SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft is first out with its 2013 top search trends list, with pop star Beyoncé bumping Kim Kardashian as the most searched person on Bing this year. Women dominated 2013 in Microsoft search world. The top five most searched people of the year were women (Kardashian was No. 2).
Justin Bieber — No. 6 — and President Barack Obama — 10th — were the only two men who made it into the top 10.
Also making Bing’s Top 10 list: Rihanna (3), Taylor Swift (4), Madonna (5), Nicki Minaj (7), Amanda Bynes (8) and Miley Cyrus (9) Swift jumped from No. 10 last year, while Bynes, Madonna and Obama are all new to the list.
Microsoft’s take on top trends has a decidedly pop culture bent, but Bing also offers a look at top news stories of the year. The birth of the royal baby was the most searched story of the year followed by the Boston Marathon bombing in April. You can read more about Bing’s top trends at www.bingtrends.com.
And now that we’re into December, look for Google, Twitter, Facebook and more to weigh in with the year’s top trends.
article by Nancy Blair via usatoday.com
Good Black News
Next year’s Essence Festival is getting a dose of music royalty from Prince. The “Purple Rain” singer-songwriter is headlining the 20th annual Essence, a celebration of music and culture being held July 3-6 in New Orleans. Prince, who performed at Essence in 2004, also headlined this year’s South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas. His newest single, “Screwdriver,” debuted earlier this year. Still, Prince is best known for chart-topping hits like “1999,” “Kiss” and “Purple Rain.”
Essence has been held every Independence Day weekend since 1995, when it marked the 25th anniversary of Essence magazine. The festival includes nightly concerts at the Louisiana Superdome and empowerment seminars during the day at a nearby convention center. Organizers say the rest of the lineup will be announced later.
article by Associated Press via Variety.com
article by Associated Press via Variety.com
Amidst the dark skies of the Healthcare.gov launch, some daylight may finally be emerging with respect to one of the critical goals of the Affordable Care Act—bending the cost curve of America’s expensive healthcare system.
According to a New York Times report out Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office has quietly removed hundreds of billions of dollars from the projected costs of Obamacare, primarily the result of an anticipated decrease in the federal government’s contribution to the Medicaid expansion program along with the projected cost of the subsidy payments to those buying private insurance policies on the healthcare exchanges.
Why the good news?
The more favorable projections are the direct result of the slowing trend in the growth of healthcare spending over the past five years leading to a slowdown in rising costs. While, ten years ago, per-capita spending on healthcare had been growing by an average annual rate of 5 percent, that number was dramatically cut to 1.8 percent during the 2007-2010 period and reduced even further to 1.3 percent in the years following 2010.
Do we have Obamacare to thank for this highly successful “bending” of the cost curve? Naturally, the answer depends upon who you ask as there simply is no definitive way of knowing—yet.
While most economist believe that the lion’s share of the reduction is due to the sluggish economy—making Americans far more careful when it comes to making decisions regarding when or if to spend money on medical care—others believe that some of the plans built into the ACA designed to get people to spend less may actually be working.
Among Obamacare inventions that do appear to be paying off in lower healthcare costs is the government’s refusal to pay hospitals more when patients are re-admitted within 30 days of their initial discharge. Additionally, new plan designs engineered to reward providers for quality of care rather than for quantity of care may well be paying off in terms of lowering the overall cost of care.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation—widely regarded as an honest, non-partisan broker when it comes to healthcare issues and analysis—the declining increases in the cost of healthcare is 75 percent the result of economic factors and 25 percent a benefit of the cost cutting measures in the ACA that do, in fact, appear to be working.
- President Barack Obama speaking at a World AIDS Day event. (EVAN VUCCI/AP)
President Barack Obama has announced a new initiative at the National Institutes of Health in pursuit of a cure for HIV. Obama says his administration is redirecting $100 million into the project to find a new generation of therapies. He said the United States should be at the forefront of discoveries to eliminate HIV or put it into remission without requiring lifelong therapy. Obama made the announcement Monday at a White House event marking World AIDS Day, which was Sunday.
The president also announced that the U.S. passed the ambitious goal he set last year to support 6 million people around the globe in getting access to anti-retroviral drugs. Obama said the U.S. helped 6.7 million people receive life-saving treatment.
