Apple announced on Monday the New MacBook Pro laptop. The device is a stunning 25 percent thinner than the previous MacBook and also boasts brand new "Retina Display" that has four times the number of pixels of its predecessor.

"There has never been a notebook this thin, this light, this powerful for professional use," Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Apple, said when announcing the New MacBook Pro at the 2012 Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, according to Sky News.

The New Macbook Pro is only .71 inches thick. And like the latest iPhone and iPad, its Retina Display has so many pixels they're indistinguishable to the eye from normal viewing distance.

It has two USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt ports and one HDMI port, allowing for seamless viewing on many television and external HD displays. Additionally, the speakers, camera and microphone have all been updated.

The new Pro weighs in at under 4.5 pounds.

"It's built for extreme levels of performance, but it's remarkably portable," Jony Ive, Apple's senior vice president of Industrial Design said in an introductory video.

According to Endgadget, the New Macbook will have 6GB of RAM and be available with a quad-core 2.7GHz Core i7 processor. It will also have up to 768 GB of solid-state drive (SSD) storage.

The battery will last seven hours and have 30 days of standby time.

The New MacBook Pro will retail for $2,199 and starts shipping today.

Apple also announced that the Macbook Air line of laptops will be updated to include faster Intel processors. According to Reuters, the newest line of Airs will be about $100 less expensive than the previous models.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/11/new-macbook-pro-apple-retina-display_n_1587245.html

NEW YORK, June 10 (Reuters) - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg took his defense of the police department's "Stop and Frisk" program to one of Brooklyn's highest crime communities on Sunday, championing the program from the pulpit of a black church in Brownsville.

Civil rights advocates, civil libertarians and a federal judge have criticized some aspects of the program as unlawful, abusive of residents' rights and disproportionately aimed at blacks and Latinos.

Use of the stop and frisk program - in which police stop and question people they suspect of unlawful activity and frisk those they suspect of carrying a weapon - has risen dramatically during the Bloomberg administration, to 685,724 in 2011 from 160,851 in 2003. About 53 percent of those stops resulted in physical searches.

With Police Commissioner Ray Kelly sitting in the front row of the First Baptist Church of Brownsville, Bloomberg detailed a flurry of statistics he said showed the program had saved minority lives while still lowering the number of people incarcerated from a decade ago.

He also countered the racial charge by reading the names, ages and communities of 10 New Yorkers murdered in the city during the first week in June.

"All 10 were young men. All 10 were black and Hispanic," Bloomberg said after reading the names. "Sadly, 96 percent of shooting suspects are black and Latino ... I don't have to tell you about black-on-black crime."

But, he insisted, "compared to a decade ago - and listen to this carefully because nobody understands what we've really done - 30 percent fewer people are behind bars than a decade ago."

Bloomberg also said police reforms, including better training, oversight and study of the program, had already begun to address some of the complaints about aggressive behavior by officers.

After Bloomberg left, the church's 90-year-old pastor, Bishop A.D. Lyons, said he supports efforts to get guns off the streets, but he expressed frustration with what residents say is an unnecessarily aggressive implementation of the stop and frisk program in Brownsville.

Police have designated Brownsville as one of the city's "Impact Zones" that are flooded with recent police academy graduates who patrol some of the most crime-ridden areas of the city.

"We have a lot of police who don't want to be in Brownsville, and they have an attitude when they come into Brownsville and you've got to deal with that," Lyons said. "They walk by you, and they won't speak, and they have an attitude. I've been trying to get them to come into the sanctuary and just show up, show that we're friends.

"I'll agree that a lot of it is blacks carrying guns," Lyons said. "But we've got to respect them, even if they are carrying guns." (Editing by Daniel Trotta and Sandra Maler)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/10/mayor-defends-stop-and-frisk_n_1584873.html?ref=black-voices

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal challenging President Barack Obama's U.S. citizenship and his eligibility to serve as commander in chief.

Without comment, the high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from Alan Keyes, Wiley Drake and Markham Robinson.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the challengers did not have legal standing to file the lawsuit.

The U.S. Constitution says only "a natural born citizen" may serve as president. The challengers allege that Obama, whose father was Kenyan, was born in that African country, rather than in Hawaii. They claim his Hawaii birth certificate is a forgery. Hawaii officials have repeatedly verified Obama's citizenship.

