Category: News

Cornelius Fredericks, a 16-year-old boy, was placed in the Lakeside Academy, a Michigan facility for teenagers with behavioral problems, by the state’s foster care system after his mother died and father was sent to prison.

On April 29, he was sitting at a table during mealtime and threw a sandwich at another child at the facility. Fredericks was thrown to the ground by staff members, restrained for by six to seven people, including two on his torso, for approximately 12 minutes.

The civil lawsuit filed by Frederick’s family claims that while he was being restrained he cried out, “I can’t breathe.”

While being restrained, Fredericks suffered cardiac arrest. He was taken to a local hospital and pronounced dead three days later. It was discovered at the hospital that he tested positive for COVID-19.

Here’s video of the entire incident, the footage is disturbing.

Video shows restraint of Cornelius Fredericks who died after incident at youth facility (FULL VIDEO)

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“He was suffocated for an excess of 10 mins and left to lie on the floor lifeless with no one providing any medical care or treatment, including the nurse,” Geoffrey Fieger, an attorney who represents the Fredericks estate, said according to Buzzfeed.

“The nurse just stood over his lifeless body and provided no help whatsoever to Cornelius other than calling 911,” Fieger added.

Sequel Youth and Family Services, the owner of Lakeside Academy, told CNN that the staff’s actions were not in line with the facility’s restraint policy.

“The restraint was not conducted in accordance with our policies and training,” a spokesperson said. “At Sequel, it is our policy to only use restraints as an emergency safety intervention in two situations: 1) when a student exhibits imminent danger to self and 2) when a student exhibits imminent danger to others, and in those cases to use the minimal level of intervention possible.”

Three staff members at the facility Michael Mosley, 47, and Zachary Solis, 28, and Heather McLogan, 48, were arraigned on charges of involuntary manslaughter and child abuse.

According to the Kalamazoo Department of Public safety, there had been numerous calls about the facility in the weeks before the murder. “There was a pattern of it being out of control,” Assistant Chief David Boysen said. “There had been a spike in calls from there lately.”

After facility staff learned that Fredericks had COVID-19 it was discovered that nearly 40 of the residents and nine staffers tested positive for the virus.

On May 1, the facility housed 124 boys.

After Frederick’s death, the facility lost its contract with the state to care for youth in the state’s foster care and juvenile justice systems and its license to operate.

The death of Cornelius Fredericks is another in the tragic list of Black people being murdered while being restrained by authorities.

Why was he taken to the ground for throwing a harmless sandwich? Why was he restrained for 12 minutes? How come no one listened when he screamed, “I can’t breathe?” Why does everyone just stand around him doing absolutely nothing for a few minutes after they realize he isn’t conscious?

Sheena Melwani is a media artist and singer who has made a name for herself not only with her musical talent, but because her dad is freaking hilarious.

Melwani shares videos on TikTok of her playing piano and singing popular songs, only to be interrupted by her “Indian dad” making commentary on what she’s singing. Melwani can never make it through a whole song without busting up laughing over her father’s interjections, and who can blame her? He’s like a sitcom character come to life.

Anyone who has a snarky parent will delight in the playful roasts this dad foists upon his daughter. He’s even coined some classic dad hashtags like #closethewindows. Just watch:

In her TikTok videos, her dad is off camera, but if you want to see what he looks like, here’s a video of her trying to prank call him from jail, and his hilarious response:

Indian dads on the phone

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Over the past few years, there has been a growing number of people who believe the Earth is flat. A recent YouGov survey of more than 8,000 Americans found that as many as one in six are “not entirely certain the world is round.”

Maybe there wouldn’t be so much scientific illiteracy in this world if we still had Carl Sagan around.

Sagan hosted the original version of TV’s “Cosmos” in 1980. It would be revived in 2014 with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson at the helm.

In the first episode of “Cosmos,” Sagan easily proved the Earth was a sphere using a piece of cardboard, some sticks, and the work of an ancient Libyan-Greek scholar, Eratosthenes.

Carl Sagan explains how Eratostenes knows the earth is curve

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“How could it be, that at the same moment, a stick in Syene would cast no shadow and a stick in Alexandria, 800 km to the north, would cast a very definite shadow? Sagan asked.

“The only answer was that the surface of the Earth is curved,” he added. “Not only that but the greater the curvature, the bigger the difference in the length of the shadows.”

Considering the distance between the two cities and the lengths of the shadows they produced, Eratosthenes was able to determine that the Earth had a seven-degree curve. He used that calculation to speculate the Earth was 25,000 miles in circumference.

