Brittney Griner Appeal Set for October 25, Wife Says WNBA Star Fears She’ll Be Forgotten
by Jeroslyn JoVonn

October 6, 2022

Brittney Griner Appeal Set for October 25, Wife Says WNBA Star Fears She’ll Be Forgotten

Brittney Griner has to wait a little longer at her chance to get released from Russian custody.

On Monday, the Russian court gave the WNBA star an appeal date for October 25, according to ESPN. The appeal is an effort to overturn Griner’s nine-year prison sentence for drug possession following her August 4 conviction.

The eight-time All-Star center with the Phoenix Mercury has been in Russian custody since February after police found vape canisters containing cannabis oil inside her luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.

Amid news of the appeal, the two-time Olympic gold medalist’s wife, Cherelle Griner, is defending her honor and providing context about how the basketball star has “truly suffered beyond her crime already.”

“On its face it just seems like my wife is a hostage,” Cherelle told CBS Mornings.

“To know that our government and the foreign government is sitting down and negotiating for her release? She’s a hostage.”

Cherelle is hopeful that Griner will come home ahead of the October 25 appeal hearing in a prisoner swap between the United States and Russia. Last month, President Joe Biden met with Cherelle and told her that the White House is doing everything it can to ensure Brittney Griner’s safe return to the States.

“He’s doing what he can,” Cherelle said.

“But there’s another party in this situation, and we also are dealing with the need for Russia to have mercy on B.G. [Brittney Griner] as well.”

“I have heard so many stories about this exact situation happening with Americans going through Russia and at the airport they were told, ‘Pay a fine and go on with your day.’ But because B.G. is Brittney Griner, I do think this got really complicated really quickly,” Cherelle told Gayle King.

Cherelle is mindful of the crime Griner committed in Russia. Despite having a prescription for medical cannabis in Arizona, no amount of cannabis is allowed in Russia.

However, Cherelle says the punishment should be more “balanced.”

“It tears me to pieces to see that this is not balanced for my wife right now,” she said.

“So I want people to see that. To see, has she suffered enough. B.G. [Brittney Griner] has truly suffered beyond her crime already.”

Many feel Griner’s imprisonment is a political ploy than incarcerating a criminal. Cherelle says her wife is “at her absolute weakest moment right now,” and hopes for some good news.

by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

October 6, 2022

Sister, Sister: Tamera Mowry-Housley Says The Mowrys Have Tia’s Back in Her Decision to Divorce Husband

Tia Mowry‘s twin sister, former The Real member Tamera Mowry-Housley, is her biggest cheerleader and is publicly supporting her sister as she works to dissolve her 14-year marriage.

Tamera appeared on Today with Hoda and Jenna to promote her latest book, You Should Sit Down For This: A Memoir About Life, Wine, and Cookies ($27.00, Legacy Lit). The actress also expressed her thoughts about her sister’s pending divorce, which was revealed earlier this week.

“I support her,” Tamera said. “So whatever she wants, the Mowrys have her back. I love her dearly. She is strong, but I know right now she just kind of just wants to, you know, just kind of process it all, take it all in, and be a little private about that. And as a sister, you know, I’m just going to respect that.”

Tia announced she was divorcing her husband Cory Hardrict after nearly 15 years of marriage.

Mowry filed divorce papers in Los Angeles, stating irreconcilable differences between the couple, TMZ reported. She did ask that both get joint physical and legal custody of their two children, son Cree, 11, and daughter Cairo, 4. The Sister, Sister actress also asked the judge to uphold her prenuptial agreement which states that neither she nor Hardrict would receive spousal support.

Although Tia hasn’t commented publicly on the exact reason for the split, rumors have circulated that Hardrict was unfaithful. However, the All American: Homecoming actor, hearing and seeing the rumors, quickly responded to the cheating allegations, denying them and calling them “lies.”

