Naturi Naughton is the definition of success. She has worked for everything she has been able to accomplish. She has built the drive, tenacity, and the wherewithal to be able to conquer in such challenging times. She has definitely stood the test of time in an industry that is forever changing. The businesswoman and the philanthropist that she has grown into is because she took the lemons that she was given and made lemonade. Black Enterprise had the opportunity to meet and speak with this powerhouse of a woman.
What do you have going on currently?
Well, preparing for the spin-off of Power, staying focused on my faith, being a good mother to my 3-year-old daughter, enhancing my relationships, and continuously working in my goals. I went back to my first love, which is my music; just finding my voice again. For the rest of the year, I just want to stay healthy and do good work. Hopefully, I will direct and produce my own projects. I’m really working on producing more stories for our people. I would like to get more involved behind the scenes of filmmaking in another year or so.
What have you learned from being a businesswoman on Power?
I’ve learned so much! Not just from Power, but from the transitioning from the music industry. Things like:
Sometimes it’s OK to let the other person be right. You don’t have to fight to be right.
In business, sometimes you will have to do things you don’t want to do and that make you feel uncomfortable.
Be patient.
You will have to work with people that are not kind, have bad energies, are not easy to work with.
Although Power is widely successful, it is not all of who I am. You can’t let any business or career dictate you or your happiness. I think that is so important.
What advice would you give to that woman who wants to give up, who has no more fight in her?
There are no shortcuts to success. I literally was that woman living in L.A. I wasn’t making any money. I wasn’t working for about two years. There was a dry spell in the industry. I’m not going to lie to you, there are going to be moments when you do feel like giving up. There are going to be moments when you are not chosen, when you are not going to be successful. Anything that is great will be met with challenges. So, when you do get something, you have a great appreciation for it because you put in the work. Pray for strength! There may be a reason why you’re being blocked, why it isn’t working out for you. Just being aware that everyone has their time. And soon your time will come.
I grew up in the inner city. We have fed over a hundred families in different cities. We fed well over 500 families in Brooklyn alone. We coupled with a restaurant here in Brooklyn so that they could stay afloat in the midst of this COVID/pandemic crisis. We’ve fed over 10,000 people in New Jersey. Simply, my foundation is a place where people can go if they have a need. Obviously, I can’t fill every need, but I can do my part.
Eventually, my foundation will have a summer workshop that helps to find artists, actors, entertainers. We will have classes and have others in the industry come and speak with them. They will get the tools needed for entertainment. It takes education and talent.
Dr. Jessica Mosley is a serial entrepreneur who loves teaching fellow CEO women how to show up in their truth & power. As Steward Owner of MizCEO Entrepreneurial Media Brand, Sovereign Care Home Care, Sovereign Care Medical Training Center, and Deborah’s Place for Battered Women, Jessica is busy making moves that impact her community & those connected to her.
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Reggie D. Smith, founder of one of the fastest-growing Black-owned line of gourmet sauces called STL Pure Heat, started out creating delicious meals for just his friends and family. Now, however, he is the owner and CEO of one of the hottest food products in the country.
Based in St. Louis, Missouri, STL Pure Heat is a perfect mix of flavor and heat that flawlessly blends peppers, spices, and locally sourced vegetables into one sweet and tangy marinade. His sauces can be used to transform meats and seafood dishes into authentic, at-home culinary delights for dipping as a marinade or as a meal topper.
Made locally in small batches with all-natural ingredients, the sauces have only 40 calories per serving and are available in three different flavors – Sweet & Spicy, Sweet & Mild, and Garlic Heat. Each bottle has a unique blend of sweetness with a nice kick of your desired heat. Reggie makes it extremely easy for foodies to go beyond the ordinary hot sauce and jazz up their next dish with creativity.
Especially during grilling season, professional and family chefs can show off their talents at the grill and embellish their perfectly seared steaks and burgers with flavorful sauces that reflect the taste of true southern roots.
