The 44 Percent: Protect Black women, Pulitzer prize winner, cooking in Overtown
I remember the leaked police pictures plastered on the internet that showed a bruised Rihanna following her abuse by Chris Brown. You would think it would elicit more sympathy from people or at least from his fans who blamed (and continue to blame) Rihanna for her own abuse.
I sat with frustration for weeks on end when people taunted Meg Thee Stallion about being shot by Tory Lanez, who has mocked and harassed her since the 2020 shooting. We've seen the footage of the aftermath of the shooting and the photo evidence of bullet fragments being removed from her foot. Yet, people continue to falsely accuse her of lying about the shooting and some have gone as far as blaming her former best friend for the crime.
This brings me to this week with Cassie Ventura testifying against Sean 'Diddy' Combs and Halle Bailey filing for full custody of her son following abuse by her ex-boyfriend and her father's son, rapper DDG. No one believes these women.
It's 'protect Black women' until it's time to believe them. Nearly 35 years have passed since we've learned about the harassment Hill endured and we still don't believe Black women or hold their abusers accountable. Instead, we antagonize them for simply existing and seeking justice.
When you say protect Black women, it doesn't only look like believing them. It means listening to them, ceasing microagressions, and providing them with the support necessary to receive justice and live any semblance of a happy life. That's what Anita, Rihanna, and Megan needed, and that's what Cassie and Halle need now.
INSIDE THE 305:
Broward school district to end universal free lunches, raise lunch prices
Broward County schools will not offer free lunch to its students, Broward reporter Amanda Rosa reported. As Rosa writes: Mary Mulder, the Food and Nutrition Services executive director, told the school board at Tuesday's meeting that the department had continued with the free lunch program in order to deplete a surplus of funds 'from the COVID years.' Federal rules from the USDA limit the amount of funds the district's nutrition program can have on hand. It costs about $9 million to provide free school lunch each year.
Miami native, daughter of Black historian wins Pulitzer for history
Edda Fields-Black, a Miami native and daughter of historian Dorothy Jenkins Fields, received the Pulitzer for history. She spoke with me about the honor, which she won for her book 'COMBEE: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War.' The book used first-hand accounts to detail how Tubman and the 2nd South Carolina Volunteer Infantry Regiment were instrumental in what Fields-Black called the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history.
'It's a form of validation, almost, that these stories are important and that they must be told with the backing of the Pulitzer Prize, even under these very difficult circumstances,' she told the Miami Herald days after her win.
Will this soup lead to a healthier and longer life? See what's cooking in Miami
At the Overtown Youth Center, a group called Blue Zones is providing a way to improve the health of residents, Health reporter Michelle Marchant reported.
The cooking class is part of a pilot program funded by Dan Buettner to encourage a healthier lifestyle and is based on his research and travels through the world's five longevity hot spots, also known as 'Blue Zones.' Research has shown that eating healthier can decrease a person's risk for diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, certain cancers and other chronic conditions.
OUTSIDE THE 305:
Woman Who Sat Next to Travis Hunter Shared Funny Story How She Got Seat By Mistake
A woman seated next to Travis Hunter on a flight to Jacksonville was pleasantly impressed by how polite and humble he was during a first class trip. She took to Facebook to dote on him like he was her grandson.
'Beyond the Gates' is renewed as veteran Black soap actors cheer its success
My latest guilty pleasure 'Beyond the Gates' was renewed for a second season. The Associated Press chronicled what the show's success means and what it took to get there: George Cheeks, the CBS chief, told Vulture last year the show was born out of crunching numbers: 'One of the things that the data made very clear is that daytime soap operas over index with Black women.'
HIGH CULTURE:
Trick Daddy with Bigg D's Band & Orchestra
On Friday night, Miami legend Trick Daddy will perform his hits with the backing of Bigg D's Band & Orchestra at Miramar Cultural Center. The black-tie affair will include surprise special guests.
Where does 'The 44 Percent' name come from? Click here to find out how Miami history influenced the newsletter's title.
