I rise today to commend R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company for being a leader in minority business development by entering a multiyear master service agreement with All Printing and Graphics Incorporated, a certified minority business…

Mr. Speaker, every year fires and other emergencies take thousands of lives and destroy property worth billions of dollars. Fire fighters help protect the public against these dangers by rapidly responding to a variety of emergencies. They…

Mr. Speaker, we have heard statistic after statistic. We have heard number after number. It is very clear that HIV/AIDS is indeed an emergency situation in the African American community. It is a real problem across the country in all…

Mr. Speaker, I had the honor of knowing Ossie Davis. I met him during my 2-year hiatus from Congress, and after learning of my story, he joined the thousands of Americans who, too, were outraged at my treatment by the dominant political…

I simply want to indicate that Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee were as much a part of being activists as they were being actors, and I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop) for giving us all the opportunity to share in his life…

the announcement was made last week that a high school in my congressional district, Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) in Westchester, Illinois, would be closing its doors at the end of this school year. This closure indicates the end of an…

On February 23, 1905, Paul Harris, a Chicago attorney, invited three friends to a meeting: Sylvester Schiele, a coal dealer; Hiram Shorey, a merchant tailor; and Gustavus Loehr, a mining engineer. All four men gathered in Loehr's business…

during the period when we were away, the Nation lost one of my favorite people, Father Ignatius McDermott, better known as Father Mac. Father Mac was a Catholic priest who, when Chicago had an area known as Skid Row, used to walk among the…

I represent an area in Chicago known as Ukrainian Village, and last fall, I was privileged to visit Ukraine with my friends from the Self-Reliance Credit Union to celebrate Ukrainian independence and to assist with the development of…

Mr. Speaker, the Thrift Savings Plan, TSP, is a retirement savings and investment plan for Federal employees that is governed by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board. The TSP has approximately 3 million participants. It is the…

I can agree that there can be disagreements and there can be examination of practices, but the Boy Scouts of America have been one of the most prolific organizations in the development of boys into men that I know about in this country. As…

I want to commend, first of all, the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner) and the gentleman from California (Ranking Member George Miller), as well as the gentleman from Delaware (Chairman Castle) and the gentlewoman from California…

I rise in support of S. 2302. The state of health care is one of the most critical issues facing this Nation. As the world's most powerful and wealthy country, our health care system is unacceptable. According to the Health Resources and…

This year, approximately 28,000 people will die from cancer of the pancreas. Most pancreatic cancers arise from the ductal cells of the pancreas. The pancreas, an organ situated deep in the abdominal cavity, serves several critical…

I must confess that I am not surprised that the Vice President did not know that he knew Senator Edwards, because it seems to me that there are a lot of things that they know but do not say. They did not know that there were no weapons of…

I rise in support of H.R. 5186, but I also know that much more needs to be done. I agree with all of those who suggest and predict that there is a tremendous need to provide loan forgiveness for math, science and special education…

the percentage of children and adolescents who are defined as overweight has more than doubled since the early 1970s with nearly 15 percent of children and adolescents now being overweight. Congress has asked our schools to encourage…

Walt Disney once said that ``Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children.'' Today we honor the Festival of Children Foundation, an organization with the specific purpose to improve the lives of children and families…

Every bit of information that we have available to us lets us know that gun violence is unnecessarily killing people. In 2001, 29,000 people in this country died from gun violence. Fifty percent of all the African American youngsters…

Mr. Speaker, since the tragedy of September 11, volunteerism has experienced a renewed popularity in our country. Government officials, religious leaders, political activists, health professionals and others all have noted the importance…

Mr. Speaker, I will just end by suggesting that the Civil War was the costliest war that this country has ever been engaged in and perhaps one of the most important wars that this country will ever fight. I urge strong support of this…

H.R. 2449 would establish a Civil War Sesquicentennial Commemoration Commission to cooperate with and assist States and national organizations with programs and activities to ensure a suitable national observance of the 150th anniversary…

Mr. Speaker, a year after the Department of Homeland Security began its ad campaign to educate the American people on how to prepare for a terrorist attack, a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll published in March found that most Americans have not…

Mr. Speaker, almost 1.7 million Americans live in a long-term care facility somewhere in the United States. With improvements in medicine and the aging of the baby boomer generation, that number is likely to increase. Therefore, it is…

I rise in tribute to the life and legacy of Mr. Lutrelle Palmer, better known as Lu, one of the greatest and most prolific journalists known in this country during the last half of the 20th century. Mr. Palmer was born in 1922 in Newport…