Category: News

An inspiring story first reported by the Watford Observer in England shows that when we stop making knee-jerk reactions about people involved in crime, we have the opportunity to change their lives.

Back in July, heating engineer and social activist Winston Davis learned that his 12-year-old nephew was mugged by a 16-year-old boy at knifepoint. For six weeks, Davis studied the security camera footage in an attempt to find the teen.

After he located the teen and contacted him on his phone, he told him he’d be paying him a visit to get the bag back. When the two met face to face, Davis was impressed by his honesty.

“You could have easily turned your phone off, you could have easily allowed it and bury your head in the sand,” Davis said in a video he posted to TikTok. “In life sometimes we do things that we regret and then we want to try make something change after that and what you’re doing, bringing this back, is a big moment.”

@winstondavis1

#knifecrime #streetrobberboy #mugging #streetcrime #youthviolence #reconciliation #conflict the young man needs help…any #computerengineering links out thete that can offer him a a chance?

​When Davis looked at the teen he thought he looked “frightened” and learned about his past.

“That’s when he told me he’s been in and out of detention centers and had no education and has literally been living in supported living,” Davis told the Watford Observer.

Instead of calling the police on the teen, Davis decided to try to get him some help, so he posted a video of their interaction on TikTok asking for assistance. “He’s 16 years old, been in and out of detention centers, lives in a supported living place and has no qualifications,” he wrote on TikTok. “Despite this, he wants to work in computer engineering.”

The post received more than 900,000 views on TikTok and was shared far and wide. A few days after the post, Davis said that a lot of people had reached out, offering to help get the teen’s life on track. “Offers of support for this guy have been mad. So, gonna get back to people soon as I can, thank you,” he wrote in a follow-up video where he also summed up the message of the story.

“There’s people that say, ‘If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.’ But actually, do you know what, a lot of the time there’s people that don’t really want to do the crime.”

@winstondavis1

#crime #rehabilitation #hmp #restorativejustice #povertytoprison

Davis had a soft spot in his heart for the teen because he had been there himself. Years back he went to prison on a drug charge and after he got out, vowed to change his life. Since then, he has opened his own heating business and has been an activist for social change.

He saw that the teen could use a break and hoped that the opportunity presented by this moment would change the direction of his life.

“He’s got an opportunity to really, if he takes the opportunities that are presented to him, to really change his life,” Davis said according to Ladbible. “It’s just, can he see far enough into the future? To be able to take advantage of the good nature and goodwill of so many people?”

Grandparents can be a wealth of history and knowledge. But one TikTok user, Reagan Jones, was blown away by her grandmother’s ability to write in shorthand, so she did what a lot of people do in this century—uploaded it to TikTok. Not surprisingly, most people who viewed the video had no idea what shorthand was and some thought the whole thing was made up. The reaction to it certainly makes you question if it’s more than a lost art, but a forgotten part of history.

Shorthand is a method of quickly writing that has been around for a centuries. The first recorded history of a form of shorthand being used was in the 4th century B.C.. In the 1800s, two different types of shorthand became popular, Pitman in 1837 and Gregg in 1888. Looking at the shorthand alphabet may make you furrow your eyebrows because a lot of the symbols look ridiculously similar. It’s full of lines that are straight, slightly curled or partially looped and some that just look like a squiggle. It’s something to behold and resembles a super secret language.

Judging by the comments on the video, other people feel the same way. One commenter, Jamie wrote, “I’ve heard the term shorthand but I think my brain always took it as abbreviations not this 😳😅”

Another commenter, Samantha said, “Nah this has to be a glitch in the timeline I’ve never heard of this from any of my family member.”

@reaganjones176

This is called “short hand” and its a real form of old-style note-taking. She uses this to write herself notes daily. 😂#coolgrandma #funwithgrandma #grandparents #handwriting #shorthand

In a reply to a commenter, Jones revealed, “My grandma was a legal secretary for the railroad 🙂 She won a lot of awards for her work and shorthand in school.”