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San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Things to know about the indictment against the New Orleans mayor
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Months before New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell was set to leave office because of term limits, she has been indicted in what prosecutors allege was a yearslong scheme to conceal a romantic relationship with her bodyguard. Prosecutors say bodyguard Jeffrey Vappie was being paid as if he was working when he and Cantrell were really alone in apartments and visiting vineyards, hiding their communication by sending encrypted messages through WhatsApp and then deleting them. Although the pair have said their relationship was strictly professional, the indictment described it as 'personal and intimate.' The first female mayor in New Orleans' 300-year history has been charged with conspiracy, fraud and obstruction. Vappie was already facing charges of wire fraud and making false statements. He has pleaded not guilty. A grand jury returned an 18-count indictment Friday that added Cantrell to the case. The City of New Orleans said in a statement that it was aware of the indictment and that the mayor's attorney was reviewing it. Cantrell hasn't sent out a message on her official social media feed on X since July 15, when she said the city was experiencing historic declines in crime. She and her remaining allies have said that she has been unfairly targeted as a Black woman and held to a different standard than male officials. Here are things to know about the mayor and the indictment: Vineyard trips and alone time with bodyguard The indictment paints a detailed picture of Cantrell and her bodyguard traveling to vineyards and spending time alone in apartments at the same time it says Vappie was being paid as if he was working. Vappie reminisced in a WhatsApp exchange cited in the indictment about joining Cantrell in Scotland in October 2021, saying that was 'where it all started.' Cantrell had told local reporters she needed a security detail 'due to COVID,' saying her travel accommodations were 'a matter of safety, not of luxury.' The following year, instead of Cantrell attending a conference in Miami, authorities said the pair rendezvoused on Martha's Vineyard. Vappie's travel to the island was covered by the city to attend a separate conference. 'The times when we are truly (traveling) is what spoils me the most,' the mayor wrote to him that month. That same year, they also visited several California wineries, according to the indictment. After a 'trusted staff member' posted a photo of the three of them on social media, one of Cantrell's associates asked them to remove it. They met in an apartment while Vappie claimed to be on duty, and Cantrell arranged for him to attend 14 trips, Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Simpson said. The trips, he added, were described by her as times 'when they were truly alone.' In all, New Orleans taxpayers paid more than $70,000 for Vappie's travel, Simpson said. The pair used WhatsApp for more than 15,000 messages, including efforts to delete evidence, make false statements to FBI agents, 'and ultimately to commit perjury before a federal grand jury,' he said. A turbulent second term as mayor Cantrell, a Democrat, won a historic election in 2017 by portraying herself as a candidate for the people and not of the city's political class. Her mayoral tenure started strong with her securing tens of millions of dollars for city infrastructure improvements and taking decisive steps during the pandemic. There wasn't strong opposition to her 2021 election for a second term. But it was around that time that the wheels started to come off her administration. After Hurricane Ida pounded south Louisiana in 2021, residents were left without trash collection for weeks, while crime rates were surging. Meanwhile, Cantrell drew criticism for taking first-class trips abroad at the city's expense, violating a policy that requires city employees to use cheaper fares. She eventually agreed to repay the difference. A WVUE television investigation also found she was using a city-owned apartment as a part-time residence. Cantrell survived a recall campaign launched in 2022 by disgruntled Black Democrats and largely funded by wealthy white Republicans. She is also among more than 100 people brought up on corruption charges in Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans two decades ago, said Rafael Goyeneche, a former prosecutor who is president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a watchdog group that provided photographs and information to federal authorities in the latest case. New Orleans' long history of corruption cases Although Cantrell is New Orleans' first mayor to be charged while in office, this is far from the first corruption case to impact the city. 'Public corruption has crippled us for years and years,' Simpson said. 'And this is extremely significant.' In 2014, former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was sentenced to a decade in prison for bribery, money laundering, fraud and tax crimes. The charges relate to actions during his two terms as mayor from 2002 to 2010. He was released early in 2020 during the pandemic. In 2022, Rodney J. 'Jack' Strain, a former Louisiana sheriff, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for a federal bribery conviction. He also received four life sentences for earlier convictions for raping boys. After serving five terms, he admitted he used his authority as sheriff to steer profits from a $1 million work-release contract to himself, his family and two deputies. G. Thomas Porteous Jr., a federal judge from New Orleans, was impeached and removed from the bench after the U.S. Senate in 2010 determined he took money from attorneys and bail bondsmen and lied in a personal bankruptcy filing, among other offenses. He never faced criminal charges as a result of the probe, which ran from 1999 to 2007. He died in 2021.
