By Kathy Wray Coleman, Associate Publisher, Editor, Cleveland Urban News.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Cleveland Urban News. Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog. Com salute 16-year-old Olympic gold medalist Gabrielle Douglas (pictured), who is Black, and who won the gold metal in the women's individual gymnastics all around category on Thursday during the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London.

Douglas topped silver medalist Viktoria Komova of Russia to take the metal, and she became the first African-American and the third consecutive American to win a gold metal in the individual all around competition.

She also led the U.S.A. women's team to a gold metal in the team all around competition.

In connection with her fame, a discussion in the Black community on her style, the-good-hair-bad-hair-thing took center stage too, and whether Douglas should have worn her hair down during the celebrated competition, rather than pulled-up and not permed to the hilt.

The teen Olympic sensation, who began gymnastics training at six years old, told the Huffington Post last week that her hair is just fine.

Douglas won the silver metal for the balance beam in the 2010 U.S. Junior National Championships and her part of the team gold metal at the 2010 Pan American Championships in Guadalajara, Mexico.

She won the gold metal also at the 2011 World Artistic Gymnastic Championship in Tokyo, Japan.

Watch the videos of Douglas winning first place for pretrials to qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in gymnastics and a synopsis of her 2012  Olympic Games  performance at  www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by telephone at 216-659-0473 and by email@ editor@clevelandurbannews.com

From the Metro Desk of Cleveland Urban News.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com

CINCINNATI, Ohio – On Friday, nine Cleveland-area physicians who provide health care to poor patients through the Medicaid program, and were blocked by state law from expressing their support for then-Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray (pictured) through campaign contributions to his 2010 race to retain his seat, won their appeal to the federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Oh., which determined that the law violated the free speech clause of the First Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional.

At issue were efforts by the physicians to block Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted from enforcing an Ohio statute, also known as a state law, that makes it a crime for Ohio attorney-general and county-prosecutor candidates to accept campaign contributions from physicians who serve Medicaid patients, a disproportionate number of whom are minority and poor.

Cordray lost the Ohio attorney general seat that he was appointed to in 2008 two years later to Republican Michael Dewine, a former Lt. Gov and prior U.S. Senator.

In Jan. Congress appointed him director of the United States Financial Protection Bureau, an agency initiated in 2011 by President Obama, who nominated him six months earlier.

Subodh Chandra, lead counsel for the physicians, who was a law director under former Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell and this year lost the Democratic primary for Cuyahoga County prosecutor to former common pleas judge Tim McGinty, was elated on the victory for his clients, and the underprivileged affected by the controversial state law.

“The physicians are gratified that the appellate court affirmed their constitutional rights of free speech and association," said Chandra. "While they will never get back the rights they lost in the 2010 election, at least from now on, doctors and others will have their free-speech rights restored.”

The Sixth Circuit’s decision reverses the decision of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio in Lavin, et al., vs. Husted.

The criminal statute at issue, Ohio Revised Code Section 3599.45, was adopted in 1978 and provides in relevant part that “no candidate for the office of attorney general or county prosecutor or such a candidate’s campaign committee shall knowingly accept any contribution from any Medicaid provider or from any person having an ownership interest in the provider.”

In its unanimous decision, the Sixth Circuit held that "the statute here restricts the First Amendment rights of nearly 100,000 Medicaid providers who do not commit fraud, based on an attenuated concern about a relative handful of providers who do."

The judicial appeals panel went on to say that "there is no avoiding the conclusion that the contribution ban set forth in § 3599.45 is not closely drawn.”

The court also observed that the state’s own statistics for 2009 show that there were nearly 100,000 Ohio Medicaid providers, and that that same year, “only 0.003% were implicated in Medicaid fraud.”

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Associate Publisher, Editor, Cleveland Urban News.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com

AKRON, Ohio-An attorney for former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora (pictured) and at least one community activist out of the Cleveland, Oh. area say that the 28-year federal prison sentence handed to the former chairperson of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party on Tuesday for convictions by an Akron federal jury in March of racketeering and 32 other corruption-related charges is absurd at best.

"Notwithstanding the crimes that Jimmy Dimora was convicted of, I think the punishment was too severe," said Larry Bresler, a Cleveland community activist and inactive attorney who teaches classes on community organizing at Case Western Reserve University and leads the Northeast Ohio Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign and Organize Ohio. "People that commit murder rarely are sentenced to 28 years."

Dimora, 57, faced more than 30 years in prison for his non-violent white collar crimes.

He appeared for sentencing handcuffed and in an orange jail jumpsuit.

He did not take the stand at his eight week trial before U.S. District Court Judge Sara Lioi (pictured), who came under fire last year from community activists for handing former Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Steven Terry, who is Black, a maximum six year sentence and giving Bridget McCafferty, a White former common pleas judge who faced 50 years in prison, only 14 months.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, Associate Publisher, Editor, Cleveland Urban News.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com

LONDON, England-Cleveland Glenville High School Graduate Terrell Gausha (pictured) lost a one-point decision in the second round at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games on Thursday to Indian matinee idol Vijender, whom sports pundits predicted the winner .

A middleweight division fighter, Gausha, 24, was among the 16 amateur boxers out of the original 32 to advance to the quarter finals.

A former Golden Gloves champion who began boxing at the age of 10, Gausha, who is Black, won the first round of the boxing competition by knocking out Armenia's Andranik Hakobvan in the third round.

He is a product of the Cleveland Municipal School District, the city of Cleveland's predominantly Black school system.