Your Black Sports: NFL Lockout in 2010?

The NFL players’ union plans to pick a successor for the late Gene Upshaw early this year, and sees no reason to expect a lockout in two years.

Owners are opting out of the current labor deal after the 2010 season, however, the union said it didn’t anticipate trouble.

“This is a good thing we have going on between the players and owners,” president Kevin Mawae said Thursday in the NFL Players Association’s first news conference since Upshaw died in August. “The players don’t feel we have to get to that point.”

The five finalists to replace Upshaw, as reported last week by The Associated Press, are former NFLPA presidents Troy Vincent and Trace Armstrong; former Bears tackle Jim Covert; Ben Utt, who played for Baltimore and Indianapolis; and Washington-based attorney DeMaurice Smith.

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Your Black Sports: Michael Vick Could be in a Halfway House "Any Day"

A lawyer for Michael Vick told a federal bankruptcy judge Friday that the imprisoned NFL star could be transferred to a halfway house in Virginia any day.

The judge presiding over Vick’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case asked about the transfer during a hearing at which he also approved procedures to sell some of the former Atlanta Falcons quarterback’s property.

“He’s in the process of being released to the halfway house,” attorney Paul Campsen told Judge Frank Santoro. “We expect it to occur any day.”

But the U.S. Bureau of Prisons has not given Vick’s attorneys a specific date for the move, which Campsen said could occur with only “a day or so” notice.

Vick is serving a 23-month sentence at the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kan., for his role in a dogfighting conspiracy. He is scheduled for release July 20 but could serve the last few months of his term at a halfway house in Newport News, his hometown.

“We believe he is ultimately going to be reinstated by the NFL,” said another Vick bankruptcy attorney, Michael Blumenthal.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has not said whether he will lift Vick’s suspension after his release. Vick once was the league’s highest-paid player before his indictment and guilty plea left both his finances and his reputation in tatters. He filed for bankruptcy protection in July, claiming assets of $16 million and liabilities of $20.4 million.

 

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African Americans More Religious

An analysis by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life suggests that blacks are considerably more religious than the overall U.S. population. You can see the whole report here.

“While the U.S. is generally considered a highly religious nation, African-Americans are markedly more religious on a variety of measures than the U.S. population as a whole, including level of affiliation with a religion, attendance at religious services, frequency of prayer and religion’s importance in life,” the report says.

Its highlights include:

- Nearly eight in 10 blacks (79 percent) say religion is very important in their lives, compared with 56 percent among all U.S. adults.

- Blacks attend religious services and pray more frequently than the general population. While 39 percent of all Americans report attending religious services at least once a week, 53 percent of blacks report the same.

- Similarly, while 58 percent of all Americans report praying at least once a day, 76 percent of blacks report praying daily.

- The vast majority of blacks are Protestant (78 percent), compared with 51 percent of the U.S. adult population as a whole.

The findings, drawn mostly from data within  Pew’s Religious Landscape Survey conducted in 2007, have political as well as cultural implications.

 

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President Barack Obama’s Half Brother Arrested on Drug Charge

George Obama, the half-brother of U.S. President Barack Obama, has been arrested by Kenyan police on a charge of possession of marijuana, police said Saturday.

George Obama was arrested in Kenya on a charge for possession of marijuana, according to police.

Inspector Augustine Mutembei, the officer in charge, said Obama was arrested on charges of possession of cannabis, known in Kenya as Bhang, and resisting arrest. He is scheduled to appear in court Monday, Mutembei said.

He is being held at Huruma police post in the capital of Nairobi.

Speaking from behind bars, Obama denied the allegations.

“They took me from my home,” he said, “I don’t know why they are charging me.”

George Obama and the president barely know each other, though they have met. George Obama was one of the president’s few close relatives who did not go to the inauguration in Washington last week.

In his memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” Barack Obama describes meeting George as a “painful affair.” Barack Obama’s trip to Kenya meant meeting family he had never known.

Don’t Miss

• Behind the Scenes: Meet George Obama

McKenzie tracked down George Obama in August and found him at a small house in Huruma, a Nairobi slum, where he lives with his mother’s extended family. His birth certificate shows that he is Barack Obama’s half-brother.

The two men share a Kenyan father. In the memoir, Barack Obama struggles to reconcile with his father after he left him and his mother when he was just a child.

Barack Obama Sr. died in a car accident when George was just 6 months old. Like his half-brother, George hardly knew his father.

 

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Jesse Jackson, Dr. Boyce Discuss Barack Obama Stimulus Plan

Dr. Boyce Watkins, a Finance Professor at Syracuse University is planning to speak with Rev. Jesse Jackson on Keep Hope Alive Radio to discuss the stimulus plan recently released by President Barack Obama. The $819 Billion dollar plan just passed in Congress and is set to be presented to the Senate for final approval.

Dr. Watkins is a Financial expert, and will also appear with Dr. Julianne Malveaux, President of Bennett College for women, to discuss the plan.  Watkins has written extensively about the Obama economic plan and finding ways to ensure that African Americans can get their piece of the economic pie.

“Obama might be a Black President, but he honestly can’t say the word “black” within 100 feet of the White House,” says Dr. Watkins, who is authoring a book on African American Wealth Building.  “The truth of the matter is that Black people and poor people must ensure that they get a piece of this pie.”

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