Riot Police Separate Protesters in Texas Town

Groups traded shouts of 'black power' and 'white power' on the streets of Paris, Texas. Troopers moved in to keep apart black separatists and white supremacists during protests over the handling of the dragging death of a black man last year.

Texas Town Readies for Protests in Dragging Case

By: Jeff Carlton

DALLAS (AP) — Police and residents of an eastern Texas town are bracing for dueling protests between black and white extremists over a prosecutor's decision to drop murder charges against two white men accused in the death of a black friend who was run over by a vehicle and dragged beneath it.

The protests Tuesday in Paris are expected to pit members of the New Black Panthers and Ku Klux Klan against one another. Others, including members of the Nation of Islam and a local group, the Concerned Citizens for Racial Equality, also will take part.

Texas Town Readies for Protests in Dragging Case....

Stimulus-Snubbing Govs Don't Care About People, Black or White

By: Tonyaa Weathersbee

Let me see if I have this straight.

The unemployment rate in South Carolina has hit 10.4 percent – the second-highest in the nation. In Mississippi, the unemployment rate is at 9.2 percent. In Alabama, it’s almost 8 percent.

But the governors of these former states of the Old Confederacy, as well as Texas and Louisiana, don’t want to help their jobless citizens fight their misery with the relief contained in President Barack Obama’s stimulus package.

They’d rather conscript them to fight the Civil War instead.

Led by South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, the leaders of these states say they won’t accept the part of the stimulus package that expands unemployment benefits, such as covering part-time workers who lose their jobs. Among other things, they say it would force businesses to have to pay higher taxes once the federal money runs out.

Besides that, they say, they don’t appreciate Obama – outside agitator that he is – telling them that they have to change their laws to get federal money. No matter that for their jobless minions, that money could make the difference between someone living in their home or out of their car.

States’ rights, you know.

Stimulus-Snubbing Govs Don't Care About People, Black or White....

Texan Beats 50 Beauty Queens, Wins Miss USA

By: Kathleen Hennessey, Associated Press

LAS VEGAS - (AP) A 26-year-old entrepreneur from Texas was named Miss USA on Friday, besting 50 other beauty queens for the coveted crown.

Crystle Stewart, of Missouri City, Texas, runs a party-planning and motivational speaking company, as well as modeling professionally. She says she wants to dedicate her life to international philanthropy.

"I want to talk to people about how to set a goal and achieve it," she told The Associated Press after the show. "Because I just achieved my goal."

Mississippi and Tiffany Andrade of New Jersey.

Miss USA 2007 Rachel Smith relinquished the crown -- and the posh New York apartment that comes with it -- in a show aired live by NBC with hosts Donny and Marie Osmond from the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. The network co-owns the parent Miss Universe Organization with Donald Trump.

Smith, a former Miss Tennessee USA, said she was headed to Hollywood.

Stewart was headed for the publicity circuit. She said she was eager to travel and spread her message of self-improvement to young women. She noted she was one of only a handful of black woman crowned Miss USA in the pageant's 57-year history.

"I think the United States is coming together," she said, citing the historic presidential candidacies of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. She declined to name her preference.

"I don't know, we'll see. Fundamentally, I'm a Democrat," she said.

Contestants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia have been in Las Vegas for nearly three weeks, rehearsing and hyping the 57th annual pageant. After stints in Baltimore and Los Angeles, organizers billed the new venue as a city beloved by the event's international audience.

The pageant tried to showed off its edge, featuring a grinding live rock performance by the band Finger Eleven, music from Rihanna, and contestants in barely there black bikinis and faux-fur coats.

Donny and Marie kept up a steady stream of sibling banter even while swiftly whittling the field.

Donny Osmond told the losers to "put on a poker face" as he sent them home.

"Or use Botox; then it won't move," Marie quipped.

Stewart will compete in the Miss Universe pageant in Vietnam in July. She also becomes a spokeswoman for breast and ovarian cancer awareness and other causes, while traveling to promote the organization.

