1. Kerry Washington, Forest Whitaker to Adopt Failing Schools
Kerry Washington, Forest Whitaker, and other artists have joined a new initiative that will pair them up with some of the worst-performing schools in the country in the hopes of improving scores and motivation through arts programs. President Barack Obama’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities announced a new Turnaround Arts project for eight schools in both urban and rural areas. [MORE]

2. Obama Says His Presidency Did Not End Racial Divide
Even though Barack Obama’s ascent into the White House was a huge milestone moment for the country’s African-American community, the President says that he “never bought into the notion that by electing me, somehow we were entering into a post-racial period.” In an interview with Rolling Stone, President Obama talks about race’s role as a “fault line in American culture and American politics from the start.” That said, he does acknowledge the impact his presidency has made on younger generations and the progress the country has made when it comes to race. [MORE]

3. Can Addressing Obesity Help Black Women With Breast Cancer?
The National Cancer Institute has awarded the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Institute for Health Research and Policy a $3 million grant to implement a five-year program that will focus on weight loss interventions for African-American breast cancer patients.

These types of interventions are important because past data suggests that extra weight may have a negative impact on survival rates and may speed up the progression of cancer among obese and overweight women. This is particularly important for Black women, given that we are disproportionately obese and overweight. [MORE]

4. Interracial Couples Dominate Marriages
Earlier this year, a study released by the Pew Research Center showed racial and ethnic intermarriages, and acceptance, are on the rise and now new data shows one in 10 heterosexual marriages in the United States is interracial. [MORE]

TAGS: black women, breast cancer, Committee on the Arts and Humanities, Forest Whitaker, interracial, Kerry Washington, National Cancer Institute, obesity, Overweight, President Obama, racial divide, Rolling Stone, schools, Turnaround Arts, University of Illinois, White House