Restaurant Punishes Customers Who Wear Masks; Defies CDC COVID-19 Guidelines
There is a restaurant that punishes those who chose to follow CDC COVID-19 spread prevention protocols disguised as giving to charity. And likewise, it rewards those who throws away their masks.
This bizzare eatery is called Fiddlehead’s Cafe in Mendocino, CA, and the establishment is proud to be an all you can eat, anti-mask dining experience, NBC News reported.
The owner of Fiddlehead, 34-year-old Chris Castleman, has a sign posted penalizing mask wearers $5, which will be donated to the domestic abuse organization, Project Sanctuary,
“I don’t think $5 to charity is too much to ask from mask-wearing customers who claim to care so much about the community they live in,” Castleman told NBC. “It’s about time that the proponents of these ineffective government measures start paying for the collateral damage they have collectively caused.”
NBC also reports that Castleman will fine customers who get “caught bragging” about being vaccinated, according to a couple of the posted signs.
In March, Castleman reportedly had a promotion that discounted customers 50 percent if they discarded their masks into the trash.
“I don’t believe in mask wearing,” Castleman added. “Our customer base has been strongly aligned with our beliefs, but I think some are really angry at our cafe. It’s their choice. They can choose what business they support. They can go to any other business in my county, state.”
However, the strange fees are not enforced, Castleman said, adding, “I don’t force anyone to pay. I give them the freedom of choice, which seems to be a foreign concept in these parts of the country.”
Mendocino County, where the restaurant is located in, does not have a mask mandate, enabling Castleman to have signs that allow customers to throw caution to the wind.
Sean Combs, Salesforce to Bring Black Brands to Digital Marketplace
Sean Combs is making it easier for you to know where you can support Black business owners.
Combs Enterprises and Salesforce have collaborated on SHOP CIRCULATE, a curated digital marketplace that allows consumers to discover and buy products exclusively created and sold by Black entrepreneurs. This new platform will be created and supported by Deloitte Digital, a global strategic partner for Salesforce.
“Building Black wealth starts with investing in Black-owned businesses and giving entrepreneurs access to the consumers needed to build sustainable companies that can thrive,” Combs, chairman of Combs Enterprises, said in a written statement. “I’m excited to partner with Salesforce to create a platform that will advance our collective pursuit of economic justice.”
SHOP CIRCULATE has acquired the Nile List, a digital community that connects people who want to support Black-owned brands. Combs Enterprises has appointed its founder, Khadijah Robinson, as head of product, where she will oversee the development of and spearhead all SHOP CIRCULATE worldwide efforts.
SHOP CIRCULATE is also partnering with Official Black Wall Street, a directory to discover Black-owned businesses, with founder Mandy Bowman joining as an advisor.
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“Salesforce is honored to collaborate with Sean Combs and Combs Enterprises to help close the unjust wealth gap that prevents too many Black Americans from achieving economic equality,” said Marc Benioff, chair and CEO of Salesforce. “SHOP CIRCULATE will empower us all—as individuals, communities, and companies—to support Black-owned businesses, amplify the talent of Black entrepreneurs, and move us closer to true equality.”
The SHOP CIRCULATE platform will launch later this year. It will feature a list of businesses across various categories, including beauty, health, and home.
“Deloitte’s purpose is to make an impact that matters. As the largest professional services organization in the world, we have a responsibility to help level the playing field and advance opportunities for the Black community in business,” says Punit Renjen, Deloitte Global CEO. “This is one of the most effective ways for organizations like ours to do our part in ending systemic bias, racial injustice, and unequal treatment in all its forms.”
UNC’s Top Donor Lobbied Against Nikole Hannah-Jones’ Hiring Due to “The 1619 Project”
Where there’s smoke there’s fire and that’s the case when it comes to Nikole Hannah-Jones’ tenure snub at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The New York Times writer behind “The 1619 Project” recently shared her intentions to sue the school after learning her Knights Chair position in the school of journalism didn’t include the tenure that typically comes with the position. Now following her lawsuit announcement, it’s been revealed why the school possibly declined the offer.
