By The Editors
The worst earthquake in more than 200 years hit the already devastated nation of Haiti the afternoon of January 12, leveling a hospital, damaging the United Nations mission and plunging the capital of Port-au-Prince into darkness as electricity and telephone service were wiped out. The quake hit just after 5 p.m., at an estimated magnitude of 7.0., with aftershocks of 5.9.

By John Payton
Today provides a moment for reflection on the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., born 81 years ago on this day. It is also a moment of intense anguish for the survivors and those continuing to suffer in the wake of the tragic earthquake in Haiti.

By Lee A. Daniels
Now that millions of white Americans are out of work, enduring the sense of desperation that poverty and joblessness bring, I can’t believe I’m not hearing the faux-moralists lecture them about taking “personal responsibility” for their own circumstances.

By Jackie Jones
The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), heralded as welfare reform during the Clinton administration, comes up before Congress next year for reauthorization.

Whether the program, which was purportedly intended to assist the needy while gradually moving them off assistance and into the workplace, will continue as presently constructed or morph into something else remains to be seen.

By TaRessa Stovall
Experts call it “food insecurity … meaning that the food intake is reduced and … disrupted at times … because the household lacked money and other resources for food.” And not surprisingly, it’s on the rise.

By Makani Themba Nixon
A recent Cornell University study finds that half of all US children and 90 percent of black children will eat food paid for by food stamps at some point in their childhoods. You, like the good folk at Cornell, may think this is dire and even shocking news. And for good reason, as the co-authors of the study write in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine that food stamp use is an important indicator of poverty and food insecurity.

By Jackie Jones
Without a national agenda on mental health treatment, Torrey predicted, many states would be wrestling with substantial increases in the number of and funding treatment for the mentally ill homeless and mentally ill prison inmates.

By The Editors
On Friday, President Obama  signed a measure once again extending benefits to the long-term unemployed—even as it became likely that  still another extension may be necessary next spring.

By Jackie Jones
While the current recession has forced blacks, along with other Americans, to cut back, previous studies have found that when money gets tight, giving to churches often increases because people hope for blessings in return.

By Lee A. Daniels
Last month, according to the National Employment Law Project (NELP), an advocacy group, 400,000 of the long-term unemployed stopped receiving federal benefits. This month another 200,000 are due to be cut off. Unless Congress acts to again extend benefits for the long-term unemployed as it did earlier in the recession, by the end of December a total of 1.3 million of the long-term jobless across the country will be in the same predicament.