culture

A former FBI agent was paid $157,000 to oversee security efforts at Alabama’s Huntsville City Schools, including monitoring the social media activity of students, an effort that critics argue unjustly targeted African Americans. The spying on social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter led to 14 expulsions—12 of them of African-American students—last school year.  According…

Florida Navy veteran Kendrick Taylor was headed to the gym when he heard a 76-year-old woman screaming for help in the Winn-Dixie parking lot. The woman was being robbed, and Taylor and several other good Samaritans rushed to her aid last week in Orange County, Fla., without any regard for their own safety.  “What if…

Turns out that not everyone running for office is trying to distance himself from the president. An Orlando, Fla.-area construction-company owner who’s running for local office proudly boasted a letter of endorsement written by President Barack Obama and posted the letter on his Facebook page. There was only one problem: The president didn’t write the…

When I tell my friends that the last time I had a girlfriend was during my freshman year in college in 1998, they respond with disbelief. For them it’s bemusing to fathom that a man who is well-traveled, gainfully employed, bilingual, degreed, childless, not living in his mother’s basement and debt-free could go 16 years…

Live news broadcasting is serious and important business, but it can also lead to memorable gaffes. Here are a handful of examples. Grace Under Pressure: Lester Holt Viewers who saw it live Saturday night were convinced that a weather reporter was relieving himself when anchor Lester Holt tossed to him. But an NBC representative says that…

A “cloaking device” would have come in handy last week for a traveling companion of Star Trek’s Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura on the popular, classic TV series. The 81-year-old actress was stopped at Los Angeles International Airport Friday after her 20-something male companion was discovered carrying drugs, New York’s Daily News reports, citing…

Revenge allegedly was on the mind of a Hueytown, Ala., teen, who is accused of robbing four Subway Restaurants. Zachary Rapheal Torrance, 18, allegedly told investigators he was angry and wanted his money back after failing to lose weight on the eatery’s famous so-called Jared diet, according to AL.com. He was arrested Thursday and charged…

Saturday Night Live was poised to deliver a winning show last night, with Chris Rock returning as host and Prince appearing as the musical guest. And the stars delivered the goods. Prince performed four new songs during a sublime eight-minute jam. Rock joked about everything from ISIS, the Boston Marathon bombing and even the Freedom…

At the heart of the ABC series Black-ish lies one question: How do you go about instilling certain traits and values about hard work and success in your children if your kids have a much more privileged upbringing than you had? It’s a question that is furrowing the collective eyebrows of middle-class and upper-middle-class black parents…

During a recent talk about race in America with Fusion host Jorge Ramos, director Spike Lee tackled the issue of a post-racial society under President Barack Obama. “People who get in trouble are the people who forget they’re black,” he said when asked what he teaches his children about race. “You can’t just think I’m…