Philadelphia

Hispanic civil-rights group meets

Cecilia Munoz has often been heckled about her ethnic background and has been told many times to go home.

That would mean returning to the border town where she grew up, said Munoz, a member of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil-rights organization.

“That would be Detroit,” she said. “Bottom line, this is an American community.”

Of the nation’s 35 million Hispanics, the majority were born in the United States, said Munoz, vice president of policy for La Raza, which is holding its annual convention this weekend in Philadelphia.

At least 15,000 delegates from the nonprofit group’s more than 300 affiliates were expected to attend the four-day conference that runs through Tuesday.

La Raza, which was founded in Phoenix in 1968 as a Mexican-American civil rights group, has grown into a national organization that represents all Hispanics.

Washington

Cheney completes routine physical

Vice President Dick Cheney has a mild case of esophagitis and some small dilation of the arteries behind both knees, his office said Saturday after he completed a two-part annual physical.

Cheney, 64, was at George Washington University Hospital for a colonoscopy, an upper endoscopy and vascular screening. The procedures completed his yearly medical checkup.

In the first part of the exam last week, an annual heart checkup produced good news for Cheney, who has had four heart attacks, though none since he become vice president in 2001.

The endoscopy “indicated mild esophagitis” or swelling or irritation of the esophagus, the tube that leads from the back of the mouth to the stomach. The statement did not elaborate on the cause of Cheney’s condition.

Los Angeles

Mayor promises inquiry for toddler killed by police

The new mayor joined mourners Saturday at a funeral for a toddler who was killed by police during a shootout with her father, embracing the child’s mother and pledging to conduct a thorough investigation.

Nineteen-month-old Suzie Pena was used as a human shield by her father, Jose Pena, 34, who also was killed by police following a 2 1/2-hour standoff.

Lorena Lopez led the pallbearers, who escorted her daughter’s small, white casket out of the church.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa arrived at the church midway through the service.

Villaraigosa, the city’s first Latino mayor in more than a century, promised a thorough investigation.