According to multiple media reports, well known actor Charlie Sheen will announce that he is HIV positive in a sit-down interview Tuesday on the Today show.
Sheen, 50 is the son of Martin Sheen and a Hollywood leading man who has stared in some very big productions from Platoon to Wall Street. He also stared in the television sitcoms Two and a Half Men and Anger Management.
“Charlie thought he was indestructible and took no precautions — even though he was indulging in high-risk sex practices,” a friend reportedly told The National Enquirer.
Separate reports by New York Daily News and People say the same thing.
The Today Show has been promoting the Sheen interview throughout the day but have not specified what it will be about.
Tomorrow On TODAY: @charliesheen talks to @MLauer in a live revealing interview https://t.co/LfCMr7nvk7 pic.twitter.com/cjVcR5XP8j
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) November 16, 2015
Cover Photo Credit: Matthew Straubmuller/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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Here’s A Reminder That Justin Trudeau Is Not A Disney Prince
By Criswell Lavery
Before starting this article, I didn’t know a lot about Justin Trudeau.
Many (white, liberal Americans) think of the young Prime Minister and immediately connect him with the monikers “feminist”, “pro-LGBT”, “pro-choice”, all of which are correct.
But very few know much more about him.
I had seen a few articles floating around talking about his stance on foreign policy, his interactions with the First Nations’ peoples, and his meeting with Donald Trump, but never stopped to read them or look further.
Like many, I was blinded by Trudeau’s liberal social values and his fabulous hair, and thought of him only with a vague fondness.
This is a trap that many fall into, even in our age of easily accessible information.
We see articles about how he’s let over 25,000 Syrian refugees into Canada since he took office in 2015, and don’t see the one about the Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement (CETA).
This agreement was set to reduce 98% of tariffs on trade between Canada and the European Union and cause a small increase in jobs.
It also has provisions which are very similar to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), providing corporations with a huge amount of privileges and legal rights, allowing for them to sue entire governments to change laws and standards that impede their function.
CETA gives Canadian and European corporations these same rights, as well as giving international companies bidding rights to areas in cities, First Nation communities, and providences.
Despite the job growth and tariff reduction, it’s heavily weighted to favor big business, which one would think our Disney prince Prime Minister would be against, right?
Nope.
Prime Minister Trudeau had been pushing the agreement for months before it was signed in October 2016, and was ratified this February.
It’s been a big part of the reason recent press coverage has turned against Justin Trudeau, changing from their pretty steadily positive reporting to something a little more mixed.
He wholeheartedly supports CETA, which definitely did not fit with the ideal image of him that my little liberal heart had created.
And there’s plenty more where that came from.
A very controversial issue in Canada, just as it is in the USA, is indigenous peoples’ rights.
Like the tribes in the United States, the First Nations have been brutally treated and forced out of their lands since white people first got there, hundreds of years ago.
When Prime Minister Trudeau took office, he promised to bring the United Nation’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into law in Canada.
This document affixes the inherent rights of indigenous people, including the right to self-determinism and the right to not be forced to assimilate to the incumbent culture.
While the protection of indigenous culture seems like it should be assumed and respected, it’s not currently legally required.
Despite frequent promises to bring this into the new Canadian administration, in July of 2016, Trudeau’s Justice Minister stated that they would not be adopting the UN’s Declaration into law, that it “makes no sense.”
In breaking this promise, Trudeau lost a lot of respect and trust among the First Nations.
In the following year, many new blunders involving the treatment of indigenous peoples have been made, one being the support of the Site C dam, a hydro-electric power generator being proposed to be built on the Peace River in British Columbia.
The dam would destroy ancient burial grounds and threaten traditional hunting and fishing grounds.
In addition, Canada’s energy need hasn’t grown in recent years, and they even have a surplus of clean energy.
The support of this project is another check on a list of broken promises and backtracking.
Here’s the thing, I don’t necessarily think that Justin Trudeau is a bad person.
I can’t make that judgement.
Do I disagree with many of his policies?
Absolutely.
Do I agree with others?
Sure.
I’m not trying to condemn everything he’s ever done, I’m trying to illustrate the very gray nature of politics today, and the dangerous habit people have to put things in black and white.