Keyes and Drake ran against Obama on the American Independent Party ticket and Robinson serves as the party's chairman.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/11/supreme-court-obama-birth-certificate-case_n_1586695.html?ir=Black+Voices&;ref=topbar

COLLEGE PARK, Ga. — Megachurch pastor Creflo Dollar staunchly denied Sunday that he punched and choked his 15-year-old daughter in an argument, telling his congregation the allegations made in a police report are nothing but "exaggeration and sensationalism."

"I will say this emphatically: I should have never been arrested," Dollar said in his first public appearance two days after police charged him with misdemeanor counts of simple battery and cruelty to children.

The pastor got an enthusiastic ovation from the packed church as he took the pulpit Sunday at the World Changers Church International in metro Atlanta. He addressed the criminal charges head-on for several minutes before moving on to his sermon.

"I want you all to hear personally from me that all is well in the Dollar household," Dollar said.

The 50-year-old Dollar is one of the most prominent African-American preachers based around Atlanta, with 30,000 members in the Atlanta area and a ministry of satellite churches across the U.S.

He was arrested after his 15-year-old daughter called 911 at about 1 a.m. Friday and told a Fayette County sheriff's deputy that she and her father argued when he said she couldn't go to a party. A police report says the girl told a deputy her father charged at her, put his hands around her throat, began to punch her and started hitting her with his shoe. The deputy noted a scratch on her neck.

The report said the deputy also interviewed Dollar's 19-year-old daughter, who said her father grabbed her sister's shoulders and slapped her in the face and choked her for about five seconds. She said her sister tried to break free, but did not fight back. When her father threw the 15-year-old on the floor, the older girl ran to get her mother. Dollar's wife, Taffi, told the deputy she did not see the fight.

Dollar launched into a lengthy denial of the allegations from the pulpit Sunday.

"The truth is that a family conversation with our youngest daughter got emotional," he said. "And emotions got involved and things escalated from there."

"The truth is she was not choked, she was not punched. There were not any scratches on her neck," Dollar said. "But the only thing on her neck was a prior skin abrasion from eczema. Anything else is exaggeration and sensationalism."He said the mark on his daughter's neck had been there for about 10 years and was caused by a skin condition, eczema.

Dollar's 15-year-old daughter is the one who called authorities and told them her father punched and choked her. Her 19-year-old sister corroborated the story. But Dollar didn't publicly display any anger toward his children.

"I will never put any fault on my children, as Jesus would never put any fault on me," he said.

Dollar's wife, Taffi, is a co-pastor at the church. She addressed the congregation before her husband but did not touch on the allegations.

Dollar's congregation appeared supportive Sunday, giving him sustained applause as he took the stage. As he spoke, people in the sanctuary yelled encouragement: "We love you!" and "We've got your back!" As he talked about the difficulty dealing with teenage children in a "culture of disrespect," many in the crowd nodded in agreement.

Members of the church seemed to close ranks around Dollar even before he addressed them from the pulpit Sunday. Dozens of people approached by The Associated Press as they arrived for the service declined to comment, and the few who did expressed support. After the service, many were still reluctant to comment, but those who did said they were satisfied with their pastor's comments.

"When I first heard what he was accused of, I didn't believe it. I knew there had to be more to the story," said Phyllissa Wolley, 23, a daycare worker who has attended the church for about five years. "I felt like he addressed the accusations today, and I believe what he said. To hear from him personally, I really appreciated that. I was glad to hear his side of the story."

Others said the media blew the accusations out of proportion without having all the facts and they felt vindicated after hearing Dollar speak.

"I think you're looking at a bunch of sensationalism," said George Blake of Ellenwood, adding that he thought the media rushed to tell the story without knowing the full story. The 49-year-old said he never questioned his pastor of eight years.

"It's not up to me to me to be satisfied with what he had to say," Blake said. "This is a man of God spreading the word of God."

Dollar, who has five children, is a native of College Park and says he received a vision for the church in 1986. He held the first service in front of eight people in an elementary school cafeteria. His ministry grew quickly and the church moved into its present location, an 8,500-seat sanctuary, on Dec. 24, 1995.

Dollar said in a 2007 interview with The Associated Press that he renounced his church salary, and his income only comes from personal investments, including a real estate residential property business and horse breeding company called Dollar Ranch. He's also published more than 30 books, focusing mostly on family and life issues, including debt management.

He said he also sometimes got up to $100,000 for a single appearance on his packed schedule of speaking engagements.

Along with Bishop Eddie Long, Dollar is one of the most prominent African-American preachers based around Atlanta who have built successful ministries on the prosperity gospel, which teaches that God wants to bless the faithful with earthly riches. Ministers in this tradition often hold up their own wealth as evidence that the teaching works.

