Category: National News

Though their hopes of achieving health care reform took a hit with the election of Republican Scott Brown to the Senate in a special Massachusetts election in mid-January, Democrats have vowed to keep fighting until a reform bill is passed. “You go through the gate. If the gate’s closed, you go over the fence,” House […]

President Obama’s State of the Union Address on January 27 featured a rare confrontation between two branches of American government. The president called out the Supreme Court for their recent decision in the case of Citizens United vs. FEC, which overturned two precedents and allowed corporate financing in political campaigns. In a detour from his […]

President Barack Obama, it seems, is the eternal optimist. Despite a year in which Republicans undercut his policies at every turn, the president renewed his call to bipartisanship very early on in his first State of the Union address Wednesday night, calling on lawmakers “to overcome the numbing weight of our politics.” He later said, […]

Legal experts and campaign reform advocates are decrying the U.S. Supreme Court’s Jan. 21 decision that reversed a years-long ban on corporate campaign spending, a move that opens the door for a deluge of negative campaign ads that could transform November’s mid-term elections. “It’s not a happy day; it’s a very, disturbing, disturbing decision,” said […]

After admitting mistakes involving questionable financial practices, Wyclef Jean’s Yele Haiti charity foundation announced Jan. 22 that it has hired a new accounting firm to help manage its finances. The announcement was made just hours before a globally-broadcast charity concert called “Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief.” The foundation’s finances were […]

Even as the U.S. economy recovers, African-Americans and Latinos continue to disproportionately experience hardships in their frantic efforts to find work and maintain homeownership, according to a new report from the Boston-based United for a Fair Economy. Release of the 25-page report, “State of the Dream 2010: Drained – Jobless and Foreclosed in Communities of […]

As many Haitians live in peril amid indescribable destruction and death, their American relatives are vexed by the media’s depiction of their native country as an uninhabitable, poverty-stricken no man’s land. While Haiti’s history of widespread human suffering is irrefutable—something most Haitians recognize—some believe the Caribbean nation has been particularly demonized by international media following […]

The Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal organization which oversees the government’s public service efforts, has put out its annual call to citizens nationwide to honor the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday by volunteering and taking part in community events planned for January 18. In 1994, Congress designated the holiday a “day of […]

A President Obama look-a-like will star in a new German musical which was scheduled to open January 15, according to the Associated Press. The production, titled “Hope: The Obama Musical Story,” is a bilingual musical performed in English and German that highlights Obama’s journey to the White House through various dance and song numbers. The […]

 Several major bank executives finally admitted to missteps during the 2008 financial crisis during a January 13 hearing on Capitol Hill. “People are angry. They have a right to be,” Chairman Phil Angelides of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, or FCIC, told ABC News. “The fact is that Wall Street is enjoying record profits and […]

Several major bank executives finally admitted to missteps during the 2008 financial crisis during a January 13 hearing on Capitol Hill “People are angry. They have a right to be,” Chairman Phil Angelides of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, or FCIC, told ABC News. “The fact is that Wall Street is enjoying record profits and […]

On January 15, Washington Wizards star Gilbert Arenas pleaded guilty  to a felony charge of carrying a firearm without a license in Washington, D.C. Arenas pleaded guilty in D.C. Superior Court as part of a deal which will guarantee him receiving a penalty on the low end of the capital’s sentencing guidelines. Without the plea bargain, the 28-year-old Los […]