The new selection process will include recommendations and review from a Special Honors Advisory Committee that will include Kennedy Center board members, artist committee members and former honorees Chita Rivera and cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Members of the Special Honors Advisory Committee will serve a term between three and five years long and will create a list of 10-20 nominees for awards consideration. These nominees — which will include honoree recommendations submitted by the general public through a new  website – will then be divvied up into slates that “will provide balance and diversity across the various performing arts disciplines,” announced a press release regarding the revised selection process.

Following the announcement of the 2012 honorees last September – who included entertainment personalities including actor Dustin Hoffman, the surviving members of rock band Led Zeppelin and television host David Letterman – Latino groups including the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA) and the National Hispanic Foundation of the Arts (NHFA) began lobbying for revised selection process that would avoid any inadvertent discrimination against Latinos.

The Kennedy Center Honors recognizes lifetime achievement to entertainers who have contributed to American culture through their art. However, since the first awards were bestowed in 1978, only two of the more than 180 artists honored since have been Hispanic.  Placido Domingo (2000) and Chita Rivera (2002) have been recipients of the Honors and to date, the only Latinos to have received such recognition.

“This revision will broaden input into selecting the Honorees while continuing to ensure the Honors remains the preeminent award for cultural achievement in the United States,” said Kennedy Center Chairman David Rubenstein.

Kennedy Center trustee and standing board oversight committee member Giselle Fernandez said that the organization should be praised for its swift revision of its selection process, stating “I applaud the Kennedy Center board for moving so thoughtfully and swiftly with this review … [I] hope this review becomes a model for other organizations across the country.”

The revised selection process will be effective immediately and will be implemented for use in selecting the 2013 Kennedy Honors recipients.

“If they (the Administration) can’t get a hold and change the narrative, it’s going to cause a lot of trouble for the White House,” said Republican strategist Danny Vargas on MSNBC today.

So will the focus on these issues and controversies derail an immigration bill from reaching the President’s desk by the end of the summer?

Immigration supporters in the Senate say this is not the case.

“We are really making a lot of headway through the Senate Judiciary Committee right now; in fact, it’s getting done as we speak,” says José Parra, director of Hispanic media and Deputy Director of Communications for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

“Senator Reid has said from the beginning this is one of his top if not the top priority, and he continues to think so,” states Parra. “He intends to have it on the floor in the month of June,” he adds.

Katherine Vargas, White House Director of Hispanic Media, says the President summed it up best in a recent news conference .  ”I feel confident that the bipartisan work that’s been done on immigration reform will result in a bill that passes the Senate, passes the House, and gets on my desk. And that’s going to be a historic achievement,”  said President Obama, when asked about the prospects of immigration legislation this year.

But others, like University of Notre Dame professor Allert Brown-Gort, are not so sure.

“It’s not whether Benghazi or the IRS or AP sucks the oxygen out of the room for immigration reform – it’s whether some Republicans, especially in the House, will use this as an excuse to put off hearings and not move the legislation forward,” says Brown-Gort, a faculty fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

Brown-Gort says that while the Republican party leadership and the “intelligentsia” are pushing for it, “their base is saying ‘no’ – the Republicans got hoisted on their own petard on the success of the word amnesty,’ he adds.

Immigration reform advocates point to the fact that only a small group of House Republicans joined a press conference yesterday against the current immigration reform bill.  ”The House press conference underscored the fact that these opponents are rapidly losing influence,” said America’s Voice Frank Sharry. Conservative Republican Congressman Steve Stockman said in the press conference they will have a “gang of millions” against the bill.

In the meantime, the Senate Judiciary Committee meets tomorrow again – and at least in the Senate, the bill is on its way.

Boosted by reassuring jobs numbers, Obama is calling for greater trade and economic cooperation with the U.S.’s southern neighbors, arguing that economic prosperity is the best antidote to drug and gang violence and, by extension, to the illegal immigration the U.S. is seeking to control.

In his radio and Internet address Saturday, Obama also made the case that deepening economic ties with the Americas means more jobs in the United States.

“One of the best ways to grow our economy is to sell more goods and services made in America to the rest of the world,” he said. “That includes our neighbors to the south.”

During the trip Obama has tried to modulate the exercise of U.S. influence. He has refused to insert himself in Mexico’s strategy for confronting narcotrafficking, even if it means more limited access by U.S. security officials to Mexican law enforcement. In Costa Rica, he urged Central American leaders to integrate their economies, reduce their high energy costs and confront the violence in the region.

