Recent U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) statistics show that Blacks are still the group hardest hit by the economic recession—showing a 16.2 percent unemployment rate in June.  According to Politic365.com, it is unclear how Blacks will vote in 2012 and if Black joblessness will affect President Obama's 2012 re-election campaign.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The NAACP plans to spend the next year fighting against a slew of voting laws that it says disenfranchise huge swaths of minority voters, the civil rights organization's president said at the group's convention on Monday.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Voters will get the chance to decide whether Ohio will opt out of the national health care overhaul after the state's top election official said Tuesday that opponents of the federal Affordable Care Act have enough signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the Nov. 8 ballot.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- NFL owners and players agreed early Monday to the terms of a deal to end the lockout, and players were expected to begin their voting process later in the day, two people familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The hotel housekeeper accusing Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her is telling her story publicly, she says, because she wants the former International Monetary Fund leader behind bars. But it's hard to say whether her striking move will help or hobble her goal.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Oregon Democratic Rep. David Wu faced increased pressure Monday after House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called for an ethics investigation over an 18-year-old woman's claim of an "unwanted sexual encounter" with him.

Huge increases in deportations of people after they were arrested for breaking traffic or immigration laws or driving drunk helped the Obama administration set a record last year for the number of criminal immigrants forced to leave the country, documents show.

The chances for late-summer discounts at the gas pump are looking pretty slim.

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) -- When a Monroe prison official was killed in the facility's chapel earlier this year, a co-worker assigned to monitor the area was actually working in a separate part of the complex, according to an internal investigation released Friday.

SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- A Northern California man who trolled women's Facebook pages searching for clues that allowed him to take over their email accounts has been sentenced to more than four years in prison.