Leila Meroue is using a 'moon brick' technique to build sustainable schools in Senegal.
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Wednesday, November 11, 2020
Tuesday, November 10, 2020
Lies that Biden ‘lost’ Penn. take hold as tech companies fight claims
Platforms including Facebook and YouTube are yanking posts and deleting accounts that are sharing the misinformation
Tom Bevan, co-founder and president of Real Clear Politics, has slammed reports that his website pulled its call of Pennsylvania for Joe Biden in the election.
Biden was declared the projected winner of the 2020 presidential election on Saturday, after securing 270 electoral votes. The Trump administration has since filed lawsuits which challenge Biden’s victory.
On Monday, it was falsely reported that Biden had lost Pennsylvania and that the political news site “rescinded” its call that he was projected to win the state, New York Times reports.
Read More: GOP Mississippi official calls for state to ‘succeed’ from US after Biden win
Just got word that they pulled Pennsylvania’s electoral votes from Biden today after the Supreme Court hearing on voting…
Posted by Christa Elisha on Monday, November 9, 2020
“Just got word that they pulled Pennsylvania’s electoral votes from Biden today after the Supreme Court hearing on voting fraud!” wrote Facebook user Christa Elisha in a Nov. 9 post. “Biden is no longer President Elect! Our prayers are working!!! Keep it up saints!”
Elisha’s post includes screenshots attributed to Real Clear Politics, as well as a Nov. 9 tweet from Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani, that claims the president’s lawsuits “will invalidate 300,000 or more crooked democrat (sic) votes votes (sic) in Philly.”
Giuliani added, “Real Clear Politics just took PA away from Biden and made it a toss up.”
“This is false. We never called Pennsylvania, and nothing has changed,” Bevan tweeted on Nov. 9.
Read More: Pennsylvania postal worker admits his claim of ballot tampering wasn’t true
This misinformation about Biden has spread like wildfire, and Elisha’s post has been widely shared across social media.
Platforms including Facebook and YouTube have been yanking posts or deleting pages and groups for containing false information about Biden “losing” Pennsylvania. But the fake news is surging, making it difficult for tech companies to curb the lies and inaccuracies.
A map of the 2020 presidential election results appears on the Real Clear Politics website, and it shows Pennsylvania shaded in gray/uncalled since the page went live on Election Day.
Real Clear Politics’ Washington Bureau Chief Carl M. Cannon co-signed Bevan’s comments. “We made no change on Pennsylvania whatsoever,” he said in an interview with Reuters.
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Zeit – A GUI Tool to Schedule Cron and At Jobs in Linux
Zeit is an open-source GUI tool for scheduling jobs via “crontab” and “at”. It is written in C++ and released under GPL-3.0 License. It is an easy to use tool that provides a simple
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White House tells feds to prepare Trump’s February budget through 2022
‘We’re all supposed to pretend this is normal, and do all this work.’
The Trump White House is moving forward with planning a spending agenda through 2022, in what appears to be yet another attempt to reject Joe Biden’s election win.
The president and his lame-duck staff have reportedly instructed federal agencies to continue working on the administration’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year, according to The Washington Post.
The budget is usually issued in February. President-elect Joe Biden will take Trump’s place on January 20.
“They’re pretending nothing happened,” an unnamed official told The Post. “We’re all supposed to pretend this is normal, and do all this work, while we know we’re just going to have to throw it away.”
Read More: Following Trump, GOP congressional candidates refuse to concede
The Trump administration has also instructed senior government officials to not cooperate with Biden’s transition team. The president continues to refuse to graciously concede the election to the projected winner.
theGRIO previously reported, Melania Trump refuses to congratulate the soon-to-be new first lady or set up a meeting – a customary pleasantry that was extended to her by Michelle Obama. She is also posting messages on social media that seem to echo her husband’s sentiments that he was cheated during the election.
“The preparations going on now are not surprising given the administration’s position on the outcome of the election,” Chantel Boyens, a policy associate at the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, told the Post. “At the point at which you know the outcome of the election, it would not make sense to continue formulating policy recommendations for a new budget to be put out by the outgoing administration.”
Read More: Melania Trump refuses to meet with Dr. Jill Biden: report
Biden said Tuesday at a news conference in Wilmington, Del., that he has no plans to legally force the Trump administration to acknowledge him as the clear winner of the 2020 presidential election.
“I’m confident that the fact that they’re not willing to acknowledge we won at this point is not that much consequence in our planning and what we’re able to do between now and Jan. 20,” he said.
On Trump’s refusals to concede, Biden said “I just think it’s an embarrassment, quite frankly. How can I say this tactfully? I think it will not help the president’s legacy.”
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Interesting Application of the Poisson-Binomial Distribution
While the Bernoulli and binomial distributions are among the first ones taught in any elementary statistical course, the Poisson-Binomial is rarely mentioned. It is however one of the simplest discrete multivariate distributions, with applications in survey analysis, see here. In this article, we are dealing with experimental / probabilistic number theory, leading to a more efficient detection of large prime numbers, with applications in cryptography and IT security.
