Florida Courier - May 20, 2016

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PRESORTED STANDARD MAIL U.S. POSTAGE PAID DAYTONA BEACH, FL PERMIT #189

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CELEBRATING OUR 10TH YEAR STATEWIDE!

OxyContin: America’s most widely abused prescription drug See page B1 www.flcourier.com

MAY 20 – MAY 26, 2016

VOLUME 24 NO. 21

A FAMILIAR STORY

The National Urban League’s latest State of Black America Report features “A Message to the Next President.”

The National Urban League’s 40th annual State of Black America Report shows little progress in improving the lives of African-Americans.

SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

WASHINGTON – Declaring that the state of Black America is “locked out” of economic, social and educational equality, National Urban League President/CEO Marc Morial said in the organization’s 40th annual State of Black America address this week that at least $1 trillion must be invested in America’s urban communities in order to bring a semblance of justice.

Not much change “As President Obama wraps up his

Scott, Bondi silent on transgender student issue

BY BRANDON LARRABEE THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

“The 2016 National Urban League Equality Index tells an all-too-familiar story of persistent racial disparity in American life. Your presidency has made a difference, yet we cannot, in eight short years, eliminate America’s long-standing challenges around racial inequity.”

COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE

‘Marshall Plan’ “With this milestone 40th Anniversary State of Black America, the National Urban League proposes a sweeping and decisive solution to the nation’s persistent social and

A MESSAGE TO THE NEXT PRESIDENT

See REPORT, Page A2

FLORIDA COURIER / 10TH STATEWIDE ANNIVERSARY

Yolanda King dies; birthday of Malcolm X (Shabazz) PAGE B1

PRESORTED STANDARD MAIL

Recipes for the

SOUL OUL

Indulge yourself with chocolate FOOD | B8

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Sharing Black Life, Statewide

www.flcourier.com

MAY 18 - MAY 24, 2007

VOLUME 15 NO. 20S

SNAPSHOTS

OUR ‘BLACK SHINING PRINCE’

Florida’s Finest | B5

Go to www.flcourier. com to hear Malcolm X speaking in his own voice. See Page A4 for a full page of commentary on the life of Malcolm X.

Meet Nerissa Irving NATION | A6

Jackson pushes for Black inclusion in MLK Memorial

Bondi questioned On Wednesday, state Rep. Janet Adkins publicly announced that she had asked Bondi to address whether the Obama administration’s guidance is tantamount to a federal rule, or if it violates the 10th Amendment’s guarantee of state sovereignty for Florida.

“To craft a special class of rights for certain individuals and to allow people to make decisions based on how they identify their gender creates a chaotic environment for the school administrators,” said Adkins, R-Fernandina Beach, in a statement released by her office. “This is illogical and harms the greater need for an orderly learning environment that promotes the safety and well-being of all students.”

Adkins, who chairs the state House K-12 Subcommittee, is See SILENT, Page A2

SNAPSHOTS FLORIDA | A3

One Church One Child needs parents, volunteers

National honor for Miami principal

HEALTH | B4

Court announces compromise on contraceptives dispute

ALSO INSIDE

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TALLAHASSEE – Social conservatives, angered by the federal government’s “guidance” that school districts should allow transgender students to use restrooms and other facilities of their choice, are pressuring Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi to push back against the Rick initiative.

Scott But so far, Scott and Bondi have resisted getting pulled into the politically combustible issue in the face of rapidly shifting public attitudes about issues affecting the LGBT comPam munity.

Bondi

final months as the nation’s first African-American president, we begin to assess the progress Black America has made under his administration. How well has the nation recovered from the worst economic crisis it has seen in generations? How much closer to the goal of universal healthcare coverage has the Affordable Care Act – ‘Obamacare’ – gotten us?

“As President Obama himself said in his commencement address at Howard University, ‘My election did not create a post-racial society.’”

Morial said. “Mr. President, you are right.

FLORIDA FOCUS | A3

As Florida gives many ex-felons a chance to restore their civil rights, remembrance of the May 19 birthday of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, popularly known as Malcolm X, reminds us of the power of redemption

Hunger striker takes fight to D.C.

FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

H

e was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Neb. When he was a young boy, the Ku Klux Klan allegedly murdered his father, and his family sank deep into poverty. His mother was committed to a mental hospital, and Malcolm and his siblings were placed into foster homes.

Became ‘Satan’ As a teen-ager he eventually landed in Boston but soon made his way to Harlem, where he became involved in petty street crime. He became known on the rough streets of Harlem as ‘Detroit Red’ and eventually went to prison on a 10-year sentence for burglary, where he was a religion-cursing convict nicknamed ‘Satan.’

It was in prison that Malcolm Little transformed himself and became known as PHOTO COURTESY /U.S. REP. KENDRICK MEEK Malcolm X. There, under the personal instruction of Elijah Congressman Kendrick B.

BY STARLA VAUGHNS CHERIN Muhammad, he joined the FLORIDA COURIER Meek and Haitian President Nation of Islam, and soon he René Préval discuss a range became its star spokesman.

While Congress and PresiHe adopted the organization’s of topics during a meeting dent George W. Bush work on philosophy of racial separatMay 10 on Capitol Hill. an immigration reform bill that may be passed by August 2007, Floridians like Henry Petithomme continue to work OUR BROTHER’S KEEPER?/NO ONE TO aggressively to get Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for the 100 Haitians currently locked up at a facility in Pembroke Pines.

(TPS is a 12- to 18-month halt on deportation proceed-

ism and became a minister at several mosques. Not long after, Malcolm X was speaking more defiantly about racial oppression than any other Black leader in the country.

His own mind But Malcolm X was also an intellectual who was willing to challenge his own knowledge and assumptions. He traveled the world, studied and read, took the Muslim pilgrimage (hajj) to the holy city of Mecca and adjusted his thinking about white people and the racial problems in America.

During a tour in Africa, he adopted the Yoruba name ‘Omowale’ while speaking to Nigerian college students.

In 1964, he disavowed the racial separatist philosophy of the Nation of Islam and left the organization. Known finally as El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, he rededicated himself to the Black fight for civil rights, human rights and dignity worldwide through what he called ‘Black nationalism.’

Following Malcolm’s break in 1964, enmity grew between Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm. Many NOI members hated Malcolm for ‘defam-

THE RESCUE

91 year-old beaten, battered, getting better

Please see STRIKER, Page A2

IN THIS ISSUE COURIER INDEX Florida Focus . . . . . . . . A3 Editorial/Opinion . . .A4, A5 Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . A6 Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . A8 Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . B2 Obituaries/Events . . . . B3 Florida’s Finest . . . . . . B5 Entertainment . . . . . . . B6 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . B7 Cooking . . . . . . . . . . . . B8 WEEKLY WEATHER | B5 Mostly sunny to partly cloudy skies throughout the state with isolated showers and thunder storms. High temperatures will range in the upper 70s to 80s north and mid 80s to low 90s in southern Florida.

ing’ Muhammad’s name. An FBI memo, uncovered during a congressional probe of the agency’s COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program), takes credit for fueling the factional dispute that led to Malcolm’s death by infiltrating the NOI with spies to sow discord within the organization.

Murder questions After Malcolm was gunned down at age 39, three Nation of Islam members were con-

Please see MALCOM X, Page A2

Yolanda King remembered as ‘torchbearer,’ an advocate for peace Eldest child of MLK dies at 51 COMPILED FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

Yolanda Denise “Yoki’’ King, the eldest child of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was remembered this week for wearing the “mantle of princess’’ in her role as a human rights worker and advocate for peace and nonviolence.

King, 51, died Tuesday in Santa Monica, Calif., after she collapsed.

Steve Klein, a spokesman for the King Center, did not know the cause of death, but relatives think it might have been a heart problem, he said.

“She was an actress, author, producer, advocate for peace and nonviolence, who was known and loved for her motivational and inspirational contributions to society,” the King family said in a statement.

Former Mayor Andrew Young, a lieutenant of her father’s who has remained close to the family, said King was going to her brother Dexter’s home when she collapsed in a doorway.

Committed to the movement BEN SCHMITT/DETROIT FREE PRESS/MCT

World War II veteran Leonard Sims couldn’t escape the enemy in his Detroit neighborhood on May 5. He was carjacked and beaten while at a store; a 22-year-old caught on store video has been charged. Sims is recovering, but he and wife Nora (above), are angry because nobody nearby helped. “I would think that someone out there would have the decency to help me or call 911,” Sims said. “The beating was hard enough to take.”

ALSO INSIDE

Jamestown overshadowing older St. Augustine

Her death came less than a year and a half after her mother, Coretta Scott King, died in January 2006 after battling ovarian cancer and the effects of a stroke. Her struggle prompted her daugh-

JOHN SPINK/MCT

Yolanda King gives praise during the Martin Luther King Jr. annual commemorative service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Jan. 15. ter to work with the American Heart Association to raise awareness about strokes, especially among Blacks.

Yolanda King, who lived in California, was an actress, ran a production company and appeared in numerous fi lms, including “Ghosts of Mississippi.” She played Rosa Parks in the 1978 miniseries “King.”

“Yolanda was lovely. She wore the mantle of princess, and she wore it with dignity Please see KING, Page A2

EDITORIAL | GEORGE E. CURRY: BLACKS DON’T CONTROL CARIBBEAN | A5 WHEELS | 2007 KIA RONDO – IT’S HANDSOME WITHOUT BEING GIMMICKY | B7

Nine years ago, the Florida Courier remembered the May 19 birthday of Black activist El Hajj Malik el Shabazz, popularly known as Malcolm X, and noted the sudden death of Yolanda King, the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King, at age 51.

Separate, unequal 62 years later Public schools becoming more segregated

BY JOY RESMOVITS LOS ANGELES TIMES / TNS

Sixty-two years after the Supreme Court ruled that America’s schools must be integrated, campuses across the country are becoming increasingly segregated by race and income.

A report released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office shows that the number of schools segregated along racial and financial lines more than doubled over a 13-year period ending in the 2013-14 school year.

In the 2000-01 school year, 7,009 public schools were both poor and racially segregated. That number climbed to 15,089 by 2013-14 – meaning that 16 percent of the nation’s schools had become segregated.

The report also found that 61 percent of schools with high concentrations of poor students were racially segregated, meaning their enrollment was at least three-quarters Black or Latino.

Triple segregation Latino students, the report found, were often “triple segregated” – isolated by race, income and language.

Students in segregated schools had less access to college classes, were disproportionately held back in ninth grade, and faced higher discipline rates than the average public school student, the report shows. Less than half of segregated schools offered Advanced Placement classes. The GAO conclusions were based on federal data.

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., ranking member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, requested the report in 2014. He released the findings Tuesday, the 62nd anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1954 landmark decision in the Brown vs. Board of Education case.

Along with the release of the report, Scott and other House Democrats are introducing legislation they say will “empower parents and communities to address – through robust enforcement – racial inequities in public education,” according to a fact sheet from his office.

Restoring rights The Equity and Inclusion Enforcement Act would restore parents’ rights to sue segregated school districts using claims of disparate impact under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The bill would create “Title VI monitors,” who would investigate discrimination complaints under the law, and an assistant secretary of education to oversee them.

U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. has prioritized the issue, recently telling a gathering of education See UNEQUAL, Page A2

COMMENTARY: A. PETER BAILEY: INVESTING IN LOW-INCOME YOUTH CAN END VIOLENCE | A4 COMMENTARY: BRUCE A. DIXON: OBAMA CHUGS FLINT WATER, DELIVERS CYNICAL LECTURE | A5

FOCUS

A2

MAY 20 – MAY 26, 2016

Yes, there could be a ‘President Trump’ It appears as though the words “President Trump” are terrifying to many Americans. But the words “President Hillary” are equally nightmarish!

To the astute politicos in the United States, it would not be a surprise if Trump beat Hillary Clinton like a drum in the November election to decide the new president of the United States of America!

If you believe the imperialist press, there is a strong belief among America’s registered voters that any “outsider” would be better than any “insider” elected to serve as president.

Not only is businessman Donald Trump a political outsider, so to speak. Trump’s views on trade, immigration, equal rights, women’s rights and justice are clearly out of this world!

Well, this year as in every recent election year, America’s reg-

UNEQUAL from A1

journalists in Boston that there was a “new urgency” around issues of race and class in school.

“The new GAO study confirms what we all suspected – schools are more segregated now than in 2000,” Nancy Zirkind, executive president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement.

“These schools and districts are educating a larger share of low-income students and students of color, but compared to their more affluent peers, have minimal access to the educational resources needed to support student success,” Zirkind said.

More monitoring To combat the problem, the GAO recommended that the U.S. Department of Education step up its efforts to monitor the disparities between schools. The Department of Justice, the report recommended, could “track key information on open federal school desegregation cases to which it is

LUCIUS GANTT THE GANTT REPORT

istered Black voters will decide who gets elected president.

