user: News: Manning Marable, whose long-awaited biography of Malcolm X, "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention," will be published on Monday, died Friday. He was 60 years old.

Marable, who had led African American studies at Columbia University, was a professor there with many titles. Officially, he was the M. Moran Weston and Black Alumni Council Professor of African-American Studies and professor of history and public affairs at Columbia University. Columbia also notes that he was founding director of African American studies at Columbia from 1993 to 2003 and since 2002, he directed Columbia's Center for Contemporary Black History.

As far back as 2005, Marable was talking about "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention." In February of that year, on Malcolm X's birthday, he told Democracy Now about the materials that he had seen that others had not, including three "missing" chapters from Malcolm's autobiography that he said show the leader in a very different light.

Back then, Marable had already been at work on the biography for a decade -- meaning that he'd spent more than 15 years on the book and died just three days before its publication.

"A Life of Reinvention" by Manning Marable will be published by Viking on Monday.

Marable's other books include "Beyond Black and White: Race in America's Past, Present and Future" (1995), "The Crisis of Color and Democracy" (1995) and "The Great Wells of Democracy: The Meaning of Race in American Life" (2003).

The New York Times reports that Marable suffered from sarcoidosis and had undergone a double lung transplant as treatment for the disease last the summer. Last month he was hospitalized with pneumonia.

Title: Malcolm X biographer Manning Marable has died


News: Outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder says his own views about banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity have evolved along with those of the nation.

Holder, who is wrapping up a tenure of nearly 61/2 years as the country’s top law enforcement official, said the country stands at the doorstep of change, an opportunity that comes along only sporadically.

“This is a real opportunity for this nation, on a couple of fronts, to make substantial progress,” Holder told The Advocate in an interview published Friday. “These kinds of chances happen every other, every third, fourth generation.”

Holder, 64, announced his resignation last year but has been unable to leave office until the Senate wrapped up the protracted confirmation proceedings for his successor, Loretta Lynch.

His own views on marriage equality have developed considerably over the past quarter century, he said, recalling his time on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, from 1988 to 1993.

Holder never thought twice to question a court’s decision to deny a same-sex couple’s bid to obtain a marriage license.

“A judge wrote what I thought was a very thoughtful opinion, denying that right. I remember reading that opinion and thinking it was legally appropriate,” Holder said in the interview, conducted March 2 but held until after Lynch’s confirmation on Thursday.

Holder, who has urged the Supreme Court to outlaw state bans on gay marriage, said the issue has become the newest battleground in the struggle for civil rights.

“We look back now and think, “How could we possibly ban marriage between an African American and a white person,” Holder said. “I think we will see a similar progression here when it comes to same-sex marriage.”

Holder keeps a folder of photographs submitted by members of DOJ Pride, a group of Department of Justice employees who identify themselves as openly gay and their allies.

He remembers his own uncle, whom he adored while growing up in New York City.

“Rest in peace to my father, but Uncle Sonny was cooler,” Holder said, describing his uncle’s shiny sports car.

During his tenure, judges have granted marriage rights to same-sex couples in 37 states.

Holder likened the sweeping changes to the Civil War, which culminated in the abolition of slavery, and the suffragists whose decades-long movement secured ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the franchise, in 1920.

In the waning days of his time in office, Holder has added protections barring employment discrimination against transgender workers.

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Title: Eric Holder reflects on evolution of marriage equality


News: Don’t let the fact that she’s 81 fool you — Matthew McConaughey’s mother, the inimitable Kay McConaughey, is still the life of the party and can still best her son when it comes to going hard in the paint.

In an illuminating interview with Esquire where Matthew discusses meeting his wife and winning an Oscar, the most riveting thing by far is his account of Kay, who is affectionately referred to as K-Mac.

Esquire offers this exceptionally glorious anecdote, in which we learn that K-Mac likes Fleetwood Mac and lots of Kendall-Jackson, because, really, who doesn’t love those things? The story also includes McConaughey revealing by his own admission that his mother can out-party him.

He’s taking K-Mac to a Fleetwood Mac concert, and McConaughey’s eighty-one-year-old mom likes to rock, and then some. “I do not remember the last time when we partied when she didn’t go to bed after me and get up before me,” he says. “She’s gonna want to jam on some Kendall-Jackson [wine] tonight.’”

Title: Matthew McConaughey's Mom Interview


News: PORTLAND, Ore. — One look at Paul Gaylord’s hands shows why the plague is referred to as “Black Death.”

The welder’s once-strong hands have been withered by the cell-killing infection and darkened to the color of charcoal. Doctors are waiting to see if they can save a portion of his fingers, but the outlook is grim for the man who needs them for his livelihood.

“I don’t think I can do my job,” Gaylord said in a phone interview from a Bend, Ore., hospital. “I’m going to lose all my fingers on both hands. I don’t know about my thumbs. The toes — I might lose all them, too.”

Gaylord, who turns 60 next month, contracted a rare case of the plague trying to take a mouse from the jaws of a choking cat at his home in Prineville, in rural Oregon.

He faces a difficult recovery now that he’s out of intensive care. His family is trying to raise money to get him into a new house, because the manufactured home he was living in has a leaky roof, a moldy bathroom and mice — dangerous living conditions for a man with a weakened immune system.

“We didn’t even know the plague was around anymore,” said his sister, Diana Gaylord. “We thought that was an ancient, ancient disease.”

The bacterium that causes the plague is carried by fleas, which can infect people and animals. The disease that killed millions in the Middle Ages is extremely rare in current times — an average of seven cases occur in the U.S. each year.

Gaylord’s illness began after he saw a stray cat — who he’d named Charlie — with a dead mouse jammed in the back of his throat. The cat appeared to be choking, so Gaylord and a friend attempted to dislodge the mouse.

The distressed cat bit his hand. Unable to remove the mouse, Gaylord shot Charlie to end his suffering and buried him in the yard.

Two days later, he awoke with a fever and chills.

An Army veteran who rarely visits a doctor, Gaylord felt sick enough to go to the Veterans Administration outpatient clinic in nearby Bend. But the clinic had so many patients that doctors couldn’t see him for more than a week.

The next day, Gaylord, who doesn’t have private health insurance, went to an urgent care clinic. The doctor diagnosed cat scratch fever, provided him with medicine and told him to return if his condition worsened.

He was back a few days later. Diana Gaylord said her brother dripped with sweat and his lymph nodes swelled.

Title:

assistant: Oregon man recovering from rare case of plague