Reggie says that it was during one of his other business ventures when he discovered that he had created an amazing sauce that everyone enjoyed. He takes pride in using local small businesses to manufacture and package his products and says that it is important for him to see his community flourish.
His sauces can be purchased at more than 30 grocery stores across the nation or online at STLPureHeat.com.
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Thousands of migrating birds have died, perhaps starved by drier conditions related to climate change or by having to fly inland to avoid wildfire smoke.
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Scientists want public confidence. The White House wants an October Surprise. The FDA wants to avoid looking political. Big Pharma wants a win. You’re in the middle.
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Series creator Issa Rae responded to the ‘mix-up’ about the actress joining Season 5 of the hit HBO drama.
Luke James, Jidenna, Broderick Hunter and now… KeKe Palmer?
The 27-year-old actress might join the growing list of celebrity cameos on Issa Rae’s hit HBO series Insecure.
The Scream Queens star got the ball rolling via social media when she tweeted, “Hey Issa Rae, there’s been a mix-up. I posted about my excitement for season 5 of Insecure and now everyone thinks I’m gonna be on it. We can’t let them down, put me in to beat Condola’s a** real quick.”
Palmer also shared a screenshot her tweet in a post on Instagram, along with the caption “I just turned 27 Issa Rae, I’m starting to appear as an adult now. I’m ready! Or let’s just kill her a** off frfr (but continue to pay the actress because she was great!).”
There’s no word yet on when the show will return, but fans are here for Palmer shooting her shot.
HBO ordered yet another season of Insecure only a few weeks into season 4.
“We’re thrilled that Issa, Prentice [Penny, producer], and the whole Insecure team will be getting back together for a fifth season,” Amy Gravitt, executive vice president of HBO Programming, said at the time. “As we laugh and cringe with recognition, their stories make us all feel a little less alone in the world.”
Insecure chronicles the life of Issa Dee, played by Issa Rae, who constantly finds herself in several awkward yet strikingly relatable scenarios between her love-life, friendships and career decisions. The series debuted in 2016.
Insecure season 4 wrapped in June, leaving fans with a lot of Issa-Molly baggage to unpack and all sorts of questions about Issa’s ex, Lawrence. The duo got back to together… only to find out that his short-time girlfriend, Condola, is pregnant. Next season will reportedly dive deep into that entanglement.
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In the midst of this historic election year, Black Americans are facing the compounding crises of a global pandemic, police brutality, record-high unemployment, and targeted voter suppression.
To unpack this pivotal moment, BLACK ENTERPRISE partnered with Be Heard Talk, an award-winning talk show that adds a taste of hip hop, Assata Shakur, and spice to unseasoned news. Each Sunday, the Be Heard Talk team — Selena Hill, Digital Editor at BLACK ENTERPRISE; Stanley Fritz, the New York State Political and Campaigns Director at Citizen Action of New York; and Tammie David, a community organizer – will hold live conversations with elected officials, organizers, political leaders, and surrogates from the Biden campaign about this era-defining election.
This week, CNN political analysts, best-selling author, and attorney Bakari Sellers will join the team to discuss the impact that Joe Biden’s policies and politics will specifically have on people of color. The series, which is part of BLACK ENTERPRISE’s “Our Voice Our Vote” 2020 election coverage, kicked off on September 13 with LaTosha Brown, the co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund. During her appearance, she stressed the importance and the power of the Black vote.
Sellers made history in 2006 when he was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives at the age of 22. This made him the youngest African American to win a public office at the time. After eight years in office, he ran for Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina in 2014 and lost. In 2018, he released the documentary While I Breathe, I Hopethat chronicles his losing bid for lieutenant governor.
In May the Morehouse graduate published the memoir My Vanishing Country at the age of 35.
Watch Bakari Sellers’ live interview on “Be Heard Talk” this Sunday, September 20 starting at 2 p.m. EST by registering here. You can also view and leave comments during the live show via Black Enterprise’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or YouTube page.
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‘There were some scary moments. But in my heart, I always believed that he was going to be OK.’