Can I prove it? Yes! Today, America’s White voters are more divided than ever before. White Democrats hate other White Democrats and White Republicans hate other White Republicans – perhaps more than the members of the two major political parties hate members of the opposing party!

And the masses of AfricanAmerican registered voters have little love for either proposed nominee or either major politi-

a party to better inform monitoring.” There are currently 178 open desegregation cases based on court orders from 30 or 40 years ago intended to integrate schools.

In a response to the report, Catherine Lhamon, the Education Department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, wrote that King was trying to promote integration through grant programs.

“We are committed to using every tool at our disposal to ensure that all students have access to an excellent education,” she wrote. President Barack Obama’s latest budget includes a $120 million proposal that encourages socioeconomic diversity.

In response, the Justice Department said the GAO has an “erroneous” understanding of its role in the desegregation cases, and that the department already monitors each case.

“Segregation … (is) getting worse, and getting worse quickly, with more than 20 million students of color now attending racially and socioeconomically isolated public schools,” Scott said in a statement. “This report is a national call to action, and I intend to ensure Congress is part of the solution.”

REPORT from A1

economic disparities. We call it the Main Street Marshall Plan: Moving from Poverty to Prosperity,” Morial said in the speech, which was also livestreamed and televised on C-SPAN. “This bold and strategic investment in America’s urban communities requires a multi-annual and multi-pronged commitment of $1 trillion over the next five years that would course correct our main streets.”

List of solutions Here are some of the $1 trillion solutions, from the NUL’s perspective, outlined in this year’s State of Black America(SOBA) report: • Universal early childhood education; • A federal living wage of $15 per hour, indexed to inflation; • A plan to fund comprehensive urban infrastructure; • A new Main Street small- and microbusiness financing plan focusing on minority-and-women-owned businesses; • Expansion of summer youth employment programs; • Expanded homeownership strategies; • Expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit; • Targeted re-entry workforce training programs administered through community-based organizations; • Doubling the Pell Grant program to make college more affordable; • Expansion of financial literacy and homebuyer education and counseling; • Expansion of the low-income housing voucher “Section 8” program; • Establishment of Green Empowerment Zones in neighborhoods with high unemployment; • Affordable high-speed broadband and technology for all; • Increased federal funding to local school districts to help eliminate resource equity gaps.

To stress the urgency of the improvements, Morial gave the results of NUL’s 2016 Equality Index of Black America, which is a calculation to illustrate the level of disparity and inequality in specific categories. The Equality Index is in its 12th edition of the Black-White Index and its seventh edition of the HispanicWhite Index.

cal party.

Yes, the modern-day political house Negroes have endorsed the Democratic candidate. But those endorsements didn’t stop Black voters from voting for Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s foremost challenger, in Democratic Party presidential primaries.

Endorsements from Tom and Jemima didn’t stop activists, like those in the Black Lives Matter movement, from protesting at Clinton campaign events.

And the head-scratching and nods by Amos and Andy and Sapphire couldn’t stop Black newspapers, Black Internet sites, Black bloggers and Black journalists from being very critical of Democratic candidates and their dismal record of political spending with Black political professionals and in Black communities!

Ignored, abused Black voters have been ignored, misused and abused by all political parties for far too long.

The fake messages Blacks get from Barack and Michelle

Obama asking for money every time they check their email accounts has not done one thing to make Black voters feel more wanted and respected!

Clueless political consultants are being paid huge sums of money to trick women into believing things will be better if a woman was elected president. I don’t know that to be true; nor does anyone else.

What I do know is that President Obama was a very good president, but he was not “good” for the Black voters that propelled him into office! The moneychangers, corporations and war mongers that controlled other presidents controlled Obama, too.

Partying down Yes, many, many AfricanAmericans were invited to concerts and dinners at the White House.

But how can you sit at the White House banquet table and see something on the Goldman Sachs plate, something on the Halliburton plate, something on the gays’ plate, something on the

women’s plate, and something on the Hispanics’ plate – while you don’t even have a plate – and call yourself a diner?

The big presidential campaign contributors got fed. But Black people and Black voters remained politically starved like they have always been!

It could happen Don’t be surprised that the redneck’s dream of a President Trump turns into reality because of the Democratic Party’s tendency to take Black votes for granted.

If Black voters stay home or don’t vote in extraordinary numbers, or don’t vote for either presidential candidate, “Trump the chump” could easily become the next president of the United States!

Buy Gantt’s latest book, “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing” on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere. “Like” The Gantt Report page on Facebook. Contact Lucius at www. allworldconsultants.net.

FLORIDA COURIER FILES

A government report indicates that America’s public schools are not completely desegregated more than 60 years after protests like this one.

Measures the ‘pie’ “The Equality Index measures the share of the pie that African-Americans and Hispanics get,” according to the report. “Whites are used as the benchmark because the history of race in America has created advantages for Whites that continue to persist in many of the outcomes being measured. Each category is weighted, based on the importance that we give to each.”

Morial said the overall equality index for African-Americans currently stands at 72.2 percent compared to a revised 2015 index of 72.0 percent. That means that in 2016, Blacks get 72.2 percent of the overall “pie” in America.

Other equality segments are as follows: Education took the biggest rise, going from 76.1 percent in 2015 to 77.4 in 2016.

Economics went from 55.5 percent in 2015 up to 56.2 percent in 2016. Social justice went from 60.6 percent in 2015 to 60.8 in 2016. The civic engagement index “declined sharply over the last year” from 104.0 percent to 100.6 percent.

Health declined slightly from 79.6 percent last year to 79.4 percent.

Morial’s speech was punctuated with graphics, including a video to stress the pains experienced by African-Americans such as police killings of unarmed people. Another graphic was a photo of former NUL Executive Director Vernon Jordan, who served from 1971 to 1981. SOBA was introduced by Jordan 40 years ago.

Much the same Morial referred back to that time, four decades ago, when Jordan rolled out the first SOBA as a message to the next president. He quoted Jordan: “‘It is our hope that this document will pierce the dark veil of neglect that has thus far smothered efforts to right the wrongs of the past and the present.

“I hope that it will be read closely in the White House and in Congress that it will influence decision makers to open their eyes to the plight of Black Americans. I hope it will be read by all the candidates in both political parties whose campaigns largely exhibit a refusal to grapple with the concerns of Black citizens.

‘Most crucial election’ “I urge Black people to educate themselves to the issues, to register, and to vote in the upcoming primaries and election. For this election could be the most crucial in recent history for Black

people. The implications of the mass impoverishment of Blacks and the massive assault on our newly-won rights demand that every Black vote be mobilized in defense of Black interests and aspirations.’”

The latest report also includes Morial’s letter to the next president. “(In 1976), our nation was struggling to overcome the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Pressure was building to slash social services for the poor, who were demonized and characterized as “chiselers.” Communities were rocked by hostility and violence triggered by legal challenges to the social status quo.

“Since 1976, the Black unemployment rate has consistently remained about twice that of the White rate across time, regardless of educational attainment,” the letter states. The household income gap remains at about 60 cents for every dollar. Black Americans are only slightly less likely today to live in poverty than they were in 1976,” according to Morial.

‘Shared challenge’ “There have been times when Americans have met our shared challenges – as well as those of the international community – with full-measured urgency. When Europe found itself in physical and economic ruin after World War II, the United States invested $13 billion (or what would be approximately $130 billion today) to help rebuild Western European economies through the European Recovery Program, more commonly known as the Marshall Plan.

“The Marshall Plan ushered a dramatic increase in economic growth in European history. Though the plan officially ended in 1953, the unprecedented economic growth it sparked continued over two decades.

“Former National Urban League President John Jacob introduced the concept of an urban Marshall Plan for America in the 15th State of Black America in 1990.

At the time, he said the nation should commit itself to completing ‘our unfinished revolution for democracy and human rights.’

“Dear Mr./Madame President, that revolution remains unfinished,” Morial concluded.

The complete 2016 State of Black America report, including full data sets, ranking lists and articles, is available at www.stateofblackamerica.org.

Hazel Trice Edney of the Trice Edney News Wire contributed to this report.

SILENT from A1

running for schools superintendent in Nassau County.

Feds weigh in A joint letter from officials at the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice last week said school districts should treat transgender students in accordance with their chosen gender identity under Title IX, the part of federal law that bar sex discrimination in education.

The guidance “does not add requirements to applicable law, but provides information and examples to inform recipients about how the departments evaluate whether covered entities are complying with their legal obligations,” the letter said. In turn, that could affect federal funding.

While opponents of allowing transgender students to use restrooms that don’t conform with their sex at birth say it could lead to a breakdown in school discipline or even attacks, supporters say there is no evidence of that. LGBT advocates also argue that forcing students to use restrooms that don’t correspond to their gender identity could lead to safety problems.

In a letter dated Wednesday, Florida Deputy Attorney General Kent Perez responded to Adkins by thanking her for the

request but declining to address the question directly.

“We do not issue legal opinions on federal law,” Perez wrote.

Under review Scott has also avoided taking a position on the federal guidance, simply saying that his office was reviewing the issue.

Earlier this week, Republican congressional candidate Ken Sukhia, running for a North Florida seat that spans parts or all of 19 counties, called for Scott to tell school districts to ignore the president’s “insane proclamation.”

The Florida Family Policy Council, an organization set up to advance social conservative causes, has issued a letter by President John Stemberger calling on supporters to sign an online petition asking Scott to defy the Obama administration.

‘Push back’ “For starters, the governors in at least six states have told the Obama administration they will NOT comply with his unlawful and dangerous edict,” Stemberger wrote. “But Florida is not yet one of them.

We need your help to make that happen.

States MUST push back!”

When asked by email Wednesday whether there was anything new to report in regard to the approach of the governor’s office on the issue, a Scott spokeswoman simply replied: “No.”

MAY 20 – MAY 26, 2016

FLORIDA

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One Church One Child of Florida seeking parents, volunteers SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA COURIER

On any given day, there are about 800 children in Florida’s foster care system available and waiting with no family identified to adopt them. Over 50 percent of the children waiting are minorities. May is National Foster Care Month.

The One Church One Child program was founded in 1980 to help the state of Illinois successfully address the disproportionate number of African-American children in the foster care system. The program was implemented in Florida in March 1988 to address the state’s overrepresentation problem.

One Church One Child of Florida partRev. Beverly ners with the Florida Department of Children and Families, churches and commuLane nity-based care lead agencies and local organizations to help raise awareness and educate the faith-based community and individuals regarding the needs of children in foster care.

Good homes needed The Rev. Beverly H. Lane serves as the Florida State Board of Directors president and regional vice president for the national One Church One Child program.

“One Church One Child is the source of finding comfort and love for our children who are in need of a good home.

We want to keep One Church One Child, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, available to reach out to every child in need to find a home with love as close as our own beating heart. We need good, God-fearing people such as one’s self to help One Church One Child accomplish our goal of accommodating our children,’’ Lane said.

How to help There is a need for families (single or married) to provide a loving, permanent home for children in foster care, waiting to be adopted. Critically needed as well are families who can provide a home for children on a temporary basis (foster care) until they can be safely returned to their families or placed for adoption.

The search is also for families who can serve as mentors and offer guidance to children in foster care. Churches are needed as prayer partners and can also provide additional support for children through a Project Watch-Care program. In addition, volunteers are needed to assist coordinators with recruitment efforts.

For more information about becoming an adoptive or foster parent, mentor, partner or volunteer, contact the following: SunCoast Region Coordinator LaKay Fayson at 813740-0210 or lakay_fayson@ococfl.org, Northeast Region Coordinator Dr. Mari Hope at 904-764-3770 or mari_hope@ ococfl.org or Southeast Region Coordinator Cora Perry at 561-313-3087. For other areas of Florida, call 850-414-5620 or 888-283-0886. The Florida website is www.ococfl.org.

Thurston men continue family tradition The men of South Florida’s Thurston family traveled to Atlanta’s Morehouse College last week to witness the latest “Morehouse Man” continue three generations of tradition by attending and graduating from the all-male college. Left to right: Perry E. Thurston, Jr., Class of 1982; Kenneth Thurston, 1972; Perry E. Thurston, III, 2016; Henry V. Thurston, 1963; Floyd Thurston, 1981. Other Morehouse graduates in the family but who are not pictured include Henry Thurston, Jr., 1985; and Josh Thurston, 2015.

Perry E. Thurston, III, has been offered a job with Oracle Corporation.

Miami educator named national magnet school principal COMPILED BY FLORIDA COURIER STAFF

Martin T. Reid, principal of Arthur & Polly Mays 6-12 Conservatory of the Arts, has been named the the national 2016 Principal of the Year for Magnet Schools of America (MSA).

Reid was honored during the MSA national conference held the first week in may in Miami.

A once dying school with a small magnet program, the school now has a waiting list to get in.

Arthur & Polly Mays Conservatory of the Arts School, whose 1935 building is designated as a historical site, was one of the first schools to offer a K-12 education to African-Americans during segregation.

