Many predict that we'll see a verdict in the Oscar Grant case this weekend, as the Los Angeles jury deliberates the fate of Johannes Mehserle, the former San Francisco Bay Area transit officer on trial for shooting a handcuffed, face down, Grant in the back. Oakland social justice activists and officials are doing everything they can to prevent violent outrage in the event of a "not guilty" verdict in the Grant case.

Youth UpRising, a youth empowerment group based in Oakland, created a public service announcement that addresses the frustration and anger many felt watching Oscar Grant's shooting. They encourage people to use that anger to fuel change and not destruction: Violence is not justice!

Yesterday, day 70 of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the State Department announced that the United States has agreed to accept international help for the cleanup. As of now, the United States is accepting help from 12 countries and international organizations. According to a State Department news release, the government is still negotiating the details of that assistance.

The Associated Press reports that "more than 30 countries and international organizations have offered to help with the spill, and the United States hasn't made a final decision on most of the offers." Well, what's taking so long? This is not about American ego, this is about getting as many resources deployed to the Gulf as quickly as possible to help preserve as much of the ocean and coast as possible, right?

Perhaps from the perspective of an expert in post-disaster recovery patterns, the problems facing Haiti earthquake survivors right now are to be expected. But, to me, the continued suffering of Haitians who survived January's 7.0 earthquake feels relentless.

For one, Mother Nature continues to flex her muscles in the region: The rain is causing small floods in an area now home to many earthquake survivors. The Associated Press reports that "Haitian civil protection officials say rains have caused small floods in the northwestern city of Gonaives. Much of the country is under an 'orange alert' for more serious floods caused by a rain-producing Caribbean system. The city is surrounded by denuded mountains and has twice been inundated during tropical storms since 2004, with thousands of lives lost."

For the first time in United States history, Mississippian Curtis Flowers is being tried for a sixth time for the same murders. Flowers faced a jury of eleven whites and one black yesterday as opening statements were presented. The trial got underway after the presiding judge rejected a defense request for a new trial arguing that the jury composition looks nothing like the population of Winona, Mississippi, which is 45% African American. Testimony is expected to begin today.

Curtis Flowers is being tried for the 1996 killings of a well-known local business owner Bertha Tardy and three employees -- bookkeeper Carmen Rigby, 45; delivery worker Robert Golden, 42; and Derrick Stewart, a 16-year-old high school baseball star who worked part-time at the store. Golden was black. The rest of the victims were white. All of the victims had been shot in the head.

For more than 30 years, Haitians have have been living in a shanty town of overcrowded shacks on the small Bahamian island of Abaco, located east of Miami.

The 5-acre area, though, has now been purchased by a private owner, who issued eviction notices to more than a thousand residents who have been living in shacks there.

The community is a mix of permanent residents, naturalized citizens and migrants who may or may not have work permits, said Jetta Baptiste, president of the Bahamas' Haitian Society. Many are waiting for immigration officials to process their paperwork, she said.

Popular Bay Area rapper Mo Wiley, whose real name is Sara Mestas, aims to manifest the phrase "Major League Ballin" -- also the title of her debut album on First Kut Records-- on a more powerful level. Mestas has moved away from recording songs about her grievances, instead deciding to force change in a more traditional way -- by running for mayor of San Leandro, Calif.

"Mestas is fashioning herself as an unconventional, break-the-mold Robin Hood-type candidate. She is the working-class champion of the average taxpayer daring to take on the long-entrenched "good old boy" administration by exercising her right to run for office."

A Massachusetts judge concluded an inquest in to the shooting death of the younger brother of Amy Bishop, who is the professor charged with killing three colleagues during a shooting rampage at the University of Alabama-Huntsville. Bishop is alleged to have injured three others as well.

In 1986, Bishop killed her brother with a single shotgun blast to the chest, but officials in Braintree ruled that Seth Bishop's death was an accident. Bishop's parents provided testimony that supported the decision.

[Seth Bishop's] death came under renewed scrutiny after Amy Bishop was arrested in February in a shooting rampage at a biology faculty meeting at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, leading Norfolk District Attorney William Keating to call for the closed-door hearing.

"I'm praising God," Silsby told The Associated Press as she waited for a flight out of Haiti. She declined to answer further questions before clearing immigration and heading through a gate to catch a plane to Florida.

Haiti prosecutor Sonel Jean-Francois argued that U.S. missionary Laura Silsby deserves a six-month prison sentence for attempting to move 33 children out of Haiti and in to the Dominican Republic immediately after the Jan. 12 earthquake. During the first day of Silsby's trial on Thursday, Jean-Francois pushed for the sentence and was unmoved by Silsby's own testimony. The Haiti prosecutor insisted that the Baptist missionary knew all along that what she was doing was wrong.

"Laura recognized she violated the law," Jean-Francois said as lawyers and a small group of spectators crowded into a a stiflingly hot tent in the parking lot of the quake-damaged courthouse.[ ]

"If the United States had an earthquake, that would not give you the right to take children," Jean-Francois said.

Two thousand Haitian protesters took to the streets on Monday to express their dissatisfaction with post-earthquake resources and to demand that Haiti's President Rene Preval not use the crisis to extend his term.

Trucks filled with riot police rolled behind the protesters as they jogged past tarps and shanties shouting insults at Preval, who has been criticized for his low profile following the quake and for allegedly using the destruction as a pretext to stay in office beyond his term.

"He is profiting from this disaster in order to stay in power," said Herve Santilus, 39, a sociologist who was laid off a few weeks after the magnitude-7 quake struck and has not been able to find work since. Source: Protesters blast Haiti president's quake response, Associated Press