“As governments, our job is to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to provide security and opportunity and ladders for success and prosperity for our people,” he told the regional leaders at the start of a dinner Friday. “Economic growth that creates jobs, security for people so that they can be safe in their own neighborhoods, and development that allows people to live in dignity.”

On Saturday, Obama to speak and takes questions during a forum on economic growth and development.

In addition to its economic aims, the trip served as a nod by Obama to the vast Hispanic population in the United States, which heavily supported him in the 2012 election and which retains strong family and cultural ties to Latin America.

“In fact,” he said Friday in a speech aimed at young people in Mexico City, “without the strong support of Latinos, including so many Mexican Americans, I would not be standing today as president of the United States. That’s the truth.”

A theme during the trip was the U.S. effort to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws, an issue of intense interest among Latinos in the United States and in Mexico and Central America.

The vast majority of the 11 million immigrants illegally in the U.S. are from Latin America, 6 million of them from Mexico alone. Obama supports legislation that would give those immigrants a path to U.S. citizenship and he told Univision in an interview aired Friday that he would not sign a bill that did not provide such a pathway. Republicans are demanding greater border security.

“The truth is, right now, our border with Mexico is more secure than it’s been in years,” he said in the radio address. “We’ve put more boots on that border than at any time in our history, and illegal crossings are down by nearly 80 percent from their peak in 2000.”

The immigration legislation should be a compromise, he said, “which means that nobody got everything they wanted — including me.”

As Congress debates immigration legislation, Obama’s bullish — even overly rosy — depiction of Mexico’s economic prospects were meant to convince the U.S. public and lawmakers that Mexico no longer poses the illegal immigration threat it once did.

“The long-term solution to the challenge of illegal immigration is a growing and prosperous Mexico that creates more jobs and opportunities for young people here,” he said.

Mexico, Obama said, has lifted millions of people from poverty.

But while Mexico’s economy has grown, it has yet to trickle down to average workers. Huge poverty rates held steady between late 2006 and 2010, the most recent year for which government statistics are available. Between 40 and 50 percent of the population of 112 million Mexicans live in poverty, earning less than $100 a month.

Even as he tried to keep the focus on the economy and immigration, Obama did not escape the issue of drugs and violence wracking the region. In the Costa Rican capital Friday, Obama said the U.S. and Latin America share “common effects and common responsibilities” for the troubles and argued to his dining companions Friday that his country has suffered from the drug epidemic as well.

“If you go to my hometown of Chicago, and you go to some neighborhoods, they’re just as violent, if not more violent than some of the countries at this table — in part because of the pernicious influence of the drug trade,” he said.

Drug-fueled violence remains an undeniable part of daily life in many parts of the region. Costa Rica has fared better than many of its neighbors, but it worries about spillover from nearby countries. Honduras, for example, now has the highest homicide rate in the world, with about 7,200 people murdered last year in the tiny nation of 8 million people, most in drug-related crime.

Obama acknowledged the role of U.S. demand for drugs and said his administration has spent $30 billion to reduce demand in recent years. But he acknowledged that the United States remains a “big market” and that “progress is sometimes slower than we’d like it to be.”

Obama also could not avoid entanglements beyond the region. Questions about Syria dogged him and his aides during the trip. On Friday, he virtually ruled out sending U.S troops into the country torn by civil war, saying he did “not foresee a scenario” for doing so.

In the Republican address Saturday, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory argued that Washington should learn from Republican governors on how to make government work efficiently. He said governors need Washington to give states more flexibility, independence and accountability and called on Obama to show more leadership.

The Florida Republican is the chief emissary to conservatives on the contentious legislation. He says he’s been hearing concerns in recent days that more work is needed to boost the bill’s language on the border. He says he’s committed to trying to make those changes.

Rubio didn’t give specifics in an interview on “The Sean Hannity Show” radio program. But a number of conservatives have complained about “triggers” in the bill that aim to make new citizenship provisions contingent on border security accomplishments. Critics say those provisions are too weak.

If you’re a young person like Alejandra, you might not be thinking a lot about health insurance—until the day you need it.  You’ve got other priorities.  But what if you get into an accident, are diagnosed with a serious illness, or have certain medical requirements for school or work?  Today, Alejandra knows firsthand the importance of health insurance, and what it means for her and other young adults across the country.