Over time, it became a junior high, high school, middle school and finally what it is today, a sixth12th grade magnet school for students interested in the visual, performing, and communicative arts.

‘Best job in the world’ Reid became principal of Mays Middle school in 2009. He wrote the initial concept paper for the establishment of the Conser vatory, which was accepted and approved by Martin T. the district Reid becoming the first 6-12 grade school in Miami-Dade County.

In his seven years as prin-

cipal, Reid has promoted equity and diversity among the students as well as equitable academic success for all students.

“I feel that I have the best job in the world because on a daily basis, I get a chance to make a difference in the lives of my students by ensuring they receive a high quality education that prepares them for their future endeavors.” Reid stated.

He is a graduate of Florida A&M University and has more than 20 years of experience in administration and leadership.

Awards, scholarships Under Reid’s leadership, the school has been awarded three National Merit Awards and the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) Support the Music Award.

“My husband was hesitant to send our son to Mays due to the reputation of the school and the neighborhood. After we attended an orientation and heard Mr. Reid speak, my husband was blown away. Needless to say, my son has been at Mays for five years and his sister will be attending next year,’’ said parent Bridget Milligan.

During the 2015 school year, Arthur & Polly Mays Conservatory of the Arts had its first graduating class of 72 seniors. They earned over $1.2 million in scholarship offers, received acceptances into 60 colleges and universities, and exceeded graduation rates both locally and nationally. Many of these students will be the first in their families to go to college.

Florida justices reject appeal about police stops over license plates

BY JIM SAUNDERS THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

In a case that started with a dangling tag light, the Florida Supreme Court made clear on May 12 that police officers have broad authority to pull over motorists whose license plates are not fully visible.

Justices, in a 5-2 decision, rejected an appeal from Jermaine D. English, who was stopped by Orlando police because a tag light and wires were hanging down over the license plate on a Justice vehicle he was driving. EviJames E.C. dence found led to English Perry being charged with possession of cocaine, marijuana and paraphernalia.

About the dispute

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Perry’s response But Justice James E.C. Perry, in a dissent joined by Justice Barbara Pariente, wrote that the law was intended to prevent motorists from “physically altering or obscuring the license plate.”

“Under the majority’s view, the licensing statute could lead to potentially outrageous results,” Perry wrote. “For example, families and avid bikers who utilize rear bike racks will now be guilty of unlawful activity if any part of the bicycle or bicycle rack – or the nylon straps which are used to secure the bike to the rack – covers the license plate.

The possibilities under which law enforcement may now detain drivers under this statute are limited only by the imagination, potentially placing in the hands of law enforcement unfettered discretion to enforce the statute.”

Earlier ruling rejected English’s attorney argued that the 2014 ruling by the 5th District Court of Appeal conflicted with an earlier decision by another appeals court. That decision, by the 2nd District Court of Appeal, found that police could not stop a vehicle because a trailer hitch blocked the view of a license plate, according to a brief filed last year by English’s attorney.

The Supreme Court majority, however, sided with the 5th District Court of Appeal and rejected the earlier ruling.

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In seeking to suppress the evidence, an attorney for English contended that police did not have cause to stop the vehicle. But the court upheld a 2014 decision by the 5th District Court of Appeal, which found that state law requires numbers and letters on license plates to be “plainly visible at all times.”

A major part of the dispute centered on whether the law applies only to license plates that have been defaced or covered in substances, such as grease, that would prevent them from being easily read – or whether it also applies to situations such as bulbs and wires hanging down.

“We conclude that the plain language of (the section of state law) is clear and unambiguous, and requires that a license plate be

plainly visible and legible at all times without regard to whether the obscuring matter is on or external to the plate,’’ said the ruling, written by Chief Justice Jorge Labarga and joined by justices R. Fred Lewis, Peggy Quince, Charles Canady and Ricky Polston.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge by Amerijet International to part of Miami-Dade County’s “living wage ordinance.”

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year sided with Miami-Dade County in the case, spurring the air-cargo company

to seek a hearing at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The ordinance requires government contractors and some businesses that use Miami International Airport to pay workers more than the minimum wage.

Amerijet filed the challenge because the county said the ordinance applied to cargo services that the company provided for other airlines,

according to last year’s appeals-court ruling.

The county did not apply the ordinance to cargo that Amerijet handled for its own customers. The company said the requirements should not apply to it because of the 1978 federal Airline Deregulation Act or because the disputed part of the ordinance violated the U.S. Constitution.

EDITORIAL

A4

MAY 20 – MAY 26, 2016

Black people, let’s stop the bleeding There is a crisis of monumental proportion in our Black communities, a crisis that if not checked will prove to be our demise. We are bleeding so badly that we are in a comatose state and on life support right now.

But we still have a strong heartbeat. We can be revived by those who have the financial and intellectual talents and the willingness to make the requisite individual sacrifices necessary to restore us to a healthier state.

Devoted leadership A cadre of individuals, not featured in the dominant media, is devoted to leading the charge for economic empowerment among Black people. These brothers and sisters are not afraid, they are not ashamed of being Black, they are not hiding behind organizations and in corporations. They are strong and unwavering in their message of economic empowerment.

They are our emergency medical technicians, the first ones on the scene to stop the bleeding and take us to a place where we can be treated and recover from our wounds.

Yes, we are bleeding profusely brothers and sisters, and we must stop the bleeding, not with a Band-Aid but with stitches. Our lifeblood – our dollars – are flowing out of our neighborhoods.

The professionals call this phenomenon “float” or “expenditure leakage,” which translates into what the experts at the Brookings Institution called a “market opportunity to provide competitively priced goods and services to inner-city consumers.”

JAMES CLINGMAN GEORGE CURRY MEDIA

Yes, we are bleeding profusely brothers and sisters, and we must stop the bleeding, not with a Band-Aid but with stitches. Our lifeblood – our dollars – are flowing out of our neighborhoods.

Cash cows for others A 1999 report issued by the Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, written by Robert Weissbourd and Christopher Berry, cited some glaring and embarrassingly stark statistics that portray Black people as nothing more than “economic opportunities” for others.

Please note the report was not casting aspersions on Black folks.

Rather, it was simply pointing out some facts about inner-city neighborhoods and their consumers and suggesting ways that businesses and government entities could better serve the residents as well as their own interests. It stressed investment opportunities within underserved neighborhoods and was positive

Sanders supporters can bring down the Democrats While the Republicans implode, Hillary Clinton moves towards the Democratic Party nomination by moving ever more towards the right.

She and former president Bill Clinton have made it clear. They intend to get votes from independents and Republicans who can’t stomach the idea of a Donald Trump presidency.

Ignored for a reason She ignores the Bernie Sanders phenomenon because she has no reason to do otherwise. From the moment he started his campaign, he said he would endorse her if she won the nomination.

Sanders followers might change the trajectory of history by refusing to go along with the charade.

MARGARET KIMBERLEY BLACK AGENDA REPORT

If they stand firm, they can also send their party into the historical dustbin where it belongs.

Trump’s supporters epitomize White nationalist sentiment, but they are also driven by personal need. They have been left behind by the machinations of both parties. The trade deals concocted by Republicans and Democrats have taken the living wage jobs they expected to have forever.

While they prosper more than any other group in the country,

Investing in low-income youth can end violence Since the 1970s, we Black folks have resolutely refused to organize a national unity movement to promote and protect our cultural, economic, political, educational, health and legal interest in what is still basically a White supremacist/racist country.

One of the most significant and very harmful results of our refusal is the much-too-high rate of homicides in too many urban areas throughout the country. The following four points are suggestions on how we can at least begin to deal with the extremely negative situation.

A. PETER BAILEY TRICEEDNEYWIRE.COM

Point No. 1 We must diagnose things accurately, which is that the overwhelming majority of the killings involve low-income Black males killing other low-income Black males.

If they were killing Whites of any income or social class at that rate, they would be stopped by the authorities by any means

in its approach to suggesting ways to effect much needed change.

Nevertheless, my take on this issue conjured up visions of massive hemorrhaging, and it very strongly suggested that we need to stop the bleeding.

The report compared one of Chicago’s Southside neighborhoods to the affluent northern neighborhood of Kenilworth.

It stated, “...urban neighborhoods like South Shore in Chicago have more buying power than the wealthiest of suburbs.

South Shore’s median family income was $22,000 back then; Kenilworth’s was $124,000. But South Shore had $69,000 of retail spending ‘power per acre,’ nearly twice that of Kenilworth’s $38,000.”

That means inner-city residents, despite their tremendous resources, are virtually bleeding to death. Literally millions of dollars are leaving our neighborhoods, which in turn, also negatively affects our employment opportunities.

‘Float jobs’ The report continued, “For business, this translates into lost sales, or what marketers call ‘float dollars.’ For inner city residents, these are ‘float jobs,’ as crucial dollars that could employ local residents and fuel the neighborhood economy are spent elsewhere.”

The only thing that has changed during the last 16 years is our collective annual income, which is much higher. The problem is that we don’t learn from information like this or use it to improve our situation.

We are bleeding, brothers and sisters. Our blood is Type O, the they still feel affronted by their change in fortune. They don’t care about the imperial project and wouldn’t mind if Trump made good on his pledge to cease invasions and regime change plots.

Democrats, however, are less likely to send their party packing.

They have been hypnotized by years of lies which have allowed wars, austerity, and mass incarceration to be considered acceptable, small prices to pay to keep the Republicans at bay. Black voters in particular are so fearful of Republican victory that any Democratic Party policy, no matter how damaging to them, gets the go-ahead.

Simple task The Sanders people in particular claimed to want a revolution.

Now is their chance to make good on this assertion. Their task is a simple one.

They must not support or vote for Hillary Clinton in November, and they must say so loudly and clearly. They can vote for another party’s candidate or write in one of their own. They may exnecessary. If they were killing male members from Black middle-and upper-income families, they would be stopped. If the authorities didn’t stop them, middle-and upper-income Black folks would create a way to stop them.

Low-income Black males should be told, “You’re being allowed to kill each other and most people in this country don’t give a damn. In fact, most of them probably say ‘good riddance.’”

Point No. 2 Those low income Black males should be made aware that by doing what you are doing – wreaking havoc in your own neighborhoods – you have, for all practical purposes, become allies of those forces out to do us harm. I wouldn’t be surprised that when reading the monthly homicide statistics in places like Chicago,

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: HILLARY CLINTON VS. BERNIE SANDERS

RICK MCKEE, THE AUGUSTA CHRONICLE

“universal donor”– everybody benefits from it. We have EMTs ready, willing, and able to apply the tourniquets and even to stitch up our wounds. It’s up to us, however, to access their expertise, to follow their instructions, and to take the prescriptions they write for us.

Make the changes If we are going to stop the bleeding, if we are going to put an end, once and for all, to the preventable loss of lifeblood – our dollars – from our neighborhoods, we must make the changes being recommended by our true economic leaders.

We must consider our “spending power per acre” as cited in the Brookings Report, just as others are considering it and gaining a stronger economic foothold in the billions Black people earn and spend each year. We must redirect a greater portion of our $1.2 billion aggregate annual income back to ourselves via our own businesses. We must develop a culture of wealth retention, a culhort Sanders to deny her an endorsement. Any tactic will do. But if they follow tradition and vote for a conservative Democrat, they will have made a mockery of their demand for change.

Liberal Democrats who like to think of themselves as leftists must put up or shut up. They should know by now that their party cannot be reformed. It must be done away with for good.

The duplicity of the Democrats is fully on display for everyone who really wants to see it. On the one hand they will use the infamous Koch brothers to strike fear, raise money and keep their voters in line. Will they continue to do that now that Charles Koch has declared Hillary Clinton to be possibly more acceptable than Donald Trump?

Sanders was always the sheep dog, as Black Agenda Report said in 2015. That does not mean his followers have to follow suit. The necessary rejection of Hillary Clinton will also mean a rejection of the man they admired and voted for – if he does as he promised and endorses her.

New Orleans and other urban centers, many Whites don’t slap fives and have parties celebrating the loss of so many Black lives taken by other Black people.

Point No. 3 If the injustices of the system play a pivotal role in low-income Black males killing each other at the rate they are doing, then they should be told to direct their rage at those who control the system or at least look like those who control the system.

Point No. 4 We as a people must do much more than we are doing to guide and nourish our young people.

As a group we have sufficient resources to set up a space where young people can do what young people, especially teenagers, are doing and always will do – which

Charles W. Cherry II, Esq., Publisher

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ture of collective economic empowerment among our people, regardless of where we reside.

“Being poor doesn’t always mean being without resources.

Anacostia is one of the poorest neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., yet the total income of all its households is $370 million per year. The principal affliction of poor communities in the United States is not the absence of money, but its systematic exit,” says Michael Shuman, the author of “Going Local.”

