During his presidency, Barack Obama was known to be an avid sports fan, especially basketball, which he played all the time. As many basketball fans and casual bracket watchers did every March, the first Black president filled out his NCAA Tournament bracket that showed the teams he predicted would win each round of March Madness and the overall winner.

Now, one of those brackets from 2013 is up at Heritage Auctions. The auction will end March 25.

The whiteboard that the predictions are written on is expected to fetch $20,000, according to the auction house. The listing also states that the actual video that captured him writing on the board shows evidence of the match.

The listing is as follows:

“2013 NCAA Basketball Tournament Bracket Filled Out & Signed by President Barack Obama with Video Match. The forty-fourth President of the United States was the biggest hoops fan ever to occupy the White House, and he made an annual tradition of posting his March Madness bracket for the public every year, a tradition he maintains to this date. This is Obama’s first bracket after his reelection in November 2012, and if you Google “Obama 2013 bracket” you’ll find video of the former POTUS making all of his picks for the last thirty-one games.”

The auction house also states that the whiteboard is “framed behind plexiglass to ensure it isn’t erased.” The board, which measures 36″ x 63,” was originally purchased at an auction where the proceeds benefitted a charity.

The item does have a verified large signature from the former president himself, which has been graded a 10/10.

The 2013 NCAA Tournament bracket that President Barack Obama filled out is about to hit the auction block … and TMZ Sports has learned it could fetch $20,000! https://t.co/r97oyANjnv

— TMZ (@TMZ) March 4, 2023

Obama’s bracket was always widely anticipated and scrutinized when he released it every year.

• Health and Wellness

by Jeroslyn JoVonn

March 6, 2023

Venus Williams Shares Her Commitment to A Healthy Lifestyle For Her And Her Dog Harry

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Purina Pro Plan Sport has a campaign to encourage dog owners to get outside and get active with their pets. So, who better to help spearhead the campaign than tennis champion and proud dog mom Venus Williams?!

The seven-time Grand Slam title holder has partnered with Purina Pro Plan as part of its “Monday Like a Pro” Challenge to get dog owners to maintain healthy lifestyles with their pets.

Starting on Monday, March 13, through May 21, 2023, Williams and Team Pro Plan will issue weekly challenges inviting dog owners nationwide to log active minutes with their dogs and experience the life-changing nutrition of Pro Plan Sport. For each week that achieves one million collective minutes of activity, Pro Plan will donate $15,000 (up to $150,000) to the nonprofit Athletes for Animals.

Taking part in the initiative was a no-brainer for Williams as the campaign aligns with her passion for health and fitness and spending quality time with your dog.

“The “Monday Like a Pro” Challenge encourages dog owners everywhere to get out and get active with their pups while giving back to animals in need,” Williams told BLACK ENTERPRISE. “Talk about a win-win!”

“My dog Harry travels on all my adventures with me, and no matter where we go, we love to go on long walks to take in the local scene, so we’re excited to take on the Monday Like A Pro Challenge together,” she continued.

“What I love about Pro Plan Sport is that it offers game-changing nutrition that fuels active dogs like Harry and helps keep him strong and energized for a lifetime of adventure.”

Williams shared a special bond with her dog Harry that dates back nearly two decades to when she purchased him on a whim.

“Harry is my best friend! I got him 16 years ago – total impulse decision on my part, but definitely the best decision I’ve ever made,” she said.

Despite her busy traveling schedule, Williams makes sure to maintain a nutritious diet for her and Harry. At 16 years old, Harry’s no spring chicken, but Williams aims to prolong his life through a consistent health regimen.

“It’s important to me that his food gives him the strength and stamina to keep up with me – even at 16 years old!” she said. “He loves his life so much and he really lives it to the fullest.”

• News

by Sidnee Michelle Douyon

March 6, 2023

U.S. Needs to Learn all of Black History, Biden says, as Some Republicans Push Curbs

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President Joe Biden on Monday praised the contribution of African Americans in the United States at an event to celebrate “Black History Month,” something presidents from both parties have done for decades.

