On the eve of his move back to his native Tel Aviv, photographer Natan Dvir made a final tour of the streets that he had called home for the past 11 years.
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Tuesday, May 12, 2020
Howard University Hospital Opens Free COVID-19 Testing Site In Northeast Washington D.C.
Since the spread of COVID-19, or the novel coronavirus, there has been a fight for states to provide more testing in order to contain and combat the virus. The United States has been lagging behind when it comes to providing proper testing for its residents as compared to other countries that have made efforts to make the test readily available and free of charge. In one of the country’s epicenters for the viral outbreak, an HBCU institution is stepping up to provide COVID-19 testing for the local community.
Last week, Howard University announced its Faculty Practice Plan in partnership with Bank of America with the opening of a free COVID-19 testing center to serve communities located east of the river. The testing site opened a few weeks back at the newly-repurposed Benning Road Center.
“Many of our patients travel great distances to come to Howard University Hospital, which makes it challenging to seek medical attention at the first sign of illness,” said Howard University President Wayne A. I. Frederick in a press statement. “Our goal is to meet the community where they live so their access to care greatly improves and hopefully we can reduce the spread of the coronavirus.”
“You will not need to have a doctor’s prescription in advance to get tested at our location,” said Dr. Hugh E. Mighty, Howard University vice president of clinical affairs said in a statement reported by FOX 5 DC.
“We want to eliminate the obstacles so more people can be tested because we believe everyone should be tested. We want to screen our community neighbors in the areas where there are higher incidents of hypertension, heart disease and diabetes because those pre-existing conditions are linked to the higher incidents of coronavirus that we’ve seen in African American communities.”
Testing will be available on Tuesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. for the next three months with no prescription needed. The Howard University team will see patients who are “showing symptoms or who believe they are asymptomatic.” D.C. residents can sign up for an appointment by calling 202-865-2119, option 3.
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Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield May Be Considering a Third Fight for Charity
Last week, BLACK ENTERPRISE reported that ex-heavyweight champion Mike Tyson has been in the gym training and considering getting back into the ring. Now we hear that his former nemesis, ex-heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield, is doing the same. Holyfield has even said that he envisions having a third bout against Tyson but this time, they will do it for charity, according to Boxing Scene.
At 57 years old, Holyfield is making a return to the ring and has his eyes set on having a third fight with the 53-year-old Tyson. According to reports, he would like to stage an exhibition boxing match to raise money for his charity Unite 4 Our Fight.
“I’ve already done what I wanted to do in my career, and have been the best that I could be. If it wasn’t for charity, I wouldn’t fight Tyson,” Holyfield told Boxing Scene in an interview. “I don’t look at it as being a winner in this fight. This is a charity event helping our foundations. The thing is knowing what you’re doing it for.
“I’m not afraid of [Tyson] or anything like that, as long as it works for both of us [financially]. I wouldn’t ask for him to do it if he didn’t want to. He’d have to ask me. It’s like being the bully, I already beat him twice.”
Just last month, Tyson said he’d consider making a comeback and fight in four-round exhibition matches. After seeing a video of Tyson training, Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship offered Tyson $20 million for a fight with one of its athletes.
Tyson also spoke to rapper and entrepreneur T.I. on Instagram Live and revealed that he is back in the gym and wants to involve himself in some charitable exhibition bouts.
“I’ve been hitting the mitts for the last week,” Tyson said. “That’s been tough, my body is really jacked up and really sore from hitting the mitts. I’ve been working out, I’ve been trying to get in the ring. I think I’m going to box some exhibitions and get in shape. I want to go to the gym and get in shape to be able to box three or four-round exhibitions for some charities and stuff. Some charity exhibitions, make some money, help some homeless and drug-affected (expletive)s like me.”
According to Boxing Scene, bookmaker SportsBetting.ag listed that a pro or exhibition boxing match in 2020 between Tyson and Holyfield would be a tossup with even odds of -120 on both sides.
“My whole thing is that I’ll do exhibition matches with people that I trust,” said Holyfield. “It’s important in an exhibition to describe how you want it to be. You talk about how to work together. It’s not going to be a tough fight. If you hit me hard, I hit you back hard. That’s my attitude. I have the hand speed and can pop you and move on with my business. I can hold my own, but I’m not here to hurt people. I can fight — plus, I am in better shape than them. If I wasn’t in shape, I wouldn’t go in there with anybody.”
