North Carolina Governor Bev Purdue is a signature away from permanently changing the state's Racial Justice Act. On Nov. 28, the state Senate voted to revise the law, which currently allows reviews to determine if race played a role in a death row inmate's sentence. While supporters of the revision say it is a "modification" to the original law, critics say it is an "utter and total repeal."

Supporters of the original law, which allowed inmates with successful appeals to have their sentences commuted to life without parole, draw on the results of a Michigan State University study. The research found that defendants who killed a white person in North Carolina were 2.6 times more likely to be sentenced to death than when victims were black, and that juries were predominantly white.

No one in this town of about 1,500 people can remember with certainty when Mt. Vernon United Methodist Church began serving families in Crescent, Oklahoma, but some might say that the church itself made this unique, long awaited gathering, finally happen.

Leaders of the General Commission on Religion and Race (GCORR) have a message for the hospitality workers--who have reported intimidation, unfair treatment and abuse--boycotting 17 Hyatt hotels, one of the world’s leading hotel chains: GCORR supports hospitality workers.

U.S. clergywomen in The United Methodist Church on average earn 13% less than their male counterparts, and clergypersons of color—Black, Hispanic/Latina, Native American, Asian- and Pacific Island-Americans—earn 9% to 15% less than white clergy.

Julieta Garibay, 31, has a master's degree in nursing. But Garibay, an undocumented immigrant who arrived from Mexico two decades ago, makes a living as a babysitter. Like Garibay, Diego Sanchez arrived in the U.S. at a young age. Now he's student body president at a private university in Miami, where the scholarships he's earned for choir and cross country are helping him pay for college.

Sunday, Oct. 9 marked a historic occasion for the South Central Jurisdiction as well as the Arkansas Conference. That afternoon, about 55 people gathered to break ground on a notable United Methodist Church’s building—the first Vietnamese UMC in the jurisdiction. Vietnamese UMC Fort Smith celebrated as they broke ground on their 4,000 square-foot building at the corner of Alabama and Albert Pike in Fort Smith.

The FBI's annual Hate Crime Statistics report released today reported that 66.6% of victims of ethnically motivated hate crimes in 2010 were "targeted because of an anti-Hispanic bias" -- the highest percentage of such victims in at least the past decade. The remaining 33.4% of victims were targeted because of all other ethnic or nationality biases combined.

Last month, Luis Robledo accompanied a Spanish-speaking woman and her young son to a medical appointment in Birmingham. Both are HIV-positive and had to go in for a regular check-up. But she is an undocumented immigrant, and had become increasingly concerned about Alabama’s harsh anti-immigrant law. A couple of weeks ago, she took her child — a U.S. citizen — and moved back to Guatemala. “It was really emotional for everyone involved,” Robledo, an interpreter, told me at a community event at the Alabama Theater in Birmingham to educate people about the law. “This isn’t a game, you see real consequences. I see the fear in people’s faces every day — the fear of whether or not I can take my child to the hospital or risk being deported.”

As summer approached a delegation from The Desert Southwest Conference led by Bishop Carcaño traveled to Los Angeles to attend “Facing the Future: Cross-Racial and Cross-Cultural Appointments in the Global Church.” The conference, sponsored by the General Commission on Religion & Race and the General Board of Higher Education & Ministry, was designed to assist leadership in cross-cultural leadership training and competency for strengthening the church. The group examined such questions as ‘how shall we be together,’ ‘how might we understand and engage difference,’ and ‘what does it look like for a church to travel on the journey to increased cultural competency.’

The ranks of America's poor are greater than previously known, reaching a new level of 49.1 million - or 16 percent - due to rising medical costs and other expenses that make it harder for people to stay afloat, according to new census estimates. The numbers released Monday are part of a first-ever supplemental poverty measure aimed at providing a fuller picture of poverty. It is considered experimental and does not replace the Census Bureau's official poverty formula, which continues to determine eligibility and distribution of billions of dollars in federal aid for the poor.