HIV/AIDS disproportionately affects Black people around the world, with Black women in particular becoming infected at an alarmingly increasing rate. For our community to withstand this epidemic, it’s absolutely crucial that we all know the risks and take all necessary precautions to avoid infection. See below for more information from the Centers for Disease Control. – NewsOne Staff

From the CDC:

In 2007, more than a quarter of diagnoses of HIV infection in the United States were among women and girls aged 13 years and older. The numbers are unsettling: More than 278,000 women and adolescent girls in this country are living with HIV; and almost 94,000 American women and girls with AIDS have died since the epidemic began. Women and girls of color—especially black women and girls—bear a disproportionately heavy burden of HIV/AIDS. In 2007, for female adults and adolescents, the rate of HIV/AIDS diagnoses for black females was nearly 20 times as high as the rate for white females and nearly 4 times as high as the rate for Hispanic/Latino females. Relatively few cases were diagnosed among Asian, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian/other Pacific Islander females, although the rates for these groups were higher than the rate for white females.

Photo: A man and woman sitting in grass.CDC estimates that 1 in five people living with HIV infection in the United States do not know they are infected. Getting tested for HIV is the first step to protecting yourself and others. Knowing your own HIV status and that of your male sexual partners is critical because 80% of new HIV infections in American women and girls result from sex with an infected male partner. Early diagnosis of HIV allows for counseling and prompt treatment. HIV treatment prolongs life and reduces the risk of further HIV transmission. If you are a pregnant woman, it is especially important that you get tested early to help ensure, that if you are HIV-positive, you do not transmit the virus to your unborn child.

Make National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day a day to get the facts about HIV—to learn how HIV is spread, if you are at risk, and how to protect yourself and your loved ones. And, if you are a parent, talk with your kids about HIV. Every 35 minutes a woman tests positive for HIV in the United States. It’s time to get tested.

To find an HIV testing location near you, go to www.hivtest.org or text your ZIP Code to KNOW IT (566948). For more information on this day, theme, and events please visit the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office on Women’s Health, which is leading activities for this observance.

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In this clip from the NewsOne/DV Republic-sponsored debate about the film “Precious,” NYU film professor Sheril Antonio explains her reservations about the effect the movie has on the image of the Black family, in particular Black women and mothers. Do you think “Precious” paints a damaging picture of our community? Let us know in the comments.

We posted this story a year ago, but it seems as if the mainstream media has finally caught on.

From MSN

Herbert and Zelmyra Fisher of New Bern, N.C., hold the world record for life in wedded bliss: 85 years. He’s 104, and she’s 101.

On their May 13 anniversary, they will join an elite club: the longest marriages on record. One couple got a big head start on their marriage. You must go back more than 200 years to find the other couple married 86 years.

A Fisher time line: Around their 10th anniversary, this everyday household appliance hit the carpet. When they celebrated their 25th anniversary, this song was a hit (watch videos). When they marked their 50th, this irritating icon was everywhere (see pictures, if you must). By the time they reached their 75th year of marriage, we were hooked on this reality show.

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From ABC News:

Walmart is raising eyebrows after cutting the price of a black Barbie doll to nearly half of that of the doll’s white counterpart at one store and possibly others.

A photo first posted to the humor Web site FunnyJunk.com and later to the Latino Web site Guanabee.com shows packages of Mattel’s Ballerina Barbie and Ballerina Theresa dolls hanging side by side at an unidentified store. The Theresa dolls, which feature brown skin and dark hair, are marked as being on sale at $3.00. The Barbies to the right of the Theresa dolls, meanwhile, retain their original price of $5.93. The dolls look identical aside from their color.

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Editors at Guanabee.com said the person responsible for the photo told the Web site that it was taken at a Louisiana Walmart store. The person did not return e-mails from ABCNews.com.

A Walmart spokeswoman, who could not verify the exact store shown in the photo, said that the price change on the Theresa doll was part of the chain’s efforts to clear shelf space for its new spring inventory.

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Though Black women exhibit leadership in many areas, they are woefully underrepresented in the field of politics. Since March is Women’s History Month, right now presents a prime opportunity to explore the reasons why. With Barack Obama in the White House, one major barrier has already been broken; who’s to say that someday soon, a Black woman might not break down yet another? Click here to learn more about Women’s History Month. – NewsOne Staff

From The Root:

When Ayanna Pressley decided to take a shot at a seat on the city council in her adopted hometown of Boston, Mass., she was committed to winning by any means necessary. This meant cashing in her 401(k) retirement plan—earned over 16 years as a Democratic operative in Boston and in Washington for Sen. John Kerry and other lawmakers. With a mother needing regular care, chasing a job that depended entirely on her willingness to, say, shake hands outside Fenway Park, her run was something of a gamble. “I know what it is to live in the margins; I know what it is to feel that your government doesn’t reflect you, represent you, or advocate for you,” Pressley—whose investment paid off with a win in November 2009—says today. “I was unafraid.”

