The U.S. Postal Service released a stamp Tuesday to commemorate Maya Angelou’s life and work. First lady Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Ambassador Andrew Young and The Root co-founder Henry Louis Gates Jr. (who appeared via video) introduced the “forever” stamp to the mailing community. Attendees and the public were encouraged to share news about the…

Two white faculty members at Alabama State University have filed a lawsuit against the school in which they claim that ASU discriminates against whites in its hiring and admissions processes, USA Today reports. Steven B. Chesbro, reportedly the only white dean at Alabama State, and his partner, John Garland, a faculty member, also took issue…

The Rev. Gardner C. Taylor, one of the leading voices on faith, politics and social justice during the civil rights movement, died Sunday of a heart attack, the New York Times reports. He was 96 years old. Taylor presided over a 10,000-member congregation in Brooklyn, N.Y., at the Concord Baptist Church of Christ from 1948…

Hakeem Kuta, a 17-year-old Bronx, N.Y., native, was smoking marijuana with others in the lobby of an apartment building in the New York City borough Thursday evening when police officers approached, according to Raw Story. The group began to run in different directions, and Hakeem and a 14-year-old friend ended up on the building’s rooftop,…

Kenya is retaliating against al-Shabab—the militant Islamic group that assumed responsibility for the campus shooting in Garissa last week that left 147 dead—and has bombed two al-Shabab camps in neighboring Somalia, the BBC reports. According to Kenyan military spokesman David Obonyo, Kenya launched the airstrikes Sunday night. Obonyo explained that the al-Shabab camps were located…

A school board president in Louisiana has come to the defense of Claudetteia Love, a high school senior. It says that Love, a lesbian, can wear a tux to her prom if she wants to, Raw Story reports, despite the arbitrary rule by the school’s principal that girls must wear dresses and guys must wear…

Despite all the hoopla, many workers at McDonald’s feel insulted by the restaurant chain’s announced increase in wages $1 above the federal minimum wage, especially since that policy applies only to people working at company-owned restaurants, Forbes reports. That means that for the 90 percent of McDonald’s employees who work at franchise locations, their wages…

Gunmen stormed onto a college campus in Kenya right before dawn Thursday and began shooting students and taking hostages, CNN reports. Islamist terrorist group al-Shabab, based in Somalia, took responsibility for the attack, which claimed at least 140 lives. Students at Garrisa University College who witnessed the attack described how the attackers killed students based…

During the winter, a public transportation agency in Massachusetts paid inmates approximately $3 to $4 a day to shovel snow—without the appropriate weather gear—including on days when the temperature dropped to the single digits, ThinkProgress reports. After getting wind of reports that inmates had endured freezing workdays after being assigned to help with the Massachusetts…