Protesters obstructed traffic along Atlanta’s Downtown Connector—a section of Interstate Highways 75 and 85—Wednesday evening in support for Michael Brown as the black community continues to demand answers in the Aug. 9 shooting of the unarmed black teen by a white Ferguson police officer, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Atlanta police spokesman Officer John Chafee told…

Two children who recently moved from Rwanda to the United States are being kept home from school after parents at Howard R. Yocum Elementary School in Maple Shade Township, N.J., voiced concerns about a possible outbreak of Ebola, Fox 29 reports. Of course, Rwanda is an East African country that is located about 2,600 miles…

An unidentified woman is in critical condition after a man slashed her throat for rejecting his invitation to go on a date, the New York Post reports. According to the site, the man came up to the woman in the lobby of an apartment building in the Jamaica, Queens, section of New York City on…

The most serious charge against Joseph Weekley, the elite Detroit police officer who says he accidentally shot 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones while conducting a raid for a murder suspect, has been dropped, the Associated Press reports. On Monday, Michigan’s appeals court upheld the dismissal of the manslaughter charge. Wayne County Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway originally dismissed…

New York City Police Department officers are under investigation, this time for beating a 16-year-old suspect even as he tried to surrender, according to DNAinfo New York. The news site obtained exclusive footage showing the two officers run up to suspect Kahreem Tribble. Kahreem stops running, only to have one officer try to punch him.…

Hammond, Ind., police have come under fire after one of their officers was caught on video smashing open the passenger window of a vehicle and using a Taser on the man in the passenger seat, all while his family watched, Fox32 reports. According to the report, the incident in late September began as a traffic…

How do expectations, particularly teacher expectations, affect students in the U.S.? Are standards high enough? Does Common Core, which has been adapted by some states, set the bar too high? These are all questions that Center for American Progress senior fellow Ulrich Boser has tried to unpack in an issue brief (pdf), and there is a…

Ben Carson, the Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon-turned-Republican star, believes that the “likelihood is strong” that he will end up running for president in 2016. “Unless the American people indicate in November that they like big-government intervention in every part of their lives, I think the likelihood is strong,” he said Monday on radio’s The Hugh Hewitt Show,…

Recent events haunting black communities like ghosts of a violent era that many thought long gone—such as the tragic deaths of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and Michael Brown—hark back to a collective memory of enslavement. John Matteson, Distinguished Professor of English at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, believes that the…

Editor’s note: This story includes video footage that some may find disturbing. Video has been released of a South Carolina Highway Patrol trooper approaching a man regarding a traffic violation and then shooting him, seemingly for no reason, The State reports. Officer Sean Groubert has been arrested and charged with assault and battery of a…