By Michelle Tullo WASHINGTON (IPS)  — Innocent people will be executed in the United States if the country’s capital punishment system is not reformed, warns a new report.These reforms include improving the use of forensic science, taping confessions, and providing better trained counsel to defendants. These suggestions were among 39 recommendations released Wednesday in a […]

By Jazelle Hunt, Washington Correspondent WASHINGTON (NNPA) — The relationship between melanin and vitamin D — the nutrient that sunlight provides — may explain why African American, Caribbean, and men of African ancestry have the highest rates of prostate cancer than anyone in the world, according to a new study.The study by a team of […]

By Zenobia Jeffries, Special to the NNPA from The Michigan Citizen Leon Jenkins, the Los Angeles branch NAACP president who awarded LA Clippers basketball team owner Donald Sterling with a Lifetime Achievement award among other commendations, lived, worked and won notoriety in Detroit.Jenkins was a 36th District Court judge between 1984 and 1987. During that […]

By Kim-Jenna Jurriaans    NEW YORK  (IPS) — It’s four o’clock on a sunny afternoon in Harlem and 19-year-old Solideen Rann is spread out on a plush hand-me-down couch inside an old glass-and-aluminum storefront on Malcolm X Boulevard.His body language is making no effort to conceal he’s only reluctantly participating in a conversation with Dedric […]

By Jazelle Hunt, Washington Correspondent  WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Teachers have always graded students. The Obama administration feels the time has come for someone to grade teachers. Teacher training programs—from colleges and universities, to for-profit certification courses and non-profit preparatory programs—have few, if any, external evaluation systems to check for and improve quality. In fact, only five […]

By Marc Morial “Race matters…because of the long history of racial minorities being denied access to the political process…because of persistent racial inequality in society — inequality that cannot be ignored and that has produced stark socioeconomic disparities.”–  Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court of the United States. Two weeks ago, in a disturbingly lopsided 6-2 vote, […]

By Freddie Allen, NNPA Washington Correspondent  WASHINGTON (NNPA) – After suffering  a major setback last year in the Supreme Court, voting rights advocates are buoyed by a decision last week by a federal judge in Wisconsin striking down the state’s voter ID law as racially discriminatory. John Ulin, a partner at Arnold & Porter LLP and […]

By George E. Curry, NNPA Columnist  WASHINGTON (NNPA) — A revised plan for major tobacco companies to purchase court-ordered ads to admit that they deliberately misled the public about the dangers of smoking would add nine White-owned newspapers to the list of publications carrying tobacco ‘apology’ ads but shut out more than 90 percent of […]

By Jim Lobe WASHINGTON — Amidst a roiling and mostly partisan debate over Washington’s global role, a survey released here Thursday suggests that President Barack Obama’s preference for relative restraint and multilateral — over unilateral — action very much reflects the mood of the voting public.The survey, which was conducted by prominent pollsters for both […]

By Marc Morial J  “The new Senate proposal to reform the housing finance system…lacks provisions to ensure that the housing finance system is fair and nondiscriminatory.”  Joint statement of the National Urban League and other major civil rights and housing advocacy groupsA new housing reform proposal slated for a Senate Banking Committee vote next week could […]