This article is accessible to people with minimal math or statistical knowledge, as we avoid jargon and theory, favoring simplicity. Yet we are able to present original research-level results that will be of interest to professional data scientists, mathematicians, and machine learning experts. The data set explored here is the set of numbers, and thus accessible to anyone. We also explain computational techniques, even mentioning online tools, to deal with very large integers that are beyond what standard programming languages or Excel can handle.
1. The Poisson-Binomial Distribution
We are all familiar with the most basic of all random variables: the Bernoulli. If Y is such a variable, it is equal to 0 with probability p, and to 1 with probability 1 - p. Here the parameter p is a real number between 0 and 1. If you run n trials, independent from each other, and each with the same potential outcome, then the number of successes, defined as the number of times the outcome is equal to 1, is a Binomial variable of parameters n and p.
Source for picture: here
If the trials are independent but a different p is attached to each of them, then this time the number of successes has a Poisson-binomial distribution. In short, let's say that we have n independent Bernoulli random variables Y1, ..., Yn respectively with parameter p1, ..., pn, then the number of successes X = Y1 + ... + Yn has a Poisson-binomial distribution of parameters p1, ..., pn and n. The exact probability density function is cumbersome to compute as it is combinatorial in nature, but a Poisson approximation is available and will be used in this article, thus the name Poisson-binomial.
The first two moments (expectation and variance) are as follows:
The exact formula for the PDF (probability density function) involves an exponentially growing number of terms as n becomes large. For instance, P(X = n - 2) which is the probability that exactly two out of n trials fail, is given by the following formula:
For this reason, whenever possible, approximations are used.
1.1. Poisson approximation
When the parameters pk are small, say pk < 0.1, then the following Poisson approximation applies. Let λ = p1 + ... + pn. Then for m = 0, ..., n, we have:
When n becomes large, we can use the Central Limit Theorem to compute more complicated probabilities such as P(X > m), based on the Poisson approximation. See also the Le Cam theorem for more precise approximations.
2. Case study: Odds to observe many primes in a random sequence
The 12 integers below were produced with special sequence described in the second example in this article . It quickly produces a large volume of numbers with no small divisors. How likely it is to produce such a sequence of numbers just by chance? The numbers q[5], q[6], q[7], q[12] have divisors smaller than 1,000 and the remaining eight numbers have no divisor smaller than N = 15,485,863. Note that N (the one-millionth prime) is the largest divisor that I tried in that test.
Here is the answer. The probability for a large number x to be prime is about 1 / log x, by virtue of the Prime Number Theorem. The probability for a large number x to have no divisor smaller than N is
where the product is over all primes p < N and γ = 0.577215… is the Euler–Mascheroni constant. Here ρN ≈ 0.033913. See here for an explanation of the equality on the left side. The right-hand formula is known as the Mertens theorem. See also here. The symbol ~ represents asymptotic equivalence. Thus the probability to observe 4 large numbers out of 12 having no divisor smaller than N is
Note that we used a binomial distribution here to answer the question. Also, the probability for x to be prime if it has no divisor smaller than N is equal to
For the above numbers q[1],⋯,q[12], the probability in question is not small. For instance, it is equal to 0.47,0.36,0.23 respectively for q[1], q[2], q[11]. Other sequences producing a high density of prime numbers are discussed here and here.
2.1. Computations based on the Poisson-Binomial distribution
Let us denote as pk the probability that q[k] is prime, for k =1, ...,12. As discussed earlier in section 2, pk = 1 / log q[k] is small, and the Poisson approximation can be used when dealing with the Poisson-binomial distribution. So we can use the formula in section 1.1. with λ = p1 + ... + pn and n = 12.
Thus, λ = 0.11920 (approx.) Now we can compute P(X = m) for m = 8, 9, 10, 11,12:
The chance that 8 or more large numbers are prime among q[1],⋯,q[12] is the sum of the 5 probabilities in the above table. It is equal to 9.1068 / 10^13. That is, less than one in a trillion.
2.2. Technical note: handling very large numbers
Numbers investigated in this research have dozens and even hundreds of digits. The author has routinely worked with numbers with millions of digits. Below are some useful tools to deal with such large numbers.
- If you use a programming language, check if it has a BigNum or BigInt library. Here I used the Perl programming language, with the BigNum library. A similar library is available in Python. See examples of code, here.
- A list of all prime numbers up to one trillion is available here.
- To check if a large number p is prime or not, use the command PrimeQ[p] in Mathematica, also available online here. Another online tool, allowing you to test many numbers in batch to find which ones are prime, is available here.
- The online Sagemath symbolic calculator is also useful. I used it e.g. to compute millions of binary digits of numbers such as SQRT(2), see here.
- For those interested in experimental number theory, the OEIS online tool is also very valuable. If you discover a sequence of integers, and you are wondering if it has been discovered before, you can do a reverse lookup to find references to the sequence in question. You can also do a reverse lookup on math constants, entering the first 15 digits to see if it matches a known math constant.