After doctors diagnosed Lt. Yvan Pierre-Louis with COVID-19 in late March, the NYPD officer would go on to spend nearly six months under medical supervision at the hospital, 168 days to be exact.
For most of his stay, a ventilator helped keep him alive. But just in time for his 59th birthday, Pierre-Louis was cleared and released back to the comforts of his home in Hempstead, New York, Newsday reports. Family and friends made sure he had a celebration fit for a king. Dozens of people lined the sidewalks outside his house on Ingraham Boulevard and cheered at his arrival as trumpeters played “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
His loved ones dressed in white and waved flags of Haiti, his birthplace.
“He got a second chance in life,” said Capt. Garfield McLeod, Pierre-Louis’ commanding officer. “At this point, he needs to just relax and enjoy life.”
NYPD LT. BEATS COVID-19: Welcome home, #NYPD LT. Yvan Pierre-Louis! 👏 After spending months in the hospital, he is out just in time for a special day 💪❤️ #COVID19pic.twitter.com/wrrhgRGGvX
In May, while he was in a coma, Pierre-Louis’ 86-year-old mother, Maria Lina Pierre-Louis, died of COVID-19.
The were times when his commanding officer doubted he would pull through. “We definitely thought he wasn’t going to make it,” said McLeod. “It’s breathtaking to say the least. It’s a miracle for us.”
Pierre-Louis’ daughter Diane Latham, however, never lost faith.
“There were some scary moments. But in my heart, I always believed that he was going to be OK,” Latham said. “That’s why I kept on advocating … and pushing. I wanted to leave nothing on the table because we didn’t want to give up.”
Pierre-Louis’ family said he was first admitted to NYU Winthrop Hospital in Mineola on March 28. That’s when he was placed on a ventilator. They say his condition didn’t get better until he was transferred in May to the hospital at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Medical professionals suggest people who have been in direct contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 to get tested themselves.
There are three broad categories of coronavirus tests in the U.S. Two diagnose whether you have an active infection, and a third indicates if you previously had the virus.
Here’s how they work:
GENETIC TESTS
Most tests look for bits of the virus’ genetic material, and require a nasal swab that is taken by a health professional and then sent to a lab. This is considered the most accurate way to diagnose an infection, but it’s not perfect: The swab has to get a good enough sample so any virus can be detected.
These tests usually take hours to process at the lab so you likely won’t get results back for at least a day, though a handful of rapid tests take about 15 minutes on site. Other genetic tests use saliva, instead of a swab.
ANTIGEN TESTS
A newer type of test looks for proteins found on the surface of the coronavirus, rather than the virus itself. These antigen tests are just hitting the market, and experts hope they’ll help expand testing and speed up results.
Antigen tests aren’t as accurate as genetic tests, but are cheaper, faster and require less specialized laboratory equipment. They still require a nasal swab by a health professional.
A recently approved test from Abbott Laboratories takes 15 minutes and can be performed at schools, offices and other locations.
ANTIBODY TESTS
Antibody tests look for proteins that the body makes to fight off infections in a patient’s blood sample. Antibodies are a sign that a person previously had COVID-19.
Scientists don’t yet know if antibodies protect people from another infection, or how long that protection might last. So antibody tests are mostly useful for researchers measuring what portion of the population was infected.
Pierre-Louis told Newsday “I feel blessed. From no hope to hope, that was a lot.”
At the police department where he works, 5,875 officers and civilian staffers have reportedly tested positive for COVID-19. The NYPD says more than 45 of them have died.
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‘I’m laughing cause sometimes you have to, just to stop from crying.’
Lebron James has weighed in on actress Lori Loughlin getting to choose the prison where she will serve her two-month sentence for her role in the college admissions scandal.
The Los Angeles Lakers star took to Instagram Friday (Sept. 18) to share a screengrab of a Vanity Fair article about the latest update in Loughlin’s legal case. “I’m laughing cause sometimes you have to, just to stop from crying! Don’t make no damn sense to me. We just want the same treatment if committed of [the] same crime that’s all,” James wrote.
