Category: National News

NAACP President Ben Jealous and former Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod will deliver a keynote address at the annual meeting of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund in Epes, Ala. on Saturday, Aug. 21. Sherrod gained national attention after she was wrongfully terminated when a video of her speaking at an NAACP luncheon […]

President Obama will visit Louisiana on Aug. 29 to mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, according to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. The president will make remarks at Xavier University of Louisiana to commemorate the event. National Urban League CEO Marc Morial said that the president’s visit was a welcome decision, along with […]

After weeks of media hype, rapper Wyclef Jean’s bid for the Haitian presidency ended Aug. 21 after the country’s Provisional Electoral Council did not approve his candidacy. He was among 15 other candidates rejected in the race, council spokesman Richardson Dumel told reporters in Haiti. “Though I disagree with the ruling, I respectfully accept the […]

After spending 13 years in prison, a California man who became an example of the state’s “three strikes” law has been released. According to the Associated Press, a California Superior Court judge released Gregory Taylor, 47, who was sentenced to 25 years to life in 1997 after he was arrested for trying to break into […]

Before the nation’s economic recession hit, Thea Goines, a single mother of two, didn’t have many financial problems. But since its arrival, she has found it increasingly difficult to provide even the simplest things for her children, such as new clothes and shoes. “Though others have been through worse, I have truly felt, and am […]

President Obama signed legislation on Aug. 10 that would save an expected 160,000 jobs nationwide for public school teachers. The Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act passed the House of Representatives by a 247 to 161 vote, with only two Republicans voting with majority Democrats to support the bill. Funds allocated through a federal $10 […]

Democrats are deploying First Lady Michelle Obama to the campaign trail to help them retain control of Congress in this fall’s mid-term elections and boost her husband in the 2012 presidential election. The first lady, who has appeared on the cover of 12 magazines since ascending to the White House nearly two years ago, currently […]

A South Carolina grand jury indicted Alvin Greene, the state’s Democratic Senate nominee–an unemployed political novice– on felony obscenity charges, the Richland County clerk of courts said. Greene was also indicted on one felony count of “disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity,” the county solicitor’s office told the Associated Press. Greene, 32, was also reportedly indicted […]

Chaos erupted in East Point, Ga., a city southwest of Atlanta, after reportedly 30,000 residents clamored August 11 to pick up federal housing aid applications. The crowd consisted of only a few hundred people on August 9, but by August 11, the crowd had swelled to an estimated 30,000. “We have a lot of homeless […]

Months after the devastating earthquake that ravaged Haiti, new economic hope is beginning to emerge for the people of the impoverished country. A U.S.-backed textile training center formally opened for business August 11 and will train about 2,000 people per year to make sheets, T-shirts and high quality clothing items. More than 80 percent of […]

Republican leaders are calling for hearings to repeal parts of the 14th Amendment that, critics say, provide a pathway to immigration reform. The cornerstone of American civil liberties, the amendment was adopted in 1868 after the Civil War and guaranteed citizenship to anyone born in the United States, including newly emancipated slaves. The GOP has […]

Two families’ day of fun quickly turned tragic when six teenagers at the gathering drowned in a Louisiana river on August 2. According to the Associated Press, the outing began as a typical family get-together with a large group of relatives and friends. The children waded in Shreveport, La.’s Red River to beat the heat […]