Charges Dropped Against Seven Former Officials For Flint Water Crisis
by Derek Major

October 6, 2022

Charges Dropped Against Seven Former Officials For Flint Water Crisis

A Michigan judge has dropped charges against seven former officials in the Flint Water Crisis, including two former state officials responsible for deaths from Legionnaires’ disease.

According to the Associated Press, the dismissal of the charges came after the state Supreme Court ruled in June that a separate judge acting as a one-man grand jury did not have the authority to issue indictments in the case.

In her ruling, Judge Elizabeth Kelly struck down an effort by the Michigan attorney general’s office to send the cases to the Flint District Court and turn them into criminal complaints, which is typical when filing felony charges in the state.

“Anything arising out of the invalid indictments are irreconcilably tainted from inception…Simply put, there are no valid charges,” Kelly said according to the AP.

The decision comes eight years after Former Governor Rick Snyder took the city of Flint off a regional water system and began using water from the Flint River to save money while a new pipeline to Lake Huron was being constructed. However, the water wasn’t treated to reduce its corrosive properties, and the lead from old and outdated pipes contaminated the water for more than a year.

The lead-poisoned thousands of Flint children, which led to significant health issues such as hyperactivity, learning and comprehension delays and skin rashes.

The Michigan attorney general’s office said “well-connected, wealthy individuals with political power and influence,”  defeated the city’s poor residents.

“There are not adequate words to express the anger and disappointment felt by our team, who have spent years on this case only to see it thwarted based upon a new interpretation of a nearly century-old law,” the office told NPR in a statement.

In addition to lead contamination, the  Flint River also led to a breakout of Legionnaires’ disease, which can cause pain in the chest and lungs, diarrhea, vomiting, and breathing issues. Former state health director  Nick Lyon and former chief medical director Eden Wells were charged with involuntary manslaughter for not notifying the city, which led to the deaths of nine people related to Legionnaires’.

Besides Lyon and Wells, charges were dropped against former Snyder official Rich Baird; former senior aide Jarrod Agen; former Flint managers Gerald Ambrose and Darnell Earley; and former health department manager Nancy Peeler.

by Stacy Jackson

October 6, 2022

CIA Installs Statue to Honor Harriet Tubman As Model Spy

And now, a Black woman sits at the gates of a U.S. government agency.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has installed a statue of abolitionist and social activist Harriet Tubman at the entrance of its headquarters in Langley, McLean, Virginia.  

According to NBC News, the bronze statue shows Tubman holding a lantern and armed with a pistol in her belt. The three other sculptures on the property are white men.

CIA officers who studied Tubman in a leadership class posed the idea to install the statue after learning about her time as a Union Army spy during the Civil War.

Tubman is historically recognized for rescuing enslaved people through her network known as the Underground Railroad.

“What she did was an example of intelligence work, going behind enemy lines, using safe houses and signals intelligence to get people to freedom,” said Robert Beyer, director of the CIA’s museum.

The gesture is an effort to promote diversity among the CIA’s workforce, one of the goals the agency has been committed to over the past two years.

“One of the things that this agency has in place is the idea that our workforce cannot work on worldwide missions without looking like the United States, without looking like the world,” said Janelle Neises, deputy director of the CIA’s museum.

Tubman’s statue was unveiled in September during a ceremony held by the agency as a part of a series of events to celebrating its 75th anniversary. Tubman’s great-great-great grandniece, Tina Wyatt, was in attendance along with her husband, Donald Wyatt.

“As Tubman’s great-great-great grandniece, you have been an outstanding keeper of your family’s history…we are not honoring Tubman simply because of the ops she ran or the intel she collected,” CIA Director William J. Burns said, according to a post on the agency’s Instagram account. “We’re honoring her for the example she set. It’s an example of courage. Of conviction. Of service, and sacrifice, and selflessness. Of all the things we hope to live up to every day at CIA.”

 

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In addition to the sculpture, a newly refurbished museum has opened for agency employees to experience.

“For all of us, this statue will not only remind us of Tubman’s story. It will inspire us to live by her values,” Burns said in a statement to NBC News.

