National News - Page 51

Was This HBCU T-shirt Owner The Best Shark Tank Contestant—Ever?

By Angela Johnson As a student at Norfolk State University in the early 2010s, Ashley Jones set out to create apparel and accessories that reflected her style and showed her school pride. But what started as a side hustle has turned into a lucrative business. And now, Jones is teaming up with one of the most recognizable investors in the game to take her dream even further. When the Virginia native noticed a glaring underrepresentation of HBCUs in the sportswear apparel market, she decided to take matters into her own hands and launched Tones of Melanin. “I decided to make my

‘The Blind Side’ Family Comes Clean on Michael Oher’s Conservatorship

By Noah A. McGee Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy continue to deny Michael Oher’s claims that he has not received any royalties from “The Blind Side. But they have confirmed that he was in fact under a conservatorship, and not adopted. On Wednesday the Tuohys attorney, Randall Fishman, told reporters in a press conference that his clients plan on entering into a consent order to end their conservatorship over Oher permanently. Oher was right, the whole “adoption process” that was portrayed in the movie was total BS. Fishman said his clients had Oher sign the conservatorship documents because it was the quickest way to temper

What does it take to be a heroine of health? Education, dedication … a stealth plan

By Ruchi Kumar Prossy Muyingo is being honored as a “heroine of health” for helping women make more informed choices about family planning and reproductive health. She says she couldn’t have done it without hair braiding. Muyingo is one of twelve women honored with that title at the Women Deliver 2023 Conference, an annual international event that focuses on gender equality and the health, rights and well-being of girls and women. A 37-year-old mother of three who lives in Kampala, Uganda, she’s a community health worker who goes door-to-door to educate women about their sexual health and reproductive rights. But women in

Florida teachers are worried new policies could get them fired — or even criminally charged

By Janelle Griffith As the start of the school year approaches in Florida, some teachers say chaos and confusion have marked the days leading up to reopening as they navigate how to teach under new state policies. Teachers say they are going into classrooms less confident about their lesson plans, confused about changes to state laws and on high alert that once-benign instructions could now get them fired or charged with felonies. “I don’t know how to approach the year,” said Richard Judd, a social studies teacher at Nova High School in Broward County. “There’s a lot of different ways you can get in

Fani Willis Is the Most Important Black Woman In America Right Now

By Keith Reed It might seem odd–difficult or even a tinge disrespectful–to put into words a consideration of how significant any one Black woman might be to the rest of the country right now. We are, after all, in a space where Black women at large are having a moment: income and wealth gaps persist, reproductive rights are under attack and misogyny is ever present and yet Black women are creating businesses at a faster rate than any other group, ascending in politics and remaining the arbiters of not just the culture but of culture writ large. But no disrespect is meant at

How Much Was Race a Factor in Alabama Boat Brawl?

By Jessica Washington After a massive riverfront brawl in Montgomery, Ala., put his city in the spotlight, the city’s mayor is stepping into the fray. “Justice will be served,” said Montgomery Mayor Steven L. Reedin a statement on Sunday. The question is what, exactly, does justice look like in the context of what appears to at least partially a racially-motivated brawl in a deep southern city in 2023? For folks who missed the viral video over the weekend, the footage appears to show a group of white boaters attacking a Black riverboat worker. From local reporting, he apparently told the

Harris is in Chicago Friday to keynote Everytown for Gun Safety’s conference

By Lynn Sweet When Vice President Kamala Harris is in Chicago on Friday to headline the Everytown for Gun Safety conference, she will hold, before she speaks, an off-the-books private meeting with a small group of young gun violence prevention activists. Unreported until now, Harris — who has youth voter turnout in her portfolio — has been conducting listening sessions across the country to better understand the issues youths care about, that is, the 18- to 25-year-old Gen Zers and the up-to 29-year-old millennials.These meetings — Friday marks her 14th — are not on the daily schedule the White House

DNA of enslaved iron workers in Maryland reveals links to over 40,000 relatives

Not far from Camp David, the U.S. presidential retreat in Catoctin Mountain Park in Maryland, lies the remnants of an iron forge called Catoctin Furnace founded in the late 18th century, an important site for understanding the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in early U.S. history. The site now also is providing unique insight into African American history thanks to research involving DNA obtained from the remains of 27 individuals buried in a cemetery for enslaved people at Catoctin Furnace. The study reveals the ancestry of some of the enslaved people who toiled there in the decades after the nation’s

“Everything is on the Table” as Georgia Lawmakers Consider Lifting Hospital Construction Limits

By Jill Nolin Georgia lawmakers from the House and Senate are putting the state’s system to restrict hospital and other health care services under a microscope this summer. Both chambers have set up study committees to examine Georgia’s certificate of need program during the legislative off-season after Lt. Gov. Burt Jones came up short in his push to ease restrictions during his first session presiding over the state Senate. A bill that would have exempted most rural hospitals from the certificate of need process cleared the Senate earlier this year with a 42-13 vote but stalled in the House. It

Tulsa Massacre survivors appeal dismissed case to the Oklahoma Supreme Court

By Claretta Bellamy A group of descendants and survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre filed an appeal to the Oklahoma Supreme Court on Friday, requesting it to pick up a case that a lower court dismissed last month. The group is calling for reparations for the century-old attack on the city’s prosperous Black neighborhood, nicknamed “Black Wall Street.” Lawyers representing the Tulsa survivors announced the appeal in a news conference Monday in front of the Oklahoma Judicial Center in Oklahoma City, stating that the lower court wrongly dismissed the case last month. “We stand on the shoulders of so many,” said Damario Solomon-Simmons,

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