A tiny seaweed fossil from a billion years ago may help scientists understand how the first plants came ashore and evolved for life on land.
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Sunday, March 29, 2020
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Essence Fest 2020 postponed due to coronavirus pandemic
Essence Fest 2020 becomes the latest event forced to switch gears due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Earlier in March, organizers planned to continue with Essence Fest, which was originally slated for July 1-5, 2020. Recent developments, however, have resulted in a change of plans.
On Friday, it was announced that the 2020 festival has been postponed until a later date this fall.
READ MORE: ESSENCE CEO Michelle Ebanks unexpectedly steps down
An official statement available on the Essence Fest website states that although an official date has not been confirmed, the lineup will remain the same. Ticketholders, if able, will have the opportunity to attend the rescheduled event.
“Based on developments over the past couple of weeks, including updates from our city and health partners, we are officially announcing that we will move the 2020 ESSENCE Festival of Culture closer to the fall,” the statement said.
READ MORE: Janet Jackson, Bruno Mars to headline Essence Fest
“As we previously indicated, we were already moving forward with identifying and securing alternate dates and will be prepared to announce those shortly. We are excited to share that previously announced talent will remain in our line-up for the postponed dates, and we will honor all tickets sold for prior scheduled performances. Continue to visit www.essencefestival.com for new updates.”
Bruno Mars and Janet Jackson were the booked headliners for the event. Janelle Monae, Summer Walker, Ari Lennox and more were also scheduled for the cultural event. Comedian and actress Loni Love was set to emcee the festival.
READ MORE: Loni Love says rough upbringing in Detroit taught her how to survive
This year commemorates the 50th anniversary of ESSENCE magazine. The platform’s longtime CEO Michelle Ebanks recently stepped down. New Orleans, LA, the home of ESSENCE Fest, recently became a United States hotspot for COVID-19, the deadly illness caused by the novel coronavirus.
According to CNN, New Orleans is facing critical shortages of protective equipment and ventilators as positive cases continue to rise.
The post Essence Fest 2020 postponed due to coronavirus pandemic appeared first on TheGrio.
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NY Jets & Johnson Family Partner With United Way to Launch COVID-19 Fund for Vulnerable New Yorkers
In a matter of weeks, more than 25,000 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in New York City, making the Big Apple the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. And, according to officials, this is just the beginning. Although Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a statewide stay-at-home order on March 22, New York is not expected to reach its peak in coronavirus cases for at least another three weeks. Meanwhile, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio predicted earlier this week that half of the city’s 8 million residents should expect to contract the novel virus before it is contained. While the entire city is being impacted by the outbreak, one organization is stepping up to make sure that the most vulnerable New Yorkers are not forgotten in this crisis.
United Way of New York City (UWNYC), a nonprofit dedicated to helping low-income New Yorkers, launched the COVID-19 Community Fund on Wednesday to provide those in need with crucial resources such as food and tools for virtual learning. The COVID-19 Community Fund will provide support for 600 community-based local partners that work with communities that are disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus and the economic consequences of the outbreak.
“United Way of New York City has always been committed to supporting our communities during our City’s most critical moments,” said Sheena Wright, the first woman to be named president and CEO of the organization in its 80-year history, in a statement. “Through the COVID-19 Community Fund, we are going to provide a backbone of support to our 600 community-based organization partners who are managing this crisis throughout our great City.”
According to a press release, the organization’s network of community partners will provide direct services through UWNYC’s ReadNYC, FeedNYC and StrengthenNYC programs, which include connecting hungry New Yorkers to emergency food providers through the Plentiful App as well as providing food for low-income schoolchildren. The fund will also support remote learning programs for students by providing them with books, laptops, and tablets. In addition, it will help local organizations distribute safety supplies like masks, gloves, and bags.
To help support the Fund’s initial kickoff, The New York Jets and the Johnson family made a $500,000 donation while National Grid offered $250,000.
“The United Way continues to improve lives around the world, and we need community-based organizations more than ever at this moment,” said Jets CEO Christopher Johnson in a statement. “Everyone has been impacted by this invisible enemy, and the United Way is meeting it head-on at home, helping those disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 and the economic consequences of the outbreak.”
Individuals, businesses, and community groups interested in supporting New Yorkers in need can contribute to the Fund directly by clicking here.
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Joseph Lowery, civil rights leader and MLK aide, dead at 98
The Rev. Joseph E. Lowery fought to end segregation, lived to see the election of the country’s first Black president and echoed the call for “justice to roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream” in America.
For more than four decades after the death of his friend and civil rights icon, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the fiery Alabama preacher was on the front line of the battle for equality, with an unforgettable delivery that rivaled King’s — and was often more unpredictable.
