Ethnic Slurs

House Democrats on Tuesday accused the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Julie L. Myers, of trying to cover up events related to a Halloween party last year where she gave a prize for "most original" costume to an employee in blackface and prison garb.

An e-mail alleging anti-Semitic remarks by the local leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference set off a weeklong firestorm in the Jewish community that was only beginning to cool Friday. The e-mail was sent to friends April 4 by Jewish philanthropist Daphna Ziman after she attended an awards ceremony that day sponsored by the Western Province of Kappa Alpha Psi, a historically African American fraternity. She described the Rev.

Administrators at Charter Oak High School in Covina are investigating how a student on the yearbook staff was able to get fake names for Black Student Union members, including "Tay Tay Shaniqua," "Crisphy Nanos" and "Laquan White," into the published yearbook. Calling the incident a "regrettable mistake," Clint Harwick, superintendent of the Charter Oak Unified School District, said Friday that school officials had spoken to the student believed to be responsible.

The mystery has been cleared up about what else the Rev. Jesse Jackson said last week when he made his crude remarks about Barack Obama. The comment, reported Wednesday morning by the TVNewser blog: "Barack . . . he's talking down to black people . . . telling [black people] how to behave." But he didn't use "black people" on second reference; he used the plural form of the N-word. The initial firestorm concerned Jackson's comments before a July 6 interview on "Fox & Friends."

There's big trouble in the dollhouse. One of the jurors in the Barbie vs. Bratz trial -- in which toy giant Mattel Inc. already has scored a major victory over rival MGA Entertainment Inc. -- was removed Friday for making slurs about the ethnicity of Isaac Larian, the Iranian-born chief executive of MGA. A court order said the juror remarks characterized Iranians as "stubborn, rude" and as "thieves" who have "stolen other person's ideas."

Three football players at Guilford College, a small Quaker school with a legacy of nonviolence and religious tolerance, have been charged with assaulting three Palestinian students who said they also were subjected to ethnic slurs. Police in Greensboro said the students told them a group of men outside a Guilford dormitory beat them with feet, fists and brass knuckles.

Guilford College has asked five students believed to have been involved in a racially tinged fight last weekend -- including the accusers -- to move off campus during the investigation. The three football players and the two Palestinian students they are suspected of assaulting will be allowed to attend class at the Greensboro school, Guilford President Kent Chabotar said.

State investigators on Friday publicly absolved former Democratic candidate Phil Angelides' campaign of wrongdoing in lifting private conversations stored on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's website, nearly five months after they had authoritative word that no crime had occurred. In a 38-page report to Schwarzenegger's chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, the California Highway Patrol said that security on the governor's website was lax.

Sen. John McCain, a GOP presidential contender, on Friday used the term "tar baby," considered a racial epithet, and later said he regretted it. Answering questions at a town hall meeting, the Arizona senator was discussing federal involvement in custody cases when he said, "For me to stand here and ...

CBS Radio and MSNBC are suspending Don Imus' radio program for two weeks in an effort to staunch the furor after the controversial talk show host called the Rutgers University women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos."