CBU January 2020 Emagazine

C B U

EMAG 01.20

New Year!

New Decade!

New Oppor tunities To Live Your Best Life!

Career – Health – Finances Cover Model: Gerald Thomas Photographer: Marvin Bienaime Sunglasses: The Clothing Warehouse - Atlanta Attire: H&M — in Fort Worth, Texas.

CBU Celebrates The Life and Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In This Issue A Career-Change Strategy For Any Level

6 Self-Care Is Not An Indulgence. It’s A Discipline.

22 Check-Ups Every Guy Needs

62 Why It’s Time To Invest And How To Get Started

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It takes some extra patience, says ‘Switchers’ author Dr. Dawn Marie Graham, but changing careers is possible.

How old were you when you decided what you wanted to be when you grew up? Chances are, you picked your occupation in your early 20s, or even your late teens, before you even had a clue about all of the opportunities out there. Fast forward to the present, and maybe you feel stuck, are considering a career change, and wishing you could go back in time and pick an entirely different field.

But who’s going to hire you now, with your years of experience in the “wrong” business? And forget going back to school.

Nevertheless, Dr. Dawn Marie Graham says a career change is doable. Host of Sirius XM radio’s weekly show “Career Talk,” career director at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a licensed psychologist, Graham knows, firsthand, how to make a career change, having started her professional life as a corporate recruiter.

“If you’re determined to make a switch, nothing will stand in your way,” Graham writes in Switchers: How Smart Professionals Change Careers and Seize Success. “Limitations can lead to creative solutions, and persistence will take you far.”

Monster recently spoke with Graham about smart strategies for pursuing your dream job in a whole different field.

Q. Switchers starts off with a 12-question quiz to pinpoint how much change a person is willing to accept. Why is that?

A. Everything in life entails a trade-off, and only you can decide what is important to you and what is non-negotiable. So, the quiz asks you to think hard about a dozen aspects of a career change that you may not have considered. For instance, are you willing, or able, to accept a pay cut, at least temporarily? How much of one? Are you open to the idea of relocating? How far? How much networking are you willing to do?

Once you’ve written down the answers to these questions, you can begin to put together a workable strategy for reaching your goal.

Q. Callers to your radio show often ask whether they should launch a career change by going back to school. What do you tell them?

A. Unless you’re switching to a field like nursing or law, which require specific degrees and licensing, the short answer is no. Going back to school often appeals to people because it offers structure and seems straightforward, but it’s not a good first step.

You’ll still have a tough job search afterward, and you’ll probably have piled up student debt.

Instead, aim at getting some practical experience first, either by volunteering for a project at your current company or by finding an internship. This does two things: It’s more likely than a degree to impress a potential employer, and it gives you a close-up, day-to-day look at this new career.

Q. You note that hiring managers often perceive career switchers as far riskier than candidates with the “right” experience. What are some ways around that?

A. Start by understanding that hiring mistakes are costly, in several different ways, and hiring managers are motivated to avoid them. So, while every job hunter should think hard about a hiring manager’s concerns and address those pain points in your resume or cover letter, or during your interview, it’s especially essential for switchers. Try to put yourself in the hiring manager’s shoes. If you frame the discussion in terms of what the company needs, instead of making it all about you, your chances of being hired go way up.

Another tactic that works beautifully is to get close to the inner circle of your new field or industry. Join trade associations, attend conferences, and post on relevant social media sites. The goal is an introduction or a referral from an “insider,” which, in interviewers’ eyes, makes you much less of an unknown quantity.

Q. There’s quite a bit of insight in your book about networking, which many people worry they’re “not good at.” Any advice?

A. Most people are better at it than they think! It’s about having conversations and forming human connections, which we all know how to do. Relationships start to form when you’re genuinely curious. Two of my favorite conversation starters are: “What do you love about what you do?” and “What has surprised you about your job (or company)?”

Q. You say people entering a new field shouldn’t be nervous about negotiating pay. Why not?

A. It’s true that many switchers feel they’re “lucky” just to get an offer in a new field. Wrong! Don’t be apologetic. Never negotiate pay before you have a firm offer in hand—and at that point, realize that means the company recognizes the value you bring, and they want you to start off excited and motivated.

You may also be questioning your ability to do the job as well as a more traditional candidate would. Don’t.

While things may feel ambiguous now, in six months, you’ll no doubt be up to speed and wondering why you were worried in the first place.

Don’t forget to change your resume before changing your career

As you can see, making a career change can present its own unique set of challenges, including how to convey it in your resume. Could you use some help fine-tuning the details of your career change in your resume? Get a free resume evaluation today from the experts at Monster's Resume Writing Service. You'll get detailed feedback in two business days, including a review of your resume's appearance and content, and a prediction of a recruiter's first impression. It's a quick and easy way to be sure you're coming across as professional and ready to make that change.

Anne Fisher has been writing about career and workplace trends and topics since 1996. She is the author of If My Career’s on the Fast Track, Where Do I Get a Road Map?

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SUN, JAN 26

John Legend Celebrated His Birthday & 15th Anniversary of Debut Album 'Get Lifted John Legend celebrated his birthday Saturday (Dec. 28), but he took the time to highlight another very important milestone in his life.

The singer penned a note on social media in honor of Get Lifted, his first major-label studio album, which was released on Dec. 28, 2004. This year marks the album's 15th anniversary.

"15 years ago, we released my debut major label album #GetLifted on GOOD/Columbia Records. Thanks to everyone who has been with me on this amazing journey ever since," he wrote on Instagram.

"I always had big dreams for my life as a musician," Legend continued. "Even when I was a young kid watching the Grammys and Star Search and Soul Train, I wanted to be on those stages. When my parents played albums on their record player, I dreamed of the day when I would make my own records. But you never know if it's all going to happen. And my biggest hopes and dreams have been exceeded by reality."

Scott Garfitt/NBCUniversal/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

John Legend attend Global Citizen Prize at Royal Albert Hall on Dec. 13, 2019 in London, England.

He then thanked those who played a part in the making of Get Lifted: "I'm so grateful to everyone who has been a part of it. So much of it started with #GetLifted. Special thanks to my collaborators on that album: particularly @kanyewest, @davetozer, @springsteezy and @iamwill. Thanks for believing in me before everyone else. Thanks for helping to shape my sound and helping to introduce me to the world."

See Legend's thoughts about Get Lifted below.

Click Here To See The Trailer

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What will come up in your background check?

By Andrew Seaman for LinkedIn.com

Various jobs throughout my career required background checks as a condition of employment.

I never thought much about those checks. I’d sign a consent form and move on with the process.

Unfortunately, it’s not as simple for many job seekers.

My first experience with the complexities of background checks came during college when I was interviewed by the U.S. military. They asked a few questions about a friend before he moved up in the ranks. When I was training to be an investigative journalist, I also learned how some institutions dig into high-profile people’s backgrounds. More recently, I hear from friends who need to dig up years of financial records (often from other countries) for new jobs.

You’ll likely encounter a background check before accepting your next job. The latest survey from the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS) and HR.com found that 96% of employers conducted some sort of background check. Most said they check applicants for both part-time and full-time positions.

To get a better understanding of the background checks you may face during your job search, I talked with Danielle Korins, who is the chief people officer at Sterling, which performs background checks and other services for employers. Due to her position, Korins knows about background checks from the side of the employer and the company digging into a person’s history.

Why you get checked

Companies perform background checks for several reasons, Korins told me. The company may want to make sure the person is the right cultural fit for the role, for example. They may also believe eliminating people with criminal records from consideration will keep their current employees safe. In some cases, background checks may also be required by law.

“There is an onus on us to know what we’re buying — so to speak — when we hire someone,” she said.

Some important points for you to know about background checks is that you won’t face one until you’ve received an offer letter and provided your consent. You also have the right to see the results of the background check.

What you might encounter earlier on in the hiring process is identity verification, said Korins. Aan increasing number of companies want to make sure the person they are talking to is the same as the person listed on the application.

What gets checked

The reason employers often hire a company like Sterling to perform background checks is that the process is much more complex than just Googling a person or getting their criminal records. Employers need to make sure their background checks are performed within legal boundaries. Hiring a company to do the check limits their liability.

“There are a lot of protections for candidates in this process,” Korins told me. “We can’t do whatever we want. It’s highly regulated.”

Typically, she said criminal records will be checked from the past seven years. They’ll also look at a person’s education, job history and — depending on the company — may ask for their fingerprints and a drug test. Some candidates may also have their social media and other histories checked. Ultimately, it depends on the individual company’s request and what the law allows.

The NAPBS and HR.com survey that I mentioned above found that between 80% and 90% of employers check criminal records of all applicants, 13% check their credit, 24% verify education, 37% check driving records and 6% check social media.

What the company sees

Background checks come back clean most of the time, Korins told me. In the cases when something concerning does pop up, the employer is told to review the person’s information. The employer is responsible for following up with the candidate and ultimately deciding whether to hire the person.

Of course, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with the specific laws in your area regarding background questions and checks. Many states have been implementing new laws and regulations that dictate when employers can ask and check different parts of a person’s history.

The National Employment Law Project says 35 states have adopted “Ban the Box” laws, for example. Those laws generally restrict an employer from asking about an applicant’s criminal record during the early stages of the hiring process. The goal is to make employers judge applicants based on their qualifications — not their past offenses. Those laws typically don’t affect background checks later on in the process, however.

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Self-Care Is Not An Indulgence.

It's A Discipline.

By Tami Forman for forbes.com

The way self-care is portrayed today is completely and utterly backward.

First, self-care as a concept is almost exclusively aimed at women (generally wealthy white women who can afford the goods and services that get marketed to them as self-care). The not-so-subtle suggestion is that women need to be reminded to care for themselves because, after all, they are so busy taking care of everyone else. And the even less-subtle suggestion is that while we should be taking care of ourselves, that doesn’t absolve us from taking care of everyone else.

Which brings me to the second way that the current portrayal of self-care is backward — it’s characterized as an indulgence. This means both that the practice of self-care is something we are occasionally allowed to indulge in and that self-care should feel like an indulgence. Think expensive bath products, luxurious chocolates, spa appointments. When we spend more time talking about the self-care power of high thread count sheets than we do about getting enough sleep we’ve wandered pretty far from anything that can be remotely considered healthy for either mind or body.

Self-care is not an indulgence. Self-care is a discipline. It requires toughmindedness, a deep and personal understanding of your priorities, and a respect for both yourself and the people you choose to spend your life with.