So, put the Band-Aids away; we need sutures. Let’s stop the bleeding, Black people. If we fail do so, our words are merely “sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

James E. Clingman is the nation’s most prolific writer on economic empowerment for Black people. His latest book, “Black Dollars Matter! Teach Your Dollars How To Make More Sense,” is available on his website, Blackonomics.com.

‘Badge of honor’ Sanders voters should loudly and publicly state that they won’t vote for Hillary Clinton.

They will need a great deal of determination, as they will surely be scapegoated, guilt-whipped and blamed for her defeat. But those attacks should be considered as a badge of honor in what may well be a revolutionary effort.

If people “felt the Bern” only because they hoped for a better Democrat, then this effort is for naught. Everyone should know that the corruption in the Democrat Party cannot be cut out. The party doesn’t want to change itself and makes sure that opponents end up just driving the sheep.

It is time for the Sanders supporters to make good on calls for revolution. When they are called “spoilers,” they must proudly own the charge and declare that they meant what they said.

Margaret Kimberley’s column appears weekly in BlackAgendaReport.com. Contact her at Margaret.Kimberley@BlackAgendaReport.com. is hang out.

Every major urban neighborhood must have a space where youngsters can relax, learn and grow under loving and nurturing adult supervision. Collectively, we have the resources to create such places. What is lacking is the will and the vision. We are now paying a steep price for not having both during the last 40 years.

The space doesn’t have to be lavish; it should just be a safe comfortable space where they can socialize, be made cognizant of their worth to the community and taught marketable skills needed to take care of themselves, their families and their neighborhoods.

Contact A. Peter Bailey at apeterb@verizon.net, or 202716-4560.

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MAY 20 – MAY 26, 2016

Obama chugs Flint water, delivers another cynical lecture

But if possible childhood lead poisoning didn’t stop baby Barack, he seemed to tell his listeners, why should it stop your child, your family from success?

The president admonished locals and others not to point fingers, specifically not at Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, who the president said was working with the feds to remedy the situation.

The president’s act was tailormade for Flint, a Black Michigan city only an hour north of Detroit, and aimed at African-Americans around the country. It was quite a performance, reminiscent of his quip after the exoneration of the vigilante murderer of Trayvon Martin, when Obama observed that he “might have been” Trayvon 35 years go.

In both cases, the president cynically leveraged his Blackness to obscure the fact that he was refusing to go after the guilty parties, while proposing no measures to ensure it didn’t happen again.

the Congressional Black Caucus, had staged their own denouncea-Republican hearing in D.C. For all of them, and for their allies in the corporate media, the mass poisonings were a unique case of evil Republicans whose ideology of privatization, small government and White supremacy empowered them to poison a mostly Black city of 100,000. It’s a simple and compelling story for this presidential campaign year, one that lets Democratic party activists keep the party’s base voters aroused with demands to indict Governor Snyder and his minions.

seize the water systems of Flint and dozens of other cities around the country which are known to be poisoning local residents, arrest the parties responsible, and operate those systems itself.

But although regional EPA officials were fully aware of the Flint situation months before it became public, they chose not to act. The EPA is part of the executive branch of government under the president and charged with enforcing existing laws.

First, Obama’s regional and national EPA officials didn’t decline to protect Flint’s citizens by seizing the water works because they feared Republican opposition.

Congressional Republicans simply don’t have the power to stop the executive branch from enforcing a law already on the books.

Then the White House and top EPA officials chose not to punish the EPA officials whose failure to act prolonged the poisonings.

Instead, the White House preferred to score cheap electionyear points against Republicans for the same privatizing acts that Democrats carry out all over the map. The Obama administration’s “Race to The Top” program used billions of federal stimulus dollars to privatize thousands of public schools across the country. The Obama administration has likely privatized more public schools than any other president has ever built. The discredited notion of running schools and government agencies like businesses belongs to Democrats every bit as much as it does Republicans.

Come and gone

The real story The federal Environmental Protection Agency, as Black Agenda Report’s Dr. Marsha Coleman Adebayo, a former EPA official and whistleblower has repeatedly pointed out, has always possessed the legal power under the Nixon-era Clean Water Act to

Privatization scheme

By the time Obama dropped in on Flint, months after the deliberate poisoning of 100,000 people became national news, Democratic presidential candidates Clinton and Sanders had already come and gone. Congressional Democrats, led by members of

“When I was five, six, seven,” the First Black President told an audience in Flint MI last week, “a lot of homes still had lead paint in them. I might have ingested some lead paint when I was two or three years old...”

President Obama spoke those words just after chugging a glass of filtered Flint water, and just before assuring residents that a little lead in their children’s bodies was less of a life obstacle than some might think.

Sure, get your kids tested

BRUCE A. DIXON BLACK AGENDA REPORT

The president’s act was tailor-made for Flint, a Black Michigan city only an hour north of Detroit, and aimed at AfricanAmericans around the country.

How Beyoncé became a sellout in North Carolina In the mid-1980s, Miles Davis, U2, and Run-D.M.C. headlined a long list of entertainers who boycotted South Africa. They did so because they knew performing there would be tantamount to endorsing the apartheid government’s discrimination against Blacks.

According to the Associated Press, “The North Carolina law requires transgender people to use bathrooms in state government buildings and public schools and universities that correspond to the gender on their birth certificates. It also established statewide anti-discrimination protections that exclude LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered) people, and it bans communities from passing anti-discrimination ordinances that go further.”

Bruce Springsteen, Ringo Starr, and Sharon Stone headline a growing list of entertainers who are boycotting North Carolina.

They are doing so because they know performing there would be tantamount to endorsing this anti-LGBT law.

ANTHONY L. HALL, ESQ. FLORIDA COURIER COLUMNIST

Civil rights struggle Ending discrimination against LGBTs is the civil rights struggle of our time. And in a dismaying bit of symmetry, yet another Southern governor, North Carolina’s Pat McCrory, is attempting to enforce discrimination against LGBTs today, the way Alabama’s George Wallace attempted to enforce discrimination against Blacks in the 1960s.

Indeed, nothing betrays this law’s intent quite like its dark little secret, according to Mother Jones magazine: “Tucked inside is language that strips North Carolina workers of the ability to sue under a state anti-discrimination law, a right that has been upheld in court since 1985. ‘If you were

Education is the great equalizer, Part 1 “Education is the quintessential way in which people move beyond the circumstances of one’s birth.”

–Isabel Sawhill Booker T. Washington understood this and preached it throughout the South until his untimely and mysterious death in 1915.

He also stressed that entrepreneurship is another key to our social success and freedom. He built Tuskegee University from scratch and formed the National Negro Business League with 39 chapters. Somehow we have gotten away from his example.

Working together For the last 24 years, my wife and I have been advocating from the entrepreneurial side of the equation. I have come to realize what Mr. Washington was really talking about. You cannot have one without the other.

We live in a competitive and capitalistic nation.

Education

The last president named Clinton introduced what was called the “Reinventing Government” initiative, compelling state and local governments to begin privatizing dozens of types of government services.

The infrastructure projects of fired because of your race, fired because of your gender, fired because of your religion,’ said Allan Freyer, head of the Workers’ Rights Project at the North Carolina Justice Center in Raleigh, ‘you no longer have a basic remedy.’”

In other words, in a misguided attempt to insulate itself from claims of discrimination against LGBTs, the state has legalized discrimination against all constitutionally “protected classes.”

Regrettably, the categorical imperative upon Blacks to oppose this law seems lost on Beyoncé, who held a huge concert in Raleigh, N.C., on May 2. She waited until the morning after to issue her self-serving statement on “Equality NC Works To Prove ‘Y’all Means All” – complete with her signature: #BeyGood.

An afterthought It’s bad enough that her statement reeks of a PR afterthought.

But it reads like the contrived lyrics of her latest album, “Lemonade.”

After all, “Lemonade” is all about Beyoncé playing her fans for suckers the way Donald Trump plays his supporters.

If you believe her I-am-womanhear-me-roar-against-my-cheating-husband shtick, then you probably believe Trump’s “Makethe rural South. High school was so elusive that my father’s parents sent his sisters to Shreveport to board and go to high school there.

With a high school diploma, they were given teacher licenses and started teaching.

Part of their plan HARRY C. ALFORD NNPA COLUMNIST

and entrepreneurship will make us succeed. We must be vigilant that the powers that be do not allow our educational standards to become second-class to theirs.

My parents grew up in rural Louisiana. Schools were limited for Blacks. In rural areas, they had no transportation other than by foot to travel to the “local” school.

There was no high school. Grade levels went from first grade to eighth grade. A school year was only three months long. December, January and February were the assigned months (winter).

The other months were spent working the fields and helping your family subsist the best way they could.

This was the system throughout

Teachers with no more than a high school education teaching Black kids by the masses.

That was no blueprint for success. That’s what the White power structure knew and desired.

After the Great Depression of the 1930s and with a high demand for labor during World War II in the early 1940s, things changed.

Blacks flocked to the cities for job opportunities. The Great Migration had created Black neighborhoods in virtually every mediumto large-sized city throughout America.

In these towns and cities, the White power structure was threatened. The solution? Depress the educational performance of Black students. I started seeing this at an early age.

When my grandmother Fannie died, my father’s family journeyed from California, Illinois, Missouri – and other places where the Mi-

EDITORIAL

A5

VISUAL VIEWPOINT: SUMMER STORMS KNOCK OUT ELECTRICITY

DAVE GRANLUND, POLITICALCARTOONS.COM

local governments everywhere in the U.S. aren’t funded by taxing the one percent. Instead, they borrow from the billionaires via bond issues that scoop up the taxes paid by poor people to repay bondholders at rates that streetlevel loan sharks would envy.

When the local tax revenues are insufficient to keep up the payments, local governments are turned into collection agencies, with emergency managers like those in Flint and Detroit appointed to cut services and pay the bondholders on time. In the more extreme cases, local governments are forced to sell off public land and other assets at pennies on the dollar to well-connected investors.

The root of the crisis in Flint isn’t racist Republicans or devious Democrats. It’s a property of present-day capitalism. The system does work, this is how it works, and both parties are committed to keeping it that way. This matrix of borrowing from the billionaires instead of taxing them, then turning local governments into collection agencies to repay the loans out of poor people’s taxes is what brought us the mass poisonings in Flint.

Blame both parties Democrats bear just as much responsibility for it as Republicans. But while the Democratic party’s main funders are on Wall Street, its base voters are in places like Flint and Detroit.

While Republicans can simply blame and scorn the citizens of Detroit and Flint, Democrats need a president who can skillfully deploy his Black identity on demand to craft soothing, seemingly uplifting messages to the robbed and the poisoned. Democrats need to blame the Republicans, or nobody, and to keep the eyes and energies of capital’s victims focused somewhere else.

These are the last few months of the Obama era. Without a Barack Obama to deliver these messages to the Democratic Party’s base voters, without the figure of the first Black president to divert attention away from bipartisan complicity in the poisonings, the cover-ups and the machinations which led to it all – Flint would be a very different story.

Bruce Dixon is managing editor of BlackAgendaReport.com.

smashing up cars, and even hinting at skinning his mistress(es) alive. Then, after her “waitingto-exhale” rage, she reforms, forgives him, and takes him back.

Far from paying tribute to love and reconciliation, “Lemonade” serves up little more than sourtasting male chauvinism. Only this explains Bey portraying a subjugated wife who, despite her purported intelligence, independence, and resourcefulness, feels she has no choice but to reconcile with a husband who disrespects and abuses her.

Even worse, her idea of redemption has her musing, like a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, that “my torturer became my remedy.” That is, of course, until the next cycle of disrespect and abuse….

Meanwhile, Bey and Jay are laughing all the way to the bank.

This is why their marriage seems more like a business partnership than a love relationship. And just as it is with Bill and Hillary’s political partnership, that’s fine. Just Violent solution? let us be sensible enough to recWith all due respect to Michelle ognize it for what it is … and call Obama, however, Bey is mislead- this spade a spade. ing young women to think that Anthony L. Hall is a Bahamiventing psychotic violence is the way to deal with infidelity. She re- an native with an internationinforces this in the epic video for al law practice in Washington, her album by burning houses, D.C. America-Great-Again” shtick too.

Even the Kardashians can’t keep up with the way Bey and Jay exploit the intimacies of family life, including infidelities. Which is why it’s hardly surprising that he’s planning to mix his “Iced Tea” with her “Lemonade.”

According to Vanity Fair, “If you interpreted Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” to be the conclusive mic drop on speculation about her marriage to Jay Z, you may have been wrong. A new report states that Bey’s husband of eight years is planning on responding to his wife’s many lyrical accusations – that he cheated on her, took her for granted, and did not treat her like the queen she is – with his own album telling ‘his side of things.’”

Sadly, Bey and Jay have just cause to believe millions of suckers will pay to see them act like Ike and Tina Turner – complete with Jay playing an alpha dog who can shag as many “Beckys” as he wants to.

gration took us – back to Bossier Parish, La., for the huge funeral.