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The Access Project is Looking for Women Entrepreneurs to Join Their Business Accelerator
Amid the global pandemic, there are a number of companies looking to help entrepreneurs and small business owners make a way out of what can feel like no way. The economic impact COVID-19 is having on business owners is projected to leave a lasting mark on some businesses and in efforts to help combat that The Access Project will accept three women-owned businesses into their accelerator.
The Access Project is a nonprofit, seed-stage startup accelerator for women-owned businesses that leverages the expertise of the fashion and beauty industry, namely branding, marketing, and design. They believe that building your brand—and not just a product—is a way startups can be more resource-efficient and increase their probability of success. In addition to an elite mentor list, startup participants will have access to agency resources and work alongside team members focused on business development.
The Access Project runs two, 12-week accelerator programs a year for a group of 2-3 startups (each flight) selected from a highly competitive application pool.
The mentorship board for The Access Project includes trailblazing women that are artistic directors, professional communicators, and executives that are behind the scenes in pivotal campaigns. The mentors are Stephanie Powell, Jamé Jackson, Cierra Jaye’, Jasmine C. Green, and Valese Jones. The chosen candidates will benefit greatly from the guidance of these trailblazing women.
This time around, The Access Project is accepting up to three women-owned businesses to join its program. This incubator will lend its expertise in the fashion and beauty industry, branding, marketing, and design.
In a statement released by The Access Project, the group shared, “We believe that building your brand—and not just a product—is a way startups can be more resource-efficient and increase their probability of success.”
To learn more and apply for the accelerator, click here.
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Texas-Based Plumbing Company Expands Area Coverage With All-Day Service
It takes an incredible amount of work to start a business, and it takes a lot more to keep an existing business afloat in an unpredictable market. Many resources are dedicated to helping entrepreneurs start their business dreams by providing the proper knowledge and structure on how to write a business plan and secure a business loan. Those resources become limited once you actually start the business and now have to maintain your newfound venture. According to data collected from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, roughly 20% of small businesses fail within their first year of operation. By the end of their fifth year, that number rises to 50%.
In a report by Investopedia, the four most common reasons why small businesses fail are a lack of sufficient capital, poor management, inadequate business planning, and overestimating marketing budgets. In a survey reported by Fundera, founders of startup ventures cite running out of capital or failure of an established audience that fulfills the demand for your product.
For this Texas-based business owner, he managed to beat the odds and make his business thrive while further expanding his reach.
Dajadt Azakytu is the owner of DAZ Plumbing & Locating based in Waxahachie, Texas. The family-run business has also been focused on providing quality service to its customers with its fleet of 12 service vehicles. The company has now announced that it will be expanding its service area to include the entire Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area in addition to Ellis and Tarrant. Its services include sewer line repairs to basic bathroom repairs for commercial and residential buildings.
“We understand that plumbing problems are more than an inconvenience,” Azakytu told Black Business. “They can also be a health and safety hazard, and can do serious damage to your property. Our goal is to provide solutions that protect customers’ safety, health, property, time and money.”
The plumbing company will also now offer services 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
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Monday, May 11, 2020
Probing reality through physics, philosophy, and writing
A day in the life of Michelle Xu might include attending a quantum gravity seminar over Zoom, followed by some reading on the philosophy of time, capped off by a couple hours of writing fiction.
If these activities seem wildly diverse, for Xu they all “emerge from the same place: this desire to understand how the universe works,” she says. “I was just never particularly picky about which way to figure it out.”
Xu is a senior majoring in physics and mathematics, with an added focus on philosophy. Her studies have centered on large questions in cosmology, including looking at the earliest days of the expanding universe through their impact on primordial black holes with Professor Alan Guth in the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics. Lately Xu has been studying high energy theory and quantum gravity, topics she hopes to explore more in graduate school, under the guidance of Professor Daniel Harlow. Throughout her time in the physics department, professors Robert Jaffe, Tracy Slatyer, and David Kaiser have been strong role models and mentors as well, she says. “My path in physics has been shaped and encouraged by all of these people, and without them, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”
Although she was interested in physics when she first came to MIT, it was the research experience that confirmed for her that she was on the right career path. “My biggest doubt was, OK, so I can do [problem sets], and I enjoy thinking about these concepts, but if I were tossed a bunch of equations and had to create something myself, could I actually do this?” Xu recalls. “Each summer as I worked on a different research project, I became more and more convinced that this was something I could do.”
At home in Pennsylvania during the coronavirus pandemic, Xu is continuing her research with Guth and hopes to meet virtually with Harlow as well. She is staying touch with friends through social media, even starting a book club while they are scattered throughout the country. “I’ve been stripped of some of my usual responsibilities, like running clubs, so I’m focusing more on personal interests like writing and some puzzling topics in physics and philosophy,” she says.
