THE DNA OF CHANGE: DR. WELDON’S VISION FOR DIVERSITY IN GENETIC RESEARCH
Dr. Carika Weldon is seeking to be at the forefront of advancing genetic research, with a mission to bridge gaps in representation and health equity for underrepresented communities, particularly in the Caribbean. In this Q&A, she reflects on her journey as a trailblazer in medical research, shares insights into groundbreaking projects like the Caribbean Breast Cancer Whole Genome Pilot Study, and discusses her vision for the future of genomic science in the region. Discover how Dr. Weldon combines cutting-edge science with community advocacy to drive meaningful change in global health.
Jeff Greene, executive assistant director for cybersecurity at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, recommended that Americans download and use encrypted messaging.
“Our suggestion, what we have told folks internally, is not new here: Encryption is your friend, whether it’s on text messaging or if you have the capacity to use encrypted voice communication. Even if the adversary is able to intercept the data, if it is encrypted, it will make it impossible,” Greene told NBC News.
Added an unnamed senior FBI official, “People looking to further protect their mobile device communications would benefit from considering using a cellphone that automatically receives timely operating system updates, responsibly managed encryption and phishing resistant” authentication for their email, social media, and collaborative accounts.
According to NBC News, the hacking campaign is one of the largest intelligence compromises in United States history, and there is currently no timetable for the hackers’ expected expulsion from Verizon, AT&T, and Lumen Technologies’ telecommunications systems. Greene told reporters that it’s “impossible to predict a time frame on when we’ll have full eviction.”
Signal, a platform used most prominently by activists and journalists to avoid sensitive conversations and data from being pounced on by outside forces, currently offers the strongest end-to-end encryption available to the public.
Signal’s encryption, otherwise known as the Signal protocol, is so strong that it serves as the basis for WhatsApp encryption and Facebook’s Secret Messenger encryption programming. However, unlike WhatsApp, Signal collects no data about its users that can be handed to the federal government.
According to NBC News, the hack was targeted to expose the metadata of users around Washington, D.C. Metadata contains information like phone numbers of a given phone contacted.
The hack also attempted to acertain when live calls were made by some specific targets, such as the presidential campaigns of now-President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The hack also targeted systems used by the three named telecommunications companies in compliance with the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA), which lets law enforcement and intelligence agencies that possess court orders track citizens’ communications.
Intelligence organizations believe that the hack’s intent was not an attempt to influence the election outcome but was instead a massive increase in the scale of an old espionage tradition of the Chinese government: the attempt to gather intelligence on America’s politics.
According to the Federal Communications Commission, “CALEA is intended to preserve the ability of law enforcement agencies to conduct electronic surveillance while protecting the privacy of information outside the scope of the investigation.”
However, Sen. Ron Wryden (D-OR) a strident advocate for privacy, was critical of the federal government’s use of CALEA, telling NBC News, “Whether it’s AT&T, Verizon, or Microsoft and Google, when those companies are inevitably hacked, China and other adversaries can steal those communications.”
Suspect Charged In Fatal Shooting Of 3-Year-Old On Thanksgiving
The 3-year-old's mother believes the shooting was accidental.
Tatisha Refuge, a 47-year-old New Orleans resident, turned herself into authorities following the death of 3-year-old Rudy Ratliff. Refuge is charged with “negligent homicide.”
Rudy’s mother, Leshawn Ratliff, is a Texas resident but visited Refuge, a surrogate mother to her, during the last days of the Thanksgiving holiday, she told Fox 8 News.
“I came here Saturday to pick up my older son. He spent his Thanksgiving break down here and I came down on Saturday to pick him up so that we can go home on Sunday and that they can go back to school on Monday,” Ratliff said.
While playing a game of UNO, Refuge’s unsecured weapon fell from her waistband and discharged, striking Rudy. Ratliff recounted how the scene unfolded after she discovered Rudy had been shot.
“I started seeing blood come out of his chest. That’s when I knew he was shot. So, I got on the phone with 911.”
The mother refused to wait for 911. Instead, she opted to drive Rudy to University Medical Center for treatment. She said Rudy appeared alive when they arrived at the facility. Unfortunately, 20 minutes later, she was informed of his passing.
Tatisha Refuge has been charged with negligent homicide as a result of the shooting that left 3-year-old Rudy Ratliff dead. #Khou11@AmandaHTV https://t.co/BFIeGhAHYG
Ratliff cherished her relationship with Refuge and is torn now that her surrogate mother is being charged.
