  We discuss the universal critical behavior in (2+1)-flavor QCD by analyzing
lattice data from improved staggered fermions generated by the HotQCD
Collaboration. We present recent results from two different lattice
discretizations and various lattice spacings ($N_\tau=6,8,12$) at fixed
physical strange quark mass ($m_s$) but varying light quark mass ($m_l$). We
find that the chiral order-parameter, i.e. the chiral condensate, shows the
expected universal scaling that is associated with the critical point in the
chiral limit already for light quark masses $m_l/m_s \lsim 0.05$. From an
analysis of the disconnected chiral susceptibility we estimate a preliminary
value of the QCD transition temperature.