Fearlessness is what it takes for a woman to run for elective office, especially a black woman. In his official proclamation designating March Women’s History Month, President Barack Obama noted that America “must correct persisting inequalities” facing women in every sphere of life, such as making less money and having greater family burdens than men.

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These inequalities have an impact on representation in the public sphere. Women are only 17 percent of the United States Congress, with the 21 African American, Hispanic and Asian females comprising only 4 percent. The number of black women in Congress has flat-lined since 1992, the so-called “Year of the Woman”: There were 11 black women in 1992; 13 in 2002, and only 13 today.

“It is definitely more complicated running for office as a woman,” says Andrea Dew Steele, founder of Emerge America, a nonprofit that trains women for political leadership. “We don’t feel as qualified as men; we’re not recruited in the same numbers; we feel turned off by the mechanics; we have persistent family barriers, and we don’t have the same networks as men.”

Those networks and social supports make a difference. Obama might not have been able to make his first runs for the Illinois statehouse and Congress without the stability of a two-income home and a wife who also took care of the kids. But according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, black women, especially since the 1970s, have traditionally had fewer of these support systems—and are more likely to be the single breadwinners in their household.

Click here to read more.

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WASHINGTON – Legislation extending unemployment insurance for the long-term jobless faces a key test vote in the Senate, its momentum helped by about 60 popular tax breaks for individuals and businesses that expired at the end of last year.

The measure also prevents doctors from absorbing a crippling cut in Medicare payments, extends health insurance subsidies for the unemployed and gives cash-starved states help with Medicaid, the federal-state program providing health care to the poor and disabled.

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The unemployment insurance alone — to provide weekly unemployment checks averaging above $300 to people whose core 26-week benefit package has run out — will cost $66 billion through December. In some states people are eligible to receive benefits for up to 99 weeks.

The bill, and the test vote Tuesday, demonstrate the difficulty Democrats face as they focus on jobs. It doesn’t include new ideas for boosting jobs, but instead reprises elements of last year’s $862 billioneconomic stimulus bill, which is earning mixed reviews from voters. Simply extending those provisions has produced a far more expensive measure than a separate so-called jobs bill that Democrats hope to soon send to President Barack Obama. That measure would boost highway spending and give tax breaks to companies that hire the unemployed and could clear the Senate for Obama’s desk this week.

RELATED: Unemployment Dropped To 9.7% In January

At a gross cost of about $148 billion, Tuesday’s measure illustrates the extraordinary cost of the unemployment safety net as the economy inches out of the recession. Democrats say the unemployment benefits inject demand into the economy and say renewing the tax cuts helps preserve existing jobs.

The measure closes $29 billion of tax loopholes to help defray its cost, including one enjoyed by paper companies that get a credit from burning “black liquor,” a pulp-making byproduct, as if it were an alternative fuel.

All told, the measure would add $107 billion to the deficit over the coming decade. Democrats have labeled most of the bill an emergency measure, exempting it from stricter budget rules enacted just last month.

Democrats need to muster at least one Republican vote Tuesday to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to limit debate and guarantee an up-or-down vote. But Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, provided crucial help last week to keep the measure out of another procedural tangle, and Democrats sound confident they will prevail.

The bill includes about 60 popular tax breaks for individuals and businesses that expired at the end of 2009. The bill would extend the tax breaks through 2010, at a cost of about $26 billion.

Congress routinely extends the tax breaks each year with large bipartisan majorities. Businesses and tax planners would prefer a more permanent solution, but lawmakers can’t agree on how to pay for a longer extension.

The tax breaks include a property tax deduction for people who don’t itemize, lucrative credits that help businesses finance research and development and a sales tax deduction that mainly helps people in the nine states without income taxes: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Texas, Tennessee, Washington and Wyoming.

RELATED: Census Survey Reveals How Recession Has Affected Lives

There is a deduction for college tuition for couples making less than $160,000 a year, and one for teachers who use their own money to buy school supplies. There is a tax credit for community development agencies that invest in low-income neighborhoods, as well as a tax break for restaurant owners and retailers who remodel their stores.

The expiration of one tax break, a $1 per gallon credit for the production of biodiesel, has already caused “a pretty substantial blow to the industry,” said Michael Frohlich, a spokesman for the National Biodiesel Board. The credit would cost $1 billion to extend for the rest of the year.

Not sure if Dan Rather is racist, inconsiderate or just used bad phrasing. Here’s what he said on the Chris Matthews show Sunday.

