Apocalypse later.
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Monday, September 9, 2019
Sunday, September 8, 2019
MIT named No. 3 university by U.S. News for 2020
For a second year in a row, U.S. News and World Report has placed MIT third in its annual rankings of the nation’s best colleges and universities, which were announced today. Columbia University and Yale University also share the No. 3 ranking.
MIT’s engineering program continues to top the magazine’s list of undergraduate engineering programs at a doctoral institution. The Institute also placed first in six out of 12 engineering disciplines. No other institution is No. 1 in more than two disciplines.
MIT also remains the No. 2 undergraduate business program. Among business subfields, MIT is ranked No. 1 in two specialties.
In the overall institutional rankings, U.S. News placed Princeton University in the No. 1 spot, followed by Harvard University.
MIT ranks as the third most innovative university in the nation, according to the U.S. News peer assessment survey of top academics. And it’s fourth on the magazine’s list of national universities that offer students the best value, based on the school’s ranking and the net cost of attendance for a student who received the average level of need-based financial aid, and other variables.
MIT placed first in six engineering specialties: aerospace/aeronautical/astronautical engineering; chemical engineering; computer engineering; electrical/electronic/communication engineering; materials engineering; and mechanical engineering. It placed second in biomedical engineering.
Other schools in the top five overall for undergraduate engineering programs are Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley, Caltech, and Georgia Tech.
Among undergraduate business specialties, the MIT Sloan School of Management leads in production/operations management and in quantitative analysis/methods. It ranks second in entrepreneurship and in management information systems.
The No. 1-ranked undergraduate business program overall is at the University of Pennsylvania; other schools ranking in the top five include Berkeley, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, New York University, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Texas at Austin.
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New York man wrongfully convicted of murder is finally free
It took 24 years, but Sundhe Moses is finally free.
Moses was just 19 years old when he was forced into confessing to a crime that he never committed. At the time, the teenager said Louis Scarcella, a New York police detective who has had more than a dozen cases connected to him that were later overturned, beat him until he confessed to the Brooklyn drive-by shooting that claimed the life of a young girl in August 1995.
READ MORE: She’s Free! Cyntoia Brown has been released from prison after serving 15 years
Moses, who was in community college at the time and the father of an 8-month-old boy, was convicted and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison, according to ABC News.
Although Moses was exonerated for the murder of four-year-old Shamone Johnson last year, he still had a felony on his record due to an additional sentence of promoting prison contraband. He received the charge and conviction after he was found to have a marijuana cigarette that contained traces of heroin while serving time for the murder.
“I was going back and forth to court fighting a case, again. Riding back and forth from prison to court, shackled, I can’t describe it,” Moses told ABC News about the additional charge. “I just copped out … it’s not like I knew when I was going home.”
On Friday, prosecutors finally dropped the drug charge under the argument that had Moses not been wrongfully convicted for the young girl’s murder, he would not have been in prison to accrue a new charge.
“The system encountered someone who has been exonerated for a charge, but while in prison for a case they were wrongfully in prison for, they picked up another conviction,” Moses told ABC News. “There wasn’t any case law similar to give a judge direction on how the case should be litigated.”
Moses’ lawyers Kuby and Rhiya Trivedi filed a motion early this year to have Moses’ guilty plea in the promoting prison contraband case thrown out.
“This situation presents the extremely rare case in which the Court cannot say the defendant would have entered a guilty plea to the crime of attempted promoting prison contraband in the first degree had it not been for the conviction on the murder charge,” wrote Clinton County Court Judge Keith M. Bruno in his written decision granting the motion.
Persistent prosecutors instead asked Moses if he would plead guilty to a misdemeanor
instead of a felony, Kuby told ABC News on Friday.
READ MORE: A$AP Rocky finally freed from Swedish prison…for now
“I wasn’t comfortable with that. What if I had a dream to get into politics tomorrow? A
misdemeanor or not, I don’t need that on my record,” Moses told the news outlet.
“As a Black person they think it’s OK to have that on your record. They don’t see it as you shouldn’t have it at all,” Moses explained to ABC News. “They looked at it as ‘Just take it, you’re out, you’re free,’ but I looked at it from a whole other perspective.”
On Friday, Clinton County prosecutors dropped the drug charge “in the interest of justice,” according to Kuby.