Xu’s parents are scientists, and she “was raised in a household where everything was approached from a scientific perspective,” she says. They watched a lot of science documentaries, like Brian Greene’s “The Elegant Universe,” that raised early questions about the nature of reality.
It was the class 24.02 (Moral Problems and the Good Life) that inspired Xu to delve deeper into philosophy as another way to probe reality. She later discovered that most of her philosophical interests lie in metaphysics and not ethics, but the problems were nevertheless interesting enough to get her hooked initially. She recalls one class discussion centered around “morality and meaning in one’s life, in relation to ideas like motivation and duty,” that sparked an intense discussion with the class’s teaching assistant. “I got nerd sniped,” Xu jokes. “When someone poses such an interesting question or argument, you have to just drop everything to reply to it.”
The TA invited her to sit in on a graduate philosophy reading group, and Xu also joined the MIT Undergraduate Philosophy Club and became a member of its executive board. She spent the spring 2019 semester at Oxford University studying philosophy and physics and in the summer participated in a weeklong summer school on mathematical philosophy for female students at Ludwig Maximilian University.
The jargon of academic philosophy can be as dense as physics terminology, Xu admits, “but I think everyone could use a little philosophy in their lives. … I think questions about life and the world around us can be structured in fascinating ways through the different modes of thinking in philosophy.”
Thoughts about morality and responsibility came into focus for Xu during the Independent Activities Period in 2018, when she worked with the volunteer group Cross Cultural Solutions at the Ritsona refugee camp in Greece, through the Priscilla King Gray Public Service Center. People have asked her how the volunteer work fits in with her other academic interests, and she says the short answer is that it doesn’t.
“I may not make a career out of public service, but I am a human being, and just like any other human being, helping the world is important to me,” Xu explains. “Out there, I can do what any human can do … do laundry or distribute food, and help people through an incredibly difficult time of their lives.”
Xu shared her experiences at the refugee camp in writing, another long-time interest of hers. Inspired by the interdisciplinary science magazine Nautilus and looking for writing partners, Xu founded “Chroma,” MIT’s student-run science and humanities magazine. As editor-in-chief, she has been proud to encourage new writers, artists, and designers on campus to cross-pollinate ideas.
“I think MIT is one of the few places where something like this can blossom, because everyone here is interested in the sciences in some way,” she says.
Xu mostly writes fiction these days, which she calls “variably OK, but hopefully improving.” Last fall she took the class 21W.755 (Writing and Reading Short Stories) to sharpen her skills, “because I have these things that I want to express in my writing but feel like I lack the technique to do. But especially now that I’m quarantined, I’m trying to write more — just getting the reps in.”
Writing also helps her grapple with the nature of reality in a different way, she says. “To write is to build another reality. And to build something, you have to understand it.”
Despite her consistent interest in the fundamental nature of reality, Xu says she does sometimes worry that perhaps she is spread across too many departments. “If I want to do something significant and contribute to this world, does that mean I am lacking focus to do that correctly?”
“But I think you have to stay true to doing the things that pull you in, and that’s the only way you can make a significant contribution to the world.”
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Prisoners in L.A. jail attempt to get COVID-19 for early release
Some prisoners in a Los Angeles jail wanted out but they chose a head-scratching way to try to do so. According to the Los Angeles County Sherriff, a group of prisoners tried to get the coronavirus, hoping that would be their ticket out.
READ MORE: ‘Just Mercy’ launches COVID-19 fund to help the incarcerated
According to the San Jose Mercury News, approximately two dozen inmates passed a cup of water around and shared a mask, likely in the hopes of passing the virus to each other, thinking that would earn them a release from jail, says Sheriff Alex Villanueva.
“There was some mistaken belief among the inmate population that if they tested positive, there was a way to force our hand and somehow release more inmates out of our jail environment, and that’s not gonna happen,” he told media via a virtual press conference.
The men were jailed at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic, Cal. The all-male jail, part of Los Angeles County, is a large jail complex off I-5 in Southern California.
The men were caught on surveillance footage apparently drinking hot water in the hopes of elevating their temperature before a health check, reports CBS Los Angeles.
A week later, there was a 60% increase in COVID-19 cases in the prison, which until authorities saw the tape, they couldn’t explain. Now there are 357 inmates that have tested positive an increase from 123 in less than two weeks.
“There’s a reason why these people are behind bars to begin with, because they violated the norms of society,” Villanueva said at the briefing. “But to then imperil not only their only safety, but the safety of their fellow inmates who did not want to participate in this behavior. It also endangers all the personnel, both the professional staff and the sworn staff.”
