Politics

President Barack Obama called economic inequality the “defining challenge of our time,” while urging Congress to raise wages in an appeal Wednesday, the Associated Press reports. The president, who made his speech at a nonprofit community center not far from the White House, said that the current economic landscape makes it harder for a child…

It is a strange and ironic truth that in the world’s richest democracy, many Americans are going to work in the morning, but they and their families are going to bed hungry at night. As Christmas fast approaches, and the warming memories of Thanksgiving dinner give way to yet another work week, it is a…

Fadwa Mutasser is thrilled about New York City’s incoming first lady, Chirlane McCray. “For once,” she told The Root at a postelection party last month, “someone who is the face of New York City” will reside in Gracie Mansion. McCray’s family, she exclaimed, “are what we actually look like!” And, indeed, on Nov. 5, New…

Looks like New York Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio’s son, Dante, is putting up a good fight about where his family will live, nearly a month after his dad won the election. The New York Daily News reports that the de Blasio family has yet to decide whether or not to move from their Brooklyn digs…

Cory Booker, the vivacious ex-Newark, N.J., mayor who drew national headlines for his boots-to-the-ground style of governing, has been relatively quiet in his first month as a senator, Politico reports. Booker, who once saved a woman from a burning building, has shied away from news conferences, TV appearances or saying anything that could garner too…

White House officials announced Sunday that they have met their goal to improve the Healthcare.gov website for most users, inspiring hope among Democrats that attention can now focus on successes of the embattled health care law, USA Today reports. “The bottom line is HealthCare.gov on Dec. 1 is night and day from where it was…

President Barack Obama celebrated Small Business Saturday with his daughters, Malia and Sasha, by visiting a bookstore in Northwest Washington, D.C. The Huffington Post, citing pool reports, said that the president purchased several books at Politics & Prose, including Harold and the Purple Crayon, The Kite Runner and Collision Low Crossers: A Year Inside the…

White House officials plan to announce Sunday that improvements to HealthCare.gov were in place by Saturday’s deadline, the Washington Post reports. The upgrade was completed about 4 a.m. Saturday, the Post says, quoting a government official familiar with the project, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe details that the administration was not…

Hecklers in San Francisco on Monday interrupted the president as he tried to deliver a speech that called for House Republicans to continue the push forward for immigration reform, the Huffington Post reports. During the speech at the Betty Ann Ong Chinese Recreation Center in the Chinatown neighborhood, a young man insisted the commander-in-chief put…