Members of the Black Riders Liberation Party arrive at a service for Malcolm Shabazz, the grandson of Malcolm X, at the Islamic Center of Northern California in Oakland, Calif., May 17, 2013. Authorities say Shabazz was beaten to death last week in a dispute over a $1,200 bar bill in Mexico City. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
 
by Terry Collins
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Hundreds gathered Friday to remember the late grandson of slain civil rights leader Malcolm X as mourners said Malcolm Shabazz was well on his way to cementing his own legacy.

More than 200 people attended a traditional Islamic service in Oakland for the 28-year-old Shabazz, who authorities say was beaten to death last week over a $1,200 bar bill in Mexico City.

The service, which lasted more than two hours, featured plenty of prayer, songs, spoken word and tears. Many among the procession of speakers said while they initially connected with Shabazz because of his famous grandfather, they learned to appreciate a man they called "Young Malcolm" as a leader in his own right.

"If I could put into one word how I feel about Malcolm, it would be, 'inspiration,'" Hussein Mekki, 32, of Houston, Texas, told fellow mourners. "Hopefully that will continue, and he can inspire us for the rest of our lives."

Despite troubles early in life, from setting a blaze in his grandmother's apartment that resulted in the death of Malcolm X's widow, Betty Shabazz, to stints in juvenile hall and prison, mourners said Shabazz was seeking redemption with plans to write a memoir and another book denouncing youth violence.

Abdel Malik Ali, 55, a community activist from Oakland, said "Young Malcolm" appeared ready to fuse the history of Malcolm X along with his own experiences he described as "Generation Next."

Shabazz, who also was the father of a young girl, wanted to help build mosques and education centers across America, Ali said.

"He was looking for his own voice, his own place in this world," Ali said. "He had his struggles just like everybody else, but he eventually took on a huge responsibility in embracing his family's legacy that's harder than anybody could ever imagine."

While Shabazz was originally from New York, he settled in the Bay Area more than three years ago after taking a spiritual pilgrimage to Mecca at the advice of friends and local political activist Yuri Kochiyama, who knew his grandfather and wrote to Shabazz while he was incarcerated.

Close friend Hashim Ali Alauddeen, a doctoral student in Islamic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, said Friday that Shabazz had plans to attend community college in the area and eventually seek a bachelor's degree in African-American studies at Berkeley.

"His heart was sincere. He strived to do what's right," Alauddeen said tearfully as he stood over Shabazz's casket while delivering his friend's eulogy. "He did his best to purify his soul. His intention and his sincerity were to serve God."

Shabazz died May 9 after he was beaten outside a bar near Plaza Garibaldi, a downtown square that is home to Mexico City's mariachis. Before his trip to Mexico, Shabazz had connected with a labor and construction group in California, and he traveled to Mexico to meet with one of its organizers who had been deported in April.

Labor activist Miguel Suarez, who was traveling with Shabazz, told The Associated Press last week that he and Shabazz were lured to the bar by a young woman who spoke to Shabazz in English.

Authorities in Mexico City say Suarez told investigators that he and Shabazz drank about a dozen beers and then the waiters demanded they pay a tab of 15,000 pesos, or about $1,200.

Mexico City's top prosecutor said two waiters arrested in the case had served Shabazz earlier. An autopsy found Shabazz died of blows to the head, face and torso.

Alauddeen said Shabazz's body will be buried in New York next to his grandparents.
   

Dean Davis displays the Powerball ticket she bought in Omaha, May 15. No one matched the winning numbers in Wednesday's $360 million jackpot which has now soared to $600 million, making it the second largest in Powerball history and the third biggest overall. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
 

by Barbara Rodriguez

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — It's all about the odds, and one lone ticket in Florida has beaten them all by matching each of the numbers drawn for the highest Powerball jackpot in history at an estimated $590.5 million, lottery officials said Sunday.

President Barack Obama walks out of the White House Oval Office in Washington, and heads toward the Marine One helicopter on his way to Baltimore, Md., as part of his "Middle Class Jobs & Opportunity Tours". (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
 

by David Espo
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Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan speaks to Detroit City Council on May 17, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
 
by Jeff Karoub
DETROIT (AP) — Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan urged Detroit's pastors and majority Black population Friday to join him in an effort to buy neglected properties and take other steps to help revitalize the struggling city where the movement started more than 80 years ago.

The fiery orator offered few specifics in a speech to the Detroit City Council, but made plain his displeasure with Gov. Rick Snyder's decision to appoint an emergency financial manager. He likened the takeover to buzzards circling over a carcass.

"The city abandoned, crime and violence rampant, and the governor has seen fit to take away the rights of the voting public," Farrakhan said, referring to putting someone in charge of the city's finances that wasn't elected. "I don't know what democracy really means if you can be given the right to vote and then somebody can take it away."

He said the city's downtown is "coming along pretty good" as its buildings are bought and renovated, but many other areas are "like a wasteland."

"But a wasteland always gives opportunities those who have a vision," he said.

Detroit's problems include high crime, joblessness and abandonment; its budget deficit is about $330 million and rising.

"Suppose we in leadership, the pastors of the city, stop arguing," he said. "Why shouldn't we come together and own Detroit?"

At the movement's annual convention in February, Farrakhan called on Blacks nationwide to curb economic disparities by cutting back on excessive spending, pooling resources and investing in land. The Nation of Islam has more than 1,500 acres of farmland in Georgia, and leaders have said the group is looking to buy thousands more acres in the Midwest.

Now based in Chicago, the Nation of Islam was founded in 1930 in Detroit by Wallace D. Fard, who the movement says attracted Blacks on the margins of society with a message of self-improvement and separation from whites.

The group, which promotes Black empowerment and nationalism, was rebuilt by Farrakhan in the late 1970s.

He became notorious for calling Judaism a "gutter religion" and suggesting crack cocaine might have been a CIA plot to enslave Blacks. Farrakhan has over the years denied claims of anti-Semitism, arguing his remarks are often taken out of context and that criticism of Jews in any light automatically earns the "anti-Semite" label.

His message on Friday was one of unity among races and religions, but he said he's focusing on African-Americans because they are city's majority population.

Farrakhan said it was important to return to Detroit "at a time of intense dark."

"We got to come home and help this city," he said.

Farrakhan also is scheduled to deliver an evening public address at Fellowship Chapel on the city's northwest side.

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