The post New York man wrongfully convicted of murder is finally free appeared first on theGrio.
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Nicki Minaj apologizes to Barbz, says she will explain her retirement on Queen Radio
Nicki Minaj took to Twitter to elaborate on her shocking tweet last week that she was hanging up her mic to have a family.
Minaj abruptly called it quits last week in a surprising tweet: “I’ve decided to retire & have my family. I know you guys are happy now. To my fans, keep reppin me, do it til da death of me, in the box- cuz ain’t nobody checkin me. Love you for LIFE,” she wrote, according to HollywoodLife.
READ MORE: Megan Thee Stallion, at long last, drops “Hot Girl Summer” video featuring Nicki Minaj
In a new tweet, the “Hot Girl Summer” rapper apologized to her distraught Barbz fans and revealed that she would be giving them more details in a Queen Radio discussion.
“I’m still right here. Still madly in love with you guys & you know that. In hindsight, this should’ve been a Queen Radio discussion & it will be. I promise u guys will be happy. No guests, just us talking about everything. The tweet was abrupt & insensitive, I apologize babe,” Minaj tweeted, ending with the heart and prayer hand emojis.
I’m still right here. Still madly in love with you guys & you know that. In hindsight, this should’ve been a Queen Radio discussion & it will be. I promise u guys will be happy. No guests, just us talking about everything. The tweet was abrupt & insensitive, I apologize babe ♥️🙏 https://t.co/eS0oHipwtg
— Mrs. Petty (@NICKIMINAJ) September 6, 2019
Nicki, 36, plans to start a family with Kenneth Petty, 41, whom she has been dating since last December, though the pair has known each other since they were teenagers, according to HollywoodLife. The couple filed for a marriage license last month, and it is unclear whether they have already married. Nicki changed her Twitter handle to Mrs. Petty recently and she calls Kenneth her “husband” on social media posts.
A source told HollywoodLife that once Nicki does the radio discussion, her fans will see that she isn’t really retiring.
READ MORE: Nicki Minaj hints at marriage to felon bae by changing Twitter name to ‘Mrs. Petty’
“Nicki spoke too soon on a full retirement because she loves doing music way too much to retire. Nicki wants to be a mom, wants to get married, and wants that life, but she also wants the life of rap star that she worked so hard for,” the source explained to HollywoodLife.
“She is looking to take some time off, but to fully retire isn’t going to happen. Her fans should expect her to take a bit of a break but not to be completely finished making music,” the source added. “She will be back. How many artists have said that they are retiring or going to stop touring and then come back bigger and better than ever? Tons! And it is the same case for Nicki. She’s not retiring permanently; it’s just a bunch of hot air!”
Nicki Minaj’s rep didn’t respond to a request for comment from HollywoodLife.
The post Nicki Minaj apologizes to Barbz, says she will explain her retirement on Queen Radio appeared first on theGrio.
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OPINION: Liberation, violence and the complex legacy of Robert Mugabe
The death of 95-year-old former president Robert Mugabe has taken me down memory lane.
I remember running outside in celebration as an 18-year-old freshman at Syracuse University in 1980, waving a copy of The New York Times that carried the story of Zimbabwe’s independence.
READ MORE: Former Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe died in Singapore
African Liberation
Mugabe was one of the great heroes of African liberation alongside Kwame Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela, Julius Nyerere, Patrice Lumumba, Samora Machel, Amilcar Cabral and others. He was also one of the most intelligent and articulate leaders. His legacy will be a mixed one because he clung on too long to power.
When he was imprisoned in the 1960s for his activism in White-ruled Rhodesia, Mugabe used the incarceration to earn multiple degrees through correspondence courses.
When he escaped into exile he led his Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu) party and its military arm. His counterpart in the struggle was Joshua Nkomo, who led Zimbabwe African People’s Union (Zapu). The two teamed their forces to fight against the racist regime, under the banner The Patriotic Front.
I became a big admirer of Mugabe and Nkomo in the 1970s in Tanzania, where my family was exiled to from Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere provided training and other support for Mugabe’s and Nkomo’s guerrilla armies.
Africans, including in Diaspora –African Americans, Caribbean, in Brazil, Europe and elsewhere– rooted for the Patriotic Front. Victory against Ian Smith’s White minority regime in Rhodesia was seen as one-step closer to the big prize; defeating apartheid in South Africa.
