Dayton’s Ebony News & Information

The unemployment rate in Ohio rose from a revised 95 percent in February to 9.7 percent in March, the highest rate since April 1984.  Read more…

President Barack Obama called Thursday for the country to move swiftly to a system of high-speed rail to relieve congestion, help clean the air and save on energy.  Read more…

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland established the Ohio Minority Business Advisory Council this month, signing an executive order on April 9.

The council will coordinate Ohio’s efforts to grow minority business and create opportunities for the business.

Statistics show even though minority-owned firms in the state have risen over the past decade, the revenue and long- term success is not matching the start-up rates, according to the state.  Read more…

The State of Ohio will use prisoners to replace Statehouse janitors and groundskeepers who were laid off.

The Columbus capital building will bring in two inmates for groundskeeping and five for cleaning.  Read more…

While the struggling economy has definitely served as a catalyst for encouraging African Americans to consider starting their own businesses, current research from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation shows that black-owned businesses continue to face barriers to access to capital that may be based on race.

Nearly one-third of Ohioans under age 65 went without health insurance sometime during the past two years, according to a report released Tuesday.  Read more…

Link to site: Families USA

While the tough economy has tightened the belts of many area foundations, the African-American Community Fund is actively seeking organizations to grant money to this year.

The African-American Community Fund, a component of the Dayton Foundation, is currently soliciting requests from nonprofit organizations with unique and creative project ideas they need to be funded. The community fund will grant an undisclosed number of grants, ranging from $500 to $1,000 at its annual meeting in October.  Read more…

Parents are paying more to have their children participate in extracurricular activities, particularly in districts where levies are going down to defeat.  Read more….

Cuyahoga County has seen a 400 percent jump in Syphilis cases. Eighty reported cases in just the last eight months. 

Doctors are concerned about an epidemic-type outbreak that’s including more and more young people.  Read more…

By M.R. KROPKO

Police were searching early Friday for a man suspected in the slayings of four children and his wife in what authorities were calling one of the city’s most horrific shootings in years.

The children, aged 3 to 14, were found Thursday night in various rooms of a two-family home on Cleveland’s west side, police said. A fifth child was wounded and being treated at MetroHealth Medical Center, hospital spokeswoman Susan Christopher told The Plain Dealer.  Read more…

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich criticizes President Obama’s shifting troops policy.

Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich criticizes President Obama for stretching a chapter of war by relocating troops from Iraq to Afghanistan.

“We must bring a conclusion to this sorry chapter in American history where war was waged under false pretense against an innocent people,” Kucinich said.

President Barack Obama has decided to assign 17,000 American troops to Afghanistan contingents, while laying out plans for a full withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

Congressman Kucinich, however, was critical of the plan.

“Taking troops out of Iraq should not mean more troops available for deployment in other operations,” he said. “You can’t be in and out at the same time.”  Read more…

A filmmaker says he’s discovered a long-lost audio recording of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking at the University of Dayton in 1964.

David Schock said Wednesday he discovered the 50-minute recording in a box of materials owned by Herbert Woodward Martin, a poet and retired university professor.  Read more…