Grandma Fannie’s eight children and dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren assembled for the big send-off.

What I remember most was my mother encouraging me to go to school with my cousin Clarence as we prepared for the funeral.

When Clarence and I sat in his classroom in Princeton, La., I recognized governmental oppression via educational manipulation.

Far behind

ma, and head back down South.

After awhile, heading back to the South out of high school was no longer a pattern. They would stay in California, enter into a community college, get a twoyear degree, and then head for a Historically Black College or University somewhere in the South.

Racism in Cali It amazed me why they wanted to come to Oxnard, Calif., and go to school. There was plenty of discrimination in the Oxnard public school system. I started feeling it in the fifth grade. As I reflect, it targeted Black boys. If you haven’t read Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu’s book, “The Conspiracy to Kill Black Boys,” please do.

Going to school where Blacks accounted for less than 5 percent of the enrollment and the school district may have 3 or 4 Black teachers at any one time was a recipe for abuse. The arrows of bigotry were starting to point my way.

Clarence was two grades ahead of me, but he was using math and reading books one year behind my class. The school board, run totally by Whites, were slowing these students down and that would affect them throughout their entire lives. Black teachers, their students and parents had no say in this whatsoever. Any protest would mean a jail sentence or even a lynching.

There was one way out of this.

My rural relatives began sending Harry C. Alford is the cotheir children to California to enroll in our local schools while liv- founder and president/CEO of ing with us. They would study the National Black Chamber of hard to catch up, earn their diplo- Commerce.

NATION

TOJ A6

MAY 20 – MAY 26, 2016 Chicago and Gary Crusader Newspapers, and Webster Guillory, retired tax assessor of Orange County, Calif.

“The 1972 National Black Political Convention in Gary was the kick off to what became the powerful Black political revolution, which led to the election of more Black political leaders than had been elected in the United States since Reconstruction,” the organizers said in a statement.

“Now is the time for Black America to return to Gary, convene a second National Black Political Convention; recharge our batteries; develop a Black agenda, and announce it to the world, and leave Gary prepared to implement that agenda.”

Variety of issues

Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark, New Jersey and Tuskegee, Alabama Mayor Johnny Ford are part of the organizing team of the convention.

Candidates to speak at Black political convention Presidential forum will take place June 11 in Indiana GEORGE CURRY MEDIA

WASHINGTON – Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders have agreed to participate in a forum in Gary, Indiana, and submit to questions of particular importance to African-Americans. An invitation to Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has been extended and he is expected to attend.

The presidential forum is part of the National Black Political Convention, which will return to Gary from June 9-12, more than 40 years after the historic 1972 gathering.

This year’s convention is being co-

convened by former Gary Mayor Richard G. Hatcher, one of the original conveners of the 1972 convention; Tuskegee, Alabama Mayor Johnny Ford, who was founding chair of the World Conference of Mayors and founding cochair of the National Policy Alliance; Gary, Ind. Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson; Newark Mayor Ras Baraka; Roy Charles Brooks, Commission Tarrant County, Texas; Webster Guillory, Founding co-chair of the National Policy Alliance; and Thelma Moore, former chair of the National Association of Black County Officials (NABCO).

Curry to moderate The presidential forum, scheduled for Saturday, June 11, will be moderated by George E. Curry, editor-in-chief of EmergeNewsOnline.com. He will be joined in the questioning of candidates

by Chinta Strausberg, a reporter for the

That agenda will be developed at next month’s convention, which will be held at the Genesis Convention Center. Positions are expected be taken on such issues as education, justice, energy, voting rights, gun control, health, environment, economic opportunity and the treatment of Black veterans.

In addition to Saturday’s presidential candidates forum, on Friday there will be an intergenerational town hall discussion.

The first convention had as its theme, “Black Politics at the Crossroads.” The agenda included: • Home rule for Washington, D.C. • Establish a national network of community health centers • Establish a system of national health insurance • Elimination of capital punishment • Create a new urban-based homestead act • Government guarantee of $5,200 income for a family of four • Minimum wage guarantee of $2.50 • Establish a Black United Fund • Effective enforcement of anti-trust legislation

How to register Conveners of this year’s convention said, “We must set our agenda as Black Americans, and be able to say to both the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention, ‘We in Black America have set our agenda and if you want our vote and support, then you must consider the Black agenda...’”

To register for convention and obtain more information on this year’s convention, go to theNBPC.com.

Former officer indicted in North Carolina man’s death

BY FREDERICK H. LOWE TRICE EDNEY NEWS WIRE

Michael Slager, a former North Charleston, South Carolina police officer, who is charged with murder in the 2015 shooting death of an unarmed Black motorist, was indicted May 11 by a federal grand jury for the deadly shooting.

The grand jury charged that Slager used excessive force when he shot and killed Walter Scott without legal justification. Slager Walter also was charged with obstrucScott tion of justice for making false statements to South Carolina Law Enforcement Division investigators with intent to impede the investigation into the shooting.

The indictment also charged that Slager intentionally mislead investigators when he told them Scott, armed with a laser, was running towards him when he Michael fired his gun.

Slager

Shot in the back Scott was killed after he was shot five times in the back. The shooting was captured on cell phone video, turning Slager into a lair over the Internet. He was later arrested. Slager stopped Scott’s car for a broken brake light.

Scott, fearing he was about to be arrested for failing to pay child support, jumped out of his car and ran. Slager then fired eight shots at him.

Scott was shot to death on April 4, 2015. A year later, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund posted on its website “The First Anniversary of the death Walter Scott: Renewing the Call for Police Reform.”

Facing life in prison Since Scott’s death, city officials have not implemented any meaningful police reforms, civil rights officials report.

If Slager is convicted on the federal charges, he faces life in prison. He also faces state murder charges.

Slager had been released on bail, but he is expected to be arrested again on the federal charges.

TSA to boost airport staff; union says it’s not enough When Erin Walton, of Rockford, Ill., left Midway Airport on May 12, she and her family stood in line for more than two hours and barely made their flight to Dallas.

Walton and her family arrived early Monday at the airport in Dallas so they could make their flight back to Chicago. They encountered long lines there too.

“The lines move, but they are so long,” she said.

“It appears they don’t have a lot of staff. We manage it because we know security checks are necessary. We just try to endure.”

42,000 officers

increase in passengers.

Long lines, blamed on the TSA staffing situation along with tighter security measures, are expected to worsen heading into the busy summer travel season.

American and United airlines are hiring extra people to handle non-security TSA functions and speed up lines, such as reminding passengers to remove their shoes.

The TSA has received permission from Congress to shift $34 million to pay for additional officers. About $26 million will go toward additional hours for front-line officers, including more overtime and part-time officers, while another $8 million will be used to hire 768 officers this month instead of in September as originally planned.

The TSA now has about 42,000 officers, down from 47,000 in 2013.

During the same period, passenger volume has risen 15 percent, to 740 million from 643 million, according to the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents TSA officers.

Missed flights

Arrive earlier

The staffing problems are hitting the flying public hard. About 450 American Airlines customers at O’Hare International Airport missed flights on May 15 due to lines of more than two hours, and dozens who couldn’t get on a later flight slept on cots at the terminal, American spokeswoman Leslie Scott said.

The problem also hurts airline operations, as airlines risk flying out with half-empty planes if lines are too long. Airlines sometimes pull people to the front of the line if their flight is leaving soon, or face the tough choice of delaying a flight and causing a cascade of late arrivals throughout the country.

Airlines are encouraging

MAX FAULKNER/FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM/TNS

A winter storm stranded on Dec. 6, 2013 at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. But travelers these days are being kept waiting at major airports due to TSA’s staffing issues along with tighter security measures.

BY MARY WISNIEWSKI CHICAGO TRIBUNE TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

CHICAGO — With marathon security lines causing thousands of U.S. airline passengers to miss flights, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) plans to hire nearly 800 new officers this month and pay for more part-time workers and overtime.

But the union that represents security officers said that won’t solve the problem, and that TSA needs 6,000 additional full-time officers to address a shortfall that has come as airlines are experiencing an

passengers to get to the airport at least two hours early for domestic flights and three hours early for international flights.

The issue has raised bipartisan alarm in Congress. Republican U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk sent a letter Monday to TSA administrator Peter Neffenger asking him to detail how the agency’s plan to shift funds to increase staffing will benefit major cities.

Kirk wrote that on a recent trip from Chicago to Washington, D.C., he was “dismayed” to see screening lanes and equipment unused while passengers waited for hours.

PreCheck program Democratic U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski, a member of the House transportation committee, on Monday called the TSA delays “unacceptable” and said he will continue to ask questions about how the situ-

ation got to this point and what can be done to speed up solutions.

The TSA had hoped there would be more people using a 4-year-old expedited screening program called PreCheck, with a goal of getting 25 million fliers into the program by 2019. Fliers who pass the $85 background check do not have to remove shoes, belts and light jackets, allowing for a faster line.

But only about 7.25 million people have enrolled in prescreening programs such as PreCheck or Global Entry, administered through U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said Michael McCarthy, a TSA spokesman.

Twitter complaints Airlines for America, an airline trade group, created the Twitter handle #iHatetheWait for people to register complaints about security lines.

The group is encouraging passengers to sign up for expedited screening, and some airlines allow customers to use frequent flier points to pay for PreCheck enrollment, spokeswoman Jean Medina said.

She said even PreCheck lines can be long, but not nearly as long as regular lines.

The trade group wants TSA to look at its staffing model to see what can be done better. “With a $5.6 billion budget, we think they have the resources,” Medina said.

In a statement, TSA said its focus is security, and the U.S. transportation system remains a “high-value target for terrorists.”

“Traveler security is TSA’s first priority, and we remain intensely focused on our important mission,” the statement said.

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SPECIAL REPORT

OxyContin:

BY HARRIET RYAN LISA GIRION AND SCOTT GLOVER LOS ANGELES TIMES TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

How it became America’s most widely abused prescription drug

he drugmaker Purdue Pharma launched OxyContin two decades ago with a bold marketing claim: One dose relieves pain for 12 hours, more than twice as long as generic medications.

Patients would no longer have to wake up in the middle of the night to take their pills, Purdue told doctors.

One OxyContin tablet in the morning and one before bed would provide “smooth and sustained pain control all day and all night.”

On the strength of that promise, OxyContin became America’s bestselling painkiller.

But OxyContin’s stunning success masked a fundamental problem: The drug wears off hours early in many people, a Los Angeles Times investigation found. OxyContin is a chemical cousin of heroin, and when it doesn’t last, patients can experience excruciating symptoms of withdrawal, including an intense craving for the drug.

The problem offers new insight into why so many people have become addicted to OxyContin, one of the most abused pharmaceuticals in U.S. history.

OxyContin taken at 12-hour intervals could be “the perfect recipe for addiction,” said Theodore J. Cicero, a neuropharmacologist at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and a leading researcher on how opioids affect the brain.

Patients can suffer both a return of their underlying pain and “the beginning stages of acute withdrawal,” Cicero said. “That becomes a very powerful motivator for people to take more drugs.”

T

Claims by Purdue The Times investigation, based on thousands of pages of confidential Purdue documents and other records, found that: Purdue has known about the problem for decades. Even before OxyContin went on the market, clinical trials showed that many patients weren’t getting 12 hours of relief. Since the drug’s debut in 1996, the company has been confronted with additional evidence, including complaints from doctors, reports from its own sales reps and independent research.

The company has held fast to the claim of 12-hour relief, in part to protect its revenue. OxyContin’s market dominance and its high price – up to hundreds of dollars per bottle – hinge on its 12-hour duration. Without that, it offers little advantage over less expensive painkillers.

When many doctors began prescribing OxyContin at shorter intervals in the late 1990s, Purdue executives mobilized hundreds of sales representatives to “refocus” physicians on 12-hour dosing.

Purdue tells doctors to prescribe stronger doses, not more frequent ones, when patients complain that OxyContin doesn’t last 12 hours. That approach creates risks of its own. Research shows that the more potent the dose of an opi-

One-page statement

PHOTOS BY LIZ O. BAYLEN/LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

Purdue Pharma, headquartered in Stamford, Conn., has made over $30 billion from OxyContin. It is owned by the Sacklers, a family of physicians and philanthropists. oid such as OxyContin, the greater the possibility of overdose and death.

Dangerous doses More than half of long-term OxyContin users are on doses that public health officials consider dangerously high, according to an analysis of nationwide prescription data conducted for The Times.

Over the past 20 years, more than 7 million Americans have abused OxyContin, according to the federal government’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

The drug is widely blamed for setting off the nation’s prescription opioid epidemic, which has claimed more than 190,000 lives from overdoses involving OxyContin and other painkillers since 1999.

