Khadeen Ellis & Krystal Lee Speak On Faith, Family & Life At Champagne Conversations Presented By St. Jude Source: LaSondra Spears / LaSondra Spears Lifestyle Influencer Khadeen Ellis and Radio One personality of the Willie Moore, Jr. Show, Krystal Lee teamed up with St. Jude to host Champagne Conversations during the Summit 21 weekend. The intimate mixer featured candid and transparent conversations around faith, family and wellness. Krystal Lee Source: LaSondra Spears / LaSondra Spears Visual Artist and Fashion Designer, Kris Keys showcased original art and design pieces from her newly launched ‘Hematology Collection’. Inspired by her relentless fight with Sickle Cell, Keys’ who is also a former St. Jude patient, shared her survivor story and how she transformed her experience living with a blood disorder into a literal work of art. Source: LaSondra Spears / LaSondra Spears Attendees enjoyed an evening of mingling, small bites, complimentary cocktails and an electric ambiance of black girl magic throughout the night. See more pics by hitting the flip!
Source: WENN.com / WENN 21 Savage Made A Sizable Donation To The Southern Poverty Law Center 21 Savage just made a donation to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization that was vital in assisting him in his battle against Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The rapper gave the SPLC a $25,000 check that is going to ensure detained immigrants in the South will have access to legal counsel. According to the nonprofit, only about 17 percent of immigrants in Southeast detainment centers have access to an attorney during their removal proceedings. The lack of legal representation leaves individuals vulnerable to terrible situations like family separation and deportation. Immigration law attorney Charles H. Kuck said the following in a statement: “21 Savage is making this donation public because everyday Americans need to know that ICE is using civil immigration detention as a weapon against immigrants, many of whom, like 21 Savage, have relief from deportation and are able to fix their immigration status. Creating oppressively adverse conditions of detention, like those in Irwin County, Georgia, far away from family and legal counsel, causes despair and hopelessness, and forces these men and women to give up on their immigration claims. The SPLC, through its Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative (SIFI) stands at the front line of this fight and supporting this effort lets all Americans know that the Constitution which protects the least of us, protects all of us.” If you’ll recall 21 was arrested and detained by ICE himself earlier this year. Immigration officials said that the rapper was born in the United Kingdom and was unlawfully present in the United States. The rapper’s legal team said he had entered the U.S. legally at the age of seven and stayed in the country until he had visited the U.K. in 2005. The rapper returned to the U.S. in July of that year under an H-4 visa, which expired in 2006. He reportedly applied for a visa in 2017; the application was still under review at the time of his arrest. He ended up being released on bond less than two weeks later.
E ducator and historian Lonnie G. Bunch III has dedicated his career to the preservation of important facets of American history. After leading the creation and development of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Newark native will now serve as the Smithsonian Institution’s 14th secretary; making him the first Black person to be appointed to the position, NPR reported. Smithsonian names Lonnie Bunch III as new secretary, the first African American to lead the institution https://t.co/9e9BhKCGCW — The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 28, 2019 Bunch was selected by the Board of Regents to take on the role. He succeeds David Skorton who has served as the institution’s secretary since 2015. In his new position, Bunch will be responsible for steering the direction and driving growth for the Smithsonian as well as overseeing the daily operations of all of its libraries, museums, and the National Zoo. He began his journey with the Smithsonian nearly 30 years ago and has held several executive level positions at the National Museum of American History. When he became the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture there was only one person on staff and no funding. Through his leadership the museum—which has over 40,000 artifacts that capture the essence of the Black experience—has attracted upwards of 4 million visitors. Bunch has also