Most Recent Posts

Charles Rangel, who has represented an upper Manhattan district that includes Harlem for 44 years, faces off against three opponents in the New York Democratic primary Tuesday. The most serious challenge comes from the Dominican-American, state senator Adriano Espaillat.

Rangel was first elected in 1970, defeating the legendary Adam Clayton Powell Jr. — the first African American elected to Congress from New York.

Rangel has held the seat ever since, rising to power in Washington and at one time serving as head of the powerful Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives.

This weekend, at a campaign stop outside a hamburger joint called the Harlem Shake, supporters for Rep. Charles Rangel filled the sidewalk along Lenox Avenue — a busy street that runs through the heart of central Harlem.

Rangel was once called the "Lion of Lenox Avenue," but now, some think he is too old for another term. Still, in his stump speech at the rally, he focused on his track record of 22 straight election wins.

"If you had a good old horse that kept winning the races, why in the world would you want to bring in a colt that doesn't even know where the track is," Rangel said.

What he failed to mention is that his record also reflects recent ethics violations, which have contributed to his diminished influence.

His odds at the ballot box have not been helped by changes in district borders and demographics. Once a black stronghold, the 13th congressional district is now majority Latino.

Those shifts seem to favor Rangel's challenger Adriano Espaillat, a longtime state senator. The 59-year-old is a Dominican American who lost to Rangel two years ago by just 1,100 votes.

i i

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said Monday that the United States should join the rest of the industrialized world and offer paid leave for mothers of newborns.

"Many women can't even get a paid day off to give birth — now that's a pretty low bar," Obama said at the White House Summit on Working Families. "That, we should be able to take care of."

The president is touting paid maternity in the midst of a midterm election campaign focused on women voters, without describing the details of how he would fund such a system. "If France can figure this out, we can figure this out," Obama said.

While some companies offer paid family leave to attract workers, the 1993 Family Medical Leave Act only requires that employers provide unpaid leave for medical and family reasons.

Obama praised California, Rhode Island and New Jersey for creating a state benefit. But he has not endorsed legislation that would create a similar national system funded by a payroll tax, and he pledged in his 2008 presidential campaign not to raise taxes on families making under $250,000 a year.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., has introduced legislation that would provide up to 12 weeks of paid leave through a fund in the Social Security Administration, paid for by contributions from employees and employers of 0.2 percent of wages. She said she has personally encouraged the president to back it, despite his tax pledge.

"We're talking about 2 cents of every $10," she said in an interview at the summit. She said without such a fund, eight out of 10 workers can't take advantage of their right for family leave because they can't afford it.

Obama instituted six weeks of paid leave for White House staff when they have a child, get sick or injured or need to care for an ailing family member, using his authority to set his staff's compensation under the personnel code. He does not have the power to award paid leave to other federal workers without congressional action since they are covered under a different section of law. The White House has supported the goal of legislation introduced by lawmakers to change that, but it has stalled in Congress.

"There is only one developed country in the world that does not offer paid maternity leave, and that is us," Obama said. "And that is not the list you want to be on — on your lonesome. It's time to change that."

Obama took four working parents out to lunch at Chipotle before his speech and after met with business leaders with family-friendly policies. He encouraged other employers to have more flexible work schedules and directed federal agencies to expand flexible work arrangements where possible. He also urged Congress to pass legislation requiring employers to accommodate pregnant employees so they can continue to perform their jobs.

The president personalized the issues by talking about the struggles of his single mother and the challenges that he and his wife, Michelle, had when their children were young, even though they were fortunate to have benefits many workers don't enjoy.

The president acknowledged he left his wife to carry the heaviest child care burdens while he worked and campaigned. He said he's now lucky to "live above the store, so to speak," so he can have dinner with his family most nights, and he points out his daughters were older when he became president. "I never had to meet a world leader with Cheerios stuck to my pants," he joked.

The summit has been months in the making, with several regional events leading up to it featuring administration officials and a packed ballroom of political activists. The White House devoted all its star power to the event — and even a surprise appearance by a celebrity to echo Obama's criticism of "Mad Men" policies in today's workplace. Christina Hendricks, who plays single mom Joan on the AMC dramatization of a 1960s ad firm, said, "In the 21st century the only place for a story like Joan's should be on TV."