3. Cryptography application
Many cryptography systems rely on public and private keys that feature the product of two large primes, typically with hundreds or thousands of binary digits. Producing such large primes was not an easy task until efficient algorithms were created to check if a number is prime or not. These algorithms are know as primality tests. Some are very fast but only provide a probabilistic answer: the probability that the number in question is a prime number, which is either zero or extremely close to one. These algorithms rely on sampling a large number of primes to identify prime candidates, and then determine their status (prime or not prime) with an exact but more costly test.
Remember that the probability for a random, large integer p to be prime, is about 1 / log p. So if you test 100,000 numbers close to 10^300, you'd expect to find 145 primes. Not a very efficient strategy. One way to improve these odds by an order of magnitude, is to pick up integers belonging to sequences that are prime-rich: such sequences can contain 10 times more primes than random sequences. This is where the methodology discussed here becomes handy. Such sequences are discussed in two of my articles: here and here.
About the author: Vincent Granville is a data science pioneer, mathematician, book author (Wiley), patent owner, former post-doc at Cambridge University, former VC-funded executive, with 20+ years of corporate experience including CNET, NBC, Visa, Wells Fargo, Microsoft, eBay. Vincent also founded and co-founded a few start-ups, including one with a successful exit (Data Science Central acquired by Tech Target). You can access Vincent's articles and books, here.
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(With Images) Know everything about GANs (Generative Adversarial Network) in depth
Let’s understand the GAN(Generative Adversarial Network).
Generative Adversarial Networks were invented in 2014 by Ian Goodfellow(author of best Deep learning book in the market) and his fellow researchers. The main idea behind GAN was to use two networks competing against each other to generate new unseen data(Don’t worry you will understand this further). GANs are often described as a counterfeiter versus a detective, let’s get an intuition of how they work exactly.
So we can think of counterfeiter as a generator.
The generator is going to:
- Receive random noise typically Gaussian or normal distribution of noise.
- And it is going to attempt to output the data often used for image data.
The discriminator:
- Takes the data set consisting of real images from the real datasets and fake images from the generator.
- Attempt to classify real vs fake images.
Keep in mind, regardless of your source of images whether it’s MNIST with 10 classes, the discriminator itself will perform Binary classification. It just tries to tell whether it’s real or fake.
So let’s actually see the process:
We first start with some noise like some Gaussian distribution of noise data and we feed directly into the generator. The goal of the generator is to create images that fool the discriminator.
In the very first stage of training, the generator is just going to produce noise.
And then we also grab images from our real dataset.
And then in PHASE1, we train the discriminator essentially labeling fake generated images as zeros and real data generated images as one. So basically zero if you are fake and one if you are real.
We feed that into the discriminator and the discriminator gets trained to detect the real images versus the fake image. And then as time goes on the generator during the second PHASE of training is going to keep improving its images and trying to fool the discriminator, until it’s able to hopefully generate images that appear to mimic the real dataset and discriminator. Is no longer able to tell the difference between the false image and the real image.
So from the above example, we see that there are really two training phases:
- Phase 1- Training Discriminator
- Phase 2 - Train Generator
In phase one, what we do is we take the real images and we label them as one and they are combined with fake images from a generator labeled as zero. The discriminator then trains to distinguish the real images from fake images. Keep in mind that in phase one of training the backpropagation is only occurring on the discriminator. So we are only optimizing the discriminator’s weights during phase one of training.
Then in phase two, we have the generator produce more fake images and then we only feed the fake images to the generator with all the labels set as real. And this causes a generator to attempt to produce images that the images discriminator believes to be real. And what’s important to note here is that in phase two because we are feeding and all fake images labeled as 1, we only perform backpropagation on the generator weights in this step. So we are not going to be able to a typical fit call on all the training data as we did before. Since we are dealing with two different models(a discriminator model and generator model), we will also have two different phases of training.
What is really interesting here and something you should always keep in mind, the generators itself never actually sees the real images. It generates convincing images only based on gradients flowing back through the discriminator during its phase of training. Also, keep in mind the discriminator also improves as training phases continues, meaning the generated images will also need to hopefully get better and better in order to fold the discriminator.
This can lead to pretty impressive results. In the video, research has published many models such as style GANs and also a face GAN to actually produce fake human images that are extremely detailed. See below the example of face GAN performance from NVIDIA. IMPRESSIVE RIGHT????
Now let’s talk about difficulties with GANs networks,
- Training Resources
Since GANs are more often used with image-based data and due to the fact that we have two networks competing against each other they require GPUs for reasonable training time. But fortunately, we have Google Collab with us to use GPUs for free.
- Mode Collapses
Often what happens is the generator figure out just a few images or even sometimes a single image that can fool the discriminator and eventually “collapses” to only produce that image. So you can imagine back where it was producing faces, maybe it figured out how to produce one single face that fools the discriminator. Then the generator ends up just learning to produce the same face over and over again.
