• Lifestyle

by Jeroslyn JoVonn

October 1, 2021

Couple Keeps Foster Kids Together By Adopting Two Pairs of Twins

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A couple in Cincinnati, Ohio, is making waves with the big step they took in adopting two sets of twins.

Karen and Tobias Thompson have an intimate love story that dates back decades. The couple dated as teenagers but ended up marrying other people and starting families. They found their way back to each other and got married in 2014. The time they spent as friends and lovers made for the perfect home life to raise children together.

Four years ago, the couple took in Karen’s niece and nephew Wilnya and William, a set of twins who were still in elementary school at the time. After learning that the children’s younger twin sisters were in foster care, Tobias decided the little girls should also live with them.

On Sept. 9, the Thompsons officially adopted the 9-year-old twin girls, Sharnia and Sharleathea, and turned their family of four into a family of six.

“No sense splittin’ ‘em up. Keep ‘em all together,” Tobias said. “Show ‘em a lot of love. That’s all they need. Love.”

“They really had nowhere else to go,” Karen told Good Morning America. The twin girls had been in foster care since they were about 4 or 5 and needed a stable at-home life.

“We didn’t know anything about them until the caseworker told us,” Tobias said. “But I was like, ‘We may as well go ahead and get them.’”

“They were going from foster home to foster home. They just needed somebody to hold onto them,” Karen added.

Before taking in Sharnia and Sharleathea permanently, the couple allowed them to stay over on the weekends and get comfortable with their family dynamic.

“When Sharnia and Sharleathea came here, they didn’t want to go back to the foster home,” Karen said. “I think they all needed to be around their siblings.”

The Thompson noticed the change in the twin girls and can tell that they’re more comfortable than when they first started living there full-time.

“They were very timid when they got here,” Tobias said. “They’ve been through a lot. Now you can’t get them to stop talking,” Karen said. “I think they all needed somebody to love them.”

• News

by Jeroslyn JoVonn

October 1, 2021

Barry Washington Jr. Killed By White Man After Supposedly Talking to His Girlfriend

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In a case the harkens back to the Emmett Till murder, on Thursday, a grand jury indicted 27-year-old Ian Mackenzie Cranston for the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Barry Khristiano Washington in Bend, Ore, KTVZ reports.

Following the indictment, Cranston was arrested on second-degree murder, first- and second-degree manslaughter, first-degree assault, and two counts of unlawful use of a weapon for the September 19 attack.

 

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District Attorney John Hummel said despite the difference in their race, there wasn’t enough evidence to determine if the shooting was a hate crime.

“Our country has a disgraceful history of denigrating, prosecuting, and lynching black men for talking to white women,” Hummel said. “Over the last week, hundreds of people called and emailed me to remind me of this history; I responded to every one of you.”

Cranston’s re-arrest following the indictment came after community backlash over him quickly posting 10 percent of his $100,000 bail hours after the killing that Sunday.

Cranston shot Washington around 12:11 a.m. Sept. 19 after leaving the Capitol nightclub in downtown Bend, The Bend Bulletin reports. Cranston became upset with Washington after Washington spoke to Cranston’s girlfriend. He responded by pulling out a gun and fatally shooting the young man.

Hummel said Washington’s mother said “thank God” after learning of Cranston’s re-arrest.

“Know this. Justice will be done in this case,” he said.

“This isn’t a judgment on Barry,” he said. “We charged the highest crime there is for this act. It was an intentional act. That’s what our theory was. It wasn’t a fumbling with the gun, or an accidental discharge of the gun. It was an intentional decision by Mr. Cranston to shoot and kill Barry Washington.”

• Lifestyle

by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

October 1, 2021

Dr. Dre, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige and More to Headline The Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show

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Next year’s National Football League championship will be a “super” one with the scheduled halftime performance!

The NFL has announced a powerful star-studded lineup that has shocked and pleased music fans around the world.

