Detroit Police,facial recognition
by Iman Milner

July 5, 2023

Wrongfully Convicted Black Man Sues Police Department After Spending 16 Years Incarcerated

Kenneth Nixon, a Black man from Detroit, served a 16-year prison sentence after being found guilty of a murder he didn’t commit. Now that a Wayne County judge has overturned his conviction, Nixon is suing the city’s police department for its life-altering actions.

In a lawsuit filed last week, the now 37-year-old accuses the Detroit Police Department of framing him and using the falsified testimony of an inmate seeking early release to steal nearly two decades of his life, including time spent away from his two young children. According to The Detroit News, Nixon was accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail into the home of Naomi Vaughn, which resulted in a fire that claimed the lives of two of her children. On the night in question, Nixon was at home with his then-girlfriend, a story many witnesses corroborated during his trial. According to the lawsuit, Vaughn’s boyfriend alleged that Nixon started the fire, but his story was inconsistent.

Police relied heavily on a statement from Vaughn’s 13-year-old son that was deemed inconsistent by one of the chief detectives on the case at the time, according to the Huffington Post.

Still, Nixon was found guilty of the murders and sentenced to life in prison without parole. In his lawsuit, he alleges the police used fabricated evidence to help support claims from the teenage boy and Vaughn’s boyfriend. In addition, officers used the testimony of a “jailhouse informant,” whose sentence they promised to reduce, who claimed Nixon had confessed to the murders. It would take 16 years for Nixon to be exonerated. The lawsuit seeks to compensate him for the years he wasted behind bars and to hold police departments accountable for problematic practices that often cost Black and Brown people their futures.

“The constitutional violations that caused Plaintiff’s wrongful conviction were not isolated events,” the lawsuit states. “To the contrary, they were the result of Defendant City of Detroit’s longstanding policies and practices of pursuing wrongful convictions through reliance on profoundly flawed investigations and fabricated ‘informant’ testimony. (Detroit police have) a long history of using the testimony of jailhouse snitches without any regard to the accuracy of their statements.”

guitar, jimi hendrix
by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

July 5, 2023

Jimi Hendrix’s 1961 Epiphone Wilshire Guitar Is On The Market For A Staggering $1.25M

A piece of musical history is for sale, and it could be yours for over $1 million.

According to TMZ, the 1961 Epiphone Wilshire guitar, once owned and played by legendary rock musician and guitar deity Jimi Hendrix (“Foxy Lady,” “Kiss the Sky”) is on the market. According to the Moments in Time website, the instrument can be purchased for $1.25 million.

Hendrix reportedly bought the guitar after being discharged from the Army in 1962. In exchange for the Danelectro instrument he previously owned, he traded it in for the Epiphone Wilshire and paid $65 for it. This took place in early 1963 when he first started performing with King Casuals at Club Del Morocco.

According to TMZ, the guitar was last seen on the open market in 2008; Moments in Time is selling it on behalf of a private collector.

Discogs reported that the band was originally named “The King Kasuals” and started in 1962. Hendrix and bassist Billy Cox founded the band while both were in Clarksville, Tennessee. They started the group after being discharged from the adjacent Fort Campbell Army post.

If this guitar is sold at the requested amount, it will be the highest price paid for an instrument once owned by the rock musician. The Independent reported that in 2016, another guitar that Hendrix reportedly bought for $25 was purchased for more than $254,395.00 at an auction. Then in 2020, a non-branded Japanese sunburst electric guitar from the early Sixties that Hendrix once owned was sold for £171,080 ($217,492.29) at another auction.

On September 18, 1970, the young musician was found dead inside West London’s Samarkand Hotel in the apartment of his then-girlfriend, German figure skater Monika Dannemann. He was only 27 years old. The cause of death was listed as barbiturate intoxication and inhalation of vomit.

Hendricks is part of the “27 Club,” named for young musicians who died at 27. That list includes the likes of Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, Robert Johnson, and Janis Joplin.

Audubon, Buffalo
by Stacy Jackson

July 5, 2023

Racist History Calls For A Name Change For This Bird Conservation Society

The Buffalo chapter of the National Audubon Society is separating itself from a racist history by dropping its name.

