J. Lo and Diddy reunite for a danceoff on Instagram Live

On Easter, Jennifer Lopez and Sean “Diddy” Combs kept us entertained with a light-hearted dance competition, and spoke to the heroism of those on the front lines.

Since the novel coronavirus broke, there have been DJs and singers holding concerts and helping us get through social distancing. We’ve had comedians making us laugh and Andrea Bocelli performing a live stream Easter concert from the Duomo di Milano. Yesterday, Lopez and Combs, both 50, joined in on the fun, showing us their best dance moves in an Instagram Live dance-a-thon, which raised money for Direct Relief, a charity that brings critical medical equipment to poorer communities.

READ MORE: Diddy urges people not to rely on Trump: ‘He don’t give a F about us‘

Diddy’s dance-a-thon, which later featured Snoop Dogg, Justin Bieber, Shaq, DJ Khaled, Swizz Beatz, Kelly Rowland, Maluma, according to Billboard, brought in more than $3.4 million in donations for Direct Relief. Direct Relief is a non-profit coordinating the distribution of protective equipment (masks, gloves, and gowns,) to healthcare personnel across the country.

While the dancing and celebrity faces brought levity to those quarantined around the world due to the coronavirus, Lopez and her fiancé, Alex Rodriguez, 44, along with Combs paused for a moment to talk about those on the front line.

“Our whole life is about being committed to something, about having drive, about inspiring other people,” Lopez shares during her segment. “I can’t think of anybody right now who is doing that better than the health care workers, who are literally inspiring everybody to just think bigger. And to put yourself on the line to help others is the ultimate sacrifice.”

“It’s just a beautiful thing and it’s almost unimaginable what they are doing with their lives.” She continues. “It is hard to explain… I’m having trouble trying to find the words.”

At that moment, Puff jumped in and offered the words the triple threat entertainer was searching for, “It’s like heroic. The courage is something that I have to ask myself would I…”

Then the two, while A-Rod watched on in agreement, marveled about the conditions that these medical professionals are exposed to, even without the proper protective gear to execute their jobs safely.

“… and it’s so many health care workers who are going risking their lives, not seeing their families… they haven’t been tested… It’s like sending them out there detonating a bomb without a bomb suit.”

Lopez chimed in with disbelief, “Without no protection!”

LOS ANGELES, CA – NOVEMBER 22: Actress/recording artist Jennifer Lopez (L) and Sean Combs attend Jennifer Lopez’s 2015 American Music Awards After Party hosted by CÎROC with Cross Pens (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for ABA)

The two also recognized that many of the places that workers are being pulled from are areas heavily populated with Black and Brown working-class people like their hometowns, Harlem or the Bronx. Combs stressed that this is why they are donating. Direct Funds will make sure that the funds go to the inner-city communities and those most impacted on multiple levels by this pandemic.

A-Rod offered his thoughts on their roles as celebrities to bring attention to the social justice element regarding health care professionals that often gets overlooked.

“The three of us all come from New York. We come from the bottom. These people, they are the real heroes. Sometimes they get it twisted saying that athletes or entertainers [are], but they are the heroes on the frontline protecting us and doing God’s work.”

After speaking about the crisis, A-Rod and Diddy had a moment that was cool for fans to see: A-Rod told the mogul that he liked his hat. Combs was rocking a Yankees fitted, the team that the 14 times All-Star helped win The Championship in 2009. That’s when Lopez dropped a bomb on her old ex about her new love. She revealed that A-Rod is one of the biggest Bad Boy fans around.

“Puffy, Puffy… You have to know this,” Lopez says. “This guy right here is your biggest fan from the Bad Boy era. You and Mase are his heroes.”

“Every party we do, he is like put on Puffy and Mase.”

That’s when Diddy recommends that they throw on a jam from that era, selecting the “Been Around The World” Remix. Rightfully so. In the video, Lopez makes an extraordinary appearance, making Diddy dazzle as a dancer.

“Hey, I love you guys, I can’t wait until we can see each other again. May God bless y’all, and I just love you guys!” Combs said to Lopez and Rodriguez.

“Love you, buddy!” the former Yankees star shot back. Lopez also said, “We love you! We love what you’re doing, we love everybody out there. We want to send you all the love in the world, from our family to yours.”

While his children exchanged cordialities to Lopez and Rodriguez, Combs exclaimed, “I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

READ MORE: Jennifer Lopez admits she doesn’t ‘really count’ two of her previous marriages

Combs and Lopez once dated before calling it quits in 2001. Since then, they have remained friendly and even reunited in 2018 when Lopez wrapped up her All I Have Las Vegas residency.

Meanwhile, Lopez also hit up Instagram to post pictures as she celebrated Easter with her family.

“Just want to wish everybody an amazing and happy Easter. I know these are challenging times,” Lopez said in an IG video clip that showed her in a selfie and a picture of her, Rodriguez and their kids using a bunny filter.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Happy Easter everybody!!!! 💐🌸💛💕

A post shared by Jennifer Lopez (@jlo) on Apr 12, 2020 at 12:09pm PDT

“Today is a day that we celebrate miracles,” Lopez added. “So let’s pray for our own and very near future. I love you all. Happy Easter.”

