Latinos

Times are tough enough for Californians; they're even tougher for Californians' teeth. "One-quarter of all adults and 28% of children in California have untreated dental caries [cavities]," says Len Finocchio, a senior program officer at the California Healthcare Foundation, a health advocacy group. "Our research tells us that many people in California have been avoiding routine care that might have cost about $100 for a checkup and cleaning, and then find themselves in the emergency room, where they get only an antibiotic, a bill that can average over $600 and instructions to see a dentist."

Mitt Romney said it himself:  He needs to boost his support among Latinos, or cede the White House to Barack Obama for another four years. Speaking last month at a fundraiser in Palm Beach, Fla., (just within earshot of eavesdropping reporters) the former Massachusetts governor acknowledged the resistance he faces among Latino voters after moving far right during the Republican primaries on immigration and other issues. “If it's not turned around,” said the GOP nominee-to-be, “it spells doom for us.” Romney clearly has some work to do. A new national poll,  conducted for NBC News, the Wall Street Journal and Telemundo, showed him trailing the president 61% to 27% among Latinos.

"Courageous," the fourth entry from the filmmaking ministry of Albany, Ga's., Sherwood Baptist Church, proves a particularly clunky, tunnel-visioned vehicle whose overbearing, overlong script nearly smothers the movie's quibble-free message: Fathers must be responsible. And what of the importance of mothers here? It often feels like a case of "Oh, them. " Director Alex Kendrick and brother — and producer and co-writer — Stephen are both pastors at Sherwood Baptist. Despite the story's earnest emotional core, actions and reactions can prove overly simplistic; black-and-white when gray is so clearly called for. The many topics raised — gangs, drugs, immigration, absentee parents, poverty — are examined with didacticism and platitudes instead of by mining their inherent complexities.

WASHINGTON - Targeting an issue popular with women, a key voter group, Mitt Romney assailed President Obama's leadership on education Wednesday and blamed teachers unions for problems facing American schools. The Republican presidential candidate is making education the focus of his brief campaign schedule this week. On Thursday, he will tour a charter school in Philadelphia and lead a discussion on education in the most heavily Democratic part of the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

The news that Mexican immigration to the United States has come to a virtual halt has me thinking about all the ways that will change things. It will affect politics, culture, labor and the nation's racial climate. And it will also change how we see each other and ourselves as Americans and as Californians, me included. I'm one of those mythical native Californians you might have read about. I was born near the corner of Sunset and Vermont in Hollywood. My father was born in L.A. and baptized, as was I, at La Placita Church downtown.

Ruben Martinez ("Knock the Police Chief Off His Pedestal," Opinion, March 16) is out of touch with the people he purports to write about. For too long, armchair revolutionaries have used Latino immigrants as fodder for their political fantasies. Martinez does it again when he gives credence to gangster rapper Tupac Shakur's prophesy that Mexicans will join blacks in an insurrection. That notion is as preposterous as it is dangerous. A Field poll last year showed that Latinos were more optimistic about the future than was the rest of California.

Although President Obama still enjoys higher job approval ratings from Latinos than he does from the public at large, a new Ipsos-Telemundo poll shows the president's support among Latinos continues to decline. A majority - 56% -- said in late November and early December that they approve of how the president is handling his job. By comparison, 86% of Latinos approved of Obama in April 2009, and 62% approved in June. According to an Ipsos analysis of the poll, the results “suggest that while President Obama's approval has been dropping since he took office, the disillusion among Latinos is more pronounced than among the general public.” The six-percentage-point drop since June is double the drop among the public at large, according to the poll.

As the only Republican candidate for president to address Nevada's oldest Latino political organization Wednesday morning, Rep. Ron Paul got high marks for bravery. All were invited; only he showed up. He was cheered by members of Hispanics in Politics when he talked about bringing American troops home from "wars we shouldn't be involved in. "  The audience -- dozens of politically active Latinos who gathered in an eastside community center --  applauded Paul the civil libertarian when he slammed drug laws that unfairly target minorities.  They even cheered his defense of the gold standard.

WASHINGTON -- A top staffer for the Republican National Committee got the party's election-year outreach to Latino voters off to a disastrous public start Monday when she told a roomful of reporters that likely GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, a hard-liner on immigration, was still formulating his position on the issue. “As a candidate, to my understanding, that he's still deciding what his position on immigration is,” said Bettina Inclàn, who became the RNC's director of Hispanic Outreach in January.

A long-term study shows that Latinos have a much higher rate of certain vision disorders. Now, on the heels of the Los Angeles Latino Eye Study, free eye health screenings will be offered in the city. The EyeSmart EyeCheck screening targeting Latinos was created by the American Academy of Ophthalmology. The first screening will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at the Family Health Fair at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church, 535 N. Main St., Los Angeles. Latinos have the poorest vision and highest level of undetected eye disease of any U.S. ethnic group.

WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney used a Latino business gathering as a forum to assail President Obama's leadership of the economy and blame teachers unions for problems facing American education. The Republican presidential candidate is making education the focus of his brief public campaign schedule this week. On Thursday, he will tour a charter school in Philadelphia and lead a discussion on education in the most heavily Democratic part of that swing state. In Washington on Wednesday, Romney assured Latino businessmen and women that they would never have to “wake up every day, wondering if the president is on your side.” Photos: The search for Romney's running mate Obama, he charged, “has decided to attack success,” apparently referring to attack ads by the president's reelection campaign that targeted Romney's business record as an executive of Bain Capital, a private investment firm.

WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney won't carry the Latino vote this year. No Republican nominee for president ever has. But improving his margins among Latinos is crucial to his chances of defeating President Obama, as new poll numbers out of Florida show. The Quinnipiac University survey, just out Wednesday morning, gives Romney  a six-point statewide lead over Obama, 47% to 41%. Florida has the nation's third-largest Latino population, and Romney drew 40% among Latino voters to Obama's 42%. A previous Quinnipiac poll, conducted three weeks earlier, showed the race a statistical dead heat (Romney 44, Obama 43)

Handsome, youthful, Cuban American and Republican, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida has been mentioned repeatedly as a potential running mate for Mitt Romney - in part because of hopes that the presence of the first Latino on a major national ticket would draw that key voting group Romney's way. But outside of his enormously important home state, the prospect for that sort of boost seems less than likely. Some voters would probably be attracted by the idea of a Latino, any Latino, being that close to the White House.

The United States has reached a historic tipping point, with children born to Latino, Asian, African American and mixed-race parents now constituting a majority of all births, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. The long-expected demographic shift is considered a milestone for the nation, though one that California passed three decades ago when births to racial and ethnic minorities surpassed those to white parents. The new report shows that minorities accounted for about 2 million, or 50.4%, of U.S. births in the 12 months ending July 1 of last year.

The news that Mexican immigration to the United States has come to a virtual halt has me thinking about all the ways that will change things. It will affect politics, culture, labor and the nation's racial climate. And it will also change how we see each other and ourselves as Americans and as Californians, me included. I'm one of those mythical native Californians you might have read about. I was born near the corner of Sunset and Vermont in Hollywood. My father was born in L.A. and baptized, as was I, at La Placita Church downtown.

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department has sued Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona, asking a federal court to prevent the brazen and outspoken lawman from racially profiling Latinos, abusing them in his jails and retaliating against his critics. "The police are supposed to protect and support our community, not divide them," said Assistant Atty. Gen. Thomas E. Perez, head of the Justice Department's civil rights division. "This is an abuse of power case involving a sheriff and a sheriff's office that has ignored the Constitution.

When Arizona passed a law requiring immigrants to keep their papers with them at all times or risk arrest, we believed the state's hysteria was the unfortunate byproduct of the dysfunctional federal immigration policy. After all, who isn't fed up with illegal immigration? People may disagree about the solution to the problem, but no one denies that what the United States is doing now isn't working. But it is now clear that Arizona's problem isn't only immigration — legal or otherwise.

WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney won't carry the Latino vote this year. No Republican nominee for president ever has. But improving his margins among Latinos is crucial to his chances of defeating President Obama, as new poll numbers out of Florida show. The Quinnipiac University survey, just out Wednesday morning, gives Romney  a six-point statewide lead over Obama, 47% to 41%. Florida has the nation's third-largest Latino population, and Romney drew 40% among Latino voters to Obama's 42%. A previous Quinnipiac poll, conducted three weeks earlier, showed the race a statistical dead heat (Romney 44, Obama 43)

Speaking the language of the fast growing and increasingly desirable Latino audience, Walt Disney Co.'s ABC News and Univision Communications are teaming up to launch a 24-hour English-language news network. The yet-unnamed cable channel, announced Monday, is expected to launch during the first half of next year. The two companies plan to get a head start this summer with a website and content for social networks and mobile devices devoted to covering the U.S. presidential election — which some analysts say could be decided by Latino voters in battleground states.

WASHINGTON -- A top staffer for the Republican National Committee got the party's election-year outreach to Latino voters off to a disastrous public start Monday when she told a roomful of reporters that likely GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, a hard-liner on immigration, was still formulating his position on the issue. “As a candidate, to my understanding, that he's still deciding what his position on immigration is,” said Bettina Inclàn, who became the RNC's director of Hispanic Outreach in January.