Source: Paras Griffin / Getty Via | TMZ Tyrese claims Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith gave him a whopping $5 million so he could dig himself out of a financial hole from his custody case, but sources directly connected to both Will and Jada say it simply isn’t true. Our Will and Jada sources say they did not give Tyrese any money at all. Tyrese posted last Sunday that Will and Jada gave him the gift in return for him staying mum about his trial. Tyrese wrote, “You’ve guys asked me to get off and stay off the Internet now that my daughters legal fees will be paid. I will listen.” Finish this story [ here ]
T he tobacco industry’s scheme to get Black people addicted to menthol cigarettes was highlighted in “ Black Lives/Black Lungs ,” a new documentary about the dangers of the flavored smokes, the Spokane Spokesman reported. Nine out of 10 Black smokers prefer menthol cigarettes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . Filmmaker Lincoln Mondy , 23, examined the menthol cigarette advertising blitz that began since the 1950s. As a bi-racial child, Mondy said he noticed his White relatives tended to smoke non-menthol cigarettes and used chewing tobacco. On the other side of the family, his Black relatives used menthol cigarettes exclusively. Sen. Ed Markey calling for ban on menthol cigarettes, arguing tobacco ads target African-Americans. https://t.co/8KQ0ngBeCr pic.twitter.com/70hFiZFzG6 — WBZ Boston News (@cbsboston) August 26, 2017 The tobacco industry’s strategy included giving money to Black politicians, scholarships to African-American students and support for Black cultural events, Mondy’s film also revealed. The consequences have been devastating. African-Americans die from diseases related to tobacco use at a higher rate than Whites, even though Blacks smoke fewer cigarettes and start smoking at an older age than White people do, according to the CDC. Cigarette makers are not the only industry under fire for targeting the Black community. Earlier this year, two pastors from the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court against Coca-Cola and the American Beverage Association, CBS News reported. According to the ministers, the soda industry shares a huge part of the responsibility for the diabetes epidemic that has swept through minority communities because the industry targets African-Americans and Hispanics. SEE ALSO: Philadelphians Battle Over Proposed Soda Tax That May Fund Pre-K One Of The Country’s Most Segregated Cities Has Easier Access To Tobacco Than Healthy Food [ione_media_gallery src=”https://newsone.com” id=”3358541″ overlay=”true”]
(AP) More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades. No one – not industry, not government – is checking to see if they are leaking, an Associated Press investigation shows. The oldest of these wells were abandoned in the late 1940s, raising the prospect that many deteriorating sealing jobs are already failing. The AP investigation uncovered particular concern with 3,500 of the neglected wells – those characterized in federal government records as “temporarily abandoned.” Regulations for temporarily abandoned wells require oil companies to present plans to reuse or permanently plug such wells within a year, but the AP found that the rule is routinely circumvented, and that more than 1,000 wells have lingered in that unfinished condition for more than a decade. About three-quarters of temporarily abandoned wells have been left in that status for more than a year, and many since the 1950s and 1960s – even though sealing procedures for temporary abandonment are not as stringent as those for permanent closures. As a forceful reminder of the potential harm, the well beneath BP's Deepwater Horizon rig was being sealed with cement for temporary abandonment when it blew April 20, leading to one of the worst environmental disasters in the nation's history. BP alone has abandoned about 600 wells in the Gulf, according to government data. added by: TimALoftis