Decades of data The internal Purdue documents reviewed by The Times are from sealed court files. They span three decades, from the conception of OxyContin in the mid-1980s to 2011, and include

emails, memos, meeting minutes and sales reports, as well as testimony by executives, sales reps and other employees.

The documents provide a detailed picture of the development and marketing of OxyContin, how Purdue executives responded to complaints that its effects wear off early, and their fears about the financial impact of any departure from 12-hour dosing.

Reporters also examined Food and Drug Administration records, Patent Office files and medical journal articles, and interviewed experts in pain treatment, addiction medicine and pharmacology.

‘Recipe for addiction’ Experts said that when there are gaps in the effect of a narcotic like OxyContin, patients can suffer body aches, nausea, anxiety and other symptoms of withdrawal. When the agony is relieved by the next dose, it creates a cycle of pain and euphoria that fosters addiction, they said.

For people in whom it wears off early,

Peter Przekop, a neuroscientist and physician who oversees the treatment of painkiller addicts at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, said that repeated episodes of withdrawal from OxyContin “absolutely” raise the risk that patients will abuse the medication.

“You are messing with those areas of the brain that are involved in addiction, and you are going to get the person dependent on it,” he said.

The Times sought comment from Purdue’s scientists and executives. At the company’s request, the newspaper submitted detailed questions in writing. Purdue responded with a onepage statement noting that the FDA approved OxyContin as a 12-hour drug.

“Scientific evidence amassed over more than 20 years, including more than a dozen controlled clinical studies, supports FDA’s approval of 12-hour dosing for OxyContin,” said Purdue’s chief medical officer, Dr. Gail Cawkwell.

Officer’s addiction As a Los Angeles Police Department officer, Ernest Gallego was fearless. He broke up bar fights and street brawls.

During a torrential rainstorm in 1980, he waded into a flooded intersection to rescue two motorists.

He was on duty in Echo Park seven years later when a tow truck slammed into his patrol car, leaving him with a career-ending back injury. He had several surgeries and tried various pain medications over the next two decades.

By 2012, he was on OxyContin. His parents and siblings watched and worried as the strong, fastidiously neat man they knew became wobbly on his feet and unkempt. His father, an attorney, wrote letters on his law office letterhead pleading with his son’s doctor to take him off the drug, and his mother See OXYCONTIN, Page B2

Over the past 20 years, more than 7 million Americans have abused OxyContin, according to the federal government’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

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The first patients to use OxyContin were women recuperating from abdominal and gynecological surgery at two hospitals in Puerto Rico in 1989.

OXYCONTIN

A ‘zombie’ patient

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hid any OxyContin bottles she found, Gallego’s sister, Kathryn Galvan, recalled.

“He was having car accidents, fender benders. Very groggy all the time,” she said. He spent much of his day sleeping. When confronted, “He would say, ‘I have it under control. I know what I’m doing.’”

Lethal levels When his mother died in 2012, Gallego showed up at the funeral disheveled and confused.

A month and a half later, a police officer found him slumped over the steering wheel of his car in a convenience store parking lot and took him to the hospital. The next evening, he lay down on the floor of his father’s living room, as he often did to relieve his pain.

He never awoke. He was 58.

A toxicology test showed lethal levels of oxycodone in his blood.

The label on an OxyContin bottle directed Gallego to take an 80-milligram pill every 12 hours, according to the coroner’s office.

Based on the date Gallego filled the prescription, there should have been 44 pills left. There were seven.

New moneymaker Purdue developed OxyContin as a cure for pain –– and for a financial problem.

The company’s owners were the Sacklers, a New York family of physicians and philanthropists who bought Purdue in 1952.

By the late 1980s, the patent on its main source of revenue, a morphine pill for cancer patients called MS Contin, was running out. Executives anticipated a huge loss of revenue as generic versions drove down the price of MS Contin, according to internal company correspondence from the period.

The company was focused on finding a new moneymaker. In a 1990 memo, Robert F. Kaiko, vice president for clinical research, laid out why it was important to develop a second painkiller.

“MS Contin may eventually face such serious generic competition that other controlledrelease opioids must be considered,” Kaiko wrote.

Purdue already had developed a technique to stretch a drug’s release over time. In MS Contin, the technique made morphine last eight to 12 hours. Kaiko and his colleagues decided to use it on an old, cheap narcotic, oxycodone.

Sold under several names and formulations, including Percocet and Roxicodone, oxycodone controls pain for up to six hours.

With the delayed-release technique, executives theorized, the drug would last 12 hours – at least twice as long as generics and the high end of MS Contin’s range.

Over the next decade, Purdue sunk more than $40 million into development of OxyContin, Paul D. Goldenheim, then vice president of scientific and medical affairs, wrote in a 2003 court declaration.

First patients Sales and marketing representatives gathered at the company’s headquarters, then in Norwalk, Conn., in March 1995 to start planning the roll-out of the new drug.

The first patients to use OxyContin were women recuperating from abdominal and gynecological surgery at two hospitals in Puerto Rico in 1989.

In the clinical study, designed and overseen by Purdue scientists and paid for by the company, 90 women were given a single dose of the drug while other patients were given short-acting painkillers or placebos.

None of the women were regular users of painkillers, so they were more susceptible to the effects of narcotics.

More patients, trials Even so, more than a third of the women given OxyContin started complaining about pain in the first eight hours and about half required more medi-

PHOTOS BY LIZ O. BAYLEN/LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

LAPD officer Ernest P. Gallego suffered a back injury when a tow truck slammed into his patrol car. He was prescribed OxyContin every 12 hours. He died of an overdose on the medication in his parents’ home in 2012. He’s buried at Rose Hills Memorial Park and Mortuary in Whittier, Calif.

OxyContin sales $3 billion 2 1 0 ’96

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Source: IMS National Sales Perspectives

cation before the 12-hour mark, according to an FDA analysis of the study.

The study found that OxyContin was safe, relieved pain and lasted longer than the short-acting painkillers.

Purdue moved ahead on two paths: seeking patents for its new drug and running additional clinical trials to secure FDA approval.

In a 1992 submission to the Patent Office, the company portrayed OxyContin as a medical breakthrough that controlled pain for 12 hours “in approximately 90 percent of patients.”

Applying for a separate patent a few years later, Purdue said that once a person was a regular user of OxyContin, it “provides pain relief in said patient for at least 12 hours after administration.”

Before 12th hour Purdue’s researchers, meanwhile, were conducting at least half a dozen clinical trials, according to the company’s FDA application. In study after study, many patients given OxyContin every 12 hours would ask for more medication before their next scheduled doses.

The label for Purdue’s MS Contin, for example, recommends that doctors prescribe the drug every eight or 12 hours to suit the patient. The morphine tablet, Kadian, manufactured by Actavis, is designed to be taken once a day, but the label states that some patients may need a dose every 12 hours.

Despite the results of the clinical trials, Purdue continued developing OxyContin as a 12-hour drug. It did not test OxyContin at more frequent intervals.

Approved in 1995 To obtain FDA approval, Purdue had to demonstrate that OxyContin was safe and as effective as other pain drugs on the market. Under agency guidelines for establishing duration, the company had to show that OxyContin lasted 12 hours for at least half of patients. Purdue submitted the Puerto Rico study, which showed that.

The FDA approved the application in 1995.

In a written statement, spokeswoman Sarah Peddicord said that although the FDA approved OxyContin for use every 12 hours,

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Graphic: Los Angeles Times/TNS

“it should be well understood by physicians that there will be some individual variability in the length of time that patients respond to this drug.’’

$207-million launch Purdue spent $207 million on the launch, doubling its sales force to 600, according to a court declaration. Sales reps pitched the drug to family doctors and general practitioners to treat common conditions such as backaches and knee pain. Their hook was the convenience of twice-a-day dosing.

With Percocet and other shortacting drugs, patients have to remember to take a pill up to six times a day, Purdue told doctors.

OxyContin “spares patients from anxious ‘clock-watching,’” a 1996 news release said.

Sales reps showered prescribers with clocks and fishing hats embossed with “Q12h.” The company invited doctors to dinner seminars and flew them to weekend junkets at resort hotels, where they were encouraged to prescribe OxyContin and promote it to colleagues back home.

Rich got richer By the third year, sales were more than double MS Contin’s peak, according to testimony by a Purdue executive. By the fifth, OxyContin was generating annual revenue of more than $1 billion. Sales would continue to climb until 2010, when they leveled off at $3 billion.

Forbes magazine last year estimated the worth of Purdue’s owners – the Sackler family – at $14 billion, which, the magazine noted, put the family ahead of American dynasties such as the Mellons and Rockefellers.

Others followed Other drug companies began marketing their own narcotic painkillers for routine injuries.

By 2010, one out of every five doctor’s visits in the U.S. for pain resulted in a prescription for narcotic painkillers, according to a Johns Hopkins University study.

Rates of addiction and overdose have soared alongside the rise in prescriptions. News coverage of these problems in Appalachia in the late 1990s made OxyContin notorious. Purdue sent

representatives to Kentucky, West Virginia and elsewhere to defend its drug. They blamed misuse of OxyContin and insisted that their pill was a godsend for pain sufferers when taken as directed.

“A lot of these people say, ‘Well, I was taking the medicine like my doctor told me to,’ and then they start taking them more and more and more,” Purdue senior medical director, Dr. J. David Haddox, told a reporter in 2001. “I don’t see where that’s my problem.”

Criminal probe The U.S. Justice Department launched a criminal investigation, and in 2007 the company and three top executives pleaded guilty to fraud for downplaying OxyContin’s risk of addiction.

The case centered on elements of Purdue’s marketing campaign that suggested to doctors that OxyContin was less addictive than other painkillers.

In the years after the fraud case, Purdue funded programs to prevent pharmacy robberies and keep teenagers from stealing relatives’ pills. The company eventually rolled out a tamper-resistant version of the painkiller that was harder to crush and snort.

But in all the scrutiny of Purdue and OxyContin, the problem of the drug wearing off early was not addressed.

$97 to $630 Purdue charged wholesalers on average about $97 for a bottle of the 10-milligram pills, the smallest dosage, while the maximum strength, 80 milligrams, cost more than $630, according to 2001 sales data the company disclosed in litigation with the state of West Virginia.

By 2004, Purdue was seeing “a trend away from prescribing OxyContin” more frequently than every 12 hours, according to a company filing with the FDA. In the training materials reviewed by The Times, little was said about the effect of higher doses on patient health. Those on higher doses of opioids are also more likely to overdose, according to numerous research studies.

An analysis of the medical records of more than 32,000 patients on OxyContin and other painkillers in Ontario, Canada, found that one in 32 patients on high doses fatally overdosed.

Patients began filing lawsuits in the early 2000s that accused Purdue of overstating OxyContin’s duration, among other complaints. One of the plaintiffs was a retired Alabama businessman named H. Jerry Bodie.

His doctor had Bodie on 30 milligrams of OxyContin every eight hours for chronic back pain. A Purdue sales rep persuaded him to switch Bodie to a higher dose every 12 hours, according to a judge’s summary of the evidence.

The doctor kept raising the dose, eventually putting Bodie on 400 milligrams a day. “I was more or less just a zombie,” Bodie said in a deposition.

Bodie’s lawsuit and hundreds of others filed by OxyContin users and their families never got before juries. Purdue got suits dismissed by asserting, among other defenses, a legal doctrine that shields drug companies from liability when their products are prescribed by trained physicians.

Purdue settled other lawsuits on confidential terms.

West Virginia case In the fall of 2004, in a remote courthouse in Appalachia, the 12-hour dosing issue came close to a public airing. The West Virginia attorney general was pressing a lawsuit against Purdue demanding reimbursement of “excessive prescription costs” paid by the state through programs for the poor and elderly. The state accused the company of deceptive marketing, including the 12-hour claim.

The judge hearing a motion for summary judgment in the case in McDowell County was Booker T. Stephens, the first African-American elected to the West Virginia circuit court.

The company tapped Eric Holder Jr. On Oct. 13, 2004, Holder argued that West Virginia prosecutors didn’t have sufficient evidence to warrant a trial.

Stephens disagreed. He ruled that there was enough evidence that a jury could find Purdue had made deceptive claims about OxyContin, including how long it lasted.

“Most of the patients in the clinical trials required additional medication, so called ‘rescue medications,’ that accompanied their 12-hour OxyContin dose,” the judge wrote in his Nov. 5, 2004 ruling. “Plaintiff’s evidence shows Purdue could have tested the safety and efficacy of OxyContin at eight hours, and could have amended their label, but did not.”

Settled case On the eve of the trial, Purdue agreed to settle the case by paying the state $10 million for programs to discourage drug abuse.

The settlement did not require Purdue to admit any wrongdoing or change the way it told doctors to prescribe the drug.

In the years that followed, attacks on the 12-hour claim largely dropped from the agenda of Purdue’s critics.

Class-action attorneys moved on to other drugs.

Still popular OxyContin is still hugely popular. Doctors wrote 5.4 million prescriptions for the painkiller in 2014, and according to a Purdue spokesman, 80 percent were for 12-hour dosing.