“It was an accidental shooting. The gun fell off his grandparent. It wasn’t in a safe. It wasn’t in a handgun position. It was just in the pocket, I guess, and fell out and shot my son,” Ratliff said. “I know it was a mistake. I believe in my heart it was a mistake. I just don’t understand. I just don’t understand.”
The grief-stricken mother set up a GoFundMe and is reaching out to the public for assistance in Rudy’s burial. To support the Ratliff family in their time of need, click here.
With close to 25,000 likes, TikToker @sidemoneytom removed the “holiday sale” price sticker on a high-pressure inflator priced at $24.97, which was the original price underneath. He didn’t stop there. The content creator went around the home improvement retailer to expose other items that customers assumed they were getting for a steal. He exposed a smash burger maker being sold for $19.97, priced the same on a regular day.
A drone was also revealed to have a Black Friday deal of $34.88, revealed to be the original price.
While Home Depot has yet to respond to the allegations, retail experts warn companies that such moves can be considered false advertising. They also highlight it as a bad decision, with trends like shrinkflation taking over and heightening customer mistrust.
“Leading retailers invest heavily in their customer relationships, and trust is a major component of this,” said the marketing software company OptiMine CEO Matt Voda. “Trust is difficult and slow to build, but lost very easily and quickly with such practices.”
Video viewers in the comment section didn’t seem shocked by what they saw. One user claimed to be a former employee and seemingly confirmed that the retailer often does fake Black Friday deals. Another said they feel that customers may have taken note from previous Black Fridays. “People have noticed. There were no lines this year or last year. This year seemed even smaller than last year. Stores didn’t start getting packed until 10 or 11,” @boomski wrote.
Target was also accused of faking its Black Friday deals on TikTok. Attorney Ugo Lord reposted a video in which a woman pulled back the price of a smart TV advertised with a Black Friday price of $649.99. When she removed the sticker, it showed that the TV was already on sale for the same price.
Replying to @goldieperkins07 Customer exposes Target’s “Black Friday deals“ are completely worthless! Would this be considered false advertising? Guess and stick around for P2! #lawyer#lawyersoftiktok#lawtok#stitch with
Luke Kachersky, an associate professor of marketing at the Fordham Gabelli School of Business, says tactics like this have been going on for a while because it’s difficult to prove that a retailer is pushing false advertising. “Sure, the price is the same, but the retailer could simply argue they’re labeled [or] re-named their existing prices for the season,” Kachersky said.
“But while that kind of argument might work for a retailer in a legal sense, it fails common sense. Consumers are definitely going to feel lied to.”
One TikTok user said they learned their lesson from Amazon in 2023.
According to AOL, Amazon was hit with a lawsuit after being accused of pushing fake discounts to entice people to buy products. The suit, filed by customer David Ramirez, who purchased an Amazon Fire TV, explicitly targets the product’s “list price,” accusing the online conglomerate of making it look like a product is on sale when it’s not. The litigation proposes there aren’t “limited-time sales”—with the old idea that if things are on sale all the time, nothing is on sale.
Mother Arrested After Allegedly Leaving Newborn Baby In Vehicle While She Worked
21-year-old Nikita Jones was also accused of hitting her baby in the face and charged with one count of misdemeanor child abuse and one felony count of intentional child abuse causing serious physical injury.
A woman has been arrested after allegedly striking her newborn baby and leaving the infant in a vehicle while she went to work at her job at a McDonald’s restaurant.
According to Law & Crime, 21-year-old Nikita Jones was taken into custody after police issued two warrants for her arrest. The charges were one count of misdemeanor child abuse and one felony count of intentional child abuse causing serious physical injury. She was arrested on Dec. 2. Police officers stated that the North Carolina woman left the newborn baby unrestrained in her car, and they alleged that she previously hit the baby in the face, showing visible bruising around her eyes. They added that temperatures were in the 40s on the day that she left her child in the car.
CBS 17 reported that the warrants revealed that Jones struck her six-week-old child in the face on Nov. 20. The next day, she left her baby unattended and unrestrained in a parked car. Court records show that Jones received a $50,000 secured bond for the felony charge and a $5,000 secured bond for the misdemeanor charge. She is scheduled for a court date in Wake County Court for the felony charge on Dec. 10 and the misdemeanor charge the following week on Dec. 19.
WRAL News reported that the condition of the baby was unknown, and it wasn’t revealed how long she was in the car. Dr. Ryan Lamb, medical director and chair of emergency medicine at UNC Rex Holly Springs, explained to the media outlet that it would take hours for hypothermia to set in for adults. Still, for infants, a shorter time would suffice for the baby suffering from the lower temperature.
“An appropriately dressed person in 40 degrees has hours,” Lamb said, “yet infants cannot regulate their temperature as well, and they have more body surface area than their body mass—there is more to keep warm.”