According to HuffPost, Walter Hussman donated $25 million to the school to get a building named after him. The school’s top donor also fiercely opposed her hiring due to his criticism over “The 1619 Project.” The alumnus reached out to at least one Board of Trustees member, a few senior administrators, and at least one other donor to express his opposition to Hannah-Jones coming on board, The Assembly reported.
“I worry about the controversy of tying the UNC journalism school to the 1619 project,” Hussman allegedly wrote in a December email to the school dean, Susan King. “I find myself more in agreement with Pulitzer prize-winning historians like James McPherson and Gordon Wood than I do Nikole Hannah-Jones.”
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette publisher also accused Hannah-Jones of pushing an “agenda” through “The 1619 Project.”
“These historians appear to me to be pushing to find the true historical facts,” he continued. “Based on her own words, many will conclude she is trying to push an agenda, and they will assume she is manipulating historical facts to support it. If asked about it, I will have to be honest in saying I agree with the historians.”
“The 1619 Project” has been under attack by conservatives who take issue with it presenting slavery at the center of American history. During Donald Trump’s final days in office, he threatened to withhold federal funding from schools that taught the curriculum.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recently spoke out against “The 1619 Project’ demanding for its removal from federal grant programs. Hannah-Jones has linked up with a legal team in her fight for tenure at UNC-Chapel Hill.
117 Texas Hospital Staff Workers Sue Over Vaccine Mandate
Over 100 staff members at a Texas hospital are suing following the company’s decision to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine or face termination.
On June 7, Houston Methodist Hospital will start firing employees who don’t have the COVID-19 vaccine, Bloomberg reports. They’re the first company in the country to implement such harsh consequences to their team members. About 99% of the hospital’s 27,000 employees already have the vaccine. But for those who don’t, they only have one week to do so or face termination.
In response, 117 staffers came together on Friday to launch a lawsuit against the hospital over claims of violating the Nuremberg Code. The World War II-era code policy was designed to prevent medical experimentation on unwilling human subjects like those enforced on Nazi concentration camp victims.
“It is legal for health care institutions to mandate vaccines, as we have done with the flu vaccine since 2009,” Marc Boom, the hospital’s chief executive officer wrote in a note, via ABC News. “The Covid-19 vaccines have proven through rigorous trials to be very safe and very effective and are not experimental.”
However, Jared Woodfill, a lawyer for the holdouts, spoke against Boom’s note saying that COVID vaccines haven’t been fully approved by federal regulators and aren’t allowed to be mandatory under U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s current rules.
“Methodist Hospital is forcing its employees to be human ‘guinea pigs’ as a condition for continued employment,” Woodfill said in court papers. “This, as a matter of fact, is a gene modification medical experiment on human beings, performed without informed consent. It is a severe and blatant violation of the Nuremberg Code and the public policy of the state of Texas.”
He has since asked a judge to hold the firings and also accuses the mandate of wrongful discharge and violating Texas’s at-will employment laws, NY Daily News reports. Hospitals around the country have their eyes peeled on this case as they face similar circumstances to determine how to roll out the vaccine.
Do Beyoncé and Jay-Z Own the World’s Most Expensive Car?
When you are a hip-hop billionaire, you can purchase whatever you like and have no regrets or have to worry about how it will be paid for. Rumors are circulating that Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter have purchased the most expensive vehicle in the world.
According to New York Post’s Page Six, the “anonymous” buyer who commissioned the custom-built Rolls-Royce Boat Tail was sold to The Carters based on features that point back to the billionaire husband-and-wife team. The price tag for the vehicle? An astounding $28 million!
This would make the custom-made Rolls-Royce the world’s most expensive car. It is rumored to be only three of these in existence.
Jay Z and Beyoncé are now the owners of the most expensive car in the world.
The Rolls Royce Boat Tail was designed specifically for the couple and reportedly costs $28.4 million. pic.twitter.com/8SNTBJ8mv0
Last week, Rolls-Royce revealed this latest vehicle to the world via its Instagram account.
“Boat Tail is a revelatory Coachbuild by Rolls-Royce creation. Designed over years in intimate collaboration with its owners, Boat Tail’s form is dramatic in curvature, monolithic in scale, and crafted from one seemingly endless surface.
