WASHINGTON (AP) -- A racial gaffe by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put Democrats on the defensive Monday, the latest woe for President Barack Obama's party at the start of a potentially difficult election year.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- Rod Blagojevich apologized Monday for saying he's "Blacker than Barack Obama," but the disgraced former Illinois governor said he probably won't try to make amends directly to the president.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Defense Department review of the shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, has found the doctors overseeing Maj. Nidal Hasan's medical training repeatedly voiced concerns over his strident views on Islam and his inappropriate behavior, yet continued to give him positive performance evaluations that kept him moving through the ranks.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ten months into President Barack Obama's first economic stimulus plan, a surge in spending on U.S. roads and bridges has had no effect on local unemployment and only barely helped the beleaguered construction industry, an Associated Press analysis has found.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Eric Holder, the nation's first Black attorney general, defended Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Monday over racial remarks the senator made about Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign...

FRESNO, Calif (AP) -- A 6.5 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Northern California Saturday afternoon, shaking buildings south of the Oregon border and knocking out power in several coastal communities.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Security officials flagged the name of the Nigerian airline bombing suspect for extra screening after he was already in the air, U.S. officials said Thursday, as President Barack Obama got ready to outline government missteps in the near-catastrophe and order fixes...

In December, the American Law Institute voted to drop wording from their law manual instructing states on how to best implement the death penalty. The Institute is now taking a neutral stand on capital punishment in their Model Penal Code, which will no longer provide basic guidelines on who is eligible for execution...

(NNPA) - Much of the research published by the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) has revealed discrepancies in lending patterns in communities of color, most notably, Latinos and African-Americans. For example, in mortgage lending, CRL was one of the first research organizations to find that many people of color were steered to higher cost, subprime loans, even when they qualified for a lower-cost loan. As a result, today many African-Americans suffer disproportionately from foreclosures.

YORK, Pa. (AP) -- A woman who watched National Guard troops patrol this central Pennsylvania city during racial unrest four decades ago was sworn in Monday as its first Black mayor.