The post J. Lo and Diddy reunite for a danceoff on Instagram Live appeared first on TheGrio.

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Amid shutdowns, supply chains pivot and global demand for specialized talent intensifies

The global landscape of supply chain management has changed drastically in the past several weeks. Businesses, organizations, and people are rapidly innovating to improve supply chains and upskill and reskill the workforce and themselves to accommodate disruptions caused by the global Covid-19 health crisis. Online retailers and logistics providers are announcing vast hiring initiatives, while companies and organizations grapple with the logistics demands of supplying for vital services.

Even in the middle of these disruptions, a cohort of 383 dedicated online learners concluded nine to 18 months of learning to pass their comprehensive final exams, earning their MITx MicroMasters program credentials in supply chain management. These new credential-holders bring the total number of holders to 2,243 from 115 countries. The majority of credential-holders hail from the United States, India, Brazil, Spain, and China, some of the world’s most influential economies. While credential holders’ median age is 31, holders range in age from 21 to 74, practicing diverse business functions. They are currently employed at more than 700 companies worldwide, ranging from the largest multinational corporations to local, family-owned businesses.

Given the volatile nature of logistics during disruptions, the comprehensive theoretical and practical knowledge gained from these courses is already having an impact. “The program significantly changed my mindset to be proactive. This helped me improvise ahead of the current pandemic challenges to provide visibility across my supply chain,” says learner Mohamed El Tayeb, a demand planner in Saudi Arabia. “Technically, everything I learned in the program is coming in handy now.” Similarly, Matthias Stolz, a supply chain management project manager from Germany, claims “The MicroMasters program helped me to be able to make back-of-the-envelope calculations to quantify effects and evaluate risks and opportunities fast. This allowed me to confidently prepare decisions for the top management which have already enabled the company to respond quickly.”

Learners like El Tayeb and Stolz are leading the way on the ground, along with contributors from across the supply chain, to be cited as everyday heroes by MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, among many others.

MIT will recognize the contributions of credential holders and program participants in a public online completion celebration on April 15 at 11 a.m. EDT. “Our goal is to pioneer supply chain digital education to shape the leaders of the future,” says program Director Eva Ponce. “We are bringing MIT education to anyone from anywhere to improve the capabilities and prospects of professionals through our massive open online courses. It is my distinct pleasure to thank the committed and passionate team responsible for the development and delivery of this program and to welcome this learner cohort to the credential-holder community, who are the future of the supply chain profession.”

As a new normal becomes apparent in the foreseeable future, experts agree that the global disruptions should serve as a wake-up call for supply chain and logistics managers. They foresee that practitioners will need an array of practical and analytical tools at their disposal to accommodate rapidly changing demands. Teaching supply chain management online is one strategy to meet this dynamic demand. The MITx MicroMasters Program in Supply Chain Management is becoming recognized as a go-to knowledge baseline for individuals and organizations to meet their global demand for talent.

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Beats Powerbeats Review: Best Workout Earbuds for iPhones

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Energy economics class inspires students to pursue clean energy careers

Jing Li, an assistant professor of applied economics in the MIT Sloan School of Management, stands at the front of the classroom and encourages her undergraduate students to dig deeper. “Why was this a good idea?” she prompts. “How did people come up with these numbers?”

It’s the second-to-last day of class, and the students in 15.0201/14.43 (Economics of Energy, Innovation, and Sustainability) are discussing their teams’ results and the logic behind the decisions they made in the Electricity Strategy Game — a main feature of this elective.

“[With] so much magic,” a student quips in response to Li’s question, to a chorus of laughter.

The real magic, they all know, is in Li’s approach to teaching: She holds her students accountable for their conclusions and throws them head-first into challenging problems to help them confidently engage with the complexities of energy economics.

“She didn’t baby us with tiny data sets. She gave us the real deal,” says Wilbur Li, a senior computer science major and mechanical engineering minor (no relation to Jing Li). He initially took the class to round out his fall semester schedule, unsure if he would keep it due to a rigorous class load. However, just a couple of weeks into the semester, he was sold on the class.

“It’s one of those classes at MIT that isn’t really a requirement for anyone, but it’s a class that only draws people who are genuinely interested in the subject area,” he says. “That made for really good discussions. You could tell that people were interested beyond an academic sense.”

15.0201/14.43, a part of MITEI’s interdisciplinary Energy Studies minor, is a relatively new course. The class, which is also offered as graduate-level course 15.020, made its debut in the spring 2019 semester and was developed to expand the energy economics offerings at MIT. Part of the motivation for creating 15.0201/14.43 stemmed from the fact that Professor Christopher Knittel’s course, 15.037/15.038 (Energy Economics and Policy), is consistently in high demand, without enough supply to accommodate interested students.

