His promises of democracy and reconciliation dissolved into violence and economic misery.
from BBC News - Africa https://ift.tt/2N0kuJN
via
Intro Video
Friday, September 6, 2019
Thursday, September 5, 2019
Robert Mugabe, former president of Zimbabwe, has died age 95
Zimbabwe ex-president Robert Mugabe dies aged 95
Rihanna Secures Additional $50 Million Funding for Savage X Fenty Brand
We haven’t heard any new music from Rihanna in quite some time but don’t think that means she isn’t creating. The Bajan singer has secured $50 million in new funds from investors for her celebrity fashion line, Savage X Fenty.
According to The Wall Street Journal, her fashion line received monies from Jay-Z and his venture firm, Marcy Venture Partners L.L.C., as well as funding from Avenir Growth Capital. This latest round of finances brings the total amount to $70 million from investors. The Journal cited Savage X Fenty’s strong performance in its freshman year: annual revenues are projected to hit $150 million and average annual customer spend is beating market leader Victoria’s Secret.
After Forbes revealed that Rihanna is the richest female musician with a net worth of approximately $600 million, she is definitely claiming her stake and reaching for that billionaire status.
Savage X Fenty started in May 2018 as a joint venture between Rihanna and Techstyle Fashion Group; although this wasn’t her first endeavor—she launched her Fenty Beauty cosmetics sometime in 2017 to immediate success. And this past June, she made an announcement that she will collaborate with LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton to produce a Fenty luxury fashion label as well.
It was also announced recently that Amazon Prime Video will be streaming the premiere of Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty Show. That will take place Sept. 20, featuring her new Fall/Winter 2019 lingerie collection. The Savage X Fenty special will show the audience the behind the scenes of the making of the show and will be “a one-of-a-kind event blending music, fashion, and culture” with surprises and guest performances, according to a press release. It will be archived on Amazon Prime Video so customers can relive the experience over and over again.
With all the business moves she has made, will she ever have the urge or desire to record anymore? Apparently, all she does is “work, work, work, work, work.”
from Black Enterprise https://ift.tt/2MXsoDQ
via
When rats work to protect human safety
During a trip to Brussels in 2013, Jia Hui Lee decided to visit the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History. While there, he stumbled upon a poster depicting a rat on the ground next to a partially visible land mine. It was April 4, International Mine Awareness Day, and the poster was part of a display about the use of rodents to detect land mines.
“When you think about war, you think about these big technological tools, vehicles, and systems. Then to see this image of a rat, it was quite jarring and piqued my interest immediately,” says Lee, a fifth-year doctoral student in MIT’s History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology, and Society (HASTS) program.
He had been thinking about humanity’s relationship with other animals and the environment during the era of climate change, and the display provided the kernel of his PhD thesis, which looks at human-rodent interactions in Tanzania, where humans are training rats to detect landmines, as well as tuberculosis.
As a queer man of color, Lee has frequently questioned ideas about power, privilege, and people’s places in society, including his own. With his graduate work, he is extending these questions to consider cross-species interactions and what they say about the impact of technology on society and politics. Throughout his studies, the ethical considerations of anthropology, including who gets to speak for the experiences of others and what experiences are studied in the first place, have remained central to Lee’s work.
Helpers, friends, vermin, enemies
For his thesis, Lee completed 15 months of field research in Tanzania examining how trainers interacted with, talked about, and ultimately conditioned rats in order to get them to find land mines. He later spent two months in Cambodia to see how the animals worked in the field. The Tanzanian-trained rats were deployed in an area to clear possible land mines, and after they determined that there were no active mines in that site, Lee took a walk through the area. He jokes that the fact that he’s still alive to talk about the experience demonstrates the success of the training.
Lee is very careful about how he talks about the nonhuman animals in his research, to acknowledge the cross-cultural differences in how humans think about them. For instance, many people in Tanzania consider rats to be intelligent and helpful, whereas in New York City, for example, they are more commonly viewed as vermin. Likewise, Lee notes that in the U.S. and European countries, dogs are generally viewed as humans’ best friends and treated as part of the family. In places like Tanzania and Kenya, however, he says dogs are often viewed as vicious and fierce, because of the historic use of dogs by colonial British police officers to violently control anticolonial protesters, and later as guards against theft.
“The knowledge I hope to produce out of this research is in conversation with zoology, biology, and cognitive science. It includes histories of human-animal interactions which are usually left out in other kinds of disciplines,” Lee says.
His focus on East Africa grew in part out of previous research on the growing science and technology markets in the region. Although the technology scene in East Africa is flourishing, he notes, this growth doesn’t get the same recognition as tech hubs in the West.
