President Quid Pro Quo Totally Quid Pro Quo’d All Over Ukraine and Here’s More Proof

Well, it turns out that the President of the United States is a liar.

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The U.S.D.A. Takes Wakanda Off of the Free Trade Agreement Partners List

Having Donald Trump as a president, we are used to seeing things never done before, but listing Wakanda as a Free Trade Agreement Partner? Well, that’s another first for this presidency. According to The Grio, the United States Department of Agriculture, which initially listed the fictional country from Marvel’s Black Panther on their free trade agreement partners list, has taken Wakanda off the list.

The USDA claimed they had used Wakanda as a placeholder while testing their system behind the tracker and had inadvertently forgotten to remove the black superhero country. “Over the past few weeks, the Foreign Agricultural Service staff who maintain the Tariff Tracker have been using test files to ensure that the system is running properly,” Mike Illenberg, a USDA spokesman, said in an email to NBC News. “The Wakanda information should have been removed after testing and has now been taken down.”

The mistake was first noticed by Francis Tseng, a fellow at the Jain Family Institute, last week while researching how trade deals can affect food distribution in countries listed as U.S. trade partners. Under the Wakanda listing, the site stated that Wakanda’s exports to the U.S. included horses, sheep, goats, and turkeys. Tseng showed the glaring error on his Twitter account, “Wakanda is listed as a US free trade partner on the USDA website??”

“I definitely did a double-take,” he said. “I Googled Wakanda to make sure it was actually fiction, and I wasn’t misremembering. I mean, I couldn’t believe it.” Tseng told NBC News. According to the Internet Archive, Wakanda was listed as a free-trade country with the U.S. sometime after June 10 this year. “I was trying to figure out whether this is someone at the USDA making a joke or if it’s a developer who accidentally left it in, but I’m not sure.”

Wakanda was brought into popularity after the theatrical release of Black Panther in 2018 but has been mentioned as a fictional country as far back as July 1966 when it first appeared in the Marvel comic “Fantastic Four #52.”

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Jury found Black woman not guilty after killing abusive boyfriend

A Black woman that claimed she was the victim of domestic violence had her name cleared in the murder of her boyfriend who had threatened to kill her.

On Thursday, Letoya Ramseure was found not guilty in the April 2018 killing of her boyfriend Devon Roye. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Assistant District Attorney Edgar Jaramillo attempted to paint Ramseure as a jealous girlfriend who was angry that Roye was leaving and would be staying with another woman.

READ MORE: Tyra Banks opens up about emotionally abusive relationship with ex-boyfriend

“This case is so difficult for both sides,” he said in his closing arguments. “It’s difficult because there’s a young lady involved, and a man who will never tell his side of the story.”

On the night of the Roye’s death, he sent Ramseure a threatening text message as he was on his way to her house to pick up his things.

“You touch any of my s—,” he wrote in text messages read in court, “I guarantee your daughter will be missing two parents, because I’m going to jail and I’m going to put you in the grave.”

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Ramseure had an active protection-from-abuse (PFA) order against him at the time and when he arrived, he bum-rushed his way into the house where he assaulted her and her mother, Rasheena Carter. Roye testified that she reached into the bag of things he brought and grabbed his gun, which she used to shoot him five times.

She called 911 shortly after.

“She’s never been in trouble before,” Carter said in court. “She was working as a medical assistant. If she took that, she’d be done for the rest of her life. As it is, she hasn’t been able to get a job.”

Ramseure, who is six years younger than Roye, had been dating him since she was 13 and said she had been assaulted by him about 30 times; some of her previous injuries had been documented in graphic pictures that showed her with one bloodied eye and other one was swollen shut. And despite having a PFA, she did admit she continued to see him, which is not uncommon among domestic violence victims.

Ramseure’s attorney Michael Coard closed his case by refusing to identify Roye as the victim in this situation.

“Here’s a woman who had the [expletive] beaten out of her,” Coard said, “she had a PFA, the guy comes into her house and she shoots him with his own gun. Why are we here? If that’s not the Castle Doctrine, what is?”

READ MORE: NYPD school safety agent fatally shot by boyfriend in apparent murder-suicide

It would appear that the jury agreed.

According to Time, Black women are more likely to experience domestic violence and are almost three times as likely to experience death as a result of domestic violence/intimate partner violence than white women.

The post Jury found Black woman not guilty after killing abusive boyfriend appeared first on theGrio.

