Sophia Lin and Mayte Garcia-Salgado have this week’s headlines from the WBRU News desk.  Click here to listen.

This piece originally aired on the WBRU Brief, which airs Monday nights at 11. Make sure to tune in to future editions of the Brief for a recap of the week’s headlines, investigative reports and special pieces from our Sports and Entertainment News departments.

Kaitlyn Laabs has this week’s headlines from the WBRU News Office.  Click here to listen to her report.

This piece originally aired on the WBRU Brief, which airs Monday nights at 11. Make sure to tune in to future editions of the Brief for a recap of the week’s headlines, investigative reports and special pieces from our wonderful Sports and Entertainment News departments.

This is your WBRU Election Update for Wednesday, April 23, 2008.

Hillary Clinton’s Pennsylvania primary win appears to have come with a cash prize. 

Her campaign says she’s on track to collect $10 million in donations in the 24 hours since the polls closed in the Keystone state.  The campaign says it was her best fundraising day ever. 

Barack Obama reported spending more than $11 million on television in Pennsylvania, more than any place else.  That compared with less than 5 million by Clinton. 

Meanwhile, Republican John McCain has asked North Carolina republicans not to run a television ad that brings up the controversial former pastor of Barack Obama. 

The ad calls Obama too extreme for North Carolina.  But state GOP officials say the ad will run as planned, starting Monday.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Approaching the Pennsylvania State Primary, New York Senator Hilary Clinton found herself in a familiar position: win or face dropping out of race to the Whitehouse. But the former First Lady showed that she’ll be around for at least another two primaries, nearly edging out Senator Barack Obama in the Keystone State.

Trailing Senator Obama’s delgate count of 1,648 to her own 1,532, Clinton again faced a must-win situation in Pennsylvania. But fortunately for the New York Senator, the Keystone State’s blue collar workers turned out in full force to show their support for Clinton.

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Rukesh Samarasekera has the Headlines in this report from the April 14 edition of the BRU Brief.

This piece originally aired on the WBRU Brief, which airs Monday nights at 11. Make sure to tune in to future editions of the Brief for a recap of the week’s headlines, investigative reports and special pieces from our wonderful Sports and Entertainment News departments.

After a brief hiatus, the BRU News podcast is back! Here’s Eric Johnson with the BRU Headlines from the April 7 edition of the Brief. Click here to listen.

This piece originally aired on the WBRU Brief, which airs Monday nights at 11. Make sure to tune in to future editions of the Brief for a recap of the week’s headlines, investigative reports and special pieces from our wonderful Sports and Entertainment News departments.

Just ahead of the Pennsylvania primary, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is airing a TV ad in
Pennsylvania that includes images of Pearl Harbor, the Berlin Wall and Osama bin Laden. These images are meant to deliver a trust message to voters ahead of tomorrow’s primary. An Obama spokesman accuses Clinton of playing “the politics of fear.”

However, despite this criticism, Barack Obama predicts that his presidential rival will likely get the critical victory she needs in tomorrow’s Pennsylvania primary, but says he’ll try to keep it close. The latest polls show Clinton with a lead over Obama.

John McCain continues his “It’s Time for Action” tour, stopping in Selma, Alabama. He says that Selma and other communities on the tour have suffered the “sins of indifference and injustice,” and added that he never saw such courage as that shown by the civil rights marchers who were beaten as they marched across the Edmond Pettus Bridge in Selma in 1965.

Information from the AP was used in this report

Senator John McCain

John McCain today lays out more of his economic vision for a country he says is mired in recession.

In a speech at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, the Republican presidential candidate will say he wants to ease the financial burden of filling up with a “gas-tax holiday” this summer.

His proposal would peel the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax off gas prices between Memorial Day to Labor Day.

McCain also wants to ensure that college students can secure loans amid a tight credit market, and says the Education Department should work to make sure it’s possible.

The Arizona senator is accusing Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton of planning to impose the single largest tax increase since World War II by allowing President Bush’s tax cuts to expire.

McCain twice voted against the tax cuts he now supports.

Senator Hillary Clinton

Sen. Hillary Clinton says her husband made mistakes related to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Her comment came in response to a question by a union worker at a summit sponsored by the Alliance for American Manufacturing in Pittsburgh. The worker says President Clinton tricked them when he championed NAFTA during his presidency.

Clinton says her husband is smart, but he does make mistakes.  She says she would correct the mistakes related to NAFTA or pull the United States out of the agreement.

Some voters say NAFTA has taken away U.S. jobs.

Earlier, Sen. Barack Obama questioned Clinton’s sincerity in her opposition to trade agreements.

The two are competing for the backing of organized labor in Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary.

Senator Barack Obama

Republican Rep. Geoff Davis is apologizing to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama after referring to him as “that boy.”

Davis told a Republican gathering Saturday in Kentucky, “That boy’s finger does not need to be on the button.”

