By Ana B. Ibarra Special to California Black Media As states and communities rush to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products linked to vaping, Carol McGruder races from town to town, urging officials to include what she calls “the mother lode of all flavors”: menthol. McGruder, co-chair of the African American Tobacco Control Leadership ...

The cast is set for August Wilson’s “Jitney,” which will be presented by Center Theatre Group at the Mark Taper Forum November 22 through December 29, with the opening set for November 24. Originally presented by Manhattan Theatre Club, “Jitney” is directed by Tony Award winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson. The cast includes, in alphabetical order, Francois ...

By Charlene Crowell The nationally televised October 25 funeral services for the late Congressman Elijah E. Cummings, paused partisan debates and revealed how a son of Baltimore worked tirelessly for his constituents and for this nation. In the days since his home-going, I have marveled at how his life’s work somehow brought together officials who ...

COMMENTARY By Ray Curry Secretary-Treasurer, UAW Laughter is the Best Medicine, says the Reader’s Digest version of America. But, not when it’s the only medicine, responds the America that far too many have known and continue to know. Not when the United States alone is one of the world’s top 33 most developed countries that ...

By Lauren Poteat NNPA Newswire Washington Correspondent On Sunday night, Dave Chappelle, the legendary, no holds barred comedian, was awarded the prestigious Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Gifted with a spirit of perseverance, determination and extreme creative intelligence, the award recognizes Chappelle as one of the world’s greatest humorists. Bestowed only on a select ...

By Stacy M.Brown NNPA Newswire Senior Correspondent Former U.S. Congressman John Conyers, whose 15-year fight to pass legislation that would make Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a federal holiday, has died. He was 90. The longtime Michigan Democrat represented what is now the state’s 13th Congressional District (which includes parts of western Detroit) for ...

By Charlene Crowell For more than 40 years, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) has served as a mechanism for the federal government to hold banks and other depository institutions accountable for meeting the credit needs of low and moderate income (LMI) neighborhoods. Enacted in 1977, the CRA has the power to influence applications for bank mergers, charters, ...

By Stacy M. Brown NNPA Newswire Correspondent Atatiana Jefferson, a 2014 Xavier University biology graduate who worked in the pharmaceutical industry and was contemplating becoming a doctor, lived a life of purpose that mattered to all of those who gathered for a vigil on Sunday, Oct. 13, outside of her single-story, purple-painted home in Fort ...

by Dianne Anderson By itself, the fight for survival and surviving medical treatment is hard enough for one in eight women that will experience breast cancer in their lifetimes, but recovery and the choices after surgery aren’t much easier. Long-time health advocate Ernesta Wright wants them to know they don’t have to go through it ...

Commentary By Julianne Malveaux October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the proliferation of pink ribbons is about to start. Predatory capitalists will make breast cancer their cause, producing pink t-shirts, pocketbooks, everything. It’s a mixed blessing, this awareness, because too many will make this both a marketing and a profit-making opportunity, while others will ...