BUFFALO, N.Y. — President Barack Obama could look up the numbers to learn the story of western New York's economy: the poverty rate, unemployment, median household income. Or he could have seen Jeff and Scott Baker's billboard as his motorcade navigated through Buffalo on Thursday: "Dear Mr. President," the brothers' sign along Interstate 190 says, "I need a freakin job. Period."

As the nation was mourning the deaths of civil rights icons Benjamin L. Hooks and Dorothy Irene Height, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s organization, was trying to resolve a nasty split in its leadership ranks that involves allegations of ethical and criminal misconduct

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans are on the move again, after years of staying put. But they're not going very far, taking few chances because of weak housing and job markets.

WASHINGTON (NNPA) - The Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition and one of America's foremost religious, political and civil rights leaders, received the 2010 Louis E. Martin Great American Award from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies at the organization's 40th Anniversary Gala Dinner on Tue., April 27, at the Ritz Carlton in Northwest.

CHICAGO (NNPA) - The idea of coordinated military action to counteract gang related violent crime is not a new idea, however, it appears to be gaining traction among some lawmakers as the number of those killed in many cities across America continues to rise.

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Twenty eight Black women sent the President a letter early this week, expressing concern that he might appoint Solicitor General Elena Kagan as the successor for retiring Justice John Paul Stevens on the U. S. Supreme Court and reasserted a request that he consider a Black woman instead.

(NNPA) - As oil from a massive spill caused by an oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico continued to pour into Louisiana's ecologically rich wetlands, elected officials and experts wondered about the long-term ecological and economic effects the accident will have on the state and its inhabitants.

(NNPA) - A fourth former New Orleans police officer has pleaded guilty to helping cover up deadly police shootings of unarmed residents after Hurricane Katrina. Robert Barrios faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Nashville police chief Ronal Serpas will return to his native New Orleans to take over the city's scandal-plagued police department, becoming the department's first white chief since the early 1980s.

In Pakistan on Thursday, security officials said U.S. law enforcement officers have joined them in questioning four alleged members of the militant group, Jaish-e-Mohammad, which has been linked to the 2002 killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, over possible links to New York car bomb suspect, Faisal Shahzad.