“History matters and Black history matters,” Biden said to an audience of Black Congress members and government officials. Americans “can’t just choose to learn what we want to know,” Biden said. They need to learn “the good, the bad, the truth and who we are as a nation,” he said.

His remarks from the White House’s East Room come as some conservative Republicans, most notably Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, are pushing for changes to the way Black history is taught in U.S. schools. DeSantis is a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2024.

Florida is also one of roughly 18 U.S. states that in recent years banned the teaching of critical race theory, a graduate-level concept that examines systemic racism.

“We will not as a nation build a better future for America by trying to erase America’s past,” Vice President Kamala Harris said before Biden’s remarks.

Last week, Biden convened families of people killed in hate crimes for a screening of the movie “Till,” about Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Black boy whose murder in 1955 galvanized the civil rights movement.

About 50 million Americans, or some 15% of the U.S. population, identify as “Black alone” or “with another race,” the U.S. Census Bureau said in 2021.

Presidents in the past have often used the occasion of Black History Month to note the unfulfilled promises made to Black Americans.

Ronald Reagan declared the month a holiday in a 1986 proclamation, saying “the American experience and character can never be fully grasped until the knowledge of black history assumes its rightful place in our schools and our scholarship.”

Many Americans “struggle,” Reagan noted, “for full and unfettered recognition of the constitutional rights of all.”

Noting the celebration’s 2008 theme honoring historian Carter G. Woodson and the “Origins of Multiculturalism,” then-President George W. Bush in a speech: “Our Nation is now stronger and more hopeful because generations of leaders like him have worked to help America live up to its promise of equality and the great truth that all of God’s children are created equal.”

Global Children’s Financial Literacy Foundation (GCFLF) Co-Founders and Navy veterans, Prince Dykes and Chadrick Davis, have launched a kid’s book club that awards $40,000 worth of stocks and books. GCFL Co-founders newest initiative drive focusing on the emergence of practical financial habits beginning in the earlier childhood stage. Based on a children’s financial literacy book series called Wesley Learns, inspired by Prince Dykes to teach his son Wesley, the book club program emboldens kids to read financial books that will help develop and strengthen their investment acumen. It requires participants to read three books: Wesley Learns about Credit, Wesley Learns to Invest, and Wesley Learns about Insurance. Upon completion of the program, participants are awarded the opportunity to receive stock options.

This non-profit organization continuously strives toward imparting education and actively advocates solutions for children’s financial literacy. “We believe everyone should invest into children at the youngest age possible to benefit the most from the magic of compound interest,” words rendered by GCFL Founder, Prince Dykes. Dykes continues emphasizing its charter that “children are the future of this world, and they need to be exposed to investing, credit and insurance as soon as possible.”

GCFL earmarks disparity among military and disenfranchised communities by providing a book club that aids the economic gaps and skyrocketing inflation in the U.S. The Founders recognize that a plethora of underserved communities lack the knowledge and tools for investing. Dykes and Davis employed tangible products to lessen disproportion in financial education and economics. Wesley Learns program is available across the U.S.

GCFLF regularly attends financial literacy conferences, workshops, and seminars designed to teach children the importance of saving, budgeting, credit, and investing. They collaborate with community stakeholders, such as schools, parents, local businesses, and youth organizations, to help bring a dramatic improvement in the grassroots across America.

Global Children’s Financial Literacy Foundation thanks its organization sponsorships such as Mawer Investment Management Ltd ($10,000 Canadian dollars); Executive Leadership Council ($10,000); Sam Austin ($10,000 worth of stocks) and Marcel Erin who matched donations up to $10,000 in the inaugural Wesley Learn Book Club drive.

If interested in donating or learning more about the program, visit www.gcflf.org

This news first appeared on blacknews.com

• News

by Sidnee Michelle Douyon

March 6, 2023

In Selma, Biden Presses for Voting Rights on ‘Bloody Sunday’ Anniversary

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President Joe Biden pressed for the passage of measures to strengthen U.S. voting rights during a visit to Selma, Alabama, on Sunday to commemorate the 58th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” when state troopers beat peaceful protesters marching against discrimination.

Biden’s trip is his latest event aimed at underscoring his commitment to Black voters, who helped propel him to the White House and remain a key constituency going into his expected 2024 re-election bid.

