Latrese Matral Curtis

Steven Randolph

Curtis, a North Carolina Central University student, was found dead on the edge of I-540 on the northeast side of Raleigh in January last year.

Prosecutors argued that Reaves was jealous of the affair that his roommate, Steven Randolph , was having with Curtis and saw her as an obstacle to having a gay relationship with Randolph.

Reaves followed Curtis from school in Durham to Raleigh and force her to pull over along I-540. He then stabbed and slashed her with a knife more than 30 times, according to prosecutors.

The prosecution painted Reaves as a obsessed stalker who followed Randolph and his friends, placed threatening phone calls to them and went as far as slashing their car tires.

The Defense unsuccessfully argued that Reaves was the wrong man and tried to turn the attention to the man Curtis was having an affair with, Randolph.

Randolph had the motive to kill Curtis, according to the defense.

In his essay, “The Efficacy of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’” Prakash criticizes the primary premise of DADT, that homosexuality will disrupt unit cohesion and impact combat effectiveness.

“There is no scientific evidence to support the claim that unit cohesion will be negatively affected if homosexuals serve openly,” Prakash states. There is sufficient empirical evidence from foreign militaries to anticipate that incorporating homosexuals will introduce leadership challenges, but the challenges will not be insurmountable or affect unit cohesion and combat effectiveness.”

Legislation to overturn the ban, H.R. 1283, Military Readiness Enhancement Act, has been introduced in the House of Reps. by Iraq war veteran Patrick Murphy (D-PA), but no similar bill yet exists in the Senate. Murphy is lobbying for a hearing sometime this year or early next year. The bill has 176 cosponsors according to Govtrack.us.

Over 12,500 service members have been discharged under DADT since 1994.

Earlier this month data was obtained by Servicemembers United, a advocacy group for gay and lesbian troops and veterans, showing that while ethnic minorities make up approximately 29% of those serving in the armed forces they account for 45% of the total number of DADT firings (619) in the last financial year (FY08).

DADT has cost the nation over $363 million over the first ten years of DADT, according to a revised GAO figure based on a February 2005 report.

Precious is a film produced by Perry and Oprah Winfrey chronicling the life and experiences of an illiterate African-American 16-year-old girl that experiences constant abuse from her mother and is pregnant for a second time by her own father.

"I'm tired of holding this in,” Perry writes. “I don't know what to do with it anymore, so, I've decided to give some of it away."

Perry begins with how his mother tried and failed at leaving his abusive father and recounts a graphic list of abuse and beatings he experienced.

For his love of reading and writing Perry says he received nothing but merciless verbal abuse from his drunken father.

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"Merck has been committed to pursuing the use of Gardasil in both males and females since the vaccine was discovered over a decade ago," said Peter S. Kim, Ph.D., executive vice president, and president of Merck Research Laboratories. "We are pleased that the Advisory Committee agrees that the data support the use of Gardasil in boys and men.”

HPV Types 6 and 11 cause approximately 90-percent cases of genital warts. About one million people, both males and females, have visible genital warts at any point in time, and currently, there are no routine HPV screening methods in place for men.

More than 60 percent of men without HIV and 90 percent of men with HIV, who have sex with men, are infected with different types of HPV in their anal canals, according to the CDC.

The vaccine may also have implications for the increasing incidence of anal cancer among Black gay men as it also prevents HPV Types 16 and 18. HPV Type 16 has been found in 86 percent of anal cancer specimens in a study discussed in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Anal HPV infections are one cause of the rising incidence of anal cancer, especially among men that have sex with men.

Beginning on October 19th, Bank of America will no longer charge overdraft item fees when an account is overdrawn by a total amount less than $10 for one day or charge overdraft fees on more than four items per day.

JP Morgan Chase plans on implementing their policy changes in the first quarter of next year. They will eliminate overdrafts for debit cards unless customers opt for overdraft services and overdraft fees if an account is overdrawn by $5 or less and will reduce the maximum number of overdraft fees per day to three from six.

According to Charlie Scharf, head of Retail Financial Services at JP Morgan Chase, "Chase will also update customer accounts and balances for debit-card purchases and ATM withdrawals as they occur. "The new posting order will be more logical for customers, and they will incur fewer fees."

Of the 590 businesses reviewed, 305 earned a perfect rating on the Corporate Equality Index (CEI), based on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) workplace policies and benefits, a 20 percent increase since last year, according to a report released by the Human Resources Campaign Foundation (HRC).

“The Corporate Equality Index 2010 shows that, even in the most challenging economy, leading employers are forging ahead of federal and state law to recruit and retain a diverse workforce — regardless of employees’ sexual orientation and gender identity or expression,” said Joe Solmonese, HRC president.

Collectively, the 305 top-rated businesses employ more than nine million full-time employees and are protected from employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity because of their employers’ policies on diversity and inclusion, training and benefits.

While many cities, counties and states protect employees from discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation and federal law does not, gay workers still face discrimination when there are employer based health insurance, which does not cover same-sex families.