According to The Buffalo News, the chapter voted to remove “Audubon” from its name. The outlet noted that the society’s namesake, John James Audubon, bought and sold enslaved Africans and was involved in eugenics work. The chapter will designate a committee to vote on a new name. 

Eleven board members voted in favor of the name change, and one voted against it, according to the chapter’s Executive Director Ed Siriann. The chapter has taken a stand to protect diverse groups of people who are committed to nature and ornithology. Siriann said, according to The Buffalo News, “But recent discoveries about his [John James Audubon] character in the past significantly changed how we feel about being named after him, and we don’t feel our vision and the work we do needs to be named after him.” The executive director said, “We don’t want anyone to feel unwelcome here. Mother Nature is everyone’s mother.” 

Chapters of the leading bird conservation organization nationwide have already divorced from the name, including Seattle and Washington D.C., and others in San Francisco, Detroit, Portland, and Maine are changing their names, according to The Buffalo News.

The name change has only taken effect at the chapter level. According to the outlet, the national society’s board of directors voted to keep its name the same after a year of consideration. 

According to the Golden Gate chapter of the National Audubon Society, the artist behind “Birds of America” was born “out of wedlock” in what is now considered Haiti. Audubon’s father was a French naval officer, and his mother’s identity is unclear. Ironically, some historians have speculated that Audubon’s mother may have been an enslaved woman of color.

In a case of bird watching while Black, Black Enterprise previously reported Christian Cooper was falsely accused of harassing a “Karen” in Central Park in 2020. Cooper is now the host of National Geographic’s Extraordinary Birder.

Beyoncé
by Sharelle B. McNair

July 5, 2023

Beyonce Fans Shook After Sold-Out Pittsburgh Renaissance Tour Is Canceled

If you have plans to attend a Beyoncé concert in Pittsburgh, think again.

The Beyoncé Renaissance World Tour concert stop in Pittsburgh has been canceled, according to a tweet from Acrisure Stadium. The stadium where the concert was supposed to be held says the show will not take place on Aug. 3 due to “production logistics and scheduling issues.” They also claim refunds will be issued immediately.

They continued saying, “Apologies to all those who had tickets to this date – my heart goes out to you,” and encouraged fans to use their refund toward tickets for another date. That may be hard since her shows are sold-out. Once fans got the news, they started expressing concern and shock. One user had plans to see Queen Bey on her birthday and tweeted, “Omg not the show on my birthday.” Another said, “Omigosh this real? What is happening,” while a third threatened that her ticket for the Miami show was still valid. “OMG SHE BETTER NOT THINK ABOUT TAKING MIAMI OUT omggggg what’s happening,” he wrote.

Another user tweeted that this was her second canceled concert, claiming she missed out on a show by singer-rapperJidenna.

The tour has been the talk of the summer. Mirror reports the cancellation comes after Amazon broke the record for first-day merchandise sales from an artist collaboration. Merchandise from the tour went on sale exclusively on Amazon, including t-shirts, sweatshirts, a poster, vinyl records, and digital music.

One of Beyoncé’s fan pages tweeted an image with other rescheduled tour dates. Fans going to the show in Seattle will now see Beyoncé on Sept. 14, and the date for Kansas City has been moved to Oct. 1.

Usher
by Iman Milner

July 5, 2023

How Usher’s ‘My Way’ Residency Has Made Park MGM Vegas’ Main Attraction

Global megastar and eight-time GRAMMY Award winner Usher took his talents to Las Vegas for a string of shows at Caesar’s Palace two years ago. It had been over five years since the ageless heartthrob’s last tour and quite some time since he’d delivered a new album to his adoring fans. However, as one of this generation’s true iconic performers, the then 42-year-old delivered the way he has for the past three decades. The buzz from the performances was so massive that down the way, Caesar’s prime competitor, Park MGM, took notice and made a move to crown the Atlanta-born crooner its king.

Now, a year after Usher’s arrival at Dolby Live, the Usher: My Way The Las Vegas Residency, named to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his second studio album, is the hottest show on the Las Vegas Strip, selling out the theater every single night. Upon entering the city of sin, one may think that Usher’s been here for over one calendar year. His likeness is plastered across billboards in the airport, peering across at you from atop taxis, and on the lips of passersby, all asking the same question: “Are you going to the show?” 