Davis said Monday it was “a poor choice of words” while discussing political and national security issues at an annual Republican dinner.

The quote had been widely reported on blogs and Web sites.

Davis’ campaign said it sent a letter to Obama apologizing.

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton called the comment a “condescending and personal attack” on the Illinois senator.

Information from the Associated Press was used in these reports.  Photos licensed under the Creative Commons, courtesy of Flickr.

This is your BRU Election update for Friday, April 11, 2008.

Senator Hillary Clinton:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is calling for more federal help for local communities battling drugs and crime.

She outlined her plan in Philadelphia, a key city in her battle with Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.

She’s calling for the reinstatement of anti-crime programs enacted during her husband’s time in the White House, and severely cut or eliminated by the Bush adminsitration.

Clinton says her plan would steer nonviolent offenders away from prisons, which are crowded with drug users. She said she would elimate a federal mandate that’s tougher on crack cocaine users than other cocaine users. More black Americans use crack cocaine
than whites, and under sentencing laws wind up being treated more harshly.

She also calls for reinstating the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004.

Senator Barack Obama:

Barack Obama says the nation’s system of public financing of presidential elections is “creaky” and needs an update.

The Democratic contender says the limited amounts of money available from the federal treasury pose difficult choices for candidates who manage to raise large sums.

This year, the nominees would be entitled to 84 million dollars in public funds for the general election. Obama has raised a whopping 234 million dollars for his presidential campaign so far.That’s come from about 1.3 million donors.

Obama says the amount raised by the $3 dollar checkoff on tax returns may be “substantially lower than the amount of money that can be raised over the Internet.”

Earlier this week, Obama likened his fundraising to a “parallel public financing system,” setting off speculation that he would forego federal funds if he is the Democratic nominee. He would be the first in three decades to do so.

Senator John McCain:

A national poll released yesterday suggests John McCain is gaining ground regardless of which Democratic candidate ends up with the nomination.

In an Associated Press-Ipsos national poll, McCain has erased Barack Obama’s 10-point advantage in a head-to-head matchup.

An AP-Ipsos poll taken in late February had Obama leading McCain 51-41 percent. The current survey, conducted this week, has them at 45 percent each with McCain leading Obama among men, whites, Southerners, married women and independents.

In the February poll, Hillary Rodham Clinton led McCain 48 percent to 43 percent. In the latest poll, Clinton holds a 48 percent to 45 percent advantage over McCain.

Clinton and McCain are statistically tied when the poll’s margin of error of 3.1 percentage points is factored in.

Information from the Associated Press was used in these reports.  Photos used in these reports are licensed under Creative Commons and are courtesy Flickr users sskennel, Allison Harger and Wigwam Jones.

Michigan Democrats are not going to hold a do-over presidential primary. 

The official decision came Friday in a statement from the state party’s executive committee.  The state party officials say “it is not practical” to conduct a party-run primary or caucus as a way to get the state’s delegates seated at the Democratic National Convention this summer.

Michigan and Florida were stripped of their convention delegates for moving up their primaries in defiance of party rules. 

Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton won the Jan. 15 Michigan primary. Rival Barack Obama had pulled his name from the ballot.

Michigan Democrats hope the campaigns can agree on a way to split Michigan’s delegates so they can be seated at the Aug. 25-28 convention.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Barack Obama is urging Americans to continue Martin Luther King’s pursuit of social and economic justice.

“Dr. King understood that the struggle for economic justice and the struggle for racial justice were really one, that each was a part of a larger struggle for freedom, for dignity and for humanity,” he says.

The Democratic presidential candidate made the call during a speech in Indiana today, the 40th anniversary of King’s death.

Obama says as long as Americans are trapped in poverty and denied fair treatment, King’s dream will remain out of reach for many.

He also spoke of another leader gunned down in 1968, Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. The night King was shot, Kennedy was in Indiana, where he made a memorable speech after informing the crowd that King had been killed.

The other 2008 presidential candidates have also been marking the anniversary. John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to Memphis, the city where King died.

McCain said that King’s importance is even bigger in America today than it was 40 years ago.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Barack Obama, standing before a row of eight American flags near the building where the Declaration of Independence was adopted, has urged the nation to break “a racial
stalemate ” he says ” we’ve been stuck in for years.”

The speech was Obama’s most prominent airing of racial issues of his campaign and follows attention focused on explosive statements by his long-time pastor and mentor.

“They expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country, a view that sees white racism as endemic, that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America,” he said.

He acknowledged real anger generated by the nation’s troubled racial history and he said that unless it’s understood the chasm will widen.

In an interview for tonight’s ABC’s “Nightline” Obama says he knew he’d have to give a speech on race but didn’t expect it come up the way it did. It follows a firestorm of controversy because of sermon comments on race by his former pastor.

Obama, who is bi-racial, says perhaps he can “lend some special insight into the issue.”

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.