So in theory it would be preferable to have a variety of images, such as multiple numbers or multiple faces, but GANs can quickly collapse to produce the single number or phase whatever the dataset happens to be regardless of the input noise.
This means you can feed in any type of random noise you want but the generator figured out the one image that it can use to fool the discriminator.
It is typically better to avoid the mode collapse because they are more complex and they have deeper layers to them.
There are a couple of different ways to overcome this problem is by using DCGAN(Deep convolutional GAN, this I will explain in another blog).
Researchers have also experimented with what’s known as “mini-batch discrimination”, essentially punishing generated batches that are all too similar. So if the generator starts having mode collapse and getting batches of very very similar looking images, it will begin to punish that particular batch inside of discriminator for having the images be all too similar.
- Instability
It can be difficult to ascertain performance and appropriate training epochs since all the generated images at the end of the day are truly fake. So it’s difficult to tell how well our model is performing at generating images because a discriminate thinks something is real doesn’t mean that a human-like us will think of a face or a number looks real enough.
And again due to the design of a GAN, the generator and discriminator are constantly at odds with each other which leads to performance oscillation between the two.
So while dealing with GAN you have to experiment with hyperparameters such as the number of layers, the number of neurons, activation function, learning rates, etc especially when it comes to complex images.
Conclusions
- GANs are a very popular area of research! And often that the results are so fascinating and so cool that researchers even like to do this for fun, so you will see a ton of different reports on all sorts of GANs.
- So I would highly encourage you to make a quick search on Google Scholar for the latest research papers on GANs. Trust me you will see a paper on this topic every month.
- Highly recommend you to play with GANs and gave fun to make different things and show off on social media.
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Former LMPD officer Brett Hankison accused of sexual assault in lawsuit
His alleged victims only began to come forward as the ex-cop made headlines over the summer for his role in Breonna Taylor’s death
Brett Hankison, the former LMPD officer at the center of the Breonna Taylor case, has been named in a new lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault.
It appears Hankison is quite known around town by several local women who claim he is a sexual predator. His alleged victims only began to come forward as Hankison made headlines over the summer for his role in Taylor’s death.
In the 24-page suit, a woman in her 20s, identified as Margo Borders, details an incident in 2018 in which Hankison gave her a ride to her apartment, and once she fell asleep, he sexually assaulted her, wave3.com reports.
“While Margo was unconscious, Hankison went into her room, stripped off his clothes and willfully, intentionally, painfully and violently sexually assaulted Margo,” the lawsuit alleges.
Read More: Breonna Taylor grand jury indicts former officer Brett Hankison – but not directly for her death
“(The alleged victim) was physically injured, mentally horrified and remained in emotional duress over both the assault and the feeling that any efforts made to hold Officer Hankison accountable for his actions would backfire,” the lawsuit read.
Hankison allegedly “messaged (her) later in the day to try and suggest that the two had engaged in consensual relations,” a move “true to (Hankison’s) playbook,” the woman’s lawyer’s states.
Several other women have come forward with their own experiences with Hankison. They accuse him of targeting “intoxicated” and/or “vulnerable” young women at a St. Matthews bar where he was working security.
Read More: Louisville officer sues Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend for emotional distress, assault and battery
Hankison, former Chief Steve Conrad and several other officers are named in the lawsuit, which is seeking undisclosed monetary damages.
theGRIO previously reported, in September, a Kentucky grand jury charged Hankison in the Breonna Taylor case, but not for allegedly killing her during a botched raid. Instead, he was charged for shooting into Taylor’s neighbors’ apartments.
The Jefferson grand jury chose to indict Hankison with three counts of wanton endangerment in the first degree, which carries up to five years in prison. He was previously fired in June for his role in the shooting.
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Tips for how to travel — and host travelers — safely this holiday season
Advice from doctors on how to travel more safely during the 2020 holiday season.
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Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron joins election lawsuit in Pennsylvania
‘We have to ensure that every legal vote cast is counted and every illegal vote cast is not counted.’
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron has joined a GOP lawsuit in Pennsylvania to challenge the mail-in ballots that arrived after Election Day.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled last month that ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 and received three days after the election (by November 6) can be counted. Republicans are in the process of appealing the ruling and urging the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case, per Kentucky.com.
“Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our republic,” said Eric Schmitt, the Attorney General of Missouri, in a press conference. “We have to ensure that every legal vote cast is counted and every illegal vote cast is not counted.”
Read More: Pennsylvania postal worker admits his claim of ballot tampering wasn’t true
An earlier report on theGRIO noted that the legal issue is whether the 3-day extension ordered by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, relying on voter protections in the Pennsylvania constitution, violated the U.S. Constitution. The argument advanced by Republicans is that the Constitution gives state legislatures — not state courts — the power to decide how electoral votes are awarded, including whether absentee ballots received after Election Day can be counted, per The Associated Press.
Cameron, a Trump supporter and the GOP attorney general at the center of the controversial Breonna Taylor case, signed onto an amicus brief supporting a Republican lawsuit related to mail-in ballots.