No need to explain; everyone knows…if you’re in Vegas, you must be here to see Usher. 

For Park MGM, it’s a marriage made in debonair, party-til-you-drop, leave your cares behind heaven. After a $550 million transformation from the outdated Monte Carlo Resorts in 2019, the 2,900-room behemoth has been the less trendy and more upscale option for travelers looking to experience Vegas with a side of serenity. Contrary to its size, everything about the European-inspired digs feels like a boutique stay. Right down to its smoke-free policy—the first of its kind on the Strip. And with the opening of its NoMad Las Vegas hotel-within-a-hotel offering, Park MGM has cemented itself as the city’s hotel for those who hope to leave Vegas with memories they don’t mind sharing. 

And being the home to Usher’s one-of-a-kind residency makes it a place to remember. 

Ten minutes away from Park MGM’s front door is Sammy Davis, Jr. Drive, named after the first Black person allowed to perform on the Strip, though he wouldn’t be able to stay at the El Rancho Motel and Casino where his show was held until many years later. After Davis, Lena Horne, Nat King Cole, and Ella Fitzgerald followed suit. Later, Anna Bailey became the first Black showgirl in Vegas’ history, while Black comedians like Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx would also find a home in the bright lights of the Strip in the late 60s and 70s. However, Usher’s popularity has been unparalleled. He is not grasping onto the nostalgia of his heyday, nor is he at the height of his popularity. It’s not a farewell tour or an experience only a day one fan can appreciate. What Usher has been able to do and, no doubt, what Park MGM expected, is capture, at once, the soul of Black culture and harmoniously pair it with the city’s energy. 

There is an homage to those who came before—he starts the show in a perfectly-tailored all-white number that feels plucked off of Davis himself—and an undeniable nod to the era of music that made him a household name. There’s an ode to the stripper-dominant culture of his hometown combined with theatrics and staging that rival the thrilling experience of the neighboring Vegas mainstay, Cirque Du Soleil. And just when you’re ready to get swept up in the spectacle of it all, a single spotlight shines down on Usher, who is alone on stage, having finished a string of ballads that prove his mic is always on, and it’s clear that this level of excellence, of mastery, and execution could be achieved by very few other artists—past or present. No, Usher didn’t need a Vegas residency, but the city desperately needed him. By the time his 2004 No.1 single “Yeah” booms through the speakers, the audience has reached a fever pitch—a mixture of knowing the end has come and gratitude at having spent the last two hours in the presence of one of music’s all-time greats. If your ears are open as the sold-out crowd moves toward the exit, echoes of the words “Girl, we have to come back!” fill the theater’s lobby. 

‘Yeah, man,’ the 44-year-old father of four has redefined what it means to blow the roof off of a place, and Park MGM’s spot in Vegas’ history has been firmly cemented as a result. 

maternal mortality
by Sidnee Michelle Douyon

July 5, 2023

U.S. Maternal Mortality More Than Doubled Since 1999, Most Deaths Among Black Women

The number of U.S. women who died within a year after pregnancy more than doubled between 1999 and 2019, with the highest maternal mortality deaths among Black women.

There were an estimated 1,210 maternal deaths in 2019, compared with 505 in 1999, according to a study published in the medical journal JAMA.

The greatest increases over time were seen among American Indian and Alaska Native women, the researchers said.

The number of deaths per 100,000 live births rose from 12.7 to 32.2 overall, from 14.0 to 49.2 among American Indians and Alaska Natives, 26.7 to 55.4 among Blacks, 9.6 to 20.9 among Asians, Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, 9.6 to 19.1 among Hispanics, and 9.4 to 26.3 among whites, they estimated.

Unlike previous U.S. studies of maternal mortality, which focused on national trends, the current study analyzed data state-by-state.

To the researchers’ surprise, Black women had the highest maternal mortality rates in some Northeast states.

“Often, states in the South are called out as having the worst maternal mortality rates in the nation, whereas California and Massachusetts have the best. But that doesn’t tell the whole story,” study leader Dr. Allison Bryant of Mass General Brigham in Boston said in a statement. “It’s essential to look at the disparities between populations that exist even in the ‘best’ states.”

