The civil rights leader is seeking a federal civil rights probe into Bell’s shooting outside a Queens nightclub. The case raised questions about police use of deadly force in minority neighborhoods.
Sharpton had promised recently to “close this city down” with civil disobedience.
Bell was black, as are his friends Benefield and Guzman; the three officers acquitted in the case are Hispanic, black and white.
U.S. attorney spokesman Robert Nardoza said the case was under review, but he declined to comment further.

msnbc.msn.com

Photos: They’re Stanley Cup winners that are easy on the eyes. Here are some of the NHL’s players that are hot both on and off the ice.
Avery, who helped the Rangers, get into the second round of the playoffs, will join Vogue magazine as an intern some time after the team’s run ends. He hopes to become a fashion editor one day.
Avery’s summer job was first reported by Page Six Magazine.
Of course, the internship also will put Avery in the company of some very attractive women, something not unfamiliar to him. He has been linked in the past to Elisha Cuthbert and Mary Kate Olsen among others.
But Avery isn’t exactly known for being the highbrow type.

msn.foxsports.com

Pope Benedict XVI is making his way to the United States next month, and while many Catholics are anticipating the visit and making travel plans, one local business is doing more. Patrick Baker & Sons Inc., of Southington, is supplying candles, vestments and other items for the pope’s Masses in New York.
“It is an honor,” said Michael Baker, a salesman at the business’s 1650 West St. location. “It is a highlight in my career” to supply goods for the event.
The pope will visit New York from April 18 to 20, following his visit to Washington, D.C., from April 15 to 17.
On April 18, Benedict will address the United Nations, then participate in an ecumenical service at a parish church in the city. On April 19, he will celebrate a Mass with priests, deacons and members of religious orders at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and meet with youths and seminarians at the St. Joseph Seminary and with disabled children in the seminary’s chapel. On April 20, the pope will visit ground zero and celebrate a public solemn pontifical Mass at Yankee Stadium, according to a press release from the Archdiocese of New York.
Tickets for the Mass at Yankee Stadium were allocated to parishes, and all ticket deadlines have passed.
“I’m very excited for everybody who would take the event seriously and be there,” Baker said.
For many, this will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the pope, Baker said. This visit, however, will not a first for Baker; his business also supplied items for Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1995, and he was able to see the pope then.
Baker said that he is especially excited about this visit because he will attend a smaller Mass with the pope in a chapel, and will be closer to the pope.
Patrick Baker & Sons has had a strong relationship with the Archdiocese of New York over the years. The company will provide candles with the papal seal, candlesticks, chalices and vestments for the priests. The business is also polishing old metal ware for the Masses.
Baker & Sons has done extensive work at St. Patrick’s and at other Catholic churches in the Northeast, newspaper files show, including renovations to bring sanctuaries into compliance with the Vatican II liturgical reforms enacted in the 1960s. Among those renovated sanctuaries were those at Most Holy Trinity Church in Wallingford and Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Woodbridge.

read_more

Lorraine Hansberry's (1930-1965) A Raisin in the Sun was the first play written by a Black woman ever to open on Broadway. It takes its title from the opening line in Harlem, a poem by Langston Hughes which poses the question "What happens to a dream deferred?"
The original theatrical production debuted on March 11, 1959 and starred Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee. Its semi-autobiographical storyline was loosely based on real-life events which unfolded in Hansberry's own family back in the thirties. At the time her parents had been met with pure hatred after purchasing a home in a lily-white, Chicago enclave.
In her memoir, To Be Young, Gifted and Black, she recounted how her dad, determined to integrate, ended up spending a small fortune in legal fees trying to remain there, despite the fact that, on a daily basis, "hellishly-hostile… howling mobs surrounded our house… My memories of this 'correct way' of fighting white supremacy in America include being spat at, cursed and pummeled in the daily trek to and from school." Hansberry also describes her "desperate and courageous mother" staying up all night with a loaded gun, "doggedly guarding her four children, while my father fought the respectable part of the battle in the Washington court."
That case, Hansberry V. Lee, would make it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which struck down restrictive covenants when it ruled on November 13, 1940 that whites could no longer rely on restrictive covenants to bar African Americans from living in their communities. But despite the landmark decision in their favor, without police protection, the Hansberrys would remain subject to continued mistreatment by racist neighbors determined to make their lives miserable.
A Raisin in the Sun focuses on a fictional family named Younger with dreams of moving out of the ghetto but still living in a dilapidated tenement on Chicago's South Side. A Broadway revival in 2004 featured Sean "Diddy" Combs surrounded by Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald, Sanaa Lathan and Bill Nunn. That talented ensemble has been reassembled for this moving made-for TV version.
At the point of departure, we meet Walter, Jr. (Combs) a hard-working 35 year-old chauffeur in the process of assuming the role of patriarch of a family comprised of his pregnant wife, Ruth (McDonald), his son, Travis (Justin Martin), his exhausted, domestic servant mother, Lena (Rashad), and his sister, Beneathea (Lathan), following the death of his father. The plot revolves around the question of how Walter. Sr.'s life insurance proceeds ought to be spent.
Grandma thinks they should use the $10,000 to buy a home in a white neighborhood, since the five of them are currently cramped in a rundown, roach-infested apartment. College student Beneathea wants some of the money to pay for med school, while ambitious Walter would like to invest in a liquor store with his pal, Bobo (Nunn), and smooth-talking Willy (Ron C. Jones). And when Lena hands the check over to her son as the new man of the house, it's just a matter of time before she comes to regret that ill-advised decision.
Helped immeasurably by his principal cast of his talented co-stars, Diddy comes of age as an actor here, delivering a memorable performance in an African American literary classic of Shakespearean proportions which proves to be every bit as relevant today as the day it was first staged.
A Raisin in the Sun will premiere on ABC-TV at 8 PM (EST) on Monday, February 25th. (Check local listings)

insightnews.com