Veronica Bolina—a 25-year-old transgender woman in Brazil who was arrested for allegedly attacking her 73-year-old neighbor—was beaten beyond recognition while in jail, the Daily Mail reports. In photos that have circulated online, Bolina’s eyes are swollen shut, her face is puffed out and deformed, and her lips are swollen. There are also several lacerations on her…

John Blue, of Georgia, says he wants justice after he spent seven months in jail on an assault charge of which he was eventually found not guilty, WSB-TV reports.   Blue was charged with aggravated assault last summer for allegedly ramming his van into a state welfare worker’s vehicle. Blue, his girlfriend and his sons,…

Pink slips are flying in a Houston prison after Deterrius “Terry” Rashad Goodwin, an inmate with a history of mental illness, was placed for several weeks in an unkempt isolation cell that contained dozens of food trays, “an infestation of gnats” and Goodwin’s feces, KRPC reports. Six officials at the Harris County Jail have been fired, and…

Thousands of people, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), attended the funeral of Freddie Gray at the New Shiloh Baptist Church in Baltimore on Monday, USA Today reports. Senior members of the Obama administration were also expected to attend, CNN reports, including officials who manage the White House’s outreach to the public and…

The U.S. is not letting the matter of getting Assata Shakur extradited back to the States go gently into that good night, despite being told numerous times that Cuban officials have said that the topic is off the table. According to State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke, now that President Barack Obama has moved the diplomatic ball further by taking Cuba…

Two white female high school students from Texas emailed letters to classmates and teachers at their school apologizing for a racist song that they recorded, in which they can be heard rapping about lynching “n—gas,” according to Raw Story. “N—gas, n—gas, n—gas, they always look at me, I want to kill them now, I want…

The White House announced Thursday that it has promoted Deesha Dyer to social secretary of the White House. Dyer will also serve as a special assistant to the president. Dyer is the second African-American woman to hold the post of social secretary. Dyer had previously served as deputy social secretary and, before that, amassed an…

The plot continues to thicken regarding just how experienced Robert Bates—the Oklahoma reserve officer who accidentally killed an unarmed man, Eric Harris, earlier this month—really is. According to anonymous sources who spoke directly to the Tulsa World, Oklahoma officials were told to falsify Bates’ training records and sign off on field-training hours that Bates never,…

George Davon Kennedy has joined two other college students who stand accused in an alleged gang rape that reportedly took place on a Panama City, Fla., beach in broad daylight, the New York Daily News reports. Kennedy, a student at Middle Tennessee State University, was arrested Tuesday in connection with the March assault, which was partially…

Several police officers were already working to detain 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was walking though the Chicago streets wielding a knife, when another police vehicle pulled up and one of its officers fired 16 shots into Laquan’s body, killing him. The FBI announced Monday that it is launching a criminal investigation into the actions of…