Eyder Peralta

The sixth Democratic presidential debate may have been in Wisconsin, but the candidates' focus was South Carolina. Issues important to black voters came up repeatedly, as did loyalty to Obama and other things we've grown accustomed to, like heated debate over Wall Street's influence. Foreign policy veered into a debate ...

A federal grand jury is said to have begun hearing evidence in the case of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died after he was placed in a chokehold by a white police officer, NPR's Joel Rose reports, citing two sources familiar with the investigation.

The grand jury is ...

In a letter to president Obama, a former federal judge is asking that a sentence he handed down in 2004 be commuted.

"In looking back on the case, it was one of the most troubling that I ever faced in my five years on the federal bench," Paul G. ...

In a further sign that Cuban baseball is in shambles, Cuban state media reports that two of the island's brightest stars left their team in Santo Domingo after competing in the Caribbean Series.

Lourdes Gourriel Jr., 22, and his older brother Yulieski, 31, left the team hotel in the early ...

If you pay attention to way Republican presidential candidates are talking about drug abuse, it seems vastly different from the way the party leaders of the past talked about the issue.

Perhaps the new, more compassionate stance was synthesized best by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie during Saturday's GOP debate.

...

The magnitude-6.4 earthquake has left 26 people dead. Camila had the news in an earlier post.

Here is the story in photographs, which tell stories of life and death, destruction and hope in the quake's aftermath:

This was the most intense Republican debate yet — not a surprise with several candidacies on the line with the New Hampshire primary just days away. After his loss in Iowa, you may have expected Trump to come out swinging, but others did the work for him. Cruz backed down ...

These days, it's pretty much impossible to miss a discussion on cultural appropriation. But we explore where we draw the line between what's acceptable and what's downright offensive.

The fifth Democratic debate was the first mano-a-mano encounter of the campaign. It meant there was enough room for an extended argument over the word "progressive." The biggest clash came when Sanders accused Clinton of taking Wall Street money. Clinton fired back that it was time to end that "artful ...

The World Health Organization has declared the cluster of microcephaly associated with the spread of the Zika virus to be a public health emergency of international concern — a designation reserved for an"extraordinary event" that is "serious, unusual or unexpected."

Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO's director-general, said during a press ...

Trump stayed true to his word and didn't show up for the seventh GOP debate. Joking, Cruz channeled Trump: "Everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly," he said to laughs. Trump faded and immigration once again flared as the most controversial subject among Republicans. Case in point, Cruz, ...

The City of Ferguson, Mo., and the Justice Department have released a draft of the consent decree that they have negotiated.

The 127-page proposed agreement creates guidelines for training police officers on issues like when they should use force and how they can "reorient Ferguson's use-of-force policies toward de-escalation ...

If FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has his way, most people who subscribe to cable will stop paying a monthly fee to rent a set-top box from their provider.

As we've reported, about 99 percent of cable TV subscribers rent their cable boxes, netting cable companies about $19.5 billion a ...

We're just circling back to this, because, well news. But we have now sifted through the hundreds of suggestions you, our whip-smart audience, put forward on what we should name "Planet Nine."

(In case you haven't heard, scientists have some convincing evidence that somewhere far beyond Neptune, ...

The Supreme Court has ruled that a previous decision that put an end to automatic life sentences without parole for juveniles should be retroactive.

The 6-3 ruling means that some 2,100 juvenile murders will now have the possibility of parole.

As NPR's Nina Totenberg reported, this case was ...

NPR's Eyder Peralta talks cleaning up after a massive snowstorm blanketed the Northeast over the weekend.

Experts say picture books that whitewash the history of slavery are just a symptom of an adult society. How can we explain it to kids, they argue, if we can't talk about it ourselves?

Today we got news that scientists have evidence that points to a super-Earth way out beyond Neptune.

If telescopes can verify its existence, it would become a brand new planet in our solar system. Scientists are, for now, referring to it as Planet Nine. We know we're getting ahead ...

The Supreme Court of the United States has decided to review a challenge to President Obama's executive actions on immigration.

As we've reported, back in November 2014, Obama announced plans to shield from deportation up to 5 million immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally. Even before his ...

After a torrent of criticism, Scholastic has decided to stop distributing A Birthday Cake for George Washington, a picture book about one of George Washington's slaves.

The historical book tells the story of Hercules, a slave used by the president as his chef. It shows Hercules and his daughter Delia ...