A federal grand jury has indicted a California man on charges that he operated a drug den and administered lethal doses of narcotics that led to the overdose deaths of two black men and left a third man hospitalized.
The thought-provoking Netflix series “Dear White People,” has been renewed for it’s fourth and final season, Deadline reports.
“I’m so grateful my little indie-that-could has made it to four seasons at Netflix,” said the show’s creator Justin Simien. “This show, along with the many talented storytellers it has brought into my orbit, has changed my life and I can’t wait to create a celebratory final volume befitting such a transformative experience.”
READ MORE: ‘Dear White People’ cast and crew create Jordan Edwards scholarship fund
The news of the show’s final pick-up was shared on social media by lead actor Marque Richardson. He announced on a FaceTime group chat to his co-stars news that DWP will see another season.
The Netflix series which is an offshoot of the 2014 movie, was created by Simien who also doubles as executive producer.
The satire follows a group of African American students at a fictitious predominately white Ivy League Winchester University as they deal with issues of race, politics and identity.
READ MORE: ‘Dear White People’ producer makes directorial debut with ‘Leimert Park’
Simien originally launched a crowdfunding campaign to get the “Dear White People” movie off the ground, using his tax return to create a trailer. The movie won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay and a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. It grossed $4.4 million dollars at the Box Office, according to IMDB.com.
Simien expressed joy and a bit of humor after news of the deal went public.
“I’m so grateful to have this platform — not only to give a voice to those too often unheard in our culture, but to also tell great stories from new points of views,” Simien previously told The Hollywood Reporter.
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By KATHLEEN RONAYNE and MICHELLE L. PRICE Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Democratic presidential candidates reiterated their call for gun control Wednesday and urged Americans to keep up the fight for change, sidestepping the issue of impeachment in Washington and whether it will divert lawmakers.
At a gun policy forum in Nevada, Cory Booker said the National Rifle Association and the corporate gun lobby are not the only forces stopping progress on gun control.
“Change never comes from Washington. It comes to Washington by Americans that demand it,” the New Jersey senator said. He added later that “Every one of us in America, right now, by doing nothing, we are implicated in this. …. We all have to take responsibility.”
The forum _ located about 2 miles from the Las Vegas Strip, the site of the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history _ was held amid an effort to keep gun violence front and center of the debate and gave 2020 presidential candidates a chance to showcase their plans to combat the epidemic. Negotiations between President Donald Trump’s administration and lawmakers have halted over background checks legislation passed by the Democratic-controlled House, an effort that faced long odds even before the impeachment inquiry began.
“This president has gotten nothing done about much of anything,” California Sen. Kamala Harris said Wednesday, adding that Trump will use impeachment as an excuse to avoid action.
Former Vice President Joe Biden made a similar prognosis, saying, “Nothing is going to change until we get this guy out of office.”
They were among nine White House hopefuls to speak at the forum Wednesday, almost two years to the day after a man rained gunfire from the window of a high-rise hotel onto a country music festival below, killing 58 people. The forum was hosted by MSNBC, March for Our Lives and Giffords, the advocacy organization set up by former Arizona congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was shot and gravely wounded during a constituent meeting in 2011 in Tucson.
Giffords opened the event with brief remarks calling for Democrats, Republicans and independents to come together and fight for change.
“Stopping gun violence takes courage. The courage to do what’s right. The courage of new ideas,” Giffords said.
In addition to Booker, Harris and Biden, the other candidates who spoke were South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; former Obama Housing Secretary Julián Castro; Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar; former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke; Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren; and businessman Andrew Yang.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was expected to attend, but he ended up undergoing a heart procedure for a blocked artery. His campaign said he was canceling appearances “until further notice.”
O’Rourke recast his campaign around gun control after the August shooting in his hometown of El Paso, Texas, where a gunman targeting Hispanics killed 22 people. O’Rourke vowed to ban assault weapons, saying at a debate in Houston in September, “Hell, yes, we’re gonna take your AR-15, your AK-47, and we’re not going to allow it to be used against your fellow Americans anymore.” That’s a shift from his position during his 2018 U.S. Senate campaign, when he did not support mandatory buybacks.
O’Rourke criticized Buttigieg for saying that a mandatory government gun buyback program has “mixed results” and likening it to a “shiny object” that makes it harder to pass other gun control policies.
