By The Editors
Diversity and equal opportunity in the Chicago Fire Department appears to have a high-level champion—the prospective new Fire Commissioner.

By Doug Miller
A tornado of foreclosures spawned by the subprime mortgage collapse has disproportionately flattened black and Hispanic homeowners, according to new research by the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), sucking hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth from communities of color.

By Doug Miller
Are credit card penalties meant to serve as insurance against late payments, or are they just meant to serve bigger portions to money-hungry financial services companies

By Lee A. Daniels
Black and Latino Americans are disproportionately bearing the burden of joblessness, with, relatively speaking, more of their working-age members out of work at every demographic level, from high school dropouts to college graduates.

By Stacey Patton
This week LDF won another significant victory in the Supreme Court. In Lewis v. Chicago, the Court ruled unanimously that the City of Chicago can be held responsible for each time it used a hiring practice that arbitrarily blocked qualified black applicants from employment.

After years fighting for justice, qualified African-American job applicants will finally have a fair opportunity to land a job with the Chicago fire department. Today the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the City of Chicago can be held accountable for each and every time it used a hiring practice that arbitrarily blocked qualified minority applicants from employment.

By Lee A. Daniels
The mixed record of recovery of the U.S. jobs crisis continued last month as the number of new jobs created substantially outstripped expectations – but was shadowed by an increase in the unemployment rate and the number of those jobless for six months or longer.

By Doug Miller
Payday lenders – neighborhood operations where cash-strapped borrowers can go for small, short-term loans – contend they shouldn’t be facing the same kind of financial reform regulations as full-service banks. But critics who call high-interest payday transactions “legalized loan-sharking” say they disproportionately target minorities and need to be reined in along with Wall Street giants.

By Lee A. Daniels
The federal government’s jobs report for April is due out Thursday, and all expectations are that it will continue the recent skein of data indicating the economy has stopped the frightful two-year-long hemorrhaging of jobs and begun a modest climb toward recovery.

By Seth Freed Wessler
After an afternoon of long-winded speeches from both sides of the aisle, the Senate voted to move forward with the extension of unemployment benefits.