HOUSTON (AP) -- City officials announced Friday that two new independent panels will be reviewing Houston's police department, which has come under fierce criticism after a video surfaced this month that appears to show officers kicking and stomping a black teenage burglary suspect.

George Washington's name is inseparable from America, and not only from the nation's history. It identifies countless streets, buildings, mountains, bridges, monuments, cities — and people.

Former District of Columbia Public Schools chancellor Michelle Rhee has come under attack regarding her take on the progress of a group of elementary students during the time she taught third grade at Harlem Park Elementary School in Baltimore.

While Democrats in the state house railed against Republican measures to limit their voice last week, Black Democrats are upset with their own party for the same reason—no voice on key committees.

Keith Beauchamp, a 39-year-old filmmaker from Brooklyn, produces a groundbreaking investigative documentary series "The Injustice Files" on the Investigative Discovery Channel Fridays at 9 p.m.

RALEIGH, N.C. — A North Carolina woman charged with killing her disabled, 10-year-old stepdaughter will be represented by a lawyer who's been working with her since before she was indicted this week.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Deeper spending cuts by state and local governments weighed down U.S. economic growth in the final three months of last year.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly took the first significant action on their plan to strip collective bargaining rights from most public workers, abruptly passing the measure early Friday morning before sleep-deprived Democrats realized what was happening.

One way for President Barack Obama to win the future, it seems, is to have his administration stop defending a federal law that bans recognition of same-sex marriage.

WASHINGTON – Toyota Motor Corp. recalled 2.17 million vehicles in the United States on Thursday to address accelerator pedals that could become entrapped in floor mats or jammed in driver's side carpeting,