READ MORE: California governor posthumously pardons gay civil rights leader Bayard Rustin
Lowery had a knack for cutting to the core of the country’s conscience with commentary steeped in scripture, refusing to back down whether the audience was a Jim Crow racist or a U.S. president.
“We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back; when brown can stick around; when yellow will be mellow; when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right,” Lowery prayed at President Barack Obama’s inaugural benediction in 2009.
Lowery, 98, died Friday at home in Atlanta, surrounded by family members, they said in a statement.
He died from natural causes unrelated to the coronavirus outbreak, the statement said.
“Tonight, the great Reverend Joseph E. Lowery transitioned from earth to eternity,” The King Center in Atlanta remembered Lowery in a Friday night tweet. “He was a champion for civil rights, a challenger of injustice, a dear friend to the King family.”
Tonight, the great Reverend Joseph E. Lowery transitioned from earth to eternity. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family. He was a champion for civil rights, a challenger of injustice, a dear friend to the King family.
Thank you, sir.
[📸: MLK, Lowery, Wyatt Tee Walker] pic.twitter.com/PGHpBJJjNm
— The King Center (@TheKingCenter) March 28, 2020
Lowery led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for two decades — restoring the organization’s financial stability and pressuring businesses not to trade with South Africa’s apartheid-era regime — before retiring in 1997.
Considered the dean of civil rights veterans, he lived to celebrate a November 2008 milestone that few of his movement colleagues thought they would ever witness — the election of an African-American president.
READ MORE: Iconic civil rights and federal judge Damon Keith dead at age 96
At an emotional victory celebration for President-elect Barack Obama in Atlanta, Lowery said, “America tonight is in the process of being born again.”
An early and enthusiastic supporter of Obama over then-Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, Lowery also gave the benediction at Obama’s inauguration.
“We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that, yes, we can work together to achieve a more perfect union,” he said.
In 2009, Obama awarded Lowery the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
In another high-profile moment, Lowery drew a standing ovation at the 2006 funeral of King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, when he criticized the war in Iraq, saying, “For war, billions more, but no more for the poor.” The comment also drew head shakes from then-President George Bush and his father, former president George H.W. Bush, who were seated behind the pulpit.
Lowery’s involvement in civil rights grew naturally out of his Christian faith. He often preached that racial discrimination in housing, employment and health care was at odds with such fundamental Christian values as human worth and the brotherhood of man.
“I’ve never felt your ministry should be totally devoted to making a heavenly home. I thought it should also be devoted to making your home here heavenly,” he once said.
Lowery remained active in fighting issues such as war, poverty and racism long after retirement, and survived prostate cancer and throat surgery after he beat Jim Crow.
His wife, Evelyn Gibson Lowery, who worked alongside her husband of nearly 70 years and served as head of SCLC/WOMEN, died in 2013.
“I’ll miss you, Uncle Joe. You finally made it up to see Aunt Evelyn again,” King’s daughter, Bernice King, said in a tweet Friday night.
It’s hard to imagine a world or an Atlanta without Reverend #JosephLowery. I’m grateful for a life well-lived and for its influence on mine. I’ll miss you, Uncle Joe. You finally made it up to see Aunt Evelyn again. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/WZK10uKjeY
— Be A King (@BerniceKing) March 28, 2020
Lowery was pastor of the Warren Street Methodist Church in Mobile, Alabama, in the 1950s when he met King, who then lived in Montgomery, Alabama. Lowery’s meetings with King, the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy and other civil rights activists led to the SCLC’s formation in 1957. The group became a leading force in the civil rights struggle of the 1960s.
Lowery became SCLC president in 1977 following the resignation of Abernathy, who had taken the job after King was assassinated in 1968. He took over an SCLC that was deeply in debt and losing members rapidly. Lowery helped the organization survive and guided it on a new course that embraced more mainstream social and economic policies.
Coretta Scott King once said Lowery “has led more marches and been in the trenches more than anyone since Martin.”
He was arrested in 1983 in North Carolina for protesting the dumping of toxic wastes in a predominantly Black county and in 1984 in Washington while demonstrating against apartheid.
He recalled a 1979 confrontation in Decatur, Alabama, when he and others were protesting the case of a mentally disabled Black man charged with rape. He recalled that bullets whizzed inches above their heads and a group of Klan members confronted them.
“I could hear them go ‘whoosh,'” Lowery said. “I’ll never forget that. I almost died 24 miles from where I was born.”
In the mid-1980s, he led a boycott that persuaded the Winn-Dixie grocery chain to stop selling South African canned fruit and frozen fish when that nation was in the grip of apartheid.
He also continued to urge Blacks to exercise their hard-won rights by registering to vote.
