Equity & Justice

During normal times, the concrete alleyway behind the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in downtown Sacramento goes mostly unnoticed.

Cars and delivery trucks pass through, crows fly over at dusk and homeless people sleep there at night.

But since July, when California banned indoor religious services in many counties in order to stop the spread of COVID-19, this alley has been a place of worship.

Nine Black Lives Matter protesters who were confronted by a white St. Louis couple waving an AR 15-style rifle and a semi-automatic pistol as they allegedly stood guard on the beautifully manicured lawn of their mansion, have been issued trespassing summonses for marching onto a private property.

The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department issued the citations after more than two months of investigations, and these are now under review by the city counselor's office, officials told NPR.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled that Florida can now order people with past felony convictions to fully pay off their fines before they will be allowed to register to vote, effectively disenfranchising thousands of the state's low-income residents.

The federal appeals court sided with the state of Florida in its controversial decision, which critics have likened to a "poll tax."

Federal police officers who cleared a crowded park near the White House with smoke and tear gas in June violated court-ordered regulations that spell out how demonstrators are to be warned before aggressive tactics are used against them, attorneys who helped write the agreed-upon rules say.

Black patients are some of the most reluctant to participate in clinical trials, according to FDA statistics.

Days before the U.S. commemorates the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the New York City Fire Department said it is renaming its most prestigious firefighting medal because of the "deeply racist beliefs" of its namesake.

FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro announced this week that the James Gordon Bennett Medal will now bear the name of Chief Peter J. Ganci Jr., who was the department's highest-ranking member to lose his life on 9/11.

George Washington University says associate professor Jessica A. Krug has resigned, after a blog post published under her name last week said she had invented several Black identities.

The blog post stated that Krug is actually a white, Jewish woman from the Midwest, who for years has "assumed identities within a Blackness that I had no right to claim: first North African Blackness, then US rooted Blackness, then Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness."

Dallas Police Chief U. Reneé Hall, the first Black woman to head the department, has announced that she is stepping down from the post. Her resignation follows criticism over the department's response to protests against racism and police violence.

A priest, a newspaper editor and a mariachi musician — they've all had their work and lives upended in a corner of the country that has been devastated by the coronavirus.

More than 2,000 people in the Rio Grande Valley in the southern tip of Texas have perished in the pandemic.

Updated at 5:58 p.m. ET

La'Ron Singletary is resigning as police chief in Rochester, N.Y., as protests continue over the March death of a Black man, Daniel Prude, by asphyxiation after being restrained by police. Much of the encounter was caught on video.

Other senior police leaders are joining Singletary in leaving the department, Rochester Mayor Lovely A. Warren said.

The trippy new Hulu comedy Woke is what you might get if you mixed the satire in the movie Get Out with a psychedelic Sesame Street for adults. An African American cartoonist, played by Lamorne Morris, is deeply conflicted over just how engaged with social issues his art should be. Talking objects like a malt malt liquor bottles voiced by Nicole Byer and Eddie Griffin mess with his head. Punctuating the show's brainy humor is a soundtrack that includes hip hop, R&B, punk and folk.

The mayor of Louisville, Ky., has named Yvette Gentry as the city's new interim police chief, making her the first Black woman to lead the Louisville Metro Police Department when she starts on Oct. 1.

Gentry is not a new face at the department. She served more than 20 years with the Louisville Metro Police Department, including as its deputy chief starting in 2011, before retiring from the force in 2014.

The police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosa, Wis., resonated with Roy Divine, who grew up 30 miles from the Milwaukee suburb, but says it "didn't feel that different" than the police killing of George Floyd that sparked nationwide protests earlier this summer.

After more than 100 days of protests in Portland, there is fatigue and increasing anxiety heading into opposing Labor Day demonstrations as officials urge protesters on opposing sides to stop the violence.

Among labor organizers and Black Lives Matter supporters, who began convening on the city's streets to protest police brutality and social injustice following the killing of George Floyd in May, there is a growing sense of dread over a possible confrontation with pro-Trump groups.

With precision, farm workers swiftly harvest rows of strawberries at an organic field in Salinas, Calif. It's hard work, even without a global pandemic and wildfires burning in the background.

Four major wildfires erupted across the state's Central Coast in mid-August, one near Salinas. Smoke blanketed the region, the sun glowed orange and ash rained down.

"It hurt our sinuses," said Jesús Ahumada, an agricultural foreman, in Spanish. "The smoke was so thick."

The French film, Cuties, is being praised for its critique of the hyper sexualization of young girls - and the consequences of that - as they rush to become adults in the age of social media.

It began several years ago when filmmaker Maimouna Doucouré was at a neighborhood gathering and her jaw dropped. A group of young girls in revealing outfits came out on a stage and performed a choreographed routine.

Doucouré says they couldn't have been more than 11 years old.

Jacob Blake, the 29-year-old Black man who was shot by police in Wisconsin last month, spoke from his hospital bed about the pain of recovery and his hope for the future in a video posted to Twitter by his attorney on Saturday.

Updated at 7:41 p.m. ET

The New York attorney general announced on Saturday that she is putting together a grand jury as part of her office's investigation into the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who died of asphyxiation after being restrained by police in March.