Which brings me to the second way that the current portrayal of self-care is backward — it’s characterized as an indulgence. This means both that the practice of self-care is something we are occasionally allowed to indulge in and that self-care should feel like an indulgence. Think expensive bath products, luxurious chocolates, spa appointments. When we spend more time talking about the self-care power of high thread count sheets than we do about getting enough sleep we’ve wandered pretty far from anything that can be remotely considered healthy for either mind or body.

Self-care is not an indulgence. Self-care is a discipline. It requires toughmindedness, a deep and personal understanding of your priorities, and a respect for both yourself and the people you choose to spend your life with.

For example, self care is:

q Turning off the TV instead of watching another episode of “Power” because the alarm is going off at 5am so you can get to the gym. q Declining the second drink at the office holiday party. It might even be declining the first drink. q Saying “no” to the thing you don’t want to do even if someone is going to be angry at you. q Maintaining financial independence. q Doing work that matters. q Letting other people take care of themselves.

If we are being honest, self-care is actually kind of boring. Which is why self-care is a discipline. It takes discipline to do the things that are good for us instead of what feels good in the moment. It’s takes even more discipline to refuse to take responsibility for other people’s emotional well-being. And it takes discipline to take full and complete responsibility for our own well-being.

If we are being honest, self-care is actually kind of boring. Which is why self-care is a discipline. It takes discipline to do the things that are good for us instead of what feels good in the moment. It’s takes even more discipline to refuse to take responsibility for other people’s emotional well-being. And it takes discipline to take full and complete responsibility for our own well-being.

Ironically when you truly care for yourself, exercising all the discipline that requires, you are actually in a much stronger place to give of yourself to those around you.

You will be a happier parent, a more grateful spouse, a fully engaged colleague. Those who take care of themselves have the energy to take care of others joyfully because that caregiving doesn’t come at their own expense. And those who take care of themselves also have the energy to work with meaning and purpose toward a worthy goal. Which means they are also the people most likely to make the world a better place for all of us.

ESPN Drops Trailer for Documentary Series on the ’90s Bulls

Get pumped, Bulls fans.

ESPN dropped a trailer for its upcoming documentary series profiling the Chicago Bulls of the 1990s and Michael Jordan's rise to stardom - and it just might give you chills.

"By the late '90s, the Chicago Bulls were a worldwide phenomenon," the video posted to Twitter reads.

"Now everyone has something to say.”

The teaser video showcases shots of dozens of people interviewed for the series, including former President Barack Obama, Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, Steve Kerr, Scottie Pippen and more.

Titled "The Last Dance," the 10part series will chronicle "one of the greatest icons and most successful dynasties in sports history," ESPN and Netflix said in a statement announcing the project in May 2018.

Directed by Jason Hehir, who also directed ESPN’s "30 for 30" on the 1985 Chicago Bears and HBO's recent hit "Andre the Giant," the anthology will examine the "simultaneous rise of Jordan and the NBA during those years.” Click here for the trailer.

Chicago will host NBA All-Star for the first time in three decades.

The All-Star weekend will feature a variety of events including All-Star Saturday Night and the 69th Annual NBA All-Star Game.

This Black Man Created An App That Makes Solo Travel Easier To Navigate We’ve all been there, we plan this amazing trip

and our friends are all on board, but as we get closer and closer to the trip, people begin backing out. Now you are left with the decision of, “do I just wait until everyone can go, or do I say forget them and venture out on my own.”

That was the case for New York resident Chizoba Anyaoha. He made plans to travel to Australia for his birthday. Plans kept changing and the trip was pushed back until finally, his friend backed out completely. After asking for his friend’s blessing, Chizoba decided to make the journey solo.

“It opened up a new world of solo travel for me,” Chizoba told Travel Noire.

It has been shown that traveling solo has psychological benefits.

It makes you feel better and brings newfound confidence in many who learn just how courageous they are.

“Solo travel doesn’t mean you’re lonely, it means you’re just ready to get out and live your life. If you had a choice to experience something today, would you? Tomorrow isn’t promised after all,” he said.

These days, Chizoba travels at least 4-5 times by himself internationally.

Because of this, he wanted to also give the gift of solo travel to others.

Last month, Chizoba officially launched the TravSolo app via the App Store.

How it works Once you download the app, you can go in and set your destination. From there, you can choose how you want to spend your trip. You can opt to meet other travelers along the way or even add in friends and family to follow your trip in real-time

Based on what you are interested in, the app can also plan an itinerary for you.

You can add in your own content that the app will save for you. It will create a post-travel video story for you when you are done and ready to share,” Chizoba explained.

The goal is to have more travelers live in the moment versus focusing on getting content out and then keeping tabs on engagement. When your trip is done, you’ll have a visual story to share with your audiences.

There is also a safety feature that will allow you to screen people, based on other traveler’s endorsements, before you decide to hang out with them.

“I want to get people over their fear of solo travel. Once you do it, it becomes an addiction.

Sometimes you need to be selfish for yourself.

As of now, the Travsolo app is only available via the App Store for iOs devices. Chizoba is working to soon make it available for Android devices as well. It is free to use and download.

To download the app or to learn more, visit the website: www.travsolo.com or check out the social media pages at @travsolo.

Toss Your Weed Before You Fly At One Of The Chicago Airports’ Marijuana Disposal Boxes By travelnoire.com

Photo Credit: AzmanL | Getty Images

Ever been unsure of what to do with your recreational marijuana once you arrive at the airport? Though most of us would probably answer no, Chicago Airports have addressed this concern by recently installing marijuana disposal boxes.

According to the Chicago Tribune, both O’Hare International Airport and Midway Airport installed “cannabis amnesty boxes” earlier this month in the wake of recreational marijuana legalization in Illinois.

“We’re not encouraging people to bring cannabis through the airports at all. But if for some reason you have it on you, we have those amnesty boxes out there so that you can dispose of it prior to getting on the airplane,” Maggie Huynh, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Police Department, told the Tribune.

The boxes are located near TSA checkpoints allowing travelers to dispose of their recreational marijuana to avoid any issues when traveling to areas where the substance is not legal.

Although this move seems very progressive, Chicago’s airports aren’t the first to install marijuana disposal boxes. Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport and Colorado Springs Airport also offer similar cannabis amnesty boxes and surely we will be seeing more of them as the legalization of marijuana continues to spread across the country.

While TSA doesn’t actively search for marijuana, (their concerns are focused on the safety of travel) officers who uncover drugs or illegal substances are required to “refer the matter to a law enforcement officer,” according to TSA spokeswoman Sari Koshetz. From there, the matter is left to the local police to handle.

As a reminder, always know what is in your possession and be aware of local laws wherever you are traveling to avoid any potential issues.

Photo Credit: Stephen Chernin | Getty Images | From: travelnoire.com

What You Need To Know About Traveling With Marijuana

When it comes to the legality of traveling through U.S. airports with the possession of cannabis in any form, the law is pretty clear: it’s illegal. All U.S. airports and commercial aircraft fall under federal jurisdiction.

However, the reality of the situation is not so black and white.

As of January 2018, California passed Proposition 64, stating that “the Los Angeles Airport Police Department will allow passengers to travel through LAX with up to 28.5 grams of marijuana and 8 grams of concentrated marijuana.” Los Angeles International Airport states the details of this policy on their website, which essentially bypasses federal laws.

Since the TSA’s main concern is terrorism and security threats, they aren’t necessarily looking for marijuana, that’s the job of local law enforcement and federal drug agents.

Lieutenant Mark Gonzales, airport police services bureau chief with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department tells USA Today, “If the TSA calls us [about finding marijuana], we’d go up and make sure it is within the legal quantity. If it is, we’d just stand by while the passenger decides what to do with it.”

Similarly, Boston Logan International Airport also has a lenient stance on the matter. The Boston Globe states, “possessing an ounce or less is legal in Massachusetts, and the Massachusetts Port Authority, which owns and operates Logan International Airport, doesn’t have any policy prohibiting it.”

If marijuana is found by a TSA agent at Boston Logan International Airport, they may call on the Massachusetts State Police to handle the matter. However, as long as you are 21 or older and your stash is under the state limit, they’ll probably let you go in peace.

Recreational marijuana has now been legalized in 10 states. And though some of these states may be more lenient about air travel, it’s important to know that the feds still consider it illegal. It’s important to also note that it is illegal to cross international borders with any amount of marijuana.

Bottom line is, it’s a bit of a tangled web with hazy rules that greatly vary from airport to airport. If you are considering traveling with cannabis or cannabis-related products, it’s important to know the details of state and federal laws.

7

The Coolest Automotive Technologies Unveiled at CES The high-tech event has become a magnet for automakers as the intersection between cars, mobility, and technology has grown CES, formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show, has long been a key locus for viewing the latest in personal computers, phones, cameras, drones, and other technological gewgaws. But in recent years, the Las Vegas–based convention has also become a magnet for automakers.

As the intersection between cars, mobility, and technology has grown— especially with advanced driver assistance technologies, in-car digital assistants, and artificial intelligence—luxury and mainstream automakers have colonized the show, hoping to demonstrate the ever-growing synergies among these realms.

This year saw major unveilings of concepts, technology, new vehicles, and some really out-there stuff from a broad range of automakers. We stalked the packed floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center to find the coolest automotive and automotive-adjacent gadgets and gizmos, listed for you here in alphabetical order.

By Brett Berk for archectecturaldigest.com

Photo: Courtesy of BMW

BMW i3 Urban Suite

BMW showed off a new version of its sporty, battery-powered runabout, the i3, designed specifically for the ride-hailing or chauffeur-driven market. With the front passenger seat removed and replaced with a footrest, it has immense legroom, and with its back passenger seat given over to a table, there’s room for our new favorite in-car executive feature: a table lamp.

Photo: Courtesy of BMW

Photo: Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes Grab Graphics

Mercedes-Benz showed off a new concept car this year, inspired by the world depicted in James Cameron’s blockbuster movie Avatar. The futuristic electric sedan has spherical tires, glass doors, and moving scales on its rear deck. It also lacks a traditional dashboard, relying instead on tactile projections. So when an occupant wants to select an option, they just hold up their hand, swipe through ephemeral lightbased icons, and close their hand around the one they want to choose.

Seats four humans—well, two big humans and two small humans—comfortably. Mercedes-Benz AG - Global Communications Mercedes-Benz Cars & Vans

A mock-up of the Vision AVTR inside Mercedes-Benz's Stuttgart headquartersCourtesy Mercedes-Benz

Photo: Courtesy of Audi

Audi AI:ME

Audi’s latest autonomous driving concept features chiseled glass windows, recycled interior trim materials, and a steering wheel that retracts into the dash, leaving behind a desk. But our favorite feature is its eyetracking software, which allows occupants to choose from menus projected on its wide color LED screen just by looking at them.

(We tried it, and it works.)

Photo: Courtesy of Audi

Photo: Courtesy of Land Rover

Land Rover Dual E-Sim

Visually, this new tech feature doesn't look like much, because it’s buried deep inside the dash of the cool new Land Rover Defender.

But it has great functionality. It’s a second LTE modem, which allows the car to more quickly process wireless “over the air updates” to the software that runs all of its complex systems, without stealing bandwidth from favored features like streaming music and connecting to in-car apps.

Photo: Courtesy of Land Rover

Photo: Courtesy of Uber

Hyundai/Uber Air Taxi

Though luxury car companies like Aston Martin, Mercedes, and Porsche have announced partnerships to build “air taxis,” we didn’t expect this fully realized, four-seat, electric chopper from Hyundai. We’re not sure we’re ready to get into one of these giant drones just yet, or how they’ll handle congested skies when swarms of them are flitting about. But it does resemble the flying car we’ve been promised for a century.

Photo: Courtesy of Uber

The winter months can be grueling on the skin. The cold air makes our skin especially vulnerable, often times leaving it dry and cracked. If you’re like most men, you probably write this off as just a part of the season and think there isn’t anything that you can do about it. But that isn’t true. There are 3 key skin care routines every black man should do during the winter months to protect his skin.

SHOWER WITH LUKEWARM WATER. We know you want to hit the showers and turn up the heat because of the cold.

However, the hot water removes essential oils from your skin making it especially susceptible to drying out. Thus leaving you with the ultimate fail for ashy skin. To prevent the ash, turn down the heat.

MOISTURIZE DAILY. Hydrating your skin daily will help you keep an even tone and prevent flakey and ashy skin (again nobody likes ashy skin). Use your moisturizer immediately after showering while your skin is still wet. An added bonus is to use a moisturizer with sunscreen. Although it’s cold, the sun’s UV’s can still cause damage to your skin even though it is melaninated. The sunscreen will help protect your skin from hyperpigmentation and skin cancer.

DRINK MORE WATER. Skin care starts from the inside out. In the winter time, we tend to drink less water, turning to drinks like coffee and tea to stay warm. However, now, more than ever your skin needs to stay hydrated from H20. Experts recommend that you drink an ounce of water for each pound you weigh, every day. If it’s warmth you want, consider drinking warm water with a lemon to experience a refreshing, healthy drink.

Winter weather doesn’t have to mean dry ashy skin. Implement these three simple skin care tips to keep your face and skin fresh all winter.

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Rejoice! Beyonce's Next Ivy Park Collection Will Be Unisex

Let’s be clear about something: We’ve already been wearing Beyonce’s Ivy Park line. Regardless of who the designs were intended for, we copped a few hoodies, and the beanie on the first collection drop. A few of the more daring gays even bought the leotard. But now, the star is finally designing with gender neutrality in mind.

In a new cover story for Elle Magazine, the star answered questions from fans as a part of an “Ask Me Anything” segment.

“I have been waiting for more IVY PARK,” one fan wrote in a Facebook message. “What are you giving with your partnership with adidas?” The question referenced the fact that earlier this year, adidas and Beyonce inked a partnership deal for the brand.

“I am excited for you to see the campaign for the first collection of this partnership,” Beyonce responded to the question. “This new line is fun and lends itself to creativity, the ultimate power. I focused on designing a unisex collection of footwear and apparel because I saw so many men in IVY PARK. The way they have embraced the brand is an unexpected gift. I appreciate the beauty of genderneutral clothing and breaking the so-called fashion rules."

The collection, which was previewed first in the Elle spread, but further on Instagram, will be released on January 18. It will be the first time that Ivy Park releases footwear. Those sneakers will be Beyonce’s remixes on some of her favorite adidas styles.

Elsewhere in the cover story, Beyonce answers the vitally important question: Where is the Formation tour DVD!! After having trolled fans with “Where is the FWT DVD” merchandise, she finally decided to answer the question.

“I’ve been to every one of your solo tours and the ones with JAY-Z,” one fan wrote on Instagram. “The Formation World Tour was my favorite. Where is the video?” The star has routinely released concert footage after major tours.

“Years ago, I asked Prince to record my rehearsal with him for our Grammy performance,” she wrote in response. “He said ‘You don’t need to record that. You own that in your mind.’

Haaaaaaa! Prince always knew best. So, you can always watch the Formation World tour in your mind; you own that!”

Wow. An iconic troll.

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Check-Ups Every Guy Needs An age-by-age breakdown of the most important medical tests for men

by Carol Sorgen

Chances are you get your car tuned regularly, never skip an oil

change, and keep it buffed and polished till it sparkles. But are you taking such good care of yourself?

"Our busy lives and work schedules often prevent us from seeking routine preventive care," says Robert W. Brenner, MD, Chief Medical Officer and Founder of the Preventive Medicine Program at New Jersey-based Summit Medical Group. "But evidence-based preventive medicine is cost-effective and reduces the risk of illness and disease.�

"Cars get routine check-ups. So do planes," adds Daniel Cosgrove, MD, Medical Director of the WellMax Center in La Quinta, California. "But for our bodies, the most precious thing we have, we wait for symptoms. And unfortunately, most diseases are far advanced by the time one gets symptoms.�

Based on your individual health conditions, your doctor will determine which tests you should have, and how often to have them, but in general, the medical exams suggested on the next few pages will help keep you a finely-tuned machine throughout your life.

In Your

20s

§ Annual physical exam by your primary care physician, including blood pressure, and height/weight checks § Screening for testicular cancer, including monthly self exams § Cholesterol testing every 5 years § Depending on your individual circumstances, your doctor may want to do an electrocardiogram to check for heart disease, and blood tests to screen for diabetes, thyroid disease, liver problems, and anemia § Depending on risk factors, your doctor may also recommend screening for skin cancer, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV infection, and alcohol abuse

In Your

30s

§ Annual physical exam by your primary care physician, including blood pressure, and height/weight checks § Screening for testicular cancer, including monthly self exams § Cholesterol testing every 5 years § Depending on your individual circumstances, your doctor may want to do an electrocardiogram to check for heart disease, and blood tests to screen for diabetes, thyroid disease, liver problems, and anemia § Depending on risk factors, your doctor may also recommend screening for skin cancer, oral cancer, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV infection, and alcohol abuse § Vision examination § Screening for coronary heart disease in individuals with strong family history and/or risk factors

In Your

40s

§ Annual physical exam by your primary care physician, including blood pressure, and height/weight checks § Screening for testicular cancer, including monthly self exams § Cholesterol testing every 5 years § Depending on your individual circumstances, your doctor may want to do an electrocardiogram to check for heart disease, and blood tests to screen for thyroid disease, liver problems, and anemia § Screening for prostate cancer § Diabetes screening every 3 years over the age of 45 § Depending on risk factors, your doctor may also recommend screening for skin cancer, oral cancer, sexually transmitted diseases, and alcohol abuse § Vision examination § Screening for coronary heart disease in individuals with strong family history and/or risk factors

In Your

50s

§ Annual physical exam by your primary care physician, including blood pressure, and height/weight checks § Screening for testicular cancer, including monthly self exams § Cholesterol testing every 5 years § Depending on your individual circumstances, your doctor may want to do an electrocardiogram to check for heart disease, and blood tests to screen for thyroid disease, liver problems, and anemia § Screening for prostate cancer § Diabetes screening every 3 years over the age of 45 § Depending on risk factors, your doctor may also recommend screening for skin cancer, oral cancer, sexually transmitted diseases, and alcohol abuse § Vision examination § Screening for coronary heart disease in individuals with strong family history and/or risk factors

In Your

60s § Annual physical exam by your primary care physician, including blood pressure, and height/weight checks § Screening for testicular cancer, including monthly self exams § Screening for prostate cancer § Screening for lipid disorders § Annual electrocardiogram § Discuss with your physician screening for coronary heart disease, abdominal aortic aneurysm, and carotid artery ultrasound screening § Vision and hearing examinations § Screening for osteoporosis § Depending on risk factors, your doctor may recommend screening for skin cancer, oral cancer, lung cancer sexually transmitted diseases, and alcohol abuse § Continue colorectal screening based upon previous studies and results § Screening for depression § Screening for dementia and Alzheimer's disease

In Your

70s

§ Annual physical exam by your primary care physician, including blood pressure, and height/weight checks § Screening for testicular cancer, including monthly self exams § Screening for prostate cancer § Screening for lipid disorders § Annual electrocardiogram § Discuss with your physician screening for coronary heart disease, abdominal aortic aneurysm, and carotid artery ultrasound screening § Vision and hearing examinations § Screening for osteoporosis § Continue colorectal screening based upon previous studies and results.

General screening until age 75. Discuss with your physician screening if aged 76-85 years old. Screening is not recommended for those greater than 85 years of age. § Depending on risk factors, your doctor may recommend screening for skin cancer, oral cancer, lung cancer, sexually transmitted diseases, and alcohol abuse § Screening for depression § Screening for dementia and Alzheimer's disease

Jill Scott

Celebrates Being 'Sistah Strong’ With 20th Anniversary Tour

by Gail Mitchell for billboard.com

Actress Jill Scott attends the "Get On Up" premiere at The Apollo Theater on July 21, 2014 NYC (July 20, 2014 - Source: Jemal Countess/ Getty Images North America)

Three-time Grammy Award winner Jill Scott will commemorate her seminal debut album, Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1, with a 20th anniversary tour.

Kicking off in Kansas City, Missouri on Feb. 7, 2020, the first leg of the national tour encompasses stops in both smaller and major markets including Northfield, Ohio, Huntsville, Alabama and Indianapolis as well as New York, Chicago and Dallas. A second leg commencing in summer 2020 will be announced at a later date.

As for what fans can expect to hear and see on her 20th anniversary tour, Scott adds, “I’m going to be true to the album set list. I’ll do every song in the

order of the album. My audience should bring their CD covers; some may know the list by heart. I will create musical arrangements for the songs purposed with new energy, but keep the integrity of the original songs they love. Expect theater. Expect incredible musicianship. Expect love.”