At the Times’ request, scientists at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences analyzed OxyContin prescriptions in a database of insurance claims covering about 7 million patients across the country.

In 2014, the analysis found, more than 52 percent of patients taking OxyContin longer than three months were prescribed doses greater than 60 milligrams a day, a level the CDC said last month doctors “should avoid” or “carefully justify.”

Dr. Debra Houry, director of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control and a leader of the agency’s response to the opioid epidemic, called the analysis “really concerning.” “The higher you go, the more likely you are to die,” she said.

OxyContin is still hugely popular. Doctors wrote 5.4 million prescriptions for the painkiller in 2014, and according to a Purdue spokesman, 80 percent were for 12-hour dosing.

STOJ

HEALTH

MAY 20 – MAY 26, 2016

B3 jections to doing so.

But Obama’s attorneys held to the view that these female employees, many of whom did not share the faith of their employers, were entitled to the full insurance coverage promised by the law.

The Supreme Court had agreed to resolve the lingering legal clash and rule on whether this required coverage put an unfair burden on the religious liberty of their church-based employers.

But the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February left the justices split 4-4 on the underlying dispute. That in turn prompted the justices to suggest a compromise. They issued an unusual request for both sides to consider whether the insurance coverage could be provided in a way that did not directly involve the church-based employers.

Court’s statement

OLIVIER DOULIERY/ABACA PRESS/TNS

Demonstrators react to the U.S. Supreme Court decision June 30, 2014 in Washington, D.C. The high court ruled in a 5-4 decision in favor of Hobby Lobby saying that some private companies can be exempted, on religious grounds, from health care reform’s requirement that employer sponsored health insurance policies cover contraception.

Court announces compromise on contraceptives dispute

BY DAVID G. SAVAGE TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday announced a compromise ruling on contraceptives that clears the way for women working for religious organizations to receive the free birth control promised

by President Barack Obama’s health care law.

In a short, unanimous decision, the justices said that the Catholic charities and government attorneys have agreed in recent weeks that these women may “receive cost-free contraceptive coverage” without infringing the religious rights of the church-based employers.

Based on that understanding, the justices said they saw no need to rule

now on the major legal questions raised by this dispute.

The outcome appears to resolve a long-running clash between the Catholic hierarchy and Obama’s attorneys that had played out in courts across the nation.

But despite the intense rhetoric on religious liberty and women’s rights, the practical difference had become very narrow.

Judicial compromise From the start, the administration had agreed churches and other houses of worship were exempt from the requirements of the federal law and its promise of the full range of contraceptives.

It also said church-affiliated employers, including colleges and charities, need not pay for this coverage if they had religious ob-

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. read a three-page statement in the court Monday, announcing what sounded like a settlement.

The Catholic charities and the evangelical colleges that sued the government “have clarified that their religious exercise is not infringed where they need to do nothing more than contract for a plan that does not include coverage for some or all forms of contraception, even if their employees receive cost-free contraceptives from the same insurance company,” he said.

“The government has confirmed that the challenged procedures for employers with insured plans could be modified to operate in the manner posited in the court’s order while still ensuring that the affected women receive contraceptive coverage seamlessly.”

No ruling With that understanding, he said, the court has no need to rule on the legal issues raised in the combined cases, known as Zubik vs. Burwell.

“Nothing in this opinion…is to affect the ability of the government to ensure that women covered by (church-based employers’) health plans obtain, without cost, the full range of FDA-approved contraceptives,” he added.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in a separate opinion that they will watch to see that the contraceptive coverage is provided as promised.

Health, life transformed for young Haitian woman who had rare tumor

BY MICHAEL VASQUEZ MIAMI HERALD TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

MIAMI – More than 10 years after her first surgery at Jackson Memorial Hospital, Marlie Casseus is still grateful.

“I’m so happy to be able to be back here,” the 23-year-old resident of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, said on May 12, speaking at the same hospital where doctors saved her life in 2005.

That first surgery — to remove a 16-pound tumor from Casseus’ face — made the then-teenager interna-

tionally famous.

Her struggles with a rare form of polyostotic fibrous dysplasia – a condition that causes bones to swell and become jelly-like – attracted widespread media attention. Casseus was featured on the Discovery Channel. She has her own Wikipedia page.

Casseus also has dreams of becoming a photographer, she said during a May 12 press conference.

Through an interpreter, she told the gathered reporters, “I would love to be one of you.”

Life-saving care Casseus traveled to Miami with a group of about 150 Haitian nurses, in celebration of National Nurses Week.

The life-saving care that Casseus received at Jackson came through Jackson Health Foundation’s International Kids Fund and a Haitian charity, Good Samaritan for a Better Life.

Doctors at Jackson donated their time, and the Jackson Health Foundation received more than $100,000 in donations to support Casseus.

All told, the young womPATRICK FARRELL/MIAMI HERALD/TNS

Marlie Casseus, middle, elicits a laugh from Nurses Ginette and Gina Eugene, at left, and her mother Maleyn Antoine, as she visits Jackson Memorial Hospital to say thanks, on May 12. Marlie came from Haiti to have a 16-pound tumor removed from her face 10 years ago at the hospital in 2005. an has had about 10 surgeries at Jackson. The first of those surgeries, in 2005, lasted nearly 16 hours.

“When this child came to us, she was in very bad condition, she couldn’t eat, she couldn’t breathe,” said Niurka Del Valle, senior director of major gifts at the Jackson Health Foundation. Del Valle said Casseus has gone through an amazing “transformation” that improved both her health and her confidence.

“Right now, she’s able to live a normal life,” Del Valle said. “She’s on Facebook.

She has friends. She has a better outlook on life.”

Follow-up surgeries At one point in her talk with reporters, Casseus became teary-eyed. She said they were tears of joy.

“I’m overwhelmed,” she said.

Although the treatment Casseus received at Jackson saved her life, the road to recovery hasn’t always been easy. Because of the extensive damage caused by the original tumor, Casseus had to re-learn how to speak and swallow.

There have also been follow-up surgeries — in 2014, for example, she underwent several procedures to open up a closed nasal passage, and to replace two nasal tubes. She spent months in the hospital. In the future, there may be additional cosmetic surgeries to further repair her face.

Network of support At home in Haiti, Casseus hasn’t attended school since the cata-

strophic earthquake of 2010, which destroyed her special-needs school.

But in dealing with those obstacles, Casseus now has an extensive support network of doctors, including her older sister, Stellcie, who was inspired to become a physician because of Casseus’ condition.

Ginette Eugene, a nurse who co-founded Good Samaritan for a Better Life, the Haitian charity, said Casseus’ life is far different from where it was before the surgeries. Before 2005, she said, Casseus’ condition was simply getting progressively worse, and her family had no ability to help her.

“Marlie was left in her room to die, because there was no hope, no physician could save her life,” Eugene said.

B4

BUSINESS & MONEY

MAY 20 – MAY 26, 2016

STOJ

filed in January 2016 for the “Barack Obama Foundation” in Chicago details its anticipated uses for charitable activities in “arts, education, human and social services,” as well as conferences and programs “in the fields of poverty elimination, health security, economic empowerment and investment, leadership development, world governance, climate change, citizen service, and racial, ethnic, and religious reconciliation.”

‘Black Lives Matter’

GARY FRIEDMAN/LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

Prince is shown performing at the Hollywood Bowl on Oct. 11, 1997 in Los Angeles. Prince died on April 21 at 57 years old. The Prince trademark for just filed in 2014.

Who owns that trademark?

Prince recovered the rights to the masters of his early music from Warner Brothers Records in 2014 as well as the legal right to use and profit from his own name.

ing the rights to those concepts.

There are other gems in this data mine:

BY ERIC EASTER URBAN NEWS SERVICE

‘Barack Obama’

When he died, the rock star, Prince, left not only a vault containing a treasure trove of music and videos. He also left behind the ownership of a highly valuable trademark for the right to exploit his name for multiple uses. But that trademark wasn’t filed until 2014.

Paisley Park Enterprises’ seemingly late registration of the “Prince” trademark actually makes sense.

When Prince recovered the rights to the masters of his early music from Warner Brothers Records in 2014, he also regained the legal right to use and profit from his own name, a key point of contention in his fight against Warner, and one that sparked his use of the famous “love symbol” and made “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince” a household phrase.

That’s just one of the many surprises on the website of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which

maintains a public database of millions of trademark registrations — who filed them, who owns them and who has let them expire.

As social media sites proliferate, the ownership of Black culture has sparked a hot-button issue: Trends grounded in the African-American community rapidly go viral and become popular and often profitable, but rarely for the originators. Owning trademarks is key to secur-

At least twice, individuals who are not President Barack Obama have tried to trademark his name.

Both attempts failed soon after his 2009 presidential inauguration.

Yet, the current active trademark reveals an interesting clue as to how the president intends to spend his time after leaving office.

A trademark application

There are two ways to consider the fact that the Black Lives Matter organization has not trademarked — nor seems to have attempted to trademark — the phrase that represents both their name and protest identity. That is either a missed fundraising opportunity or a sign that Black Lives Matter’s leaders are more concerned with action and change than with profit.

Whatever the correct answer is, this has not stopped at least a few others from trying to cash in.

According to Patent Office records, a Michael Southern of Crazy4tshirts, a Chicago company, filed a trademark application for “Black Lives Matter” six months after protests erupted in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014. But the trademark expired in September 2015.

Perkins, Inc., a California company, filed for a Black Lives Matter trademark for use on greeting cards and stationery in April 2015, but the trademark expired in January 2016.

Trademarks can be considered “dead” soon after applications are submitted if registrants fail to respond to government queries about such filings. Also, some people simply abandon their applications once related expenses emerge.

Still active, however, is “Bulletproof: #Black Lives Matter,” owned by Damon Turner of Lawrenceville, Georgia, for use on Tshirts, sweatshirts, hoodies and other apparel.

‘Bud Billiken’ The name “Bud Billiken” means a lot in Chicago. A fictional character created by the Chicago Defender newspaper, he represented the city’s collective Black conscience.

And, since 1929, the spirit of Black Chicago has been brought to life by the huge Bud Billiken Day Parade – America’s second largest annual parade, after Macy’s Thanksgiving Day celebration. That means tons of money in sponsorships, and presumably a valuable brand to protect.

But parade organizers might want to check the paperwork. The trademark for “Bud Billiken,” filed for and held since 1991

by Sengstacke Enterprises, the Defender’s former owners, expired in January 2016.

‘Martin Luther King, Jr.’ Dr. King’s heirs have been famously litigious about the use of their late father’s name and image.

This has been a source of great consternation for filmmakers, researchers and a host of others who think the King name and legacy should be public domain, and that the family’s licensing fees can be prohibitive.

So, it may surprise many that while the Dr. Martin Luther King Center for Non-Violent Change has an active trademark, there is currently no active trademark for the name “Martin Luther King, Jr.” Dr. King’s estate applied for, and received, that trademark in 1995, only to let it expire in 1999. There is no renewal application on file.

How to navigate volatile markets for a secure retirement FAMILY FEATURES

Persistent and significant stock market swings, combined with shifting workplace structures and an outdated retirement benefit system, are profoundly impacting Americans’ ability to save and prepare for a secure retirement.

In fact, a quarter of Americans age 50 and over exhausted all of their savings during the 2008 recession, according to a recent AARP Public Policy Institute report. And, at the same time, almost one-third of older Americans said their home declined in value, meaning they could no longer count on rising home values to help fund their retirement.

Diversify portfolios In order to protect your nest egg against market volatility, experts recommend ensuring you have a balanced financial portfolio that includes conservative, low-risk products that are less impacted by stock market volatility.

“The single most important step Americans can take to mitigate risk is to diversify their portfolios,” said Jim Poolman, Executive Director of the Indexed Annuity Leadership Council. “Sitting with a financial planner and using a retirement calculator can help you determine where you are, where you want to be and what savings vehicles can help you get there.”

While there are no surefire ways to avoid the effects of stock market instability, there are some things you can do to reduce the likelihood that you will suffer the consequences in the future, and things you can do during a market downturn.

Start saving now. Many people are focused on paying down student loans

PHOTO COURTESY OF GETTY IMAGES

Experts recommend ensuring you have a balanced financial portfolio that includes conservative, lowrisk products that are less impacted by stock market volatility. and other debt, or concentrating on more immediate goals like buying a house and children’s college funds.

However, the cost of putting off retirement savings adds up. Every six years you wait to start saving, the monthly amount you need to save to reach the same retirement income doubles.

Avoid putting all of your assets into one type of account. While contributing to an employer’s 401(k) is a terrific start, it’s often not enough. To build a solid retirement plan, don’t underestimate the importance of a balanced financial portfolio. Your level of risk should reflect your age and your retirement goals.

