MEXICO CITY (AP) -- After 40 years, the United States' war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread.
Even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn't worked.

WATERTOWN, Mass. — Two Pakistani men suspected of providing money to Times Square car bomb suspect Faisal Shahzad were arrested by the FBI in a string of Thursday morning raids across the Northeast, law enforcement officials said.

On Wednesday, the Office of National Drug Control Policy released the months-long overdue budget and strategy for the agency, requesting a record $15.5 billion for law enforcement, interdiction, treatment and research.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Coastal states could veto offshore drilling plans under long-awaited legislation to curb global warming unveiled Wednesday.

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.