Made in America, a selection for the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, chronicles the rise of the Crips and Bloods, tracing the origins of their bloody four-decades long feud, and setting up the introduction of a cast of contemporary gang members whose street-level testimony provides the film with a stark portrait of modern-day gang life: the turf wars and territorialism, the inter-gang hierarchy and family structure, the rules of behavior, the culture of guns, death and dishonor.

More than a simple account, perspective is an essential element of Made in America. Throughout the film ex-gang members, gang intervention experts, writers, activists and academics analyze many of the salient issues that contribute to South LA's malaise: the erosion of identity that fuels the self-perpetuating legacy of black self-hatred, the disappearance of the African-American father and an almost pervasive prison culture in which today one out of every four black men will be imprisoned at some point in his life.

Please join us for a provocative Q&A session immediately following the film.

American Progresss is pleased to present the Third Annual Progressive Party, an evening of celebration in support of our work and our mission. When: Thursday, May 8, 2008 at The Newseum in Washington, DC.

More than five years after the United States' invasion of Iraq and well over six years after the beginning of combat operations in Afghanistan, the United States faces numerous challenges to its national security interests in the greater Middle East and significant hurdles in dealing with other diplomatic and humanitarian crises around the world. Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE), a distinguished member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, will discuss these issues and take questions from members of the working press. Hagel is the author of America: Our Next Chapter, a straight forward examination of the current state of our nation that provides substantial proposals for the challenges of the 21st century.

In his new book, The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker, Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times takes a fresh, probing, and often shocking look at the stresses and strains faced by tens of millions of American workers as wages have stagnated, health and pension benefits have grown stingier, and job security has shriveled. Greenhouse goes behind the scenes to tell the stories of software engineers in Seattle, hotel housekeepers in Chicago, call center workers in New York, and janitors in Houston, as he explores why, in the world's most affluent nation, so many corporations are intent on squeezing their workers dry. Please join CAP Senior Fellow Gene Sperling for an informative and lively discussion on the shrinking and stressed American middle class with Greenhouse, Stewart Acuff of the AFL-CIO, Gerald Seib of the Wall Street Journal, and Ruy Teixeira of CAP and the Century Foundation.

Existing federal environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act and Endangered Species Act are increasingly recognized as providing the authority for immediate action on climate change. The Center for American Progress welcomes a panel that will extend this discussion to the role of the National Environmental Policy Act, which was established in 1969 to provide a systematic, interdisciplinary approach that ensured the integrated use of natural and social sciences in planning and decision making. Please join us for an important and timely discussion about the application of existing federal authorities to address global warming, including a proposed executive order requiring assessment and disclosure under NEPA.

Teacher quality is critical to the success of all other education improvement efforts, which is why forward-thinking education reformers are so focused on reforming teacher certification standards to boost quality. One approach to meeting the challenges of teacher quality and supply is developing alternative routes to teacher certification. Since many traditional, university-based programs are not adequately preparing teachers, particularly for hard-to-staff schools and subjects such as math and science, alternative programs are needed that try new and innovative approaches, rather than mimic traditional approaches. Join us for a lively discussion of a new paper by Davida Gatlin from the Center for American Progress that describes some of the more innovative models for alternative teacher certification programs and offers recommendations for state policy to encourage their growth.