When Britain realized that Smith’s regime was about to be defeated, it organized independence talks at Lancaster House in the U.K. This paved the way to elections won by Mugabe in 1980.
READ MORE: Black votes will define 2020 presidential electability for Democrats
Violence and Sanctions
Mugabe invited his sometimes-rival Nkomo into his cabinet. After a falling out between the two, Mugabe unleashed the army on Nkomo’s stronghold of Matabeleland region, ostensibly to quell rebellion. Between 1983 and 1987, thousands of civilians —some reports say tens of thousands— were massacred. This episode tarnished Mugabe’s reputation to many Pan-Africans.
During the Lancaster House negotiations Britain had pledged funding to help the post-independence government buy the land from White farmers under a policy called willing-buyer, willing-seller. There were not many willing-sellers; Whites didn’t want to surrender their privilege. When a new government came into power in Britain in 1997 under Tony Blair, it ended financing of the purchase of land. Mugabe’s government said it couldn’t justify paying White settlers for land that their ancestors stole when the country was colonized in the 19th century. The government encouraged land seizures; they were often violent and some White farmers died.
Africans won back their land. This is a feat not yet accomplished even in South Africa where, 25 years after the end of apartheid, whites, who make up less than 10% of the population own 72% of private farmland.
Relations between Zimbabwe and Blaire’s government deteriorated. Later, Blair even tried to get South Africa to support an invasion of Zimbabwe. Britain, supported by the U.S., then imposed debilitating sanctions on Zimbabwe. The sanctions cut off Zimbabwe from foreign credit sources including loans from The World Bank and support from the IMF. The country was unable to import products ranging from medicines, machinery for factories, and other essential products.
A Complicated Reputation
During one of his addresses to the United Nations General Assembly, Mugabe famously declared, “We are not Europeans, we have not asked for any inch of Europe; any square inch of that territory. So Blair, keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe…People must always come first in any process of sustainable development; and let our Africans come first in the development of Africa. Not as puppets, not as beggars, but as a sovereign people.”
These were the kind of declarations that won continued support for Mugabe in the global Pan-African community.
Mugabe was thoroughly demonized in Western media. When he was invited to City Hall in 2002 by City Council-member Charles Barron, scores of reporters came.
Mugabe offered a comprehensive historical account of how the land had been violently stolen by white settlers. In the end, having been schooled, not a single one of the reporters asked him a question.
Back home, the sanctions took a heavy toll and Mugabe was increasingly violent toward the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. The economic downslide created hyperinflation, destroying the national currency. By 2015, Zimbabwe had replaced its currency with the U.S. dollar.
An aged and frail Mugabe clung to power. His much younger and ambitious wife, Grace Mugabe, wanted to succeed him as president. There were rumors that she poisoned then Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa –he survived– to remove any obstacles. As a power struggle intensified between Ms. Mugabe’s supporters and Mnangagwa’s, the military sided with the Vice President and eased Mugabe out of power.
Mugabe had started out as a hero of African liberation and champion of Pan-Africanism. By wielding power for 37 years, many Zimbabweans who came of age at a later stage will associate the country’s economic demise as his legacy. But millions more will remember the return of the land to Africans.
Ironically his death may now pave the way for the lifting of Western sanctions, which is something Zimbabwe badly needs to restore it’s economy.
Milton Allimadi publishes Black Star News www.blackstarnews.com and is an adjunct professor of African History at John Jay College. He doesn’t believe in geographical boundaries and his motto is “One Africa, United.” He enjoys listening to Malcolm X’s ‘The Ballot or the Bullet Speech’ while doing sit-ups. Follow @allimadi on Twitter.
The post OPINION: Liberation, violence and the complex legacy of Robert Mugabe appeared first on theGrio.
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University of Alabama dean resigns after past tweets are posted in conservative news article
Just seven months into his role as the dean of students at the University of Alabama, Jamie R. Riley has resigned from his position after some of his past tweets, which criticized the American flag and the often turbulent relationship between police officers and the Black community, were unveiled by ultra-conservative news site Breitbart News.
Riley, who was hired last December as the University of Alabama’s assistant vice president and dean of students, resigned on Thursday. This was one day after Breitbart News published an article detailing some of Riley’s past tweets, according to campus newspaper The Crimson
White. Riley started working for the university in February.