“Professor Knittel and I have positioned our two courses so that someone who wants to get a taste of energy economics could take either one and come away with a good mental map of the field, but also that someone who is very serious about a future career in energy would find it useful to take both,” says Li.

Li’s class focuses on innovation and employs environmental economics principles and business cases to explore the development and adoption of new technology, and business strategies related to sustainability.

“The class has been particularly attractive to students who are interested in the energy landscape, such as how energy markets impact and relate to local environmental issues and how to provide energy to parts of the globe that currently lack access to affordable or reliable energy,” she says. “It has also appealed to students interested in applied microeconomics.”

In addition to crunching large data sets and bringing in guest speakers, such as Paul Joskow, the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics Emeritus and chair of MIT’s Department of Economics, a major element of the class — and a runaway favorite of many of the students — is the Electricity Strategy Game. The game was created by professors Severin Borenstein and James Bushnell for the University of California at Berkley’s Haas School of Business.

The game is designed to replicate the world of deregulated wholesale electricity markets. Players are divided into firms and utilize electricity generation portfolios, based on actual portfolios of the largest generation firms in the California market, to compete in a sequence of daily electricity spot markets, in which commodities are traded for immediate delivery. Each portfolio contains differing generation technologies (thermal, nuclear, and hydro), with varying operating costs. Spot market conditions vary from hour to hour and day to day. Players must develop strategies to deploy their assets over a sequence of spot markets while accounting for the cost structure of their portfolio, varying levels of hourly electricity demand, and strategies of other players. The game is conducted in six rounds, with the second half of the game taking into account carbon permits. Winners are determined by the financial performance of their firm and an evaluation of the logic of the firm’s actions, which the teams describe in a series of memos to Li.

“I loved the Electricity Strategy Game! It was really fun to have to figure out how to predict demand and then how to price supply accordingly,” says Anupama Phatak, a junior mechanical engineering major and economics minor. “The bid for portfolios was also a really cool process. I put a lot of time and effort into understanding the game and developing a strategy, so it made the process all the more rewarding when my team won.”

Wilbur Li echoed Phatak’s enthusiasm. “My favorite part of the game was definitely the auction — it was the most exciting part,” he says. “Every single group did research on their own to figure out what sort of bidding prices they wanted for each piece of property [power plants] — and when we showed up, every single group had wildly different final prices for what we bid on the plants.”

For Isaac Perper, a senior mechanical engineering and computer science double major and economics minor, the value of the game was in getting a glimpse of how energy portfolios would play out in real-life auctions. “We all had different portfolios, so I think that was the most interesting part. We got to see differences between coal, hydro, and gas plants and the different price points at which they are profitable. I think the auction mirrored what you would expect in a real market,” he says.

Many of the students who took 14.43 (Economics of Energy, Innovation, and Sustainability) are making it their mission to apply the lessons learned from the class to their career goals. The class helped inspire Wilbur Li to pursue a career in cleantech product development, such as working on smart meters or more efficient transportation for wind turbine blades.

“A class like 14.43 definitely helps with understanding how the products that are being worked on can be scaled in terms of figuring out which players in the economy would want to pick up and utilize a product,” he says. “It has given me a deeper understanding of how technology scales on a market level, as well as how to understand and account for the target impact of those technologies.”

Phatak says that the class has made her more conscious of the adverse environmental consequences of products such as palm oil. “I now understand that even the smallest ingredient in our everyday products can have negative impacts around the world that I might not even see,” she says. Because of the topics covered in Li’s course, Phatak is now actively pursuing internships in sustainability.

Perper shared that the class opened his eyes to a lot of inefficiencies that exist in the energy market today. Indeed, he says that his life’s goal is to help to solve some of those inefficiencies. “Going into this class, I had kind of thought that we have our different electricity producers and some pollute more than others, but in terms of the actual market structure and how electricity is distributed, paid for, and expanded into developing areas, all of those things were more complicated and inefficient than I had expected,” he says. When he returns to MIT in the fall to pursue his master’s degree in computer science and electrical engineering, Perper will be thinking more about the bigger questions in terms of energy policy and technology.

Li says she hopes that students come away from 14.43 with “more questions than answers,” as well as a honed sense of which questions are worth spending time to answer. She also aims for her students to leave with the knowledge that sustainability and energy touch every organization in some way.

“Whatever kind of organization you are a part of and the role you take in that organization — investor, manager, employee, customer, voter — you can contribute to the sustainability goals of your organization with your ideas, voice, and actions,” she says.

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14 Tips for Acing Your Online Video Call Job Interview

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French Doctors Say COVID-19 Vaccines Should Be Tested On Poor Africans

There outrage all across Africa after two well-respected French doctors went on a live TV show and suggested that coronavirus vaccines be tested on poor Africans.

The two doctors said during a segment broadcast on the French TV channel LCI that the testing should be done in Africa, “where there are no masks, no treatment, nor intensive care,” reported Business Insider.

