What is “a hot mess”?Read more...

On Tuesday, Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams announced that prosecutors have reached a settlement in the civil rights lawsuit with Robert Jones, who was wrongfully convicted for crimes in 1992 and 1996.Read more...

As of Friday, August 20, almost 25 years after the album’s original release, Aaliyah’s One in a Million is available across streaming platforms and for download. The website aaliyahiscoming.com popped up for the first time in early August, and fans began to speculate whether or not that meant the singer’s discography…Read more...

Hip-hop Hooray!

We know Republicans lie. We know they are racist.

The last thing the justice system needed was another way to put innocent Black people in jail.Read more...

Naomi Osaka is an absolute powerhouse. Just this week she won against Coco Gauff in round 16 in Cincinnati and continues to advocate for her mental health.Read more...

Jeopardy! executive producer and recently appointed permanent host Mike Richards is once again apologizing for some past problematic behaviors.Read more...

Amid the turmoil in Haiti and Afghanistan, Naomi Osaka has found herself reflecting upon her tennis career. In 2020, she was riding high and became the world’s highest-paid woman in sports for a second consecutive year, but in recent months she withdrew from the French Open citing mental health concerns and suffered a…Read more...

In news that can only be described as obvious AF, the country responsible for the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, the 1985 MOVE bombing, and hip-hop cops, targeted Black Lives Matter protesters with over-the-top prosecutions in an attempt to discourage justice after Minneapolis police murder George Floyd, according to a new…Read more...

Nikki Haley is the former ambassador to the United Nations under former President Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, David Elmendorf, the former owner of Bumpy’s Polar Freeze, was ordered to pay $4,500 for harassing, threatening, pulling weapons and calling the police on peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters.Read more...

Let’s just start with the main bullet point and then work our way into the weeds, Nike Boots and rototoms. Recently, Washington, D.C., rapper, fashion icon (I’m gonna give him these flowers) and sometimes oversharer Wale made this statement via Twitter:Read more...

During a press conference on Wednesday, Rusty Hardin, the attorney for Deshaun Watson, revealed that the allegations of sexual assault and inappropriate behavior that have been levied against his client are being investigated by the FBI.

“America loves to hand us the country and say, ‘Here, you fix it,’ when everything is going to shit,” author-activist-educator Brittney Cooper aptly noted during one of our first broadcasts of of The Root Presents: It’s Lit!. Speaking only months after the murder of George Floyd, and a full two years after the…Read more...

The “If you love Giorgio, you’ll love Primo” version of Trump—literally, the physical manifestation of Florida as a person—Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—Mr. Anti-Mask, or #DeathSantis as he’s known on the streets—is pushing a COVID-19 antibody treatment that just so happens to be one of his top donor’s company’s biggest…Read more...

Working for a big-box urban Florida pharmacy chain for five years, Dr. Martez C.L. Prince, Pharm.D., RPh, always felt pressured to get his customers in and out as quickly as possible. Eventually, the experience soured him on the idea of working for others. Dr. Prince questioned whether or not the big box chain’s…Read more...

With the NFL season set to kick off in September, the conversation has shifted from whether or not players are vaccinated, to how in the hell the league still expects to have “full stadiums” despite the Delta and Lambda variants acting a complete ass. Each NFL franchise has been given carte blanche to impose and…Read more...

After a few delays due to various legalities and the ongoing pandemic, the long-awaited trial for Robert “R.” Kelly has finally begun.Read more...

Nakia Porter, a 33-year-old software engineer, is suing the Solano County Police Department in Northern California for her violent arrest last summer.Read more...

No. This isn’t about freedom. This is about freedoms.Read more...

There’s a literary genre kicking all other genre’s asses and taking over the literary world and TikTok—and I bet you know what it is.Read more...

On Bleacher Report’s Chips, three-time NBA champ Draymond Green chops it up with some of the biggest stars in the league to discuss whatever chip they have on their shoulder. In the latest episode, Dray was joined by former teammate Kevin Durant for what’s easily one of the juiciest interviews of the year.Read more...

After going blow-for-blow in her directorial debut Bruised, in which she also stars, it seems Halle Berry might have another opponent on her hands.

Sometimes, you just need a little something to get you over the hump of a difficult week. While I may not be able to articulate exactly what has made this week so difficult (more like let me count the ways, even if only at the halfway point), it’s been a struggle. If you’ve been struggling like I have, perhaps this…Read more...

What you doing? Not listening to Silk Sonic’s new album.Read more...