The Affordable Care Act is expanding affordable health insurance options for young adults in several ways.  If you’re under 26, you can now be insured as a dependent on your parent’s plan, with a couple of exceptions — for instance, if you are eligible for your own job-based coverage. Also, new health plans must now cover many critical preventive services at no out-of-pocket cost.  The $300 bill Alejandra paid for her checkup?  That could’ve been free.

And there’s more. When the new Marketplaces open for enrollment in October for coverage beginning as soon as January 1^st, 2014, individuals and small business owners will be able to compare their options for buying health insurance and find the quality plan that best fits their budget.  The Marketplaces will be competitive, transparent, and simple to navigate—and while you’ll be able to shop for coverage over the phone or in person, if you’re like Alejandra, you’ll probably prefer to check out your new options online through the easy-to-use Marketplace website, healthcare.gov.

Of course, if Alejandra needs help navigating the application, she’ll have it.  And if she needs help paying for coverage, she’ll have help with that too.  If you make less than $45,000, and your job doesn’t offer affordable coverage, you may get financial assistance to help pay for insurance. Another option, if you make less than $15,000, may be Medicaid, which will be expanding in many states beginning in 2014.

Alejandra, like so many other young adults across the country, is just trying to make something of herself. She’s doing her best to make ends meet in order to take that next step in life. Fortunately for my sister, she’ll have one more tool to ensure her long-term health and financial stability – affordable health coverage. Open enrollment in the health insurance marketplace begins on October 1, 2013, and it can’t come soon enough for Alejandra and millions of other young adults in need of health coverage.

I hope all of us who are big sisters, brothers, friends, or neighbors can help spread the word about this great opportunity. I know I will.

Mayra Alvarez is the Director of Public Health Policy in the Office of Health Reform at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She is also a proud big sister.

Voting rights groups blasted the Florida Republican’s rewrite of the bill in a conference call with reporters on Monday, saying that the bill would make it harder for some minority, elderly, and disabled voters to cast their ballots. They argued that people who don’t speak English, or have trouble voting for any other reason wouldn’t be able to seek help from trained volunteers at the polls unless they already know them. Executive director of Florida New Majority advocate group Gihan Perera said that the bill would not help reform elections but instead create new barriers to voting for the Latino community and other segments of the population.

“This is again not about whats best for Florida’s elections, but it’s politicians getting in the way of solutions for democracy,” Perera says. “This has dire consequences for communities of color like the Latino and Haitian community.”

After the 2012 election, Florida lawmakers are proposing changes to elections that they say are designed to make voting easier. In addition to the limiting voter assistance, the proposed legislation gives counties the option of reinstating early voting the Sunday before the election. Senator Latvala did not immediately return request for comment on the bill. According to the Tampa Bay Times,  in Senate floor debate last week the Florida Senator defended the bill and said that the change to the assistance provision came from people abusing their ability to help voters.

RELATED: Heated debate on the Voting Rights Act inside and outside the Supreme Court  

“It’s become kind of a political tool in many areas to have folks who stay at precincts all day offering their services to go in and help people vote, and in many cases in an intimidating fashion,” he said.

Former Miami Republican representative J.C. Planas, a lawyer on the Republican legal team since 2004, told the Miami Herald that the change is designed to curb the assistance of elections volunteers who he believes were hired in order to advise people how to vote.

“In certain places in Miami Dade, especially during early voting, we get people who hang out and attach themselves to voters they have never met before and basically, instead of voting the voters’ way, they vote their way,’’ he said. “We’ve videotaped it. We’ve done complaints to the state attorney.”

For Katherine Culliton-Gonzalez, Advancement Project Director of Voter Protection, the bill is in clear violation of federal law. Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act provides that a person who needs assistance as a result of blindness, disability, or the inability to read or write is eligible to get help from the person of their choosing, as long as that volunteer is not from the voter’s labor union or employer.

RELATED: Early voting chaos in Florida 

“Section 208 expressly allows voters to make their own personal choice,” Culliton-Gonzalez argues. “More voters report feeling more comfortable with getting support from the volunteers they trust to fully explain the ballot.”

Perera says that the bill, which partially reinstates early voting, doesn’t do enough to resolve issues of overcrowded polls on elections day. Instead, he wants outside volunteers to be able to help and alleviate the burden placed on overworked election workers.

