Gabriel Mahia

The Atlanta Hawks will flip State Farm Arena into an early voting site for Georgia’s upcoming elections.  According to a press release issued on Monday (June 29), the Fulton County Registration and Elections Board is partnering with the basketball team to transform the state-of-the-art facility into the largest-ever voting precinct. H undreds of State Farm Arena staffers will also be trained as volunteer poll workers. Starting with early voting on July 20 for the primary runoff election on August 11, as well as the general election on November 3, v oters will be able to park around the area for free and cast their ballots while maintaining the CDC’s social distancing requirements.  READ MORE:  Stacey Abrams slams GOP over voter suppression in Georgia “We aim to be a community asset, and in order to fulfill that goal, we need to be more than just a basketball team,” Hawks CEO Steve Koonin said. “We’ll utilize our arena for all aspects of voting.” Startin...

When U.S. Park Police forcefully pushed peaceful protesters away from the White House and Lafayette Square on June 1, they performed a “violent and senseless operation,” said Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva , D-Ariz, chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, during a Congressional hearing about the incident on Monday.  Around 6:30 p.m. — a half-hour before Washington D.C.’s curfew — videos show U.S. Park Police using projectiles, batons, and gas to move protesters away from the park. Soon thereafter, President Donald Trump left the White House and staged a photo-op with a Bible in front of St. John’s Church. READ MORE: Twitter rips Trump’s Bible photo-op in front of church after protest remarks Trump administration officials, including Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley , have since distanced themselves from the evening’s events. WASHINGTON DC: Minutes before Trump’s Lafayette Square photo-op starts, police rush into a crowd of peace...

A heavily redacted FBI report in 2006 confirmed that white supremacist groups were asking their members to join law enforcement agencies in order to continue to spread hatred. But as of this date, the report has barely been reviewed. READ MORE:  Van Jones secretly helped develop Trump police reform order In the wake of the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Elijah McClain at the hands of police, there are renewed calls to make the entire report public. Neo-Nazi protestors organized by the National Socialist Movement demonstrate near where the grand opening ceremonies were held for the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Democratic California congresswoman Norma Torres, along with 27 lawmakers has asked for the FBI to allow to release an unredacted version of the report On her official site, she states : As we work to end systemic racism in law enforcement, we need to know how pervasive white supremacist ideology ...

Nitric oxide is an important signaling molecule in the body, with a role in building nervous system connections that contribute to learning and memory. It also functions as a messenger in the cardiovascular and immune systems. But it has been difficult for researchers to study exactly what its role is in these systems and how it functions. Because it is a gas, there has been no practical way to direct it to specific individual cells in order to observe its effects. Now, a team of scientists and engineers at MIT and elsewhere has found a way of generating the gas at precisely targeted locations inside the body, potentially opening new lines of research on this essential molecule’s effects. The findings are reported today in the journal Nature Nanotechnology , in a paper by MIT professors Polina Anikeeva, Karthish Manthiram, and Yoel Fink; graduate student Jimin Park; postdoc Kyoungsuk Jin; and 10 others at MIT and in Taiwan, Japan, and Israel. “It’s a very important compound,” Anikee...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday struck down a Louisiana law regulating abortion clinics, reasserting a commitment to abortion rights over fierce opposition from dissenting conservative justices in the first big abortion case of the Trump era. Chief Justice John Roberts joined with his four more liberal colleagues in ruling that the law requiring doctors who perform abortions have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals violates the abortion right the court first announced in the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. In two previous abortion cases, Roberts had favored restrictions. The Louisiana law is virtually identical to one in Texas that the court struck down in 2016. RELATED: Supreme Court rejects end to protections for young immigrants “The result in this case is controlled by our decision four years ago invalidating a nearly identical Texas law,” Roberts wrote, although he did not join the opinion written by Justice Stephen Breyer for the other liberals. ...

Husband and wife, Mark and Patricia McCloskey , aimed guns at protesters who walked by their mansion in Forest Park, Mo. The protesters were headed to St. Louis mayor, Lyda Krewson ’s home to demand her resignation after she read the names of and addresses of people who had submitted a letter demanding that she defund the city’s police department. READ MORE: Missouri Mayor doxxed those in favor of defunding the police In the viral video , the couple is seen screaming “keep moving!” Mark McCloskey is seen holding a large assault rifle, while his wife is pointing a handgun at protesters walking by. A couple in St. Louis defend their home with a firearm after protesters enter their neighborhood pic.twitter.com/idmZO0nIpS — Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 29, 2020 Ironically, the couple’s law firm is representing a victim of police brutality. According to The Daily Mail , the couple owns the McCloskey Law Center which they run from their palatial home. Mr. McCloskey is curr...

As videogame companies increasingly shift to the cloud, data centers have taken on outsized importance. from Wired https://ift.tt/2BSnfZG via

Many Black professionals how found success in the food industry as they continue to thrive and create innovative brands. Five years ago, Howard University alum Angel Gregorio was inspired to open her own spice company after leaving her job as an assistant principal. Today, her company, The Spice Suite , has over 104 spice blends for cooking in addition to her own cookbook, The Little Black SpiceBook ,  and now she is teaming up with singer Kelis for a new food collaboration. Gregorio and Kelis , who owns a sauce line called Bounty & Full and also hosts the Netflix show Cooking With Cannabis , announced the partnership on their Instagram Together, they curated the new collaboration box. “Kelis found me on Instagram, we were DMing, and then we got on the call and just vibed,” Gregorio said in an interview with ESSENCE . “We talked through a collaboration box together, what we were going to put in it, we were going to do an Instagram live to announce it late June.” “My tribe o...