Meanwhile, experts have noted that the lawsuit is unlikely to change the outcome of the election.
Read More: Something is fishy about Daniel Cameron and the Breonna Taylor case
Kentucky counted Ballots received after November 3rd but were postmarked by Election Day. In a statement on Twitter, Cameron said the difference between the process in his state and Pennsylvania is that Pennsylvania counted ballots that allegedly had illegible postmarks.
“What happens in other states during a presidential election matters to Kentuckians because we are electing our President and Vice President,” Cameron wrote. “Legal matters like the one involving Pennsylvania set a judicial precedent that not only affects this election, but future elections as well.”
Cameron said his interest in the case “is not about courts dictating who wins or loses, but about transparency and rule of law issues.”
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NY AG Letitia James preparing ‘long list’ of Trump initiatives to undo
The Democratic prosecutor says her office plans to begin quickly reversing Trump administration initiatives.
During a new interview, New York Attorney General Letitia James revealed her plans to immediately begin rolling back initiatives set in place by President Donald Trump.
Read More: New York attorney general Letitia James sues to dissolve NRA
James told NBC News her office is prepared to work through a substantial list to reverse regulations passed by the Trump administration.
“We’re preparing a list. And the list is long,” she said Thursday. “We’ll have a team of individuals, again, working on reversing all of the bad regulations and laws that have been put forth … We will work with the Biden administration to ask them to file stays in a number of cases that are pending in the courts all across this country,” she said, according to NBC News.
Since her election in 2019, James has battled the current administration on issues ranging from the environment, immigration, the USPS and the census, according to NBC. The attorney general’s office also conducted a year-long probe into Trump’s charity, which was ultimately shut down, and is currently investigating financial irregularities in the Trump Organization.
James has faced criticism from Trump officials of being biased. Eric Trump delayed testifying in her probe of the company, calling legal efforts by her office “a continued political vendetta.” He ultimately did give a deposition in the case.
Read More: Meet the 3 women who created New York’s Black Women’s March
James told the news outlet that she does not “pay a lot of attention to all the noise and all the critics,” when asked about Eric Trump’s claim.
“A number of elected officials have accused me of bias. Some Republican attorneys general have accused me of political bias. I just put my head down and just go to work,” she told NBC.
“Again, politics is not an issue that I will tolerate in my office,” she said. “It’s based on allegations, primarily from individuals within the Trump administration who have come forward, and laid bare a pattern of illegality and misconduct, which requires an investigation on the part of regulators, i.e., the New York State Office of Attorney General.”
The AG said she and her team are also reviewing “legal options to determine what action if any” state attorneys general will take, should the election results be contested.
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Indiana grand jury decides no charges in fatal shooting of Sean Reed
A grand jury will not pursue any charges against Officer Dejoure Mercer in the death of Sean Reed
A special grand jury in has decided not to indict an Indianapolis Metropolitan police officer in the fatal shooting of Sean Reed whose death was captured on Facebook Live.
Reed, also known as Dreasjon, live streamed the incident.
Special Prosecutor Rosemary Khoury made the announcement on Tuesday declaring that the grand jury returned with a “no bill,” Fox 59 reports. The six community members had been assembled after Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Officer Dejoure Mercer killed Reed during a pursuit in May.
Police maintained that Reed, 21, had a weapon and fired at law enforcement. On May 6, Reed, a former Airmen and a legal gun holder, according to Fox 59, fled on foot after police stopped him for driving recklessly. He was first spotted speeding on the highway but a chase was called off due to his high rate of speed.
Reed’s car was recognized by police when he drove onto city streets and when they attempted to stop him, he exited the car. In the ensuing confrontation and chase, Mercer, who is Black, says he was fired upon. His account says he first used a stun gun, but it had no effect on Reed. According to The Washington Post, a gun found near Reed at the scene was likely fired twice.
Read More: Detective in Sean Reed shooting joked ‘it’s going to be a closed casket’
In June, Reed’s family denied the IMPD version of events, insisting he was “shot in the back for no reason.”
Though Reed live streamed the entire incident, the first moments when he exits the car aren’t visible on camera.
“I’m here to say to you today unequivocally that Dreasjon Reed, Sean Reed, did not shoot a gun, did not point a gun, did not brandish a gun at an officer,” attorney Fatima Johnson said. “He did not. The narrative that you’ve heard is incorrect, is false, is misleading. It did not happen.”
Mercer fired 13 shots but investigators were unable, despite the video from Reed’s phone, and surveillance footage from a nearby business to determine who shot first, according to the Post.
Additionally, theGrio reported that an officer was suspended after remarking that “think it’s going to be a closed casket, homie,” about Reed’s funeral. Ofc. Steven Scott, another Black officer, was later named as the person who made the comment, which was captured on the Facebook live stream.
Reed’s shooting was the first of three officer-involved killings in Indianapolis within a day.19-year-old McHale Rose was shot by police and Ashlynn Lisby, 23, a pregnant white woman, was struck by an officer’s vehicle as she walked up an expressway off-ramp. The shootings led to protests in Indianapolis. In response, Khoury was named as the special prosecutor in Reed’s death but the investigation will not yield any legal action.
