During her MSNBC show on Saturday, Melissa Harris-Perry read a letter that urges Chief Justice John Roberts to do the right thing, as the U.S. Supreme Court takes up the University of Texas affirmative action case, which challenges the practice of including a race-based factor in the college admission process. She says that any ruling in…

The Daily News is reporting that the mother of Jovan Belcher, the Kansas City Chiefs linebacker who killed his girlfriend before turning the gun on himself, is close to gaining custody of the couple’s 4-month-old daughter, Zoey, and his estate. Zoey is believed to be residing in Texas with the family of her slain mother,…

Saying she couldn’t imagine a better place to live, Tina Turner is seeking to trade in her United States passport to become a Swiss citizen. Turner has lived in Switzerland since the mid-1990s, ABC News reports. The “Private Dancer” singer has lived in the Zurich suburb of Kuesnacht since the mid-1990s. The Zuerichsee-Zeitung newspaper said…

The Associated Press is reporting that a fire ripped through a crowded nightclub in Southern Brazil early Sunday, killing 232 people as the air filled with deadly smoke and patrons stampeded toward the exits, police and witnesses said. It appears to be the world’s deadliest nightclub fire in more than a decade. The tragedy comes…

On the heels of the Republican push to suppress the vote in states like Florida, Pennsylvania and Arizona, writes New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow, the GOP has a new plan, gerrymandering.  Thanks in part to gerrymandering, many states already have — and will continue to have in the near future — Republican-controlled legislatures.…

(The Root) — The NAACP’s New York State chapter surprised some in the health community on Wednesday when the group filed a joint petition to block New York City’s upcoming soda ban. In partnership with the Latino Federation, American Beverage Association, New York Korean-American Grocers Association and the Association of Theater Owners of New York…

As many celebrate the recent pardon of the Wilmington 10, Racialicious guest contributor Lamont Lilly draws a link between their struggle and the city’s history of Ku Klux Klan economic and racial violence. The experiences of The Wilmington Ten actually date back to the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot, to a time of overt racial oppression and forced…

Samara Azam-Yu writes at Colorlines that she learned quite a bit as a women’s health advocate, despite beliefs she held from her conservative upbringing. While volunteering, I had the honor of meeting incredible, resilient women who chose to terminate their pregnancies. The most striking part of this experience was when I realized that despite how seemingly…

Twenty-one defendants on trial for a bloody 2012 football riot that killed scores of people were sentenced to death on Saturday. This decision created a new riot, during which 30 people were killed as onlookers protested the verdict, reports Al Jazeera. At least 74 people were killed in the riot on February 1, 2012, which began…

In 2012, when Republican Gov. Phil Bryant signed an anti-abortion law, he instituted a sort of catch-22 for physicians who perform abortions. In order to work in a clinic, doctors are required to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, but many hospitals don’t want to be involved in the state’s fierce women’s health battle…