Pictured are Cleveland Urban News.Com Sportswriter Karl Kimbrough and Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

BOSTON, Massachusetts-The Cleveland Cavaliers closed out their best of seven series 4-0 in their first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs with the Boston Celtics with a 101 to 93 victory at the TD Garden arena in Boston, Massachusetts on Sunday, April 26.

The Cavaliers will now be idle until the winner of the Chicago Bulls vs Milwaukee Bucks series is determined. The Bulls currently lead that series three games to one, and might likely play the Cavs for round two of the Eastern Conference playoffs. The winner of that series plays in the Eastern Conference finals, and the winner of that show down, also the best of seven games, will fight against the Western conference winner for the NBA championship.

Cleveland took control of game four almost from the start. They led 17 to eight at the seven minute mark of the first quarter.

LeBron James led the Cavs in scoring with 27 points on Sunday. The Akron, Ohio native also had 10 rebounds and eight assists.

Cavaliers guard Kyrie Irving had a strong game as well with 24 points and 11 rebounds.

Isaiah Thomas led Boston with 21 points.

So the Cavaliers win the series four games to zero, a no doubt sweep, and a credit to rookie head coach David Blatt, and to general manager David Griffin.

Cleveland has come alive, again, both the Cavs, and the city, a major American city. And James, 30, again leads the Cavaliers franchise to the playoffs, a repeat of what he did for the first time since in 2007, losing to the Antonio Spurs.

James returned home to his beloved Ohio last year after a stint from 2010 to 2014 with the Miami Heat, in which he brought them two of their three NBA titles. Can he bring that kind of magic to Cleveland this year?

Pictured are Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight, and child serial rapist and kidnapper the late Ariel Castro

Kathy Wray Coleman is a community activist, legal and political reporter, and a 22- year investigative journalist who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio.

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Famed Hollywood actor, and comedian the late Joan Rivers last year refused to apologize for a joke she made about the Cleveland House of Horrors on Twitter and the Today Show. The then 80-year-old comic compared living in the small size guestroom of her daughter Melissa as part of their reality show  WEtv series “Joan and Melissa: Joan Knows Best?’’ to the rooms in the Seymour Avenue house of rape and torture in Cleveland, Ohio that held Ariel Castro victims Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight against their will and in bondage for a decade.

Rivers, who later said that her joke was secondary and what is more important is that the three women got out alive, died roughly four months later on September 2, 2014 from complications or alleged negligence from unauthorized surgery, her family has said in a pending lawsuit .

In their book,"Hope: A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland," which is written with Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan, published by Viking Press Publishing Company, and was released for sale on April 27, Berry and DeJesus , both teens when they were abducted, describe their daily lives in captivity and say that they lived in constant fear of Castro, and were repeatedly raped while in chains.

Knight released her book titled "Finding Me" last year.

May 6 marks the second anniversary of the May 6, 2013 rescue of the trio and Berry's then seven-year-old daughter that Castro fathered while she was in captivity. And community activists groups, area clergy and some elected officials have said that they will rally in Cleveland on that day at 4:30 pm at 2207 Seymore Avenue against violence against women. (Contact the Imperial Women Coalition by phone at (216) 659-0473, or by email at editor@clevelandurbannews.com for more information. Other activists groups include Puncture the Silence, Revolution Books, Sister to Sister, the Laura Cowan Foundation, the Carl Stokes Brigade, adelicaterose.org, the Brown Report Newspaper, and Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's Black digital news leader).

A movie on cable on the House of Horrors from the perspective of Knight premieres at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 2, on the cable network Lifetime.

Activists and family members looked for the young women for years, and held rallies and annual vigil

The decade long captivity of the three women made national news.

Their celebrated rescue by a Black next door neighbor who afterwards told reporters that he sometimes smoked marijuana with Castro but had no idea that women and children were being held prisoner in a home just next door to the home he rented made national headlines too.

Pictured are Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor (wearing Black), Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge John P. O'Donnell (in sky blue tie), Cleveland Police Patrolman Michael Brelo (in blue shirt), Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty (in red-pink tie with polka dots), 137 shots unarmed Cleveland police fatal shooting victim Malissa Williams (in white shirt), and 137 shots unarmed Cleveland police fatal shooting victim Timothy Russell (in dark blue sweat shirt).

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog, Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com.

Kathy Wray Coleman is  a community activist and 22- year investigative journalist who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper. (If you are reading this too, you are keeping abreast of the news from Cleveland Ohio, and from its news leader of Cleveland Urban News.Com).

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

Brelo, 31, is currently on trial and faces two counts of voluntary manslaughter for gunning down two unarmed Blacks in 2012.

Other police killings nationwide are also part of the protest, organizers told Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leader in Black digital news.

The city of Cleveland, led by three-term mayor Frank Jackson, who is Black, is a majority Black major American city. Its largely White police department is the subject of a scathing U.S. Department of Justice report that found systemic problems, including illegal excess force police killings, mainly shootings,  and cruel and usual punishment against innocent women, children, and the mentally ill. A consent decree is in the workings.