The jury decided that they could not find probable cause to bring charges against Mercer. Khoury was visibly emotional as she relayed their decision.
“This has not been an easy task and it’s been a very heavy burden,” she said.
Khoury acknowledged that the case had taken a toll on her.
“The most challenging part was to not let my emotions become involved. There was a lot of evidence to sort through,” Khoury said.
“Fairness. From day one that’s been my goal,” she told reporters. “No one wins here. I hope that anyone who was a part of this entire process can look at this and feel comfortable that the investigation was done in an impartial manner. That’s exactly what my team and I did over the past five months.”
She extended her sympathies to Reed’s mother, Demetree Wynn.
Read More: Indianapolis police fatally shoot Sean Reed, 21, during Facebook Live
“I don’t know how Mr. Reed’s mother feels…but I am a mother of two Black boys. I’m also very empathetic toward Officer Mercer. I know that had to be a difficult position to be in. Like I said, no one wins,” she said.
Reed has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the city, the four officers involved and the police department, alleging that officers were not properly trained in the application of deadly force. The city was later removed from the lawsuit due to legal precedent.
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YG’s ‘F— Donald Trump’ lands at No. 1 on iTunes following Biden victory
The late Nipsey Hussle, who also appears on the song, would be proud.
President Donald Trump has yet to concede to President-elect Joe Biden after his victory in the 2020 election but that didn’t stop Americans from celebrating with a little bop know as “FDT.”
Read More: The Game releases animated tribute to Nipsey Hussle, Kobe Bryant
On the day of the election, Los Angeles rapper YG’s 2016 tune “FDT,” featuring Nipsey Hussle began to pick up steam. By Nov.7, the day the election was decided in Biden’s favor, a bunch of politically-themed songs saw digital sales gains.
On Nov. 7, ‘FDT’ was downloaded 3,000 times according to Billboard. “FDT” which stands for f— Donald Trump, opens up with the simplistic yet catchy lines, “F— Donald Trump, F— Donald Trump.” The song saw a 740% gain over its sales count on Nov. 6.
Chart Data tweeted on Saturday the song had become # 1 on US iTunes.
In 2016, when the song was first released, YG told Rolling Stone he immediately began getting calls about it.
“The Secret Service started calling in about the song when it got released,” YG told the publication. “The song didn’t release through Def Jam; we just leaked it. So then, weeks passed. I’m turning in my album and the song was. … It’s goin’ crazy. I saw that and I’m like, ‘Damn. I need to put this on the album.’ We had to censor damn near a big part of the song. But I did it because the record was important. I’m like, ‘Man, this shit got to be on the album. F— it.’”
Read More: Georgia Senate runoffs outcome could make or break Biden administration
YG’s hit isn’t the only song seeing a major boost. Mary J. Blige’s “Work That,” saw an increase in downloads after Vice President-elect Kamala Harris walked out to it during her victory speech. “Work That” saw an increase of 2,000 downloads on Nov. 7. Whitney Houston’s version of Steve Winwood‘s hit “Higher Love,” also saw an increase of 1,011% after Harris and Biden exited to the song after their victory speeches.
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Following Trump, GOP congressional candidates refuse to concede
A handful of GOP candidates follow suit with President Trump and continue their fight after losing their races.
Across the country, Republican candidates refuse to concede although the elections have been called against them, following suit with President Donald Trump‘s claims of cheating and fraud.
Read More: Lindsey Graham: Trump shouldn’t concede or else US will ‘never’ elect GOP president
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Errol Webber, a Republican candidate running for Congress in California against Rep. Karen Bass, lost by more than 72 percentage points. However, the 33-year-old claimed he will not concede. He took to social media, another move from Trump’s playbook, to demand all votes be tallied.
“I will NOT concede. Every LEGAL vote needs to be counted!” he wrote.
Like Webber, House candidate Kimberly Klacik of Baltimore also refuses to accept the results which label her the losing party. Klacik, a Republican, lost her race against Rep. Kweisi Mfume by over 40 points according to the Post. The Trump supporter also took to Twitter and wanted an investigation. According to the report, she falsely claimed to have beaten her opponent.
“I beat my opponent on day of & in-person early voting, along with absentee. However, 97k mail-in ballots were found in his favor?” she wrote on Twitter, quoting a post where Trump himself made claims of a stolen election.
Klacik had previously lost a special election against Mfume in April after the death of Rep. Elijah E. Cummings who previously held the Baltimore-area seat. Her profile was boosted after President Trump shared one of her campaign videos according to the Post.
Read More: GOP Penn. senator: No evidence to support Trump vote-fraud claims
John James, a Republican Senate candidate seeking office in Michigan joins Klacik and Webber in aligning with Trump in refusing to concede. James faced off against Democrat Sen. Gary Peters. According to the Washington Post, the race which started out to close to call on election day had Peters winning by the end of the night. He maintained this lead through Tuesday by 1.5 percent, or about 87,000 votes.