Virginia Pastor Leon McCray, 61, called the police for protection after being threatened by a white “mob” in front of property he owned and instead of arresting them, the police arrested McCray. McCray said he was visiting an apartment property he owns in Edinburg when he saw a man and a woman who did not live there dragging a refrigerator to his dumpster, the pastor  told his congregation . When he confronted them, they left and returned with three others. The five allegedly assaulted and threatened to kill the pastor. According to McCray, the group surrounded, jostled, and threatened him, “telling me that my Black life and the  Black Lives Matter  stuff, they don’t give a darn about that stuff in this county, and they could care less and ‘We would kill you,’”  The Washington Post  reported. McCray, in turn, pulled out his legally concealed handgun. The group was “threatening my life,” he said during a sermon at his Lighthouse Church & Marketplace M...

As an African American entrepreneur, I can tell you that you’ll face tremendous obstacles in building your vision. But there is nothing more personally liberating than seeing your dream come true—and right now, as an African American entrepreneur, your platform for change is growing exponentially as VCs are slowly starting to understand that they need to be more inclusive and that there are vast opportunities outside of their small network. I encourage all African Americans to pursue their dreams of being an entrepreneur—and if your dream is to change the world, you should raise venture capital. There will always be difficulties—yes, unique to you. My goal in this piece is to encourage you to keep moving in spite of them. So here’s my story on how I raised an $11M Series A. It begins when my father came home one day and handed me a copy of Black Enterprise’ s 1995 edition of the BE 100s . From that day forward, I decided that I would be an entrepreneur. I grew up in a mostly white n...

Teen actress, Marsai Martin, responded to online trolls who made fun of her during the virtual BET Awards event last night (June 28). Martin presented the “Best Female Hip Hop Artist” award to Megan thee Stallion , and she won the “Young Stars” Award. READ MORE: 15-Year-Old Marsai Martin to produce another film with Universal The event was hosted by Amanda Seales and billed as “Our Culture Can’t Be Canceled.” The star was serving up a new, blonde look as she enthusiastically presented during the event. However, some Twitter trolls decided the look wasn’t up to their standards. Commenters remarked that the wig looked “mature” and calling it a “Miss Piggie wig.” Not with Marsai Martin wearing that old lady wig lmfao that shit way too big for her head — Young OG (@everybodysBOSS) June 29, 2020 Why they put Marsai Martin in this Muppet Baby wig #BETAwards pic.twitter.com/kwsIRXMYLz — Nicole Chante’ (@nicolespeaaks) June 29, 2020 They also found time to comment on the ...

President Donald Trump was surrounded by uniformed police officers and military officials on June 16 when he signed an executive order on police reform. That was what the public saw. However, behind the scenes, one of the strongest voices currently speaking out on civil rights for African Americans was a part of the team assisting the president. READ MORE: Van Jones on racist white liberals: ‘It’s not just the KKK we have to worry about’ According to a new report, CNN analyst, Van Jones , was instrumental in helping to craft the order which was characterized by Democrats as “weak,” and a “photo op.” The NAACP Legal Defense Fund said that the order must not be “a distraction on the path toward achieving veritable, lasting change.” The order creates a database to track police officers with multiple instances of misconduct and uses federal grants to encourage local police departments to meet certain higher certification standards on the use of force. According to the report in ...

From smart displays to portable boomboxes, Google's smart voice assistant comes in all shapes and sizes. Here are our favorites. from Wired https://ift.tt/2ODGPJw via

Senator Sherrod Brown wants to drastically scale back the permitted uses of your personal data—and ban facial recognition outright. from Wired https://ift.tt/31sXl9C via

In the last couple of weeks with the fallout from the brutal and senseless police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others, companies in retail, advertising, technology, media, entertainment, sports, finance, healthcare, and other industries have posted great messages on LinkedIn and other social media platforms about supporting Black Lives Matter and committing to diversity and inclusion. It’s easy to release a PR statement, but where is the action? Now is the time to see them walk their talk. Supporting a race of people is more than a hashtag or a temporary black square on your Facebook page. We are already seeing how some of these Black Lives Matter statements ring hollow. Many companies have a history of racial discrimination and exploiting people of color and have failed to hire, promote and fairly compensate their Black employees. The comments in their posts tell you a lot—current and former employees sharing stories of being overlooked, overworked, underpai...

Engineers are turning to generative design algorithms to build components for NASA’s next-generation space suit—the first major update in decades. from Wired https://ift.tt/3eIflAB via

A historian says they were taken from shrines in south-eastern Nigeria during the 1960s civil war. from BBC News - Africa https://ift.tt/31mpWxc via

Solar energy is promised to be the new source of our power as we move into the future. It is important that as this new sector experiences rapid growth that we also work to make sure it is accessible to everyone and not just a select few. According to a recent PwC Global Power & Utilities Survey , 97% of utility executives across the globe expect a medium to high-level of disruption in their main home markets by 2020. Meet the Black woman making sure Black communities have access to solar power.  After extensive work in government, entrepreneur and advocate Kristal Hansley launched WeSolar Energy with the goal to provide underserved and underfunded communities access to solar energy. “During my time leading the Community Affairs policy at Congresswoman Eleanor Norton’s office, Maryland passed new laws to increase the use of solar energy across the state. I saw how effectively solar could reduce the cost of electricity for households, and decided to get involved in the em...