News Briefs

Astronaut Michael Anderson dies with Columbia crew
Payload Commander Michael P. Anderson died on Saturday, Feb. 1, as the Columbia space shuttle mission crew of seven astronauts was returning to earth from their 16-day assignment in space. He was 42 years old. As payload manager, Anderson managed the hundreds of science experiments that were conducted in the laboratory on board. One of the experiments was growing prostate cancer cells, a disease that afflicts African-American men at a higher rate than the general population. Anderson, who was a second lieutenant in the Air Force, received a Masters degree in physics from Creighton University. He began his training for NASA in 1995, and had his first space flight in 1998 as a mission specialist, when he spent 211 hours in space. The Columbia space shuttle was his second assignment. Anderson was the third African-American to die in flight. Ronald E. McNair died in the 1986 Challenger explosion and Robert Lawrence died in 1967 in a plane crash during a training flight.

African-American women business owners double in number
he number of African-American women business owners with bank credit of $100,000 or more doubled between 1998 and 2002, according to a report by the Center for Womens Business Research sponsored by Wells Fargo. The Center also reported that the number of businesses owned by African-American women increased by 17 percent in the same period. That is more than double the rate of all business, said Brenda Ross Dulan, market president for the Los Angeles Metro Region and national spokesperson for Well Fargos African-American Business Services Program. Other findings highlighted that African-American women are more likely to start and run their businesses without partners, are more likely to be the sole owners of their firms, and that they encounter more obstacles than other ethnicities when trying to secure financing for their firms.

Richard Parsons takes the reins at AOL Time Warner
CEO Richard Parsons was elected to also serve as chairman to rescue the company and its share holders from the black hole they have been in since AOL and Time Warner merged. In the latest recasting of most valuable players, Parsons will replace Steve Case, who resigned in January, following the departures of former CEO Jerry Levin and former COO Robert Pittman. Parsons responsibilities will include trying to restore confidence in the company and stopping the downward spiral of its stock. It has lost nearly $200 billion in value.