He went on to say, “We’ll just keep pushing forward and not expecting the handouts! STRONG, BLACK & POWERFUL!”
The NBA icon continues to use his platform to cast light on racial disparities in the U.S. Last month he was praised and heavily criticized after joining players in protest over the death of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The move put a pause on the NBA playoff games for three days.
Police shot Blake seven times as he attempted to enter his vehicle with three of his children inside. His death sent shockwaves across the country and the NBA protest forced Americans to take a closer look at racial inequality and police brutality.
Several celebrities and public figures left comments under Lebron’s post in reference to the “privilege” of Lori Loughlin.
50 cent said “yeah that sounds about white, I have never [heard] of that before. You going to jail but pick anyone you want to go to. LOL this is so fucked up”
Rapper T.I. also commented “Sounds about white”
Actress Viola Davis added “Whaaaaat???!!! Uh… is it punishment if you get chose? Is she going to chose her meal program, too??!! “
Motivational speaker Trent Shelton noted, “That’s crazy. The system is operating the way it was intended to operate. Sad man.”
Actor Larenz Tate commented, “ White priv… never mind. We know what it is… ALWAYS!”
According to Us Weekly,a judge approved Loughlin’s request to serve her sentence at the low-security federal correctional institution in Victorville, California.
Loughlin will “be designated to a facility closest to her home in CA, preferably the camp at FCI Victorville, if commensurate with the appropriate security level,” according to an order filed on September 9, the report states.
In this April 3, 2019 file photo, actress Lori Loughlin, front, and husband, clothing designer Mossimo Giannulli, left, depart federal court in Boston after facing charges in a nationwide college admissions bribery scandal. The famous couple pleaded guilty to charges in May 2020, and are scheduled to be sentenced on Friday, Aug. 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)
The former Hallmark star must report for her sentencing by 2 p.m. on November 19.
Loughlin’s husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, was sentenced last month to five months behind bars for paying half a million dollars in bribes to get his two daughters into the University of Southern California as rowing recruits, theGRIO previously reported.
Loughlin pleaded guilty for her role in the scam, as part of a deal with prosecutors.
The couple are among nearly 30 prominent parents to plead guilty in the case, which federal prosecutors dubbed “Operation Varsity Blues.” It uncovered hefty bribes to get undeserving kids into college with rigged test scores or fake athletic credentials.
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Nicole Young’s attorneys accuse the hip-hop star of ‘secretly transferring valuable trademarks he owned with his wife.’
Lawyers for Nicole Young are suing music mogul Dr. Dre, claiming she co-owns the “valuable” trademarks to his stage name, as well as his iconic album “The Chronic.”
The suit alleges Dre, born André Romelle Young, transferred the trademarks after he kicked his estranged wife out of their family home earlier this year, Page Six reports.
Young’s legal team claim Dre was “caught secretly transferring valuable trademarks he owned with his wife … to a newly created asset holding company that he created and controlled after he expelled his wife from their home, and before he threatened to file divorce.”
The court docs go on to say, “Andre’s transparent and reprehensible scheme to transfer these assets away, without Nicole’s knowledge or consent, so he could retain more for himself in a divorce from his wife of 24 years, and the mother of his three children, is an epic failure and reveals the true nature of his character, or lack thereof.”
Young filed for divorce from the rapper in late July after 24 years of marriage. TheGRIO previously reported, Young, 50, cited irreconcilable differences in her filing. The ex couple were married on May 25, 1996, and share two adult children, Truice and Truly.
Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic” album is inducted.
Young’s legal team says Dre started registering trademarks in 1997. Under California law that would make the trademarks ‘community property” (California Family Code Section 760). Her attorneys are fighting to put the trademarks into a trust.
Dre’s acclaimed album “The Chronic” debuted in 1992 and it pushed both he and Snoop Dogg into the top of the Billboard charts. The project has been certified 3x-platinum.
As the divorce battle intensifies, Dr. Dre’s lawyers want Young to turn over some of his personal belongings from the Malibu home where she is currently residing.