These days we know that the earth is 24,860 in circumference, so Eratosthenes was 140 miles off, not bad for over 2,000 years ago.

Videos are more than an afterthought to Moses Sumney. He and his collaborators always put a ton of effort into the visuals that accompany his songs, and consequently, the videos from Sumney’s new album, Grae, have been a spectacle. Now, he is back with another clip, this time for “Me In 20 Years.” As the title suggests, the clip sees Sumney looking to the future and what it might be like, warts, surrealism, and all.

Like a number of other tracks on Grae, this one was co-produced by Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never). The visual was directed by long-time collaborator Allie Avital and shot in Kiev, Ukraine. Press materials call it “an emotionally devastating and achingly personal look into Moses’ visions of the future, with an added twist of subtle and dreamlike visual elements.”

Sumney previously said of the track, “Upon playing the demo for ‘Me In 20 Years’ for Dan Lopatin, he told me it sounded like an old lady screaming to herself in the middle of Whole Foods. I knew then and there that he was the right collaborator to take [the song] to a catastrophic level.”

Watch the “Me In 20 Years” video above.

Grae is out now via Jagjaguwar. Get it here.

Although concerts and festivals have been canceled for pretty much the remainder of 2020, there’s still some decent news on the horizon. Should new COVID cases fall to manageable levels or an effective (and inexpensive) vaccine be discovered, 2021 is looking stacked. One festival with an attractive 2021 lineup is Mexico’s Baja Beach Fest, billed as “the world’s biggest Latin Trap & Reggaeton festival,” which is aiming for an August 13-15 weekend in Rosarito for its official third edition.

Aside from the obvious benefits of the sunny seaside venue, the lineup is packed to the gills with the top talent in contemporary Latin music, with Anuel AA, J Balvin, and Ozuna headlining a roster that includes international superstars like Becky G, El Alfa, Farruko, Guaynaa, Kali Uchis, Karol G, Lunay, Myke Towers, Sech, and Sky Rompiendo, among others. It’s a prime opportunity to catch up on the burgeoning Latin music scene which has reached new heights of popularity in recent years as stars like Bad Bunny and J Balvin have released bigger and bigger hits. The full rosters and tickets can be found here.

Ticket holders for the canceled 2020 edition of the festival will have their passes honored, while those who cannot attend can request a full refund. The refund must be claimed within the next week.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

After spending all of 2019 refining and workshopping her music with indie musicians like Hippo Campus, Samia is gearing up to release her debut album, The Baby. So far, Samia has previewed the record with “Is There Something In The Movies?” and “Fit N Full.” Now the singer returns with two new tracks and a quarantine-style video.

Directed by Noah Rauchwerk and animated by Granger Wilson, Samia’s “Big Wheel” video seeks company from a handful of virtual clones. The singer directs her new friends in a work-out tape and implores them to join her in a flash mob at a park.

In a statement about the song, Samia said she penned it as a reflection on shying from confrontation: “‘Big Wheel’ is about avoiding conflict at any cost. I wrote it after a few hours of laying in bed imagining hypothetical conversations with people that I was too scared to have in real life. It’s a passive confession of harbored resentments buried in a laundry list of gratitude.”

Along with debuting her “Big Wheel” video, Samia shared the bonus single “Stellate,” which further struggles with confrontation. “‘Stellate’ and ‘Big Wheel’ are both love letters to people/parts of my life I had trouble confronting conversationally,” Samia said. “‘Stellate’ is a note to myself trying to make sense of old traumas and ‘Big Wheel’ is a plea to the people around me, but releasing them together feels like closing a chapter.”

Watch Samia’s “Big Wheel” video above and listen to “Stellate” below.

The Baby is out 8/28 via Grand Jury. Pre-order it here.

Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek’s ongoing battle against stage IV pancreatic cancer appears to be going remarkably well, all things considered, and he hopes mark two years of survivorship next February. He previously stated, “I expect to be around,” but 80-year-old Trebek did concede to Good Morning America earlier this week that if this treatment fails, he won’t undertake any more “extraordinary measures” to ensure his survival.

More of Trebek’s GMA interview is now circulating, and one particular bit has to do with his suggestion of a new host, should the unthinkable happen. He is very much kidding in making this call, but here it is: “I joke with the audience all the time and I say, ‘Betty White,’ because they want somebody younger, somebody funnier.”

White may be funnier, but she is equally beloved and, of course, 98 years young, and people already worry about her every time her name trends on Twitter. No one could probably handle the sight of her taking the podium, and naturally, no one wants to even think of Jeopardy! needing a replacement host at any point.