One of the doctors, Jean-Paul Mira, went further and compared Africans to prostitutes who were the focus of past AIDS testing. “We tried things on prostitutes because they are highly exposed and do not protect themselves,” he said.

Of course, these suggestions were immediately called out as racist, especially by several African notables such as former Chelsea Football Club star Didier Drogba and former Barcelona striker Samuel Eto’o who tweeted their outrage at the two medics’ remarks.

Drogba, who is from Ivory Coast, tweeted: “It is totally inconceivable we keep on cautioning this. Africa isn’t a testing lab. I would like to vividly denounce those demeaning, false and most of all deeply racists words.”

Former Chelsea striker Demba Ba, who is from Senegal, tweeted, “Welcome to the West, where white people believe themselves to be so superior that racism and debility become commonplace Time to rise.”

Mira is head of the intensive-care department at the Cochin Hospital in Paris. The other doctor, Camille Locht, is the research director at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, known as Inserm.

“If I can be provocative,” Mira said on the TV show, “shouldn’t we do this study in Africa where there are no masks, no treatment, no intensive care? A bit like we did in some studies on AIDS. We tried things on prostitutes because they are highly exposed and do not protect themselves.”

Locht agreed. “You are right. We are actually thinking of a parallel study in Africa to use with the same kind of approach with BCG placebos,” he said, referring to vaccination against tuberculosis that Inserm says has appeared to protect children against infections, particularly respiratory ones.

“We will, in fact, think seriously about it,” he said.

Africa is the continent with the lowest number of reported COVID-19 cases, with nearly 7,500 cases and more than 320 deaths, Al Jazeera reported.

Bienvenue en occident , la où le blanc se croit tellement supérieur que racisme et débilité deviennent banalité. TIME TO RISE pic.twitter.com/R08R7K9QAw

— Demba Ba (@dembabafoot) April 2, 2020

It is totally inconceivable we keep on cautioning this.
Africa isn’t a testing lab.
I would like to vividly denounce those demeaning, false and most of all deeply racists words.

Helps us save Africa with the current ongoing Covid 19 and flatten the curve. pic.twitter.com/41GIpXaIYv

— Didier Drogba (@didierdrogba) April 2, 2020

This article was written by Ann Brown for The Moguldom Nation.

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Today's Cartoon: Coronavirus Battle

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Yet Another Consequence of the Pandemic: More Plastic Waste

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The Pandemic Could Be an Opportunity to Remake Cities

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MIT Solve rises to meet health security and pandemic challenge

In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, MIT Solve launched a new Global Challenge: How can communities around the world prepare for, detect, and respond to emerging pandemics and health security threats? Solve’s mission is to foster innovation, seeking out tech-based social entrepreneurs and helping them scale up their ideas.

The new Solve Health Security and Pandemics Challenge is designed to produce both short-term solutions to the impact of the current pandemic as well as longer-term strategies for future crises. “The reason that this pandemic is costing so many lives is that we were unprepared,” says Pooja Wagh ’06, Solve’s director of health community and results measurement. “We need stronger health care supply chains and better disease surveillance. This will happen again, and we need to be better positioned to mitigate the impact on human lives.”

MIT Solve hopes to leverage its extensive community to identify tech innovations that will make a difference. “We had a role to play because of our massive network of innovators, member organizations, MIT students and faculty, and all the people we reach through our communications,” says Wagh.

“Solve was built on the ethos that great ideas can come from anywhere,” she explains. “The idea was to democratize access to the resources we have at MIT, since a lack of resources keeps many great solutions from coming to fruition.”

There are several rounds of review in the Solve selection process, with 50 to 60 experts from both inside and outside MIT reading every application. “We draw on the experience of our community,” says Wagh. “Decision makers are a panel of judges with deep expertise in the relevant areas. For this challenge, judges will include representatives from public health agencies and corporations.”

In addition to the new health challenge, Solve issued its 2020 Global Challenges earlier this year related to jobs and entrepreneurship among marginalized populations, sustainable food systems, maternal and newborn health, and access to education for marginalized girls and women.

“We solicit applications from people all over the world,” says Wagh. “Our network of more than 150,000 people includes centers at MIT as well as 130 Solver teams and more than 120 Solve Members with a wide diversity of interests. What binds them together is their motivation to help our innovators succeed.” A small number of Solver teams are chosen and then matched with partners, including funders, who can help them make their ideas a reality.

“Given the immediacy and urgency of this crisis, we want to build a pathway for scale for all the Solver teams we select,” Wagh says. “We’ve been talking to potential partners and funders, and dozens of people have reached out to offer support for the future Solver teams that are selected. Others want to help us choose the teams. People should know that we’re looking for both applicants and supporters — there is a role for anyone who wants to engage.”

There has been an enthusiastic response to the new challenge, with applications pouring in. Individuals and groups with a tech-based solution to health security threats are invited to submit a proposal by June 18, while potential supporters of the teams chosen can investigate options for partnership with Solve.