• News

by Jeroslyn JoVonn

October 1, 2021

Gayle King Has Second Interview With R. Kelly Victim Who Previously Defended Him

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Gayle King sat down with one of R. Kelly‘s victims who previously appeared on her show to defend the disgraced singer.

Azriel Clary returned for another sit-down tell-all with King two years after she denied being abused by Kelly. On Wednesday, Clary appeared on CBS Mornings to speak out about her abuse while in a relationship with R. Kelly.

“I know that he knows he’s guilty,” Clary told King. “People told him. People tried to warn him. People tried to help him. He didn’t care […] He was selfish. He was greedy. He was a pedophile […] And he never, not once, wanted to get help.”

Clary testified at the singer’s racketeering and sex trafficking trial using a pseudonym. She recalled being involved with Kelly when she was 17 and said she was sexually and physically abused and forced to get an abortion.

It was her first time speaking out against Kelly in front of his face. In March 2019, she and another one of Kelly’s live-in girlfriends denied the accusations against the singer. But during her update on Wednesday, Clary admitted that she was coerced into lying for Kelly.

“For five years, since I was 17, I didn’t have any relationships with any other women except for the women that he had been intimate with. And so when I did that interview with you, I instantly regretted, immediately, how I reacted,” Clary said.

“I don’t know, something about just watching you be very casual and calm and collected, and it just reminded me of me. I was, like, ‘Wait a minute. I used to be that poised. I used to be that calm. You know, what happened to that girl? Where did she go?'”

Clary credits the interview for helping to wake her up in a sense and open her eyes to the abuse that disrupted her life.

“It kind of made me kind of wake up in a sense, and realize, ‘Why am I acting like this? Why am I putting myself through all of this misery? Why am I exploiting myself for a man who has me in this position in the first place, you know?’ And I really had to come to terms and, you know, realize that it wasn’t love,” Clary said. “Love doesn’t hurt, you know?”

• Lifestyle

by Tai Saint-Louis

October 1, 2021

Kelis Partners With Ramada to Celebrate Cultures and Cuisines With ‘Sample the World’

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As the hospitality industry fights to recover, Ramada by Wyndham has partnered with singer Kelis for a new digital series that appeals to the still-reluctant traveler, while supporting independent restaurants across the country.

Sample The World, which launched yesterday, is a celebration of the variety of cultures and cuisines travelers can experience without leaving North America. The series spotlights five restaurants in the U.S. and Canada, each bringing flavors from a different part of the world to their communities; and each conveniently located a short distance away from a Ramada property.

“I think it’s a great project just because, especially with everything that’s been happening this year,” says Kelis, who serves as the series’ host.

“It’s encouraging people to try new things and to get back out there. And the fact that there are so many different cultures and cuisines that you can sample in our own backyard makes it just that much easier.”

Each episode of Sample The World finds the owner or chef of an independent eatery sharing the backstory of both their restaurant and the things that have influenced their menu. And while the series is focused on North America, it presents a well-balanced offering of featured cuisines and cities: from Komé Sushi Kitchen in Austin to Pimento Jamaican Kitchen in Minneapolis to Native Tongues Taqueria in Calgary.

“When you love something you want everyone to love it, right? So whether it’s Jamaican food or Indian food or Middle Eastern food, these are cuisines that I love to eat anyway. So it was exciting to find these places and be able to shine a light on them,” Kelis tells BLACK ENTERPRISE, adding that it was just as exciting to bring attention to the owners behind these thriving small businesses.

“All of these really extraordinary people. We all know how hard of a year it’s been for small businesses and how intense it’s been, especially for restaurants. So we really wanted to showcase the fact that they’ve been able to maintain and how they’re able to do it, and what it means to them and their families and communities.”

What Samples The World aims to encourage is very similar to the journey Kelis went on as she and her family began to emerge from lockdown after having to pause her busy international touring schedule last year.

