They represent West Coconut Grove when it was a vital majority-Black neighborhood hidden among some of the most affluent areas in Miami that boomed with family businesses, local hangouts and sporting events. Some call it West Grove, Black Grove or Little Bahamas in a nod to its roots. Most just call it The Grove — a place steeped in cultural history transformed by the decades.

“When you talk about what is The Grove, you’re talking about true history of South Florida,” said Charles Gibson, grandson of one of the first Black members of the Miami City Commission, Theodore Gibson.

Sports was its heartbeat. It nurtured the early careers of Olympic gold medalists and football stars like Cooper, national champions and future football Hall of Famers like Gore, all of whom trace their first sports memories to this close-knit community.

Today, few remnants of that proud Black heritage exist. Years of economic neglect followed by recent gentrification have wiped out much of the neighborhood’s cultural backbone. Robust youth leagues and sports programs have dwindled. Now, the community that once created an environment for young athletes to succeed — a trusted neighbor watching out for a young football player on his walk to practice, a respected coach instilling discipline and persistence in a future track star — is at risk of extinction.

To read this article in its entirety, visit The Associated Press

Durbin, D-Ill., said Thursday the committee obtained information from Crow that Thomas took three trips, and at least six flights, on Crow’s private jet in 2017, 2019 and 2021. The panel also found evidence of private jet travel during trips to Indonesia and California that Thomas recently disclosed in an amendment to a 2019 financial disclosure report.

The Democratic-led Judiciary panel launched the investigation last year after several reports that Thomas had for years received undisclosed expensive gifts, including international travel, from Crow. The committee has since pushed the Supreme Court to adopt a stronger ethics code as trips by Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito came to light, along with six-figure book deals received by other justices.

The new information “makes it crystal clear that the highest court needs an enforceable code of conduct, because its members continue to choose not to meet the moment,” Durbin said in a statement.

There was no immediate comment from the court on the Senate report. In the past, Thomas has maintained that he is not required to disclose the many trips he and his wife took that were paid for the Texas megadonor because Crow and his wife Kathy are “among our dearest friends,” Thomas said in an April 2023 statement that he was advised by colleagues on the nation’s highest court and others in the federal judiciary that “this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.”

To read this article in its entirety, visit The Associated Press

The company boasted big-name interviews, an Emmy-winning TV show, a buzzy music and ideas festival and impressive numbers to show prospective investors — until it imploded in 2021 amid doubts about its audience size, viability and basic integrity.

Those doubts are now at the center of a federal criminal trial. Founder Carlos Watson and Ozy are fighting charges of conspiracy to commit fraud.

Even after numerous other public and court reckonings for Silicon Valley companies that went from ballyhooed to belly-up, it’s hard to forget the moment in Ozy’s downfall when co-founder Samir Rao impersonated a YouTube executive to talk up the company to prospective investors.

Watson’s and Ozy’s lawyers blame any misrepresentations solely on Rao, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and to identity theft. The defense also has claimed that prosecutors are casting commonplace entrepreneurial puffery as a crime and singling out Watson, a Black founder in a tech world where African American executives have been disproportionately few.

“I am not now and never have been a ‘con man,’” he declared when indicted last year.

Prosecutors and Rao, their star witness, say Ozy shredded the line between hopeful hype and bald-faced deceit.

“We told so many lies to so many different people,” Rao testified after recounting how a teetering company concocted rosy financials in a desperate bid to lure investors and stay in busine

To read this article in its entirety, visit The Associated Press

Harris, speaking on the 10th annual National Gun Violence Awareness Day, marked the occasion by underscoring the need to pass more laws to stop gun violence. The vice president also highlighted the experience of her longtime friend who served as state’s attorney as well as the chief executive in Prince George’s County in the suburbs of the nation’s capital.

“Maryland, this November you have the power to elect leaders who have actually kept our communities safe,” Harris said.

Alsobrooks defeated U.S. Rep. David Trone last month, after the congressman spent about $62 million of his personal fortune to self-finance his campaign. Now, she’s running in a competitive race against popular Republican former Gov. Larry Hogan for a Senate seat that is opening with the retirement of Sen. Ben Cardin, a Democrat.

A Republican has not won a U.S. Senate seat in Maryland in more than 40 years in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1 statewide. But Hogan is running the most competitive Senate race for the GOP in the state in decades.

To read this article in its entirety, visit The Associate Press

Expectations were all over the map for “Ride or Die” given the dismal moviegoing market thus far this summer and Smith’s less certain box-office clout. In the end, though, the Sony Pictures release came in very close to, or slightly above, its tracking forecast.

“Ride or Die,” produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, is Smith’s first theatrical test since his 2022 slap of Rock earned him a 10-year Oscar ban. The “Bad Boys” film was in development at the time and ultimately went forward with about a $100 million production budget.

To read this article in its entirety, visit The Associated Press

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — The University of Virginia will pay $9 million in a settlement related to a 2022 campus shooting that killed three football players and wounded two students, a lawyer representing some of the victims and their families said Friday.

But some of the families are calling for more: The immediate release of an independent probe into the shooting that was completed last year. Its focus included efforts by the university to assess the potential threat of the student who was eventually charged with murder as well as recommendations from what was learned.

Kimberly Wald, an attorney who represents some of the families, said the university should have removed the alleged shooter from campus before the attack because he displayed multiple red flags through erratic and unstable behavior.