Mississippi Blocks 16% of Its Black Residents From Voting Due To Felony Convictions
by Atiya Jordan

October 6, 2022

Mississippi Blocks 16% of Its Black Residents From Voting Due To Felony Convictions

It has been more than 130 years since white Southern Democrats in Mississippi enacted racist plans as part of the Jim Crow law to suppress the Black vote.

As of 2020, Mississippi is carrying on the same model despite Blacks representing 36% of the state’s total voting-age population. Mississippi Today previously reported that 16%, including 130,000 of its Black residents, have been denied the right to vote because of felony convictions. This number brings the state to the third-highest percentage of disenfranchised Black residents of any state in the nation. That same year, more than 10% of the adult population was prohibited from casting a ballot.

A 2018 analysis by the news outlet found that 61% of Black Mississippians permanently lost their voting rights with no success in regaining that right in the past two years.

The history of felony disenfranchisement traces back to the founding of the nation. During the Civil War, numerous Southern states targeted Black males who had recently gained the right to vote. Policies were tailored to include literacy tests and poll tax requirements to exclude Blacks. At the time, political leaders in Mississippi called for disenfranchisement for offenses such as burglary, theft, and arson, committed by Blacks and not whites.

“Let’s tell the truth if it bursts the bottom of the universe,” said Solomon Saladin Calhoon, a white county judge and convention president, at the 1890 meeting where lawmakers worked on the new constitution. “We came here to exclude the Negro. Nothing short of this will answer.”

Gov. Tate Reeves has vetoed four bills from the 2022 Mississippi Legislative Session, including the one bill that would have “restored the right to vote for a narrow set of people who have had crimes expunged from their record by a judge,” according to The Center for Public Integrity.

“Felony disenfranchisement is an animating principle of the social contract at the heart of every great republic dating back to the founding of ancient Greece and Rome,” said Gov. Reeves in his veto statement. “In America, such laws date back to the colonies and the eventual founding of our Republic.”

Ice Cube Reveals Warner Bros. Blocked His ‘Friday 4’ Scripts
by Jeroslyn JoVonn

October 6, 2022

Ice Cube Reveals Warner Bros. Blocked His ‘Friday 4’ Scripts

Ice Cube has been steadily working to release the fourth installment of his cult classic Friday franchise. But the rapper/filmmaker says Warner Bros. is holding him back.

Ice Cube appeared on the Drink Champs podcast last week alongside the rest of the Rock The Bells heavyweights and opened up about the future of his beloved Friday films. The fourth installment is said to be Last Friday and has been highly anticipated since Friday After Next was released in 2002.

While the Ride Along star has produced at least two scripts for the fourth film, Cube explained how Warner Bros. blocked his efforts.

“I had two scripts. I wrote one, it was the s**t. They were like, ‘Yo, we don’t want Craig and Day Day in jail.’ ‘Cause Craig and Day Day went to jail for selling weed before it was legal,” Cube revealed.

“I was like, ‘What you mean? This s**t is funny.’ Then after they rejected it, they had all these f**king movies about going to jail,” he explained.

Cube said he produced and presented another script to the studio and faced rejection for a second time.

“The other script was about the youngsters in the hood having beef with the OGs in the hood and Craig has to come back and squash that because Smokey’s son is the new Deebo and he’s wilding,” Cube said while describing the axed movie plot.

There have been three installments in the Friday franchise. The original was released in 1995. It starred Ice Cube as Craig, comedian Chris Tucker as Smokey, and late actors John Witherspoon as Craig’s dad Willie Jones, and Tommy “Tiny” Lister Jr. as the infamous Deebo.

Next Friday was released in 2000 and introduced comedian Mike Epps as Day Day. Friday After Next debuted in 2002 and introduced Katt Williams as Money Mike and Terry Crews as Damon.

New Jersey Teen Basketball Standout Shot and Killed; Killer Still on the Loose
by Derek Major

October 6, 2022

New Jersey Teen Basketball Standout Shot and Killed; Killer Still on the Loose

A 16-year-old New Jersey resident was fatally shot by two masked men while leaving his high school on Tuesday.

