HONORING
M.L. KING
Art and words
offer hope for
the future 1E
Art by Annedra
Young of West
Charlotte High
School
SOCIAL
BUTTERFLY
Now that holidays
are over, intrepid
Hy is back on the
::ase/2A
Volume 31 No. 17
Che Charlotte
$1.00
The Voice of the Black Community
Also serving Ci
WEEK OF JANUARY 12-18, 2006
28216 511 PI
Jaies 8. Piike Library
100 Beatties Ford Rd
Charlotte NC 28216-5302
CIAA already profitable for city, league
Basketball tournament and hotels nearly sold out,
while record purse in scholarships guaranteed
By Chens F. Hodges
cherisJiodges^ ihecharloltepostrom
Charlotte’s turn at hosting the CIAA bas
ketball tournament has already eclipsed
Raleigh before the first game tips off.
So far, 85 percent of the tickets for the tour
nament have been sold, which is ahead of
last year’s tournament, said CIAA
Commissioner Leon Kerry
“We’re ahead of pace,” he said.
And Kerry expects the tickets to sell out.
The only seats left in the Charlotte Bobcats
Arena are upp^ level seats.
“But it’s not a lot of those left either,” Kerry
said proudly “I had a couple of sponsors buy
2,000 of those yesterday”
Of the 25,000 hotel rooms in Charlotte and
Mecklenbuig County, 20,000 of them have
been sold, said Tim Newman of Charlotte
Regional "V^itors Authority
“This inaugural CIAA tournament in
Charlotte is proving to be one of the largest,
most lucrative and most dynamic of any
event ever hosted by our dty” said Lenny
Springs, chairman of the 2006 local oiganiz-
ing committee.
The evait, which tips off on February 27, is
Please see CIAA/7A
PHOTO/WADE NASH
CIAA Commissioner Leon Kerry said the tourna
ment will generate more than $2 million in schol
arships for its 12 member schools, a first
Obama:
Listen to
Iraq’s
minorities
Senator: US.
mission depends
on inclusion
By Jason Straziuso
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Sen.
Barack Obama on Saturday
said the United States will
not be successful in Iraq
unless the political land
scape better repres«its the
c»imtry’s minorities.
Obama, the nation’s only
black senator, met with U.S.
Ambassador
Z a 1 m a y
Khalilzad and
Iraqi
President
Jalal Talabani
on Saturday
He said before
his two-day
trip to Iraq
Obama
that he wanted to ask U.S.
commanders for a realistic
time firame on bringing
troops home.
‘What Fm fully convinced
of is if we don’t see signs of
political progress ... over a
relatively short time fi*ame -
let’s say six months or so - we
can pour money and troops
in here till the cows come
home, but we won’t be suc
cessful,” said Obama, D-IU.,
who said he opposed the war
before it began.
Talabani predicted
Saturday that a new govern
ment could be formed within
weeks and said the country’s
See SENATOR/2A
SUPPORT FOR NAME, NO CONSENSUS ON SITE
A proposal to rename Stonewall Street Martin Luther King Avenue didn’t have enough support at Monday’s
Charlotte City Council meeting. The council voted to instruct city staff to further study options for the honor,
including unnamed sections of Interstate 485, which requires state approval.
Speed bump on MLK street
Support is there, but council votes to weigh more options
By Herbert L. White
herh.whiie^ thecharlottepost rom
There’s no Martin Luther King
Avenue in Charlotte, but time —
and support — are on its side.
City Council voted 7-4 Monday to
ord^* dty staff to study potential
sites for a street to name in honor
of the slain dvil r^ts activist.
Coundl member James Mitdiell
backed the re-naming of Stonewall
Street or a stretch of Indepjendence
Mitchell
Concerns
Boulevard to
Martin Luther King
Avenue.
