'Roseanne' Abruptly Canceled After Star's Tweet
Walt Disney Company’s ABC network on Tuesday canceled the popular U.S. television comedy “Roseanne” after star Roseanne Barr incited outrage by comparing a black former Obama administration official to an ape in remarks on Twitter.
The show, a revival of the 1990s hit “Roseanne,” was ABC’s most widely watched show for the TV season that ended last week. President Donald Trump has cited its huge viewership as evidence his supporters, who include Barr, want shows that speak to their concerns.
“Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show,” ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey said in a statement.
Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger added on Twitter: “There was only one thing to do here, and that was the right thing.”
In a since deleted comment on Twitter, Barr compared former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, 61, to an ape. She wrote that if the Islamist political movement “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby = vj.”
Barr, 65, apologized “for making a bad joke” about Jarrett, who is black and was born in Iran to American parents.
DHS Secretary Awards Grants To ‘Sanctuary’ Cities Despite Trump Wishes
The Department of Homeland Security announced preparedness grants last week, which are intended to help localities prepare for “terrorist attacks, major disasters and other emergencies.”
The grant money, available annually, is essentially set aside for localities who apply to Homeland Security to spend the money on specific expenses. If any localities were going to be excluded for being sanctuary cities or for other reasons, it would have been done so already, according to McClatchy.
In one of his first acts as president, Trump signed an executive order that called for the DHS secretary and attorney general to use their discretion to ensure that jurisdictions that refuse to comply with federal law are not eligible to receive grants. But the language was vague.
DHS announced the grants last week but did not list the localities and did not respond to a request to release the list of localities. Department officials alerted members of Congress though, some of whom touted the money in statements.
On May 21, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen announced the release of Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 Notices of Funding Opportunity for eight DHS preparedness grant programs totaling more than $1.6 billion.
The grant programs provide funding to state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, as well as transportation authorities, nonprofit organizations, and the private sector, to improve the nation’s readiness in preventing, protecting against, responding to, recovering from and mitigating terrorist attacks, major disasters and other emergencies. The grants reflect the Department’s focus on funding for programs that address our nation’s immediate security needs and ensure public safety in our communities.
“The administration remains committed to strengthening the security and resilience of our state and local communities,” said Secretary Nielsen. “The DHS grant programs are flexible by design and will be used to help address evolving threats. They will go toward building and sustaining capabilities across all levels of government and the whole community to maximize preparedness.”
Grant recipients are encouraged to use grant funding to maintain and sustain current critical core capabilities through investments in training and exercises, updates to current planning and procedures, and lifecycle replacement of equipment. New capabilities that are built using homeland security grant funding must be deployable if needed to support regional and national efforts. All capabilities being built or sustained must have a clear linkage to the core capabilities articulated in the National Preparedness Goal.
Reuben Foster Case Update
The domestic violence case against 49ers linebacker Reuben Foster will not go to trial, Santa Clara County Judge Nona Klippen announced Wednesday afternoon. Foster rejoined his teammates for practice on Thursday.
Klippen dismissed two charges against Foster: domestic violence with an allegation that he inflicted great bodily injury and forcefully attempting to prevent a victim from reporting a crime. The charge of possession of an assault weapon was reduced to a misdemeanor.
Foster, 24, has not been allowed to take part in team activities while his case was ongoing. That is no longer the case, general manager John Lynch said in a statement issued quickly after the ruling.
Memorial Day Weekend Violence in Chicago
In Chicago over Memorial Day weekend, 7 people were killed and 32 were wounded by gunfire.
While that is still a shocking number, last year over Memorial Day weekend 45 people were shot, 7 of them killed and the year before, in 2016, 71 people were shot, 6 fatally (one of the most violent Memorial Day weekends in years.)
This year there were more than 100 arrests over the weekend, mainly on illegal guns and drug charges. So far in Chicago, 198 people have been killed this year.
Starbucks Closes More Than 8,000 Stores Today For Racial Bias Training
On May 29th Starbucks closed about 8,000 company-owned locations for approximately 3-4 hours to offer 175,000 employees a mandatory anti-bias training.
Most of the 7,000 licensed stores, including ones that are operated by hotels, grocery stores and airports, remained open.
Workers at each location broke into small groups to learn together. Employees talked about their own experiences and watched a film by an award-winning documentarian, Stanley Nelson, known for films such as “Freedom Riders”. The documentary that Starbucks’ employees will be viewing is called “You’re Welcome”.
Employees discussed how they define biases, how biases exist within each person and how they have been personally affected by bias. The conversations will be accompanied by video interviews with implicit bias experts and Starbucks board members.
Employees will also go through the U.S. legacy of racial discrimination in public spaces and efforts to address it, beginning with the civil rights movement. The training will focus on understanding both racial bias and the history of racial discrimination in public spaces in the United States.
Starbucks will be using several experts to help develop an effective curriculum. Some of the experts include, Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder and Heather McGhee, president of the public policy organization Demos.
Word of the Day: Bilge