Now, that’s just cool. Sure there are still professions like court reporters and such that use shorthand, but it’s not as common as it was back when most people’s grandparents and great-grandparents were young adults. This was such a neat blast from the past. It’s clear that Jones’ grandma could probably still take home some awards for her unique skill.

A wonderful piece of news has come out of the blue that will change a lot of people’s perceptions about America’s future and how we tackle complex economic issues. A new report by The New York Times and Child Trends shows that child poverty dropped a whopping 59% percent in the United States between 1993 and 2019.

The poverty rate dropped an additional 10% in 2020 due to aggressive, albeit temporary, COVID-19 aid measures. If those numbers were included in the study, the child poverty rate would be 69% lower.

“This is an astounding decline in child poverty,” Dana Thomson, a co-author of the Child Trends study, said according to The New York Times. “Its magnitude is unequaled in the history of poverty measurement, and the single largest explanation is the growth of the safety net.”

What’s interesting about the study is that it gives people on both sides of the political aisle reason to rethink their opinions on how the country tackles poverty. The study shows that liberals were correct in their belief that a robust social safety net can bring children out of poverty. The Earned Income Tax Credit, Social Security and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) contributed the most to protecting children from poverty.

u201cLessons from a Historic Decline in Child Poverty https://t.co/uSIjgIzmGA via @ChildTrendsu201d

— MDRC (@MDRC)
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Conservatives can take a victory lap because another major reason for a reduction in child poverty was that more single mothers began to work after welfare reform enacted in the ’90s reduced cash payouts to parents without jobs.

The number of single mothers in the workforce increased from 69% to 79% by the end of the ’90s.

The reduction in child poverty also comes during a period of growth in which the GDP per capita, median household income and state minimum wages have all seen increases. The number of kids living with two caretakers and the percentage of the population with a high school diploma has gone up as well.

u201cAn u2018astoundingu2019 decline in child poverty from 1993 to 2019. Why? The single largest factor is growth of the govt safety net. https://t.co/NE0O85s5kLu201d

— Trip Gabriel (@Trip Gabriel)
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It’s also notable that the child poverty rate has declined by about the same degree among children who are Hispanic, Black, Asian and white. However, the rising tide may have lifted all boats but the ethnic poverty gap among children still persists. According to Pew Research, Black and Hispanic children are still about three times as likely to live in poverty than white and Asian children.

The decline in child poverty also coincides with a drastic reduction in teen pregnancy rates. The teen birth rate has gone down from 61.8 of every 1,000 births in the U.S. to just 17.4 in 2018. Child Trends attributes this to a decline in teen sex as well as an increase in contraceptive use. The study warns that the recent overturn of Roe v. Wade may lead to an increase in economic hardships for children.

In a country where we are always bemoaning a lack of progress, this study on child poverty shows that smart policy—regardless of what side of the aisle it stems from—can have a major impact on the lives of America’s most vulnerable. It also gives hope that we can learn from these lessons to further alleviate poverty not just among children, but the American population in general.

Bleu has something special cooking up. This Friday, the “Your Mines Still” singer is set to drop a new single with Nicki Minaj, titled “Love In The Way.” The two announced the collaboration via social media today.

The song arrives just over a year after Bleu manifested the track via Twitter. “I would love to work with [these artists] in the future,” Bleu said. “I like speaking things in existence, it seems to work.” Among his dream collaborators were The Weeknd, Justin Bieber, Anthony Hamilton, and Rihanna, but at the top of his list was none other than Minaj.

As his latest collab may suggest, Bleu has become a go-to guest in the realm of Young Money. In June, he was featured alongside Lil Wayne on a Chris Brown track called “Possessive,” from his most recent album, Breezy. In 2020, his remix of “Your Mines Still,” which featured Drake, proved to be a viral hit.

In an interview with DJ Akademiks, he credited Drake for helping him land a bigger deal at Empire Recordings.

