Race

The Texas Senate race wasn't supposed to be competitive this year. But thanks to an imaginative campaign, Beto O'Rourke has energized Democrats, drawing huge crowds and raising tens of millions of dollars in what was initially seen as a long-shot bid to defeat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.

The University of Texas and the University of Southern California football teams face each other over the weekend. The two schools have played some important games through the years, like the 2005 national championship game. But the biggest game may have occurred 62 years ago on the Trojans first trip to Austin.

The U.S. Department of Justice is throwing its support behind an anti-affirmative action group that is suing Harvard University over alleged racial discrimination in its admissions policies.

In a document filed in federal court on Thursday, the Justice Department said it is siding with Students for Fair Admissions in its request for a trial, currently scheduled to begin in mid-October.

When it comes to cancer survival, the United States is sharply divided by race. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the cancer death rate for African-Americans is 25 percent higher than whites, and Hispanics and Latinos are more likely to be diagnosed with cancer at a late, and more dangerous, stage of the disease.

Updated at 2:48 p.m. ET

Rashida Tlaib has some experience being first, and not just because she is the eldest of 14 children.

As the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, she was the first person in her family to earn a high school diploma — then a college degree, and a law degree.

She was the first Muslim woman ever elected to Michigan's Legislature, where she served in the House for the maximum term of six years.

And in January, she is set to become America's first-ever Muslim congresswoman.

School may be out, but there has been no lack of news this summer on race and admissions: an announcement from Jeff Sessions, a Harvard lawsuit, changes in the Supreme Court and proposals for selective high schools in New York City. Here's a rundown of the facts in place, and the latest developments.

Who is in school?

The Trump administration is rescinding Obama-era guidance to colleges and universities that encouraged schools to take a person's race into account in admissions to diversify the student population.

When Martin Luther King, Jr. flew from Atlanta to Memphis on the morning of April 3, 1968, he was not in a particularly good state of mind.

"While the plane was about to take off, there was a bomb threat that was specifically targeted at King and that delayed the departure of the flight," says Joseph Rosenbloom, author of the new book Redemption: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Last 31 Hours. "They brought dogs onto the plane, they evacuated the passengers. And so the plane arrived an hour or so late in Memphis."

Gun rights groups, including the NRA, have seen a rise in membership since the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., in February. But one group in particular has had a major increase well before that. The National African American Gun Association's numbers tripled after the inauguration of President Trump.

In the days after the Austin bombings, Jesus Valles couldn’t stop thoughts from buzzing around like bees in his head. He made sense of his feelings the best way he knew how: He sat down at his computer and began to write a public Facebook post about Austin.

“Austin is an exhausting place where racism smiles at you and does yoga and is a kind teacher and is such a good actor and is just trying to help you and just wants to know why you’re so upset,” Valles wrote.

Updated at 2:00 a.m. ET Tuesday

Linda Brown, who as a schoolgirl was at the center of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that rejected racial segregation in American schools, died in Topeka, Kan., Sunday afternoon. She was 76.

Her sister, Cheryl Brown Henderson, confirmed the death to The Topeka Capital-Journal.