History and Halle Berry have teamed to develop Hannibal, a miniseries centering on famed general Hannibal Barca in the Second Punic War. Beginning in 264 BC, Hannibal takes viewers through the Second Punic War between Carthage and Rome, exploring the relationship between Hannibal and his archrival Scipio Africanus. Despite their fiercely opposed allegiances, the two are brought together and grow to respect each other as brothers.
Berry will executive produce the miniseries, with Jeffrey Caine serving as the series’ writer. The project will be a co-production between A+E Studios and Red Arrow Entertainment. “Hannibal was not only the greatest African general to ever live,” said Berry, “he may have been the greatest general, period. His story is an intricate and captivating ride and I’m thrilled to get this project off the ground with our partners at History.”
This miniseries builds on Berry’s small screen plans, as the actress was recently cast in the CBS project Extant. Steven Spielberg is executive producing that hour-long Eye drama.
article by AJ Marechal via Variety.com
This miniseries builds on Berry’s small screen plans, as the actress was recently cast in the CBS project Extant. Steven Spielberg is executive producing that hour-long Eye drama.
article by AJ Marechal via Variety.com
AOP (American Opera Projects), and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture will co-present an evening of scenes from Nkeiru Okoye‘s folk opera Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed That Line to Freedom that tells of how a young girl born in slavery, becomes Harriet Tubman, the legendary Underground Railroad conductor. The musical excerpts will be followed by an artist Q&A moderated by WQXR’s Terrance McKnight. The concert will be presented on Monday, December 9, 2013 at 6:30 PM at the Langston Hughes Auditorium: 515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY 10037-1801. General admission will be $10 ($8 for Schomburg Society Members) and available by calling (212) 491-2206 or visiting www.showclix.com/event/HarrietTubman.
Harriet Tubman will include performances by soprano Sumayya Ali (Lincoln Center, Berkshire Opera, Sarasota Opera), soprano Sequina DuBose (Lyric Opera of Chicago, Opera Memphis, PAB Theater), contralto Nicole Mitchell (Lincoln Center Festival, Sarasota Opera), tenor Clinton Ingram (Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Teatro Real), and baritone Damian Norfleet (Perseverance Theater, AMAS Musical Theater, Prospect Theater Company). The evening will feature a string ensemble with music direction by Mila Henry, stage direction by Beth Greenberg (New York City Opera) and WQXR’s Terrance McKnight moderating a Q&A with the artists.
Using a mixture of opera and vernacular folk music, featuring gospel spirituals, ragtime, early blues, minstrel songs, work songs, call and responses, and field hollers, Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed That Line to Freedom tells this important chapter of American history in the context of Tubman’s tight-knit family of lively characters and two sisters vowing that nothing but death will separate them, despite the slavery threatening to tear them apart. The work is in development at Brooklyn-based AOP who has featured music from Tubman at venues such as Galapagos Art Space, SUNY Albany, and the Brooklyn Public Library Main Branch.
A semi-staged performance of the entire Harriet Tubman opera will be presented by AOP in February 2014 at Brooklyn’s Irondale Center as part of Lines of Freedom, a theatrical celebration of African-American history. Presentations of Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed That Line to Freedom are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Art Works.
To learn more about the show, go to: broadwayworld.com
Related Stories:
Looks like Oprah Winfrey‘s “biggest yard sale ever,” which was held on Saturday, Nov. 2, was a huge success for both the fans and the media mogul. The OWN founder’s auction, dubbed “The Oprah Winfrey Collection” and featuring hundreds of her personal items, netted more than $600,000, according to the Los Angeles Times. The sale, which was held at the Santa Barbara Polo and Racquet Club, included “antiques, contemporary furnishings, and fine art” from the TV star’s homes in Indiana, Hawaii, Chicago, Santa Barbara and her “La Quinta” estate. Kaminski Auctions ran the event. A few items from her trainer and longtime pal Bob Greene were also put up for auction.