Axios
8 hours ago
- Axios
With indictment, Cantrell joins Louisiana's notorious political history
Mayor LaToya Cantrell became the first New Orleans mayor to ever be federally indicted while serving her term in City Hall. Why it matters: Cantrell becomes part of a notorious history of Louisiana politicians who have faced criminal charges from their time in office, which has long lent the state an unenviable reputation. Between the lines: Also the first Black female mayor of New Orleans, Cantrell has long said she has faced more intense scrutiny than others who have held the role. As New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow wrote last year during a failed effort to recall Cantrell, the mayor "has faced constant accusations of impropriety" as she's been "subject to a kind of sexism specific to Black women: misogynoir, as it's called." Worth noting: Cantrell's attorney told Axios around 1:30pm Friday that he had not received a copy of the indictment yet. He did not make any further comments. Catch up quick: Dozens of Louisiana politicians have faced criminal charges. Here are three standouts. Former Rep. William Jefferson Jefferson faced corruption charges after the FBI filmed him taking a $100,000 cash bribe with the goal of paying off an African official, the FBI says. Days later, the FBI infamously found $90,000 stashed in his freezer. He was convicted of bribery, racketeering and money laundering. Former Gov. Edwin Edwards The colorful Cajun was so popular with voters that he was elected governor four times from the 1970s through the early 1990s, though he faced multiple federal indictments during his third term. But he wouldn't be convicted until May 2000, when he was found guilty of taking bribes over riverboat casino licenses in his fourth term. Edwards spent eight years in a federal prison before launching a final unsuccessful campaign for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2014. Former Mayor C. Ray Nagin Nagin, who led New Orleans during and immediately after Hurricane Katrina, was the city's first mayor convicted of corruption, according to WWL. Nagin, who was charged after leaving office, was found guilty of 20 counts of wire fraud, bribery and tax evasion after prosecutors said he took bribes while in office. He was sentenced to serve 10 years and was released early when officials sought to decrease prison populations in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic.
USA Today
9 hours ago
- USA Today
Michigan scandal timeline: Detailing Wolverines' NCAA run-ins late in Jim Harbaugh tenure
By the end of his nine-year run as Michigan's football coach, Jim Harbaugh had transformed his alma mater into one of the top programs nationally, fulfilling the high expectations that greeted him when he was hired in December 2014. In each of Harbaugh's final three seasons, the Wolverines won the Big Ten and made the College Football Playoff. They ended an agonizingly long losing streak to rival Ohio State, beating the Buckeyes in each of Harbaugh's final three years in Ann Arbor. In what would be his final act as Michigan's coach, Harbaugh helped lead the Wolverines to the College Football Playoff national championship at the end of the 2023 season, giving Michigan its first national title since 1997. At a certain point, though, Harbaugh's Wolverines found themselves in the headlines just as much for their off-field transgressions as their on-field triumphs. REQUIRED READING: Did Jim Harbaugh know about Michigan sign stealing? NCAA: 'Incomplete' The final stretch of Harbaugh's Michigan tenure was mired in controversy, with the football program he had built into a behemoth at the center of multiple NCAA scandals. First, there was an NCAA investigation centered around impermissible contact Harbaugh had with recruits and players while access to them was limited during the COVID-19 pandemic. The NCAA found that Harbaugh "engaged in unethical conduct, failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance and violated head coach responsibility obligations' and it handed him a four-year show cause. What followed was even more seismic. In October 2023, news first broke that the Wolverines were being investigated for illegal in-person scouting of future opponents, a scheme centered around previously little-known Michigan staffer Connor Stalions. After nearly two full and seldom uninteresting years, that saga came to a close on Aug. 15, with the NCAA slapping the Wolverines with what's projected to be a $30 million fine, suspending head coach Sherrone Moore for one game during the 2026 season, and handing Harbaugh and Stalions show causes of 10 and eight years, respectively. With that turbulent, albeit incredibly successful, stretch in Michigan's long and storied history nearing its end, pending an appeal of the ruling from Michigan, here's a look back at some of the major events of the final years of Harbaugh's tenure: REQUIRED READING: University of Michigan claps back at NCAA, will appeal sign-stealing punishment Michigan football scandals timeline Jan. 5, 2023: Michigan receives a draft of an NCAA notice of allegations in which the organization details allegations of impermissible contact with recruits during a dead period in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as an off-field analyst being involved in on-field coaching. At the time, it is reported that Harbaugh met with recruits and bought them hamburgers at the Brown Jug, a popular restaurant near the school's Ann Arbor campus. Jan. 20, 2023: Michigan co-offensive coordinator Matt Weiss is fired after the university said he failed to attend a meeting to discuss whether he had received unauthorized access to computer accounts assigned to other people in December 2022. University police had confirmed there was an active investigation into potential computer crimes at Michigan's football facility, Schembechler Hall. May 20, 2023: Three days after he was brought on as Michigan's assistant director of football recruiting, Glenn "Shemy" Schembechler, the son of legendary Wolverines coach Bo Schembechler, resigns after it was revealed he had liked a series of offensive Twitter