Lawmakers hope to avert a public backlash over multimillion-dollar bonuses at a time when the nation suffers with 10% unemployment and the federal government ails from record budget deficits. By Jim Puzzanghera Reporting from Washington As Wall Street prepares to pay rich bonuses once again, Obama administration officials are considering a new tax on the [...]

Harold Ford gets thumbs down on New York race, white candidate favored in New Orleans, race riot leads to discussion of racism in Italy, Togo pulls out of Africa Cup. OBAMA DOESN’T BACK FORD President Obama doesn’t want Harold Ford Jr. to run for the U.S. Senate. The White House has indicated it does not [...]

Why the World’s Up In Arms Over Gilbert Arenas By: Deron Snyder Getty Images No doubt about it, Gilbert Arenas was wrong for bringing a gun to the locker room. But the ensuing brouhaha has little to do with him and everything to do with race—and our violence-addicted culture. An unloaded gun is about as [...]

The Hollywood Black Film Festival (HBFF) has cancelled its 2010 edition which would have taken place in June, due to the downturn in the economy. The “festival team” cited the recession, and consequent budgetary restrictions tying the hands of its principal sponsors, as the reasons why this year’s event will not take place. “Many of [...]

By WILL FRIEDWALD June 1962. The Crescendo Club on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip. Ella Fitzgerald and her quartet have settled in for a two-week run in her adopted hometown. In the middle of a set, she starts singing “Too Darn Hot,” which had been a highlight of her 1956 album, “The Cole Porter Songbook.” But a [...]

By SARA MURRAY Wages of U.S. employees are generally stagnant and likely to remain so as the pool of unemployed workers helps employers keep wages from rising even as productivity, or output per hour of work, soars. Average hourly earnings for private-sector production and nonsupervisory workers, who account for about four-fifths of people on private [...]

There are a lot of great reasons to become an entrepreneur, but don’t do it just for the money, writes author and entrepreneur Eric Ries on GigaOM (gigaom.com): “One of the unfortunate side effects of all the publicity and hype surrounding startups is the idea that entrepreneurship is a guaranteed path to fame and riches. [...]

I’ve always believed that you can learn a lot more from failure than from success, and my most recent failure is no exception. I’m referring, of course, to my abortive attempt to sell the records-storage and document-destruction business that I’ve spent almost half my life building. Had I succeeded, it would have been the second [...]

Despite Republican calls for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to step down from his leadership post over racially insensitive comments he made about President Obama, analysts believe the controversy won’t hurt Reid any more than other issues already have. The Obama controversy is centered on remarks published in the book “Game Change,” by Mark Halperin [...]

It’s been a year since John and Maggie Anderson embarked on a controversial adventure in empowerment to spend their money exclusively with African-American businesses in 2009. They’ve learned a few things, not the least of which was that they were a little naive. “It was more difficult, to be honest,” Maggie Anderson said as the [...]