spearheaded capital campaigns for the Chicago Historical Society where he served as president from 2001 through 2005. One of his goals as secretary of the 173-year-old institution is to keep history relevant in a digital age. He wants the artifacts and information housed in the Smithsonian institutions to foster creativity and innovation. “It is important for the public to view the Smithsonian not simply as an addict of nostalgia, but as a cauldron of ideas of innovation and understanding that can be transformative for our country,” he said in a statement. “It must be an institution that is ripe with technology, an institution better suited to serve 21st century audiences, and an institution of research, of great collections, and of wonder that helps America understand itself and its world.” Bunch is slated to officially start his new position on June 16. SEE ALSO: Henrietta Lacks’ Portrait Will Live At The Smithsonian Museum Children’s Museum Celebrating African History And Culture Coming To Baltimore [ione_media_gallery src=”https://newsone.com” id=”3853368″ overlay=”true”]
90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After? continued with Season 4 through Memorial Weekend. Last week, we showed you a sneak peek of Larissa confessing something major to Debbie. Ashley and Jay's drama continues, and Andrei and Elizabeth were frankly almost forgettable this week. As usual, everyone is worried that Nicole is pouring her heart out to a guy who isn't acting as interested in her. But Russ finally fessed up to Paola about the secret that he'd been keeping from her. The biggest news of all was from Pedro, who took an indefinite leave from his marriage, left the country, and visited people who hate his wife. Look below to see the outrageous things that he did the second that he was away from Chantel. 1. Chantel and Pedro We HAVE to start with these two. Because while Chantel was breaking the news to The Family Chantel about her husband’s month-long, possibly indefinite trip tot he Dominican Republic, Pedro was there … and going wild. 2. He bought a one-way ticket, folks Some people do that just for better prices (it’s counterintuitive, we know, but the airlines will do anything to jack up prices, so sometimes it helps to check ticket costs from multiple angles). But for Pedro, it may signify deeper problems within his marriage. 3. That’s not how Nicole sees it You may remember how Pedro’s sister, Nicole, played a major role in the feuding that started a physical brawl at Chantel’s family’s home last year. Well, she’s still causing trouble. 4. She claims that Pedro is “single” tonight Couples can give each other “time off” if they want to, but that has to be a mutual decision. Pedro’s sister does not get to decide that in front of friends who are happy to see Pedro. And, in particular, in front of a beautiful girl, Coraima, who’s had a crush on Pedro for ages. 5. This … was a mistake Pedro allows one of his buddies to pull off his wedding ring. Harmless in and of itself? Sure. But the symbolism isn’t exactly subtle, and it’s not like they don’t know that Chantel’s going to see all of this. (Real talk: we’d love to believe that the producers set all of this up for The Drama) 6. Pedro had a lot of fun The bit where they took off his ring, put it in his drink, and got him to chug the drink? He’s still cracking up over that. We wonder if Chantel will be as amused when she sees him drink to forget “his problems” — her. View Slideshow
I don’t do nearly enough posts on Renee Zellweger…..I mean…for a fucking reason…the reason being that she’s Renee Zellweger. One of the creepiest faces in Hollywood – bet known for being Bridget Jones….your favorite series you queer…the love interest in Jerry Maguire….and who the fuck cares what else she’s creepy…. She’s also old, at 50 years old….and in some Fancy High Society magazine spreading her legs, not quite enough spreading for my liking, I can’t see her 50 year old asshole that I am sure has seen a lot of action…. I am pretty amazed that anyone cares about Renee Zellweger enough to put her in a magazine, even with her face modification procedures that have made her more human-like, she’s still weird..but she now has has eyes…and looks less like the alien inbred that was…. I was never clear on how she got cast for anything…..how she became a leading lady….is just confusing…but here are some pics of her for you weirdos… I guess she’s got a new show that she’s promoting…that’s how these actors work… The post Renee Zellweger Spreads her Legs for Town and Country of the Day appeared first on DrunkenStepFather.com .