posts, including from accounts that contended that slavery and Jim Crow segregation had positive effects on Black people and families. Aug. 12, 2023: The NCAA takes the unusual step of publicly commenting on an ongoing investigation, with vice president of hearing operations Derrick Crawford noting in a statement that "The Michigan infractions case is related to impermissible on and off-campus recruiting during the COVID-19 dead period and impermissible coaching activities — not a cheeseburger.' Aug. 21, 2023: Michigan suspends Harbaugh for the first three games of the upcoming season. The Wolverines go 3-0 in those contests, defeating East Carolina, UNLV and Bowling Green with four different head coaches. Oct. 18, 2023: The NCAA notifies Michigan and the Big Ten that it has received allegations that the Wolverines were involved in a sign-stealing operation that involved advanced, in-person scouting that is illegal under NCAA rules. Harbaugh denied being a part of the scheme or having knowledge of it. One day later, it is revealed that the probe is centered around Michigan off-field analyst Connor Stalions, who reportedly purchased tickets in his own name to games at 12 different Big Ten schools in order to have people film the signals used by coaches of upcoming Wolverines opponents. Oct. 26, 2023: Michigan confirms the FBI has joined the investigation into Weiss' unauthorized access into computer accounts. Oct. 31, 2023: Central Michigan announces it's investigating photographs of a man who resembles Stalions, wearing sunglasses and a Chippewas hat, standing on the team's sideline for its game earlier that season against Michigan State. Nov. 3, 2023: Stalions resigns from his position at Michigan, noting in a statement to The Athletic that he did 'not want to be a distraction.' Nov. 10, 2023: The Big Ten suspends Harbaugh for the final three games of the regular season, citing a violation of the league's sportsmanship policy. Michigan files a temporary restraining order, but eventually drops the case and accepts the punishment. With offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore serving as the interim head coach, the Wolverines go 3-0 in those games, highlighted by wins against top-10 Penn State and Ohio State teams. Nov. 17, 2023: Linebackers coach Chris Partridge is fired by the school after he allegedly destroyed evidence on a computer related to the sign-stealing scandal. Partridge, now an assistant coach with the Seattle Seahawks, denies the claim. Jan. 8, 2024: Michigan defeats Washington 34-13 in the championship game of the College Football Playoff, giving the Wolverines their first national title since 1997. Harbaugh says after the game that "We stood strong and tall because we knew we were innocent' when asked about the ongoing investigations into his program. Jan. 24, 2024: Harbaugh leaves Michigan after nine seasons to become the head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers. Two days later, Moore is elevated to head coach. March 16, 2024: Newly hired defensive line coach Greg Scruggs is arrested for operating a vehicle while intoxicated in Ann Arbor, with a blood alcohol level that's double the legal limit. He resigns five days later. April 15, 2024: Michigan recruiting staffer and former star quarterback Denard Robinson is arrested after being involved in a single-car crash at 3 a.m. in Ann Arbor while intoxicated. He's suspended and one month later, the university confirms he's no longer with the program. Aug. 5, 2024: A leaked notice of allegations from the NCAA states that Moore deleted a thread of 52 text messages with Stalions the same day reports first surfaced about the sign-stealing operation. Two days later, Harbaugh is given a one-year suspension and a four-year show cause by the NCAA for his role in the COVID recruiting violations. March 20, 2025: Weiss is indicted by the FBI on 14 counts of unauthorized access and 10 counts of aggravated identity theft. According to the indictment, Weiss hacked into university computer systems and accessed personal data of over 3,000 Michigan athletes, most of whom were women. The next day, Weiss is sued by two former Michigan athletes, who allege he accessed their private information for his personal use. At least 74 women have joined the lawsuit. May 5, 2025: As part of a self-imposed sanction, Michigan suspends Moore for two games for the upcoming football season – a Week 3 matchup against Central Michigan and a Week 4 game against Nebraska. June 27, 2025: Harbaugh and former Michigan president Santa Ono are among the 48 people from the university added to the lawsuit against Weiss. Plaintiffs allege that the school knew about Weiss hacking into computer systems, but still allowed him to coach in the Wolverines' semifinal loss to TCU in the College Football Playoff at the end of the 2022 season. July 29, 2025: Central Michigan receives a notice of allegations from the NCAA over its role in Stalions' sign-stealing scheme. Aug. 15, 2025: The NCAA issues its findings in the Michigan in-person scouting case, including a 10-year show-cause for Harbaugh, eight years for Stalions, three years for Robinson and two years for Moore. Moore is also suspended for a game. Michigan announces hours later it will appeal the ruling. Aug. 15, 2025: The NCAA's finding repeatedly reference Harbaugh's lack of cooperation in the investigation into Michigan and his status as a repeat offender. According to the NCAA in a section subtitled "Head coach responsibility:" "The scouting scheme and recruiting violations in the football program demonstrate that Harbaugh violated the principles of head coach responsibility. Harbaugh did not embrace or enforce a culture of compliance during his tenure, and his program had a contentious relationship with Michigan's compliance office, leading coaches and staff to disregard NCAA rules. "For the scouting violations that occurred during the 2021 and 2022 seasons, Harbaugh failed to demonstrate that he adequately promoted compliance or monitored his program. Harbaugh is also automatically responsible for the scouting and recruiting violations that occurred after Jan. 1, 2023. "