Since her 2000 studio album bow, Scott has released four more albums including 2011’s The Light of the Sun and 2015’s Woman. Both projects, released through the artist’s Blues Babe Records imprint through Warner Bros. and Atlantic, respectively, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

Both sets also ruled the top spot on the Top R&B/ Hip-Hop Albums tally. In addition to founding Blues Babe, the entrepreneurial Scott penned the 2005

collection The Moments, the Minutes, the Hours: The Poetry of Jill Scott, created an intimates line for Ashley Stewart and partnered with Hallmark Mahogany for a greeting card line. Scott also established the Blues Babe foundation, which raises funds to support minority students pursuing college degrees.

Concurrently, Scott has accumulated critical

acclaim and an expanding list of credits as an actor. Those credits include the films Why Did I Get Married? (Part 1 and 2) and the James Brown biopic Get on Up as well television’s Law & Order: SVU, the Peabody Award-winning HBO/BBC miniseries The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency and the Lifetime channel’s Sins of the Mother and Flint. Scott presently portrays the character Hazel in the BET Plus revamp of the 1996 comedy film First Wives Club.

Tickets for the first leg of the Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1 tour go on sale Dec. 6. For additional tour information, visit http://www.missjillscott.com/.

Jill Scott 2020 U.S. Tour Dates: Feb. 7 -- Kansas City, MO / Arvest Bank Theatre at Midland Theatre

Feb. 9 -- St. Louis, MO / Fox Theatre

Feb. 12 -- Chicago, IL / The Chicago Theatre

Feb. 14 -- Hanover, MD / Live! Casino & Hotel

Feb. 15 -- Atlantic City, NJ / Borgata Hotel

Feb. 20 -- New York, NY / Radio City Music Hall

Feb. 21 -- Northfield, OH / MGM Northfield Park

Feb. 23 -- Indianapolis, IN / Murat Theatre

Feb. 25 -- Minneapolis, MN / The Fillmore Minneapolis

Feb. 28 -- Elizabeth, IN / Caesars Event Center at Caesars Southern Indiana

Feb. 29 -- Wetumpka, AL / Wind Creek Hotel & Casino

March 3 -- Memphis, TN / Cannon Center For The Performing Arts

March 5 -- Dallas, TX / The Music Hall at Fair Park

March 7 -- Austin, TX / ACL Live at The Moody Theater

March 8 -- Houston, TX / Revention Music Center

March 11 -- Huntsville, AL / Von Braun Center

March 13 -- Augusta, GA / William B. Bell Memorial Auditorium

March 17 -- Clearwater, FL / Ruth Eckerd Hall

March 18 -- Orlando, FL / Hard Rock Live

March 20 -- Macon, GA / City Auditorium at Macon Centreplex

March 21 -- Columbia, SC / Township Auditorium

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Introducing The Marvel Phase Four Cast And All The Upcoming MCU Crossover Content

Click Here To See Video

Everything You Can Expect From The Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2020 and Beyond

By TooFab Staff at toofab.com

.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe expands beyond the big screen with new projects coming to both Disney+ and Hulu, while Fox wraps up its X-Men run and Sony expands its Venom-verse.

Riding high off a series of billion-dollar boxoffice blockbusters and the culmination of its multi-year, multi-film, multi-franchise "Infinity Saga," Marvel is heading into a major transitional year in 2020.

Not only is the MCU itself stepping boldly into "Phase Four," with a fresh lineup of new films and character sequels and the need for a new "big bad" after Thanos, but the franchise is taking a fresh approach to its projects on the small screen.

"Runaways" just kicked off its final run on Hulu and "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." is wrapping its seven-season run this summer. And after already scrapping basically every other television series across a myriad of networks and streaming platforms over the past year or so, the MCU is coming to Disney+ and Hulu in a bold new way.

First, Disney+ is going to become the official small-screen home for limitedseries explorations of some of its bigscreen characters -- featuring the same movie-star talent -- like the Falcon, the Winter Soldier, the Scarlet Witch, Vision, Hawkeye and more. Plus, there are new characters debuting there as well, and it all kicks off in 2020.

Then, the more sinister and supernatural side of the MCU is set to flex its muscles over on the more mature-friendly Hulu platform as characters like Ghost Rider and Morbius are looking to set this streaming platform ablaze.

2020 also sees the culmination of Fox's tumultuous run with the X-Men franchise before they eventually get folded into the MCU, as well as Sony's latest attempts to build its own Marvel-style universe, this time spinning out of the success of the "Venom" film. .

Check out everything coming to screens big and small from the madcap world of Marvel Comics below and start marking your calendars:

ON THE BIG SCREEN "The New Mutants" (April 3)

Already more than two years since it was filmed (and two years beyond its initial release date), many Marvel fans had written off ever seeing this film that has been described as a superhero horror film, figuring that it would never survive the Disney purchase of 20th Century Fox, where this gestated and was born as a part of the studio's dreams of an MCU-sized franchise based around the X-Men.

Already it was tweaked from a "Breakfast Club" young-adult style to focus more on the horror elements in the wake of the success of "It." What was originally intended to kick off a trilogy of films is now intended to serve as the final chapter of the Fox X-Men saga. Early screenings were well-received, and fans have been anxiously awaiting the film, hoping it's more alike in quality to "Deadpool" and "Logan" than, say, "X-Men: Apocalypse."

"Black Widow" (May 1)

Another film fans have been clamoring for over literal years, Scarlett Johansson finally takes center stage in a movie all her own ... only after the events of "Avengers: Endgame," that fact may raise more questions than anything else about the film.

The movie also kicks off the next phase of the MCU after "SpiderMan: Homecoming" put a bow on the Thanos-driven "Infinity Saga." That means anticipation will be high. And after a longerthan-usual hiatus between films, Disney and Marvel are certainly hoping that all that anticipation will bring fans out in droves to see how they set up a much more eclectic lineup of films for this fourth phase of cinema's most successful franchise.

ON THE BIG SCREEN "Morbius" (July 31)

Building out of the Venom-driven franchise that Sony is now banking on, Marvel's vampiric Morbius takes center stage, as portrayed by Jared Leto.

"Venom" found success by shirking the traditional superhero format for a more horror-driven take -- without straying too far from its roots -- so Morbius is a good fit to continue in that darker cinematic direction.

Not nearly as popular a character in the Marvel comics themselves, Sony is clearly banking on its connections to their Venom-verse and its cast, including Leto, Matt Smith and Tyrese Gibson. If fans can shake off their disdain of Leto's take on Joker for "Suicide Squad," they could find he's a very good fit for the dramatic "living vampire" role this film demands.

Despite the success of "Venom," Sony needs this one to be a hit in order to convince investors a Venom-verse is a viable thing ... or they might try to strongarm Spider-Man back away from the MCU.

"Venom 2" (October 2)

Just a few months after "Morbius" attempts to expand the Venom-verse, Tom Hardy returns as the titular anti-hero, only this time he'll be facing off against his greatest foe from the comics: Carnage. Woody Harrelson, perfectly cast, returns as the redneck serial killer who becomes bonded with the spawn of the Venom symbiote, becoming one of the most dangerous villains in the Marvel Universe.

Already a blockbuster franchise after just one film, Carnage is arguably the more popular of Marvel's symbiotes, so this should be a virtual guaranteed success. The good news for Sony is that this film can serve as a buffer in case Morbius underperforms, quickly proving that there is still life in this franchise, even if they don't quite crack the formula of stepping outside the "Venom" umbrella.

"The Eternals" (November 6)

If you thought "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Ant-Man" were huge MCU gambles ... well, you'd be right. But they're nothing compared to The Eternals. This is a pivotal time for the juggernaut franchise as "Endgame" was a natural ending point to a decade of film-making. Now, despite their track record of success, there is no "Avengers" build-up and so the MCU is looking to reinvent itself with a bit of the old and a bit of the new.

The Eternals (and Shang-Chi) represent the new -- along with those Disney+ series -- as it focuses on a race of immortal alien Celestials protecting humanity from their evil counterparts. It's pretty strange and heady stuff, but the MCU has pulled it off before. And with Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden, Salma Hayek, Kumail Nanjiani and Kit Harington, among others, in the cast, they're certainly stacking the film with talent.

ON THE SMALL SCREEN "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." Season 7

Currently scheduled to air in mid-2020, the flagship MCU television series held off the launch of its final 13-episode season until after Marvel wrapped its "Avengers: Endgame" saga, so that may serve as some indication that it plans to deal in some way with the aftermath of what went down in that film.

At the same time, it also will be dealing with some of the time travel elements that have already cropped up, including a peek into the formation of S.H.I.E.L.D. In fact, we last saw the team warped back to 1931, and there's every chance they'll skip their way back into the present (or future?) giving us glimpses of several different eras of the MCU along the way.

"The Falcon and the Winter Soldier"

The biggest gamble yet of the MCU will be realized with the release of the first film spin-off as an original Disney+ limited series. Promised to have big-screen budgets and big-screen stars (this one features Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan reprising their roles), "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" is but the first in several upcoming original Disney+ MCU series featuring characters old and new.

Perhaps even more so than any of the upcoming films, this one picks up the story after the events of "Avengers: Endgame," which monumentally left both characters in vastly different places as heroes and in their lives. It looks like a huge gamble, but based on the ridiculous success already of Star Wars' "The Mandalorian," this might just be a nobrainer for Marvel after all. It's definitely a great way to expand the storytelling possibilities of the main MCU saga beyond a few films a year.

ON THE SMALL SCREEN "Helstrom"

Without a firm release date, and with a future already in doubt, "Helstrom" is the next Marvel project headed to Hulu. Unlike "Runaways" and "Cloak & Dagger," though, this series appears to be part of an intentional brand expansion by Disney and Marvel into the more mature-friendly Hulu, which they also essentially control.

The idea is to build around the "Spirits of Vengeance" franchise, which is largely Ghost Rider (who is slated to get his own series as well here) and many of the other supernatural characters of the Marvel Universe. Hopefully that means Disney won't be in a hurry to cancel it as it canceled all of the Netflix series and previous Hulu series, seemingly as part of its Disney+ consolidation. Scheduled for 2020, there is not a more specific launch date available.

"Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur"

One of the most adorable and marketable properties Marvel has, Lunella Lafayette is the world's smartest living person and also just 13 years old, to the frustration of many of Marvel's adult geniuses. She befriends -- and shares a mental link with -- a gigantic red dinosaur and goes off on science-driven adventures from her neighborhood in New York.

Heading to Disney Channel proper, this animated series comes from Laurence Fishburne's production company. Already a huge crossover success as a comic book, and one that has successfully drawn in AfricanAmerican readers and young girls, "Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur" has been screaming for the animated treatment since their 2016 premiere.

Scheduled for 2020, there is not a more specific launch date available.

ON THE SMALL SCREEN

Marvel's 'Wandavision' Series Will Be Arriving Sooner Than Expected

By Joe Prince for complex.com

To kick off 2020, Disney has given a preview of what to expect from its Disney+ streaming service this year. Most notably, a newly released teaser revealed that Marvel's WandaVision series has been pushed forward from 2021 to 2020. While no exact release date has been given, Disney previously indicated the show would premiere spring 2021.

WandaVision stars Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany, who both reprise their Marvel Cinematic Universe roles as Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch) and Vision respectively. Teyonah Parris, Kat Dennings, Randall Park, and Kathryn Hahn round out the supporting cast. The limited series will run for six hour-long episodes and will take place after Avengers: Endgame, which saw Scarlet Witch brought back from Thanos' snap in Infinity War.

The teaser additionally shows 1950s-inspired key art of Vision and Wanda together.

Click Here To See The Trailer

The Best Athlete-Inspired Medicine Ball Circuit for Strength and Power

by Marjorie Korn

Justin Steele for Men's Journal

Grooming by Kristy Strate for Ennis Inc. Location courtesy of Soho Strength Lab. Model wears shirt and shoes by Adidas; shorts

by New Balance; tights

by Under Armour

STRENGTH TRAINING is synonymous with lifting heavy. It’s effective, but it’s not the only way. You can get plenty strong by moving lighter weights at high velocity, says Ryan Hopkins, co-founder of Soho Strength Lab in New York City. This trio of no-slam medicine ball moves is proof. Borrowed from basketball conditioning workouts, you’ll maintain control of a six- or eight-pound medicine ball throughout to have you accelerating and decelerating in quick succession, thus recruiting more muscles. Do these to kick off a lifting day for muscle activation and strengthening.

Stab Step

Works the rectus abdominis, obliques, and hips.

Start with soft knees, holding a medicine ball in front of right pec, shifting weight in right foot. In a swift, fluid movement, step left foot to the side into a shallow squat, and snap ball to left pec, left elbow back. Reset and repeat. Do 2 or 3 sets of 6 reps per side.

Split-Stance Head-to-Hip

Works the shoulders, pectorals, torso, hips, and legs.

Start in a split stance, right leg forward, left leg back and knee off floor, holding medicine ball beside right cheek, to start. Snap ball to left hip. Reset and repeat.

Do 2 or 3 sets of 4 reps per side.

Justin Steele for Men’s Journal / Shutterstock

Drop Squat With Fake Slam

Works shoulders, lower back, butt, hamstrings, quads, and abs.

With feet hip-width apart, reach medicine ball overhead, standing on balls of feet, to start. Quickly drop into a high squat, medicine ball to chest. Reset and repeat. Do 2 or 3 sets of 6 reps per side.

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Jennifer Hudson Stars as Aretha Franklin in 1st Teaser Trailer for Late Singer’s ‘Respect’ Biopic

By Dory Jackson for usweekly.com

It’s time to show Jennifer Hudson some R-E-S-P-E-C-T! The first teaser trailer for the upcoming Aretha Franklin biopic officially arrived on Friday, December 20, just ahead of the Christmas holiday — and it’d be hard to imagine the late Queen of Soul not showering the American Idol alum with the highest of praise.

Jennifer Hudson and Aretha Franklin. Kristin Callahan/ACE Pictures/Shutterstock; Everett Collection/Shutterstock

The 44-second preview features Hudson, 38, showing off her vocal chops as she belts out the first verse to Franklin’s hit track “Respect.” The song’s name pops up behind Hudson’s Aretha at one point before she begins to spell out, “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.” Though viewers are gifted with yet another glimpse at Hudson’s vocal range, the teaser doesn’t provide much beyond this little snippet.

Directed by Liesl Tommy, Respect is inspired by the true story of Franklin and her rise to fame. Hudson stars alongside Forest Whitaker, Marlon Wayans, Audra McDonald, Marc Maron, Tituss Burgess, Saycon Sengbloh, Hailey Kilgore, Skye Dakota Turner, Tate Donovan and Mary J. Blige.

Franklin died on August 16, 2018, in Detroit after suffering from pancreatic cancer. She was 76 years old.

The year of her death, the “Natural Woman” songstress hand-picked Hudson — who later performed at Franklin’s funeral service in August 2018 — to play her in the upcoming MGM biopic.

“Those are huge shoes to fill,” Hudson told Sunday Today on December 14. “I am just taking it one step at a time, one day at a time. All I want to do is pay tribute to her and meet her requests, you know? Like, ‘Aretha said do this?’ — ‘Yes, ma’am.’”

The Dreamgirls actress added, “We were in talks a long time about me playing her, and so I just said I hope I make her proud, do her justice. Again, I have big shoes to fill.”

Why It’s Time To Invest And How To Get Started

By Rob Wilson

While the President likes to tout the strength of the stock market, which, by the way, started long before he took office, the fact remains that most Americans aren’t benefitting from the stock market boom. In fact, only 54% of American adults have investments in stocks, either directly or through a company sponsored retirement plan.

With regard to African-Americans, the picture is even more grim. Only 36% of African-American adults have investments in stocks.

Yet, throughout history stocks have proven to be one of the best tools for creating and growing wealth, so anyone who is serious about improving their financial situation should definitely include investments in the stock market as part of their overall financial plan.

WHY SHOULD WE GET SERIOUS ABOUT INVESTING OUR MONEY?

To put this in some perspective, let’s use Nike for example, since there’s been lots of talk about either buying Nike products or Nike stock after the company released its new ad campaign featuring former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

If we go back to January of 1985, roughly the time that Nike released the first Air Jordans to the public, shares of Nike were trading at about 13 cents a share. 13 cents!

At that time a pair of those Air Jordans would have cost you $65.

Well, if you spent that money on those Air Jordans back in 1985, today you have…well…nothing.

I’m sure those shoes have long since been replaced. If you had instead put the $65 in a checking or savings account, and earned 1% per year, you would have about $90.

Today Nike shares are trading at $85.55. That’s a 69,000% increase!

So, if you had taken that $65 and bought Nike stock in January of 1985, today you’d have more than $45,000!

And before anyone dismisses this example as a one-off success, take note of this:

Between 1991 and today, a period that includes both the dot-com bust and the financial crisis, stocks in general (as measured by the S&P 500) are up more than 700%, while housing prices have increased just 164%.

Most of us simply cannot create the type of wealth that will truly move the needle for ourselves and our families by relying on our own wages or savings accounts alone.

You have to make your money work harder for you.

And speaking of working hard, Nike shares are up about 5% since they released the ad with Kaepernick, which translates to a $6 billion dollar increase in Nike’s market value.

How’s that boycott working out?

THAT SOUNDS GREAT, BUT IT ALSO SEEMS COMPLICATED TO A LOT OF PEOPLE. WHAT’S THE BEST WAY FOR PEOPLE TO GET STARTED?

You know, when a lot of us think of investing, we think of movies like Trading Places, and we think that we have to invest in complex things like pork bellies and soybeans.

But in reality, investing doesn’t have to be that complicated. I always suggest that people start by investing in what they know.

For example, I suggest that anyone interested in getting started with investing begin by going through their bank statement for the last few months and taking note of the top 20 places that they spend money.

Of those 20 places, I can almost guarantee that at least 10 of them will be public companies. (Think Apple, McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Netflix, etc.) Those 10 companies become your short list for companies that you could potentially invest in.

Now to be clear, just because you know the company, doesn’t mean that it will be a good investment. At one point we all knew Blockbuster, but of course that company is no longer around.

But by starting with companies that you know well, and doing additional research, you’ll give yourself a much better chance at success.

ONCE I KNOW WHAT COMPANIES I LIKE, WHAT DO I DO NEXT?

The last step is to open an account at a brokerage firm like Fidelity, Charles Schwab, eTrade, TD Ameritrade, etc.

They are all reputable firms and have pretty low costs.

You could also try an app like Robinhood, which doesn’t charge any trading commissions, and there’s another site called Stockpile which is great because it allows you to buy fractional shares of stock in case the amount you’re starting with isn’t enough to buy a whole share.

(So if you don’t have $1,900 for one share of Amazon, Stockpile allows you to start with, say, $20 of Amazon and you can build from there.)

But the most important thing is not the amount you’re starting with, but rather building the habit of investing regularly and staying on top of your investments.

That’s how you build real wealth over time. If you’re truly serious about learning how to make your money work harder, I’ve created a free Intro to Investing training video to help you get started.

Click Here To See The Trailer

On the second-to-last day of London Fashion Week Spring/ Summer 2020, Burberry showcased its latest seasonal offerings on the runway helmed by Riccardo Tisci.

Marking his third showing for the British fashion house — and one of the most-anticipated runways of the season — Tisci sent down an array of airy layered looks and powerful tailored suits that managed to find an even balance between streetwear and luxe. The sleek and playful silhouettes were dressed in color palettes of demure black and white, along with simple greys, light blue and the house’s signature camel and ivory tones.

The US Capitol

Senate passes bill to permanently fund historically black colleges and universities From CNN.com

The Senate passed a bill Thursday by unanimous consent to permanently fund historically black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions. Federal funding had expired on October 1.

In early November, 38 senators had sent an open letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, urging them to allow immediate consideration of the legislation. The House initially passed the measure last month, the letter says, and it notes that the funding "is a lifeline for these institutions to strengthen their academic, administrative, and fiscal capacities.�

The bipartisan bill known as the FUTURE Act (Fostering Undergraduate Talent by Unlocking Resources for Education) strives to strengthen HBCUs as well as other minority-serving institutions by providing $255 million annually. The amended bill now heads to the House for another vote, according to Senate Education Chairman Lamar Alexander.

Alexander's website indicates that the bill funds itself by saving taxpayers $2.8 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office required some students to verify IRS documentation with the Department of Education in order for aid to be released.

Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, said in a statement, "It's hard to think of a piece of legislation that would have more of a lasting impact on minority students and their families than this bill. First, it provides permanent funding for HBCUs and other Minority Serving Institutions attended by over 2 million minority students. Second, it takes a big first step in simplifying the FAFSA for 20 million American families, including 8 million minority students, and eliminating the bureaucratic nightmare created by requiring students to give the federal government the same information twice.�

The bill will also streamline student loan repayment by eliminating annual paperwork for some 7.7 million federal student loan borrowers on an income-driven plan, which allows them to make payments based on their incomes.

Chris Paul Bought Custom Suits for the Entire

Oklahoma City Thunder

By Yang-Yi Goh for gq.com Roster Bob Metelus Studios

How the Point God turned a gift to his teammates into a teachable moment.

On Wednesday night, a few hours before they tipped off at home against the Grizzlies, the Oklahoma City Thunder showed up looking ready to work. And not on the court—more like if they all served on the board of the world’s swaggiest hedge fund. Rookie guard Darius Bazley sauntered in like a ten-year vet in a double-breasted chalk-stripe suit with a matching tie and a pair of serious Clark Kent frames. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, maybe the most stylish player on the roster, traded in his regular rotation of advanced streetwear for a lush camel sport coat over a trim turtleneck and gray flannels. And then, most brainexploding of all, noted sweatpants enthusiast and Jason Momoa stunt double Steven Adams—all seven feet and 250 pounds of him—rolled in direct from the set of Peaky Blinders: painted-on navy three-piece, peak lapels wider than a GMC Yukon, all topped off with a tweedy newsboy cap.

The last Thunder to arrive was the same one responsible for the whole thing: a power-pinstriped Chris Paul, who swathed his entire team in fine tailoring as a personal gift.

It’s hardly out of the ordinary, of course, for NBA teams to treat the pregame tunnel like a red carpet—sometimes literally, like in the case of the Houston

Terrance Ferguson, Chris Paul, Darius Bazley, Shai Gilgeous-AlexanderBob - Metelus Studios

Rockets, who lead the league in OFPG (that’s outrageous fits per game, for all the non-statheads out there). And while modern NBA style tends to trend toward the wilder, looser end of the menswear spectrum, squad-wide suiting does have some precedent: LeBron James famously decked his Cavs out in Thom Browne’s signature highwater silhouette during the 2018 playoffs. But the suits OKC rocked last night weren’t high-concept fashion uniforms à la Browne; they were suit-suits, the old-fashioned kind, real-deal bespoke numbers in a multitude of individually-chosen fabrics and cuts. What prompted Paul to give his teammates the collective glow-up? It all started with Marvin Gaye and the Redeem Team.

In the lead-up to the 2008 Olympics, during Team USA’s very first practice, head coach Mike Krzyzewski rolled a television onto the court and played his recruits a tape of Marvin Gaye singing the national anthem at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game. “It gave us all goosebumps,” Paul recalled to GQ earlier this week. “We actually wished we could have had that play when we won the gold medal.”

This past summer, during a game night he was hosting at home in L.A., Paul told that story and pulled the video of Gaye’s anthem up on YouTube to show the group. Courtney Mays, Paul’s longtime stylist and a close family friend, immediately zeroed in on one thing: Gaye’s impeccable double-breasted pinstripe suit.

“[Gaye’s] style is just super iconic,” Mays explained. “I said [to Chris], ‘Let’s make that the first game look.’” To turn that dream into a reality—and to continue the work they’d begun last season, making a conscious effort to support black designers and historically black colleges and universities—Mays and Paul tapped Davidson Petit-Frère, the Brooklyn-bred tailor behind some of Jay-Z, Diddy, and Michael B. Jordan’s sharpest ensembles. While getting fitted for that opening night suit, the idea suddenly came to Paul: why not do this for the Thunder? In seasons past, Paul had given his teammates gifts like bowling balls and headphones, but this had the potential to be something more special.

“We just thought, why not treat the guys to a nice custom suit?” Paul said. “It’s one of those things that not everyone has in their closet.”

Chris PaulBob - Metelus Studios

Chris Paul - Beeker

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander - Zach Beeker

Darius Bazley, Davidson Petit-Frère, Courtney Mays, Chris Paul - Bob Metelus Studios

Fast forward to October, and Mays and Petit-Frère set up shop in the Thunder’s practice facility to measure the players and help them design their suits: choosing the fabric from a handful of preselected patterns and colors, along with determining the silhouettes, custom embroideries and accoutrements.

“That was important to me,” Paul said of letting his teammates decide on their own looks. “Everybody has their own style, so we gave the guys that experience. I wanted guys to be able to determine, you know, do you want to wear a vest? Do you want a shirt and tie, or just a shirt? A mock-neck or a turtleneck? That’s the biggest thing when it comes to fashion. It’s all individual —it’s your personality, it’s an opportunity to show the world what you’re like.”

When Mays and Petit-Frère returned a few weeks later with the completed suits for a fitting, the reactions were even stronger than they expected. “There were a couple of tears shed, for sure,” Mays said. The youngest Thunder, 19year-old Bazley, was ecstatic as soon as he slipped the jacket on. “He started running around the entire building, modeling for the players, the staff, everybody,” Petit-Frère laughed. “That was his first time in a custom suit in his life, and the fit was spot on. Seeing that reaction made me take a step back. Me and Courtney were like, ‘Wow, this is what Chris did it for.’”

As the elder statesman on a young and rebuilding OKC roster, Paul’s made an effort this season to take some of his budding teammates—Bazley and 21-yearold Gilgeous-Alexander, in particular—under his wing. “We’ve had a lot of conversations in the locker room about a lot of different things, whether it be finance or life or this transition from high-school to college to the NBA,” Paul said. “It sounds crazy, but when you come into the NBA as a rookie, even though everyone on the outside thinks you have all this money and all this different type of stuff, you really don’t. You’re in a completely new world. When you’re 20 years old, you don’t understand finance. You’ve just been playing basketball all your life. I’ve had a number of vets that gave me knowledge and advice over the years, and if I can help the younger guys in any way possible— whether it be giving them a nice suit or anything like that—then why not?”

Chris Paul - Bob Metelus Studios

Abdel Nader - Zach Beeker

Dennis Schroder - Zach Beeker

Part of the lesson here was to show his sweats- and streetwear-favoring mentees the value of occasionally dressing like you really mean business. But more than that, Paul hopes they’ll see the value in championing minority voices in fashion like Petit-Frère, and the ways their fits can build more than just clout.

“I think we can educate each other,” Paul said. “And the biggest thing is to support, support, support. You know, I have a number of friends with clothing lines, and people want to send you this, or send you that. Like Tamera Young, who plays in the WNBA, she’s like my sister. She has a brand, and she’s always like, ‘C, let me send you this to wear.’ And I’m blessed enough to be in a situation to say, ‘Nope! Me and my wife, we’re on your website, and we want to buy.’ And that’s the thing we gotta remember to do with people: support.”

Darius Bazley, Chris PaulBob - Metelus Studios

Nerlens Noel - Zach Beeker

Steven Adams - Zach Beeker

Oklahoma City Thunder - Bob Metelus Studios

Given the way the Thunder all swaggered into the arena last night—and the fact that they swaggered out with a much-needed win—it feels like CP3’s message was received loud and clear. It also seems likely this won’t be the last time you’ll see OKC’s young guns suited to the nines.

Or, most of them, anyway. When reporters asked Adams when he’d next dust off his brand new bespoke suit—which, according to Petit-Frère, required a full extra yard of wool more than the rest of his teammates’—he had a date in mind. “Probably my funeral, mate.”

Chris Paul @cp3 Davidson Petit-Frère @davidson_frere or @frere Oklahoma CityThunder @okcthunder GQ Magazine @gq

Click Here To See The Trailer

Apple Picks Up Wanda Sykes-Produced Docuseries ‘Visible: Out on Television’

Apple is adding a new docuseries to the originals slate at its direct-to-consumer streaming platform. “Visible: Out on Television,” created by filmmakers Ryan White and Jessica Hargrave and executive produced by Wanda Sykes and Wilson Cruz, will premiere on Feb. 14 on Apple TV Plus.

Narrated by Janet Mock, Margaret Cho, Asia Kate Dillon, Neil Patrick Harris and Lena Waithe, the five-part series “investigates the importance of TV as an intimate medium that has shaped the American conscience, and how the LGBTQ movement has shaped television,” according to the streamer, and combines archival footage with interviews with key players from the movement.

White, whose credits include “Ask Dr. Ruth,” “The Case Against 8” and “The Keepers,” directed and exec produced the docuseries. Hargrave also serves as an executive producer.

Each hour-long episode explores themes that span invisibility, homophobia, the evolution of LGBTQ characters and coming out in the TV industry, and features interviews with Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah Winfrey, Anderson Cooper, Billy Porter, Rachel Maddow, Don Lemon, Sara Ramirez and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, among others.

By Elaine Low

Countries Are Already Censoring the 'Star Wars' Same-Sex Kiss It’s literally, like, one second long.

For the final film of the Star Wars Skywalker trilogy, J. J. Abrams felt it was time for a bid of representation. You know what we are talking about: gays. The LGBTQ+ community. Buzzwords, ya know.

But, already, countries have begun to cut it from the footage.

“[I]n the case of the LGBTQ community, it was important to me that people who go to see this movie feel that they’re being represented in the film,” Abrams said at a press junket for Star Wars: Rise of the Skywalker. “I will say I’m giving away nothing about what happens in the movie. But I did just say what I just said.” He did, he said what he said. Sadly, he had already dashed hopes that Finn and Poe would throw off all “friendship” pretenses and fall madly in love with some sort of hot and steamy droid filmed sex scene. This only meant that there would be some other story line. Although “story line,” is a bit of an overstep for what we got.

The representation amounted to what one reported called a “two second” kiss between two women in a montage of kisses — we’ve seen the film and two seconds seems liberal. If you blink, you’ll literally miss it. I didn’t blink and I wasn’t sure that I had seen it!

And, while that bar for representation is beneath the floor, it was still too much for some!

In Singapore, Disney has removed the clip from the film so that the film wouldn’t be restricted for those aged 18 and above.

According to The Guardian some have reported that the scene was also removed from versions of the film shown in Dubai.

The kiss is the first same-sex kiss of the Star Wars franchise.

By Mikelle Street

Frank Ocean to Make History With Coachella Headlining Slot The full schedule is pretty darn queer.