Southern states had high maternal mortality across all race and ethnicity groups, but especially for Black individuals, while Midwest and Great Plains states had the highest rates for American Indian and Alaskan Native women.

The most common causes of death within one year after the end of pregnancy include mental health conditions, excessive bleeding, cardiac and coronary conditions, infections, blood clots, and pregnancy-related high blood pressure, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Our findings provide important insights on maternal mortality rates leading up to the pandemic, and it’s likely that we’ll see a continued increase in the risk of maternal mortality across all populations if we analyze data from subsequent years,” Bryant said.

“Black individuals would likely still have the highest rate, but there may be a higher uptick in some of the other groups in the last few years.”

California
by Sharelle B. McNair

July 5, 2023

Los Angeles Deputy Drags Black Woman Down To The Ground In New Viral Video

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in California is investigating the use of force on a Black man and woman suspected of robbing a grocery store, MyNewsLA.com reports.

Video of the incident started to circulate on social media showing deputies from the Lancaster, California Sheriff’s Station placing a man in handcuffs who matched the description of one of the suspects given by the store’s security. Suddenly, one of the deputies approached the woman, who was recording. As she is heard telling the officer not to touch her, he violently slams her to the ground.

While in handcuffs, the man yells, “Don’t slam her down like that,” and claims the woman has cancer.

“I was disheartened. That could’ve been my grandmother, my aunt, my sister,” bystander Raycine Ector said. “As you see, the lady in the video was just simply recording her husband’s interaction with the deputies and they came over and attacked her. I would say attack—he grabbed her by her neck and slung her down.”

According to ABC 7, the couple was accused of stealing a cake. Cancel the Contract, a local activist group is organizing a rally outside of the store on July 5, 2023, demanding the department fire the California officers seen on video. The group feels the video shows two officers who are simply out of control.

“That was the allegation—that they had shoplifted a cake,” group member Raquel Derfler said. “So let me be clear, nothing has been proven, but it was alleged…and that’s how they came in hot like that, as though they were brandishing firearms or attacking or assaulting members of the community when it was simply a cake.”

“We take the use of force very seriously and are determined to establish the facts of the incident,” the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. Both deputies have been re-assigned from the field pending further administrative review.

Robin Vos, Affirmative Action
by Sharelle B. McNair

July 5, 2023

Student Scholarships Targeted By Republican Politicians After Affirmative Action Ruling

The Supreme Court’s shocking ruling to end affirmative action has people in an uproar, in particular, Republican politicians like Robin Vos.

In a new move targeting diversity on college campuses, politicians and officials are moving to end minority scholarship programs, MSNBC reports.

Robin Vos, the Republican speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly, responded to a tweet claiming a minority scholarship program designated for students of Black, Indigenous, Hispanic or Asian descent presented a form of discrimination. Vos said he will “introduce legislation to correct the discriminatory laws on the books and pass repeals in the fall.”

Vos is known for being against DEI efforts. He once referred to programs at the University of Wisconsin System as “indoctrination.” After his comments on Twitter, he went on to retweet a user who said Ivy League schools “hate rural whites.”

According to the Associated Press, Vos and state Republicans voted to cut $32 million from the UW System’s budget unless they agreed to use the funds for workforce development over DEI efforts. They also have a plan that will seek to cut close to 200 DEI jobs on the school’s campuses.

While some colleges issued statements saying they will study the decision before any policy changes are made, Missouri’s attorney general, Andrew Bailey, isn’t giving the state any more time, according to Inside Higher Ed.

In a letter sent to all state colleges, Bailey wrote, “Institutions in Missouri must implement the Supreme Court’s decisions immediately…All Missouri programs that make admitting decisions by disfavoring individuals based on race—not just college admissions, but also scholarships, employment, law reviews, etc.—must immediately adopt race-blind standards.”

The University of Missouri system—with campuses in Columbia, Kansas City, Rolla, and St. Louis—issued a rebuttal saying regardless of the ruling, all universities “will honor our financial aid commitments that have already been awarded to our returning and incoming students.”

Christian Basi, a spokesman for the university system, said $16.12 million has been spent in the past academic year on scholarships where race or ethnicity is a factor. The figure represents 5.3 percent of total spending on student aid.

