RALEIGH, N.C. — Gov. Roy Cooper gave former North Carolina Chief Justice Cheri Beasley his full-throated endorsement for the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, attempting to secure a smoother path for her to become the Democrats' nominee to wrest a seat held by a Republican since 2005.

LANSING, Mich. — The leader of the Michigan State Police pledged changes Wednesday as the agency released an independent report finding that troopers disproportionately pulled over Black drivers in 2020 traffic stops.

Deven Osborne yearned to play college football. The high school senior, a wide receiver who lived in the Los Angeles area, hoped he might achieve his goal when a Dixie State University football coach invited him to visit the school in St. George, Utah. Osborne was intrigued by the possibilit…

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Missouri House lawmakers on Tuesday debated bills that would ban critical race theory in K-12 schools and give parents and guardians more control over what their children learn, an issue that likely will dominate this session.

BALTIMORE, Md. — Kimberly Moffitt wants to diversify leadership roles in higher education — traditionally an area with few minorities — to include more women and people of color.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The judge handling the federal trial for three former Minneapolis police officers charged with violating George Floyd's civil rights urged attorneys Tuesday to "move the case along" to reduce chances that the proceeding will be disrupted by COVID-19.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — Three white men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery were sentenced Friday to life in prison, with a judge denying any chance of parole for the father and son who armed themselves and initiated the deadly pursuit of the 25-year-old Black man.

The protests of summer 2020 may have been not only some of the biggest in the country, but also some of the biggest in the world.

On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said that if Republicans continue to block a voting rights bill, the chamber would vote on changes to filibuster rules. Then he set a deadline for the vote: Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana’s governor planned to posthumously pardon Homer Plessy on Wednesday, more than a century after the Black man was arrested in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow a Jim Crow law creating “whites-only” train cars.

LANSING, Mich. — Current and former Black state lawmakers in Detroit on Monday announced a pending lawsuit to block Michigan's newly drawn congressional and legislative districts, contending they illegally dilute the voting strength of African Americans.

The School District of Philadelphia is among the school systems around the U.S. switching back to online learning for 77 schools because of the explosion in COVID-19 cases.

A national memorial in Montgomery, Ala., has been honoring the victims of lynching since 2018. Now, the city of Alexandria, Va., is planning a pilgrimage to Montgomery to recognize its place in that history, and the public is invited.

CHICAGO — The year of 2021 ended as one of the most violent on record in Chicago, as a rise in the number of shootings left more people dead than in any single year in a quarter century, according to statistics released by the police department on Saturday.

DENVER — Maryland repealed its half-century-old Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights. Washington state reformed use-of-force policies and created a new agency to investigate when officers use deadly force. And California overcame objections from police unions to make sure officers fired i…