READ MORE: Coronavirus rips through notorious Riker’s Island jail complex
Over 5,000 inmates have been released from the Los Angeles County inmate population which had a total of 17,000 inmates in February. The coronavirus has forced the release of non-violent prisoners nationwide as the infection spread.
Social distancing is almost impossible in most prisons and jails and the virus has proliferated. One of the more high-profile felons releases since the epidemic is Black Mafia head Terry Flenory who was sent to home confinement with six more years on his sentence. His brother, Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory, is still awaiting a final decision on his on early release request.
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Black-Owned Talent Agency Opens New Division Focused on HBCU Athletes
TLS Talent Agency is announcing the start of a new division, TLS Sports, and will focus on helping historically black colleges and university (HBCU) athletes become professionals.
According to Black Business, TLS Sports will run independently from the talent agency under the direction of managing director Charles Stinson. The division will focus on HBCU athletes who are looking to fulfill their dreams of playing professional sports. TLS’ Services will include representing professional athletes with negotiating contracts and endorsement deals.
The 2020 NFL draft last month saw only one player from an HBCU school drafted; Lachavious Simmons who attended Tennessee State University. Simmonds was picked in the seventh round by the Chicago Bears and 227th overall.
One reason for the lack of HBCU players drafted was the HBCU combine, a yearly event for college football players from HBCUs to workout and meet with NFL coaches and scouts was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
However, 51 athletes from HBCU schools participated in the 2020 NFL combine, a weeklong event featuring more than 500 prospects hoping to be drafted. The Undefeated also reported that 32 HBCU athletes made opening day rosters in the 2016 NFL season.
Philadelphia 76ers forward/center Kyle O’Quinn is one of the few NBA players that attended an HBCU. O’Quinn averaged 15 points and 10 rebounds during his senior year in 2011-2012. Norfolk State made the NCAA Tournament that season as a No. 15 seed and upset the No. 2 Missouri Tigers.
“We are excited about the launch of TLS Sports and looking forward to helping those who attend historically black colleges or universities that aspire to make it to the next level but are overlooked. Our goal is to approach the business in a different way because the athletes can relate to us in a different way,” says Cicero Leak, CEO of TLS. “The launch of TLS Sports will also help those who attend HBCUs provide them an opportunity to get into the business as well, helping further the next generation.”
Last week, NBA veteran George Lynch, Tracey Pennywell, and a litany of celebrities and comedians hosted Tech 4 COVID, a two-day virtual telethon to benefit HBCUs and students of color at various colleges and universities.
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Georgia AG asks feds to investigate Ahmaud Arbery shows
The shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery and the delay of the arrest of his killers has sparked outrage across the country. On Sunday night, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr released a statement calling for the federal government to investigate the local office’s handling of the murder.
“The request to the U.S. Department of Justice includes, but is not limited to, investigation of the communications and discussions by and between the Office of the District Attorney of the Brunswick Judicial Circuit and the Office of the District Attorney of the Waycross Judicial Circuit related to this case,” the AG’s office said in a statement released Sunday night.
READ MORE: Ahmaud Arbery footage of fatal shooting was leaked by a lawyer connected to the suspects
Arbery was shot and killed by Gregory McMichael and his son Travis McMichael while out jogging through a mostly-white neighborhood on Feb 23. It was another 74 days after the slaying, that the father-son duo were finally arrested and charged with murder. Due, in part, to the release of a video of the incident.
The mismanagement of the case led to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to conduct their own probe and ultimately led to the arrest.
According to a report by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Carr is requesting the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia to lead a “complete and transparent review of how the Ahmaud Arbery case was handled from the outset.”
READ MORE: Candace Owens argues Ahmaud Arbery shooting isn’t about race, draws outrage
Two prosecutors recused themselves due to their relationship with the elder McMichael who was once an investigator in the Office of the District Attorney of the Waycross Judicial Circuit. The actions of two South Georgia district attorneys, Jackie Johnson, of the Brunswick Judicial Circuit, and George Barnhill, of Waycross, are in question.
Attorneys Lee Merritt, Benjamin Crump, and Chris Stewart all welcomed the announcement of the federal probe with a joint statement. “We have requested the involvement of the DOJ since we first took this case,” it reads, “There are far too many questions about how this case was handled and why it took 74 days for two of the killers to be arrested and charged in Mr. Arbery’s death.”
The post Georgia AG asks feds to investigate Ahmaud Arbery shows appeared first on TheGrio.
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