It’s about time. CNN is reporting that a compromise agreement on the debt-ceiling crisis is imminent. President Barack Obama has issued strong praise for a deficit-reduction plan assembled by a group of bipartisan senators, or the so-called Gang of Six, calling it “broadly consistent” with his own approach to curbing the looming debt crisis, the…

Is Michele Bachmann serious?  The Associated Press is reporting that Bachmann said that a multibillion-dollar settlement awarded to black farmers is wasteful government spending. The charge surfaced after Bachmann and Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa inspected flooded areas along the Missouri River, the AP writes. After the tour, the pair answered a question about…

The Huffington Post is reporting that the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP recently held a protest outside of the US Airways ticket counter at the city’s international airport in support of Deshon Marman. You may recall that the 20-year-old, who plays football at the University of New Mexico, was ejected from a flight last…

Sad news. The 15-year-old pedestrian who was struck during a vehicle crash involving Los Angeles Laker Lamar Odom’s chauffeur has died of his injuries, according to TMZ. The limousine struck a motorcycle and pushed it into the teen on a Queens, N.Y., street last Thursday. Odom, who was in the back seat, was not injured. He…

It’s a shame that the man who, according to the Washington Post, will emerge as a behind-the-scenes player in former Maryland Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.’s court case — in which he is being charged with using recorded phone messages to suppress black voter turnout — is African American. The man, Julius Henson, is a…

Thank goodness for political watchdogs. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is calling for an investigation into the House Ethics Committee after Politico reported about partisan turmoil in the panel. The Ethics Committee is scheduled to meet this week to determine if it wants to continue with an investigation into whether Rep. Maxine Waters…

Uptown magazine takes a hard look at black fraternities as they enter their second century, and explores whether they have fulfilled their legacy as fighters against racial injustice and ostracism. The author, Rodney T. Cohen, an assistant dean and director of the Afro-American Cultural Center at Yale University, essentially maintains that these organizations have fallen…

In a poignant interview with Cornel West on Public Radio International’s Smiley & West, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker recounts her experience aboard the flotilla of ships earlier this summer that tried to break Israel’s maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip. First, in response to a question, Walker tells West she felt her life was…