Detroit — Some Detroit union leaders accuse Mayor Dave Bing and the city of backing them into a corner by refusing to negotiate new collective bargaining deals with less than a month before some of the contracts expire.

Union strategy sessions continue to focus on what could be a June 30 contract showdown.

"We looked at this back in December. We kind of expected things to go south," said Joseph Duncan, Detroit Police Officers Association president. "It's my impression they are going to try to impose a contract on us."

Duncan said his and other unions haven't bargained with the city since earlier this spring when the unions agreed to pension, benefits and work rule changes. The tentative agreements were intended to help the city stave off any attempt by the state to appoint an emergency manager.

Detroit faces a budget deficit of more than $200 million and in April entered into a consent agreement with Gov. Rick Snyder that allows the state to have a role in revamping the city's bleak fiscal condition.

Part of that agreement calls for the city to have either negotiated or imposed new labor deals by July 16 for contracts expiring this summer.

"People are saying if (the city) goes to bring somebody in here to take their jobs that there is going to be hell to pay," said Ed McNeil, a spokesman for American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees Council 25. "When you start to roll over people you are going to get a lot of push-back in this town, which I don't want to see."

But Richard Block, professor and director emeritus of Michigan State University's School of Human Resources and Labor Relations, said if no new deals are reached, it's likely city unions will continue working under the expired contracts.

"Under Michigan law, contracts continue in effect until they agree on a new one," he said.

The city can't "get rid of a worker" unless it's allowed under their collective bargaining agreement or if workers go on strike, Block added.

Municipal "workers in Michigan can't strike, so they can't be replaced," he said. "If they strike, you have a different scenario. The city might take the position that they abandoned their jobs."

The state expects city employees to remain on the job and that new contracts will have been negotiated or in place by July 16, said Terry Stanton, state Treasury spokesman.

Mayor Bing's office did not respond to a request for comment.

City unions have not voted on whether they will strike, but a coalition of about 20 bargaining units has filed an unfair labor practices complaint with the Michigan Employment Relations Commission alleging the city failed to execute the tentative agreements.

Bing last month signed a council-approved budget for the coming fiscal year that calls for cutting more than 2,500 jobs, while shaving $250 million in annual expenses.

The city's accumulated budget deficit is about $265 million. Long-term structural debt stands at $13.2 billion.

The tentative agreement with police would have saved the city more than $20 million and included a 3-year pay freeze, according to the police union.

The tentative deal between the city and about 20 civilian unions was to have created about $60 million in health care savings. But those and other savings didn't "appropriately address" Detroit's fiscal cash crisis, according to a review done in February by the council's fiscal analysis division.

None of the deals went into effect.

"The city is saying we didn't have an agreement because it was never approved by council," Duncan said. "The bottom line is the city needed our help to try not to get an emergency manager. We sat around the table and looked at each other, realizing the city was in trouble. We negotiated with the mayor. As soon as we got it done, they turned their backs on us."

McNeil said the unions contend there is an agreement.

"We have a deal, a 3-year agreement. We signed it. We shook hands," McNeil said. "We know we can't trust them at this point."

The minimum wage hasn't kept pace with inflation, according to three Democratic U.S. Congressmen. They want to correct the situation by boosting the federal standard to $10 an hour.

Reps. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.) and Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) announced the introduction of The “Catching Up To 1968 Act of 2012” at a press conference in Washington, D.C., Wednesday. The proposed bill would bump the minimum wage up from $7.25 an hour and require an annual increase tied to inflation.

The congressmen said that even at $10 an hour, the minimum wage would still be below 1968 levels when adjusted for inflation.

“This legislation is long-overdue and sorely needed," said Conyers. "More than 30 million Americans would see their wages increased, which would provide an immediate boost to the economy."

Congress hasn't passed legislation raising the minimum wage since 2006, when it put in place a series of increases that ended in 2009.

Consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader helped announce the legislation at the Wednesday press conference.

"At a time when the issue of income inequality has been elevated in political discourse, it is surprising that a plight of millions of workers throughout the country hasn’t been addressed," he said. "A single Wall Street executive's compensation of $15 million would pay the annual wages of over 700 workers working at a minimum wage of $10 per hour."

Two thirds of the American public -- including a majority of Republicans -- supported raising the minimum wage in a October 2010 poll by the Public Religion Research Institute.

While running for office, President Barack Obama promised to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2011. Both the president and his 2012 campaign opponent Republican Mitt Romney have supported the idea of adjusting the minimum wage to keep up with inflation.

