As a senator, Barack Obama led the charge last year to pass a bill allowing black farmers to seek new discrimination claims against the Agriculture Department.
The GOP's struggle over its future and the party's fitful steps to attract minorities are on full display in the differing responses of Republican governors to a major Supreme Court case on voting rights.
Frank Ricci, a firefighter from New Haven, Conn., spent months listening to study tapes as he drove to work and in the evenings, preparing for a promotional test.
Federal prosecutors on Thursday announced a settlement with Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson over allegations that a nonprofit founded by the former NBA star used federal money to pay volunteers for jobs including political activities, running personal errands and washing Johnson's car.
For 73 years before his killing by a white police officer, Bernard Monroe led a life in this little town as quiet as they come — five kids with his wife of five decades, all raised in the same house, supported by the same job.
So far on her trip to Europe, Michelle Obama has hugged the queen of England, double cheek-kissed the glamorous first lady of France and electrified the tabloids with her couture.