“Had so much fun at the auction which is still going on,” Lee Daniels’ The Butler actress tweeted on Saturday. Oprah’s BFF, Gayle King, shared a photo on her Instagram account, which shows Oprah holding one of her adorable dogs and prepping for the big day. “Auction day for @oprah getting ready,” King captioned the snapshot.
The biggest selling item(s)? Six 18th century Louis XVI armchairs with hand-embroidered details sold for $60,000, reported by the Times. Certain objects and things exceeded price expectations, like a teapot that sold for $1,000 but was worth less than $100. Sounds like her many admirers just wanted to get a piece of the icon.
Here are a some highlights and their final pricetags:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9l2TaLb9Xs&w=560&h=315]
Darnell Barton, a bus driver in Buffalo, New York, was driving across a Buffalo highway express with 20 high school students in his bus when he spotted a woman who had crossed the guard rail and was leaning over the passing traffic below. Against his training as a bus driver, Barton stopped the bus and quickly phoned dispatch to send someone to help, then got out of the bus and approached the woman. The woman turned her head, then looked back down at the traffic below the bridge. Barton then quickly put her in a bear hug and asked her if she would like to come over the guard rail. The woman, who had up until this point been silent, said yes.
A corrections officer and female driver sat with the woman, along with Barton, until an ambulance arrived to take her for help. Barton then got back on the bus and continued his route. He received a standing ovation from the students aboard the bus, as well as other passengers who’d been watching the ordeal. He finished the day and wrote up the report.
“Being the humble individual that Darnell is, he didn’t write it in a way that was going to call attention to himself,” said C. Douglas Hartmayer, spokesman for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority. “It was: I did it, got back on my bus and continued. That speaks volumes about his demeanor and character.”
Thanks to one man for taking the time out of his day to help someone who truly needed it. For more information about suicide prevention, visit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. If you are in crisis, please call (800) 273-TALK (8255).
article via dailyoftheday.com
Kevin Hart, a proud Philadelphia native, is giving back to the city that raised him in the best way possible. After hearing of the financial crisis plaguing the City of Brotherly Love’s school district, the comedian decided to pony up $250K of his own money to support. Hart made the announcement via a video on Instagram. “Philadelphia, aka the city of brotherly love,” he began in the clip. “I just heard about all the trouble the school district is going through. So I took it upon myself to take $250,000 and put it in the school system to buy new computers. Not because somebody told me to, because I love you, and I put on for my city.”
Additionally, Hart tagged a heartfelt caption with the vid. “My city made me who I am today and for that I am thankful. I will make it my priority to help my city get out of this debt. PHILLY UNTIL I DIE,” read a portion of the message.”
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter thanked Hart for his philanthropic contribution in a statement, saying “I want to thank Kevin Hart for his incredibly generous gift to our schools, recreation centers and citizens of all ages. These computers will have a very meaningful impact on Philadelphia.” For context, over the summer, Philly closed 24 schools, laid off thousands of employees (including teachers, counselors, vice principals, and the like), and cut numerous extra curricular programs.
article by Chris Thomas via hiphopwired.com
Sweet Dreams, a documentary about efforts by the Brooklyn-based Blue Marble Ice Cream company to help a group of Rwandan women open their own shop, could have come off as insensitive or twee. And in the first 10 minutes, I worried that it was, indeed, about how artisanal food could save Africa.
When viewers are facing the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda, in which hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were slaughtered in 1994, it’s easy to think that ice cream is a comparatively petty concern. But, thankfully, the sibling directors Lisa and Rob Fruchtman have made a nuanced and deftly edited film about a complex issue. It’s fascinating to see the natural resources in this “land of milk and honey” transformed into novelty and development through a soft-serve machine. And, as one man says, “If you are bringing development to the woman, you are bringing it to the whole family.” It is rare to see a movie present such weighty problems and offer nonsimplistic, practical solutions in story form.
Ms. Fruchtman’s background as an editor (Apocalypse Now and Heaven’s Gate) may have helped guide the skillful narrative structure here. The initial focus on the struggles and successes of a small business may be familiar to Western audiences. But then the individual past horrors endured by these women are revealed in subtle and dramatic ways, until we realize the weight of trauma in this nation. “Can someone just see you and start guessing your story?” one subject wonders.
article by Miriam Bale via nytimes.com