"We will begin camping out at 11:59 pm tonight and stay over until noon tomorrow, and will rally at 11 am tomorrow," said East Cleveland community activist and Black on Black Crime founder Art McKoy. "We will camp out and some will go to the Brelo trial in the morning, and we are upset that the judge has thrown out gun charges against officer Brelo."

McKoy said that while the camp out also addresses high profile police killings of Blacks nationwide such as teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio, and the death this month of 25-year-old Freddie Gray while in custody of Baltimore police, Brelo is the main issue.

Last week Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell tossed out two gun specifications charges against Brelo but denied defense counsel's Rule 29 judgment of acquittal to dismiss the manslaughter charges. The prosecution has rested its case and defense attorneys will begin presenting their case Monday morning, April 27, in courtroom 18D of the Justice Center.

The criminal case is a non-jury bench trial before O'Donnell, whom Brelo initially tried to have removed from the controversial criminal case for alleged bias, an affidavit of prejudice of which was denied by Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor late last year.

Brelo, who is White, fired 49 of the 137 shots  fired by a total of 13-non Black Cleveland cops who gunned down unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams, 30,  and Timothy Russell, 43, following a high speed car chase that began in downtown Cleveland and ended in a middle school parking lot in neighboring East Cleveland. He is currently suspended without pay pending the outcome of his trial.

The city of Cleveland last year settled a notorious wrongful death and police excessive force lawsuit for $3 million to be split between the families of the two victims.

Cleveland Civil Rights and Constitutional Attorney Terry Gilbert, the appointed lawyer for the estate of Russell, who is survived by a grown mentally ill son, said in a previous one-on-one interview with Cleveland Urban News.Com that money is not enough to appease the Cleveland community.

"The fight is just really beginning,"said Gilbert.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty, who is White, told reporters last year during a press conference on the grand jury indictment relative to Brelo that his office did not recommend any charges to the grand jury against 12 of 13 police officers that escaped indictments, 11 White and one Hispanic. That posture has upset community activists.

"The neo- Nazi's won and it is unbelievable that only one police officer faces felony charges and the other 12 got away with killing two unarmed Black people," said community activist Pierre Nappier.

Brelo jumped aboard the hood of the 1979 Chevy Malibu driven by Russell and fired 49 shots through the windshield, though by then the car was stopped, and even McGinty admitted to reporters that neither Williams nor Russell, both of them homeless with substance abuse problems, posed any immediate threat.

No gun was found at the deadly scene.

Russell and Williams were killed in a fetal position in Russell's shot up car, Russell shot 23 times, and Williams, 24.

Also charged via county grand jury indictments were five White police supervisors, but on second degree misdemeanor charges of dereliction of duty. They have all pleaded not guilty and are sergeants Patricia Coleman, Randolph Daley, Jason Edens, Michael Donegan and Lt.Paul Wilson. And all of them are still employed and on the job.

All 12 Cleveland police officers that got off are still employed and on the job, and still face possible disciplinary charges, said Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams at a press conference after the grand jury indictment against Brelo came down last year.

Pictured are U.S. President Barck Obama (wearing green tie), U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch (in Black suit), Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge of Ohio (D-11) (in bluish-green suit), Congressman and Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Chairman G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina (D-1) (in red tie),  NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund President and Director-counsel Sherrilyn Ifill (in red suit with long hairdo), National Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. President Dr. Paulette Walker (in red suit with short hairdo), and GOP  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky (R-KY) (in blue tie).

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News.Com, and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper and newspaper blog. Tel: (216) 659-0473.

Coleman, who is Black, is a 22-year investigative journalist and political and legal reporter who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio.

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

WASHINGTON, D.C.-Following the longest confirmation delay for U.S. attorney general since Edwin Meese in 1985, Loretta Lynch, formerly the United States attorney for the eastern district of New York, was confirmed by the Senate on April 23 as the nation's first Black female attorney general.

The Senate voted 56-43 to confirm Lynch, with 10 Republican senators  supporting the measure.  Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) of Kentucky was not among them, and was among 43 Republicans senators that opposed the nomination.

U.S. Rep Marcia L. Fudge of Ohio, Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Chairman G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina, National Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. President Dr. Paulette Walker, and Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, told Cleveland Urban News.Com (www.clevelandurbannews.com)earlier this month during a press conference call that they had had enough of GOP  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's harassment of Lynch relative to the confirmation delay.

Fudge, Butterfield, IfIll and Walker, all of whom are Black,  accused McConnell, of Kentucky, of stalling a vote by the U.S. Senate on Lynch and had said that the conservative White Republican, a senior member of Congress, is anti-Black, anti-female, and against President Barack Obama, America's first Black president.

On Thursday, Fudge said that she is pleased with Lynch's confirmation.

"I am elated Attorney Loretta Lynch now has the opportunity to lead the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and will continue her outstanding service to our nation," said Fudge, a Warrensville Heights Democrat whose largely Black 11th congressional district includes suburban territories and parts of the cities of Cleveland and Akron, a city some 35 miles south of Cleveland. "Her confirmation is historic."

