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August 23, 2012

  • Black Architect Designed U. S. Nazi Compound

    Black Architect Designed U. S. Nazi Compound In the early 1930s when the Nazi Party’s American cousins were establishing a foothold in Southern California, they built a compound in Pacific Palisades called Murphy Ranch high in the Santa Monica Mountains. The ranch, located between Will Rogers State Park and Sullivan Ridge, was built as a Nazi refuge by Winona and Norma Stephens and a mysterious character named Herr Schmidt.

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  • Obamas’ First Kiss is Solid as a Rock

    Obamas’ First Kiss is Solid as a Rock Most married couples have a hard time recalling the first time they kissed, but the Obamas are no ordinary couple, and they now have a big reminder of that moment. Really big.

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  • Business Leaders Say Obama Would Be Better for the Global Economy

    A survey by the Financial Times and the Economist of 1,740 business leaders in a variety of industries found that the majority supported President Barack Obama’s re-election because they said it would be better for the global economy.

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  • Forbes: Obama is the Smallest Government Spender

    Although Republican Mitt Romney and the Tea Party have painted President Barack Obama as a tax-and-spend Democrat, a recent issue of Forbes magazine, which bills itself as the capitalist tool, begs to differ.

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  • Condoleezza Rice Joins Augusta National

    Condoleezza Rice Joins Augusta National Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters Tournament, announced on Monday that it has admitted former U. S.

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  • Innocence Project Pushes Letter-Writing Campaign

    Innocence Project Pushes Letter-Writing Campaign The Innocence Project is urging supporters to write the Lake County, III., State’s Attorney’s Office to ask officials to vacate a battery conviction against Bennie Starks, who was exonerated of a 1986 rape conviction after DNA evidence showed he was not the perpetrator.

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  • Army Reports 11 Potential Suicides in July

    The U. S. Army reported in June that 11 active-duty soldiers were potential suicide victims. One soldier's death has been confirmed as a suicide and 10 others are under investigation.

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  • Cell Phone App Allows Voters to Register

    Cell Phone App Allows Voters to Register The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and four other groups concerned with voting rights have launched a free downloadable smartphone app that allows mobile phone owners to register to vote wirelessly, said Barbara Arnwine, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee. The application, Arwine said, is designed to meet the needs of voters in the digital age and to ensure they have the needed tools to participate fully in the nation’s democracy.

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  • Eugene Chen, China’s Black Foreign Minister

    Eugene Chen, China’s Black Foreign Minister In the annals of black history, Eugene Chen is one of its most-interesting characters. Chen, who was born in Trinidad, the West Indies, in 1878, to black and Chinese parents, served as China’s foreign minister on four separate occasions, according to his obituary in The New York Times on May 21, 1944.

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  • Bobby Brown Checks into Rehab

    Bobby Brown Checks into Rehab It was his prerogative, so singer Bobby Brown recently checked himself into a rehab center for treatment of alcoholism, four months after reaching a plea deal on charges of driving under the influence. Brown admitted himself for treatment at an undisclosed facility after concluding his honeymoon in Mexico with his bride, Alicia Etheridge, according to E! News. The singer pled no contest to a  March 26, 2012, misdemeanor charge of driving while under the influence in Los Angeles. He is scheduled to continue his solo and New Edition tour dates following his release.

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  • Court Strikes Down Limits on Early Voting in 5 Florida Counties

    Court Strikes Down Limits on Early Voting in 5 Florida Counties by Frederick H. Lowe The United States District Court for the District of Columbia has struck down part of Florida’s new law that limited early voting, a process in which African Americans voted at twice the rate of white voters in the 2008 presidential election.

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  • Romney Meets Regularly With Black Advisers, Aide Says

    Romney Meets Regularly With Black Advisers, Aide Says by Hazel Trice-Edney (TriceEdneyWire.com) – As the GOP prepares to meet in Tampa, Fla.

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  • FAMU Names Presidential Search Committee

    FAMU Names Presidential Search Committee Florida A&M University’s Board of Trustees last week named two of its members to co-chair a search committee that will screen candidates for the job of president at the Tallahassee-based school.

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  • Standoff Continues After Deadly Shootings at South African Mine

    Standoff Continues After Deadly Shootings at South African Mine TriceEdneyWire.com – Tension continues at a South African platinum mine where striking workers were shot to death last week during a protest for higher wages.

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  • Congress Earns 83% Disapproval Rating in Gallup Poll

    Congress Earns 83% Disapproval Rating in Gallup Poll Ten percent of Americans approve of the way Congress is doing its job, but 83 percent don’t, according to a Gallup telephone poll of 1,012 adults 18 years old and older in all 50 states.