“Coachbuild invites individuals of extraordinary achievement, culture, and vision to craft an entirely original motor car — and stake claim in the marque’s legendary history. With Coachbuild, one realises a dream in partnership with the world’s finest designers, engineers, and artisans.”
“It’s thought this fantastic car has been commissioned by Beyoncé and Jay-Z with all its detailing matching their favorite things,” an industry source has revealed to the UK’s Telegraph.
It took four years for the car to be built to the exact specifications of the “anonymous” buyers.
President Joe Biden To Be First Sitting U.S. President To Visit Tulsa Race Massacre Site
Reuters -Joe Biden on Tuesday will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit the site of the massacre of hundreds of Black Americans by a white mob in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as he marks one of the worst chapters in the country’s history of racial violence.
President Biden will meet with the handful of surviving members of the Greenwood community on the 100th anniversary of the killings, and announce steps to combat inequality, White House officials said.
They will include plans to expand federal contracting with small, disadvantaged businesses, invest tens of billions of dollars in communities like Greenwood that suffer from persistent poverty and pursue new efforts to combat housing discrimination.
The president will address the U.S. legacy of racist violence, and the challenges to unity ahead, an administration official said. Biden cannot fulfill his promise to restore the “soul” of the nation without recognizing the complexity of U.S. history, the official said.
In a proclamation on Monday, Biden asked all Americans to “reflect on the deep roots of racial terror in our Nation and recommit to the work of rooting out systemic racism across our country.”
His visit comes during a racial reckoning in the United States as the country’s white majority shrinks, threats increase from white supremacist groups and the country re-examines its treatment of African Americans after last year’s murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer, which sparked nationwide protests.
Biden, who won the presidency on the strength of Black voter support, made fighting racial inequality a key platform of his 2020 campaign and has done the same during his short tenure in the White House. He met last week with members of Floyd’s family on the anniversary of his death and is pushing for passage of a police reform bill that bears Floyd’s name.
Biden’s trip to Tulsa will also offer a sharp contrast to a year ago, when then-President Donald Trump, a Republican who criticized Black Lives Matter and other racial justice movements, planned a political rally in Tulsa on June 19, the “Juneteenth” anniversary that celebrates the end of U.S. slavery in 1865. The rally was postponed after criticism.
“Now here we are a little less than a year later with a new president going down to Tulsa to … denounce the massacre of innocent African-American brothers and sisters, denouncing racism in his trip, encouraging Americans to come together,” said Moe Vela, a former adviser to Biden.
Public awareness about the killings in Tulsa on May 31 and June 1, 1921, which were not taught in history classes or reported by local newspapers for decades, has grown in recent years.
White residents shot and killed up to 300 Black people and burned and looted homes and businesses, devastating a prosperous African-American community after a white woman accused a Black man of assault, an allegation that was never proven.
Insurance companies did not cover the damages and no one was charged for the attacks.
Biden’s visit “encourages unity and gives hope,” said Frances Jordan-Rakestraw, executive director of the Greenwood Cultural Center, a museum about the massacre. “It is necessary that we share with each generation the past and the significant imperfection of inequality.”
BIDEN’S COMPLICATED HISTORY ON RACE
Biden’s public stance on race and equality has evolved over the decades.
He won the Democratic presidential nomination last year largely because of Black voters, whose support helped him clinch the South Carolina primary, which turned around his campaign.
Biden earned their goodwill as vice president under Barack Obama, the first Black U.S. president, and chose Kamala Harris, the child of a Black father from Jamaica and an Indian mother, to be his running mate.
But he came under fire during the 2020 campaign for his opposition to school busing programs in the 1970s that helped integrate American schools. Biden sponsored a 1994 crime bill that civil rights and justice experts say contributed to a rise in mass incarceration, and defended his work with two Southern segregationist senators during his days in the U.S. Senate.
“We all evolve, we grow, we learn. And I credit him for that,” Vela said.
Biden “does not seem to be the Joe Biden of the crime bill, but he has never repudiated the crime bill,” said William Darity Jr., a professor at Duke University, who co-wrote “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twentieth Century.”
The Tulsa visit would be a meaningful time to announce a presidential commission to “explore the history of America’s racial atrocities, and bring forth proposals for racial justice,” Darity said.