JOLLOF AND RISOTTO? FIND OUT ABOUT THE CHEF WHO IS CREATING COMMUNITIES AROUND HIS NIGERIAN-ITALIAN DISHES.
Chef Tayo’s Ebi-Ayo Supper Club brings together Nigerian and Italian influences to create a unique dining experience that goes beyond the plate. In this Q&A, Chef Tayo shares the inspiration behind his dinner series, the role storytelling plays in his menus, and how his events foster meaningful connections in an increasingly virtual world. Get a glimpse into his creative process, his challenges as an entrepreneur, and what’s next for this innovative chef blending culture, community, and cuisine.
Flavor Flav Has Questions After Being Booted Out Of Backstreet Boys’ Dressing Room
'Security came up to me and says @nbc does not want me in this area and I need to leave.'
Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav took to social media to reveal that he was kicked out of The Backstreet Boys’ dressing room on Dec. 4 while attending the official Rockefeller Christmas Tree Lighting in the heart of New York City.
In a since-deleted tweet, the reality TV star expressed disappointment in what took place earlier in the night. He claims that security from NBC escorted him out of the pop band’s dressing room after being told network heads did not want him in the area where they approached him. He seemed perplexed as he mentioned that a social media person who worked for the company even “came up” to him to get some content to post on social media.
“I feel weird. I was invited to the Rockefeller Tree Lighting tonite, and I was escorted to see my boys-THE BACKSTREET BOYS- and we were backstage in their dressing room, security came up to me and says @nbc does not want me in this area and I need to leave. At the same time, their social media woman came up and asked to capture social content. What did I ever do to NBC or anyone?? all I ever do is try to spread joy and love … and I think I did that for NBC at the Olympics.”
An X user with over 100,000 followers with the handle Art Candee reposted the deleted entry by Flavor.
Flavor Flav got kicked out of the tree lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Plaza tonight for no reason.
Flav posted photos and a video clip from his interaction with The Backstreet Boys on another social media platform, Threads.
View on Threads
The “911 is a Joke” recording artist eventually returned to the X platform and admitted that he deleted the entry describing what happened at the Christmas tree lighting.
“I deleted the tweet,” Flav said in a follow-up post. “But my spirit is broken.”
Donald Trump Requests Dismissal Of Fulton County Case From Georgia Court Of Appeals
Looks like a domino effect....
President-elect Donald Trump is seeking to dismiss his Fulton County court case in Georgia due to a “lack of jurisdiction.”
Trump and his legal team filed the motion with the Georgia Court of Appeals on Dec. 4, claiming there is limited jurisdiction as he will soon be the 47th President of the United States, citing presidential immunity. “President Trump has filed a motion requesting the Georgia Court of Appeals confirm its lack of jurisdiction to continue hearing his appeal now that he is President-Elect and will soon become the 47th President of the United States, and then direct the trial court to immediately dismiss the case,” the motion read, filed by attorney Steve Sadow.
“The filing states that any ongoing criminal proceeding against a sitting president must be dismissed under the U.S. Constitution. The two federal criminal cases have already been dismissed by the DOJ.”
According to the filing, Trump is “completely immune from indictment or any criminal process, state or federal.” The court has also been asked to consider Trump’s case before he is sworn into office in January 2025.
The filing comes just days after Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis was asked to hand over all communications with special counsel Jack Smith. The two offices were instructed to prosecute the four-time indicted businessman separately.
Trump’s criminal case in Georgia has been on hold for months as the Court of Appeals is still preparing arguments to see if Willis can stay on the case. With racketeering charges on the line, the case will continue contingent on whether the DA is disqualified due to a romantic relationship with her former special prosecutor coming to light in early 2024. According to CNN, the ruling is expected to be handed down by early spring 2025.
While Sadow continues to push that “any ongoing criminal proceeding against a sitting president must be dismissed under the U.S. Constitution,” co-defendants involved in the case are seeking to get off. Attorney Kenneth Chesebro is seeking to have his guilty plea invalidated after being charged with being involved with the election conspiracy. In October 2023, Cheseboro pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents.
However, on Dec. 3, his attorney filed a post-conviction challenge on the charge’s validity and asked for the conviction to be thrown out, citing Judge Scott McAfee’s decision in September 2024 to dismiss some of the charges. “This Court held that Count 15 … is unconstitutional as applied to the facts alleged in the indictment,” the filing said.
McAfee sentenced Chesebro to five years probation and ordered him to pay $5,000 in restitution. In exchange, Chesebro agreed to testify in future court proceedings.