Meanwhile, Trebek has already revealed changes to the schedule, and he further noted here that the set has been revamped to “separate the contestants and myself a little bit more from them.” They’re also doing online Covid-19 testing for all contestants as the pandemic continues. Watch the latest GMA snippet with Trebek below.

The series finale is the most-discussed episode for many shows, but especially for The Sopranos, considering people are still talking, 13 years later, about what happened to Tony inside Holsten’s. All we know for sure is, those onion rings? Best in da state. Creator David Chase has started to open up about the final scene in the final episode of one of TV’s greatest shows (which has seen its popularity skyrocket during quarantine), but for years, he was hesitant to reveal too much about “Made in America,” not to mention sick of answering questions about the man in the Members Only jacket. So, it’s no wonder that his favorite scene from the episode doesn’t involve Journey.

“Something that nobody would care about was when they were going to the mattresses, there was a Twilight Zone episode playing about a TV writer,” Chase said during the Television Academy’s “Quaranstreaming: Comfort TV That Keeps Us Going” panel, via Entertainment Weekly. “That was one of my favorites. That Twilight Zone [“The Bard”], it was a critique and a slam of network television, and it was very funny.” He also highlighted the scene “with Junior at the end. I loved everything with Junior, especially in that episode. When Janice tells Junior, ‘Bobby’s dead,’ and Junior says, ‘Ambassador Hotel!’ And she says, ‘Your Bobby!’ That was one of my favorite moments.”

Focus on the good times, a wise man once said, like the time AJ tried to impressed a girl by playing her a Bob Dylan song, only for the car they’re in to catch on fire and explode.

Coincidentally, my favorite moment from the finale.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

The Weeknd dropped his highly-anticipated record After Hours at the onset of the pandemic lockdown and has wasted no time in giving fans new content. A few weeks ago, the singer shared a trippy tour of a cityscape through his animated “In Your Eyes” video with Doja Cat. Now The Weeknd returns with yet another animated video, this time accompanying the slow-burner “Snowchild.”

For the cartoon visual, The Weeknd takes a surreal journey down memory lane. It opens with the singer walking through the streets of his Toronto hometown. The Weeknd sings of his former goal to make it to Hollywood as the visual distorts the city skyline. Reflecting on his success, the singer arrives to his California mansion only to discover the darkness that lies there. The visual then depicts the singer walking through the wilderness and undergoing a necessary transformation before he eventually arrives at a theater where he is set to perform.

The dreamlike video arrives after the singer was snubbed for a Polaris Prize nomination, one of Canada’s most prestigious musical awards. The singer first appeared on a list of over 40 potential nominations but once the list was pared down to just ten, The Weeknd didn’t make the final cut.

Watch the “Snowchild” video above.

After Hours is out now via Republic. Get it here.

Friends and Team USA teammates Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Paul — three of the most engaged philanthropists in the NBA family — announced they are coming together to raise money for the Social Change Fund, a joint project that will steer resources toward Black representation and equality.

“When all else fails to organize us, conditions will,” said Anthony, who has worked in this space for 15 years through the Carmelo Anthony Foundation, in a statement. “We established the Social Change Fund to invest in and support organizations working to champion criminal justice reform, enact policy solutions, and advocate for the human rights of all Black lives now and for generations to come. I stand for everything this Fund and its beneficiaries support and will not stop pushing for progress until we see an end to the systemic racism that the Black community has faced for too long. We will keep on pushing. We will not lose focus.”

Anthony had been publicly hesitant about participating in the NBA restart in Orlando while his close friend Paul led the players’ association effort to finish the season. Paul’s work outside basketball to provide better educational and financial resources to HBCUs lends itself to the work the new Social Change Fund will lead.

“Our mission is to address social and economic justice issues facing Black communities and break down the discriminatory barriers to success,” Paul said. “The Social Change Fund will help advance racial equality and opportunity. We will unite with other individuals who share our vision and commitment to use our collective voices and resources to advocate for change and foster a more equitable future.”

Anthony, Paul, and Wade will serve as the Founders Council for the Fund, finding partners and beneficiaries. Companies from Beyond Meat to CAA have already signed to create the first pool of funding and support the founders.

All three NBA stars see this as a long-term project.

“The magnitude of racial inequality is staggering with Black lives socially, politically and economically marginalized,” Wade said. “We are committed to supporting organizations that directly represent and benefit the Black community with the Social Change Fund. Our goal is to create a pathway for inclusion and success by deploying the necessary funds and resources to invest in long-term change.”