Tag Archives: incident

Obama, prof, cop to sit down over brews

President Obama will sit down for a beer at the White House Thursday night with a top African-American professor and the policeman who arrested him earlier this month. The arrest, in response to reports of a possible break-in at the home of Harvard academic Henry Louis Gates Jr., sparked a national debate about race, class and police attitudes towards minorities. Obama himself quickly got involved, saying at a news conference that police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, acted “stupidly.” His comment itself drew criticism and later he softened his stance, saying, “I could’ve calibrated those words differently.” But Obama’s spokesman said the sight of Gates and Sgt.

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The ‘unfathomable’ arrest of a black scholar

Boris Kodjoe owns a mansion in Atlanta. But when he goes to answer his door, the black actor knows what it’s like to be an outcast. “When I’m opening the door of my own house, someone will ask me where the man of the house is, implying that I’m staff,” said Kodjoe, best known for starring in Showtime’s “Soul Food.” It’s a feeling some African-Americans say is all too common, even to this day in America: No matter your status or prominence in society, you’re still typecast

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Egyptians angry over German court slaying

Hundreds of Egyptians took part Monday in the funeral of Marwa Sherbini, an Egyptian woman who was stabbed to death last week in the German city of Dresden in a crime believed to be racially motivated. Sherbini, 33, was stabbed to death Wednesday in a courtroom as she prepared to give testimony against a German man of Russian descent whom she had sued for insult and abuse. The man, identified in German media as Alex A., 28, was convicted of calling Sherbini, who wore a headscarf, “terrorist,” “bitch” and “Islamist” when she asked him him to leave a swing for her 3-year-old son Mustafa during an August 2008 visit to a children’s park.

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Ronaldo in clear over high-speed car smash

Cristiano Ronaldo has escaped punishment over the car smash earlier this year that saw his Ferrari written off. The Manchester United star, who is set to move to Real Madrid for a world record fee, demolished the front of his high-performance sports car after he hit a roadside barrier in a tunnel on a freeway in the north-west of England city.

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New Jersey police officer pounds man on tape

Surveillance video shows a Passaic, New Jersey, police officer beating a 49-year-old man standing idly on a street corner. Surveillance tape from Lawrence’s Grill and Bar in Passaic on May 29 shows a police car pull up to Ronnie Holloway, who is standing still on the curb outside the restaurant

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Behind the Military Mutiny in Georgia

Georgia’s government has called Tuesday’s mutiny at a military base near Tbilisi part of a coup attempt orchestrated by Russia, but opponents of beleaguered President Mikheil Saakashvili accuse him of using the incident to crack down on mounting domestic opposition. Soldiers in tanks and armored personnel carriers raced to the base in Mukhrovani, 20 miles from the capital, to confront mutinous soldiers, about 500 of whom were arrested after the standoff ended peacefully

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