• Technology

by Black Enterprise Shop

June 4, 2021

Get The Most Out Of Your Mac With These 5 Award-Winning Apps

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Getting the most out of your Mac often means exploring outside the stock of pre-installed apps on macOS and the top charts of the App Store. Most of the best workflow, productivity, OS optimization and cyber security apps have been around for years, but they can be hard to find if you’re a first-time Mac user or if you’re not sure what you need.

To make your Mac experience a lot more seamless, we’ve put together the All-Star Bundle, a collection of five award-winning apps for a wide range of tasks like contact management, PDF navigation, cyber security, productivity and more. They’re all super easy to use, and available for only a limited time at just $49.99. Take advantage of this deal, which will only last a few weeks, to get $876 worth of apps for 94% off.

This bundle includes a 1-year subscription to the latest version of Parallels Pro (4.7/5 stars on Trustpilot), the software that lets you run thousands of Windows apps like Microsoft Office, Access, graphic-intensive games and CAD programs on your Mac, without rebooting or slowing it down. If you’re looking to get the most out of your Apple computer, then this software is the real deal.

Other deals in the bundle include a lifetime subscription to FastestVPN, a perpetual license to BusyContacts to help manage your calendars and contacts and Moho Debut to help you create Disney-style 2D movies, cartoons, stop motion, and cut-out animations. It also comes with the Movavi PDFChef, a handy app that lets you open, read, edit, create, and convert PDF files. These softwares will make your computer a better machine for work, recreation and everything in between.

The apps in the All-Star Mac Bundle have a total value of $876, but you can save 94% on this price when you get it here for $49.99. This discount is available for a limited time, just a few weeks, so jump on it fast. Since we’re all on our computers more often than ever, these apps just might make your life improve, and workday run a lot easier.

Prices subject to change.

A 12-year-old boy shot and critically injured a 13-year-old boy over a video game dispute in Memphis, Tenn.

However, 18-year-old Keshun Tuggle is charged with owning the gun used in the incident, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and tampering with evidence after he tried to cover up the video game investigation, The New York Post reported.

The two boys had been playing video games around 3 p.m. on May 30 at the Shadowbrook Townhouses in Memphis, when the younger one got angry and grabbed a gun left behind in the apartment.

The 13-year-old was rushed to a nearby hospital. It is not known who was supposed to supervise the youths.

Originally, Tuggle tried to tell authorities that the 13-year-old got shot in a drive-by altercation, but those claims were dismissed after the 12-year-old admitted his anger got the better of him, which explains why police charged Tuggle with evidence tampering because he tried to hide the weapon.

In the state of Tennessee, contributing to this delinquent act is a class A misdemeanor under the carrying or possession of a weapon, where it states that adults who know that a minor is illegally in possession of a firearm have a responsibility to report it.

His first court appearance is scheduled for Tuesday at 9 a.m.

https://twitter.com/JoneeLewisTV/status/1399114392332029959?s=20

According to Memphis Police, at least 13 children have been killed in 2021 so far, WREG, a local a CBS-affiliated television station licensed to Memphis reported. Members of the community have come together to show support for each other.

“Stop the violence as far as the children and the young teens. We’re really sick of it,” Carlton Greer, a Slingshots of Memphis member, said.

Kobe Bryant’s widow, Vanessa, is not a happy camper these days! Earlier this year, the widow didn’t renew the contract with Nike to extend his longstanding deal with the company. Now, she is furious as there has been a public leak of the Mambacita sneakers she designed that honors her and Kobe’s late daughter, Gianna, who died in a helicopter crash with her father early last year.

 

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A post shared by Vanessa Bryant 🦋 (@vanessabryant)

Bryant played his whole 20-year NBA career with the Los Angeles Lakers. He was a five-time NBA champion, a two-time Finals MVP, and the league’s most valuable player in 2008. During his career, Bryant made the All-Star team 18 times and was the youngest player to ever reach 30,000 points. Bryant retired from the NBA in 2016, scoring an NBA-season-high 60 points in his final game.

The 41-year-old basketball legend died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, Calif., along with his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and seven other people on Jan. 26, 2020.

• News

by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

June 4, 2021

Major Corporations Deloitte, Amazon, and Microsoft on Board With Increasing Black Representation in the Boardroom

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Perkins Coie has recently announced the launch of the Black Boardroom Initiative. The purpose of this initiative is to increase the representation of Black executives on corporate boards. The Black Boardroom Initiative is aiming to place a substantial amount of Black executives on S&P 500 corporate boards by increasing the ratio to 1 in 8 by the year 2028. The initiative will initially focus on the state of Washington.

“Corporate leaders, shareholders, and employees are looking to CEOs and company boards to take meaningful actions against racism and to promote greater diversity within their leadership ranks,” said Bill Malley, Perkins Coie’s firmwide managing partner in a written statement. “It all starts with the board. The Black Boardroom Initiative aims to address this equity challenge by increasing racial and ethnic diversity on corporate boards.”