“Last year when lines went around the corner, it was our organization and churches that were the first responders to disaster,” Perera says.

Carlin Gele, an elections volunteer with SEIU 1199 said that she saw firsthand the limitations to the number of people election workers could help. In the 2012 election, SEIU trained 20 volunteers and assisted 4000 voters.

“The demands greatly exceeded what the election staff could provide. In some early voting sites, there was only one Creole speaking employee,” Gele said. “Once they left, voters in line had no option for assistance from election staff.”

Despite criticism from voting rights groups, Latvala stuck to the provisions in the bill and told the Miami Herald: “If they don’t do it, why would they object to this bill?’’

The bill is set to be voted on in the Florida Senate today.

“Honestly, the script just made me laugh – I thought it was so funny!” exclaims the actress of the screenplay written by director Todd Berger. “I literally found myself laughing out loud so much that I had to jump right into it.”

Ferrera – who appears in the film alongside Julia Stiles, David Cross, Erinn Hayes, Jeff Grace and Rachel Boston – said that one of the best experiences of filming “It’s a Disaster” was spending downtime with her hilarious co-stars. And in a movie about the meltdown that occurs when four couples are faced with the realization that the end of the world may be near, that’s quite the statement.

The cast of “It’s a Disaster.”

“What’s unique about this movie is that every character had their own storyline,” says Ferrera of the film, now playing in theaters in Los Angeles and New York City. “After the incredibly intense experience I had filming ‘End of Watch,’ it was really nice to take a load off and jump into comedy with such great people.”

RELATED: Cafecito: America Ferrera on her role in Cesar Chavez biopic and voter registration

And those “great people” just happen to include her on-screen fiancé, played by actor Jeff Grace.

“We definitely made time to hang out with one another,” says Ferrera, who has been happily married to actor/director Ryan Piers Williams since 2011. “But I think what made time on the film special is that we had a girl’s dinner and we went karoke singing; it was a really fun group.”

On a more serious note, the film’s themes of love, tragedy, shock, and grief appealed to Ferrera; as an inquisitive student (she’s working toward earning her bachelor’s degree) she says she really tried to flesh out her character as Hedy in a way that would do justice to the full range of emotions experienced within the film.

“I really responded to the way that everyone in the movie reacts differently about this one event – the end of the world,” reflects Ferrera of her role as a quirky high school chemistry teacher. “And because my character is the only one who truly understands the ramifications of what’s occurred, working within that feeling of shock and loss of function was really interesting for me.”

But that’s not to say that Ferrera’s character is all gloom and despair. She doles out relationship advice (in real life, Ferrera says she and her girlfriends regularly swap advice, especially when it comes to men), swigs a glass of hard liquor (or two!), and at the end of the day, is a girl trying to find her way in the world. In short, it’s the type of role that the political activist says she hopes brings fans together, whether or not they are Latino like herself.

RELATED: Latino celebrities use star power to push for immigration reform

“I do the work that I’m attracted to and I hope that in presenting myself as an individual, I show how Latinos are present in every element of culture,” says Ferrera, who will next be seen in “Chavez,” a docudrama about labor activist Cesar Chavez. “It doesn’t have to be for Latinos by Latinos anymore. The million dollar question is balance, and I think I’m just trying to do what I love and be as passionate and effective as I can be both in my personal and professional life.”

“Every day, I’m mindful of that balancing act.”

Check out America Ferrera in character as Hedy Galili below.

Alejandro Garcia Padilla said Thursday that the government will pay the $46 fee and offer the test at public schools during school hours. Previously, students had to pay for the exam themselves and travel to another location to take the test on a weekend.

Garcia said the initiative is part of a $1.2 million program to promote higher education.

About 17 percent of 2.4 million Puerto Ricans who are 25 or older have a bachelor’s degree.

“Right now I’m the old one in class. I wish I was this student then,” said Longoria, who confessed that she now makes sure to read ahead for class. Longoria – who earned a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from Texas A&M University-Kingsville – didn’t reveal the name of the school she’s currently attending (“It’s in California,” she said) but shared that the graduate school track has been a long one.

RELATED: Eva Longoria admits she’s a cat lady

“I did night school when I was on ‘Desperate Housewives,’ Longoria, who is currently finishing her thesis, said. “I wanted to be literate on everything, I wanted to study immigration.”

Watch Longoria chat about being a student, which city she considers the sleaziest and dish about her latest travels.