UPDATE: 3:00 p.m. -- State Senator Bert Johnson (D-Highland Park), who is running against Conyers for the newly redrawn 13th U.S. congressional district, introduced his own minimum wage hike for the state of Michigan on Thursday.

His bill would raise the state's minimum wage to $10 an hour by 2015 and would link it to the rate of inflation as measured by the United States Department of Labor.

Michigan's current minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Johnson's proposed legislation would raise the rate to $7.90 by Jan. 1st, 2013 and gradually raise it to $10 an hour by Jan. 1st, 2015.

“It is time the Republican majority does something to benefit the people of Michigan, as opposed to raising citizens’ taxes, eliminating tax credits for working families and slashing services in order to give taxpayer-funded handouts to their corporate benefactors,” Johnson said in a release.

Detroit is once again facing a budget emergency, as Mayor Dave Bing and Chief Financial Officer Jack Martin say the city could run out of cash in seven days.

A recent flap over the consent agreement between the city and the state has the Michigan Treasury set to withhold revenue-sharing payments for Detroit and allow debtors to collect on bonds that are keeping the city afloat. If that happens, Detroit officials say the city could run out of cash by next Friday.

“If our city runs out of money there is no bigger crisis facing our city," Bing told reporters Friday morning.

According to MLive, Martin said the city would likely make payroll June 15, but would then find itself operating on a deficit for the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends June 30.

An unbalanced city budget would violate the terms of Detroit's consent agreement, and could trigger the imposition of an emergency manager.

Avoiding a state takeover in the form of an emergency manager pushed Bing and city council to approve the consent agreement in April, but its that same document that's at the center of the revenue-sharing fight.

Krystal Crittendon, the city's corporation counsel, alleges the consent agreement is invalid and is pursuing her case in Ingham County Circuit Court. Crittendon's job is to enforce the new city charter, and she says the charter prohibits the city from making contracts with parties that owe it money. She claims Michigan owes Detroit more than $200 million.

"I informed her the lawsuit is a distraction and would put the city's finances at great risk," the mayor said in a Friday statement.Bing does not support Crittendon's challenge, but city council members have taken a wait-and-see approach, saying they have little interest in violating the charter. Bing said he would abide by a court decision, but urged Crittendon to drop her case.

DETROIT, MI — Lisa Benson said in an overgrown alley about a block from her home on Allendale in Detroit is where a 13-year-old friend of her daughter was raped on her walk to school Tuesday morning.

It's not safe to walk alone here, says Benson, 36, whose 14-year-old daughter is a classmate of the victim at Sampson Academy, 4700 Tireman in Detroit.

"She was on her way to our house to walk to school with my daughter," said Benson. "And that's when it happened."

Benson said she or her mother usually walk the teens the remaining three blocks between her home and the school.

Detroit police say an unidentified man, whom the victim reported forced her into an alley near the Interstate 96 service drive at Pacific and assaulted her, fled in a small, light-blue, four-door Ford Taurus. 

The teen ran to Benson's home after it happened, Benson said.

"He put her hand over her mouth and told her not to say nothing," Benson said, "and if she did, he was going to kill her.

"After he got done doing what he was going to do to her, he told her to count to 100 and don't look back or he'll shoot her."

When the teen arrived at Benson's home, Benson called the child's parents and police, who quickly responded with medics.

"She was scared, crying, everything, shaking," Benson said. "She was in shock."

The victim described the suspect to police as a 5-foot, 11-inch tall black male, medium build, with a light complexion, trimmed mustache, goatee, about 25, who was wearing a Detroit "Old English D" baseball cap, a navy Detroit Tigers jacket, dark jeans and boots at the time of the attack.

Detroit police Deputy Chief Benjamin Lee on Thursday said police have stepped up their presence in the neighborhood and hope it's an isolated incident. 

Benson said parents of students who attend Sampson Academy on Tuesday received calls notifying them that "a rapist was on the loose."

Sampson Academy Principal Jason Patton on Thursday declined to comment about the incident and referred comment to Steve Wasko, spokesman for Detroit Public Schools, whom MLive could not reach for comment as of Thursday evening.

Benson's neighbor, Dorothy A. Gardner, 36, said she's often on her porch and watches out for kids on their way to school, then she waved her hand across a blighted panorama from her front porch, also on Allendale near Firwood. 

"Look here," Gardner says and points. "The little girl was raped in the alley right here. The city's not doing anything. If you look around the grass is almost as tall as I am" and "the weeds done grown into trees."