Although he accepted the results, the Republican hopeful shared “deep concerns that millions of Michiganders may have been disenfranchised by a dishonest few who cheat,” according to the news outlet. His lawyer sent a letter to election officials in Detroit claiming they had issues with the vote count. The Post reported James’ advisers also made claims and spread conspiracy theories about the vote.
Trump has not budged from his refusal to concede to President-elect Joe Biden. Not only are his actions being mirrored by GOP candidates across the country, but he also received support from party leaders. theGrio reported South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham believes POTUS should continue to contest the results of the 2020 election.
“If Republicans don’t challenge and change the U.S. election system, there will never be another Republican president elected again,” Graham said last week on Fox News.
According to theGrio Biden said Tuesday the refusal by Trump to admit defeat is embarrassing. The President-elect also said he does not plan on taking legal action to force the Trump administration out saying there is no need. He asserted the Trump administration’s actions will not hinder his plan to assume power on Jan. 20.
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Pennsylvania postal worker admits his claim of ballot tampering wasn’t true
Richard Hopkins’s claim that he was instructed to backdate ballots mailed after Election Day was cited by Republicans as evidence of voter fraud
A postal worker in Pennsylvania, whose claim of ballot tampering was touted by Republicans as evidence of voter fraud, now admits it was all a lie.
Richard Hopkins said that he was instructed by a postmaster in Erie, Pa., to backdate ballots mailed after Election Day. His claim was cited by GOP officials as the most credible evidence of voter fraud, including Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham who wrote a letter to the Justice Department calling for a federal investigation, reports the Washington Post.
Read More: After judge’s order, Postal Service sweep finds only 13 ballots
Attorney General William Barr later authorized federal prosecutors to launch probes into allegations of voting irregularities and fraud. Barr’s decision was widely slammed by Democrats and department officials incensed that Barr had gone against a long-standing policy that the federal government should not investigate claims of voter fraud until after the election results are in and certified.
On Monday, Hopkins, 32, recanted his claim in an affidavit after speaking with investigators from the U.S. Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General, according to the Post. In response to the revelation, Democrats serving on the House Oversight Committee tweeted the “whistleblower completely RECANTED.”
Despite Hopkins’s decision to recant his claim of ballot tampering, it’s not yet clear why he signed a false affidavit claiming it happened in the first place. However, a GoFundMe page set up for Hopkins raised more than $136,000. Donors and Trump supporters hailed him as a patriot.
“Your donations are going to help me in the case I am wrongfully terminated from my job or I am forced into resigning due to ostrizization [sic] by my co-workers,” the page said. “It will help me get a new start in a place I feel safe and help me with child support until I am able to get settled and get a job.”
When the allegations were first made, Rob Weisenbach, the Erie postmaster, called Hopkins’s allegations “100% false.” He also said that Hopkins had been recently disciplined multiple times. “The Erie Post Office did not back date any ballots,” Weisenbach insisted.
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CBS announces half of all contestants on future reality shows will be people of color
The channel, that has been criticized in the past for its lack of minority representation is now committing to diversity
In a move that is sure to please millions of viewers, while potentially alienating others, on Monday, CBS Studios announced that moving forward it will be diversifying its unscripted shows, with an aim to make all future casts at least 50% Black, indigenous and/or people of color (BIPOC).
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According to Deadline, this move comes after a fan petition was launched urging CBS to include greater diversity and inclusivity in their content and also after several contestants on its hugely popular show Survivor spoke out about the lack of diversity in the show’s lineup.
Entertainment Weekly reports that over the summer, Survivor contestants including Sean Rector (Season 4), and Jolanda Jones (Season 10), formed a group called The Black Survivor Alliance which they say was created with the intention of “bringing light to our collective experience with implicit bias and racism on and off the show.”
Rector, who appeared on Survivor: Marquesas 19 years ago, told Entertainment Weekly that reality TV shows often promoted racial stereotypes and that Survivor largely ignored its Black castmembers and those of color even when they were successful. He cited the example of Marquesas winner Vecepia Towery Robinson and Earl Cole, neither of whom have been called back to the show during subsequent seasons highlighting previous winners.
Towery Robinson is the only Black female winner of the show. Jeremy Collins and Wendell Holland, both Black men, have won since. (In all fairness there are 18 other contestants over the years who haven’t been invited back for varying reasons, per Cheat Sheet).
“If you recall most of those early reality shows like The Real World, Road Rules and even Survivor and Big Brother, Black contestants, especially Black men, were always made to look stereotypically combative, lazy, ignorant, unaware, aggressive etc….” Rector said.
“These are historically coded and loaded descriptions and depictions that have had deep repercussions on how we are viewed in society. My insights and criticisms are not necessarily collective knocks on my castmates, because I don’t believe anyone was being blatantly racist or prejudiced, but implicit bias and tribalism does exist in society, and especially in a game where you socially bond with people who share similar values and sometimes similar aesthetics.”