The initiative is being supported by the likes of major corporations including Deloitte, Amazon, F5, Microsoft, RealNetworks, and Zillow. It will seek to build and maintain a pipeline between executive participants and public companies to address a critical diversity, equity, and corporate governance challenge. Currently, there are 23 executives in the program, and Starbucks also helped support as an event sponsor for the inaugural cohort’s first session.

“There are many benefits to a public company having a more diverse corporate board, including diversity of opinion, stronger corporate governance, and the encouragement of diversity throughout an organization,” said James Williams, co-leader of the initiative and Perkins Coie’s Seattle office managing partner. “Participating Black executives will be supported with substantive, targeted training and networking opportunities, as well as mentorship and an opportunity to benefit from the shared experience of a leading group of Black executive program advisors. I would also like to expressly recognize and thank Michael Parham of RealNetworks, Keith Matthews of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Pat Ogawa and Florence Larson of Deloitte, premier sponsor of the Black Boardroom Initiative, for their collective efforts and contributions in getting the initiative off the ground and without whom our successful launch would not have been possible.

Currently, 1 in 8 Americans identify as Black or African American, but 37% of S&P 500 corporations did not have any Black board members as of 2019. Black directors comprised just 4.1% of Russell 3000 board members.

Due to the financial support by program sponsors, no Black executives will incur any costs to be admitted into the program. The initiative will initially focus on Washington state, but Perkins Coie and its corporate sponsors plan to expand it to other major cities in the coming years.

• Health and Wellness

by Andrea Blackstone

June 4, 2021

The US Has a Maternal Mortality Problem, Illinois is Changing That

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that about 700 women die each year in the United States as a result of pregnancy or delivery complications. Additionally, the CDC defined pregnancy-related death “as the death of a woman during pregnancy or within one year of the end of pregnancy from a pregnancy complication, a chain of events initiated by pregnancy, or the aggravation of an unrelated condition by the physiologic effects of pregnancy.”

In April, Ilinois became the first state to be approved by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to extend Medicaid up to a full year after pregnancy.

“This is tremendous,” KarenTabb Dina told Kaiser Health News as part of a reporting partnership with Illinois Public Media, NPR, and Kaiser Health News. “One of the greatest risk factors for maternal deaths is lack of access to care: not being able to access the right providers and to be seen in a timely manner.”

Tabb Dina is a maternal health researcher who is a part of a state-level committee that attempts to figure out the reasons behind maternal deaths. According to the report, the group’s most recent analysis found that each year, approximately 75 women in Illinois die from pregnancy-related causes.

The article also explained that Medicaid—which is a state and federal program mainly for low-income Americans—covers people with higher incomes during pregnancy. However, most states kick women off the rolls 60 days after giving birth.

“As a result, hundreds of thousands of women who’ve recently had a baby end up uninsured each year,” reports Kaiser Health News.

The National Women’s Law Center pointed out that women with coverage through the health insurance marketplaces may also be eligible for pregnancy-related Medicaid coverage. Some pregnant women in marketplace plans may find switching to Medicaid advantageous during their pregnancy since Medicaid has no cost-sharing for pregnancy-related services. As a result, enrolled women do not have to worry about co-payments for prenatal services or high deductibles for a hospital stay.

 Kaiser Health News also reported that Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, who was sworn in to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in May, said that the pandemic allowed people to see what happens when people do not have health insurance and how important it is.

“Our focus is going to be on making sure regulations and policies are going to be focused on improving coverage,” Brooks-LaSure said in the article.

After a baby is born, assessing emotional well-being is important for healthcare providers, according to experts. Depression can also be a medical complication to note, although it can be overlooked.

“Perinatal depression and other mood disorders, such as bipolar disorder and anxiety disorders can have devastating effects on women, infants, and families; maternal suicide exceeds hemorrhage and hypertensive disorders as a cause of maternal mortality,” American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also concluded.

Several weeks after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, sat down with Oprah Winfrey for a candid interview, documents show that Queen Elizabeth prevented people of color from high- ranked positions and that she hasn’t been liable for discrimination laws for more than four decades.

The Guardian, which delivered the scoop, also reported that the royal palace is racist and has been for a long time without any pushback until Markle came along.

Related stories: MEGHAN MARKLE PENS CHILDREN’S BOOK INSPIRED BY PRINCE HARRY AND HER SON, ARCHIE

In February 1968, TG Weiler was a responsible for immigration, security, and law and order, better known as a home office civil servant. At the time, Lord Tryon, the assistant keeper of the privy purse, or  a chief financial advisor to the queen.