The racial justice issue also figures in the growing battle over voting rights. Multiple Republican-led states, arguing a need to bolster election security, have passed or proposed voting restrictions, which Biden and other Democrats say are aimed at making it harder for Black and other minority voters to cast ballots.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Heather Timmons; Editing by Peter Cooney and Alistair Bell)
Boston Celtics Fan Charged With Felony After Throwing Water Bottle at NBA Star Kyrie Irving
These days, it seems like it’s safer for basketball players to be on the streets than inside professional basketball arenas.
The onslaught of basketball fans assaulting basketball players in National Basketball Association (NBA) arenas during this season’s playoffs continues. A Boston Celtics fan has been charged with a felony after throwing a water bottle at Brooklyn Nets’ guard, Kyrie Irving.
According to Sporting News, Cole Buckley, 21, was arrested immediately on Sunday after the incident at the TD Garden in Massachusetts. Buckley has been charged with “assault and battery with a dangerous weapon” and will be arraigned on Friday. He also faces a lifetime ban from the arena.
Jennifer Eagan, a reporter for WCVB reported the news on Twitter as well.
Boston Police say Cole Buckley, 21, of Braintree was arrested at TD Garden after “a witness reported he threw a Dasani water bottle that grazed the head of Irving.”
Buckley is charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. He’ll be arraigned tomorrow in #Boston. #WCVB
The 21-year-old male who threw a water bottle at Kyrie Irving faces assault and battery with a dangerous weapon charge and will be arraigned on Tuesday, Boston PD say.
A second fan in Boston was also arrested Sunday night due to assault and battery of a police offer. https://t.co/lHhMiV4ur5
Mo’Nique Sparks Debate After Telling Black Women to Stop Wearing Bonnets and Pajamas in Public
Actress Mo’Nique went viral over the weekend after she took to Instagram to shame Black women out of wearing bonnets and pajamas out in public.
The Oscar-winning actress was ironically wearing a gray bathrobe as she explained how taken aback she was during a recent trip from Atlanta to Mississippi where she saw Black women wearing bonnets, slippers, pajamas, and blankets at the airport.
“Represent Yourself With Pride. Hey my sweet babies! Show YOURSELF that you deserve the best for YOURSELF! I LOVE US 4 REAL,’ she captioned the video post.
In the video, she told her one million followers as an “auntie” in Black Hollywood, “there are times that auntie has to talk to her babies and say some real sh*t.”
She explained what she had seen during her travels. “I’ve been seeing it not just at the airport. I’ve been seeing it at the store, at the mall … ” Mo’Nique said, as captured by Yahoo News. “When did we lose our pride in representing ourselves? When did we slip away of let me make sure I’m presentable when I leave my home?”
She noted that women don’t always have to wear a “full face of makeup” or a lacefront when out in public. But she asked women to at least, “comb your hair?”
“I’m not saying you don’t have pride but the representation that you’re showing someone will have to ask you to know if you have it,” Mo’Niqu added. “It’s not to get a man…it is just your representation of you, my sweet babies.”
She ended her message with a “warning,” telling the young “queens in training” that if she sees them “in the streets, in the airports, in the Walmart and you got a bonnet on and you got slippers on and you looking like what the f*ck.”
“Auntie Nikki ‘gon tap you and say, ‘Hey baby girl, show you what you’re worth, show you what you deserve.’”
It didn’t take too long for Mo’Nique’s message to stir up a debate on social media with many speaking out for or against her stance. Rapper Tokyo Vanity hopped into The Shaderoom’s comments and asked the critics to just mind their business.
“Ya’ll aggravating me with the airport judgment if you don’t like bonnets in public don’t wear one,” she said.
Former NFL player Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson took to Twitter to profess his love for women wearing bonnets.
“A woman in a bonnet in public with a wife beater and those rubber shower shoes with a fresh pedicure,” he wrote with the heart eyes emoji.
It looks like it’s to each their own. Just be careful wearing that bonnet around Auntie Mo’Nique.
Black Mom Blasts Plea Deal Given To Former Astronaut Who Killed Her Daughters In 2016 Car Crash
A Black mom who lost her two daughters when former NASA astronaut James Halsell Jr., crashed his car into their father’s car, blasted the judge for sentencing Halsell to four years in prison.