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Kendrick Sampson says ‘Insecure’ helped him understand women’s mind

There’s a chance Kendrick Sampson may be on your sh*t list thanks to his Insecure character, Nate aka Ghost Bae, but there’s a lot to love about the actor and activist.

theGrio caught up with the budding actor to talk about how he’s coping with quarantine life,  and whether or not we will see him on the new season of the hit HBO show.

“I’m checking up on folks. I’m having conversations online. To be honest, I have not had a whole lot of time to sit and think about it because I have a non-profit that is social justice-oriented. As soon as this hit, our workload just increases,” Sampson said.

READ MORE: ‘Insecure’ actor Kendrick Sampson says he’s backing Bernie Sanders for president

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Swipe left for a few accounts to follow who are doing the work to fight for our collective liberation during this crisis (with a focus on the most vulnerable)! Also left out (because I could only do 10): @reclaiminghomes @nolympicsla @unitedwedream @haymarketbooks (if you want good purposeful reads that can help us deconstruct what is happening and organize ourselves for liberation and wellness). The ones I tagged are @cpdaction @moms4housing @texas_organizing_project @freethemall2020 @justicelanow @housingjustice4all and then @berniesanders @repjayapal @aoc are all hosting live talks, teach ins, discussions and lifting up good leaders and experts and movements. Also thepeoplesbailout.org – Some things to focus on organizing around to help us – #MedicareforAll, let’s #cancelrent #cancelmortgages get more money to help people who need it during this economic crisis (UBI), at least 2000 per adult and 1000 per child, fight for paid leave, demand free treatment and tests, demand Trump utilize the Defense Production Act to get Personal Protective Equipment to those medical professionals and cleaners and workers on the frontlines, and ventilators, free people from cages (jails, migrant detention centers, prisons), and make sure immigrants are included in the next stimulus packages, curb capitalism and demand that COVID relief be drafted through a lens of reparations, accounting for those who are most vulnerable and disproportionately affected by this crisis because of the oppressive history of this government. Some things to think about.

A post shared by Kendrick Sampson (@kendrick38) on Apr 5, 2020 at 7:19pm PDT

Acknowledging the recent data that shows how COVID-19 is hitting Black America especially hard, he continued, “We have to make sure that we stay inside and that we encourage each other to stay inside because of white supremacy and the history of oppression in this country, the wealth gap, all of those things.

READ MORE: Coronavirus is hitting Black America at a staggering rate

“We are more prone to diseases that make us vulnerable to this. We are more prone to the economic impact of this being disproportionate.”

Aside from adhering to CDC guidelines to protect from the novel coronavirus, Sampson said he’s been spending his days in quarantine worrying about the ramifications for Black people.

“It’s the fault of this government, that we are most vulnerable. I honestly believe that because of our generational trauma, because of the mental health aspects, things are going to be worse on us in everything,” he said. “We need to organize better than ever.”

Kendrick Sampson speaks onstage during SoulPancake’s “Four Conversations about One Thing” at Hammer Museum on May 29, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by John Sciulli/Getty Images for SoulPancake)

Aside from doing his part to help the Black community get through this crisis, Sampson seems to be enjoying his time at home in Los Angeles.

“I’m always traveling so this is the first time I’m really seeing my home since I moved in September. I’m usually here a few days a month, so I have no furniture. Now I’m trying to furnish the house in the time of corona and it’s not a fun thing,” he said.

READ MORE: ‘Insecure’ star Kendrick Sampson took a knee at polo event ‘I will be supporting the movement of kneeling in solidarity’

The actor, who stars in Hallmark’s new flick, Fashionably Yours, revealed his quarantine snack go-to’s include peanut butter and watermelon. He can also do a little something in the kitchen.

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{SWIPE LEFT} If you’re watching our movie #FashionablyYours on @hallmarkchannel this is a little BTS of one of the MANY moments that showed we were in alignment with our purpose, in the right place at the right time. We were filming at #PikePlaceMarket in #Seattle and the legend himself @raphael_saadiq walked through our shoot!! We freaked out like “What are you doing in Seattle!” Kat and I both know him separately and he was doing a show and actually scoring the new season of a show I was on once upon a time 😩 called @insecurehbo 🙌🏽 THEN, as if that’s not enough we realized in the scene we were walking by a book store called @leftbankbookscollective and in the front window was one of my biggest inspirations #AssataShakur (and #JamesBaldwin & #ToniMorrison etc) so we HAD to go in! The first book we saw was an author that we both know personally and dearly love @osopepatrisse who (with @docmellymel) actually were the first to put me on to the Assata chant “It is our duty to fight for our freedom, It is our duty to win. We must love and support one another. We have nothing to lose but our chains.” Through the #BlackLivesMatter movement for which @katgraham produced a short film! So we took a pic to send to Patrisse. If you haven’t read it – READ IT! It’s those types of moments that give me know doubt that there is a higher power and that They are telling me that I am where I’m purposed to be, doing what I’m purposed to do.