Per a discussion, Tryon said “clerical and other office posts, to which it was not, in fact, the practice to appoint coloured immigrants or foreigners; and ordinary domestic posts for which coloured applicants were freely considered, but which would in any event be covered by the proposed general exemption for domestic employment.”

In basic English: Black people were, and probably still are, only allowed to hold domestic positions, but the royal palace can deny them from having work.

Weiler recalled that Tryon was going to adopt to new U.K. discrimination laws, but the royal palace wanted to be exempt from the employees coming forward with their complaints.

“They were particularly concerned that if the proposed legislation applied to the Queen’s household, it would for the first time make it legally possible to criticize the household. Many people do so already, but this has to be accepted and is on a different footing from a statutory provision,” Weiler wrote.

In the following month, the palace was going to comply with the new discrimination registration, but the exemption made it so that advisers could not be held accountable in the queen’s courts.

The queen’s palace was exempted from the the 1970 Equal Pay Act, the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act, the 1976 Race Relations Act in the country, and by extension, the 2010 Equality Act that replaced the three other provisions against discrimination.

As The Hill reported, records regarding ones race were not kept until the 1990s, the time when people of of color were visibly hired at the palace.

• News

by Andrea Blackstone

June 4, 2021

North Carolina City Where Andrew Brown Jr. was killed Backs Black Lives Matter Mural

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Andrew Brown Jr., a Black man, was killed in April by a sheriff’s deputy in Elizabeth City, N.C. The town is now asking artists to pitch ideas for a ‘Black Lives Matter’ street art project.

The project would be painted on the street in front of the Pasquotank County sheriff’s office, WAVY reported. Councilman Darius Horton introduced the idea. He remarked that he hoped the project, which would paint the words “Black Lives Matter” on the length of Colonial Avenue outside City Hall in downtown Elizabeth City, would send a message to the community that “yes all lives matter, but right now black lives matter”.

To start, artists who want to submit their artwork for the pro bono project must uploaded it to Elizabeth City’s  website by midnight June 9. The artist who receives the most votes will have their artwork illustrated on Colonial Avenue.

“Elizabeth City residents will then be able to review each artist’s submission and vote for their favorite rendering. The voting period will be from 6 a.m. June 10 to 6 a.m. June 16,” WAVY also said.

The Associated Press reported that at least one Pasquotank County sheriff’s deputy shot and killed Andrew Brown Jr., while executing a search warrant April 21 in Elizabeth City, NC.

“Authorities wouldn’t provide details of the shooting but an eyewitness said that Andrew Brown Jr. was shot while trying to drive away, and that deputies fired at him multiple times. The car skidded out of Brown’s yard and eventually hit a tree, said Demetria Williams, who lives on the same street,” the Associated Press reported.

At that time, Horton said that  transparency and accountability would be needed. He called for the immediate release of bodycam footage, the search warrant, and a speedy explanation of whatever led to the shooting, the AP wrote.

WNCN recently added that after deputies shot and killed  Brown, dozens of people from Elizabeth City came to Raleigh to meet with Gov. Roy Cooper and other state leaders to call for greater transparency in that investigation and in similar ones. Additionally, WNCN reported that District Attorney Andrew Womble declined to pursue charges against the deputies. Brown, he said, acted recklessly when he used his car as a “deadly weapon” while attempting to get away from the deputies.

According to to the News & Observer, Brown’s attorneys said an autopsy showed that he had a fatal gunshot wound in the back of his head. Brown was killed the day after former police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of charges for killing George Floyd.

• News

by Jeroslyn JoVonn

June 4, 2021

Oregon Votes to Recognize Juneteenth as Official State Holiday

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On Tuesday, a group of Oregon lawmakers unanimously voted to recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday starting in 2022.

Oregon joined with other states across the country that have passed legislation honoring June 19 as a day recognizing the Emancipation Proclamation, USA Today reported. The bill was first introduced by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown earlier this year and was passed on the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

The holiday was introduced in Oregon back in 1945 when Clara Peoples (dubbed Portland’s “Mother of Juneteenth”) led a celebration during her work break at the Vanport shipyards, KDRV reported.

“We remember the legacy of Clara Peoples, ‘Mother of Juneteenth,’ and the annual celebrations that kept this tradition alive long before this holiday was officially recognized,” Rep. Janelle Bynum (D- Clackamas), Chair of the BIPOC Caucus said after Oregon’s House of Representatives voted to pass the bill in April.

After House Bill 2168 passed the Senate Tuesday, it was sent back to the House for consideration of Senate amendments. Gov. Brown is expected to sign it into law.

“With House Bill 2168, we can learn from another time,” said Sen. Lew Frederick, said in a statement. “We can change the future now, in real time. We can work towards equality–even without a declaration or official holiday. We must. Celebrating Juneteenth will help each of us remember all that we can and must do to ensure a more just future.”