Source: Sirijit Jongcharoenkulchai / EyeEm / Getty Crystal Mason To Be Repped By ACLU And Texas Civil Rights Project Last year we reported on a woman named Crystal Mason who was sentenced to five years in prison for “illegally” voting. For those who are unaware, Crystal had just been released from prison for tax fraud and was still on probation when she cast a provisional ballot for the 2016 election. She was unaware of a Texas law that stated that she was not allowed to vote due to her criminal status. Thus, she was sentenced to more time in the bing. According to HuffPo , Crystal is seeking a new trial to be released and the ACLU and Texas Civil Rights Project have stepped in to help her. Mason’s lawyers told the Court of Appeals in November she deserves a new trial because the statute she was convicted under is vague, and that the ballot she cast ultimately did not count since it was a provisional ballot. They also argue that she received ineffective counsel from her trial attorney. Oral argument is set for the case on June 4 in Fort Worth. “The prosecution of Crystal Mason for the innocent mistake of casting a provision ballot that wasn’t even counted is a severe injustice,” Andre Segura, an attorney with the ACLU of Texas who will help represent Mason, said in a statement. “Ms. Mason simply attempted to follow the law and participate in what she believed to be her civic duty, and in return has been sentenced to an outrageous length of time in prison.” This country is full of s#!t.
Source: The Washington Post / Getty Three Florida Radio Stations Will Air Snippets Of Donald Trump Speeches Every Hour We shouldn’t have to remind you of the 2016 election to caution you against 45’s influence. The Cheeto charred man in the White House has a base that’s ride-or-die , so much that three radio stations are giving him major airtime. According to the Orlando Sentinel , three local radio stations in Florida’s Panhandle announced that they would air Donald Trump speeches every hour and every day until the 2020 election. The announcement comes two days after Trump rallied his base in the area, vowing hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for the hurricane-devastated region. The stations set to broadcast the speech include Classic Rock WRBA-FM 95.9, Country WKNK-FM “Hank FM” and Adult Hits WASJ-FM “BOB FM.” They’re all under the newly formed company Gulf Coast Media, owned by Samuel Rogatinsky . According to Rogatinsky, each station will broadcast two-minute bites of Trump speeches every hour, sometimes twice an hour, until the presidential race. “We ran it by a bunch of listeners and people in the area, and nobody’s upset about it. It’s Republican territory,” Rogatinsky said. “Nobody’s offended by it. It’s not an issue.” The three stations, which cover Bay County, have facilities that were damaged by Hurricane Michael last fall, to the point that they went off the air for a couple months. Rogatinsky said Panhandle residents have been feeling forgotten in the last seven months since the Category 5 hurricane. He says they were inspired by Trump’s speech at his rally on Wednesday in Panama City Beach. “No games, no gimmicks, no delays,” Trump vowed of the funding. “We’re just doing it.” Mhm. Gulf Coast Media wrote in a press release: “ Gulf Coast Media, Inc. senior management acknowledged that broadcasting the President’s speeches may not be consistent with conventional commercial FM radio, but we have taken this approach to show the community’s sincere appreciation for President Donald Trump’s work in Panama City and Bay County.” Riiiight. As mentioned earlier, the MAGAs love their pres, no matter how much BS comes from his annoyingly perched lips. Rogatinsky told MSN that his three stations will offer similar airtime to other candidates if requested and as a way of complying with the Federal Communications Commission’s equal time guidelines. “Really, we just want to have inspirational type things because the community is so down,” he told the Orlando Sentinel . “Nobody else is really promising or doing anything. They want to hear what he has to say.” *Sigh* Aight.
