Equity & Justice

Key government policies on religious freedom and discrimination, once set through legislation, are increasingly dictated by presidential orders, meaning they shift capriciously from one administration to the next.

Sarita Talusani Keller's home in Laramie, Wyo., would usually be aglow this time of year with an array of candles and clay lamps. There would be guests enjoying a copious selection of food, laughing and smiling and taking pictures together.

Are you figuring out how to modify that annual cookie-exchange party with your friends this winter? Does caroling around the neighborhood feel unsafe, even at a social distance? Does 2020 have you feeling differently about making a New Year's resolution for next year? Or maybe it's just the tradition of visiting your grandparents that will just have to happen over Zoom this year. As with everything else in 2020, the holidays feel a little different amid a global pandemic.

The white father and son who took part in killing Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man who was fatally shot while jogging, have been denied bond.

Gregory, 64, and Travis McMichael, 34, two of three suspects facing malice murder and felony murder charges appeared for their bond hearing on Thursday and Friday via video conference in Glynn County, Georgia.

A Chatham County Superior Court judge denied bond for a third white man involved in the fatal shooting, saying William "Roddy" Bryan, was a potential flight risk.

Ms. Chavez was barely sustaining her oxygen levels despite being on maximum support through the thick tubing in her nose. Two days before coming to the hospital, Ms. Chavez developed fevers and diarrhea, tested positive for the coronavirus in the emergency department and by the next day was unable to breathe. Her son and daughter-in-law would both test positive soon after as well.

Pope Francis, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, offered his congratulations to President-elect Joe Biden during a call Thursday morning.

According to a statement from the Biden-Harris transition team, the pair discussed some policy areas in which Biden is likely to break from President Trump.

Updated at 3:28 p.m. ET

A federal appeals court in Boston has ruled Harvard doesn't intentionally discriminate against Asian American applicants in its admissions process.

The panel of judges upheld a federal district court's decision from last year, teeing up a possible case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

President-elect Joe Biden's win has some people asking if there's an opportunity for a 2020 census do-over.

Cash bond could be eliminated in Illinois if a push by the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus is successful.

State Senator Robert Peters (D-Chicago) said his measure would benefit lower-income people who are sometimes detained as long as years waiting for their case to be brought to trial or dismissed because they can't make bail.

“It's a system where you have to pay to pass go. Iit doesn't mean someone is safe or unsafe, it means that someone is poor or rich,” he said,

A judge could order pretrial detention if a potential detainee is deemed dangerous.

Updated at 6:38 p.m. ET

The Los Angeles County coroner's office announced Tuesday it will open an independent inquiry into the sheriff's deputy-involved death of an 18-year-old man shot in June.

Lucille Bridges, who in 1960 braved a gauntlet of threats and racist slurs to escort her daughter to a formerly all-white school in New Orleans in what became a symbol of opposition to segregation, has died at age 86.

Civil rights activist Ruby Bridges, who walked up the stairs of William Frantz Elementary School six decades ago to become its first Black student, announced her mother's death on Instagram late Tuesday. She included a photo showing mother and daughter holding hands as they exited the school, flanked by U.S. marshals.

Twenty-five years in the making, a new monument on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., opens on Veterans Day — the National Native American Veterans Memorial.

"It's an article of faith in Indian country that Native Americans serve at a greater rate than basically any other group," said Kevin Gover, the director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian and a citizen of the Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma. He said the steel ring sculpture over a carved stone drum, in a wooded area near the museum's entrance, will become hallowed ground.

North Minneapolis, one of the most racially diverse neighborhoods in Minnesota, was already dealing with high coronavirus infection and death rates when George Floyd was killed by police outside a corner store just 3 miles away.

An Indianapolis police officer who fatally shot a man after a high-speed car chase that was captured on Facebook Live will not face criminal charges.

A grand jury on Tuesday declined to indict Dejoure Mercer who shot and killed Dreasjon "Sean" Reed on May 6.

Eleven years ago, when she was 24, Katherine Standefer was working as a ski instructor and a climbing teacher in Jackson, Wyo., when she suddenly passed out in a parking lot. She later learned that she has long QT syndrome, a genetic heart condition in which the heart can suddenly quiver instead of rhythmically pumping blood.

Updated at 4 p.m. ET

A 19-year-old Wisconsin man has been charged with illegally providing the gun that prosecutors say Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, used to fatally shoot two men and injure a third during a protest this summer in Kenosha, Wis.

Updated at 11 a.m. ET

A new Vatican report on former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was defrocked last year amid allegations of sexual misconduct that spanned decades, shows that Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI were aware of the accusations against him.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, a celebrated moral thinker and globally renowned intellect of Judaism, died on Saturday after a short bout with cancer. He was 72.

Serving as the chief rabbi in the United Kingdom from 1991 to 2013, Sacks gained fame both in the secular world and in Jewish circles. He was a sought-after voice on issues of war and peace, religious fundamentalism, ethics, and the relationship between science and religion, among other topics. Sacks wrote more than 20 books.

When Kamala Harris stepped to the podium in Delaware on Saturday night to speak to supporters as vice president-elect, she made all kinds of history: She'll become the first woman to serve as vice president. The first woman of African descent (on her father's side) and also the first Asian American (on her late mother's side). The first graduate of a historically Black college or university (Howard)—and the first member of a Black sorority to sit a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Black voters came through for Joe Biden at pivotal moments on his path to the presidency: in South Carolina during the primaries, and in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania last week.

And as the president-elect thanked his supporters on Saturday night in Delaware, he thanked Black supporters specifically.

"And especially for those moments when this campaign was at its lowest ebb, the African American community stood up again for me," Biden said. "They always have my back, and I'll have yours."