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In the News

April 1, 2011
by Melissa Evans

Members of the South Bay's large Japanese community frantically tried to contact friends and relatives as news of the devastation from Friday's 8.9 earthquake unfolded.

Officials from Torrance and Gardena sent messages and called community members in their respective sister cities, Kashiwa and Ichikawa, trying to make sure they survived Japan's massive temblor and ensuing tsunami.


April 1, 2011
by Melissa Evans

The one-year anniversary of the new health reform act will be marked today with celebratory success stories - and, for critics, renewed calls to appeal the landmark legislation.

A flurry of state and national groups have issued statements condemning the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, warning of its cost and impact on free choice.

"Our health care system is too large and too complex to manage at the federal level," according to a statement by Health Care Compact Alliance, which advocates for state's rights.


March 30, 2011

By Alan Zibel and Jeffrey Sparshott

The U.S. House voted Tuesday to end the Obama administration's main effort to assist troubled homeowners, with Republican lawmakers arguing that the program has failed to ease the foreclosure crisis.

The attempt to shut down the administration's flagship foreclosure-prevention effort, the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, is the last of four Republican attempts to shut down Obama administration efforts to prevent foreclosures or stabilize troubled neighborhoods.


March 30, 2011

by Meredith Shiner

The House Tuesday voted to eliminate the last of four Obama administration housing programs, in an effectively symbolic vote to end the controversial Home Affordable Modification Program.


March 30, 2011

by Alan Fram

House Republicans pushed through legislation Tuesday to terminate an underachieving Obama administration program designed to reduce mortgage payments for homeowners in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure.

Most Democrats, while acknowledging that the Home Affordable Modification Program has fallen short of original goals, protested the vote to kill it. The White House, in a statement, said that if the bill ever reaches President Barack Obama's desk, his senior advisers would recommend he veto it. The vote was 252-170.


March 28, 2011

By Nick Chiles, Special to the NNPA

One of the most prominent and effective African American members of Congress, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), has long been a fighter against the spread of HIV/AIDS in the African American community and a strong advocate for the rights and care of individuals with HIV/AIDS. Given the tremendous challenges facing our nation at a time of great possibility for people with HIV/AIDS, we asked Waters, former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, to share her views.


March 28, 2011

by Peter Schroeder

A coalition of 50 House Democrats are calling on the Obama administration to overhaul one of its key housing relief programs, as Republicans are pushing to eliminate it.

In a letter sent Monday to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the lawmakers, led by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), say the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) has been "disappointing" and is in need of major improvements.


March 17, 2011

by Richard Simon

The congressional hearing had been called to take testimony about a Republican plan to shut down a nationwide program championed by Rep. Maxine Waters that uses tax dollars to buy and fix up foreclosed properties.

When it was her turn to speak, the fiery Los Angeles Democrat said: "I don't have any questions. I just have a lot to say."

And she did.


March 16, 2011

By Jeremy Pelofsky

FBI Director Robert Mueller defended on Wednesday the Obama administration's efforts to prosecute Wall Street executives responsible for the U.S. mortgage meltdown amid criticism from some lawmakers that not enough has been done.

The agency has more than 3,000 open investigations into mortgage fraud alone, with 94 task forces and some 340 agents assigned, Mueller told the House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee.

Issues:Housing

March 14, 2011

by Richard Simon

An experiment to charge solo drivers to use speedier carpool lanes on two of Los Angeles' most congested freeways has hit renewed opposition in Congress as two influential lawmakers — a Republican and a Democrat — say the plan is unfair to taxpayers and would create a two-tier transportation system for rich and poor.