READ MORE: Alabama student hurling racist slurs in video identified and kicked out of school
“For us right now, basically all I can tell you is that the University and Dr. Riley have mutually agreed to part ways,” Jackson Fuentes, press secretary for the University of Alabama Student Government Association, told the school newspaper. “So yeah, that’s true, and we do wish him the best.”
Chris Bryant, assistant director of the Division of Strategic Communications, issued an official statement confirming Riley’s resignation.
“Dr. Jamie Riley has resigned his position at The University of Alabama by mutual agreement,” Bryant said in the statement, according to The Crimson White. “Neither party will have any further comments.”
In the Breitbart News article, the reporter pulled an old tweet that Riley put out, which reportedly read: “The [American flag emoji] flag represents a systemic history of racism for my people,” Riley wrote in the tweet. “Police are a part of that system. Is it that hard to see the correlation?”
Fox News host Laura Ingraham tweeted the Breitbart News article to her conservative followers.
Torments from the Twitter Attic: University of Alabama Dean Claimed American Flag, Police are Racist https://t.co/UGdHfj409j
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) September 5, 2019
The Breitbart News article also included an October 2017 tweet, in which Riley said white people have “0 opinion” on racism because white people cannot experience racism.
READ MORE: Nervous about being a first-gen student? No worries, Michelle Obama’s got you
“I’m baffled about how the first thing white people say is, ‘That’s not racist!’ when they can’t even experience racism,” Riley wrote in the tweet. “You have 0 opinion!”
Prior to working at the University of Alabama, Riley served as the executive director and chief operating officer of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. He also previously worked in student affairs and diversity roles at Johns Hopkins University, The University of California-Berkeley and Morehouse College.
The post University of Alabama dean resigns after past tweets are posted in conservative news article appeared first on theGrio.
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Couples sue over Virginia marriage license racial identity requirement
More than 50 years after the Supreme Court struck down a Virginia law banning interracial marriage, Virginia is still requiring couples to identify their race before approving marriage licenses — a stipulation that prompted three couples to file a lawsuit against the state.
The couples filed the suit on Thursday in the Eastern District of Virginia, accusing the state requirement of being “offensive,” “unconstitutional” and “reflective of a racist past,” according to NBC News.
READ MORE: RHOA star Cynthia Bailey says yes to boyfriend’s surprise marriage proposal
Sophie Rogers and her fiancé, Brandyn Churchill — one of the couples in the suit — tried to obtain a marriage license in the Rockbridge Circuit Court clerk’s office but were told that if they failed to list their race, they would not be receiving a marriage license in advance of their Oct. 19 nuptials.
Ashley Ramkishun and her fiancé, Samuel Sarfo, were told the same thing. The couple, who met in Virginia, don’t think it’s right to be forced to divulge their racial identity to get a marriage license, according to the suit.
Couple Amelia Spencer and Kendall Poole also hope to marry in Virginia “but not if [they] must label [themselves] with a race,” NBC News reported from the suit.
So far, all three couples have been denied a marriage license simply because they won’t check a box and state their race, the suit alleges.
“Plaintiffs deem the requirement of racial labeling to be scientifically baseless, misleading, highly controversial, a matter of opinion, practically useless, offensive to human dignity, an invasion of personal privacy compelling an unwanted public categorization of oneself, and reflective of a racist past,” the lawsuit states, according to NBC News.
READ MORE: U.S. Circuit Court rules it is legal to refuse jobs to people with dreadlocks
In the lawsuit, the couples seek “reasonable costs,” which include covering attorney’s fees. In addition, Rogers and Churchill are hoping a judge will prohibit the clerk from denying them a marriage license so that they can still get hitched next month.
Even though the Supreme Court prohibited Virginia from banning interracial marriage in the 1967 Loving v. Virginia case, Virginia is one of eight states that continue to ask couples to list their race before they are allowed to marry, according to the lawsuit. The other states include Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Minnesota. In New Hampshire, a court clerk fills out the information pertaining to a couple’s race.
What Virginia needs this information for is anyone’s guess. So much for the idea of a post-racial America.
The post Couples sue over Virginia marriage license racial identity requirement appeared first on theGrio.