Mrs. Obama closed the summit by encouraging young women not to short-change themselves in career negotiations. And she said she hopes to see a woman in the country's top job as president soon.

"That should happen as soon as possible," she said. "We have some options, don't we?"

___

Associated Press writer Stacy A. Anderson contributed to this report.

___

Follow Nedra Pickler at http://twitter.com/nedrapickler

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said Monday that the United States should join the rest of the industrialized world and offer paid leave for mothers of newborns.

"Many women can't even get a paid day off to give birth — now that's a pretty low bar," Obama said at the White House Summit on Working Families. "That, we should be able to take care of."

The president is touting paid maternity in the midst of a midterm election campaign focused on women voters, without describing the details of how he would fund such a system. "If France can figure this out, we can figure this out," Obama said.

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, responded to Obama by announcing he will would outline his vision Wednesday for "how modern conservative reforms can help bring the American Dream within reach for millions of single mothers, young Americans and working families."

"Telling federal agencies to do what they're already supposed to do and endorsing partisan legislation that will never pass is not the sort of bold, innovative leadership we need," Rubio said in a statement.

While some companies offer paid family leave to attract workers, the 1993 Family Medical Leave Act only requires that employers provide unpaid leave for medical and family reasons.

Obama praised California, Rhode Island and New Jersey for creating a state benefit. But he has not endorsed legislation that would create a similar national system funded by a payroll tax, and he pledged in his 2008 presidential campaign not to raise taxes on families making under $250,000 a year.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., has introduced legislation that would provide up to 12 weeks of paid leave through a fund in the Social Security Administration, paid for by contributions from employees and employers of 0.2 percent of wages. She said she has personally encouraged the president to back it, despite his tax pledge.

"We're talking about 2 cents of every $10," she said in an interview at the summit. She said without such a fund, eight out of 10 workers can't take advantage of their right for family leave because they can't afford it.

Obama instituted six weeks of paid leave for White House staff when they have a child, get sick or injured or need to care for an ailing family member, using his authority to set his staff's compensation under the personnel code. He does not have the power to award paid leave to other federal workers without congressional action since they are covered under a different section of law. The White House has supported the goal of legislation introduced by lawmakers to change that, but it has stalled in Congress.

"There is only one developed country in the world that does not offer paid maternity leave, and that is us," Obama said. "And that is not the list you want to be on — on your lonesome. It's time to change that."

He also directed federal agencies to expand flexible work arrangements where possible, and Obama chief of staff Dennis McDonough said in a staff memo that includes the White House — a hard-charging environment where long hours are the norm. "I know how hard each of you works to support the president and the nation. Please know that we'll be looking for ways to better support you as well," McDonough wrote.

Obama took four working parents out to lunch at Chipotle before his speech and after met with business leaders with family-friendly policies. He urged Congress to pass legislation requiring employers to accommodate pregnant employees so they can continue to perform their jobs.

The summit included a surprise appearance by a celebrity to echo Obama's criticism of "Mad Men" policies in today's workplace. Christina Hendricks, who plays single mom Joan on the AMC dramatization of a 1960s ad firm, said, "In the 21st century the only place for a story like Joan's should be on TV."

Mrs. Obama closed the summit by encouraging young women not to short-change themselves in career negotiations. And she said she hopes to see a woman in the country's top job as president soon.

"That should happen as soon as possible," she said. "We have some options, don't we?"

___

Associated Press writer Stacy A. Anderson contributed to this report.

___

Follow Nedra Pickler at http://twitter.com/nedrapickler

BAGHDAD (AP) — America's top diplomat said Monday that leaders of Iraq's factions must keep their commitments to seat a new parliament next week, before a Sunni insurgency sweeps away hopes for a lasting peace.

Meeting with all factions, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had a dire message to leaders of Iraq's bitterly divided Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish political coalitions who have lived through more than three decades of dictatorship, sanctions and wars.