Halsell, a former NASA space shuttle commander, was indicted for reckless murder charges in the 2016 deaths of 11-year-old Niomi Deona James and 13-year-old Jayla Latrick Parler. Last week, Halsell pleaded guilty to two manslaughter and two assault charges and was sentenced to four years in prison without early release, followed by 10 years of supervised release.
Latrice Parler, the mother of the two girls, was in court with several relatives for Halsell’s sentencing. She told AL.com that justice wasn’t served and Halsell’s apology to the court wasn’t sincere.
“It wasn’t justice,” said Parler, who told the judge about the last time she saw her children and the anguish she went through losing them. “My daughters were amazing, beautiful, smart, strong little girls that could have been anything in this world if they had the opportunity to grow up, but that was taken from me and all of everyone else in this world.”
Halsell, 64, could have faced 20 years for each manslaughter charge and 10 years for each assault charge. If he violates his probation after his release, he can still be sentenced to 16 years in prison.
According to the Associated Press, authorities believe Halsell was driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs the night he drove his rental car into the rear end of the car the father of the girls, Pernell James, was driving on a remote highway in Tuscaloosa County, AL. James and another adult survived the crash.
The case was delayed for several reasons including the coronavirus pandemic, a plea deal that fell through, and the death of a defense attorney’s father. District Attorney Hays Webb, who opposed the light sentence, said Halsell’s status as a former astronaut did not play a part in his sentence.
Major Supreme Court Decisions Loom In Last Month of Current Term Including Obamacare, LGBT Rights
Reuters -The U.S. Supreme Court heads into the last month of its current term with several major cases yet to be decided including a Republican bid to invalidate the Obamacare healthcare law, a dispute involving LGBT and religious rights and another focused on voting restrictions.
The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has 24 cases left to decide after issuing two rulings on Tuesday. There also is speculation about the potential retirement of its oldest justice, Stephen Breyer. Some liberal activists have urged Breyer, who is 82 and has served on the court since 1994, to step down so President Joe Biden can appoint a younger liberal jurist to a lifetime post on the court.
In the most notable of Tuesday’s decisions, the Supreme Court unanimously endorsed the authority of Native American tribal police to stop and detain non-Native Americans on tribal land.
The Supreme Court’s nine-month term starts in October and generally concludes by the end of June, though last year it continued into July because of delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Speaking during an online event for students on Friday, Breyer hinted at the court’s complex deliberations that go into deciding high-stakes cases at this time of year.
“It’s complicated by the fact that you are dealing with eight other colleagues. … You’d better be willing to compromise,” Breyer said.
Republican-governed states have asked the Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act, a law signed in 2010 by Democratic former President Barack Obama that has helped expand healthcare access in the United States even as Republicans call it a government overreach.
It appears unlikely based on November’s oral arguments that the court would take such a drastic step. But if the Obamacare law were to be struck down, up to 20 million Americans could lose their medical insurance and insurers could once again refuse to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions. Obamacare expanded public healthcare programs and created marketplaces for private insurance.
Another major case yet to be decided is one that pits religious rights against LGBT rights as the justices weigh Philadelphia’s refusal to let a Catholic Church-affiliated group participate in the city’s foster care program because it would not accept same-sex couples as prospective foster parents.
The conservative justices appeared during the November arguments in the case to be sympathetic toward the Catholic group’s claim that its religious rights under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment had been violated. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has taken an expansive view of religious rights and has spearheaded several rulings backing churches in challenges to COVID-19 pandemic-related restrictions.
With various states enacting new Republican-backed voting restrictions in the aftermath of former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud, the court is preparing to rule in a case concerning Arizona voting limits.
Republican proponents of Arizona’s restrictions cite the need to combat voting fraud. A ruling by the Supreme Court upholding the restrictions could further undermine the Voting Rights Act, a landmark 1965 federal law that prohibits racial discrimination in voting.
The court also is getting ready to decide a closely watched case involving the free speech rights of public school students. It involves whether a high school that punished a cheerleader for a foul-mouthed social media post made off campus on a weekend violated her free speech rights under the First Amendment.
The court has taken up major cases on gun and abortion rights for its next term, which begins in October.
(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)