A post shared by Kendrick Sampson (@kendrick38) on Apr 11, 2020 at 6:23pm PDT

“I love cooking, I just don’t do it. I stopped in 2014 when I started traveling so much. I just don’t take the time,” Sampson shared. “I love restaurants. That’s probably the hardest thing about this is not being able to go to restaurants.”

Sampson’s latest project has him back alongside fellow Vampire Diaries alum, Kat Graham and back on a project directed by a woman of color.

“It’s a really fun project,” he continued. “This time I got to work with a director named Nimisha, who is a brown-skinned, Indian woman. I also got to work with Sheryl Lee Ralph who I have known for a long time.”

When it comes to season 4 of Insecure, fans will have to wait and see if #Ghostbae makes a return. According to Sampson, his character wasn’t all bad.

READ MORE: 5 things I need to see from ‘Insecure’ season 4

“From what I know about him and how he was struggling at the end of the season to communicate, I have a lot of family members like that,” he explained. “A lot of men in my family don’t know how to communicate. It seems like they were broadcasting that he had some mental health issues and that was important for me because we have a lot of generational trauma in our history.”

(Photo: HBO)

Sampson says working on and watching Insecure gave him some insight into the woman’s mind.

“I think the more you dig into women’s (especially Black women’s) psyche, the more clarity you get about yourself as well, but you also get more confused. You say things you are never gonna be able to say again,” he continued. “I’m not a woman and I never will be. I have to consistently teach myself and get to know women and understand that they’re all different and that I won’t ever know them.”

When asked if Nathan would make a return to the hit HBO series, Sampson didn’t offer a definitive answer.

“I don’t know sh*t like that. I mean….listen, I don’t,” he said. “Nathan should come back.”

Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Check out our full interview with Kendrick Sampson on IGTV and tune in to the season 4 premiere of Insecure on Sunday, April 12 on HBO.

The post Kendrick Sampson says ‘Insecure’ helped him understand women’s mind appeared first on TheGrio.

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Saturday Night Live spoofs Drake’s new ‘Toosie Slide’ in return to TV

When you’re as successful and popular as Drake, you are ripe for parody.

Saturday Night Live’s Pete Davidson proved that even the coronavirus won’t stop the rapper-cum-singer from being the butt of jokes. The long-running live sketch comedy show returned to NBC on Saturday night after more than a month of hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the outbreak halting television and film productions nationwide, cast members performed from inside their house. This included Davidson’s musical parody video: “Drake.”

READ MORE: Drake gives fans an inside look at his ‘Embassy’ Toronto mansion

In the sketch, Davidson performed a song that poked fun at the Grammy award-winning artist’s emo style of mixing rap and vocals with lyrics like “This is a Drake song/I miss my ex; this is a Drake song/Number one on the Billboard,” and “I’m a tough guy, but hey/my heart take bruises too.”

The dreamy, purple-haze treatment draws inspiration from the Toronto-native’s latest music video and single “Toosie Slide.” In the original, Drake can be seen dancing and rhyming while showing off his massive mansion late at night.

Davidson’s parody, by contrast, features him in his “mom’s basement.”

Davidson paraded around his apartment in a skull cap and bubble coat as super-imposed images of Drake came in and out of frame.

This was undoubtedly a take on Drake’s similar attire in “Toosie Slide.” The rapper was also wearing face masks and black gloves, a thinly veiled reference to COVID-19, which Davidson also implied was the reason for being in his “mom’s basement.”

READ MORE: Here’s how celebs are using their talents for good while quarantined

The episode of SNL was hosted by Tom Hanks, marking his 10th time in the role. The two-time Oscar winner was an appropriate choice as he was among the very first celebrities to publicly disclose testing positive for coronavirus last month, along with wife Rita Wilson.

Drake’s mansion was recently featured in Architectural Digest.

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@archdigest @ferrisrafauli

A post shared by champagnepapi (@champagnepapi) on Apr 8, 2020 at 4:16am PDT

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The New Math Bridge Beyond Fermat’s Last Theorem

Two papers, representing the work of more than a dozen mathematicians, have finally figured out how to connect two realms that were once seen as distant.

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Americans begin receiving coronavirus stimulus checks from federal government

Americans have been waiting to get their hands on a coronavirus stimulus check from the U.S. government and the wait is over for some early receivers.

The Internal Revenue Service, or IRS, said Saturday that the first set of payments of as much as $1,200 for individuals have been deposited in bank accounts.

“We know many people are anxious to get their payments,” the IRS said, adding “we’ll continue issuing them as fast as we can.”

#IRS deposited the first Economic Impact Payments into taxpayers’ bank accounts today. We know many people are anxious to get their payments; we’ll continue issuing them as fast as we can. For #COVIDreliefIRS updates see: https://t.co/hEEWmgHA9V pic.twitter.com/2bSHOTjMAS

— IRS (@IRSnews) April 11, 2020

The relief checks are much needed for citizens and families who have been affected by the economic fallout of the global coronavirus pandemic, due to business shutdowns and stay-at-home orders across the country. Because of this, almost 17 million people have filed for unemployment benefits in the past three weeks after many businesses, especially retailers and restaurants, were forced to slash their payrolls.