“Black people need to understand that the right to vote was not a gift of our political system but came as a result of blood, sweat and tears,” he said in 1985.
Like King, Lowery juggled his civil rights work with ministry. He pastored United Methodist churches in Atlanta for decades and continued preaching long after retiring.
Born in Huntsville, Alabama, in 1921, Joseph Echols Lowery grew up in a Methodist church where his great-grandfather, the Rev. Howard Echols, was the first Black pastor. Lowery’s father, a grocery store owner, often protested racism in the community.
After college, Lowery edited a newspaper and taught school in Birmingham, but the idea of becoming a minister “just kept gnawing and gnawing at me,” he said. After marrying Evelyn Gibson, a Methodist preacher’s daughter, he began his first pastorate in Birmingham in 1948.
In a 1998 interview, Lowery said he was optimistic that true racial equality would one day be achieved.
“I believe in the final triumph of righteousness,” he said. “The Bible says weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
A member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, Lowery is survived by his three daughters, Yvonne Kennedy, Karen Lowery and Cheryl Lowery-Osborne.
The post Joseph Lowery, civil rights leader and MLK aide, dead at 98 appeared first on TheGrio.
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Drake to Executive Produce ’48 Laws of Power’ Adaption Series for Quibi
Aubrey “Drake” Graham is set to release a new series based on The New York Times best-selling book 48 Laws of Power, on Quibi, a new subscription-based streaming service designed specifically for smartphones.
Quibi announced Thursday that the new series, also titled 48 Law of Power, will bring Robert Greene’s wildly popular book to life, detailing the nature of power as well as the art of securing and maintaining it. Each episode will focus on a different law of power, reads a press release.
The series will be produced in partnership with Graham’s production company Dreamcrew and Anonymous Content. Greene and the hip-hop superstar’s co-manager, Adel “Future” Nur, will also serve as executive producers on the project. In addition, the multiplatform rapper is set to direct an episode.
“When Drake and I sat down with Robert Greene, it was incredibly inspiring. The laws allow for a wide range of dynamic storytelling, and Quibi allows us to tell these stories in bite-sized chapters similar to the book,” Nur said in a statement.
Greene added that he always envisioned a visual adaption of his book, but he was waiting for the right opportunity.
“I have always thought that The 48 Laws of Power would be a perfect fit for a series, bringing to life the timeless Machiavellian game of power as portrayed in the book,” Greene says. “But it was not until Drake and Future with Anonymous Content approached me with their unique cinematic approach to the laws that I knew I could join forces with them and go all in for a filmed interpretation of my work.”
Quibi is a short-form video mobile entertainment platform set to launch April 6 and debut 50 shows. A number of black content creators will release content on Quibi, including Lena Waithe, who is executive producing a show about sneaker culture called You Ain’t Got These, and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, who is executive producing an animated black superhero series titled Trill League. In addition, Quibi acquired Will Parker’s docuseries about former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling.
The mobile-centric platform will charge users $5 monthly for an ad-supported version and $8 per month for viewing without ads.
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This California Mayor Is Giving People $500 A Month During The COVID-19 Closures
The widespread outbreak of COVID-19, also known as the coronavirus, has cost many American workers their jobs and sent them to the unemployment line. The economy has been deeply damaged due to businesses having to shut down their operations and large event cancellations under new, strict laws to combat the virus from infecting more people. As a result, the government has been at work trying to come to an agreement on a stimulus that would help American citizens weather out this public health crisis. One California mayor wants to offer every person $500 a month with no strings attached.
Michael Tubbs, the 29-year-old mayor of Stockton, California, has been a longtime supporter of a universal base income. He has already been conducting a trial of a guaranteed income in his city since February, giving 125 residents—all of whom live at or below the city’s median income level of $46,000―$500 a month in cash funded by the Economic Security Project.
Under the stimulus plan recently approved by Congress, individuals would receive one-off payments of $1,200 for individuals and $2,400 for couples in addition to an extra $500 for each child 16 or younger for those earning under $75,000 annually. The payments would be scaled down for those earning between $75,000 to a maximum of $99,000 annually. While it’s estimated that about 90% of Americans would qualify for this relief, many feel that a one-off payment will not suffice.
“I’m happy that our federal government has shown a willingness to understand… that during times of crisis, the best thing you can do is to give folks cash to navigate through.” He said to the Huffington Post. “It has to last at least as long as the crisis.”
While the crisis has brought to light the many economic inequalities people deal with, Tubbs argues that the universal income plan needs to become a permanent fixture in our government. “Even before this catastrophic disruption, a lot of folks were living in economic crisis,” said Tubbs, “and our economy was not working for the vast majority of people. It behooves all of us to ensure that everyone at least has an income floor.”
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