I called it. At literally the 11th hour, Democrats and Republicans reached a tentative deal on this year’s budget, averting a government shutdown. The agreement came despite a day largely marked by Republicans’ refusal to drop their demands to ban funding for Planned Parenthood (which represents less than 1 percent of federal spending, none of…

I recently wrote a piece on what the Affordable Care Act does about racial and ethnic health disparities, a long-standing problem that had never been addressed by federal legislation before the law’s passage. The law takes important steps to improve health care access and quality for low-income communities of color, but its efforts to confront…

We’re now hours, not days, away from finding out if Democrat and Republican lawmakers can cut a deal on the 2011 budget and, thus, whether the government will keep running. A worst-case-scenario government shutdown would have broad consequences — 800,000 federal workers could be furloughed, bringing a screeching halt to home and small business loans,…

President Obama officially launched his re-election campaign on Monday, filing papers with the Federal Election Commission and releasing “It Begins With Us,” a video pitching his 2012 bid as a grassroots effort powered by the people. It worked once before, so why not try it again? The president himself is absent during the two-minute spot,…

Historically known as the analytical arm of the civil rights movement, the National Urban League has long advocated for racial equality through the spectrum of research and data. The organization continued that tradition on Thursday with the release of its annual The State of Black America report, this year under the theme “Jobs Rebuild America:…

The East Room of the White House was an explosion of pink on Wednesday night, as First Lady Michelle Obama hosted a dinner program for 120 teenage girls – fuchsia tablecloths, centerpiece bouquets of pink and red roses, floral-print plates (Johnson presidential china), and even color-coordinated glasses of cranberry juice. It was the latest event to focus…

Recy Taylor hadn’t asked for much. More than six decades after she was raped by six white men in her hometown of Abbeville, Alabama – a horrific crime that the sheriff’s department covered up, never to speak of again – she wasn’t interested in reopening the case or pressing charges. Taylor, now 91 years old,…

In his defense, President Obama and members of his administration have given public statements on Libya every day since the U.N. resolution authorizing a no-fly zone was first imposed. But until Monday night, the president had yet to deliver a prime-time address on the subject, a lapse that only became more glaring as people from…