By Mikelle Street

Coachella is one of the largest musical events in the world. That’s that on that. And it’s endlessly controversial, particularly when it comes to the LGBTQ+ community — more on that later. But the organizers are plunging into the new decade with its most queer lineup year, and for the first time, have tapped an openly queer man as one of its headliners.

Though speculation and insider reports leaked out about a week ago, Coachella has now confirmed that Frank Ocean is scheduled to headline the 2020 festival. And that’s big news! Not only because of the historic nature, given that he’s the first queer male to headline in the 20+ year history of the event (Lady Gaga has also headlined so queers haven’t been completely nonexistent), but also because Ocean isn’t particularly prone to live performances. So this is set to be a real treat.

Swerv Magazine interviewed Alphonso David, the new President of the Human Rights Campaign Learn more about Alphonso David, new President of the Human Rights Campaign in the Nov/Dec issue of Swerv Magazine.

Interview by Clarence J. Fluker.

Layout by Anthony Fletcher of Artoniworld, LLC. http:// swervmagazine.com/ community/alphonso-david/ Jamil Fletcher, Rayceen Pendarvis Yarde Noir

CBS Star Trek Discovery Season 3 – When is the release date?

If you are one of those who have enjoyed CBS All Access Star Trek Discovery Season 2, you can experience the new season on the same network once again. The Season 3 is in progress has been planned and will premier on CBS All Access in 2020.

CBS has already released the trailer video for the CBS All Access Star Trek Discovery Season 3.

The filming for the series CBS Star Trek Season 3 began in July 2019. The shooting has started in Toronto, Canada and is expected to end in

December 2019. CBS Star Trek has been one of the most popular series options ever that we have witnessed in recent times on CBS.

It was this popularity that made CBS renew the contract for the third season of the series. Season 3 of the Star Trek Discovery on CBS All Access will have 13 or more episodes.

The CBS All Access Discovery is renewed with a new showrunner. Yes, you heard it right – Michelle Paradise has been appointed as the co-showrunner along with Alex Kurtzman, as per the statement on Hollywood Reporter.

As Julie McNamara, executive vice president of original content at CBS All Access says,

“The massive success of Star Trek: Discovery’s second season launch exceeded our expectations in both driving subscriber growth and generating a phenomenal response from Star Trek fans,”

Perhaps that would mean a possibility of more stories in the CBS All Access Discovery Star Trek franchise and more stories and seasons in the days to come.

Where can I stream Star Trek Discovery Season 3?

Well, the answer should be much obvious

enough. Season 1 of the CBS All Access Star Trek was launched in 2017. Season 2 began this year and dropped off at around April 2019. So, when is the new season – Star Trek All Access season 3 on CBS – launching?

Obviously, it takes a hell lot of time to create shows and make them. So, we would not expect CBS All Access Star Trek Season 3 to be available any time before January 2020. So, if you are impatient to watch the Star Trek Discovery Season 3, you will, of course, need to wait a little more.

Star Trek Discovery Season 3 will air on CBS All Access in the US and on Netflix in the International market. So, get ready to watch it either on CBS All Access or Netflix as the case may be.

At the end of Star Trek: Discovery’s shocking second season, the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery warped into the future, nine centuries ahead of the established Star Trek timeline. Facing an unexplored time in Starfleet history, the crew will contend with an unfamiliar galaxy and boldly explore new worlds and a new Federation. With no captain and years away from their families, how will Discovery’s brave adventurers cope with their new situation and continue to move forward and find hope? More importantly, what kind of universe is waiting for them in the future?

Fans are eager for answers, but we’ll have to wait until spring to find out what awaits Burnham, Saru, Tilly, and the other crew members of Discovery.

Click Here To See The Trailer

Click Here To See The Trailer

Click Here To See The Trailer

MATTHEW CHERRY’S

‘HAIR LOVE’ RECEIVES WELL DESERVED OSCAR NOMINATION Hair Love, the popular children’s book turned animated short by former NFL player, Matthew Cherry, gets nominated for an Oscar, USA Today reports.

We first wrote about Cherry and his budding animated short in 2017. The NFL player turned filmmaker was on a mission to highlight the relationship between Black fathers and daughters in a short film, inspired by viral videos of fathers doing their daughters’ hair. At the time, Cherry said that his focus was representation, and he wanted to make sure that Black fathers and their daughters were the focus in his film. "Media is impressionable and when little kids see shows, movies and magazines and don’t see people who look like them in a heroic place or complex place or don’t see themselves at all it makes them seem abnormal or an exception to the rule. And we’re trying to make them feel normal and have a little Black girl with maybe kinky hair feel like she’s represented,” he told Because Of Them We Can.

Cherry went on to launch a Kickstarter campaign that raised nearly $300,000, surpassing the initial goal of $75,000 and Cherry’s stretch goal of $200,000, setting a new record for short film fundraising on the site. It was clear that we weren’t the only ones loving Hair Love.

After almost two years in production, the short was ready to debut. And it debuted big, in theaters nationally, alongside Sony’s Angry Birds Movie 2. “To see this project go from a Kickstarter campaign to the big screen is truly a dream come true. I couldn’t be more excited for Hair Love to be playing with The Angry Birds Movie 2 in front of a wide audience and for the world to see our touching story about a black father trying to figure out how to do his daughter’s hair for the very first time,” Cherry said.

We felt the very same way and audiences received the animated short well. Before the end of 2019, the full short was released online and now the announcement of an Oscar nomination is here. We really can’t believe it

The announcement came via Issa Rae, who also lent her voice to the film. Cherry shared a video of the announcement with his team watching, congratulating each other among screams of joy and countless, “OMGs.”

“WOW! And to have @IssaRae announce it! It feels like a dream. Huge thanks to our great team … our kickstarter backers & @SonyAnimation for believing in us,” Cherry tweeted.

What we love most is how Cherry tweeted eight years ago that he would be Oscar nominated one day. Well sir, today is that day and we couldn't be happier for you.

The 92nd Annual Academy Awards will air February 9th on ABC.

What a journey! You already know who we’re rooting for!

Elle Varner’s

THE ELLEVATION TOUR kicks off in Philadelphia this Friday, January 17th.

www.ellevarner.com

J. Brown

will be releasing his debut EP,

"Forever Yours"

on Friday, January 24th.

His new single, "MOON" will be releasing this Friday.

See the tour dates on flyer. www.jbrownmusiconly.com Ra-Fael Blanco VP of Media Relations & Communications 2R's Entertainment & Media PR (NY | LA) TwoRsEnt@aol.com Twitter / @TwoRsEnt IG: @Ray_The_Rebel FB: Ra-Fael Blanco

The Truth About Olivier Rousteing In a surprising new documentary, the Balmain designer leaves the Instagram & ! behind and goes searching for his origins.

Lately it is starting to seem a truth universally acknowledged that any fashion brand in possession of a good story must be in want of a documentary.

Dior has one. So do Valentino, Vogue, Tiffany & Co., Manolo Blahnik, Gucci, Dries Van Noten and Zac Posen (to name a few). Ferragamo is getting one. Ralph Lauren is too.

So it wasn’t really a surprise when rumors began to surface that a feature on Balmain and its social-media friendly, celebrity-magnet designer, Olivier Rousteing, 34, known for his ability to strike a pose and his aesthetic embrace of a high-octane power maximalism, was about to get the same treatment. Everyone thought it would be a carefully stage-managed film about his fabulous life.

Everyone was wrong.

“Wonder Boy,” directed and produced by Anissa Bonnefont, 35, premieres in Paris on Saturday, the day after the Balmain show. And though it contains shots of Mr. Rousteing striding down a runway surrounded by a bevy of models as well as pinning and plucking preshow, and navigating the flashbulbs, it isn’t really about fashion at all.

It isn’t about the birth of a collection.

It’s about a designer trying to understand the

secrets that surround his own birth. And by making it — or allowing it to be made — Mr. Rousteing isn’t just trying to change his own image, he’s trying to change the image of what is possible in France.

“I just thought it was so unusual for this mixed race guy to succeed like this,” said Ms. Bonnefont, who first met Mr. Rousteing in 2016, when he bought the grand Paris apartment where he now lives from her mother. That “to hear his story would be very necessary for our country because of all the issues around immigration. People need to see the reality of how you can achieve a dream and come from nothing. That’s the American story, but it’s not the French story. In France where you come from, what family, what school — that is who you are.”

As to why Mr. Rousteing agreed: “People don’t label Balmain, but they label me, because of my social media,” he said. “They think I am the designer who loves myself, because I post so many selfies. But I realized I had become a caricature of myself, and trapped myself; that the image was my protection, because it meant I did not let anyone into the truth of my world. I want to lose it; I want to be myself rather than the person I pretend to be. But no one could have expected we would go so far.”

Mr. Rousteing in a still from the documentary “Wonder Boy.” | Credit: Wonder Boy

Mr. Rousteing - Credit: Julien Mignot for The New York Times

It’s about a designer trying to understand the secrets that surround his own birth. And by making it — or allowing it to be made — Mr. Rousteing isn’t just trying to change his own image, he’s trying to change the image of what is possible in France.

“I just thought it was so unusual for this mixed race guy to succeed like this,” said Ms. Bonnefont, who first met Mr. Rousteing in 2016, when he bought the grand Paris apartment where he now lives from her mother. That “to hear his story would be very necessary for our country because of all the issues around immigration. People need to see the reality of how you can achieve a dream and come from nothing. That’s the American story, but it’s not the French story. In France where you come from, what family, what school — that is who you are.”

As to why Mr. Rousteing agreed: “People don’t label Balmain, but they label me, because of my social media,” he said. “They think I am the designer who loves myself, because I post so many selfies. But I realized I had become a caricature of myself, and trapped myself; that the image was my protection, because it meant I did not let anyone into the truth of my world.

I want to lose it; I want to be myself rather than the person I pretend to be. But no one could have expected we would go so far.”

“No Posing”

The outlines of Mr. Rousteing’s story are pretty well known. Adopted as a baby by a French couple in Bordeaux, he always believed he was of mixed-race parentage. At 25 he burst into fashion consciousness as creative director at Balmain, one of the youngest ever at the helm of a major French brand, and began crafting his carefully filtered image; his Instagram profile picture features him, shirtless, head cocked moodily to the side, taking what seems to be a selfie. The more famous he became, however — he has 5.5 million followers on that platform — the more he felt like he was faking it.

