Eyder Peralta

Rachel Dolezal, whose story sparked a national conversation over racial identity, is stepping down as the president of the Spokane chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

In a message to the organization's executive committee, Dolezal said her resignation is in the best interest of ...

Now that marijuana use is legal in Colorado, can employees be fired for lighting up a joint in their free time?

That was the question before the Colorado Supreme Court this term and on Monday it came to a conclusion: Yes, you can get fired.

The case was brought ...

A Vatican prosecutor has indicted the Holy See's former ambassador to the Dominican Republic on charges that he sexually abused minors.

NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports the trial of Jozef Wesolowski will begin July 11 at a Vatican court. She filed this report for our Newscast unit:

"Wesolowski was called ...

Parts of Texas have barely had time to recover from the last round of flooding rains, but the National Weather Service is warning that there's more to come this week.

The National Weather Service says a tropical system that is gathering steam in the Gulf of Mexico will ...

Dealing a big blow to President Obama's agenda, the House of Representatives failed to pass a key element of a package of bills that would have given Obama the ability to fast-track a trade deal with Pacific-Rim nations.

The House began by voting on a bill that would provide funding ...

Is the leader of Spokane's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People black?

That's the question that has roiled the community after a local television station reporter confronted Rachel Dolezal with accusations that she has been misrepresenting herself as being of mixed race, when she ...

A French court has found Dominique Strauss-Kahn not guilty on a charge of "aggravated pimping."

The court said the former head of the International Monetary Fund and one time French presidential candidate did not promote or profit from the prostitution of seven women.

The Guardian reports:

"The judges ...

Germany's top prosecutor, Harald Range, has decided to close an investigation into whether the United States' National Security Agency eavesdropped on Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone calls due to lack of evidence.

The allegations were some of the most stunning to emerge from the documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward ...

In the first crowdfunding case, the Federal Trade Commission has reached a settlement with Erik Chevalier, who started a Kickstarter campaign to create a board game called "The Doom That Came to Atlantic City."

Chevalier promised backers that if they helped fund his campaign, they would receive T-shirts or ...

A Virginia teenager pleaded guilty on Thursday of providing material support to the so-called Islamic State.

According to a statement of facts filed in federal court, Ali Shukri Amin took to Twitter to advocate on behalf of ISIS. Amin admitted that he showed the terrorist group how to use ...

Updated at 10 a.m. ET

Christopher Lee, the actor best known for defining the role of Dracula on the big screen, died on Sunday at the age of 93.

An official for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London confirmed the death.

For a younger generation, Lee is ...

China's former security chief has been sentenced to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to taking bribes and leaking state secrets.

As we've reported, Zhou Yongkang has been the highest-ranking official convicted as part of President Xi Jinping's promise to root out corruption.

Citing state media, Bloomberg ...

Earlier this spring, the cybersecurity firm Kaspersky was testing an advanced antivirus software on one of its computers when it stumbled on something big: As the Moscow-based company puts it, it was "one of the most skilled, mysterious and powerful" spy viruses in the world.

The piece of software ...

Still reeling from a corruption scandal that has ensnared some of its top officials and led to the resignation of its president, FIFA said it was delaying the bidding process on the 2026 World Cup.

"Due to the situation, I think it's nonsense to start any bidding process for ...

Updated 1:50 a.m. ET Thursday:

Russian President Vladimir Putin was about an hour and 20 minutes late for his meeting with Pope Francis on Wednesday. The two greeted each other in German and spent about 50 minutes in closed-door talks.

On the topic of eastern Ukraine, the pope encouraged Putin ...

Update at 12:20 p.m. ET. Up To 450 More Troops:

President Obama has authorized the Pentagon to send up to 450 additional troops to Iraq in an effort to beef up the training of local security forces in their fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

In a statement, press secretary ...

A group of Cleveland residents are looking to bypass their local prosecutor by using an obscure law to call for the arrest of two police officers involved in the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice.

If you remember, the boy was playing with an airsoft-style pellet gun at a public ...

When a judge was considering whether to send retired Gen. David Petraeus to jail over his unauthorized disclosure of classified information, he received letters of support from more than two dozen luminaries of different political stripes.

Republican lawmakers such as Sen. Lindsey Graham joined Democratic ones such as Sen. Diane ...

A federal judge has ordered the unconditional release of the last member of the "Angola Three" who remains in prison.

Albert Woodfox, the 68-year-old former Black Panther leader, has spent the past four decades in solitary confinement after he was twice convicted in the 1972 stabbing death of a prison ...

We spoke to Father, the rapper, producer and head of Awful Records, the breeding ground for iLoveMakonnen and Archibald SLIM and Slug Christ and Ethereal and Richposlim, while we were in Atlanta in May. Our onstage conversation was ...