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A noose found in the garage stall assigned to NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace on Sunday at the Talladega Superspeedway had been there since October 2019, meaning the circuit’s only full-time black driver was not the victim of a hate crime, the FBI concluded Tuesday. “Although the noose is now known to have been in garage number 4 in 2019, nobody could have known Mr. Wallace would be assigned to garage number 4 last week,” the FBI said in a statement. The FBI said it would not be pursuing federal charges after the object was deemed to be a garage door...

NASCAR has yet to address some very basic questions about the so-called noose incident with Bubba Wallace. Some people are questioning whether the incident actually happened at all, if it was staged, or even if it was just the rope used for the garage doors. Apparently not taking this at face value is ‘offensive and hurtful’ to NASCAR and Bubba.

The FBI has determined that NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace was not the victim of a hate crime and that a pull rope fashioned like a noose had been on a garage door at Talladega Superspeedway since as early as last fall, NASCAR said Tuesday.

“On Monday, fifteen FBI special agents conducted numerous interviews regarding the situation at Talladega Superspeedway. After a thorough review of the facts and evidence surrounding this event, we have concluded that no federal crime was committed. The FBI learned that garage number 4, where the noose was found, was assigned to Bubba Wallace last week. The investigation also revealed evidence, including authentic video confirmed by NASCAR, that the noose found in garage number 4 was in that garage as early as October 2019. Although the noose is now known to have been in garage number 4 in 2019, nobody could...

Every single one in this photo will get what is coming to them," read the ominous Instagram message sent to several students of color at the University of La Verne, east of Los Angeles, in March 2019. The accompanying black-and-white photo was of a group of outspoken students who were well-known on campus for organizing anti-racism protests. Seen in the photo: Anayeli Dominguez Peña, a Mexican-American graduate student and vocal social-justice campaigner. She had been instrumental in organizing numerous protests in the Decolonize ULV group she co-led. "That wet back bitch Anayeli and that n---r Jasmine need to SHUT THEIR...

“Mulan” star Tzi Ma is frequently recognized for his many film and television roles, including in last year’s indie hit “The Farewell” and the “Rush Hour” films. But it was an encounter weeks ago that has stayed with him. Ma had visited a Whole Foods grocery store in Pasadena, Calif., when a car approached him as he made his way to the entrance. “He rolls down the window and goes, ‘You should be quarantined,’ and then he took off,” Ma told Variety. He said he stood, speechless, before unleashing screams at the verbal assaulter, who was by then long gone....

CHICAGO — Kim Foxx, the Chicago area’s top prosecutor, won the Democratic nomination Tuesday against three challengers who zeroed in on her handling of the Jussie Smollett criminal case. ...

If racism is so rampant in America, why is it that time and time again people must resort to staging fake hate crimes to expose it? A growing problem, fake hate crimes are quick to be downplayed by the media, but these episodes reached a pinnacle with disgraced actor Jussie Smollet, whose name has become a verb to describe such incidents. Smollet has plenty of company, as seen in Johnson City, Tenn., where a black woman was arrested for scraping the words “white pride” into the sidewalk in front of a local gym owned by a black man. Mahagany Teague,...

Philadelphia police have released images of the suspect wanted for spray-painting racial slurs on the Cecil B. Moore mural in North Philadelphia. Police say he was also caught spray-painting slurs at Brightside Academy and Habitat for Humanity. The incidents happened on Feb. 15, between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m.

Jussie Smollett is facing felony charges in Chicago again -- the special prosecutor just announced an indictment against the actor for the alleged homophobic attack against him last year. A grand jury handed up the new indictment against Jussie on Tuesday. Dan Webb was appointed special prosecutor for the case last summer. We're told he's now facing 6 felony counts for lying to law enforcement. The indictment calls the 6 charges "disorderly conduct," but all 6 involve allegations of lying to cops.

An African American couple in Southaven said they woke up Tuesday morning to find racial slurs had been spray-painted on two of their vehicles. The couple’s pickup truck had the N-word spray-painted on it twice. A car was painted with the phrase “Leave N*****” and “Trump.” “This had to be unnerving for a quiet family to come out to their cars and see what they saw there,” neighbor Pastor Vincent McCaskil said. Southaven Police are investigating the reported vandalism, and the FBI is also looking into the matter. The couple didn’t want to speak with WREG about what happened and...

A Kansas police officer has resigned after he admitted to making up a story that a McDonald's employee wrote an expletive and the word "pig" on a coffee cup, the police chief announced Monday. ...

The University of Wisconsin-Madison got fooled by yet another racial hoax. The administration alerted the community mid-morning Friday morning that a seemingly racist sign that popped up on campus overnight “appear” to have been “part of a protest calling attention to experiences of underrepresented students.” Messages on the signs included “UW 4 Whites Only.” The administration waved off the possibility it was a hoax in its first response to the signs, tweeting that it “stands against hate and racism” and was investigating the “racist” signs. One commenter quickly raised the hoax possibility.

Last month, 12-year-old Amari Allen appeared on television to share how she had been brutalized by racist white boys at Immanuel Christian School in Springfield, Virginia. .... When the story first broke, left-wing politicians and activists raged. Rep. Rashida Tlaib published a personalized message on Twitter to the girl: “You see, Amari, you may not feel it now but you have a power that threatens their core. I can’t wait to watch you use it and thrive.” On Twitter, some even found a way to blame the Trump administration, noting ominously that Vice President Mike Pence’s wife, Karen, teaches art...

The black high school student who accused three white male classmates of pinning her down and cutting off her dreadlocks has 'acknowledged' that she made the allegation up, according to her school.

The sixth-grade girl at a private Virginia school who accused three classmates last week of forcibly cutting her hair now says the allegations were false, according to statements from the girl’s family and the principal at Immanuel Christian School in Springfield. School officials met with the girl and her family Monday morning before releasing the statement. The 12-year-old, who is African American, said three white boy students held her down in a school playground a week ago during recess, covered her mouth, called her insulting names and used scissors to cut her hair. The grandparents of the girl, who are...

A former NFL player is facing criminal charges after he allegedly destroyed his business near Atlanta to make it look like a hate crime burglary, police said. Edawn Louis Coughman, 31, was arrested Thursday and charged with false report of a crime, insurance fraud and concealing a license plate, police said in a statement.

ATLANTA, Ga. (CBS46) -- A Cobb County man might sue a Georgia lawmaker after she claimed he told her, “Go back to where you came from,” during a confrontation at a grocery store. In a statement Monday, Eric Sparkes told CBS46 he’s “in the process of exploring with attorneys a defamation lawsuit against her.” ... The Cobb County Republican Party also speaking out, calling on Rep. Thomas to resign if "it turns out to be true she defamed a private citizen and Democratic constituent for political purposes." ...

This month, an Ohio jury awarded the owners of Gibson’s Food Mart and Bakery in Oberlin $44 million in combined punitive and compensatory damages in its defamation action against Oberlin College and a top university administrator. The incident at the heart of the lawsuit stems from a 2016 hate-crime hoax involving three black students, occurring the day after Donald Trump’s presidential victory. ...

An employee working the drive-thru window at a Mississippi restaurant was fired on Monday and is no longer allowed on the business’s property after printing a derogatory name on an African American customer’s receipt. Alexia Washington said she and a friend visited Who Dat’s on Friday and placed a meal order, but what they were served disgusted them. “Something told me to look at my receipt,” Washington said, according to WMC Action News. Printed on the receipt were the words “Black [expletive] in silver car.” Washington said she immediately reported the inappropriate receipt to Who Dat’s manager, who made the...