Politics

President Obama is known for having game. Apparently, being chief executive means nothing when you play a friendly basketball game with your friends. The president took an elbow to the lip from another player during a Friday-morning pickup game that required 12 stitches, according to news reports. The president got his stitches under local anesthesia…

A California man was indicted on Wednesday for writing a letter in which he threatened to kill President Barack Obama. Apparently Roger Hudnall has a thing for writing threatening letters to the government. A Humboldt County man who served time in prison for mailing a phony anthrax letter to the FBI was indicted Wednesday by…

As if a new reality show, Fox News commentaries and daughter Bristol’s Dancing With the Stars spin weren’t enough, Sarah Palin is back with another book: America by Heart: Reflections on Faith, Family and Flag, which was released on Tuesday. In it, the half-term governor and full-time Republican enigma shares her increasingly extremist worldview on…

The Associated Press is reporting that President Barack Obama has pledged that the United States would defend South Korea after what the White House branded a “provocative, outrageous attack by North Korea” on its neighbor. Its options limited, the U.S. sought a diplomatic rather than a military response to one of the most ominous clashes…

By Michelle Singletary Nobody is safe. Velma Hart, who burst onto the media scene after telling President Obama she was scared about her financial future, has been laid off. Hart was let go as the chief financial officer for Am Vets, a nonprofit Maryland-based veteran services organization. Hart has become another casualty of the tough…

This fall’s midterm elections ushered in a new era for Miami politics: U.S. Rep. Kendrick B. Meek, once a big player in South Florida, came in dead last in a three-way Senate race against Gov. Charlie Crist and Republican Marco Rubio. And two black Republicans made big gains this November, winning both the lieutenant governor…

First people were saying that the Republicans were going to take the White House in 2012. Candidates like former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio, Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney have been touted as candidates who could take down President Barack Obama. In the words of…

When I arrived at the Home for Retired Racial Stereotypes, a sinister-looking armored Humvee was idling at the curb with Tonto at the wheel. Buckwheat and the Kingfish, both dressed in black ninja suits and Rambo-style bandannas, were carrying heavy camouflage-colored boxes out to the car while Charlie Chan and the Frito Bandito, in similar…

For a senator whose noteworthy place in American history is being the guy who replaced a future president by way of a governor who was headed to public scorn (and possibly prison), Roland Burris left the U.S. Senate with an image to remember — and a message to heed. As Burris (D-Ill.) addressed the Senate…

On Nov. 2, when Republican candidates routed their opponents to take control of the House and narrow the gap in the Senate, just 10 percent of the electorate consisted of African Americans. In 2008 blacks made up 12 percent of all voters, a high that helped put the first African-American president over the top and…