“You see a really exciting embrace of science and technology in this region. It’s interesting to think about these types of science and technology projects in East Africa — not Cambridge, Massachusetts, or London. It’s really important to think of East Africa as a location of critical thinking and knowledge production,” he says.
Equity on campus
As a person who is concerned with power and privilege, it is no surprise that Lee has advocated on behalf of the Institute’s graduate community. As a graduate fellow for the Institute Community and Equity Office, Lee worked with Professor Ed Bertschinger and other fellows to find ways to candidly discuss the state of diversity and inclusion at MIT.
“Over the course of a semester, we hosted discussion lunches that included students, staff, and faculty to share best practices in different departments that foster inclusion at the Institute,” Lee says.
He also served on the Working Group on Graduate Student Tuition Models to gather data about grad students’ experiences with some of the Institute’s funding structures. He compiled the stories of various members of the graduate community to present to the Institute’s administration in order to demonstrate the ways that students’ well-being could be enhanced. MIT’s senior leadership has now begun seeking ways to alleviate financial insecurity faced by some of the Institute’s graduate students and has also launched a new effort to better support those with families.
Citizen of the world
Lee has wide-ranging interests in history and culture, and one of his favorite things to do in his free time is to walk around and analyze Boston’s architecture. After living in the area on and off for about a decade, he says he really enjoys getting to know Boston and its physical changes intimately. He thinks it’s fascinating to think about the city’s transformation from a part of the sea hundreds of years ago to the urban hub it is now. Throughout his travels the past few years, he has picked up bits of art and architectural history that have informed his understanding of some of Boston’s iconic landmarks.
“In Boston, there's a lot of Italian influences on certain architecture, so the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum looks like an Italian Renaissance palazzo, which is so quirky. But then Back Bay, especially Commonwealth Avenue, was designed to resemble a French boulevard,” Lee explains.
Beyond Boston and Tanzania, Lee has been all over the world, and picked up various languages in the process. He speaks Malay, Swahili, French, English, Hindi, and Urdu, and a bit of several Chinese dialects. In his adventures, Lee has also recognized the value of being alone, and he advocates for solo travel. It invites unique experiences, he says, which for him has included being brought to dance clubs and even a Tanzanian wedding.
“I feel like the likelihood of randomly meeting a person or stumbling into an event or a festival is so much higher than if you're traveling with somebody. And when you're alone, I think people do draw you into whatever events they are going to,” Lee says.
from MIT News https://ift.tt/2ZT5Ar0
via
Africa's week in pictures: 30 August-5 September 2019
Facebook Dating Arrives in the US. Here's How It Works
Sonos Move Portable Speaker: Price, Specs, Release Date
How YACHT Used Machine Learning to Create Their New Album
Cold War Analogies are Warping Tech Policy
Former Nigeria coach Samson Siasia appeals Fifa's life ban
Eddie Murphy planning 2020 stand-up comedy tour
Guess who’s back!
Eddie Murphy has been gearing up to make a big comeback with a highly anticipated sequel on the way and a return to the Saturday Night Live stage as host in December for the first time in 35 years.
And now there’s news that the iconic comedian is also planning to return to his comedy roots with a new standup tour in 2020.
—Eddie Murphy set to return to ‘SNL’ as host for first time in 35 years—
This is going to be epic.
Murphy revealed in a Netflix podcast, Present Company with Krista Smith, that he plans to do a comedy tour, saying: “… and then next year in 2020 I’m going to go on the road and do some stand-up.”
That statement coincides with the rumors that swirled that he was inking a multimillion-dollar deal to do a Netflix standup special but he didn’t directly address that, Deadline repots.
Murphy recently wrapped up the movie Dolemite Is My Name about stand-up comedian Rudy Ray Moore for Netflix.
And he’s in the midst of filming the sequel to Coming 2 America which is currently filming around Atlanta.
— PHOTOS: Check out all the famous faces cast in ‘Coming 2 America’–
The storyline reportedly centers around Prince Akeem’s (Murphy) rise to become King and finding out that he fathered an illegitimate son back in the day during his time in Queens looking to sow his royal oats, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Jermaine Fowler will play Prince Akeem’s long-lost son, who is now the heir to Zamunda.
Jones plays the mother of the son (named Lavelle) who Akeem had a one-night stand with. Morgan plays Jones’ street-hustling brother Reem. Akeem’s father (Earl Jones), the King of Zamunda, has a dying wish that Akeem find his son and prep him to become a Prince.
The post Eddie Murphy planning 2020 stand-up comedy tour appeared first on theGrio.
from theGrio https://ift.tt/34u4G7Y
via
Atlanta HBCU campus shooting suspect arrested
A suspect has finally been arrested after a shooting near the campus of Clark Atlanta University that left four students wounded and a community reeling.