Dre’s lawyers accuse her of refusing to give up his golf clubs, a motorcycle and registered handgun. Young’s stance is that Dre can afford replacements.
Meanwhile, she wants Dre to pay her $2 million per month in temporary spousal support. She is also suing for $5 million in legal fees.
An earlier report on theGRIO noted that Young submitted a breakdown for the massive spousal support request. According to TMZ, the list of expenditures includes her clothing and entertainment expenses, which amount to over $1 million. Young also listed her phone and email expenses at $20,000 a month and $60,000 monthly for education costs. She claims Dr. Dre violently controlled everything she purchased.
As of now, Dre is reportedly covering all of her expenses, but has cut off an American Express black card.
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The Republican Senate leader issued a statement Friday night, about an hour and a half after the Supreme Court announced the liberal justice’s death
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says the Senate will vote on President Donald Trump’s pick to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, even though it’s an election year.
The Republican Senate leader issued a statement Friday night, about an hour and a half after the Supreme Court announced the liberal justice’s death from complications of metastatic pancreatic cancer.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg participates in a discussion at the Georgetown University Law Center on February 10, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images)
When conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, also an election year, McConnell refused to act on President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to fill the opening. The seat remained vacant until after Trump’s surprising presidential victory.
Ginsburg died of complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer, the Supreme Court said
WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a diminutive yet towering women’s rights champion who became the court’s second female justice, died Friday at her home in Washington. She was 87.
Ginsburg died of complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer, the court said.
Ginsberg’s death just over six weeks before Election Day is likely to set off a heated battle over whether President Donald Trump should nominate, and the Republican-led Senate should confirm, her replacement, or if the seat should remain vacant until the outcome of his race against Democrat Joe Biden is known.
Ginsburg announced in July that she was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for lesions on her liver, the latest of her several battles with cancer.
Ginsburg spent her final years on the bench as the unquestioned leader of the court’s liberal wing and became something of a rock star to her admirers. Young women especially seemed to embrace the court’s Jewish grandmother, affectionately calling her the Notorious RBG, for her defense of the rights of women and minorities, and the strength and resilience she displayed in the face of personal loss and health crises.
Those health issues included five bouts with cancer beginning in 1999, falls that resulted in broken ribs, insertion of a stent to clear a blocked artery and assorted other hospitalizations after she turned 75.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the 2020 DVF Awards on February 19, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for DVF)
She resisted calls by liberals to retire during Barack Obama’s presidency at a time when Democrats held the Senate and a replacement with similar views could have been confirmed. Instead, President Donald Trump will almost certainly try to push Ginsburg’s successor through the Republican-controlled Senate — and move the conservative court even more to the right.
Ginsburg antagonized Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign in a series of media interviews, including calling him a faker. She soon apologized.
Her appointment by President Bill Clinton in 1993 was the first by a Democrat in 26 years. She initially found a comfortable ideological home somewhere left of center on a conservative court dominated by Republican appointees. Her liberal voice grew stronger the longer she served.
Ginsburg was a mother of two, an opera lover and an intellectual who watched arguments behind oversized glasses for many years, though she ditched them for more fashionable frames in her later years. At argument sessions in the ornate courtroom, she was known for digging deep into case records and for being a stickler for following the rules.
She argued six key cases before the court in the 1970s when she was an architect of the women’s rights movement. She won five.
“Ruth Bader Ginsburg does not need a seat on the Supreme Court to earn her place in the American history books,” Clinton said at the time of her appointment. “She has already done that.”
On the court, where she was known as a facile writer, her most significant majority opinions were the 1996 ruling that ordered the Virginia Military Institute to accept women or give up its state funding, and the 2015 decision that upheld independent commissions some states use to draw congressional districts.
Besides civil rights, Ginsburg took an interest in capital punishment, voting repeatedly to limit its use. During her tenure, the court declared it unconstitutional for states to execute the intellectually disabled and killers younger than 18.
