Drug court is a common diversion program across the nation that attempts to help nonviolent drug addicts charged with crimes by placing them in a supervised treatment plan in lieu of the traditional justice system. In exchange for successfully completing the program, participants can often get a reduced sentence or…

Kimberly Hébert Gregory is having a strong 2017, appearing in five different shows on five major networks. Even though she’s having a breakout year, she’s been acting in TV and film for more than a decade and in plays for even longer.

Today in peak “I’m not racist but,” a Texas lawmaker who brazenly used the n-word to describe two black prosecutors is refusing to resign, all while insisting he’s for the fair treatment of all Americans.

I have an uncle who will tell anyone willing to listen about his history of drug use. He will unabashedly talk about using cocaine in every form. He lists barbiturates, hallucinogens and every imaginable mind-altering concoction in a history of drug use that dates to the ’70s.

Birth control will now be harder for some women to get, depending on who their employer is. The Trump administration decided Friday that, effective immediately, any employer can claim a religious or moral objection to providing birth control coverage under its insurance plan.

Hurricane Nate, a storm that has already killed 22 people in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, is barreling toward the Gulf Coast. Nate is expected to make landfall late Saturday night or Sunday morning as a hurricane.

WTF is wrong with this man? The president of the United States was speaking during a “celebration” of National Hispanic Heritage Month, and listen to this ass saying “Puerto Rico” in a faux Spanish accent, because that’s what assholes do when they’re trying to be funny or cute:

Raise your hand if you identify as a “black identity extremist.” Matter of fact, raise your hand if you’ve ever even heard of the term “black identity extremist.”

It’s one thing to put a presidential stamp on a candidate running for office in a swing state, and another to claim that a Democratic gubernatorial candidate supports a murderous gang.

It’s Friday, you ain’t got no job (the U.S. lost 33,000 jobs this month, according to the new unemployment numbers), so you might as well chill with us and check out some mail from some of The Root’s disgruntled readers. (Is that enough of a lede, Deputy Managing Editor Yesha Callahan?* Yes, I’m dedicating this…

At one point in the Netflix documentary The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, an incarcerated transgender woman named Kitty asks another, Victoria Cruz, who is an activist and counselor for domestic abuse: “What happens when a flower gets wilted? Does it just die away and it’s forgotten?” The question serves as…

An elementary school gym teacher at Rochester Exploration Elementary Charter School for Science & Technology in upstate New York has been suspended amid allegations that he pushed a 6-year-old student so forcefully to the ground last week, one of the child’s front teeth came out and the other one had to be pulled.

Sometimes, unexpected guests show up at funerals. And sometimes those guests get on the microphone and say ungodly things or start singing, like this woman:

Jeremy Lin has dreadlocks.

Finding out how a great-grandfather came to own 300 acres of land in post-Civil War South Carolina.