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  • Arkansas Lab Rules Handcuffed Man Committed Suicide

    Arkansas Lab Rules Handcuffed Man Committed Suicide The Arkansas State Crime Laboratory has issued a report saying that a black man who was handcuffed behind his back in the backseat of a patrol car committed suicide.

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  • The NorthStar’s Week in Black History

    The NorthStar’s Week in Black History August 23 through August 29 August 23 1861 ----- James Stone, a fugitive slave, enlisted in the Union Army on this date, becoming the first African American to fight in the Civil War (1861-1865).

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  • Ethiopia's Prime Minister Dies

    Ethiopia's Prime Minister Dies Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia has died, the Ethiopian Government Portal announced in a one-sentence statement on Tuesday. “His Excellency Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has passed away,”  the statement read.

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  • Activism - Then and Now

    Activism - Then and Now by Julianne Malveaux (TriceEdneyWire.com) - Every time I see a march or rally, I think of the rally of all rallies, which was the 1963 March on Washington.

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  • Michael Strahan to Quarterback TV Show

    Michael Strahan to Quarterback TV Show Michael Strahan made a name for himself as a defensive back for the New York Giants. Now in a new life, Strahan will quarterback a live television show.

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Lawsuit: Wet Seal Was Swimming in Racism

Young women’s clothing retailer, The Wet Seal Inc., occasionally hires young black women to appear in its ads, but fires African-American store managers because they don’t fit the chain’s blue-eyed, blonde-haired image, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

The lawsuit, titled Cogdell v. Wet Seal, alleges that Wet Seal ordered senior managers to get rid of African-American store-management employees and to hire more white workers to improve the troubled brand’s image. The chain has lost money for 11 consecutive quarters.

Filed on July 12, 2012, in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, Calif., the lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, alleges that since 2008 senior management, including the CEO, senior vice president and vice president of store operations, implemented and adopted a policy to rid the company of black employees.

The lawsuit alleges that Wet Seal denied equal pay and benefits to black employees and that company officials retaliated against African-American workers who complained of discrimination. The legal action against the Foothill Ranch, Calif.-based chain seeks back pay, general damages and punitive damages. The retailer operates 553 stores under the Wet Seal and Arden B brands in 47 states and Puerto Rico.

Two weeks after the lawsuit was filed, the company fired CEO Susan McGalla because of declining store sales and shareholder pressure. McGalla, who joined the company on Jan. 18, 2011, replaced interim CEO Ed Thomas, who is mentioned in the lawsuit. Recently, Wet Seal announced a 15.6 percent decline in comparable store sales for the four-week period ended July 28, 2012, because of poor product offerings.

In a two-sentence statement, Wet Seal denied the allegations detailed in the 41-page lawsuit.

“Wet Seal is an equal opportunity employer with a very diverse workforce and customer base,” company officials said. “We deny any and all allegations of race discrimination and will vigorously defend this matter.”

The lawsuit, however, challenges Wet Seal’s claims that it is an equal-opportunity employer.

“Although Wet Seal has a written non-discriminatory policy, this policy is neither enforced nor monitored for compliance,” the plaintiffs allege. “On information and belief, for many years Wet Seal has not prepared and filed accurate EEO-1 reports with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), showing the racial and ethnic demographics of its workforce required by the federal equal employment opportunity commission.”

The chain, traded on the stock exchange as NASDAQ, had it in for black employees, the lawsuit alleges.

“Senior Vice President of Store Operations Barbara Bachman instructed a district manager to clean the store out by firing all African-American management employees in or around August 2008,” so it reflected the brand’s image, an image reinforced in the company's use of mostly white women as models.

At another store in King of Prussia, Pa., near Philadelphia, Bachman ordered store management personnel to hire more employees who looked like a particular blonde sales associate, the lawsuit alleges.

Patricia Sprowell, the company’s director of Human Resources, made racially derogatory remarks about black women employees, saying they get pregnant if they touch the counter, according to the lawsuit.

Nicole Cogdell, who was manager of a Wet Seal store in Springfield, Pa., is the named plaintiff in the lawsuit. While Cogdell managed the store, sales increased, thefts decreased and the store’s cleanliness and orderliness improved. Wet Seal promoted Cogdell to a larger and busier store in King of Prussia, but company senior management did not know she was African American.

Under Cogdell, the King of Prussia store’s performance improved, based on Wet Seal’s objective and subjective standards.

When Bachman visited the store, according to the lawsuit, Cogdell and two black sales associates overheard Bachman express dismay to the Philadelphia District Manager that she had not hired someone blonde-haired and blue-eyed.

In addition, the lawsuit alleges that Bachman told the Philadelphia District Manager that she must have been “out of her mind” for naming an African-American store manager in King of Prussia. When the district manager protested, telling Bachman she wasn’t judging Cogdell objectively, Bachman fired the district manager, the lawsuit alleges.

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