Justices of the US Supreme Court pose for their official photo at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC on November 30, 2018. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
In addition, she questioned the quality of lawyers for poor accused murderers. In the most divisive of cases, including the Bush v. Gore decision in 2000, she was often at odds with the court’s more conservative members — initially Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.
The division remained the same after John Roberts replaced Rehnquist as chief justice, Samuel Alito took O’Connor’s seat, and, under Trump, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh joined the court, in seats that had been held by Scalia and Kennedy, respectively.
Ginsburg would say later that the 5-4 decision that settled the 2000 presidential election for Republican George W. Bush was a “breathtaking episode” at the court.
She was perhaps personally closest on the court to Scalia, her ideological opposite. Ginsburg once explained that she took Scalia’s sometimes biting dissents as a challenge to be met. “How am I going to answer this in a way that’s a real putdown?” she said. Scalia died in 2016.
Ginsburg authored powerful dissents of her own in cases involving abortion, voting rights and pay discrimination against women. She said some were aimed at swaying the opinions of her fellow judges while others were “an appeal to the intelligence of another day” in the hopes that they would provide guidance to future courts.
“Hope springs eternal,” she said in 2007, “and when I am writing a dissent, I’m always hoping for that fifth or sixth vote — even though I’m disappointed more often than not.”
She wrote memorably in 2013 that the court’s decision to cut out a key part of the federal law that had ensured the voting rights of Black people, Hispanics and other minorities was “like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaks onstage at the Fourth Annual Berggruen Prize Gala celebrating 2019 Laureate Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg In New York City on December 16, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Berggruen Institute )
Change on the court hit Ginsburg especially hard. She dissented forcefully from the court’s decision in 2007 to uphold a nationwide ban on an abortion procedure that opponents call partial-birth abortion. The court, with O’Connor still on it, had struck down a similar state ban seven years earlier. The “alarming” ruling, Ginsburg said, “cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court — and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women’s lives.”
In 1999, Ginsburg had surgery for colon cancer and received radiation and chemotherapy. She had surgery again in 2009 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and in December 2018 for cancerous growths on her left lung. Following the last surgery, she missed court sessions for the first time in more than 25 years on the bench.
Ginsburg also was treated with radiation for a tumor on her pancreas in August 2019. She maintained an active schedule even during the three weeks of radiation. When she revealed a recurrence of her cancer in July 2020, Ginsburg said she remained “fully able” to continue as a justice.
Joan Ruth Bader was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1933, the second daughter in a middle-class family. Her older sister, who gave her the lifelong nickname “Kiki,” died at age 6, so Ginsburg grew up in Brooklyn’s Flatbush section as an only child. Her dream, she has said, was to be an opera singer.
Ginsburg graduated at the top of her Columbia University law school class in 1959 but could not find a law firm willing to hire her. She had “three strikes against her” — for being Jewish, female and a mother, as she put it in 2007.
She had married her husband, Martin, in 1954, the year she graduated from Cornell University. She attended Harvard University’s law school but transferred to Columbia when her husband took a law job there. Martin Ginsburg went on to become a prominent tax attorney and law professor. Martin Ginsburg died in 2010. She is survived by two children, Jane and James, and several grandchildren.
Ginsburg once said that she had not entered the law as an equal-rights champion. “I thought I could do a lawyer’s job better than any other,” she wrote. “I have no talent in the arts, but I do write fairly well and analyze problems clearly.”
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This week, television actress and Golden Globe winner Tracee Ellis Ross revealed that she has signed a multiyear deal with ABC Signature with her production company Joy Mill Entertainment to produce new content for the network. The Blackish star raved about the news with excitement to bring new stories to her home studio. “I love sharing stories and using storytelling as a way to connect and celebrate humanity. As an actor, I’ve had the joy of inhabiting nuanced and dynamic roles. As an executive producer, I am able to build stories, gather creatives, and shape worlds as a way to illuminate different realities,” said Ross in an interview with Variety.
