A judge has issued one sentence in the case of a pair of New York City twins who were charged after they reportedly tied up and stole cash from a 85-year-old “sugar daddy” they met through a dating website that matches older, wealthier men with younger women. According to the New York Daily News, 17-year-old…

Myron Penn, a prominent attorney in Union Springs, Ala., removed small Confederate flags that were placed at the grave sites of Confederate soldiers in a local cemetery, WSFA reports. As a result, he has drawn the ire of some locals. Penn explained why he felt compelled to remove the flags. “The reason why we picked…

Duke University professor Jerry Hough is receiving backlash after he posted a response to a New York Times editorial on the Times website. In his response he expressed disdain for what he said was a message being given to black Americans to feel sorry for themselves with regard to racism, WTVD reports.   “The blacks…

Veronica Cirella, from Plainview, N.Y., pleaded guilty to manslaughter Thursday for asphyxiating her 8-year-old disabled daughter in July 2011, the New York Daily News reports. Cirella’s daughter, Julie Cirella, had cerebral palsy and was supposed to be the flower girl in a wedding on the day she died. Her mother originally told authorities that Julie…

Minneapolis police are investigating an incident in which an officer pepper-sprayed a 10-year-old boy during a protest Wednesday night, the Star Tribune reports. Approximately 100 people were protesting news that a white police officer who fatally shot Tony Robinson—an unarmed 19-year-old African American—would not be charged. According to the Star Tribune, the protest got “unruly”…

Roosevelt Champion III’s death has been ruled a suicide by local authorities, 11 Alive reports, putting to bed the notion that the 43-year-old Georgia man had been hanged from a tree by a racially motivated perpetrator. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Tuesday that autopsy results pointed to suicide. Champion was found dead Monday morning…

Derrick Griffith, a 42-year-old doctoral student and dean of student affairs at Medgar Evers College in New York City, was one of seven individuals who died Monday night when an Amtrak train derailed in Philadelphia, PIX11 reports. Griffith had just defended his dissertation in urban education one month prior at Brooklyn’s Medgar Evers College and was…

Editor’s note: This piece has been updated to report the new death toll and discoveries from the ongoing investigation.  An Amtrak train traveling from Washington, D.C., to New York City derailed in Philadelphia Monday night, killing seven people and injuring more than 60 passengers, the New York Times reports. Around 9:30 p.m. EDT, the Amtrak…

Jeffrey Sterling, the former CIA officer who was found guilty in January of leaking classified information to a New York Times reporter, was sentenced Monday to three-and-a-half years in prison by a federal judge, the Washington Post reports. Sterling was convicted of leaking details about a U.S. operation to sabotage Iran’s efforts to develop a…

Roosevelt Champion III, a 43-year-old African-American man from Georgia, was found dead Monday morning, hanging from a tree in Greene County, My Fox Atlanta reports. Champion was found hanging behind his home near a “bushy area,” the news site explains. A man found Champion’s body and called authorities. According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation,…