“That’s when I started seeing them real numbers,” he said. “Just to put it into perspective, as soon as the Drake record dropped, I was having bidding wars between $8 and $9 million…This is why I f*ck with Empire because they still had me for another project, so once I did the Drake song, they came back and redid my deal to way more.”

“Love In The Way” is out 9/16 via Empire. Pre-save it here.

The Emmys had time for a joke-free musical opening and a weird Kia commercial, but not for Jennifer Coolidge to read her acceptance speech for The White Lotus?

I will not be raising a toast to that.

The proud MILF won Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie (catchy category name!) at the 2022 Emmys for her performance in the wonderful Mike White-created series over co-stars Connie Britton, Alexandra Daddario, Sydney Sweeney, and Natasha Rothwell, as well as Kaitlyn Dever and Mare Winningham for Dopesick. “Wait, hold on,” Coolidge said when the walk-off music rudely kicked in. She then started to dance in what is being called a “truly perfect moment” in Emmys history.

Earlier in the speech, Coolidge said that before the Emmys, she took a lavender bath “and it made me swell up inside my dress. I’m having a hard time speaking.” She then remembered she had written down everyone she wanted to thank. “Oh sh*t,” she said while unfurling a crumpled up piece of paper.” Jennifer Coolidge is the best — and the Emmys are the worst for having the gall to cut her off.

You can watch the entire thing below.

Coolidge is returning for season two of The White Lotus, along with new cast members F. Murray Abraham, Aubrey Plaza, Theo James, Michael Imperioli, and Haley Lu Richardson. It premieres in October.

Awards shows are always militant about keeping acceptance speeches short, but this year’s Emmys seemed more aggressive than usual. They played off Matthew Macfadyen, who won for Succession. Jennifer Garner, winning for Ozark, was so scared they’d do the same to her that she almost ran off. Jennifer Coolidge tried — and failed — to keep going after the band cut her off, even turning it into a dance. Then there’s Sheryl Lee Ralph.

The seasoned actress, who was in the original cast of Dreamgirls and has been in shows like It’s a Living and Moesha, won her first-ever Emmy for Abbott Elementary, where she plays the religious kindergarten teacher Barbara. (She’s one of a number of cast members who got nominations.) When presenters Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers called out her name, Ralph seemed shellshocked. She even sat in her seat, taking it all in, clearly emotional, before slowly making her way to the stage.

When she got there, she didn’t do a normal speech. Instead, she belted out a song: “Endangered Species,” the 1993 song by Dianne Reeves, whose lyrics include, “I am an endangered species/But I sing no victim’s song/I am a woman I am an artist/And I know where my voice belongs.”

Ralph was not played off. In fact, she went on: “To anyone who has ever, ever had a dream and thought your dream wasn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t come true, I am here to tell you that this is what believing looks like. This is what striving looks like. And don’t you ever, ever give up on you, because if you get a Quinta Brunson in your corner, if you get a husband like mine in your corner, if you get children like mine in your corner, and if you’ve got friends like everybody who voted for me, cheered for me, loved me — thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Videos of the “speech” went viral, earning tens of thousands of likes. You can watch it above. You can listen to Dianne Reeves’ “Endangered Species” below.

Rarely do I ever like to say that “I told you so,” but I tried to tell everyone that Selena Gomez is a comedic force. She’s also underappreciated in general throughout Hollywood, but maybe people are starting to catch on? It’s about time. And I’m still so thrilled that she’s moved past being the only person of a starring trio that bothers to dress up (Adam Sandler and Kevin James did her dirty while promoting 2015’s Hotel Transylvania 2). Nowadays, she’s presenting at the Emmys next to two other cool cats, who did dress for the occasion.

Here she is alongside Steve Martin and Martin Short, her two co-stars from Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building. Together, they’re a powerhouse, and I love that they both respect her as an equal. And Selena (in a manner similar, but less grumpy, to her character, Mabel) let them shine and stayed funny in her own understated way.

