• Police Identify Woman Suspected of Stealing Elderly Woman’s Purse in NYC

    New York City police officers believe that Adrienne Terry, 37, grabbed 86-year-old Bernice Starnes’ purse around 9 a.m. as she was sitting in her wheelchair outside her building in the Bronx, the New York Daily News reports. Terry allegedly walked up to Starnes, grabbed her pocketbook and took off as Starnes yelled after her. “She…

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  • NC Police Searching for Man Who Allegedly Shot Police Officer

    Officer Tim Brackeen of the Shelby, N.C., Police Department was shot early Saturday and later died Monday morning from his injuries. Police suspect that Irving Fenner Jr., 23, is the man behind the shooting, and cops are now searching for the North Carolina man, USA Today reports. “I saw this man shoot this cop and…

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  • King of Pain: 20 Years Later, Tupac Shakur’s Problematic Genius Still Haunts Us

    The aphorism goes, “Stars are born, not made.” I understood this twice in childhood: the first time I saw Magic Johnson on television, and the moment in Digital Underground’s “Same Song” video when a resplendent Tupac Shakur burst into the public consciousness on a chariot, wearing a dashiki and kufi, and holding a scepter that…

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  • Black Solidarity With First Nations Is Complicated, Sacred and Necessary

    I was born and raised as a descendant of enslaved Africans on Ute, Cheyenne and Arapaho land. I was born on the front range of the Rocky Mountains where Pike’s Peak’s massive snowcapped summit caused the sun to set 20 minutes earlier. Raised on a small family ranch with pigs, sheep and llamas, I grew…

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  • Hey, Michael Rapaport: Liking Hip-Hop Doesn’t Mean You Get to Tell Black People How to Feel

    You know how this goes. You’re chilling, waiting for the bread and circuses that are the start of the NFL season, when your homie forwards you a link on Twitter, along with his own commentary: “Did you read this b.s.?” You know in your gut that some white person just said something dumb because ……

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  • Md. Woman Pleads Guilty to Killing Her 2 Youngest Children

    On Monday, Zakieya Avery, 31, admitted in a Montgomery County, Md., courtroom that she killed her two youngest children during what she thought was an exorcism. She also admitted to attempting to kill her two other children, according to the Washington Post. Self-described as the “demon assassin,” Avery, along with her roommate, Monifa Sanford, 24,…

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  • #Root4BlackFathers: Celebrating Black Fathers 365

    After photos that Eric Owens posted on Facebook of him with his son recently began trending, there were many comments about the “emasculation” of black men from people who apparently weren’t held or hugged enough as children. So, just as we celebrated #BlackBoyJoy and dispelled dangerous myths about black fathers, The Root is keeping the party…

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  • Watch: Steve Harvey Faces His ‘Twin’ on Family Feud

    How does it feel to stand in front of someone who looks just like you (no relation)? Well, Steve Harvey knows all about that. The cold part is that it might sting just a little bit when, as the Family Feud host noted, your twinsie “looks a little better than you” do.

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  • Diddy Tops Forbes ‘Cash Kings’ List Once Again

    For the second year in a row, Sean “Diddy” Combs has hit the top of the Forbes 2016 “Cash Kings” list, raking in $62 million in 2016. It is his fifth time taking the top spot. The Forbes Hip-Hop Ranking is now in its 10th year and has been referenced in numerous rap songs, including…

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  • Kenya Barris Sued for $1,000,000 Over Credit for Black-ish

    Kenya Barris, creator of our favorite primetime sitcom, Black-ish, has been sued for $1 million by a former collaborator, a director who says he stole the show idea from him, Deadline reports. Music video director Bryan Barber, who helmed the 2006 film Idlewild, says he met Barris at Clark Atlanta University in 1996 and formed…

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