READ MORE: Tax Day pushed back three months because of coronavirus

The stimulus checks are a part of the historic $2.2 trillion economic relief legislation that was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump at the end of March.

According to the bill, those who make less than $75,000 per year are eligible for $1,200. Couples who filed jointly and earned less than $150,000 in salary will get $2,400. For those with children, $500 will be received per child for up to four children per household, making for a maximum possible payment of $3,400.

Those who make more than $75,000 would receive less of the stimulus. For every $100 made over the 75,000, $5 will be deducted. For individuals who made more than $99,000 or couples who jointly filed and made $198,000 per year, the payment goes down to zero.

The payouts will not be taxed, according to NBC News.

Although some disclosed getting their payment via social media, it could take months for others to receive any money.

READ MORE: Who gets a stimulus check and who doesn’t, and how should you spend it?

The direct deposit of the money will be based on 2018 income filings for those who have yet to file for 2019. The IRS is also providing an online application and info site for those who don’t normally file taxes.

Citizens with government debts or owe back taxes will still be eligible to receive the stimulus payment. Those who have overdue child support debt could receive little to no payment.

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Joe Biden proposes forgiving student loans, targets HBCU attendees in plan

Former Vice President Joe Biden is all but guaranteed to become the Democratic Party’s nominee for president of the United States this fall.

The seasoned politician now hopes to lead the fight to forgive student loans after beefing up his policy proposals for the matter in the wake of firebrand Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ exit from the primary race. The plan also includes language specifically for people who attended Historically Black Colleges and Universities, according to Forbes.

“Senator Sanders and his supporters can take pride in their work in laying the groundwork for these ideas, and I’m proud to adopt them as part of my campaign at this critical moment in responding to the coronavirus crisis,” Biden said in a Medium post.

READ MORE: Sanders drops 2020 bid, leaving Biden as likely nominee

Biden rolled out the new plan on Thursday that details his desire to forgive federal student tuition-based debt for low-income and middle-class people that attended public institutions, including two- and four-year programs, with some exceptions. Private loans are not included in the policy proposal.

The exceptions to the rule are HBCUs and minority-serving institutions (MSI), which are made up of both public and private colleges. Some of the most recognizable HBCUs, including Howard University, Morehouse College and Spelman College, are private institutions.

Biden’s new forgiveness plan is directed to individuals who bring home less than $125,000 a year. Those who make less than $25,000 a year would not be asked to make monthly payments on public loans.

The plan is in part a response to the economic fallout of the coronavirus outbreak. Biden said he would pay for the debt cancellation by repealing an “excess business losses” tax cut that was part of the CARES Act, the bipartisan $2.2 trillion stimulus package signed by President Donald Trump last month. More details about the plan will come out in the future.

“That tax cut overwhelmingly benefits the richest Americans and is unnecessary for addressing the current COVID-19 economic relief efforts,” Biden wrote in the proposal.

READ MORE: Biden needs more than a John Lewis endorsement to win young Black voters

Biden’s plan expands on his initial $750 billion policy proposal to address the mounting student debt crisis, which was centered on income-based repayment. Individuals making more than $25,000 would be asked to pay no more than 5% of discretionary income toward loan payments for 20 years. After meeting that obligation, all outstanding federal loan balances would be forgiven.

Biden has also voiced support for canceling at least $10,000 of student debt per person, which he adopted from former presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren‘s coronavirus response proposal.

By contrast, Sen. Sanders has voiced unyielding support for canceling all student debt, including federally backed and private loans.

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Floyd Mayweather daughter Yaya faces up to 99 years in prison for alleged stabbing

Iyanna “Yaya” Mayweather could face a lifetime in prison if convicted of a brutal incident earlier this month.

Mayweather, the 19-year-old daughter of famed retired boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr., could face up to 99 years in prison if found accountable for a stabbing inside the Houston home of her boyfriend, rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again, according to media reports.

As reported by Complex, the incident stemmed from an altercation that Mayweather had with Lapratta Jacobs, mother of YoungBoy NBA’s child. The altercation was said to have sparked after Jacobs ignored Mayweather’s request to leave the house and a fight ensued. Jacobs told police Mayweather grabbed two knives in the kitchen and stabbed her with the one.

READ MORE: Floyd Mayweather breaks silence following daughter’s arrest

Mayweather was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a felony. She was released on a $30,000 bond.

If found guilty, she could face a maximum of almost ten decades in prison, which is less likely, given that she has no previous criminal history. At a minimum, she may have to pay a $10,000 fine.

Mayweather’s lawyer, Kurt Schaffer, has said that she intends to plead not guilty and believes she will be “fully vindicated.” The attorney has represented high profile figures such as Slim Thug, J Prince and the late Pimp C.