“I was really offended by those comments, and I think he represents a kind of politics that is focused on poll testing and focus group driving and triangulating and listening to consultants before you arrive at a position,” O’Rourke told reporters later.
O’Rourke himself was criticized earlier in the day by Booker, who said O’Rourke only supported a gun licensing program after the shooting in his hometown.
While Buttigieg didn’t endorse mandatory gun buybacks, he did speak in support of banning assault weapons, saying it’s not true that the Second Amendment bars the government from banning certain weapons.
“In America, it is already the case that, anybody, as far as I know, can have a slingshot. And nobody can have a nuclear weapon,” he said. “If you think about it, that means we have already decided, as a society, consistent with our Constitution, within the boundaries of the Second Amendment, that there’s a line.”
Booker and Harris also said they support some type of mandatory buyback program. Castro said he’s open to hearing arguments for a mandatory gun buyback, “but I think there are 15 things _ different things _ that we can do.”
Most candidates have focused on expanding background checks and banning the future manufacture and sale of certain high-powered weapons.
Warren echoed a key theme of her campaign when she said inaction on gun policy is a symptom of corruption in Washington.
“This is a fundamental question about who Washington works for, and the answer for decades now has been Washington works great for the gun industry _ it just doesn’t work great for everyone else in America.”
Biden on Wednesday released a detailed gun policy plan emphasizing his role as a leading senator in adopting a background check law in 1993 and a ban on certain semi-automatic weapons as part of a sweeping 1994 crime law. That ban expired after 10 years.
Besides renewing that ban and including high-capacity magazines, Biden wants a ban on the online sales of guns and ammunition, along with a voluntary buyback program for military-style guns. He proposes a $900 million, eight-year grant program for evidence-based intervention programs in 40 cities with high homicide rates. The idea reflects a point Biden and some other candidates make often when campaigning: Mass shootings account for only a small fraction of U.S. gun deaths.
At the Capitol earlier Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats will continue to press for gun control.
“Let me just say on gun violence prevention: We are not going away until we get legislation signed into law that protects our children,” she said.
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Associated Press writers Bill Barrow in Atlanta and Matthew Daly in Washington contributed to this report.
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Follow Ronayne on Twitter at https://twitter.com/kronayne
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A woman who climbed into a lion’s enclosure at New York’s Bronx Zoo, possibly putting her life at risk, has been identified.
On Saturday, Myah Autry, 32, posted videos online of herself facing a lion to the surprise of zoo attendees, the New York Post reports. Police are seeking the woman who could be given a citation for trespassing after the stunt.
“I REALLY HAVE NOT FEAR OF NOTHING BREATHING,” the Brooklyn resident wrote in one caption. “ANIMALS CAN FEEL LOVE JUST LIKE HUMANS.”
The woman also shared a video standing in a giraffe enclosure, “🌳 LITERALLY I HAVE THE SAME DIET AS A GIRAFFE.”🌿🌱
READ MORE: Black woman survives leap into lion’s den at Bronx Zoo
The lion did not attack her and there are no reports of her being injured after the incident.
Although police are searching for Autry now that she has been identified, she’s still apparently unbothered by all the attention and on Wednesday posted more pics of her zoo escapade.
A woman who says she knows Autry questioned her mental health status.
“Something snapped somewhere,” Eunice Walton, 63, a former house mate told The Post. “When I saw the video of the woman walking towards the lion, I said, ‘Why do people do this? People are crazy.’ ”
“And then (Wednesday) morning I found out it was her and I was like, ‘What? Myah?’ ”
Walton said Autry lived with her and her daughter Akisha Wallace, 31, became separated over the course of the last year.
“I didn’t think it had gone that far,” Wallace said about the shocking videos. “I want her to get help. I need her to get help because I’m scared for her.”
In another video that surfaced Autry appears to be smoking marijuana outside of the zoo entrance.
She says, “I stay with the finest herb on Mother Nature.”
Zoo personnel were upset about the incident.
“This action was a serious violation and unlawful trespass that could have resulted in serious injury or death,” zoo officials said in a statement Tuesday.
“Barriers and rules are in place to keep both visitors, staff and animals safe.
“We have a zero-tolerance policy on trespass and violation of barriers.”
READ MORE: Florida woman faces battery charge after argument over bacon gets physical
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All eyes are on Ryan Coogler as he prepares to embark on one of the most anticipated sequels in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