It also came as his efforts to pass voting rights legislation have stalled in Congress.

“Selma is a reckoning. The right to vote and to have your vote counted is the threshold of democracy and liberty,” Biden said in front of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where state troopers clubbed and used tear gas against the 1965 voting-rights marchers.

“With it, anything’s possible. Without it, without that right, nothing is possible. And this fundamental right remains under assault.”

After his remarks, Biden marched across the bridge accompanied by civil rights leaders Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and members of his administration.

Coverage of the brutality of that day against the marchers, including John Lewis, a Black civil rights activist who went on to become a U.S. congressman, shocked the nation and helped spark the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Biden said Congress must pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, bills that would make Election Day a holiday, register new voters and strengthen U.S. Justice Department oversight of local election jurisdictions with a history of discrimination.

Republicans, who control the U.S. House of Representatives, oppose the measures.

Biden made a veiled reference to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a potential presidential candidate, and other Republicans who have criticized and even outlawed some educational efforts about racism and slavery.

DeSantis recently rejected an Advanced Placement high school course in African American studies claiming that it contained a political agenda, drawing criticism from civil rights leaders and educators.

“No matter how hard some people try, we can’t just chose to learn what we want to know and not what we should know,” Biden said. “We should learn everything: the good, the bad, the truth of who we are as a nation.”

The president, who has said he intends to run for re-election, has sought to buttress his support from African American voters. Last month, the Democratic National Committee approved a shakeup of the party’s 2024 primary calendar, making South Carolina – a state with a high percentage of Black voters – first in line for holding its presidential nominating contest, displacing Iowa.

In January, Biden spoke at the Atlanta church of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Biden’s visit to Selma follows Vice President Kamala Harris’s trip there last year for the anniversary of the march.

“If we are to truly honor the legacy of those who marched in Selma on Bloody Sunday, we must continue to fight to secure and safeguard the freedom to vote,” Harris said in a statement on Sunday.

Then-President Barack Obama spoke at the 50th anniversary of the march in 2015 and walked across the bridge with his wife, Michelle, and Republican former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura.

• News

by Sidnee Michelle Douyon

March 6, 2023

US agency Sues Exxon for Discrimination After Nooses Found at Plant

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Exxon Mobil Corp was sued for racial discrimination by a U.S. federal agency on Thursday, with charges alleging that the oil major failed to protect workers from harassment after nooses were found at one of its facilities in 2020.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) said in a statement that a Black employee at Exxon’s chemical plant in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, found a hangman’s noose at his work site in January 2020.

The EEOC said that at the time of this report, Exxon was already aware of three other such instances of nooses being displayed at the complex and a nearby refinery, and that a fifth noose was reported later in 2020.

According to the EEOC, Exxon investigated some of these incidents, but not all, and “failed to take measures reasonably calculated to end the harassment.”

The federal agency alleged that Exxon’s actions and omissions regarding the noose incidents “created a racially hostile work environment.”

Exxon said it disagreed with the EEOC’s findings and allegations.

“We encourage employees to report claims like this, and we thoroughly investigated. The symbols of hate are unacceptable, offensive, and in violation of our corporate policies”, Exxon said in a statement.

(Reporting by Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru; Editing by Christopher Cushing)

In the first ruling written by President Joe Biden’s appointee Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with 30 states that argued that Delaware had no right keep hundreds of millions of dollars in uncashed MoneyGram checks for itself.

The ruling authored by Jackson, who was confirmed last year by the Senate as the newest of the nine justices, was unanimous. Jackson wrote that the unclaimed funds generally belonged to the states where the MoneyGram financial products were purchased and not to Delaware, the state where the world’s second-largest money transfer company is incorporated.

Many of the largest U.S. companies are incorporated in Delaware. For the state, unclaimed property has become a big money maker. It accounted for $448.6 million of Delaware’s $5.4 billion in revenue in 2021, making it the third-largest source of revenue.