“My sister and I have always been like, ‘Hey, there’s so much to see here, there’s so much to explore.’ And I love being outside,” she shares. “So when stuff started to open up, we were able to stay ‘local.’ It was like going to Arizona, going up north, being in Canada or Utah and being able to see these things that we could fairly easily get to. For me, that was how I even got prepared again. Cuz yeah, for a while there, we hadn’t gone anywhere. So just getting comfortable [while] being able to stay here in the States made it feel more feasible and less daunting.”

The new Ramada campaign also mirrors Kelis’ online life, as it encourages viewers to share their own domestic cultural explorations through the hashtag #SampleTheWorld. Since becoming a Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef, a lot of the singer’s social media has been dedicated to food—sharing recipes, and full line of sauces, and her adventures as a farmer—with the fans who have followed her faithfully over the past 20 years since falling in love with her music.

“Food is the international language and that’s such a great icebreaker, an easy way to reach people and to communicate with people,” she says of her relationship with those followers. “So for me—as a Black woman, as an Afro-Latina, as an American—social media is a great way to take away all of the pretense. You’re able to reach people when there’s no guard up: you’re in your house, you’re in your car, or whatever it is that you’re doing—it’s like right from the source. And I think that’s a really powerful medium. I think it’s a really nice way to be able to say, ‘This is who I am, this is what I care about, this is how I communicate with MY family.’ And I think that there’s more ways that we communicate alike than not. For me that’s a really important key that I like to showcase and bring out. Especially with food.”

The idea of sampling the world locally is also a great opportunity to introduce children to international flavors, as Kelis has done with her two oldest, 12-year-old Knight and 5-year-old Sheperd. “My kids have deemed themselves critics, they’re very specific,” she laughs. “I’m always having them try things when I’m cooking. They love being my testers. They tour with me usually when I’m on the road so they have really mature pallets for little guys. And they’re very vocal about food. I’m not like a kids menu kinda lady. That’s just how we approach food, like, ‘This is what we’re gonna have; this is what we’re eating.’ Nothing is weird, we don’t do that. If you don’t like it, you’re entitled to not like it; but it’s not because you don’t know.”

• COVID-19

by Derek Major

October 1, 2021

COVID-19 Deaths In The U.S. Officially Hits 700,000 And Are Still Rising

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Reuters – The United States surpassed 700,000 COVID-19 related deaths on Friday, according to a Reuters tally, as officials roll out booster doses of vaccines to protect the elderly and people working in high-risk professions.

The country has reported an average of more than 2,000 deaths per day over the past week, which represents about 60% of the peak in fatalities in January, a Reuters analysis of public health data showed.

The United States still leads the world in COVID-19 cases and deaths, accounting for 19% and 14% of all reported infections and fatalities, according to Reuters tally. Globally, the pandemic is set to surpass 5 million deaths.

The highly transmissible Delta variant has driven a surge in COVID-19 cases that peaked around mid-September before falling to the current level of about 117,625 cases per day, based on a seven-day rolling average.

That is still well above the 10,000 cases a day that top U.S. infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci has said needs to be reached to end the health crisis.

While national hospitalization numbers have fallen in recent weeks, some states, particularly in the south of the country, are bucking that trend to record big rises, putting pressure on healthcare systems.

VACCINE BOOSTERS

President Joe Biden received a COVID-19 booster shot Monday, hoping to provide an example for Americans on the need to get the extra shot even as millions go without their first.

While scientists are divided over the need for COVID-19 booster shots when so many people in the United States and other countries remain unvaccinated, Biden announced the push in August as part of an effort to shore up protection against the highly transmissible Delta variant.

About 56% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated, with around 65% receiving at least one dose, according to the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

New York hospitals on Monday began firing or suspending healthcare workers for defying a state order to be vaccinated, while a federal judge ruled in favor of an Ohio private healthcare provider that had mandated shots for its staff.

Vaccination rates in some parts of the Midwest and South are lagging those in the Northeast and parts of the West Coast, according to the CDC, indicating a divide between the rural and urban parts of the country.