After all, fashion is about offering people a way to express their identity, so how can you be a fashion designer if you don’t understand your own?

“This guy — mixed race, gay and orphan — he didn’t start out at zero,” said Massimo Piombini, the chief executive of Balmain. “He started at minus 10.”

Ms. Bonnefont understood what that meant: Her family had been left by her biological father when she was three. In 2017, she asked Mr. Rousteing if he had ever considered finding his parents. (She had tracked down and confronted her father when she was 23.) He said he had thought about it when he was 16, but wasn’t ready. Maybe now he was.

“There’s all this talk about inclusivity and diversity, and I’m the first to fight for it, but how could I fight for it without knowing myself where I was from?” Mr. Rousteing said. “I thought I had to face not only my own roots, but my question about why my mother didn’t want me.”

Ms. Bonnefont approached Balmain with the idea of making a film about the search, but with three caveats.

First, Mr. Rousteing had to be honest. “No posing,” she said. Second, she had total access to Balmain. And finally, she had the final cut. Mr. Rousteing talked it over with Mr. Piombini, who was in favor. Ms. Bonnefont, who was also the film’s producer, raised all the money — 1.1 million euros ($1.2 million), from a variety of sources, including the French government. Theonly financial contribution from the brand came at the end of production, when it helped pay for the rights to some of the soundtrack music (especially famous French pop songs from the 1980s).

A Price To Pay

Filmed over the course of a year and a half beginning in 2017 (Mr. Rousteing and Ms. Bonnefont spent so much time together, they “became like brother and sister,” she said), the movie follows Mr. Rousteing from home to atelier to government office.

He is shown visiting his adoptive grandparents at their home in Bordeaux,

Click Here To See The Trailer

Image of 15 black medical students posing at Louisiana plantation goes viral

By Morgan Gstalter for thehill-com.cdn.ampproject.org

ABEDOYIN JOHNSON | TWITTER @THEGUYWITHYES

A photo of 15 black Tulane University medical students standing in front of historical slave quarters at a Louisiana plantation went viral on social media with the message: "We are our ancestors' wildest dreams."

The images taken by Abedoyin Johnson were posted to Twitter last week, showing the medical students standing at Whitney Plantation with their hands in the pockets of their white coats.

The images went viral, earning thousands of likes on Instagram and Twitter.

"In the background, an original slave quarter. In the foreground, original descendants of slaves and medical students. #whatatimetobealive #yeahwecandoboth.�

The 15 students in the photo are members of the Tulane chapter of the Student National Medical Association, a student-run organization that supports black medical students.

Russell Ledet, a 33-year-old second-year medical student at Tulane, told NPR that he organized a trip to the plantation in Edgard, La., which says it's "the only plantation museum in Louisiana with an exclusive focus on the lives of enslaved people�

"I could just imagine our ancestors in heaven looking at us and being so happy," he said. "They're saying, 'Look at them. They're doing so well. Their resiliency is shining.'"

Ledet said he never saw a minority physician growing up.

"We are aware of our position and what we mean to a whole lot of children," he said. "A whole lot of undergrads are hoping and praying to get an interview for medical school, or even somebody to just look at their application. We're here as living proof that it's possible. If we can do it, anybody can do it.�

Medical school is "grueling," but Ledet said that he can look at the photo for motivation while studying for a neurology exam.

"I hope this image will be posted in somebody's classroom and some teacher will be able to say, 'Every last one of those people up there is a practicing physician,' " he told the outlet.

Sydney Labat, another Tulane med student in the photo, told the outlet that the image represents "resiliency."

She said the group wanted to look "determined" and "strong" in the photographs, "embodying the strength of the people who lived on those grounds."

"If I had seen this photo when I was younger, it would have been validation that the people telling me that I couldn't be an orthopedic surgeon - that I should have a Plan B, but they didn't say that to my white classmates - that they can't hinder me in any way," Labat said.

NAACP partners with BET Networks to broadcast the 51st NAACP Image Awards

The NAACP and BET Networks have announced a broadcast partnership to air the 51st NAACP Image Awards. The telecast will take place from Pasadena, California and will air on BET Networks for the first time ever. The announcement was made by NAACP National Board of Directors Chairman Leon W. Russell, NAACP President/CEO Derrick Johnson, President of BET Networks Scott Mills and Executive Vice-President, Specials, Music Programming & Music Strategy Connie Orlando.

The NAACP Image Awards is the preeminent event celebrating the accomplishments of people of color in the fields of television, music,

literature, and film and also honors individuals or groups who promote social justice through creative endeavors.

“We’re proud to partner with BET Networks to showcase the incredible breadth of Black excellence in television, film, music, and literature, and to bring awareness to the social justice and economic empowerment work of the NAACP,” said Johnson. “Through its diverse platforms, BET delivers culturally enriching and entertaining content to a wide and multigenerational audience. As we head into a critical 2020 election and Census, the collaboration with BET will be critical to reaching our shared communities.”

“The NAACP is vitally important, and BET Networks shares the organization’s commitment to our community and social impact,” said Mills. “With the NAACP’s half-century of history acknowledging the achievements of African Americans across entertainment and activism, this partnership allows BET to further our mission to entertain, engage and empower our viewers by delivering this cultural pillar to the communities we serve. We’re thrilled to welcome the NAACP Image Awards home to BET.”

Karen Boykin-Towns, NAACP National Board of Directors vice-chairman, is the newly appointed chairman of the NAACP Image Awards Planning Committee and will provide strategic guidance and leadership. Eris Sims, chief of staff, will oversee all NAACP Image Awards events and activities.

“We are excited that two storied organizations, NAACP and BET, are partnering to cultivate innovative approaches to our work and to deliver a transformative experience that inspires and empowers the Black community. This is a natural partnership and one which aligns with our strategic focus,” said Boykin-Towns. “We are confident that the NAACP Image Awards will continue to grow in both impact and legacy.”

One of the most iconic annual celebrations of Black excellence, the NAACP Image Awards draws a crowd of the biggest and brightest stars in Hollywood. Previous years attendees include Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, Taraji P. Henson, Viola Davis, Gabrielle Union, Kerry Washington, Anthony Anderson, Sterling K. Brown, Mandy Moore, Halle Berry, Common, Dwayne Johnson,

Steve Harvey, Audra Day, John Legend, Lena Waithe, Tracee Ellis Ross, David Oyelowo, Laverne Cox, Octavia Spencer, Issa Rae, Trevor Noah, Terry Crews, Yara Shahidi, Danai Gurira, Jacob Latimore, Jay Pharoah, Jemele Hill, Josh Gad, Loretta Devine, Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Meta Golding, Michael Smith, Tyler James Williams, Ava DuVernay, Chadwick Boseman, and many more.

“It is our honor to partner with the NAACP as the exclusive broadcast partner of the Image Awards, one of the most influential Award Shows in the black community,” said Orlando.

“We will celebrate and acknowledge the excellence and achievements of African Americans in television, music, arts and give special recognition to the artists that have thrilled us and shaped the past the year in Black culture. As we head into our 40th anniversary, it is only right to start off 2020 with this monumental partnership and bring the legacy of NAACP Image Awards to BET.”

Nominations for the ‘51st NAACP Image Awards’ were announced on January 9, 2020.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2020 inductees are...

(CNN)This year's inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame were revealed Wednesday.

They are Depeche Mode, The Doobie Brothers, Whitney Houston, Nine Inch Nails, The Notorious B.I.G. and T-Rex.

Jon Landau and Irving Azoff are the recipients of the Ahmet Ertegun Award.

To be eligible for the Hall of Fame an individual artist or band must have released their first commercial recording at least 25 years prior to the year of nomination. Ballots were cast by an international voting body of more than 1,000 artists, including current living Inductees, historians and members of the music industry.

Factors such as an artist's musical influence, body of work, innovation, style and technique are taken into consideration with the voting, according to the organization.

Four of the Inductees this year were on the ballot for the first time: The Doobie Brothers, Whitney Houston, Notorious B.I.G. and T-Rex.

The Ahmet Ertegun Award, to be presented to Landau and Azoff, honors songwriters, producers, disc jockeys, record executives, journalists and other industry professionals who have had a major influence on rock and roll.

The 35th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will take place in May in Cleveland, Ohio.

Tickets will go on sale to the public on February 27. Performances and special guests will be announced later. The ceremony will be broadcast live on HBO on May 2nd at 8 p.m. ET.

Exotic African Style Ideas For Your Home Africa is a beautiful exotic place with rich cultural heritage and unique interior design. Designers are inspired by African culture for a number of reasons. For some, it is the dream of a photographic safari landscape, while others appreciate it from a cultural history perspective. Whatever it is that inspires you about African decor, there are plenty of ways to incorporate some timeless pieces into your own space.

African style is exciting and fits anywhere, whether your taste is modern, traditional, minimalist or eclectic. There are so many colors and textures in African fabrics, carvings and works of art, that it is easy to integrate them into your current design. African decor is inspired by nature, wild animals, colorful fabrics and wood carvings.

What are the characteristic features of African décor?

African nature is always warm-colored, and you should repeat that feature in your home, too: yellow, orange, ocher, burgundy, red, brown, buttermilk and so on.

African decoration and art become the focal point in a room, decorated in an African style

Wooden statuettes and masks are a sacred object in the life of African tribes, and of course, there’s no African interior without them. Statues of tribal leaders in full regalia, animal figures or warriors can be placed on shelves or tabletops as well as dramatic paintings or photographs on the walls, surrounded by tribal masks and weapons. Get a variety of figurines with the wrong proportions, with deliberately elongated legs or hands, masks with feathers and various African pottery to decorate your home. These pieces are exactly what you need to give your interiors an Africa feel, even if they are minimalist.

Weaving carpets and textiles are a tradition for many centuries for African women, and they create unique patterns each time. Leopard and zebra prints are number one for textiles and upholstery, and of course for rugs because such carpets really create a mood. Kuba cloth and Mudcloth are traditional African textiles that are showing up in some of the most exclusive homes.

Kuba cloth is created by the Kuba people of the Congo. They create the cloth by taking the leaf of the Raffia tree hand cut and dye them using mud, indigo and other natural resources. The fibers are weaved into strips to make the fabric using an embroidery technique that’s very time consuming and laborious.

The world of high style interiors has embraced Africa in a big way. Some of the world’s most influential interior designers are using traditional African textiles and patterns in homes for design inspiration.

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