On Tuesday, California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that his office will conduct a review of former transit officer Anthony Pirone’s involvement in the shooting death of Oscar Grant back in 2009. According to the Associated Press, this decision came after Alameda County’s district attorney, Nancy O’Malley,…Read more...

A controversy sparked last fall by a portion of the soundtrack for Rihanna’s live-streamed 2020 Savage X Fenty show, subtitled “Vol. 2,” has a new chapter. To recap, as The Root reported last October: “A segment of the hourlong production was set to a musical track that reportedly included an Islamic Hadith—otherwise…Read more...

In the latest episode of racist Karens, a woman who is reportedly employed at a Florida elementary school was placed on leave after video allegedly captured her hurling racist and ableist insults towards young children and residents of the Kings Lake neighborhood in Collier County, Fla.Read more...

The family of Anthony Huber, one of the two men fatally shot during a police brutality protest last summer, has filed a federal civil lawsuit against the local Kenosha law enforcement.Read more...

Drizzy, noooooooooo! (For all my Fresh Prince fans, that was for you.)Read more...

With Netflix’s Untold: Malice at the Palace breaking the internet since its Aug. 10 premiere, hoop heads have scurried to social media to offer their thoughts and opinions on the night that changed professional sports forever.Read more...

A San Diego man was sentenced to two years in federal prison Monday on weapons charges after making violent online threats about Black Lives Matter demonstrations .Read more...

Eleven years ago, Hansel Emmanuel Donato Domínguez was trapped under rubble for nearly two hours after a wall collapsed on him. Eventually, his father, a former professional basketball player, came to his rescue. The harrowing ordeal might’ve cost Donato Dominguez his left arm, but it only strengthened his desire to…Read more...

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has tested positive for COVID-19, and I’m sure we all saw this coming.Read more...

Home Depot allegedly discriminated discriminated against a Minneapolis employee for their Black Lives Matter activism at work, according to a complaint filed by a regional official with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).Read more...

Last year, The Root reported that Michael Frederick Jr. was arrested and charged for a string of attacks on a Black Michigan family’s home. Today, according to the Associated Press, he has been sentenced to four to 10 years.Read more...

Two new studies released on Tuesday showed a breakdown of health care spending per person, and both—published in the Journal of the American Medical Association—found that White people spent the most per-person.Read more...

For many of us who grew up reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou for our 9th grade English class, we remember Angelou trying to learn Tut, a complicated language used by enslaved Africans, with her friend Louise while the other kids were learning Pig Latin.Read more...

I told y’all once before that y’all had better keep it cute (read: supportive & encouraging) when it comes to Naomi Osaka, and now, after viewing what went down during Monday’s press conference ahead of the Western & Southern Open in Mason, Ohio—it seems that sentiment bears some repeating.Read more...

A white woman who attracted close to 2 million followers on Instagram after naming her handle, almost identically, to the book title of a best-selling Black female author has apologized for capitalizing off of her work.Read more...

Most Americans will be advised to get a booster shot to protect themselves against the evolving COVID-19 virus, and those shots could be available as early as mid-September.Read more...

BabyFace. Teddy Riley. Patti Labelle. Gladys Knight. DMX. Snoop Dogg. Brandy. Monica.Read more...

In 2007, with no experience in digital marketing, Derrick and Ramunda Young turned their commitment to Black culture and love of reading into Mahogany Books, an online destination for Black literature. Fourteen years later, their business now includes a thriving online store, a retail shop located in the Anacostia…Read more...

A 41-year-old man from Queens, N.Y., pleaded guilty to threatening to kill U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) before and during the Jan. 6 insurrection. Eduard Florea, who supported the far-right group the Proud Boys, also pleaded guilty to a weapons offense after a search of his home by federal agents found more than…Read more...

On Monday, prosecutors from the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office in Washington announced that officers will not be charged in the police shooting death of Kevin Peterson Jr.Read more...

Last week, the U.S. Census Bureau released its first trove of demographic data from the 2020 census, leading many to divest in cryptocurrency and put all of their money in the rapidly emerging washcloth market.Read more...

Following the devastating 7.2-magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti over the weekend, many are doing all they can to lend a helping hand to the country and its citizens.

Trigger Warning: This story contains instances of suicidal ideation.Read more...

In Baltimore, a woman paid a funeral home to cremate her deceased husband and conduct a memorial service, but she alleges that the employees buried her husband at the request of a second woman claiming to be his wife. In her lawsuit against Wylie Funeral Homes, Demetra Street claims that after the January service,…Read more...