“This deal continues my journey as a storyteller and content creator. I am thrilled to finally be sharing the news and expanding this part of my artistry at my home studio, ABC Signature. Jonnie Davis, Tracy Underwood, and their team have been incredible collaborators, and I am eager to continue our shared journey.”
Adriana Ambriz will be joining the production company as head of development for new content across platforms. Prior to her new role, she served senior director of original programming for BET where she oversaw the production of shows like Tales, Street Dreams: The Story of Nas, and Mandela.
“Tracee is a beloved member of the ABC Signature family and, as everyone knows, has brought so much to our ‘ish’ universe,” said Jonnie Davis, president of ABC Signature to Variety. “We also love and admire Tracee’s passion for storytelling and developing projects, so we’re thrilled that Joy Mill Entertainment will be housed at our studio. We’re already incredibly excited by the projects she’s bringing to us in this new role.”
One of her sisters said Pamela Turner was suffering a mental episode when she was confronted by Baytown Officer Juan Delacruz.
An officer with the Baytown Police Department turned himself in on Tuesday after being charged with aggravated assault by a public servant related to the fatal shooting of a Black woman last year.
Officer Juan Delacruz shot Pamela Turner on May 13, 2019 at the apartment building in which they both lived, reportedly attempting to take her into custody due to outstanding warrants for her arrest.
The police officer who shot and killed Pamela Turner last May is facing a charge of aggravated assault by a public servant for her death. (Facebook)
Authorities allege that it was then that Turner resisted arrest and claim she was able to get hold of the officer’s taser and shocked him with it. Delacruz then fired his gun and killed Turner.
Last year, civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump said family members checked records and found no active warrants for Turner’s arrest. Court records showed at least one misdemeanor charge of criminal mischief was filed against Turner on May 2.
In an interview last year, one of her sisters, Antoinette Dorsey-Jones said Turner, 44, suffered from schizophrenia and was suffering a mental episode when she was confronted by the officer, with whom she had prior encounters.
The investigation was conducted by the Harris County District Attorney’s civil rights division and the Texas Rangers.
“Ultimately, we presented all of the evidence to a grand jury that determined the Baytown Police officer should be charged with a crime for his actions when he shot Ms. Turner,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a written statement. “We respect their decision and we will be moving forward with prosecution.”
“The news that my family received on Monday is the exact reason why we have not stopped calling my mother’s name for the past 16 months,” Turner’s daughter, Chelsea Rubin, said during a Zoom news conference on Thursday. “I prayed for this moment numerous times, and I prayed that my mother’s death would not be in vain and that she gets the justice that she deserves.”
The economy has struggled since the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic, yet markets have recovered from an initial plunge and are now booming again. The disconnect can be disconcerting for investors, who should rebalance, diversify and maintain realistic expectations in the face of unprecendented world events.
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BET, The National Urban League, and other civil rights organizations have joined together to host the first-ever National Black Voter Day.
National Black Voter Day takes place today, Friday, Sept. 18, and all organizations tied to the effort will seek to aid Black citizens against suppression tactics ensuring their vote counts in the various elections taking place in November.
“The final stretch is always the most important part of any race, and with just 100 days until Election Day, there’s no time like the present for BET to go ‘all in’ with National Black Voter Day,” BET Networks President Scott Mills said in a statement. “We are rallying all the resources and relationships we have to mitigate the undeniable efforts being made to disenfranchise the African American community, a voting bloc ubiquitously understood to influence elections. We will use the current momentum of the fight against systemic racism to galvanize those marching in protest to march to the polls in November.”
With the help of the National Urban League (NUL), National Black Voter Day will break down the necessary steps to make Black voices heard, including securing and checking voter registration, making a voting plan, and encouraging friends and family to vote.
NUL President Marc Morial said teaming up with the biggest name in Black television and civil rights groups will ensure the organization reaches as many Black voters as possible.
“We will be launching a grassroots effort in probably about a dozen cities to put people in the communities on the ground, using everything from canvassing to organizing, to door-to-door leaf footing, and social media to register, educate and mobilize people to vote,” Morial told BET.com, adding his organization will use BET’s social media accounts to amplify the effort and educate voters.
