WASHINGTON (AP) — A weak labor market provided energy Sunday for criticism of President Barack Obama, with the campaign of presumptive Republican challenger Mitt Romney contending that the president's lack of executive leadership experience undermines his policies. The unemployment rate rose to 8.2 percent in May as the Labor Department reported just 69,000 new jobs, […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — In 2008, Barack Obama took aim at the "pew gap," the overwhelming Republican edge among voters who regularly attend church. The Democratic presidential nominee came nowhere near closing it, but he didn't have to. He just needed an extra percentage point or two among traditional GOP constituents, and he got it. The […]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Southern Baptist Convention's ethics chief was reprimanded Friday and his radio show canceled after he made inflammatory comments about the Trayvon Martin case. Among other things, Richard Land accused President Barack Obama and other black leaders of shamefully exploiting Martin's death for political gain. He also said racial profiling was […]

Grammy award winning singer Koko Taylor, A.K.A. the "Queen of the Blues,” was known primarily for her rough and powerful vocals and traditional blues style. The Shelby County Tennessee native left her Memphis Roots in 1952 to move to Chicago with her husband Robert “Pops” Taylor and worked as a house cleaner. Taylor sat in […]

20th Century Fox’s “Red Tails” ($49.9 million at box office), the war drama about a crew of African American pilots during World War II, debuted at No. 1 on the Home Entertainment chart, according to Rentrak. The film, which stars Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard, generated 48% of its first-week unit sales from Blu-ray […]

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — John Edwards' mistress Rielle Hunter is publishing a memoir about her relationship with the former presidential candidate and their daughter. Jennifer Canzoneri, marketing manager at Dallas-based BenBella Books, says "What Really Happened" is set to be released on June 26. Edwards and Hunter had an affair while the Democrat was running […]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — GLAAD likes Facebook. The social networking site won the Special Recognition Award at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation's 23rd annual Media Awards. Other honorees at Saturday's ceremony in San Francisco included "Grey's Anatomy" for drama series, "Days of Our Lives" for daily drama series, Max J. Rosenthal of The […]

Click here to hear Sybil Wilkes' interview with Ledisi. — Can’t isn’t a word in Ledisi’s vocabulary. Actually, it is, but only as a motivating tool. When some folks suggested to her that she couldn’t write a book, she decided she would. A line in that book, “Better Than Alright: Finding Peace, Love & Power,” […]

Civil rights and voting rights advocates are applauding a federal court judge’s decision that blocked a Florida election law that opponents say severely hampers groups from conducting voter registration drives. “This decision is the first step towards turning back the egregious assault on voting rights that Florida passed into law last year,” NAACP President and […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mitt Romney scuttled the Massachusetts government's long-standing affirmative action policies with a few strokes of his pen on a sleepy holiday six months after he became governor. No news conference or news release trumpeted Romney's executive order on Bunker Hill Day, June 17, 2003, in the deserted Statehouse. But when civil rights […]

Just as more and more evidence emerges that George Zimmerman and supporters, perhaps even including his wife, may have been colluding to mislead the court in securing a lower bond for him, public outrage continues to swell over rumblings his attorneys could now be plotting a course of action where they will seek to have […]