Category: National News

The U.S. Department of Education plans to enact new rules targeting the financial aid eligibility of programs at for-profit career institutions; regulations, which they said, are part of an “effort to protect students from aggressive or misleading recruiting practices.” However, some Black business and political leaders, including Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder of the Rainbow PUSH […]

Three House Republicans say they want payments of more than $1 billion to black farmers stopped and are calling for the Justice Department to examine charges of fraud and abuse in the settlement of a racial discrimination suit. According to Reps. Michele Bachman (Minn.), Bob Goodlatte (Va.) and Steve King (Iowa), the $1.25 billion payout […]

Bishop Eddie Long told his congregation Sept. 26 that he will “fight very vigorously” to defend himself against allegations of sexual misconduct. In two remarks delivered during two services before his congregation at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga., Long, who is being sued for inappropriate sexual conduct by several young men, declined […]

On Sept. 23, six key provisions of the Affordable Care Act went into effect, which the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said will make health disparities in minority communities start to disappear: *Young people will be allowed to stay on their parent’s plan until they turn 26 years old. This new provision does […]

U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) is in hot water in both his political and personal life after his reported involvement in two different scandals. Reports have surfaced that Jackson was involved in the scandal to buy President Obama’s former Senate seat, while also having an affair with a Washington, D.C. restaurant hostess. According to […]

Death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal will receive a new hearing on Nov. 9 to review his death sentence for the 1982 murder of a Philadelphia police officer. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Sept. 21 agreed to hear arguments in the case, under a directive from the U.S. Supreme Court to review […]

The national poverty rate has risen and a disproportionately larger percentage of Hispanics and Blacks suffer from poverty than Whites, according to a recent U.S. Census Bureau report. The report, released Sept. 16, found that, annually, the poverty rate is up to 14.3 percent in 2009 from 13.2 percent in 2008. However, the rate increased […]

Some 75,000 Black farmers have grown weary of the battle they’ve waged over the past two decades for the federal government to provide them with a $1.15 billion settlement after they were routinely denied loans. But they refuse to give up. During a rally on Capitol Hill during the week of Sept. 20 led by […]

Bishop Eddie Long, leader of the 25,000-plus member New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga., has been accused of sexual coercion and abuse by members of his church-affiliated youth academy. Two suits, filed Sept. 21 in the DeKalb County Court, list 11 counts they want a jury of 12 to rule on including: breach […]

The government is considering making the task of identifying fuel-efficient cars as easy as ABC—literally. A fuel economy grading system that would inform car buyers about gas consumption has been at the center of opposition between automakers and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Under the new EPA-proposed notion, letter grades of A, B, C and […]

– The Obama administration announced on Tuesday the creation of the Presidential Active Lifestyle Award (PALA), which is intended as a challenge to 1 million Americans of all ages to get more involved in physical activities as a way to maintain good health. “Despite our past efforts, the human and financial costs of unhealthy lifestyles […]

A prominent photographer who worked in the trenches during the Civil Rights era has been revealed to have also been a paid informant for the FBI at the time. According to a report by Democracy Now, Ernest Withers worked closely with the FBI to monitor civil rights activists during the 1960s. Withers is also said […]