Frenswa Raynor of Oakland, Calif., is one of the fortunate innocent, young black men to survive a police shooting. The Oakland City Council voted this week to settle lawsuits surrounding his near-fatal encounter for $275,000, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The shooting occurred in 2013, when Frenswa was 16 years old. The police responded to…

Gene Ryan, head of Baltimore’s Fraternal Order of Police, took a step back following backlash over a remark he made regarding protesters in the Freddie Gray case. “Maybe I need to reword that,” he said at a news conference. But while Ryan acknowledged that his words were inappropriate, the Gray family’s lawyer is demanding an…

Obamacare’s impact reaches beyond health care. An Associated Press analysis found that the president’s health-care-reform law apparently triggered an increase in food stamp enrollment across several states. An expansion in Medicaid appears to be the link. Ten states that expanded their Medicaid programs under the health care law are experiencing an increase in food stamp…

Smith Joseph, the mayor of North Miami, Fla., is now running unopposed for re-election. His only opponent, a former city councilman, was disqualified because of a bad check. North Miami’s city clerk told the Miami Herald that Jean Marcellus was disqualified because his $2,400 check for the qualifying fee was returned for insufficient funds on…

A Florida jury is hearing testimony in the trial of the last three former Florida A&M University band members charged in the hazing death of Robert Champion. The defendants—Benjamin McNamee, 24; Aaron Golson, 22; and Darryl Cearnel, 28—are being tried together, the Orlando Sentinel reports. Fifteen former members of the famed FAMU marching band were…

Recent videos of deadly police encounters with unarmed black men give credibility to what communities of color have complained about for years. The shocking reality on those videos is driving a nationwide movement. So it’s no wonder that many are alarmed by this video that surfaced Sunday on YouTube. It appears to show a law-enforcement…

More Americans are giving President Barack Obama a thumbs-up. In fact, the president’s approval rating climbed to 46.4 percent in the first three months of 2015—a 3-percentage-point increase from the previous quarter, USA Today reports. It was his best quarter since mid-2013, according to the Gallup poll. A separate CNN/ORC survey (pdf) found a similar…

Former Tulsa, Okla., Reserve Deputy Robert C. Bates was not certified to use the .357 Magnum revolver involved in the shooting death of Eric Harris, an unarmed black man. Furthermore, that personal weapon was not on the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office list of approved weapons, the lawyer for Harris’ family said, according to the Associated…

Prosecutors argue in a court filing that a “bloodlust” compelled Aeman Presley to commit a series of murders in the Atlanta area, the Associated Press reports. Presley, 34, appeared in a DeKalb County courtroom Monday. He’s accused of killing three homeless men and a female hairdresser. Prosecutors in DeKalb and Fulton counties want the death…

Police in Charlotte, N.C., arrested four men for a shooting incident that injured one person at Johnson C. Smith University, the Charlotte Observer reports. The four suspects—Everett Phifer, Elijah Craig, Juan Leon and Shalique Edmond—reportedly shot an unidentified male student while he was sitting in a car on the campus of the historically black liberal…