—Video shows terrifying aftermath when four Atlanta HBCU students are shot at block party—
Isaiah Williams, 21, reportedly turned himself in to police on Wednesday as a result of an arrest warrant that was issued.
Williams has been charged with aggravated assault, aggravated battery, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and criminal attempt to commit murder, WSBTV reports.
Williams is accused of firing into a crowd of at least 200 people and shooting two students from Spelman College and two from Clark Atlanta. One student was shot in the chest, one in the leg and bullets grazed the two other girls.
The students were identified by WSB as Erin Ennis, 18; Maia Williams-McLaren, 18; Elyse Spencer, 18; and Kia Thomas, 19.
The shooting happened at a college block party celebrating the end of new student orientation near the library which is shared by Clark Atlanta, Spelman and Morehouse students, according to police.
The shooting reportedly began after an argument broke out between two parties and someone opened fire, investigators said.
“It appears there were two separate groups that were targeting each other, and these people were just caught in the crossfire,” Atlanta police Capt. William Ricker told reporters at the time.
Police are still looking for an additional suspect in the case.
The post Atlanta HBCU campus shooting suspect arrested appeared first on theGrio.
from theGrio https://ift.tt/34mvpmR
via
Why the Porsche Taycan's Two-Speed Gearbox Is Such a Big Deal
Ghana's Agyemang Badu: I'll comeback from illness stronger
LaShawn Daniels, Grammy-winning songwriter for Beyonce, Michael Jackson and more, dies in car crash
LaShawn Daniels, a Grammy Award-winning songwriter who penned songs for Beyoncé, Whitney Houston and Lady Gaga has died. He was 41.
Daniels’ wife April said in a statement that her husband died in a car accident Tuesday in South Carolina. He earned a Grammy in 2001 for his songwriting work on Destiny Child’s “Say My Name.”
Daniels co-wrote several Grammy-nominated songs including Tamar Braxton’s “Love and War,” Toni Braxton’s “He Wasn’t Man Enough” and “The Boy is Mine,” a track featuring Brandy and Monica.
He also contributed on Beyoncé’s “Telephone,” Jennifer Lopez’s “If You Had My Love” and Michael Jackson’s “You Rock My World.”
His wife, April Daniels, called her husband a “man of extraordinary faith and a pillar in our family.”
The post LaShawn Daniels, Grammy-winning songwriter for Beyonce, Michael Jackson and more, dies in car crash appeared first on theGrio.
from theGrio https://ift.tt/2ZTnUAp
via
911 audio details horrific crash scene that injured Kevin Hart
A 911 call released Wednesday describes the moments after Kevin Hart was seriously injured after his muscle car crashed on a mountainous Southern California roadway.
The witness describes a man believed to be Hart and telling a dispatcher that he “looked like he’s hurting.”
The eyewitness account is part of 911 audio recordings released by the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
A California Highway Patrol collision report said Hart was a passenger in a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda that went off Mulholland Highway and rolled down an embankment early Sunday.
Also in the vehicle were Jared Black, who was driving, and his fiancee, Rebecca Broxterman. The report said Black was not under the influence of alcohol.
The witness also described Black as appearing to be seriously hurt. The witness also said the roof of the totaled vehicle was “crushed” with smashed in doors. He said he was at the accident “with another car that pulled over to help” adding “only one car” went off the highway.
The CHP said Hart, 40, and Black, 28, suffered “major back injuries.” Hart’s wife has said the actor-comedian will be fine.
Broxterman, 31, only complained of pain.
The report said Hart had left the scene to his nearby residence to get medical attention. He and Black were ultimately taken to different hospitals.
It remains unclear how the accident will affect Hart, who has emerged from his roots in standup comedy to become one a major Hollywood star. His next major release, “Jumanji: The Next Level,” is scheduled for release in December.
The accident, which remains under investigation, occurred on a stretch of road in the hills above the city of Malibu.
The post 911 audio details horrific crash scene that injured Kevin Hart appeared first on theGrio.
from theGrio https://ift.tt/2LlA94B
via
Black votes will define 2020 presidential electability for Democrats
For all the strategic calculations, sophisticated voter targeting and relentless talk about electability in Iowa and New Hampshire, the Democratic presidential nomination will be determined by a decidedly different group: black voters.
African Americans will watch as mostly white voters in the first two contests express preferences and winnow the field — then they will almost certainly anoint the winner.
So far, that helps explain the front-running status of former Vice President Joe Biden. He has name recognition, a relationship with America’s first black president and a decadeslong Democratic resume. Black voters have long been at the foundation of his support — his home state of Delaware, where he served as a U.S. senator for nearly four decades, is 38 percent black — and until another presidential candidate proves that he or she can beat him, he is likely to maintain that support.
