Pinellas School Board chairwoman Janet Clark is coming under fire for using the term "hoodlums" to describe a small group of chronically disruptive students in county schools.

Board members Mary Brown and Linda Lerner criticized Clark at Tuesday night's board meeting. And now Ray Tampa, president of the St. Petersburg branch of the NAACP, said Clark's refusal to apologize has made things worse.

"I was disgusted with her response," Tampa said Wednesday.

The International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement — better known as the Uhurus — called for Clark to resign for the statement, which it viewed as racist. Clark is white. Tampa said he thought the comment was inappropriate, but not racist. (Who cares if it was "racist?" -- Ed.)

This week, Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal signed House Joint Resolution 2 (HJ0002), claiming “sovereignty on behalf of the State of Wyoming and for its citizens under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government or reserved to the people by the Constitution of the United States.”

At issue is the format of the 2010 Census form, which has boxes for more than a dozen different racial categories but no racial or ethnic category for people of Arab descent.

In response, community activists have launched a grassroots canvassing campaign to encourage Arabs living throughout the San Francisco Bay Area to complete the 2010 Census by checking the "other" box in Section 9 and write in "Arab."

Obama also met separately later in the day with Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who gave the president an outline of a bill they are drafting. Obama said afterward in a statement that he "looked forward to reviewing their promising framework."

Obama said he told the senators and the advocacy groups that "my commitment to comprehensive immigration reform is unwavering, and that I will continue to be their partner in this important effort."

In fact, demographers say this year could be the "tipping point" when the number of babies born to minorities outnumbers that of babies born to whites.

The numbers are growing because immigration to the U.S. has boosted the number of Hispanic women in their prime childbearing years. Minorities made up 48 percent of U.S. children born in 2008, the latest census estimates available, compared to 37 percent in 1990.

"Census projections suggest America may become a minority-majority country by the middle of the century. For America's children, the future is now," said Kenneth Johnson, a sociology professor at the University of New Hampshire who researched many of the racial trends in a paper being released Wednesday.

Contact: Jerry Kammer, 202-466-8185, gjk@cis.org

WASHINGTON (March 10, 2010) – After the collapse of the Senate amnesty bill in 2007, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) joined with the National Council of La Raza and others to launch a campaign to smear the three largest mainstream groups making a case for tighter enforcement and lower immigration. At the center of this campaign was the designation of the Federation for American Immigration Reform as a "hate group" and the spread of that taint to Numbers USA and the Center for Immigration Studies. The announced goal was to pressure journalists and policymakers not to meet or speak with these organizations. Touted as an effort to "stop the hate," it was a thinly disguised move to stifle debate.

In recent years Britain has become the Willy Wonka of social control, churning out increasingly creepy, bizarre, and fantastic methods for policing the populace. But our weaponization of classical music—where Mozart, Beethoven, and other greats have been turned into tools of state repression—marks a new low.

We’re already the kings of CCTV. An estimated 20 per cent of the world’s CCTV cameras are in the UK, a remarkable achievement for an island that occupies only 0.2 per cent of the world’s inhabitable landmass.

A congressional panel on Thursday approved the resolution, paving the way for a possible vote by the House.

But US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the administration would "work very hard" to prevent this.

Turkey voiced strong protests after the vote and recalled its ambassador from Washington for consultations.

The arrest of Gadahn is a major victory in the U.S.-led battle against al-Qaida and will be taken as a sign that Pakistan, criticized in the past for being an untrustworthy ally, is cooperating more fully with Washington. It follows the recent detentions of several Afghan Taliban commanders in Karachi, including the movement's No. 2 commander.

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University has been monitoring donations received by 91 charities engaged in Haiti relief since the quake on Jan. 12. The total surpassed $1 billion as of Friday. About one-third of it has gone to the American Red Cross.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy says other major recipients of Haiti donations include Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. Fund for UNICEF and the U.S. wing of Doctors Without Borders.