Fudge said that Lynch, a New York chief federal prosecutor until her confirmation and the country's 83rd attorney general, "is as qualified today as she was 166 days ago, bringing preeminent skills and experience to the position."

President Barack Obama nominated Lynch, 55, last November to succeed Attorney General Eric Holder, the country's first Black attorney general.

"Today, the Senate finally confirmed Loretta Lynch to be America's next attorney general, and America will be better off for it," Obama said in a a press statement issued shortly after the Senate, on yesterday, confirmed the nomination of Lynch.

The U.S. attorney general, as the nation's chief law enforcement official, leads the Department of Justice (DOJ), is nominated by the president, and must subsequently be confirmed by the Senate.

Republicans control both the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, and only gained control of the Senate in  elections last November.

McConnell had said that he would delay a vote on Lynch until the Senate completes consideration of an unrelated bill to fight human trafficking, proposed legislation that Democrats will not support because it contains an anti-abortion provision. He was also angry over Obama's executive actions on immigration reform. But he softened, and Lynch has made history as the nation's first Black female attorney general.

Lynch's roughly five months confirmation delay is second in more than three decades among 82 prior attorney generals confirmed, only to Regan nominee Edwin Meese in 1985.

Meese's confirmation took 13 months as he battled questions from Senate Democrats, led by then Sen. Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio, that as a White House official he failed to disclose that he handed out federal jobs to people he had financial relationships with, among other allegations of ethical violations that were ultimately disregarded.

(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio-After winning game one on Sunday, the Cleveland Cavaliers were able to hold serve at home and come out on top in game two of their playoff series with Boston by beating the Celtics Tuesday night, April 21, at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, but just barely. It took almost the entire 48 minutes for the home town Cavaliers to put a hustling, scrappy, youthful Celtic team away, 99-91.  (Editor's note: The Cavs also won game three against the Celtics on Thursday, April 23, winning 103-95. This article addresses game two of the NBA Eastern Conference playoffs because game two is where the analogy of winning, or barely winning, can be seen more objectively. An eight point spread in wins two and three for the Cavs is not an indication of howwell they will do in the playoffs in the long run. The playoffs competition will get tougher, if the Cavs beat the Celtics by winning the best of a possible seven games to qualify for additional playoffs series).

Game two was much closer down the stretch than the final score indicated. Just as they did in game one of this best of seven series with the Cavs, the Celtics attacked aggressively from the outset, both offensively and defensively. After game one Celtic forward Jae Crowder said that “ they have holes in their defense and we need to find them” Early on in game two they did just that. With 5:38 left in the first quarter Boston led 16 to eight .

The Celtics were able to penetrate into the heart of the Cleveland defense early and often by passing or driving into the lane for easy shots. Boston's center, former Cavalier Tyler Zeller had eight points in the first quarter that were all close to the basket. Careless passes and sloppy dribbling by LeBron James and Kyrie Irving led to steals and turnovers, which Boston took advantage of by turning those turnovers into early offense.

The first quarter ended with Boston leading 26 to 25. The Celtics took a nine point lead early in the second quarter as the Cavs went cold shooting from the field, especially from three point range. Some of the missed pointers led to easy baskets by Boston scoring often in transition. The Cavaliers responded after going down by nine and put 26 points on the score board in the second quarter to take the slimmest lead at 51 to 50 at the half. The Cavs were able to go inside to Timofey Mozgov in the first half when their three point shooting went cold. Mozgov proved to be a load for Zeller to handle, scoring 10 points in the first half and finishing with 16 points, seven rebounds, and five blocked shots.

Mozgov's scoring inside helped, but could not make up for all of the three pointers that were missed. Three point scoring had been a major part of the Cavaliers success during the second half of the regular season when they went 34 and nine. Tuesday night, the three point shots were clanging off the rim frequently as the Cavs made only seven out of 29. Kevin Love and JR Smith, who have been counted on to give the Cavs three point shooting and floor spacing, were a combined two out of 13 from three point range.

In addition, the Cavaliers bench contributed only seven points compared to the 51 scored by Boston's bench. Matthew Dellavedova chipped in five of those points and Iman Shumpert scored the other two. This put a lot of pressure on James and Irving to score, and score they did. James tallied 30 points and Irving had 26 for the game.

The Celtics kept coming back in the second half and cut the Cleveland lead to two, 82-80 in the fourth quarter, then James and Irving took over. No one else scored for Cleveland in the fourth quarter except Irving and James. Irving and James scored nine and 15 points respectively in the fourth. In fact Love and Smith were the only other Cavaliers who took a shot in the fourth quarter and they both took only one shot. In contrast nine of the 10 Celtics that played scored before the end of the first half.

Although they were under sized, the Celtics stayed in the game by collecting 13 second chance shots with 13 offensive rebounds. Now this series moves to Boston for games three and four on Thursday, April 23, and Sunday, April 26, at 1 pm Eastern Standard Time on ABC local television.