For example, younger savers have more time to recover from risk than those nearing retirement. One option to provide balance to your retirement portfolio is adding a Fixed Indexed Annuity, which protects your principal and can provide a guaranteed stream of income in retirement, regardless of market ups and downs.

Create a retirement plan based on actual needs.

A study by the Employ-

ee Benefit Research Institute found 39 percent of people guess how much they will need to save without actually calculating their retirement needs.

Using calculators can help determine your specific retirement income needs so that you can plan accordingly. Calculating just your living costs isn’t enough – also take into account rising healthcare costs, inflation and longer lifespans.

Monitor and adjust your savings strategy. Volatility in the stock market can affect your savings, as do your current expenses and future needs. Additionally, career changes and family situations can change how you should be saving.

Leading up to retirement, your last few years of savings will be different than when you were first starting out in your career. A good rule of thumb is to spend five minutes every five years revisiting your retirement plan to make sure your savings reflect your needs and adjust for market conditions.

Learn more about options for managing your retirement account at FIAinsights.org.

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STOJ

MAY 20 – MAY 26, 2016

FINEST & ENTERTAINMENT

Meet some of

FLORIDA’S

finest

submitted for your approval

B5

Think you’re one of Florida’s Finest?

E-mail your high-resolution (200 dpi) digital photo in casual wear or bathing suit taken in front of a plain background with few distractions, to news@flcourier. com with a short biography of yourself and your contact information. (No nude/ glamour/ fashion photography, please!) In order to be considered, you must be at least 18 years of age. Acceptance of the photographs submitted is in the sole and absolute discretion of Florida Courier editors. We reserve the right to retain your photograph even if it is not published. If you are selected, you will be contacted by e-mail and further instructions will be given.

Niecy Nash will star in a TNT pilot “Claws,” a dramedy set in a Southern Florida nail salon. “Claws” will follow the lives of five diverse and treacherous Florida manicurists in Manatee County. Nash will play Desna Simms, the owner of the salon. Nash is the former host of the Style Network show “Clean House.’’ She also starred as Lolli Ballantine on the TV Land sitcom “The Soul Man.’’

“Grey’s Anatomy’’ star Jesse Williams will star in a new documentary titled “Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement.’’ Williams also executive produces the film, which debuts May 26 on BET. It chronicles the birth and growth of the Black Lives Matter movement, and its transformative power in amplifying Black voices and issues.

JAY L. CLENDENIN/LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

1, staying there for 11 weeks.

It was eventually pushed from No. 1 by The Notorious B.I.G.’s posthumous hit with Puff Daddy, “Mo Money, Mo Problems.”

More hits

MARK BOSTER/LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS

Sean “Diddy’’ Combs arrives at the 84th Annual Academy Awards show at the Hollywood and Highland Center in Los Angeles on Feb 26, 2012. His plan now is to focus more on his acting career.

‘Diddy’ says he’s retiring from music after ‘No Way Out 2’

BY GLENN GAMBOA NEWSDAY (TNS)

NEW YORK — Leave it to Sean “Diddy” Combs to go out in style.

Combs says he will leave his Puff Daddy and Diddy days behind him and retire from music following the release and tour supporting his upcoming album, “No Way Out 2.”

“I’m going to put out my last album and devote 100 percent of my time to doing films,” Combs told Cigar Aficionado magazine. “I want to stop at a great place … and a final album is a great place to stop. I want to take a victory lap, to do a world tour and really enjoy it once last time.”

That victory lap begins May 20 and 21 with the Bad Boy Family Reunion, as Combs brings together many of the

artists from the Bad Boy Records roster at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, marking what would have been the late Notorious B.I.G.’s 44th birthday.

‘Hip-hop history’ “This isn’t just another concert,” Combs said announcing the show. “This is hip-hop history. …The Bad Boy Family includes some of the biggest names in music and songs that helped define a whole generation of music.

Also, we are celebrating one of the greatest of all time – Notorious B.I.G. This will be a night to remember.”

The night — which will feature Bad Boy hitmakers like Lil’ Kim and Mase, as well as Jay Z and Mary J. Blige — will be a throwback to the days when the Notorious B.I.G. and Puff Daddy took over the

music industry.

Life after Biggie In the ’90s, Biggie’s string of hits starting with “Juicy” and “Big Poppa” launched the East Coast rap style, which competed with the West Coast rap of 2Pac (Tupac Shakur) and N.W.A. for control of both hip-hop and the top of the pop charts.

Biggie and Puffy opted for a flashier style — the shiny suits, the big jewelry — to offset the grittier tales of life in Brooklyn, creating not just a sound that was in demand, but a look as well.

After Biggie’s murder in 1997, Combs regrouped and released his own album “No Way Out,” which went gold in its first week, and a tribute to Biggie called “I’ll Be Missing You” that became the first hip-hop song to debut at No.

In 1997, Puff Daddy held the No. 1 spot for 19 weeks with three of his singles, including his debut “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down,” which showed off the Bad Boy style of taking ’80s pop samples and turning them into hiphop anthems.

It’s that era that Combs wants to celebrate with the Bad Boy Family Reunion as well as his expected international tour next year.

Though many of Bad Boy’s artists went on to leave the label and collaborate with others, most seem happy to pay tribute to the era that gave them their start.

“I’m in my comfort zone when I’m with my Bad Boy family,” Lil Kim recently told Billboard. “We have such an organic, natural connection when we’re onstage. It’s perfect, it’s fun. It’s just second nature to me.”

‘Songs will survive’ Combs has been planning his exit from music for a while. In November, he released his “MMM” album as a birthday surprise, calling it “a thank-you to my fans and is just the beginning, a prelude to what will be my final album, ‘No Way Out 2.’”

Though he has long split his time between his fashion lines, his acting career both on Broadway and in films, Combs has recently been focusing more and more on what he sees as his final album and his musical legacy.

“When I’m gone, only the songs will survive,” Combs told Cigar Aficionado for the magazine’s June issue. “I know I’m making music that will live on. I don’t go into the studio just to be hot or to hear myself on the radio. Michael Jackson, Tupac, Biggie – part of them lives on in their music, even though they’re not here anymore. That’s really deep, man. The only thing like that is religion.”

FLORIDA COMMUNITY CALENDAR Fort Lauderdale: Rich Grand Media and the Haitian Compas Festival will present their first Haitian Hip Hop Festival to be held on May 22 at Revolution Live, 100 SW 3rd Ave. Tickets: 786-443-7700.

Tampa: Girls Raised in The South (G.R.I.T.S.) is hosting “Recognizing Ordinary Women Doing Extraordinary Things,’’ a fundraiser, on June 18 at 6 p.m. Honorees are Gloria Andrews, Sarah Kilker and Margarita Gonzalez. It will include a Tampa’s Business Men on Parade fashion show.

Tickets: 813-731-1720.

Miami: The Ninth Annual Memorial Weekend Comedy Festival is May 29 at the James L. Knight Center featuring John Witherspoon, Earthquake and Kym Whitley.

Miami: Bishop Victor T. Curry’s 25th anniversary at New Birth Baptist Church Cathedral of Faith International continues May 20 at 7 p.m. and May 22 at 7 and 11 a.m. More information: 305-685-3700.

Tamarac: The Eta Nu Education Foundation of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity will host its annual golf tournament in memory of Felix “Chin” Evans at 8 a.m. May 21 at the Woodlands Country Club, 4600 Woodlands Blvd. More details: www. etanu.org.

St. Petersburg: A Business and Economic Empowerment Conference starts at 8 a.m. May 21 at the Pinellas Technical College, 901 34th St. S. More information: 813‐716-4554 or email gabdulwasi@yahoo.com.

Orlando: Orange County is hosting its free Hurricane Expo on June 4 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Renaissance Senior Center at South Econ Community Park, 3800 South Econlockhatchee Trail. More information: 407-836-9140 or ocoem@ocfl.net.

Jacksonville: The Florida Theatre Jacksonville will host Brian McKnight on May 24.

Tampa: Anthony Hamilton and Fantasia will perform June 16 at the USF Sun Dome.

Jacksonville: R. Kelly’s “The Buffet Tour 2016’’ makes a stop at the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena on May 26 and Miami’s American Airlines Arena on May 28.

Fort Lauderdale: Destination Prince, featuring the singer’s music, is 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. June 4 at the African-American Research Library and Cultural Center, 2650 Sistrunk Blvd. Details: Cost: $10. 954-357-6210.

B6

FOOD

MAY 20 – MAY 26, 2016

S

From orchard to table, apples bring flavor for the perfect picnic FROM FAMILY FEATURES

There’s nothing like the perfect picnic or barbe­ cue to slow down and re­ connect with friends and family. This season, gather together guests and sur­ prise them with a rustic backyard picnic, star­ ring delicious new recipes that bring out the flavor of apples — a versatile and

APPLE TORTELLINI SALAD Servings: 6 to 8 Dressing: 3 tablespoons Tree Top Frozen Concentrate Apple Juice, thawed 3 tablespoons light corn syrup 2 teaspoons brown sugar 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar 2 teaspoons garlic salt Ground pepper to taste Salad: 9 ounces cheese-filled tortellini 2 cups sliced apples (approximately 2 medium apples) 2 cups shredded salad greens 1 cup sliced fresh strawberries 1/2 cup thinly sliced celery 1/2 cup sliced scallions 2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts (optional)

To prepare dressing, combine apple juice concentrate, corn syrup, brown sugar, vinegar, garlic salt and pepper. Cover dressing and refrigerate.

To prepare salad, cook tortellini, drain and cool by rinsing pasta under cold water.

Shake gently to drain thoroughly. In a large bowl, combine tortellini, apples, salad greens, straw­berries, celery and scallions.

Toss salad gently with chilled dressing.

Serve chilled. If desired, sprinkle with pine nuts.

SPICED PORK AND APPLE BURGER WITH MAPLE DIJON Servings: 6 3 tablespoons maple syrup 2 tablespoons spicy brown mustard 2 pounds ground pork 1/2 cup Tree Top Natural Apple Sauce 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder 1 teaspoon dry mustard

1/2 teaspoon black pepper 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon 6 hamburger buns Baby Spinach leaves Stir maple syrup and mustard together in a small bowl. Set aside. Spray a large non-stick grill pan or griddle with cook­ing spray and place over medium to medium high heat.

Mix pork, apple sauce, salt, chili powder, dry mustard, pep­per and cinnamon together in a large mixing bowl. Form mix­ture into 6 patties. Place patties in pan and cook for 4 to 5 minutes, turn and cook additional 4 to 5 minutes or until done.

To serve, spread bun bottoms with maple mustard mixture. Top each with a patty, spinach leaf and bun top. If desired, toast buns and top with cheddar cheese, grilled onions, pickles, tomatoes or other favorite toppings. Serve with crispy sweet potato fries and steamed beans for an easy but special meal.

STRAWBERRY BANANA SMOOTHIE ICE POPS 1 cup Tree Top Apple Juice 1 pint strawberries, hulled, sliced and frozen 1 banana, sliced and frozen 1 apple, peeled, cored, sliced and frozen 6 ounces vanilla yogurt 1 teaspoon vanilla Put all ingredients in a blender and process until smooth. Pour into ice pop forms or paper cups. Place ice pop sticks in center and freeze, inverted, for 3 hours or until solid. Keep frozen until ready to serve.

BAKED APPLE PIE LAYER BARS Servings: 16 2 1/2 cups sifted flour 1 tablespoon sugar 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup shortening 1egg Milk 2/3 cup crushed corn flakes

healthy year-round fruit.

Filled with healthy an­ tioxidants, fiber, vitamins and minerals, apples add a flavorful twist to classic picnic fare. For a refresh­ ing treat that both kids and adults will love, try the Strawberry Banana Smoothie Pop­sicle, made with Tree Top Apple Juice.

Or grill some Spiced Pork and Apple Burgers with Maple Dijon, made with Tree Top Apple Sauce for a lean and juicy burger.

For more recipes and inspiration, visit www.treetop.com.

1/2 cup Tree Top or Seneca Apple Sauce 5 cups sliced, peeled apples 1/4 cup sugar 1 teaspoon cinnamon Glaze: 1 cup confectioners’ sugar 2 tablespoons lemon juice Sift together flour, sugar and salt. Cut shortening in with pastry blender or two knives.

Put egg yolk into measuring cup and add milk to make 2/3 cup. Add to shortening mixture.

Mix just enough until dough shapes into a ball. Roll out half the dough into 15 x 11-inch rectangle. Transfer to baking sheet. Cover with corn flakes.

Mix apple sauce together with apple slices, and add mixture on top of corn flakes. Mix sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle over apple mixture. Roll out other half of dough for top crust.

Place over apples. Pinch edges together. Beat egg white until stiff and spread on top crust.

Bake in hot 400°F oven for 40 minutes. Cut into 16 squares.

Combine confectioners’ sugar and lemon juice to make glaze.

While hot, drizzle glaze over top.