Trayvon Martin Day at a Pittsburgh high school was meant to bring students together and raise social awareness while commemorating the life of the unarmed African-American teen who was shot and killed last year by George Zimmerman, the Daily News reports. Instead it resulted in a loud public outcry from parents, who called it divisive.…

(The Root) — The other day during a recent business trip to Los Angeles, Kyle Abraham’s rental car got a flat tire. For most people, this inconvenience would spin their day out of control, but not Abraham. The dancer-choreographer was still floating on air after being named a MacArthur fellow. The 2013 fellowship from the…

Updated Oct. 6, 12:25 p.m. EDT: Washington police are investigating the use of deadly force in the shooting of 34-year-old Miriam Carey, who reportedly tried to ram her car through a White House barrier. The review comes after Carey’s family raised questions about the shooting, saying it was “unjustified.” Deadly force experts have also raised…

The Obama administration has been unflinching in its war on terror, despite exceptional political dysfunction at home, which includes a partial shutdown of the federal government. On Saturday, amid a day of bipartisan bickering over who is responsible for the closing of the government, came news of the capture of a Libyan al-Qaida leader, who…

Usher visited the set of Sesame Street this week and sang the ABC song along with the cast in a version that will delight the old and young. “You guys ready?” he asked Elmo, Murray, Grover and Addy Cadabby before launching into an R&B version of the song. “Let’s do it,” he said. “Clap your…

Beverly Johnson, the “first black supermodel,” tells Glamour in its November issue that brains and beauty mattered when she started in the fashion industry in the 1970s, according to the Daily Mail. Johnson, 60, recalls failing a typing test at a casting call in 1972 because she acted “like she couldn’t even type,” but won…

Hollywood director Steven Spielberg was among several luminaries honored with Harvard’s prestigious W.E.B. Du Bois Medal this week during the launch of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. The Root’s editor-in-chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Glenn H. Hutchins, whose $15 million gift helped establish the Hutchins Center, presided over the event Wednesday…

A new study reveals that fear of racial profiling prevents some black men from jogging in mostly white neighborhoods. Research by sociologist Rashawn Ray, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the University of Maryland, shows that black men are less likely to run outside if they live in a predominantly white neighborhood, according to Runner’s World.…

Maybe the shutdown of parts of the federal government isn’t all that bad. Turns out, it resulted in the cancellation of a Ku Klux Kan rally that had been scheduled to take place over the weekend in Maryland at the Gettysburg National Park, the Daily News reports. The Confederate White Knights of Maryland had been…

The Obama administration and states are under pressure to get health insurance exchanges up and running smoothly after consumers seeking coverage on the second day overwhelmed websites and tied up phone lines with questions, the Associated Press reports. The logjam is good news for President Obama because it shows high interest in what has become…