The house next to Gardner's is vacant, the windowless brick house across the street is vacant and another that backs up to the alley where the assault occurred is vacant.

The windows there are smashed, the door open to its gutted and garbage-strewn interior. 

"I saw her run to the house," says Gardner, referring to when on Tuesday she witnessed the victim run from the alley toward Benson's home kitty-corner to her own. "She was running, she was crying and I just went in and got my coffee... and when I came back out there were two cop cars there."

Gardner has three children 15, 13 and 11, who also attend Sampson Academy.

"None of them walk by themselves," she said. "I know people have seen on the news about the rape in the neighborhood and they still let their little kids walk by themselves."

The concrete alley in which the reported assault occurred is crowded with weeds and contains various debris and litter, including several discarded mattresses and box-springs. 

A mixture of houses — some tidy and occupied and as many others dilapidated, filled with unruly weeds and vacant — back up to the alley.  

Benson estimated her daughter passes at least 25 vacant homes during her three-block walk to school.

"I don't even want to think about" what could happen to my daughter, she says. "They're abandoned, they're empty. It's an easy target for them to grab one of them and take them into one of these abandoned houses."

A plan is in the works to pump $38 million into Detroit's Masonic Temple and the surrounding desolate area.

The investment in the world's largest Masonic Temple, in the Cass Corridor, is being driven by a team of state and city economic power brokers who are working on the financing and declare the deal could be done by year's end, according to information that was posted online by the Michigan Magnet Fund.

"At this stage, it is expected the project will be able to close in six to eight months," according to the memo, written about a month ago, by the Magnet Fund. It's not clear how long the memo was online, but it was removed Friday after The Detroit News made telephone calls to fund officials.

Plans call for a $9.3 million parking garage, as well as $5 million in inside upgrades that include a new geothermal heating system and more women's rest rooms.

The 14-story complex has 1,037 rooms and multiple theater and entertainment venues. Jack White last month played two sold-out concerts at the temple's rarely used Scottish Rite Cathedral.

The once-grand facility has a storied past in Detroit entertainment history, often used by traveling companies of Broadway shows, as well as top musical acts of the day.

The project also calls for $4 million in upgrades to outdoor public lighting and improvements to Cass Park across the street.

The Magnet Fund is a super-committee of state and city economic officials, such as the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and Invest Detroit, that identifies big projects around the state that need tax breaks to become a reality.

The nonprofit fund is run by the MEDC, Great Lakes Capital Fund and the state's Housing Development Authority. The Great Lakes Fund raises money from socially responsible companies and financial institutions that it then invests in affordable housing and community economic development projects, according to the Lansing-based fund's website.

Officials from the MEDC, Invest Detroit and Great Lakes Capital did not return telephone calls and emails to The News. Nor did officials from the Masonic respond. The building is owned by the Masonic Temple Association.

Among the other multimillion-dollar projects the Magnet Fund is working on are the David Whitney Building in downtown Detroit, the Knapp building in Lansing, the Cardinal Health Distribution Center in Detroit's New Center area and the Urban Market in Grand Rapids.

In the case of the Masonic, the Magnet Fund says the project can qualify for federal historic tax credits, federal new market tax credits, state grants and loans. But the Magnet Fund memo said $20 million of the $38 million will come from a "qualified equity investment," which usually means a private investor who often receives part ownership in the property.

Calls to the Magnet Fund were referred to John Fovenesi, who did not return telephone calls. Public records list Fovenesi as chief financial officer of Halberd Holdings LLC, which oversees projects for entertainment and conference facilities.

The Masonic facility at 500 Temple is in a lower Midtown area, where 22 property deals, often cloaked in confidentiality agreements, have taken place. The prices of some of the publicly disclosed deals have been well above prevailing market prices for an area that is among the poorest in the city.

Some business owners and others in the area say they believe the area near Temple and Woodward Avenue — just east of the Masonic Temple — may be part of the land used for a new Detroit Red Wings hockey arena, which team owner Mike Ilitch says he eventually wants to build downtown.

Temple and Woodward has also been named as a stop for the proposed Woodward light-rail project.

In April 2010, the Masonic Temple and Ilitch-owned Olympia Entertainment ended a two-year arrangement in which Olympia Entertainment managed the venue. At the time, Olympia officials said the firm had invested millions of dollars in the facility and paid off and restructured the debt of the building's owners.

Masonic President Roget Sobran vowed then the terminated arrangement did not mean the end of the historic structure.

"We are not going anywhere," he said then.