Miss USA contestants are scored in three categories: swimsuit, evening gown and interview. Miss Alaska USA, Courtney Erin Carroll, was chosen "Miss Photogenic USA" based on voting at the organization's Web site. The other contestants named Miss Ohio USA, Monica Day, "Miss Congeniality." Unlike the rival Miss America, Miss USA contestants are not asked to perform a talent.

Smith's year on the throne has been marked by fewer racy headlines than her 2006 predecessor, Tara Conner. Conner's underage drinking landed her in rehab and sparked a media circus documenting her fall from grace.

Smith's low point was a fall onstage during the evening gown competition of the Miss Universe pageant in Mexico City. She was booed by the crowd and Miss Japan won the title.

A bigger blunder this year belonged to Miss California USA organizers. The judges crowned the wrong queen in their November contest and reversed it days later, saying Raquel Beezley, of Barstow, was the victim of a vote tabulation error. Dethroned Miss Los Angeles, Christina Silva, a Hispanic woman, has filed a lawsuit alleging racial bias.

Asked to comment on the lawsuit, Stewart was whisked away by organizers. The Miss Universe Organization would not comment on the matter.

The panel of judges for Friday's pageant included Heather Mills, model and former wife of Paul McCartney; comedian Rob Schneider; Olympic gold-medal swimmer Amanda Beard; and Christian Siriano, winner of Bravo's fashion reality series, "Project Runway."

Obama Wins the Most Delegates Out of Texas

By: Associated Press

WASHINGTON - (AP) Sen. Barack Obama has won the overall delegate race in Texas, thanks to a strong showing in Democratic county conventions this past weekend.

Obama picked up seven of nine outstanding delegates, giving him a total of 99 Texas delegates to the party's national convention this summer. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won the other two, giving her a total of 94 Texas delegates, according to an analysis of returns by The Associated Press.

Texas Democrats held both a presidential primary and caucus. Clinton narrowly won the popular vote in the state's primary March 4, earning her 65 national convention delegates to Obama's 61.

Precinct caucuses began immediately after polls closed primary night and quickly devolved into chaos in many parts of the state because of an unprecedented turnout of more than 1 million Democrats. The state party was never able to provide complete results from the caucuses, which is why the AP withheld nine delegates.

The precinct caucuses elected delegates to about 280 county and state senate district conventions on Saturday. The AP awarded the remaining delegates based on results from Saturday's conventions, showing Obama with about 58 percent of vote, compared to 42 percent for Clinton.

Obama won 38 delegates through the caucus/convention system, and Clinton won 29.

The final delegate allocation will be decided at the party's state convention June 6-7, and the numbers could change if either campaign is unable to maintain the level of support they had over the weekend.

Obama leads the overall race for the Democratic nomination with 1,631 delegates, including separately chosen party and elected officials known as superdelegates. Clinton has 1,501, according to the latest AP tally.

JENA SIX TEEN CHARGED WITH ASSAULT

A member of Louisiana's Jena Six was charged Wednesday with one count of assault causing bodily injury for fighting with a fellow student at his high school in Texas, his mother told the Shreveport Times.


Bryant R. Purvis, who now lives in Dallas, was detained in the Carrollton, Texas, jail without bail pending a bond hearing Thursday morning.

Tina Jones, Purvis’ mother, said her son got into an altercation with another student at Hebron High School early Wednesday after being told the student had vandalized his car the night before.

According to Jones, Purvis, 19, didn't really fight the student, but rather “grabbed him by the collar and pushed his head on the table, talking to him,” she said.

“Bryant was very upset because he had a (basketball) game Tuesday night and, when (he went out to his car after) the game, someone made both tires on the passenger side flat,” Jones told the newspaper. “And (Wednesday) morning, someone told him who done it. That’s the reason the altercation happened. And a few days before that happened, he was driving my brother’s truck and someone stole the tires and busted the windows out of it.”


Purvis is one six black Jena High School students initially charged with attempted murder in connection with a Dec. 4, 2006, assault on white student Justin Barker at the LaSalle Parish school. Soon after Purvis’ arrest, Jones said she sent him to live with his uncle, Dallas Cowboys defensive lineman Jason Hatcher, so he could stay out of trouble and out of the limelight.


Purvis' assault charge is a Class A misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of a $4,000 fine and a year in jail.