(Reporting by Shaina Ahluwalia, Lasya Priya M and Roshan Abraham in Bengaluru; Editing by Jane Wardell)

Reuters – President Joe Biden was due to meet with his fellow Democrats in Congress on Friday, as progressives and moderates in his party remained divided over two massive spending bills that account for much of his domestic agenda.

Democrats have struggled to coalesce around those two bills. Progressives have vowed to block a $1 trillion infrastructure bill without an agreement to advance a larger social spending and climate change bill. Moderates say that bill’s current $3.5 trillion price tag is too high.

After a two-hour party meeting, Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives did not appear to have a clear plan. Representative James Clyburn, the chamber’s No. 3 Democrat, said he had “no idea” whether there would be a vote.

But Representative Hakeem Jeffries, who is among Democratic leaders in the chamber, said he expected the House to vote on the infrastructure bill on Friday, one day later than planned. “I expect a vote today, and I expect that bill will pass today,” he said.

House Democrats are waiting for an “iron clad” agreement from the Senate as to what its members could agree to, he said.

“We are working on trying to get to a place where everybody is comfortable,” No. 2 House Democrat Steny Hoyer told reporters.

The White House said Biden would travel to Capitol Hill to speak with Democrats later in the day.

With a narrow majority in the House, Biden’s party cannot afford to lose too many votes on the infrastructure legislation, which would double spending on roads, pipes and other infrastructure. The bill has already passed the Senate with bipartisan support.

Democrats said they also planned a vote to ensure that transportation funding, which expired on Thursday, is not disrupted while they continue to negotiate.

Ahead of the meeting, Representative Pramila Jayapal, the influential chair of the 95-member House Progressive Caucus, said the smaller bill could not pass without agreement on the larger, multi-trillion-dollar one.

“I kept telling her that we didn’t have the votes, and I knew she knew that,” Jayapal said of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Progressives are angry that two Senate moderates – Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema – oppose the size of Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan to boost social spending and fight climate change. The Senate is split 50-50 with Republicans, all of whom oppose the multi-trillion-dollar bill, so every Democratic vote is needed for passage with Vice President Kamala Harris the tie breaker.

Manchin has proposed a spending package of about $1.5 trillion. Sinema on Thursday declined to say whether she agreed with Manchin’s proposal. She has met with Biden multiple times to discuss the bill. She was home in Arizona on Friday but remained in touch with the White House, a spokesman said.

Democratic Representative Dean Phillips, a moderate, said he wanted to see a vote on the infrastructure bill, even if it was not certain that it would pass.

House Republicans are unlikely to help pass the infrastructure bill, eager to deny Biden a policy victory ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, when history favors their chances to recapture majorities.

DEBT-CEILING THREAT

Congress, which averted a politically damaging government shutdown on Thursday, has little time to focus on the infrastructure fight due to another fast-approaching deadline: the debt ceiling.

A historic U.S. debt default could occur around Oct. 18, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has estimated, if Congress fails to give the government additional borrowing authority beyond the current statutory limit of $28.4 trillion.

Republicans want no part of the debt limit increase, saying it is Democrats’ problem since they control Congress and the White House. Democrats note that about $5 trillion of the nation’s debt is the result of tax cuts and spending passed during Republican Donald Trump‘s presidency.

The House approved a bill late on Wednesday suspending the debt limit through December 2022. The Senate could vote on it “as early as next week,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, but Republicans are expected to block it again as they have twice before.

(Reporting by David Morgan, Susan Cornwell and Richard Cowan, additional reporting by Jeff Mason and Jason Lange, writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone, Peter Graff, Howard Goller and Cynthia Osterman)

by Derek Major

October 1, 2021

Amazon’s Upskilling Initiative Provides Free Career Skills Training In Technology

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It’s no secret that between the high costs of tuition, room and board, books, college is expensive. Then there’s the national nightmare of student loans. The pandemic may have destroyed the dream of college for others.

That means it will be on employers to put more into their employees and their workforce, providing the skills and training necessary to move up the career ladder.