"This is a critical moment for Iraq's future," Kerry said at a press conference in Baghdad. "It is a moment of decision for Iraq's leaders and it's a moment of great urgency."

Sunnis frustrated with being cut out of power are increasingly joining the ISIL, a bloody insurgency that has been emboldened by battlefield successes in neighboring Syria's civil war and has made rapid and record gains in Iraq over the past two weeks.

Kerry is seeking to hold the officials to a government transition that the U.S. believes will stave off the threat of a new civil war by giving more power to Iraq's minorities.

Kerry offered few details of his closed-door meetings in Baghdad. But he said each of the officials he met with — including Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — committed to seat a new parliament by July 1 as the constitution requires.

"The very future of Iraq depends on choices that will be made in the next days and weeks, and the future of Iraq depends primarily on the ability of Iraq's leaders to come together and take a stand united against ISIL," Kerry said, referring to the insurgency known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. "Not next week, not next month, but now."

He also said no country — including the U.S. — should try to pick new leadership for Iraq. "That is up to the people of Iraq," Kerry said.

Al-Maliki is facing growing calls for his resignation as disgruntled Sunnis say they do not believe he will give them a greater voice in the government.

After suffering together through more than eight years of war — which killed nearly 4,500 American troops and more than 100,000 Iraqis — Washington and Baghdad are trying to shelve mutual wariness to curb the very real prospect of the Mideast nation falling into a fresh bout of sectarian strife.

Parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi, one of Iraq's top-ranking Sunnis, told Kerry that the insurgents pose "a threat to the entire world." Al-Nujaifi, is from Mosul, Iraq's second largest city which was overrun earlier this month by militants.

Of the insurgents, al-Nujaifi said "we have to confront it through direct military operations, political reforms so that we can inject a new hope into our own people so that they can support the political process and the unity of Iraq."

Iraqi officials briefed on Kerry's talks with the Iraqi prime minister said al-Maliki urged the United States to target the militants' positions in Iraq and neighboring Syria, citing training camps and convoys with airstrikes. The officials said Kerry responded by saying a great deal of care and caution must be taken before attacks are launched to avoid civilian casualties that could create the impression that Americans are attacking Sunnis.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media on the record.

President Barack Obama, in a round of television interviews that aired in the U.S., said al-Maliki and the Iraqi leadership face a test as to whether "they are able to set aside their suspicions, their sectarian preferences for the good of the whole."

"And we don't know," Obama said. "The one thing I do know is that if they fail to do that then no amount of military action by the United States can hold that country together."

Kerry arrived in Baghdad just a day after the Sunni militants captured two key border posts, one along the frontier with Jordan and the other with Syria, deepening al-Maliki's predicament. Their latest victories considerably expanded territory under the militants' control just two weeks after the al-Qaida breakaway group started swallowing up chunks of northern Iraq, heightening pressure on al-Maliki to step aside.

The offensive by ISIL takes the group closer to its dream of carving out an Islamic state straddling both Syria and Iraq. Controlling the borders with Syria will help it supply fellow fighters there with weaponry looted from Iraqi warehouses, boosting its ability to battle beleaguered Syrian government forces.

On Monday, gunmen ambushed a police convoy transferring prisoners about 85 miles (140 kilometers) south of Baghdad, killing nine policemen and 13 prisoners, according to police officials. The officials said some of the prisoners, some of whom were convicted of terrorism-related charges, were being taken to a high-security prison in the southern city of Nasiriyah 200 miles (320 kilometers) southwest of Baghdad. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The militants' stunning battlefield successes in the north and the west of Iraq have laid bare the inadequacies of the country's U.S.-trained forces. In the north, troops fled in the face of advancing militants, abandoning their weapons, vehicles and other equipment. In some cases in the west, they pulled out either when the militants approached or when they heard of other towns falling.

Sunday's capture by the militants of crossings bordering Jordan and Syria followed the fall on Friday and Saturday of the towns of Qaim, Rawah, Anah and Rutba, all of which are in Sunni-dominated Anbar province, where the militants have since January controlled the city of Fallujah and parts of the provincial capital, Ramadi.

___

Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/larajakesAP