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Supreme Court Justices tuning in to cable television civil rights lawsuit
WASHINGTON (AP) — Comedian and media mogul Byron Allen wants TV viewers to watch the channels his company produces — from one that runs “Judge Judy”-like shows all day to those dedicated to comedy, cars, food and pets. But while many distributors carry Allen’s channels, two cable giants have refused.
Allen says the reason is that he’s Black, and so he’s sued for racial discrimination. An appeals court has let his lawsuits go forward, but now the Supreme Court will weigh in and could deliver a setback.
The justices will hear arguments Nov. 13 in a $20 billion lawsuit that Allen filed against Comcast, with the outcome also affecting a $10 billion case he has filed against Charter Communications.
If Allen prevails, Black-owned businesses will have an easier time winning suits that allege discrimination in contracting. If Comcast wins, the bar will be high to bring and succeed with similar suits.
The question for the justices is whether Allen needs to show that race was just a factor in Comcast’s decision not to offer him a contract or whether it was the sole factor.
Allen said his case is about getting rid of institutionalized racism. Pursuing that claim, he said, “is one of the greatest things I’ve ever done in my life” and “one of the things I’m most proud of.”
But Comcast says its decision not to carry Allen’s channels has nothing to do with race. Allen’s content is “not particularly original” and “not particularly high quality,” said Comcast lawyer Lynn Charytan, and Comcast simply made an editorial decision not to carry it.
A trial court dismissed Allen’s suit three times before an appeals court, according to Comcast, wrongly let it go forward . The Trump administration has sided with Comcast.
Allen, 58, began his route to media mogul as a child when his family moved from Detroit to Los Angeles. His mother got a job at NBC, which meant Allen hung around the studios. He would see Johnny Carson tape “The Tonight Show” and comedian Flip Wilson rehearse for his variety show.
As a teenager, Allen began doing comedy himself, and he appeared on the “Tonight Show” for the first time when he was 18. That led to a job as a host for reality television forerunner “Real People” while he was a student at the University of Southern California. Ultimately, Allen’s interests turned to the business of television, and in 1993 he founded his own media company.
READ MORE: Black woman uses 153-year old civil rights law to sue PNC bank for racial profiling
Today his Los Angeles-based Entertainment Studios has 10 television networks, including Cars.tv, Comedy.tv, Pets.tv, Recipe.tv and JusticeCentral.tv. Last year, he bought The Weather Channel. He also has a movie distribution company.
But Comcast and Charter Communications, the nation’s two largest cable providers, have passed on carrying Allen’s channels. Other distributors including Verizon FIOS do carry the channels. So do the now-merged AT&T and DirecTV after Allen sued them and they settled.
Comcast has called Allen’s suit “a scam,” saying it and others that Allen filed were intended to generate media attention and timed to exploit when the companies were working on mergers. Comcast has noted that Allen originally sued Comcast, but also civil rights groups including the NAACP and National Urban league, saying they had conspired to discriminate against him. Comcast has called the allegations preposterous.
READ MORE: Los Angeles Urban League urges Supreme Court to protect the Civil Rights Act Of 1866
“This is really a run-of-the-mill carriage dispute that has been dressed by Mr. Allen in the garb of racial discrimination for purposes of his own,” said Comcast lawyer Miguel Estrada.
But Skip Miller, one of Allen’s lawyers, said Allen’s channels are “perfectly good channels” and “popular programming in many areas.” Miller said he cannot see any legitimate reason that Comcast and Charter would refuse to carry them.
“There’s no reason, no reason in our opinion, other than he’s black,” Miller said.
Allen sued Comcast in 2015, pointing to Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 . Enacted a year after the Civil War ended, the law bars racial discrimination, saying all people should have “the same right … to make and enforce contracts … as is enjoyed by white citizens.”
Allen and his lawyers argue that to sue under the law and win, he only needs to show that his race played a factor in Comcast’s decision not to offer him a contract. Comcast says Allen has to demonstrate that he didn’t get a contract solely because of his race.
No matter what the justices decide, Allen is prepared to make either argument and for the case to continue after the Supreme Court’s decision, his lawyer said. This past week he got support from the Los Angeles Urban League, which threatened Comcast with a boycott and other action if it doesn’t drop the case.
“This case is bigger than me,” Allen said.
Along with the properties mentioned in the article above, theGrio.com is also owned and operated by Entertainment Studios.
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