“Iyanna is doing fine; although she remains shaken by this unfortunate incident,” Schaffer said in an interview with Bossip.

READ MORE: Floyd Mayweather’s comeback likely stalled due to recent deaths

As for Jacobs, she posted in an Instagram story that she is “not ok” and that she “never wanted this attention,” according to a screenshot from The Shade Room. Jacobs’ page has been made private.

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The young woman that was allegedly stabbed by #YayaMayweather reportedly speaks out about the situation!!

A post shared by The Shade Room (@theshaderoom) on Apr 9, 2020 at 8:50am PDT

Mayweather is due back in court in August 2020.

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Rihanna takes dig at fans begging for new music: ‘I’m trying to save the world, unlike y’all President’

Rihanna fans for years have flooded social media with requests for a new album.

It looks like the superstar singer has been listening and is now fed up, breaking her silence to let fans know that she has bigger fish to fry amid a global pandemic.

During an Instagram Live session on Friday, the “Work” crooner lightheartedly chided her followers for their endless ask for more tunes, given that it’s been more than four years since her last body of work hit the radio waves.

“If one of y’all motherf—–s ask me about the album one more time when I’m trying to save the world, unlike y’all President… [chuckles] on sight!” she quipped.

TMZ posted an excerpt from Rihanna’s reaction.

READ MORE: Rihanna’s father contracts COVID-19, she sends ventilator

RiRi has been ultra-critical of President Donald Trump for his decisive policies, gun control among them. In 2019, The Independent quoted her referring to the commander in chief as “the most mentally ill human being in America.”

Although the Grammy award-winning singer told British Vogue magazine that she’s “very aggressively working on new music,” she’s been busy doing her part to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Gang back in da Stu!! @Edward_Enninful and I are back at it again with @StevenKleinStudio for the May 2020 cover of @BritishVogue 🥰✊🏿 available Friday, April 3rd! . Wearing all @Burberry by @RiccardoTisci17, and a custom @StephenJonesMillinery durag. Photographed by @StevenKleinStudio and styled by @Edward_Enninful, with hair by @YusefHairNYC and @NaphiisBeautifulHair, make-up by @IsamayaFfrench using @FentyBeauty and nails by @RedHotNails. With thanks to @JillDemling.

A post shared by badgalriri (@badgalriri) on Mar 30, 2020 at 1:14pm PDT

Rihanna recently teamed up with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. to send $4.2 million to the Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles to help provide shelter and aid to women and children who are victims of domestic abuse, according to Rolling Stone.

READ MORE: Rihanna releases new music, featured on PartyNextDoor’s ‘Believe It’

She also donated an undisclosed amount of personal protective equipment supplies to the state of New York, including protective masks and gloves, which garnered praise from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Rolling Stone reported.

“We’re so appreciative of your help and that of so many others who have stepped up,” he said.

Rihanna’s last album, ‘Anti’ was released in January 2016. In addition to going triple platinum and featuring Billboard 100 number hit “Work,” it was her most critically acclaimed album.

 

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California Woman Arrested For Licking Nearly $2,000 in Items

From the Only in America files comes this latest entry!  The police have arrested a Northern California woman after she allegedly licked $1,800 worth of grocery store items according to Newsweek.

The woman, 53-year-old Jennifer Walker from South Lake Tahoe, had allegedly licked several pieces of jewelry for sale at the store and then placed them on her hands. After doing that, she then started to fill her shopping cart with approximately $1,800 worth of merchandise. She was arrested Tuesday according to a release from the South Lake Tahoe Police Department.

The release stated that “When officers arrived on the scene, a Safeway employee informed them that the suspect put numerous pieces of jewelry from the store on her hands. The suspect licked the jewelry then began to load her cart with merchandise from the store. The employee informed the officers that all the items in the suspect’s shopping cart were deemed unsellable due to the cross-contamination.

“Officers located the suspect, Jennifer Walker, a 53-year-old South Lake Tahoe resident, inside of the store with a shopping cart full of merchandise. An investigation revealed that Walker had no means to purchase any of the items. The approximate value of the items was $1,800.

“Walker was subsequently arrested for felony vandalism and was booked in the El Dorado County jail without further incident.”

Walker was arrested and given a felony charge of “vandalism of more than $400” and booked into the El Dorado County jail. She still she remains in custody, according to the inmate records. The South Lake Tahoe police department did not suggest she had a specific motive. The charge of vandalism over $400 carries possible sentences of up to one year in jail and/or up to $50,000 in subsequent fines. Records show that the suspect’s bail was set at $10,000.

There have been many cases of coronavirus-linked incidents in stores recently around the world. In Australia last week, a man was arrested after being accused of intentionally coughing on packets of noodles after the staff informed him that there was a limit on how many he could purchase.

In Missouri, a 26-year-old man was taken into custody after filming himself wiping his tongue on a row of deodorants in a Walmart store, before he posted the footage to social media. And in Florida, a man was seen spraying a substance on a business door and claimed that it contained the coronavirus.

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