In the 2008 campaign, Hillary Clinton held a strong lead among black voters over Barack Obama until he stunned her by winning the Iowa caucuses and proved to black voters that he was acceptable to a broad spectrum of Democrats. Those same voters returned to Clinton in 2016.
This cycle, many black voters are also making a pragmatic choice — driven as much or more by who can defeat President Donald Trump as the issues they care about — and sitting back to see which candidate white voters are comfortable with before deciding whom they will back.
At the same time, the early courtship of black voters, overt and subtle, is part of a primary within the primary that includes detailed plans on issues like criminal justice reform, reparations, maternal mortality among black women, voter suppression and systemic racism.
“As black voters and movers and drivers of national politics, our self-image and awareness of our power and influence is evolving,” said Aimee Allison, found of She the People, which hosted the first presidential forum aimed specifically at female voters of color.
Trump appealed to black voters during the 2016 campaign by saying “What the hell do you have to lose?” and ended up with only 8 percent of the black vote. But the president again is saying he will try to win over black voters, frequently citing low unemployment and his own success in signing criminal justice legislation. So far, there is no evidence to suggest that he will succeed.
But the first test of the decisiveness of black voters will come in the primaries. African Americans make up roughly 13 percent of the U.S. population but 24 percent of the Democratic primary electorate. That number is more formidable in the early primary state of South Carolina, where black voters are two-thirds of primary voters, and in other early voting states like Georgia, Alabama and Virginia.
Biden reminded black reporters in a recent roundtable that his strength is not just with working-class whites, but with the black voters he’s known for more than half a century in politics.
“After all this time, they think they have a sense of what my character is and who I am, warts and all,” Biden said. “I’ll be surprised if you find any African Americans that think I’m not in on the deal, that I’m not who I say I am … I’ve never, ever, ever in my entire life been in circumstances where I’ve ever felt uncomfortable being in the black community.”
He acknowledged that his familiarity is no assurance of success. And he noted that black voters may ultimately prefer black candidates like Sens. Kamala Harris of California or Cory Booker of New Jersey. First, though, one of them would have to prove to black voters that they were viable alternatives.
Black voters can be decisive not only in determining the Democrats’ nominee but also the ultimate winner. While Democrats have peaked in recent cycles with white voters at around 40 percent, black voters have been their most loyal constituency.
But in 2016, a drop-off among black voters had consequences. Black voter turnout dropped from 65.3 percent in 2012 to 59.6 percent, and Hillary Clinton received 89 percent of the black vote, compared with 93 percent for Barack Obama in 2012 and 95 percent in 2008.
“It comes down to a strategy decision that campaigns have to make: Do they believe that the way to win the White House is to win white voters, or do they believe that the way to White House is to mobilize voters of color?” said Leah Daughtry, who recently hosted a 2020 Democratic forum for black faith voters in Atlanta.
“Is there a strategy that allows you to do both? Perhaps,” Daughtry said. “But one is a sure bet. If you get us to the polls, we are most likely to vote Democrat. If you get white folks to the polls, you don’t know what they’re going to do.”
In the past, Biden would have been a prohibitive favorite, said LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter. But black voters are demanding that candidates deliver on their priorities in a way they haven’t done in recent history.
“Black folks are looking to figure out who white voters are going to align with, but I don’t think that’s the driver that it has been in the past,” she continued. “Black voters, like white voters, are increasingly frustrated with the process. No longer is it good enough to choose between the devil or the witch.”
The post Black votes will define 2020 presidential electability for Democrats appeared first on theGrio.
from theGrio https://ift.tt/2HQgY0G
via
NBA player says $400k offer to settle lawsuit over violent arrest caught on video needs to come with admission of guilt
An attorney for Bucks guard Sterling Brown says Milwaukee’s $400,000 offer to settle Brown’s lawsuit against the city over his arrest last year is insufficient because it doesn’t include an admission of guilt.
Attorney Mark Thomsen said Wednesday that any settlement would have to include such an admission.
The city’s Common Council has given Brown 14 days to accept or decline the settlement offer.
Brown contends in his lawsuit that police used excessive force and targeted him because he is black when they confronted him for parking illegally in a handicapped-accessible spot in January 2018. He was talking with officers while waiting for his citation when the situation escalated. Officers took him down and used a stun gun because he didn’t immediately remove his hands from his pockets, as ordered.
The post NBA player says $400k offer to settle lawsuit over violent arrest caught on video needs to come with admission of guilt appeared first on theGrio.
from theGrio https://ift.tt/2ZzQQlu
via
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)