Category: National News

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour on Dec. 29 suspended the life sentences of two sisters jailed for an armed robbery that netted just $11—but the release of one sister will require her to donate a kidney to the other. “To date, the sisters have served 16 years of their sentences and are eligible for parole in […]

Facing a mountain of lawyer bills and the possibility of a fresh round of ethics charges, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) is asking supporters to contribute to his new legal trust fund. The Harlem Democrat was censured by the House Dec. 3 for ethics violations including failure to pay taxes on a Dominican Republic home and […]

The New Year had barely started when Haiti was hit with a 7.0-magnitude earthquake, with an epicenter just 16 miles from the nation’s capital of Port-au-Prince. The quake, reportedly the worst in two centuries in the country, impacted up to 3 million people, according to the Red Cross. The Haitian government reported that approximately 230,000 […]

The unusually blistery Dec. 14 evening did not deter the people with invitations to the White House Christmas Party from enduring the time-consuming security checks to get inside. And it did not deter AFRO’s Washington Bureau Chief Zenitha Prince and Executive Editor Talibah Chikwendu, either. Inside, the annual bash quickly warmed up; there were things […]

The days between Dec. 26 and Jan. 1 mark an honored holiday celebrated within the African-American community. This seven-day event, known as Kwanzaa, commemorates the culture and community of Black people. Kwanzaa was created by author and political activist Dr. Maulana Karenga in 1966. Dr. Karenga sought “to reaffirm the communitarian vision and values of […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a potential Republican presidential candidate, said Tuesday he was not trying to downplay the pain that many endured during the South’s segregation era when he defended his home town’s 1970 public school integration process. Barbour spoke out a day after several liberal activists criticized his published comments about […]

NEW YORK (AP) — Two decades after integration of the U.S. military, race riots flared on Navy warships in the Vietnam era. Long after servicewomen were officially placed on an equal footing with men, sexual harassment is still pervasive. Now the military has a new social challenge: Allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in […]

BOSTON (AP) — Gov. Deval Patrick and Roderick Ireland both cited the civil rights struggle Monday as the state’s first Black chief executive swore in the state’s first Black chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court. Ireland, beaming before family, colleagues, members of his church and friends from his youth in Springfield, recalled being pushed […]

Black residents are increasingly departing large U.S. cities, a shift that could affect African-American political power according to data from the first results of the U.S. Census Bureau’s population census. The population of the nation’s capital now exceeds 600,000 residents, 53 percent of whom are African American, and there has been a gain of nearly […]

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators adopted new rules Tuesday to keep the companies that control the Internet’s pipelines from restricting what their customers do online or blocking competing services, including online calling applications and Web video. The vote by the Federal Communications Commission was 3-2 and quickly came under attack from the commission’s two Republicans, who […]

President Obama Dec.17 signed into law the $858 billion tax cut bill passed by the House over objections from both Democrats and Republicans. “We are here with some good news for the American people this holiday season,” Mr. Obama said. The bill passed in the House Dec. 16 as a result of a 277-148 vote […]