In the News
As the national debate over gun violence escalates, the Congressional Black Caucus came to Chicago on Friday promising to put together a plan to curb violence in urban areas.
But at the end of the daylong event, many of the solutions they came up with were nothing new to people in neighborhoods hard-hit by crime: They need jobs. They need more educational opportunities. They need after-school programs.
A majority of the Democratic women serving in the House of Representatives are urging President Barack Obama to nominate Janet Yellen as chair of the Federal Reserve, putting additional pressure on the president to reject economist Larry Summers, who is rumored to be the frontrunner.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters Monday hosted a roundtable discussion on Calif.'s implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
The discussion ran from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the Lawndale Community Center, 14700 Burin Avenue.
"We are holding a roundtable of all of the significant stakeholders. This includes doctors, hospitals, AARP, and community clinics," Waters told KNX1070. "We want to know from them exactly what their role is, how they plan on implementing and how they plan on outreaching."
The cuts were brought on by the so-called "sequester": automatic reductions in federal spending that began in March as a result of Congress' inability to agree on long-term budget cuts.
On the eve of Thanksgiving in 1984, a small group of Washington activists walked into the South African Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue. They had grown weary of their frustration with the in¬trac¬table racial injustice in South Africa. They saw a system they did not like. They wanted to do something about it. It was the kind of bubbling disturbance that, if timed right, can launch a movement.
The sounds of djembe drums and traditional African music filled the halls of the U.S. Capitol on Thursday as members of Congress, the diplomatic corps and the public ushered in a birthday celebration for former South African President Nelson Mandela.
"Scarcely a week – a day – goes by without us pointing to Mandela as an example," said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, as he welcomed the crowd. "An example of standing on principle, of loving your neighbor, of extending the reach of freedom."
WASHINGTON -- One of the authors of the 2012 flood insurance reform law has written a letter with 26 congressional colleagues that asks the Federal Emergency Management Agency to take administrative steps to avert huge increases in premiums resulting from the agency's implementation of the law.
The landmark legislation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been dealt a severe blow by the nation's highest court forty-eight years after it was enacted, sparking outrage from The president, Black elected officials on Capitol Hill to Blacks leading the nation's oldest civil rights organizations.
From the president of the United States to civil rights leaders and educators, several Americans paid homage to former Congressman William H. Gray III, the first African-American majority whip in Congress and former president of the United Negro College Fund, who died Monday in London at the age of 71.
"Bill Gray was a trailblazer, proudly representing his beloved Philadelphia in Congress for over a decade as the first African-American to chair the Budget Committee and to serve as the Majority Whip," President Obama said, in a statement.
The North Carolina Legislative Black Caucus Foundation has raised $100,000 in scholarship money for 2013.
The group announced the fundraising effort at its annual Education Scholarship Weekend held recently at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel in Durham.
"As a proud graduate of Fayetteville State University, I have witnessed the benefits of attending a Historically Black College, said state Rep. Garland Pierce of Wagram, who serves as president of the caucus.