If you would like to see more of Selena, then HBO Max’s Selena + Chef could be right up your alley. And if you missed out on where she (surprisingly) cut her comedy teeth, then (at least briefly) check out her turn as Alex Russo on The Wizards of Waverly Place. Here’s a parting shot, and remember, like host Kenan Thompson said about Zendaya, Selena is too old to date Leonardo DiCaprio. I doubt that she’s mad about it.

If all else fails, make a joke about Leonardo DiCaprio’s dating life. It’s a reliable go-to for awards show hosts. Back in 2020, Ricky Gervais made one at the Golden Globes, with the actor in attendance. He even laughed at it. DiCaprio wasn’t present at this year’s Emmys, but he did just go through yet another split with yet another incredibly young woman. Did Emmys host Kenan Thompson pass up the chance to slip in a little joke about it? No, he did not.

During his second monologue towards the start of the show, Thompson was going through some of the nominees, gently ribbing them. He got to Zendaya, there for Euphoria, who made history by winning for the show in 2020. She just had another little milestone.

“Zendaya just turned 26 — happy birthday,” Thompson told her. “Twenty-six is a weird age in Hollywood: young enough to play a high school student, but too old to date Leonardo DiCaprio.”

It’s hardly a fresh joke, but it still scored thanks in part to Thompson, who can deliver anything. He even got the show back on track after a mildly baffling opening musical number. Maybe DiCaprio should start doing TV again so he can be there the next time an Emmys host belittles his love life.

The NFL Week 1 finale took place in Seattle on Monday evening and, in addition to the debut of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman on the air for ESPN, the Manningcast returned for an alternative broadcast of the tilt between the Seahawks and Broncos. In the early moments of the game, the biggest storyline was the return of Russell Wilson to his old stomping ground at Lumen Field and, to put it plainly, Seahawks fans did not embrace the quarterback with a warm reception. In fact, Wilson was roundly booed, and the duo of Peyton and Eli Manning reacted in interesting fashion.

First, both Mannings seemed to be pretty uncomfortable as the boos rained down, and each made amusing facial expressions along the way. Then, the conversation pivoted to the concept of being “personally booed” and to whether each Manning had that treatment during their playing careers. Peyton basically decided that he really hadn’t but, amusingly, Peyton also pointed out that Eli had a tough time when he went to visit the Chargers after famously refusing to play in San Diego coming into the league.

True to form, Peyton then pivoted to a more positive discussion around Wilson being welcomed by the Denver faithful, and Broncos fans are undoubtedly thrilled to have Wilson at the helm after a desert of quarterback play in recent years. Still, this was one of those moments when the Manningcast provides real value from high-profile players that went through a lot of different situations and can accurately put themselves in the shoes of a long-time star like Wilson.

Rakim Allen, better known as PnB Rock, is reportedly dead at 30, according to Los Angeles Times. The news follows a shooting that took place earlier today at a Roscoe’s Chicken And Waffles diner in Inglewood.

While the suspect’s name has not been shared, he was reported to have shot PnB, removed his jewelry, and ran from the scene. In a video shared to social media, PnB is seen covered in blood, but still moving. He was immediately transported to the hospital after the shooting.

Los Angeles Police Department Captain Kelly Muniz spoke with the Times, not identifying the victim, but saying, “The victim was sitting at a table eating with a female witness, when he was approached by the suspect. The suspect then brandished a firearm and demanded his property. We don’t have the audio as to what the exact verbal exchange was at that time. The suspect then fired multiple rounds and then appears to remove some property, to what extent, we don’t know at this time.”

She continued, saying, “The victim has been pronounced deceased at [1:59 PM] today. South Bureau Homicide [Division] is working this case, as are many other detectives.”

PnB Rock was known for hits like “Fleek” and “Selfish,” as well as collaborations with YFN Lucci, Kodak Black, Chance The Rapper, and Ed Sheeran.