Jackson, the first Black woman to serve as a justice, is one of three liberal members of a court with a 6-3 conservative majority. Jackson is the only justice appointed to the court by Biden, a Democrat. His Republican predecessor Donald Trump was able to appoint three conservative justices during his four years in office. Jackson replaced retiring liberal justice Stephen Breyer and was sworn in to the role in June.

In the ruling, Jackson wrote that generally a state under its power called “escheatment” can take possession of abandoned property if it is located within the state.

But in the case of MoneyGram checks, Jackson said a federal law known as the Disposition of Abandoned Money Orders and Traveler’s Checks Act enacted in 1974 governs and generally gives the rights to the states where the checks were bought.

Under that law, money orders that go uncashed can be generally taken by the state in which they are purchased.

Delaware contended the MoneyGram financial products at issue, which were known as “official checks,” did not qualify under that law as “money orders” or “other similar written instruments.” Those checks are prepaid financial instruments that can be bought at banks or credit unions that can be used to transfer funds to a named payee.

From 2002 to 2017, Delaware took possession of $250 million in uncashed MoneyGram checks that were bought around the country, even though only $1 million was bought in Delaware itself, Jackson noted.

A group of states including Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Arkansas took Delaware to court, arguing that the 1975 law applied, and an independent arbiter tasked by the Supreme Court to conduct an initial assessment of the case at first sided them.

But the arbiter, U.S. Circuit Judge Pierre Leval, later agreed with Delaware’s view that they were not legally money orders but were “third-party bank checks.”

Jackson rejected that position, saying the financial instruments were similar to money orders in function and operation by allowing prepayment of a specified amount to a specific person.

“And none of the differences Delaware identifies relates to the statutory text or ordinary meaning of a money order,” Jackson wrote.

• News

by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

March 5, 2023

White Reporter Addresses Black Mayor as ‘Bruh’ in Tweet, Loses Job

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A Dallas Morning News education reporter  has been fired after referring to the city’s Black mayor as “Bruh” in a since-deleted Twitter response, according to D Magazine.

Mangrum was responding to a tweet Mayor Eric Johnson had sent out chastising local news outlets for not focusing on the lower crime rates in Dallas. He remarked that if the stats were the opposite and Dallas was leading in increased violent crime rates, that they’d report that news daily. He also acknowledged the work that the Dallas Police Department.

“Our local media have no interest in reporting on this data, which is why you haven’t heard about it. But you better believe if Dallas was leading the nation in violent crime INCREASES you’d be hearing about it daily. It’s sad, really. Kudos to @DallasPD and our residents!”

Former NBA player Carlos Boozer appeared in an ESPN video to “tell” a story about the time when he rented out his house to Prince, according to AfroTech.

In the video, Boozer says when he signed a contract with the Utah Jazz in 2004, he bought an estate in the Bel Air. He then flew back to Utah to join the team. He started getting phone calls from his agent hat people were inquiring about renting the house from him.

Boozer wasn’t interested, an offer he couldn’t refuse made him rethink things.

His agent told him that someone wanted to rent out the residence for a year and would pay $95,000 a month. After hearing the shocking offer, he admitted that he asked if that amount was real. It was. He relented.

Boozer flew back to Los Angeles to complete the deal. When the renter pulled up, he was shocked to see that it was the musician Prince.

Several months later, Boozer suffered an injury and headed back to LA for rehab. “I go to the street where my house is at, and I pull up and I go to what I think is the property and I’m like, ‘Is this my house?’ I know I haven’t spent much time here, but this don’t look like my house.

“So I type in the passcode to the gate, and it opens up right away. As I’m driving up the long driveway to my house, it was this big purple rug that was going from the motor court area all the way up to the front door. And I’m like, ‘What the f**k is going on?’” There were other changes—including turning his weight room into a a nightclub—that upset Boozer since they were not part of the agreement, but he couldn’t do much about it.

After all, Boozer told ESPN, “nobody really wants to sue Prince.”

And he didn’t have to, because—

“Out of nowhere, I get a call at like, three in the morning and it’s P. And he goes, ‘Hey Booz, listen I’m so sorry I’ve been on tour, I’m in Asia. Don’t worry about anything. When the lease is over and I move out, the house will look like I was never there.”

And, according to Boozer, Prince kept his word.