Harvard University To Experiment With Chatbots This Fall
by Daniel Johnson

July 5, 2023

Harvard University To Experiment With Chatbots This Fall

David J. Malan, a computer science professor at Harvard University, who teaches an extremely popular introductory course on the subject will be using an AI bot this fall.

Malan will be attempting to set the parameters of the bot so that it is only useful in certain areas, a clear attempt to thwart instances of academic dishonesty.

As Malan told the Harvard Crimson: “Our own hope is that, through AI, we can eventually approximate a 1:1 teacher: student ratio for every student in CS50, as by providing them with software-based tools that, 24/7, can support their learning at a pace and in a style that works best for them individually.”

Malan’s workload is so intense that even though he has dozens of assistant professors, there simply isn’t enough time for him to devote to students taking the class in person, let alone the millions taking the course online. One of the fears of using artificial intelligence in the classroom from professors has consistently been an acceleration of plagiarism because the programs have become capable of writing at a level that occasionally mimics a human complexity of thought.

Researchers from Harvard University recently signed a petition calling for a pause on any artificial intelligence models more advanced than GPT-4. GPT-4 is the newest artificial intelligence model from OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

This seems to align with Malan’s goals of making the bot one tool among many the students can access. Eventually, Malan wants to be able to use artificial intelligence to assist him in grading student work so that he can direct his teaching assistants’ and teaching fellows’ attention toward spending time assisting students personally.

In a statement delivered to the Harvard Crimson, Malan advanced an argument that programs like ChatGPT and GitHub Co-Pilot are too helpful for the purposes of his class. Malan also noted in his e-mail that students have always been able to access information in creative ways and there is no better way to teach ethics than to allow students to deal with those questions of how to responsibly use technology in a real-world way.

Malan and his team are currently beta-testing the program during summer school classes and hope to deploy a fully realized version in the fall semester.

ChatGPT and other programs like it are large language models, that is, they are programs designed to predict the next word in a given prompt using what is available on the internet. They are generally capable of writing human-like sentences and the more they are used, the more they learn and the more effective they get at mimicking our communication.

In just a couple of years, there has been an explosion of chatbot technology, not just in the academic sector. There have been attempts at using AI to create music, write television programs, and even at least one attempt of using a chatbot to preach a sermon.

These rapid developments have prompted technology leaders such as Tesla’s Elon Musk to call for a 6-month pause in advanced artificial intelligence systems. Musk and other technology magnates signed their names to a petition published by the Future of Life Institute, an organization dedicated to researching the social impact of technology.

As the Boston Globe reported, the petition primarily concerns itself with creating safeguards for advanced artificial intelligence programs and having some sort of oversight to ensure these developments do not outpace our ability to control them.

 

ticket stub, auction
by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

July 5, 2023

Lebron James’ Historic Game-Winning Ticket Is On The Auction Block, Expected To Sell For Over $5K

On February 7, 2023, Los Angeles Lakers’ future Hall of Famer LeBron James became the top-scoring player in NBA history when he surpassed Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Now, a ticket from that particular game is expected to sell for over $5,000 at an auction, according to TMZ Sports. Heritage Auctions obtained the stub, and the auction house anticipates that the memorabilia can exceed $5,000 by the time the bidding is over. With a week to go for bidding, the price has already passed $2,000.

The ticket for the historic game was for a showcase between the Lakers and the Oklahoma City Thunder at the Crypto.com Arena, the home arena of the Los Angeles team. The stub shows that the seat was in the second row of section 209, and the ticket was given a Mint 9 grade by PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator). The Mint 9 grade is only one level down from a perfect Mint grade of Gem Mint, the mint 9 rating is usually due to the condition of the ticket stub having a minor flaw. 

Although this will be a great profit for a used ticket, it will pale in comparison when and if it is time for James’ game-worn jersey to be auctioned. Chris Ivy, the director of sports auctions at Heritage Auctions, revealed to TMZ Sports in February that the jersey James wore in that game could get the owner of it $3 million. James became the NBA’s all-time leading scorer when he scored his 36th point of the game, with 10.9 seconds left in the third quarter against the Oklahoma City Thunder. With the bucket scored, it was 38,388 points over the career of the Lakers forward. Abdul-Jabbar previously held the record for 39 years.

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