“Listen he just hasn’t been, look at the health care bill. It was his number one priority. It took him forever to get it through and he had to compromise it to death.Listen he’s a nice person, he’s very articulate but he couldn’t sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic.”

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From The Philadelphia Inquirer

Police have arrested two people accused of robbing a South Street jewelry store this weekend, then leaving behind their 4-year-old son in their bid to escape.

John Benson, 47, and Sheakia Stubbs, 31, were arrested this morning after midnight at the Hub Motel at 7605 Roosevelt Boulevard.

Police said the couple entered the Platinum Ice and Jewelry Store at 621 South Street Saturday afternoon with their 4-year-old son in tow. They asked to look at ladies’ rings.

Capt. Laurence Nodiff, commander of South Detectives, said taking the boy made the couple appear like legitimate shoppers.

“I think it’s unbelievable that you’d take a child with you to commit a crime,” he said.

While shopping, the couple created a diversion and Benson grabbed a tray of 15 rings, worth $50,000, from behind the counter, police said.

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The walls have been closing in on Paterson for weeks (with plenty of help from the NY Times, which is enthusiastically reporting every detail and angle of his downfall). But if tonight’s Harlem meeting goes south and Black leaders opt to make a unified call for his resignation, it’s hard to imagine him hanging on much longer. After all, once Paterson reaches the point where the media and other politicians can point and say, “Look, even Black people don’t support you!”, it’s a pretty short trip out the front door of the governor’s mansion. – NewsOne Staff

From NY Daily News:

ALBANY – A group of prominent black leaders will meet Thursday night in Harlem to discuss whether scandal-plagued Gov. Paterson should resign, a source told the Daily News.

“There are a lot of things that people now see as indefensible,” the source said. “A lot of people think it’s time to move on – not just for the state, but for David as well.”

The meeting comes just five days after the same group met and agreed that Paterson should be given an opportunity to serve out the remainder of his term.

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Paterson announced on Friday that he would not seek election to a full four-year term.

Since that Saturday meeting in Harlem, another round of damaging stories has emerged, leaving even his closest supporters to consider whether it’s time for Paterson to step down.

It was revealed this week that Paterson asked two people to reach out to a woman who accused one of the governor’s top aides of assaulting her to change her story. And on Wednesday, the state Public Integrity Commission said Paterson violated state law by accepting free World Series tickets last October and then lied under oath about the matter.

“The purpose of this meeting is to discuss whether he should resign,” the source said.

The idea is for the leaders who attend the meeting, which was called for 8:30 p.m. at Sylvia’s Restaurant by the Rev. Al Sharpton, is to “come together to as a cohesive voice.”

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Two months after ending his annual State of the Black Union conference, Tavis Smiley is gathering African-American advocates to press the case for a “black agenda.”

The decision was motivated by what Smiley called recent statements from some black leaders downplaying the need for President Barack Obama to specifically help African-Americans.

“I was compelled to do it because of this debate,” the activist and PBS talk show host said Wednesday.

The panel discussion will be March 20 at Chicago State University. Panelists include advertising pioneer Tom Burrell, professors Michael Eric Dyson and Cornel West, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Bennett College President Julianne Malveaux.

The meeting is free and open to the public. Negotiations to televise the event are in progress, Smiley spokeswoman Leshelle Sargent said.

Some black politicians and activists have recently begun to question Obama’s longtime stance that helping the overall economy will improve the fortunes of blacks who are disproportionately poor and unemployed.

West, for example, gave Obama a grade of C minus on policies and priorities focused on poor and working people, saying, “He has really not come through in any substantial and significant way.” Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have blocked some legislation until their demands were met.

Last week, Smiley and the Rev. Al Sharpton had a fierce argument about the issue on Sharpton’s radio show, with Sharpton taking heated exception to Smiley’s claim that the reverend was giving Obama a pass on black issues.

When Smiley ended the State of the Black Union after 10 years, he said black issues were now being addressed elsewhere.

Apparently, however, not enough to his liking.

“This is not about Obama. It’s about us,” Smiley said in an interview.

He said that the Obama campaign and black leaders asked African-Americans for help during the election, but that “now that he’s elected, what are black people being asked to do to hold him accountable to our agenda?”

Eric Deggans, who writes about the media and race for Florida’s St. Petersburg Times, said Smiley’s new event is consistent with his record of criticizing Obama’s race-neutral stance. But there is a perception that Smiley is personally invested in the issue, he said, because Obama declined to attend Smiley’s 2008 State of the Black Union event during the presidential campaign.

“It could be hard for people watching this to see Tavis as an honest broker,” Deggans said. “He’s playing an odd game,” he continued. “He’s trying to make great television and also present something that effects social change. That’s often two different things.”

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