North Side business, American Chemical is celebrating its 25th year of operation.

The adhesive distributer and manufacturer's founder Dennis Werneke credits the success of the company with their ability to listen to their customers and problem solve through their challenges.

Pictured: Dennis Werneke and STEP-UP intern Faduma Ali

By supporting Black-owned businesses, we hold the keys to our own economic prosperity.

When reflecting upon the day to day struggles and hardships of African Americans, the words of rapper, Tupac Shakur come to mind: "Trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents. It's hard to be legit and still pay your rent." This quote symbolizes the dilemma that many African Americans face while trying to survive and support their families in today's global economy. Here in Minnesota and across this nation, African Americans are under-represented amongst those who are gainfully employed and over-represented amongst those who are incarcerated in local jails and in state and federal prisons. What it boils down to is the fact that Black people need jobs, not jails.

I’ve said it before – we are spoiled rotten.  Reviewing Nielsen’s latest Cross-Platform Report, How We Watch from Screen to Screen, I can’t help but smile and remember the earlier days of “watching television.”  (You, know the one screen, the only option we had). I suspect a good many of you sometimes get a bit nostalgic, too (even though now we probably would be hard-pressed to part with any of our current technological conveniences).  Before flat screens, HD, satellite, DVR, cable, hundreds of “channels” and the internet, plus a growing number of devices to watch “TV” – we had one, maybe two (if you were lucky) TV “sets” in the house. 

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Highly-respected media and entertainment executive William G. Tompkins, Jr. has been name president and chief executive officer of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a federation of more than 200 Black-owned publications.

Pictured: William G. Tompkins, Jr., President and CEO of NNPA

NNPA Chairman Cloves Campbell, publisher of the Arizona Informant, said Tompkins was selected from an impressive field of candidates screened by Carrington & Carrington, a Chicago-based executive search firm.

CHICAGO – For the first time in 13 years, the MillerCoors Urban Entrepreneur Series (MUES) is giving consumers the chance to vote for their favorite urban entrepreneur.

The new Consumer's Choice Award is a unique addition to the national business plan competition that has awarded nearly $2 million in grants since the program's inception in 1999. This new component will allow finalists the opportunity to engage their social networks for a chance to win a business development grant of $10,000.

The Minnesota Department of Commerce collected $1 million in penalties this week from a national mortgage settlement announced in February. Forty-nine states including Minnesota joined the $25 billion settlement which involves the nation’s five largest national mortgage lenders: Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank, and GMAC/Ally Financial.

“The mortgage crisis has left in its wake a path of foreclosures and financial distress for hundreds of thousands of Minnesota families,” said Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman. “Over the last seven years nearly 136,000 Minnesota homes have gone into foreclosure, and one out of every 905 homes in Minnesota received a notice of foreclosure last month.