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She Became the First Black Woman Founder to Raise over $1 Million in Funding in Tennessee

Frustrated by the lack of communication between parents and educators, Shani Dowell created a platform that helps parents stay connected to their child’s teachers and school administrators. In 2017, the mother and former math teacher launched Possip, an app that prompts parents to text weekly feedback on how schools and teachers are doing. In turn, the schools use the parents’ feedback as data to track trends and solve problems. The goal is to help school officials quickly identify an issue that a child or parent may have before it reaches a boiling point.

Today, Possip, which is short for “positive gossip,” can be found in 100 schools across 16 states, including Tennessee, Ohio, Oregon, and Florida. According to a press release, the schools working with Possip experience as much as a tenfold increase in family-teacher engagement.

In addition to its 50,000 users, Possip recently hit another milestone. On Dec. 17, the company announced that it raised $1,020,000 in venture funding, making Dowell the first black female founder in the state of Tennessee to raise $1 million in capital. She’s also one of the less than 40 black women in the entire country to ever reach this benchmark.

Investors in the startup’s new funding round include the Launch TN Impact Fund, a public-private partnership that supports entrepreneurs, along with angel investors. The former teacher-turned-tech-founder says the funding will be used to expand school and district partnerships, enhance customer experience, and refine product features and analytics.

“We are seeing the impact that Possip has on our schools, our district partners, and the families they serve,” said Dowell in a statement. “Possip is transformational, enabling schools to become stronger and students more successful by incorporating the insights and perspectives of families. This funding allows us to grow our team, our technology, and ultimately our impact.”

Launch TN also released a statement praising Possip for creating strong and timely feedback loops between educators and families.

“Possip is changing the landscape for schools by enabling streamlined communication among families, teachers, and administrators,” said LaunchTN President and CEO Margaret Dolan. “We are confident that Shani’s success as the first black woman in Tennessee to reach the $1 million investment mark is the first of many as the company grows to serve more schools and students.”

Although black women are the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the U.S., they receive less than 1% of venture funding. According to ProjectDiane, less than 2% of all venture funding goes to companies led by women, while just a mere .006% is allocated to companies led by black women. As a result, Dowell says the statistics point to a larger problem that female founders of color face.

“The fact that we are still able to keep track of the number of black women who have raised over $1 million speaks to the continued barriers,” she told BLACK ENTERPRISE in an email. “It is up to those who hold money and resources to think differently about how they invest in the future. That’s going to require them to expand their networks, learn about companies outside of the Coasts, and learn about ideas that may not speak to their personal and lived experiences but can still be great ideas.”

 

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Andrew Yang Taps Donald ‘Childish Gambino’ Glover as Creative Consultant for His Presidential Campaign

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker may have Rosario Dawson in his corner, but another candidate has one-upped him! According to Complex, Andrew Yang has hired rapper and actor Donald Glover as a creative consultant for his presidential campaign.

Prior to the last Democratic primary debate at Loyola Marymount University, Yang and Glover teamed up to launch a one-time pop-up store in Downtown Los Angeles. The candidate posted after the event via his Twitter account, “Had a blast with Donald Glover today! Big thanks to everyone who came out in L.A.!”

Glover, who performs under the stage name Childish Gambino, was brought on to design merchandise, including sweatshirts, hats, and posters for Yang’s political campaign. “At the pop-up store in downtown Los Angeles, supporters were able to purchase limited and signed editions of Yang2020 merchandise designed by Glover’s team, including sweatshirts, hats, and posters,” Yang’s campaign said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “The specialized merchandise embodies the core policies and values of Andrew Yang’s Humanity First platform and future collaborations are expected.” Proceeds from the items went toward the campaign.

Limited-edition products Glover created, were all signed by Yang and had a price range from $25 to $1,000.

“Donald Glover is one of the most talented and forward-thinking artists on the planet,” said Yang’s campaign manager, Zach Graumann, in a statement to Fast Company. “He sees the same problems that we do—that we need to rewrite the rules to the economy so it works for people. We’re hopeful and excited to have him continue collaborating with our campaign to take our message to more Americans.”

Glover gained popularity as a rapper using the name Childish Gambino before embarking in a successful acting career with his popular TV show Atlanta, which was just renewed by FX for a fourth season. The rapper recently won four Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Rap/Sung Performance and Best Music Video for his song and music video “This Is America,” which also debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

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