So… did your favorite show survive? With most network television shows wrapping up their current seasons in mid-May, viewers around the country have been on the edges of their seats due to a number of suspenseful finales. But also for another, more meaningful reason: They've been anxious about these programs airing any episodes beyond said finales. Indeed, it's renewal/cancellation time around the TV dial, with all four major networks making major announcements over the course of the past few days. The following shows did not make it. They have been canceled. Which will be the most painful to never watch ever again? 1. I Feel Bad This NBC sitcom centered on a mother and wife who didn’t ever feel appreciated at home. Alas, it wasn’t appreciated by viewers, either. 2. The Cool Kids Not cool at all, according to Fox viewers. They never cared about this very lame sitcom. 3. The Passage This Fox drama was based on popular source material. But it probably should have been on HBO or something. 4. Lethal Weapon The off-screen drama was more interesting than anything on screen for this Fox drama, which is gone after three seasons. 5. Star Forgive the obvious pun here, but this Fox drama will not be shining bright for the network in 2020. 6. Murphy Brown We loved the original, but what was CBS thinking bringing this back for a revival?!? View Slideshow
So… did your favorite show survive? With most network television shows wrapping up their current seasons in mid-May, viewers around the country have been on the edges of their seats due to a number of suspenseful finales. But also for another, more meaningful reason: They've been anxious about these programs airing any episodes beyond said finales. Indeed, it's renewal/cancellation time around the TV dial, with all four major networks making major announcements over the course of the past few days. The following shows did not make it. They have been canceled. Which will be the most painful to never watch ever again? 1. I Feel Bad This NBC sitcom centered on a mother and wife who didn’t ever feel appreciated at home. Alas, it wasn’t appreciated by viewers, either. 2. The Cool Kids Not cool at all, according to Fox viewers. They never cared about this very lame sitcom. 3. The Passage This Fox drama was based on popular source material. But it probably should have been on HBO or something. 4. Lethal Weapon The off-screen drama was more interesting than anything on screen for this Fox drama, which is gone after three seasons. 5. Star Forgive the obvious pun here, but this Fox drama will not be shining bright for the network in 2020. 6. Murphy Brown We loved the original, but what was CBS thinking bringing this back for a revival?!? View Slideshow
Source: WSB-TV Screenshot A series of emails have been sent to NewsOne purportedly from friends and acquaintances of the motorist in Georgia who saw a hit and run car accident that ended with a driver being shot dead Tuesday evening. Hannah Payne , 21, reportedly saw the collision that police in Clayton County described as a minor fender bender before she followed Kenneth Herring , 62, for a mile, blocked his car with hers, approached him and killed him with her gun. That was after she called 911, which police said typically advise callers against approaching people they’re calling about. Payne is white and Herring is Black. Hannah Payne has been charged with murder for killing a Black man who she saw get in a hit and run car accident. When Kenneth Herring fled, she drove after him, blocked his car, called 911, got out of her car and ended up shooting him to death. https://t.co/aEh95kbNP8 — NewsOne (@newsone) May 10, 2019 Her arrest and subsequent charge of one count of murder without malice resulted in social media users, in particular, claiming the killing was racist in nature. Considering the egregious nature of the charges and the current racial climate in the U.S., tweets that suspected racism were all but obligatory. How do you follow someone for an hour, block their car, punch them, finally shooting and killing them, and be charged with “Murder without Malice “? #femalezimmerman Hannah Payne! — DeirdreIV (@IvDeirdre) May 10, 2019 #HannahPayne literally interjected herself into a situation that she was not involved in and took the laws into her own hands. #KennethHerring is dead because of a minor fender bender. Only black/ #ADoS people end up dead in situations like this https://t.co/5I5bg5OWi2 — Racist Of The Week (@RacistOTW) May 10, 2019 Not why did #HannahPayne follow Kenneth Herring for a mile with a gun Not why did Hannah Payne take the law into her own hands? Not why is #KennethHerring dead for a minor fender This is the question that he decided to ask? #FBA #ADoS #Tangibles2020 #B1 https://t.co/p5wSVHOPmy — P. Against The World (@chillin662) May 10, 2019 However, emails have been sent to this writer claiming that Payne was the farthest thing from racist and accusing NewsOne of falsely reporting that she was racist. (NewsOne never reported she was racist.) One email said that the mere suggestion Payne could be behind a racist shooting of a Black man was ludicrous in part because her Facebook page showed she had many Black friends. However, a search for Payne’s Facebook turned up empty and a request by NewsOne to interview the people who sent