Other organizations involved in the effort include the NAACP, Color of Change, When We All Vote, Black Voters Matter, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, The Collective PAC, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Election Protection, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and The National Action Network.
One of the biggest reasons for the effort is voter suppression. Concerns about voter suppression, particularly in the Black community, have been a widely debated topic since a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision gutted Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibited certain states and localities from making changes to voting laws without obtaining federal approval or “preclearance.”
In addition to voter suppression, the coronavirus has lead to less voting precincts, which must institute social distancing requirements with fewer poll workers and machines.
Voting lines are of particular concern for Morial, who called them “an orchestrated effort to suppress the vote to make it more difficult for Black people to vote.” In order to fight this Morial feels voters should have all the information necessary about their state’s mail-in ballot and early voting options.
BET has also lined up multiple stars to produce voting PSAs to be distributed on BET’s platforms, those of its sister channels MTV, VH1, and Comedy Central and of media partners including The Root, The Skimm, Entertainment Tonight, Bounce, and Black Enterprise.
Stars that are taking part also include Twenties actor Jonica T. Gibbs, Tyler Perry’s Sistas actor Mignon, Rhapsody, National Urban League CEO Marc H. Morial, Blavity Inc. founder and CEO Morgan DeBaun, and others. Sports stars including Blake Griffin, Caron Butler, Udonis Haslem, and Dwane Casey and more are also participating.
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Olive Troye says she’s endorsing Joe Biden because ‘we are at a time of constitutional crisis.’
A former top aide to Vice President Mike Pence is speaking out about President Donald Trump‘s response to the COVID-19 contagion, alleging “he doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”
Olive Troye is a lifelong Republican who served as a homeland security adviser to Pence and his lead staffer on the White House’s coronavirus task force. She plans on voting for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden after witnessing first hand Trump’s handling of the pandemic that has killed over 200,000 Americans.
Troye recalls one task force meeting when Trump suggested COVID-19 was “a good thing” because “I don’t like shaking hands with people. I don’t have to shake hands with these disgusting people.”
The “disgusting people” he referred to are the “same people that he claims to care about,” she said in an interview, The Washington Post reports.
“These are the people still going to his rallies today who have complete faith in who he is. If the president had taken this virus seriously, or if he had actually made an effort to tell how serious it was, he would have slowed the virus spread, he would have saved lives,” Troye added.
Troye left the White House in late July.
“Towards the middle of February, we knew it wasn’t a matter of if Covid would become a big pandemic here, it was a matter of when,” she said.
She is endorsing Biden because “I truly believe we are at a time of constitutional crisis. At this point it’s country over party.”
Meanwhile, the White House refute Troye’s claims and note that she didn’t raise objections while working for this administration.
President Trump told reporters on Thursday that he did not know Troye and believes she was coerced into making her remarks.
“Every time somebody leaves government — 99% of the time I’m not going to know these people. And they leave on a basis of almost like it’s a personal thing with me,” Trump said.
“Ms. Troye is a former detailee and a career Department of Homeland Security staff member, who is disgruntled that her detail was cut short because she was no longer capable of keeping up with her day-to-day duties,” retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Pence’s national security adviser, said in a statement.
“Ms. Troye directly reported to me, and never once during her detail did she ever express any concern regarding the Administration’s response to the Coronavirus to anyone in her chain of command. By not expressing her concerns, she demonstrated an incredible lack of moral courage,” Kellogg added.
Pence also condemend his former aide.
“I haven’t read her comments in any detail, but it reads to me like one more disgruntled employee who’s left the White House and now has decided to play politics during an election year,” Pence said. “I think my staff has indicated that she made no comments like that when she was serving on our team here at the White House coronavirus task force.”
Troye, who took a job at the National Insurance Crime Bureau when she left the Trump administration, endorsed Biden in the video released Thursday, CNN reports. Despite being a staunch conservative, she did not vote for Trump in 2016 because she disliked his divisive rhetoric.
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