Juneteenth is slowly making its way to becoming a national holiday. States across the country all honor the day except for Hawaii, North Dakota, and South Dakota, according to the Congressional Research Service. The holiday started in Galveston, TX, where emancipated slaves were informed on June 19, 1865, that President Abraham Lincoln had freed people held in bondage in rebel states two years earlier.

The state of Texas was the first to officially recognize Juneteenth, in 1980 with Florida following in 1991, Oklahoma in 1994 and Minnesota in 1996. By the year 2000, Delaware joined.

• Education

by Andrea Blackstone

June 4, 2021

The Home Depot Foundation Partners With 100 Black Men of America Inc. to Provide Skilled Trades Training for Underserved Youth

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Youth often benefit from gaining more skills to become marketable and find out what strikes their interest, although career exploration may not always require earning a college degree. The Home Depot announced that The Home Depot Foundation and a trade training nonprofit partner called Home Builders Institute (HBI), are launching a strategic partnership with 100 Black Men of America Inc. The goal is to increase skilled trade training for Black youth. Skill-building workshops, work experience, internship opportunities, industry-recognized PACT certifications, and preparation for youth to pursue meaningful careers will be provided, according to the announcement. Home Depot also said that in the fall, the three organizations will launch a pilot trades training program to serve marginalized communities in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. The program will be facilitated through 100 Black Men of America’s existing afterschool programs.

“As we work to fill the nearly 300,000 open career opportunities across the skilled trades industry, we have to continue advocating for the inclusion of diverse talent,” Shannon Gerber, executive director of The Home Depot Foundation, said in a press release. “The Foundation is energized to team up with Home Builders Institute, 100 Black Men of America, Inc. and The Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs to focus on eliminating racial and social inequities through education and workforce development programs.”

Chuck Baker, chairman of the board for 100 Black Men of the Bay Area, stated that the grant from Home Depot will help the organization to expand its youth workforce and career readiness initiatives with a specific focus on the building trades that are vital to the economic recovery.

Additionally, The Home Depot Foundation introduced its $250,000 Path to Pro scholarship program. To celebrate the students of Skills USA’s National Signing Day, $30,000 in scholarships were provided. According to the program’s website, The Foundation pledged to invest $50 million in training the next generation of skilled tradespeople and bridging the opportunity gap through it. The scholarships partially require applicants to be a high school senior, a high school graduate, or possess a GED. The website stated that applicants must focus on carpentry, electrical, HVAC, plumbing, or construction management training.

Specialized jobs that require training often pay more. An HVAC technician, plumber, landscape designer, and  a boilermaker are just a small sampling of jobs Indeed listed as some of the highest-paying trade careers.

• Women

by Derek Major

June 4, 2021

President Biden Taps V.P. Kamala Harris To Take Lead On Voting Rights

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President Joe Biden has tapped Vice President Kamala Harris with the two biggest fights in his administration, immigration and now voting rights.

Biden announced Harris will take the lead days before she’s slated to travel to Guatemala and Mexico to discuss curbing migration to the United States with their leaders. The dual-edged sword puts Harris in a tough spot of dealing with a major foreign issue and a major domestic one, but Biden believes Harris is up to the challenge.

“The president sees the vice president as an important partner and somebody who can work to take on challenging and hard initiatives. That’s the role of the modern-day vice president,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Wednesday.

Psaski added that Harris asked to take the lead on voting rights calling it an issue Harris is “personally committed to and passionate about.”

Harris, a Black woman, knows how GOP voting restrictions in the past have hurt Black Americans and is not surprised Republicans have reverted back to suppressing the Black vote after former President Donald Trump was defeated last fall.

Since Trump’s defeat, more than 100 bills restricting voting have been introduced. Florida and Georgia have passed bills restricting mail-in and absentee voting, making it illegal to pass out food and water in voting lines and adding stiff identification requirements. Texas Republicans have also tried to pass their own voting restrictions bill but state Democrats walked out of the session, thwarting the effort. Texas Republicans will keep trying to pass the bill.

According to The Hill progressives and voting rights advocates view Harris taking the lead as a sight the White House is taking the issue seriously.

“She’s the right person and the right level of the administration given how much of a priority this is and how urgent these problems are,” Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice told the Hill.

This month is a crucial one as the drive to pass H.R. 1, also known as the For the People Act of 2021. Harris’ office has not announced her plans, but so far Harris has been involved in talks with NAACP President Derrick Johnson and other voting rights groups.

Because Republicans have refused to vote for the bill as a group, the only path forward would require all 50 Democrats and Harris, who serves as the tie-breaking vote in an evenly divided Senate, to support not only the substance of the bill, but changing the filibuster rule requiring 60 votes to approve major legislation, allowing it to pass with a simple majority instead.

Democrats Joe Manchin III (D-W.V.) and Senator Kyrsten Sinema, (D-AZ) have been adamant in their opposition to end the filibuster.