Kelly Monroe, a mother of two, found just that at Amazon.

Monroe, born in Ohio and raised in Washington, D.C., held a litany of jobs in retail, healthcare and legal support roles. However, because she was unable to work full-time due to the demands of her family, she never really felt like she had a career, until a new Amazon plant opened in Columbus, OH, in 2016.

The mom got a job at the facility working part-time but soon she out about better opportunities. One of them was Amazon’s Mechatronics and Robotics Apprenticeship (MRA)Program

“It came up in an email and I just went for it,” Monroe told BLACK ENTERPRISE. “I applied for it and they replied asking when I could take the test. Scheduled the test, passed the test, did the interview and just waited for my start date.”

Amazon’s MRA program gives employees the opportunity to apply for an apprenticeship that will train them to gain the technical skills and knowledge needed to fill a technical maintenance role.

The program is registered with the U.S. Department of Labor and is part of Amazon’s Upskilling 2025 initiative, a $1.2 billion commitment to provide free skills training to 300,000 Amazon employees in the U.S. over the next four years to help them transition into in-demand, higher-paying jobs, and runs alongside other Amazon upskilling programs.

“Working in the program has been fantastic.” Monroe said. “I’ve been working with people who come from different technological backgrounds. I’m combining everything they’ve been teaching me with my knowledge of Amazon because I came from the operations side and I know how things are processed. It’s really easy for me to come to the other side and fix the issues that we had in operations”

After she completed the first part of the program, Amazon sent Monroe to Dallas to complete 12 weeks of classroom training, which took place at Dallas College in partnership with the college, to receive the certification needed to do the job. Amazon covered housing and transportation costs while she was in school.

Monroe, who now calls herself “the Robot Doctor,” is in the on-the-job training portion of the program, handling maintenance and management on Amazon Drive Robot Units making $21.80 an hour. She will see another jump in pay as she completes the program and becomes a technician.

“The opportunities that Amazon had for me to be able to get to where I’m at have come through supportive managers and program leaders,” Monroe told BLACK ENTERPRISE. “They really work to make sure we have what we need. Once I got into learning everything they had available it was like the sky’s the limit, I just took advantage of it.”

• Criminal Justice Reform

by Derek Major

October 1, 2021

Michigan Man Released From Prison After Charges Dismissed From Fire That Killed Five Children

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Muder charges were dismissed against Juwan Deering, who spent 15 years in prison for the fire-related deaths of five children in Detroit.

Derring, 50, will not face a second trial, Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald announced Thursday, as a judge granted a request to close the case against him, a week after his convictions were thrown out at McDonald’s urging.

“It’s been a hard uphill battle,” Deering said moments later, adding that he next wanted “something good to eat.”

McDonald, who was elected prosecutor last year, took a fresh look at Deering’s case at the request of the University of Michigan law school’s innocence clinic. What she found was misconduct by police and prosecutors.

According to NBC News, McDonald said favorable evidence was kept from Deering’s lawyer and jurors at his trial were unaware that prison informants were given significant benefits for testifying against him.

Deering was charged with murder for a fire in Royal Oak Township in 2000. Authorities said the fire was retaliation for unpaid drug debts, but no one identified Deering at the scene.

McDonald added more than a dozen law enforcement professionals determined there is insufficient evidence to tie Deering to the fire.

“There is only one ethical and constitutional remedy,” McDonald said.

Law students from the University of Michigan had been trying to get a new trial for Deering, saying his conviction was based on “junk science.” However those attempts were unsuccessful, according to NPR.

Deering could be entitled to more than $700,000, under a law that pays $50,000 for every year a person spends in prison if new evidence is cited in a wrongful conviction.

McDonald added it’s possible the fire wasn’t a case of arson and state police are investigating the incident again.

“Once there was a belief that it was intentionally set, it was solve it at all costs. There was an unchecked culture here,” said Imran Syed of the law school, according to NPR. “Cutting corners has enormous consequences.”