conditions,” Hoytt notes. “You do not have to be afraid of being dropped from your insurance.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is expanding a major change in federal drug sentencing policy to cover pending drug cases, Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday. Last month, Holder said certain low-level, nonviolent drug offenders — those without ties to large-scale organizations, gangs or cartels — no longer will be charged with offenses that impose severe mandatory minimum sentences.
Holder said he now has broadened the new policy to cover defendants who have not yet been convicted in drug cases that could involve lengthy mandatory prison sentences. The policy also may be applied, at the discretion of prosecutors, to a defendant who has entered a guilty plea, but has not yet been sentenced. Mandatory minimum prison sentences, a legacy of the government’s war on drugs, limit the discretion of judges to impose shorter prison terms. Holder says the government should reserve the most severe prison terms for serious, high-level or violent drug traffickers.
“Some federal drug statutes that mandate inflexible sentences — regardless of the individual conduct at issue in a particular case — do not serve public safety when they’re applied indiscriminately,” Holder told a criminal justice issues forum of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.
At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this week, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said that in one case, a first-time offender arrested with less than 2 ounces of cocaine was sentenced to 10 years in prison because of mandatory sentencing guidelines. Paul has drafted legislation along with committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., that would give judges wider sentencing discretion as one way to relieve prison overcrowding and bring down the exploding costs of operating prisons.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press via thegrio.com
NEW YORK – On Tuesday, the mothers of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis will testify on Capitol Hill. The topic: “Stand Your Ground” laws. Sybrina Fulton and Lucia McBath will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights. The hearing, according to a notice on the Senate Judiciary Committee website is entitled “‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws: Civil Rights and Public Safety Implications of the Expanded Use of Deadly Force.”
Tallahassee, Florida-based state attorney William Meggs, and Harvard Law School professor and director of the Criminal Justice Institute Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr. are also expected to testify, along with a senior fellow from the Libertarian Cato Institute and John R. Lott, Jr., Ph.D., President of the Crime Prevention Research Center in Swarthmore, PA.
Fulton is the mother of Trayvon Martin, whose shooting death and the acquittal of his killer, George Zimmerman, on second degree murder and manslaughter charges touched off more than a year of controversy regarding Florida’s “stand your ground” laws and similar laws across the country. (Zimmerman didn’t use “Stand Your Ground” as his defense, but it was referenced by one of the jurors in the case in interviews after the verdict, and it altered Florida’s jury instructions in cases like Zimmerman’s.)
A foundation founded by Fulton and Trayvon Martin’s father, Tracy Martin, is working to amend “Stand Your Ground” laws in Florida and in the more than 20 other states with similar laws. George Zimmerman said he shot Martin in self-defense.
McBath’s son, Jordan Davis, was shot to death on November 23, 2012 at a Jacksonville gas station as he sat in a car with three friends. Michael Dunn is expected to use the “Stand Your Ground” self defense law in his upcoming trial for Davis’ killing. Dunn is expected to go to trial in January.