Brakkton Booker

The Metropolitan Opera is poised to make a big change.

When the fall production of Verdi's Otello opens next month, its lead character will not be wearing the traditional blackface-style makeup.

The Met tells NPR by email that its upcoming production of Otello will be the first without dark makeup ...

The relatives of 16 victims of the 2012 elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn., reached a proposed $1.5 million settlement Monday against the estate of the shooter's mother.

According to the Hartford Courant, each family will receive $93,750 apiece from a homeowners insurance policy that Nancy Lanza had on ...

The official recognition by the International Olympic Committee means that disc sports are now eligible for future Olympic Games.

Zimbabwean wildlife officials have accused a second American of killing a lion during an illegal hunt, this one in April. It comes a week after the international furor set off by the killing of Africa's iconic lion Cecil by a Minnesota dentist in early July.

Jan Casimir Seski, a ...

Long before Benjamin Carson was a Republican presidential candidate, he was a hero and a role model.

For a generation of black parents, the retired neurosurgeon's life's story was used to inspire their children. He grew up poor in Detroit. His mother had a third-grade education and could not ...

A Republican presidential candidate and former neurosurgeon, Carson was born and raised amid the tumult of Detroit in the 1960s. Even as a young man, Carson sought a different path from his peers.

In a campaign looking for a jumpstart, Republican presidential hopeful Rand Paul released a video Tuesday that attempted to grab some of the spotlight away from Donald Trump.

In the slickly produced video, Paul, a Kentucky senator, sporting a black T-shirt with the words "Detroit Republican" in white letters, destroys ...

On the day when Nikki Haley, South Carolina's governor, proclaimed it "a new day in South Carolina" and signed into law the removal of the Confederate battle flag from Statehouse grounds, one Democratic presidential candidate sought to clarify his stance on the flag's place in American history.

Jim Webb, the ...

A group that raises money for police officers subjected to investigation or lawsuits is using a simulator program to help outsiders understand the challenges of the job.

Four years ago, pledges were en vogue in the early going of the Republican presidential primary. But a prominent one, that landed some of the candidates in hot water, is being nixed this time around.

The pledge by the Family Leader, a Christian conservative group in Iowa, asked 2012 GOP ...

Following a trio of Republican campaign announcements last week, Ben Carson leaps to the top spot of GOP presidential candidates in the latest Fox News poll tied with presumed GOP front-runner Jeb Bush.

Carson, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee all entered the race ...

Neurosurgeon Ben Carson is a darling of conservatives. It started when he criticized President Obama's health care law and other policies at a Prayer Breakfast with the president just a few feet away.

This post was updated at 8:20 p.m. E.T.

The field of major Republican presidential candidates is growing larger. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina are expected to jump into the race this week.

Dr. Ben Carson, a pediatric neurosurgeon, got into ...

Golf is a sport that's been enjoyed by both Democrats and Republicans through the decades, but bipartisan golf outings may be disappearing like a shanked tee shot into a water hazard.

Now that Democrat Hillary Clinton has officially launched her presidential campaign, the 2016 race for the White House is underway.

The GOP got its third entrant in what is shaping up to be a crowded field when Florida Sen. Marco Rubio announced his bid Monday.

How and where a candidate ...

The Republican National Convention hosted its "Trailblazers" gala where it honored its largest class of Black Republicans since Reconstruction.

The Department of Justice has released new numbers on the rates of sexual assault for college-age women.

A group of black Congressional staffers staged a protest and walked out of the Capitol on Thursday. They were protesting recent grand jury decisions not to indict police officers who killed unarmed black men.

Don't look now, but Democrats may be on the verge of losing more than just the Senate after Tuesday's election. The governor's race in Maryland, one of the bluest states in the nation, has gotten uncomfortably tight.

How nervous are they? Maryland Democrats have brought in the big guns to ...

House lawmakers will give the Sept. 11 attacks in Libya two years ago a fresh look. Wednesday's hearing will be the first public one since Gowdy, R-S.C., became head of a special Benghazi committee.