the emails was denied. Because of that, the emails sent to NewsOne have been paraphrased and not quoted. Another lengthier email said the comparisons NewsOne made between Payne and George Zimmerman were misguided. Zimmerman was the volunteer neighborhood watchman in Florida who followed and killed Trayvon Martin in 2012 even after a 911 operator told him not to approach the unarmed Black teen. He was eventually acquitted of murder under Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground law. Georgia also has a Stand Your Ground law , though it was unclear if Payne planned to use that for her defense. The email went on to add that Payne has always been romantically attracted to Black males, using that as a primary reason why the shooting could not have possibly been racially motivated. Another email said Payne lived in a neighborhood where people of all races live together. It was unclear where Payne called home, but the latest Census data for Clayton County showed that more than 71 percent of its residents were listed as being Black. One email blamed Herring, a senior citizen who may or may not have even realized he had hit another car, for driving for a mile after the collision despite there being no reports that he sped away. If Herring did speed away, that would presumably mean that Payne had to drive faster (read: speed) than he was driving just to catch up with him before she used her car to block him in. Insurance companies have long advised drivers who witness a hit and run to document the license plate number of the offending driver and report it to authorities. For instance, State Farm said on its website that drivers involved in and witnesses of a hit and run should not “follow the fleeing driver. Leaving the scene of the accident could put you in a compromising position: You’ll miss getting eyewitness accounts — and police could question who’s really at fault.” The email also wondered why Herring would make such a decision to keep driving. The email insisted that had roles been reversed, Payne would have remained on the scene of her car accident. It went on to say that she carried her legally licensed gun to protect herself from people like Herring. The author of the email didn’t respond to questions about what exactly that meant. All of the emails shared one common refrain: trying to discredit the way that NewsOne has covered the shooting as potentially being motivated by race. That was even as most mainstream media outlets have seemingly ignored the story or moved on to other current events. Upon first glance, there was no apparent direct evidence to suggest the shooting was racially motivated. But the circumstantial evidence, bolstered by the tragic trend of white people not in law enforcement trying to police Black people , appeared to be quite strong. That was especially true when factoring in how the shooting took place in Georgia, a state that prides itself on its role in the Confederacy. In fact, the Georgia House voted in late March “to increase the penalties against those who damage the state’s public and private monuments — and make it more difficult to remove or relocate Confederate markers ,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported at the time. That was as other, more progressive states have moved to remove Confederate monuments. More recently, a mayor in a rural Georgia town rejected a Black man’s job application specifically because of his race. Clayton County is located just 15 miles south of Atlanta, the state’s capital city where Black residents have long thrived socially and economically. But racism has persisted across the state, in both rural and urban locations, much like the rest of the country. Considering those facts, it was nearly impossible to rule out race as a motivational factor for Payne’s lethal pursuit of Herring. Payne’s lawyer said his client was simply trying to do the right thing. “It just seems like an unfortunate situation of a good Samaritan trying to stop a person on a hit-and-run,” Matt Tucker said. A witness described Payne to WSB-TV as the aggressor who immediately claimed after Herring was shot that he was the one who pulled the trigger. Given what is known about the shooting, it may come across as curious why more media outlets were not covering it. Aside from a handful of initial news reports following the news of Payne’s arrest, little other information has been reported with few, if any, follow-up news articles. Even social media was relatively silent despite that egregious nature of the shooting that typically makes for rabid fodder on Twitter and Facebook. Regardless of what investigators discover, it was doubtful that Payne could be charged with a hate crime even if the shooting fit the criteria for it. That was because the Georgia House only recently passed a bill for what could become the state’s first hate crimes legislation. The bill must be approved by the state Senate before it can become law. As of Friday afternoon, Payne remained locked up in Clayton County Jail without bond. SEE ALSO: Kentucky Inmate’s Family Is ‘Pleased’ After Officer Is Charged For Beating Him While Handcuffed Chris Darden Quits Defending Nipsey Hussle’s Accused Murderer After Death Threats [ione_media_gallery src=”https://newsone.com” id=”3827246″ overlay=”true”]
