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April 7, 2008 - The U.S. State Department has renewed its Iraq security contract with Blackwater Worldwide despite the FBI's still-unfinished investigation into last year's massacre of civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square by employees of the North Carolina-based mercenary firm. The deal, which was up for renewal on May 7, has been extended for another year.

April 4, 2008 - By James Perry, Executive Director Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center

April 4, 2008 - This week brought the news that Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson would resign effective April 18 to "attend more diligently to personal and family matters." Those personal matters probably include staying out of jail, since Jackson is currently under investigation for political favoritism and corruption in the awarding of contracts as well as for lying to Congress.

April 4, 2008 - Today marks the 40th anniversary of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination.

April 4, 2008 - The Nation published a story today about another case involving a woman working for Texas-based defense contractor KBR who alleges she was gang-raped in Iraq. Lisa Smith, the pseudonym of a 42-year-old paramedic from Texas, claims she was drugged and then sexually assaulted by a U.S.

April 2, 2008 - Eight people were arrested yesterday during a protest at the construction site for North Carolina-based Duke Energy's new Cliffside coal-fired power plant west of Charlotte.

April 1, 2008 - The following statement is from the Advancement Project, a civil rights group that filed a lawsuit against U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson on behalf of New Orleans public housing residents shut out of their homes after Hurricane Katrina.