According to People, Letrell Duncan, a basketball standout at East Orange Campus High School, was found just after 3 p.m. with multiple wounds. Duncan was rushed to University Hospital in Newark, where he was pronounced dead.

The New York Times reported that Duncan left school and was walking with friends when the two men approached the group. The high schoolers exchanged words with the men but the groups ended up walking away from each other. Several minutes later, two people wearing ski masks and carrying guns approached the group, and Duncan was shot four times.

“I’m not sure what was said,” Marsha Douglas, Duncan’s aunt, told The New York Times.

“Something was said. Letrell brushed it off. He was into school and he was into his basketball—that was it,” she added. “Nothing ELSE. school and basketball.”

The 6’1 Duncan played guard for the high school’s varsity basketball team and was the team captain of his club basketball team, the Garden State Bounce.

 

“He was an excellent teammate, a great friend and a coach’s ideal player,” officials with Garden State Bounce wrote on Instagram.

“Our floor general, team captain, and the best point guard our program has seen. You’ve set the bar. We are heartbroken.”

Duncan scored 180 points during his freshman year, helping his high school to a 15-9 record. He was hoping to transfer to Roman Catholic High School, according to Douglas.

Community members told The New York Times there has been growing concern about gun violence in the area. Earlier this year a convenience store clerk was shot and killed several blocks away.

“Our young people are hurting—and so am I,” Mayor Ted R. Green said in a statement, according to People.

“This shooting has shaken our community to its core, and collectively, we must come together to prioritize and protect our young people.”

A GoFundMe for the teen’s funeral and memorial service has received almost $25,000 as of 2:25 p.m. Eastern today.

While several children were let out of school in the area at the time of the shooting no one else was injured. The killer is still at large.

Woman Who Says Herschel Walker Paid for Her Abortion Also Has A Child With Him
by Jeroslyn JoVonn

October 6, 2022

Woman Who Says Herschel Walker Paid for Her Abortion Also Has A Child With Him

The plot surrounding accusations of Herschel Walker encouraging a woman to get an abortion continues to thicken.

Now the anonymous woman who made the allegations is shedding some light that seemingly supports her claims against the Senate hopeful. When the reports first surfaced, Walker quickly took to Fox News to deny the claims and to say he had no idea who made them.

“Not at all,” Walker told Brian Kilmeade. “And that’s what I hope everyone can see. It’s sort of like everyone is anonymous, or everyone is leaking, and they want you to confess to something you have no clue about.”

But that could be unlikely as the unidentified woman says she shares a child with Walker, The Daily Beast reported.

Walker, a former NFL star, is running for a Republican Senate seat in Georgia against Democrat Raphael Warnock. He blasted the abortion claims as a “desperate” attempt by Democrats to knock him out of the race.

“They see me as a big threat, and I know that and I knew it when I got into this race,” Walker said. “But they don’t realize that I think they came for the wrong one. They energized me.”

“They energized me, because I know how they really want to try to keep this seat.”

But the anonymous woman thinks Walker’s defense is comical and believes he might not know who she is since he possibly has so many woman who share the same story.

“Sure, I was stunned, but I guess it also doesn’t shock me, that maybe there are just so many of us that he truly doesn’t remember,” she said. “But then again, if he really forgot about it, that says something, too.”

In addition to the abortion claims, Walker drew the ire of his son Christian Walker, who blasted his Senate-running father for “cutting corners” and “lies.”

“He has four kids, four different women, he wasn’t in the house raising one of them, he was out having sex with other women. Do you care about family values?” Walker said.

