CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The University of North Carolina at Charlotte is offering a $10,000 reward in connection with the death of a 20-year-old student, Chancellor Philip L. Dubois said Thursday. The reward will be administered by Crimestoppers of Gaston County in accordance with that organization’s policies. Irina Yarmolenko was found dead next to her car on the bank of the Catawba River in Gaston County on Monday, May 5. The UNC Charlotte Police has been cooperating with the investigation with the Mount Holly Police Department. Read more »

The picture at right is not one of a White policeman abusing a Black - he has actually come to his rescue. He is attempting to save him after a mob of native Blacks set the man on fire in the latest round of violence to hit South Africa. (R.C.)

Violence against immigrants, like some windswept fire, spread across one neighborhood after another here in one of South Africa’s main cities this weekend, and the police said the mayhem left at least 12 people dead — beaten by mobs, shot, stabbed or burned alive.

Thousands of panicked foreigners — many of them Zimbabweans who have fled their own country’s economic collapse — have now deserted their ramshackle dwellings and tin-walled squatter hovels to take refuge in churches and police stations.

This latest outbreak of xenophobia began a week ago in the historic township of Alexandra and has since spread to other areas in and around Johannesburg, including Cleveland, Diepsloot, Hilbrow, Tembisa, Primrose, Ivory Park and Thokoza. Read more »

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Drug cartels are sending a brutal message to police and soldiers in cities across Mexico: Join us or die.

The threat appears in recruiting banners hung across roadsides and in publicly posted death lists. Cops get warnings over their two-way radios. At least four high-ranking police officials were gunned down this month, including Mexico’s acting federal police chief.

Mexico has battled for years to clean up its security forces and win them the public’s respect. But Mexicans generally assume police and even soldiers are corrupt until proven otherwise, and the honest ones lack resources, training and the assurance that their colleagues are watching their backs. Here, the taboo on cop-killing familiar to Americans seems hardly to apply. Read more »

TOKYO (Reuters) - A U.S. court martial sentenced a Marine to four years in prison on Friday for sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl on the southern island of Okinawa, in a case that has sparked widespread public anger.

Many on the island, home to about half the nearly 50,000 U.S. military personnel in Japan, are calling for troop numbers to be cut back, citing concerns over crime, noise and pollution.

A string of incidents this year, including the killing of a taxi driver, have forced the United States, pacifist Japan’s most important security ally since World War Two, to apologize and vow to raise standards of behavior. Read more »

A man who wrote hundreds of hateful letters to black and mixed race men seen with white women apparently was motivated by a girlfriend who left him for a black man, the FBI said Friday.

David Tuason, who is of Filipino descent, admitted his motive when he was captured two months ago, said Frank Figliuzzi, the head of the FBI in Cleveland.

“One of the first phrases out of his mouth was, ‘You wouldn’t understand ’til it happened to you,’ and when they inquired what that meant, he said, ‘My girlfriend left me for a black man,’” Figliuzzi said. Read more »

Three Mexican men held dozens of illegal immigrants in a squalid “drop house” in South Los Angeles, where one woman was raped and others say they were threatened with sexual assault, authorities said Friday.

Jose Teul, 23, Daniel Pena, 18, and Saul Mendez, 35, were charged with harboring illegal immigrants at the two-story home that immigration agents raided Wednesday, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice.

The three were arrested along with 57 immigrants, including teenagers and toddlers, from Central and South America, Kice said. It wasn’t immediately clear where the three was being held or if they had attorneys. Read more »

It seems anyone can get a college degree these days-especially if they go to North Carolina Central University.

Standards of integrity there have long been dismal: This is, after all, the school that gave violent felon Solomon Burnette a diploma in 2007. Burnette, you may recall, robbed two Duke students at gunpoint in 1997.

After finishing a 13-month prison sentence, he had the audacity not only to enroll in Arabic classes on our campus in April 2007; Burnette also penned a column I and many others interpreted as inciting physical violence against white Dukies in his student newspaper.

Unfortunately, however, 2008 marks a new low… even for NCCU.

Read more »

BAGHDAD — U.S. commanders scrambled to avert a crisis after a soldier deployed in Baghdad apparently used a copy of the Koran for target practice. The incident had the potential to inflame Muslim opinion against the U.S. military and compromise the delicate alliance it has been seeking to forge with local communities against extremists in their midst.

Local tribal leaders accepted an apology from senior U.S commanders and the military said today that the soldier responsible had been disciplined and pulled from Iraq.

Col. Ted Martin, commander of the 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, then presented the tribal leaders with a new Koran, which he kissed and touched to his forehead. MORE>>>

94 WYSP morning host Kidd Chris was fired Yesterday (Friday) over a racist song performed by an in-studio guest in March and aired several times that month. WYSP program director John Cook also lost his job, over the internal fallout from the song “Schwoogies,” sung to the tune of Blondie’s “Call Me,” performed on March 21 by LADY GASH.

The song includes the slurs “monkees, shines, knuckle draggers and Sambos.” and says that “coloreds” will steal your wallets” and “try to jack my car.” MORE>>>>

A twirling mass of white lace surrounded a rough wooden cross as a troupe of young woman danced in a circle looking like porcelain dolls come to life.

Then Randy Wilson and Kevin Moore hoisted swords in the air and a ballroom full of 149 fathers and daughters walked beneath them toward the cross and laid white roses at its base. The swords symbolized the fathers commitment to battle for their daughters and the roses symbolized the daughters commitment to God to remain pure.

Then Wilson announced, “Let the ball begin.” MORE>>>>