The alliance had several meetings with CBS executives and host/executive producer Jeff Probst about making the franchise more inclusive. Since then, the network has agreed to create programming with the NAACP and this new pledge means that future casts of hit shows like Survivor, Big Brother, and Love Island will be visibly more diverse starting with the 2021 – 2022 season.
“The reality TV genre is an area that’s especially underrepresented and needs to be more inclusive across development, casting, production and all phases of storytelling,” George Cheeks, president and chief executive officer for the CBS Entertainment Group said in a statement.
READ MORE: Beyoncé partners with Peloton on HBCU initiative
“As we strive to improve all of these creative aspects, the commitments announced today are important first steps in sourcing new voices to create content and further expanding the diversity in our unscripted programming, as well as on our Network.”
The pledge from network executives to be more intentional about diversity will carry on behind the scenes as well, with CBS allocating a minimum of 25% of its annual unscripted development budget to projects created or co-created by BIPOC producers.
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Byron Allen, Nick Cannon, Wayne Brady And John Hope Bryant Among Speakers At Black Enterprise Virtual Entrepreneurs Summit Nov. 12-13
Powerhouse entrepreneurs Byron Allen, Nick Cannon, Wayne Brady and John Hope Bryant will be among the speakers appearing at the annual Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Summit, Nov. 12 – 13 — the first time ever as a virtual conference experience. In partnership with host sponsor Nationwide, the event will expand its reach and impact as the premiere national event dedicated to success of Black entrepreneurs and the growth, profitability and scalability of Black-owned businesses.
Moreover, Black Enterprise will introduce new elements to the event—including live chats with speakers and experts, and an interactive Business Opportunity Showcase—maximizing real-time engagement, coaching, mentorship and networking opportunities for participants and attendees.
The Entrepreneurs Summit will take place on an engagement-driven, content-rich platform with sessions, workshops, and coaching designed to provide attendees with vital instruction and inspiration as well as expand their business network to position their company to access an array of opportunities. Whether operating a B-to-C enterprise or B-to-B company, attendees will discover how to achieve higher levels of success at the nation’s largest gathering of emerging and established African American businesses.
The relevance and urgency of the Entrepreneurs Summit is heightened by the unique challenges presented by the health and economic crises of the global coronavirus pandemic, America’s racial reckoning and a renewed sense of urgency around investing in black entrepreneurship and building black wealth.
Cannon, entertainer and founder of NCREDIBLE Entertainment; Brady, award -winning, singer/songwriter, entertainer and improvisor; Allen, chairman, and CEO, Allen Media Group; and Bryant, Chairman & CEO, Operation HOPE will offer their entrepreneurial journeys and strategic insights in a series of fireside chats.
Other speakers include Lick You Silly Pet Products, CEO Barbara Clarke Ruiz; Founders First Capital Partners, CEO Kim Folsom; ACE Petroleum founder and CEO Moses Shepherd; Amazon Web Services; Startup Marketing Leader Denise Quashie; Nationwide Retirement Institute Vice President Kristi Martin Rodriguez; The/Studio Technologies Founder Joseph Heller; Grace Eleyae, CEO of Grace Eleyae, Inc.; Sherlaender “Lani” Phillips, Vice President, Channel Sales at Microsoft Corp; Jehan Crump-Gibson, Managing Partner, Great Lakes Legal Group PLLC; and Ted Archer, Executive Director, Global Philanthropy, JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Other sessions and highlights of the Entrepreneurs Summit:
- Investing in Racial Equity: Will Corporate America Level the Playing Field for Black Business
- Building Wealth as You Build Your Business
- Stay Ready: Preparing for Any Crisis
- Securing Your Supply Chain
- Making E-Commerce Easier
- Capitalizing from Cultural Currency and Social Influence
- Getting Your Slice of the Procurement Pie
- Power Up! Partner to Innovate and Grow Your Tech Business
- …. And More!
The Entrepreneurs Summit will leverage a powerful cadre of the nation’s most insightful and innovative entrepreneurs and founders—including those ranked among the BE 100s, the nation’s largest black-owned businesses. Results-driven panels and one-on-one keynote sessions with entrepreneurs and business leaders will empower, inspire, and equip attendees with the tools, resources, and connections to achieve launch, profitability and scale for their businesses.
“The Entrepreneurs Summit Virtual Experience will feature all of the most enduring and valued elements of the premiere national event for black entrepreneurs, founders and business owners,” says Black Enterprise President and CEO Earl “Butch” Graves Jr. “We are excited about our ability to use our new and unique virtual conferencing platform to reach and engage more Black entrepreneurs than ever before. The COVID-19 economic environment is both fraught with challenges and rich with opportunity, and the Entrepreneurs Summit Virtual Experience is designed for those who want to be ready for both.”
In addition to Entrepreneurs Summit Host sponsor Nationwide, Presenting sponsors include J.P. Morgan Wealth Management; Platinum sponsor includes: Microsoft; Corporate sponsors include Amazon Web Services, Comcast, FedEx, Remy Martin and Walmart.
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