Byron Allen Takes $10B Discrimination Lawsuit Against McDonald’s Over Ad-Spend To Trial
Byron Allen's $10 billion discrimination lawsuit against McDonald's will head to trial.
Byron Allen’s $10 billion lawsuit against McDonald’s, accusing the fast food giant of discriminating against Black-owned media companies, is headed to trial.
U.S. District Judge Fernando Olguin ruled that there was sufficient evidence to take McDonald’s to trial over allegations that the fast food giant violated civil rights laws by placing Byron Allen’s media networks in lower advertising tiers, typically reserved for content targeted to Black audiences. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Olguin noted it was a “close call,” but evidence suggests that Allen’s companies, Entertainment Studios and The Weather Channel, were excluded from McDonald’s larger general market budget, allowing the case to proceed to a jury.
Allen believes there is “overwhelming evidence” of discrimination by McDonald’s.
“It is time for the McDonald’s Board of Directors, stockholders, and civil rights organizations nationwide to call for the resignation of CEO Chris Kempczinski, who was caught sending racist text messages about Black and Hispanic people,” he said of the case going to trial.
McDonald’s has since responded with a statement welcoming the trial on a discrimination lawsuit they cite as “utterly baseless.” The fast food giant believes the trial only shows “that neither party met the high standard for dismissal.”
“We are prepared to show that this case is utterly baseless,” it added. “McDonald’s invested in media properties that aligned with the company’s business strategy and, like any other rational business, declined to invest in those that had low ratings or failed to reach the company’s target audiences.”
The alleged racist text messages Allen referenced in his statement were from 2021 when Kempczinski messaged Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, where the McDonald’s CEO blamed the death of two Black and Latino children on their parents. One of the children, Jaslyn Adams, was shot and killed sitting in a car with her father in a McDonald’s parking lot.
“The parents failed those kids, which I know is something you can’t say,” he wrote. “Even harder to fix.”
In his lawsuit, Allen accuses McDonald’s of using a multi-tiered advertising strategy in which its general market tier, managed by OMD Worldwide, allocates funds primarily to white-owned media companies. Meanwhile, a separate, smaller budget—allegedly overseen by a different ad agency, Burrell, is reserved for companies producing content for Black audiences.
The lawsuit claims that Entertainment Studios and The Weather Channel, owned by Allen, were unfairly placed in this limited tier because of his ownership. A Nov. 30 ruling found that, among other things, McDonald’s may have blocked Allen’s channels from serious consideration by OMD, its general ad agency.
Now a jury will determine whether McDonald’s had valid, nondiscriminatory reasons for exclusively assigning Burrell to handle advertising for The Weather Channel and Entertainment Studios, or if it was done in a discriminative form. In its defense, McDonald’s argues that Allen’s networks lack broad appeal across all racial demographics for general market advertising and were not Nielsen-rated until 2017.
Study: Preferential Promotion Of White Men In Academic Medicine Continues
'To achieve a workforce that reflects the diversity of the U.S. population, academic medicine must transform its culture and the practices surrounding faculty appointments and promotions.'
A recent study reveals that white men continue to be preferentially promoted in academic medicine, maintaining dominance in the field.
A cohort study conducted by the University of Kansas School of Medicine investigated the impact of race, ethnicity, and gender on appointments and promotions in academic medicine. The study analyzed 673,573 graduates from U.S. M.D.-granting medical schools and found that compared to white men, Asian men, Asian women, Black women, and white women were more likely to be appointed to entry-level positions, Health Day reports.
The study found that, compared to physicians of nearly every other gender and racial or ethnic group, white men were more likely to be promoted to higher ranks, both among physicians graduating before and after 2000. Specifically, Black women were less likely than white men to be promoted to associate professor or full professor among physicians who graduated before 2000. In contrast, Black men were more likely than white men to be appointed department chair.
Black women were 55% less likely to be promoted to associate professor and 41% less likely to be promoted to full professor than white men. The findings suggest that while women and racial and ethnic minority groups are more likely than white men to enter academic medicine, they are, with few exceptions, less likely to be promoted to higher ranks.
“To achieve a workforce that reflects the diversity of the U.S. population, academic medicine must transform its culture and the practices surrounding faculty appointments and promotions,” researchers wrote.
In an editorial accompanying the article, the authors, led by Dr. Dowin Boatright, observed that “differentiating between faculty tracks (e.g., research, clinical, educator) in future work will be crucial for understanding how different groups may be funneled into roles with fewer opportunities for advancement. Clinical faculty from underrepresented groups often face heavy service obligations, limiting their time for research, which is often key to promotion.”
The study was published online on Nov. 27 in JAMA Network Open.