Most recently the outspoken socialite responded to the abortion claims surrounding his dad with a gut-wrenching tweet.

https://twitter.com/ChristianWalk1r/status/1577843689279422465?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1577843689279422465%7Ctwgr%5Eeae76301164d6e9eb2d74a73726b90376ad5a32d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mediaite.com%2Fpolitics%2Fchristian-walkers-four-word-response-to-report-hershel-walker-paid-mother-of-his-child-to-get-an-abortion%2F

“Wear a condom, damn,” Christian wrote.

by Stacy Jackson

October 6, 2022

Beyoncé’s Protégé Chloe Bailey Pops Open a Soda and Busts a Move In New Pepsi Commercial

Just like Beyoncé once did, her protégé Chloe Bailey has landed a Pepsi partnership complete with a sexy commercial.

On October 4, an ad dropped with Bailey promoting the return of the mega brand’s Pepsi-Cola Soda Shop.

“This collaboration with Pepsi is a dream come true,” said Bailey, according to a press release.

“I’m so excited to partner with such an iconic brand with a rich history in music and follow in the footsteps of so many renowned female artists who have been part of the Pepsi family for decades. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to re-create the fun, beloved track, ‘Footloose,’ through my creative lens and I hope everyone finds something to love in this modern take on a classic.”

The advertisement presents the 24-year-old’s own modern spin on the 1980s hit song, “Footloose.”

“When I got the ask from Pepsi, I was completely ecstatic and over the moon. I was like, ‘Wow, I get to have my pop star moment’—so early in my career,” one half of  Chloe x Halle shares in an interview with People via Zoom. “Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve always dreamt of this moment.”

Bailey shared her relation to the 1984 “Footloose” storyline of a teenager determined to challenge the legislation in a small town where rock music and dancing had been banned. She discussed her goals to have an EGOT and considered the commercial as an audition for her longtime dream of being on Broadway.

She recalled the moment she saw her mentor Beyoncé in Pepsi’s 2003 commercial.

“When you saw her walking to the Pepsi vending machine, and the guy was so mesmerized. That’s been ingrained in my memory,” she added. “All the icons have had their own Pepsi moment, and now having mine is really surreal.”

Bailey is currently working on a film, Praise This, and her solo album.

Andrew Young, daughter, Atlanta
by BLACK ENTERPRISE Editors

October 6, 2022

The Executive Leadership Council to Honor Ambassador Andrew Jackson Young, Jr. With 2022 Global Game Changer Award

The Executive Leadership Council (ELC) announced today that it will honor the Honorable Ambassador Andrew Young, Jr. with the prestigious 2022 Global Game Changer Award during its 2022 ELC Recognition Gala on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022.

The event is set to take place at the Marriott Marquis in Washington, D.C. at 6:00 p.m. ET and will be hosted by Entertainment Tonight’s Kevin Frazier with performances by Babyface and DJ Jazzy Jeff.

Founded as the preeminent global membership organization for Black current and former CEOs, senior executives, and board members of Fortune 1000 and equivalent companies, The ELC’s Global Game Changer Award honors an individual whose achievements transcend traditional roles for Black Americans, women and other underrepresented people and who represent a dynamic vision of how Black leaders globally can impact the world through political, economic, educational, and philanthropic empowerment and stewardship, according to a press release.

“For more than half a century Ambassador Andrew Young has dedicated his life to helping Black people around the globe,” said ELC President and CEO Michael C. Hyter.

“From teaching literacy and leadership skills in the rural South to serving as aide to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and as the Mayor of Atlanta and ambassador to the United Nations, Ambassador Young exemplifies everything this award is meant to honor.”

Ambassador Young’s remarkable legacy is unapparelled, helping to change the course of history as a leader in the Civil Rights movement, he has been a civic activist, elected official, groundbreaking ambassador, social entrepreneur, and adviser to presidents. He was elected to office in 1972, becoming the first African-American representative from the Deep South to serve in Congress since Reconstruction. In 1977, he was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as the nation’s first African-American Ambassador to the United Nations. Among his many accolades over the years, Young has been the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the French Legion d’Honneur and has received honorary degrees from more than 100 colleges and universities.

Previous Global Game Changer recipients include Colin Kaepernick, former United States Attorney General Eric Holder and former United States Senator Hillary Clinton.

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