Ethnic News

(Adds Brooklyn funeral, paragraph) By Robert MacMillan and Andrew Chung NEW YORK, Dec 6 (Reuters) - A fourth evening of demonstrations against police violence was expected in New York on Saturday after the funeral of a black man who was unarmed when he was shot dead by a police officer in a darkened stairwell of a Brooklyn apartment building. The shooting of Akai Gurley, 28, by a New York city police officer at a city housing project last month is the latest in a series of incidents fueling public outrage over what many see as a pattern of callous misuse of lethal force against minority groups. The district attorney in the New York City borough of Brooklyn said on Friday a grand jury would consider charges against Peter Liang, ...

Nicki Minaj is set to perform on "Saturday Night Live" this week, and she's so excited that she decided to share two selfies with fans. The rapper posted two rather revealing photos to her Instagram on Friday night during "SNL" rehearsals. Wearing a plunging blue lace top, Minaj smiled in one photo with the caption, "SNL REHEARSALS R GIVING ME LIFE. WATCH TMRW." In the second Minaj looks a little more serious, and, as E! Online pointed out, came rather close to a nip slip. SNL REHEARSALS R GIVING ME LIFE. WATCH TMRW A photo posted by Nicki Minaj (@nickiminaj) on Dec 12, 2014 at 3:04pm PST A photo posted by Nicki Minaj (@nickiminaj) on Dec 12, 2014 at 3:12pm PST Minaj...

There's a reason Andre Benjamin, best known under his stage name Andre 3000, wore 47 custom jumpsuits during this summer's Outkast reunion tour. In a recent interview with The Fader, Benjamin revealed that the jumpsuits, which are currently being shown in an exhibit at Art Basel in Miami, were his way of expressing his feelings about the hip-hop duo's 20th anniversary tour. "Honestly—I didn't wanna do the tour," Benjamin said. The rapper may have reunited with Outkast partner Big Boi for the first time onstage in 10 years, but he wasn't excited about the music. "I'm like, how am I gonna present these songs? I don't have nothing new to say," Benjamin told the magazine. To add something fresh to his...

WASHINGTON -- The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department this week convinced the local prosecutor's office to charge a prominent young Ferguson protester with misdemeanor assault because he allegedly made fleeting physical contact with a law enforcement official blocking access to St. Louis City Hall during a demonstration last month. Rasheen Aldridge, a 20-year-old community activist, has been protesting in and around the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson on a regular basis ever since then-police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9. Last month, Gov. Jay Nixon (D) named him to the Ferguson Commission, a task force intended to address problems in the St. Louis region that...

Eleven days after a Cleveland police officer shot and killed Tamir Rice, an overwhelmingly black congregation of mourners gathered to say good-bye to the 12-year-boy.

NEW YORK (AP) — Elected officials told mourners the world was watching Friday as they remembered an unarmed man shot dead by a rookie police officer in a darkened public housing stairwell. At a wake that came hours after the Brooklyn district attorney announced plans to take the case to a grand jury, Akai Gurley was mourned by relatives as a loyal father and son. But Gurley also has become part of a narrative of anguish over police use of deadly force, with his wake coming amid protests over the lack of criminal charges against white police officers in the recent deaths of unarmed black men in New York City and ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal agents who guard the border and screen passengers at airports would be exempt from new racial profiling guidelines that must be observed by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. Those guidelines are being announced by the Obama administration in coming days and would restrict the ability of numerous federal agencies to take into account factors including religion and national origin during investigations, officials say. A U.S. official familiar with the guidelines said Friday night that the new guidelines banning racial profiling exempt the Transportation Security Administration and also do not cover inspections at ports of entry and interdictions at border crossings. The official was not authorized to discuss the guidelines by name and spoke on condition...

Several recent killings of black men or boys by police officers across the nation and grand juries' decisions not to indict some of the officers have angered many people, especially in minority communities, and have spurred sometimes violent demonstrations. Here's a look at killings by police that protesters have cited as examples of an epidemic of police brutality and heavy-handed law enforcement efforts often targeting minorities and related events: ___ CHOKEHOLD DEATH On July 17, a white plainclothes police officer, Daniel Pantaleo, applied what a medical examiner determined was a chokehold to an unarmed black man accused of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes on a New York City street. A videotape of the takedown of Eric Garner, ...

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A woman who said Friday that Bill Cosby had drugged her and sexually assaulted her in 1979 also accused another famous man of attempted sexual assault: sportscaster Marv Albert, who pleaded guilty to assault and battery the day after her surprise testimony against him. P.J. Masten said in an interview with CNN that she woke up naked and bruised in a bed with Cosby in Chicago after he gave her an alcoholic drink and that she believes she was raped. She discussed the details of her allegations against Cosby in an interview with The Associated ...

Demonstrators around the country staged die-ins, blocked roadways and marched into stores to protest a New York grand jury's decision to not indict a white police officer in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man. Tensions were already running high around the nation because of a grand jury's decision last week to not indict a white officer in the shooting death of black 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. On Wednesday, more protests erupted after a grand jury in New York City decided not to indict a white officer in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, a black man who gasped "I can't breathe" while he was being arrested for selling loose, untaxed cigarettes. Hundreds of protesters marched and many briefly laid down in...