WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration says it is settling a long-running and contentious lawsuit over royalties owed to American Indians.
Under an agreement announced Tuesday, the Interior Department will distribute $1.4 billion to more than 300,000 tribe members to compensate them for historical accounting claims, and to resolve future claims.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An internal investigation of the community-organizing group ACORN found no pattern of intentional, illegal conduct by ACORN staffers on undercover videos shot by conservative critics of the group...

(NNPA) - The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), has reported that a record number of loans --1 in 7 -- is delinquent, up from 1 in 10 a year ago. The numbers also show that 1 in 22 families in the U.S. is in the process of losing their home, up from 1 in 34 a year ago.
Based on those figures, the country's now on track for 2.9 million foreclosure starts in this year alone.

NEW YORK ( NNPA) - For a little more than a half hour at the Military Academy at West Point Dec. 1, President Barack Obama put his stamp on the war in Afghanistan.

Shortly after issuing the 24th annual "Trouble in Toyland" report, the authors got a call from the lawyers representing Fast Forward New York, a manufacturer.
The Elmo Lunch Bag, which contains an excess of the plastic-softening chemical diisodecyl phthalate, is not a toy, said the lawyers. Therefore, it is not subject to the phthalate regulations of children's toys...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is sending 30,000 extra U.S. troops to Afghanistan on an accelerated timetable that will have the first Marines there as early as Christmas and all forces in place by summer. But he also declared Tuesday night that troops will begin leaving in less than three years.

WASHINGTON (NNPA) - After he was blistered with criticism for not marrying an interracial couple, Justice Keith Bardwell of Tangipahoa Parish, La. made a statement that he is not a racist, but that he knows biracial children suffer through hardships in life. Bardwell's theory that being mixed with Black and White races can cause a child to suffer emotionally and mentally has brought national speculation over whether such a statement is true.

WASHINGTON – The White House is open for Christmas.
A day after celebrating Thanksgiving, first lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha received the official White House Christmas tree: an 18 1/2-foot Douglas fir delivered from a farm in Shepherdstown, W.Va., by traditional horse-drawn carriage.

(NNPA) - Champion golfer Tiger Woods was injured in a car crash near his Windermere, Fla. home in the wee hours of Nov. 27, according to police reports, but he's not talking about it.

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – African-American joblessness – nearly twice the national rate -- is quickly becoming the first showdown between Black leaders and the nation's first Black president as national Black and civil right leaders raise their voices telling the Obama Administration it's time to end the jobs crisis in the Black community.