“This settlement today is only one small step for these families — there is much to be done,” said Wald, an attorney with the Miami-based Haggard Law Firm. “If there is one lesson, even one lesson that we can learn from that report, we need to know it now … We need to protect lives now.”

University officials postponed the report’s release last year over concerns that it could affect the alleged shooter’s upcoming trial.

“We are committed to providing it as soon as we can be sure that doing so will not interfere in any way with the criminal proceeding,” UVA President Jim Ryan said last fall.

To read this article in its entirety, visit The Associated Press

The 74-year-old Texas Democrat, who is seeking a 16th term, said in a statement late Sunday that as a member of Congress, she has been honored to be a leader in the fight for justice and equality and will approach this more personal fight with faith and courage.

“I am confident that my doctors have developed the best possible plan to target my specific disease,” Jackson Lee said. “The road ahead will not be easy, but I stand in faith that God will strengthen me.”

Jackson Lee said that it’s likely that she will be absent from Congress occasionally as she pursues treatment, but that her office will continue to serve constituents. She said she is committed to working with congressional leadership to be present for votes.

Jackson Lee first took office in 1995 and won the Democratic nomination in March, just months after losing a bid to become Houston’s mayor. She had sought to be the first Black female mayor of the nation’s fourth-largest city. Jackson Lee’s district includes downtown Houston and some of the city’s historically Black neighborhoods.

Shelby County Judge Jennifer J. Mitchell set a Sept. 23 trial date for Justin Johnson, 26. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Young Dolph, who was buying cookies when he was gunned down in November 2021 at a bakery located near his childhood home.

Johnson’s trial had been set to start Monday. However, prosecutors and Johnson’s lawyer filed a joint motion May 14 asking the judge to delay the trial to allow them to present expert witnesses to discuss cellphone location records.

Mitchell ruled in February that the trial jury will come from outside of Memphis because of intense media coverage of the 36-year-old rapper’s slaying, which shocked Memphis and the entertainment world.

Authorities have said two men got out of a stolen Mercedes-Benz and fired shots into Makeda’s Homemade Cookies before fleeing. As they searched for the suspects, police released photos taken from surveillance video that captured the shooting.

To read the article in its entirety, visit The Associated Press

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) — Rapper and singer Sean Kingston on Tuesday waived his right to fight extradition in a California court and agreed to be turned over to authorities in Florida, where he and his mother are charged with committing more than a million dollars worth of fraud.

Kingston, 34, did not make a public court appearance but signed papers agreeing to skip extradition hearings, representatives from San Bernardino courts and sheriff told The Associated Press.

He remained in a Southern California jail Tuesday afternoon, but sheriff’s officials will coordinate with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office to return him to Florida, sheriff’s spokeswoman Mara Rodriguez said in an email.

Kingston was arrested Thursday at Fort Irwin, an Army training base in California’s Mojave Desert where he was performing.

His mother, 61-year-old Janice Turner, was arrested the same day, when a SWAT team raided Kingston’s rented mansion in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Kingston and Turner have been charged with conducting an organized scheme to defraud, grand theft, identity theft and related crimes, according to arrest warrants released by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. The warrants allege they stole money, jewelry, a Cadillac Escalade and furniture.

The Jamaican American performer had a No. 1 hit with “Beautiful Girls” in 2007 and collaborated with Justin Bieber on the song “Eenie Meenie.”

Robert Rosenblatt, an attorney for Kingston and his mother, had said Friday that they planned to waive extradition, saying they looked forward to addressing the charges in a Florida court and “are confident of a successful resolution.”

Emails sent to Rosenblatt for further comment Tuesday were not immediately answered.

The warrants in the case say that from October to March they stole almost $500,000 in jewelry, more than $200,000 from Bank of America, $160,000 from the Escalade dealer, more than $100,000 from First Republic Bank, $86,000 from the maker of customized beds. Specifics were not given.

Kingston, whose legal name is Kisean Anderson, was already on two years’ probation for trafficking stolen property.

His mother pleaded guilty in 2006 to bank fraud for stealing over $160,000 and served nearly 1.5 years in prison, according to federal court records

A judge convicted Darien Harris in 2014 in connection with a fatal shooting at a South Side gas station in 2011. He was 12 years into a 76-year prison sentence when he was freed in December after The Exoneration Project showed that the eyewitness had advanced glaucoma and lied about his eyesight issues. Harris was 30 years old when he went free.

Harris filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in April alleging police fabricated evidence and coerced witnesses into making false statements, the Chicago Tribune reported Monday. He told the newspaper that he is still struggling to put his life back together.

“I don’t have any financial help. I’m still (treated like) a felon, so I can’t get a good job. It’s hard for me to get into school,” he said. “I’ve been so lost. … I feel like they took a piece of me that is hard for me to get back.”

A message The Associated Press left on the city’s Law Department main line seeking comment Monday wasn’t immediately returned. The department provides attorneys for the city, its departments and its employees.

Harris was an 18-year-old high school senior when he was arrested. The legally blind eyewitness picked Harris out of a police lineup and identified him in court. The eyewitness testified that he was riding his motorized scooter near the gas station when he heard gunshots and saw a person aiming a handgun. He also added that the shooter bumped into him.

Harris’ trial attorney asked the witness if his diabetes affected his vision. He said yes but denied he had vision problems. But the man’s doctor deemed him legally blind nine years before the incident, court records show.

A gas station attendant also testified that Harris wasn’t the shooter.

The Exoneration Project has helped clear more than 200 people since 2009, including a dozen in Chicago’s Cook County in 2023 alone.