‘Tm not doing so
well ri^t now,” said
Mitchell, a
Democrat who rep
resents District 2 in
northwest
Charlotte,
about changing
linked to Civil War
general Stonewall
Jackson — was
enou^ to put the
brakes on a quick
resolution
‘Tt’s appropriate
for Charlotte to
have a road named
for Dr. King,” said
Lassiter
Stonewall’s name - believed to be
council member John Lassiter fR-
Please see BACK2A
EDITORIALS: City Council should think bigger for King honor/4A
lepid
support
for vote
rights
Bush favors renewal
of Section 5, but
there are concerns
By K. Chandler
THE WESTSIDE GAZETTE
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - While
President Bush professes to back
reauthorization of Section 5 of the
1965 Voting Rights Act, political
appointees and Justice Department
officials are being
accused of deliberately
attempting to scuttle
key aspects of the act
over the objections of
career lawyers within
the Civil Rights
Division.
The landmark law,
signed by President
Lyndon Baines
Johnson, came into edstence as a
remedy “to break the grip of state dis-
enfi'anchisement” of black voters in
the South, and “to overcome Southern
legislators’ resistance” to enforcement
of the 15th Amendment.”
The 15th Amendment to, the
Constitution granted Afiican-
Bush
Please see SUPPORT/3A
Thousands
seek ehange
in Uganda
GLOBAL ISFOR\ lATlOS NETWORK
Ugandan opposition leader Kizza
Besigye is drawing thousands to polit
ical rallies as he campaigns for the
seat now held by President Yoweri
Museveni.
Besigye, just released fium deten
tion on terrorism charges, criticized
President Yoweri , Museveni over
democracy and rigjits and said it was
time for change in Uganda. Museveni
has been in office 20 years and orches
trated a constitutional change to per
mit him a third term
Besigye was once Museveni’s per
sonal physician.
Besigye is campaigning among sup
porters to Ihe north-east of the capital,
Kampala, while President Museveni
is campaigning in western Uganda
ahead of February’s presidential elec
tion.
Please see COMPETITION/GA
The rapid
decline in youth
smoking rates
may now be
coming to an
end, according
to a University
of Michigan
report
[]
Drop in U.S. teen smoking may be waning
J
By Hazel Trice Edney
NATIONAL NEWSPAPER
PUBUSHERS ASSOCIATION
PHOTOCURT© Vrt.SON
WASHINGTON - Twenty-
year-cid John Adams takes a
long drag fix)m a half-
smoked filtered cigarette;
th^ uses the side of a brick
building as an ashtray to
snuff it out.
The lanky youth tucks the
stump behind his ear, hoists
his backpack; then breaks
into a trot toward a bus stop
on Georgia Avenue in North
West Washington, D.C.
Perhaps a typical day for
Adams, but aoxjrding to sta
tistics, he is in grave danger.
The tiny stick of tobacco
bdiind his ear is a live time
bomb that kills 1,200
Americans a day and
450,000 a year, usually by
cancer or other lung dis
eases, according to the
C«iter for Disease Control.
But like many young
smokers, cancer is the fur
thest problem fix)m Adams’
mind.
“I smoke to rdieve stress,
really,” he shrugs at a
reporter’s question.
“Looking for a job, my prob
lems, you know, relation-
shipis. I want to go back to
school in the fall.”
Adams is not alcne in his
apparent indifference about
smoking.
New data announced last
month by “Mcmitaring the
Future,” a University of
^fichigan project that docu
ments trends of tobacco use
among youth, shows that
the once-celebrated rapid
decline in youth smoking
rates may now be coming to
a halt.
“Tfeen smoking had been in
steady decline fi*om the
recent peak levels of use
reached in the mid-1990s
throu^ 2004,” states the
MTF study “But, the rate of
decline in their use of ciga-
See YOUTH/3A
Panthers focus on erasing
memory of November dud
against Chicago. 1C
Life IB
Religion 86
Sports 1C
Business 8C
A&E1D
Happenings 6C
INStDE
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