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State Rep. Alberta Tinsley-Talabi took a Caribbean trip, campaign cash and a donation from a businessman while supporting his $10 million city pension fund deal, The Detroit News has learned.
Federal court records chronicle the trip and payments from indicted Georgia businessman Roy Dixon in 2007, when Tinsley-Talabi was a city councilwoman and trustee on the Detroit Police & Fire pension board.
The Detroit Democrat has not been charged in the widening, years-long federal probe of City Hall corruption and the city's pension funds that has resulted in two dozen convictions, including Tinsley-Talabi's former colleague, ex-City Council President Monica Conyers.
Tinsley-Talabi did not return multiple phone messages, but one former colleague said he's disappointed by the disclosure.
Fay Beydoun's parents speak Arabic at home, and she's learning the language at Riverside Academy West.
"Alsalam Alikoum. Kaif halak," she repeated during a recent Arabic class featuring common greetings. Translation: Hello. How are you?
"I already knew how to write the language, but it's good to be able to speak it and understand it, too, inside and outside the classroom," said Beydoun, 17, a senior.
It is part of the curriculum in all grades at 10 schools in the Global Educational Excellence charter system, which has facilities in Hamtramck, Detroit, Dearborn, Dearborn Heights and Ann Arbor.
The charter schools were founded by Palestinian immigrant Mohamad Issa and his brother Said Issa in 1997 with 97 students. He said learning Arabic, in addition to the traditional core curriculum, will better enable students to compete in a global marketplace.
The next logical step, he said, is to expand into the Middle East, becoming the only Michigan-based charter system on foreign soil.
....
Back at Riverside West Academy, when the bell rings, it resembles any other school with kids laughing, greeting each other and quickly moving to the next classroom.
The similarities end there. The schools practice gender separation in all academic classes. But boys and girls eat in the same cafeteria, which is halal in keeping with Islamic law.
Ultimate Racebaiter: Dem Congressman (Who Supports Occupy Grp) Lies About Being 1/2 Black to Get Votes
My favorite political story of the last week is that of Democrat U.S. Congressman Hansen Clarke of Detroit. He's running to be my Congressman and-needless to say-won't be getting my vote. He advocates the most wacky ideas and is an Occupy supporter and sympathizer. Far-left is a compliment for him. He's off the deep end. Throughout his political career as a state legislator and now as a Congressman, he's always maintained that he's half-Black. His father, a Bangladeshi Muslim alien, was obviously Asian. But there is now a lot of doubt regarding whether or not he's really half-Black. His mother's death certificate was dug up by one of Clarke's many opponents, and per years of rumors, it lists her as White.