When we’re distracted by buzzwords and a certain Prime Minister’s blinding smile, we fail to hold people accountable for their actions.
We don’t demand answers or retribution when they mess up or don’t follow through.
As much as we might like to think so, Trudeau isn’t a Disney prince.
He’s human, and a powerful political figure.
Let your ideal go, and demand answers when you have questions, ask for retributions when promises are broken.
Disney princes are perfect.
People are not.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in the world. You can write for us.
Cover Photo Credit: Mohammad Jangda/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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Saturday Night Live Honors Paris In Touching Moment Before Show
Saturday Night Live honored the victims of the Paris terror attack before the start of the show with a touching bilingual moment presented by cast member Cecily Strong.
We stand with you, Paris. https://t.co/hqUX4oqWMj
— Saturday Night Live (@nbcsnl) November 15, 2015
Strong said in English and then repeated in French:
“Paris is the city of light. And here in New York City, we know that light will never go out. Our love and support is with everyone there tonight. We stand with you.”
Cover Photo Credit: NBC/ Screenshot
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“Dry Katrina”: In Memphis, Hundreds Of Families Are Being Forced Out Of The City’s Last Public Housing Units
By Courtney Anderson
MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE- More than 700 families in the city of Memphis are at risk of losing their homes due to a mandatory relocation that some are equating to a manmade disaster.
This displacement comes from the mandatory relocation of residents from apartment buildings that were found to have housing code enforcement violations.
The residents were living in government subsidized housing units- the last such project in the city until the owner of the buildings lost HUD funding according to local paper The Commercial Appeal.
If they are made to relocate, many residents say that they will have nowhere to go.
But one organization in Memphis is working to provide assistance to residents in need.
For the better part of a year, The Mid South Peace and Justice Center (MSPJC), in Memphis, has been working on a renter’s rights collective to addresses the issues that led to the possible relocation of hundreds of Memphis citizens.
MSPJC director Bradley Watkins describes the collective as an effort to “engage in renter’s rights and training workshops on how tenants can form their own tenant associations,” in order to eventually create a network of organizations in Memphis—or “Memphis Tenant’s Union—” that work to protect the rights of tenants in the city.
In short, they are trying to stop what Watkins has dubbed as Memphis’s “Dry Katrina.” The nickname makes reference to the New Orleans housing crisis that followed Hurricane Katrina more than a decade ago.
Watkins said there is no other organizations in Memphis of its kind and that tenants have been taking a “great risk standing up for their rights,” and that the residents who speak out “need more support than is often available.”
The Mid South Peace and Justice center began the collective by working with residents of low-income apartments Warren Apartments and Serenity Towers.
Both apartment complexes are owned by Rev. Richard Hamlet of Global Ministries Foundation in Memphis and subsidized by the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
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Watkins said he and members of the MSPJC saw many violations in both Warren Apartments, Serenity Towers and an apartment called Tulane, also owned by Hamlet.
Two weeks later, HUD notified Hamlet that Global Ministries Foundation had failed to correct the violations and that the tenants would have to be moved.
Recently, an inspection of Serenity Towers found massive bug infestations. Residents were told they would have to be moved, as well.
Watkins said that he felt the relocation was inevitable and that they were the result of “decades of systemic neglect on the part of the landlords.” To Watkins, it was only a matter of time.
“Honestly, we all have to ask: What did we expect to happen? Now our collective chickens have come home to roost,” Watkins said in a blog post.
Watkins said that these relocations have created a serious dilemma in the city of Memphis.
“The relocation of residents at Warren and Tulane, if not properly handled, could lead to a massive crisis in housing here in Memphis,” Watkins said. “This will affect thousands of families and they will need this community and this organization to stand with them in this.”
Jessica Johnson-Peterson was one of the residents who spoke up about the housing violations. She said some of her closest associates had come to her with complaints for years and that she felt compelled by the Holy Spirit to “be a voice for the community.”
Johnson-Peterson said that after a conversation with her husband and a resident named Cynthia Crawford, she typed a letter to Hamlet and then contacted Watkins at the MSPJC.
Johnson-Peterson said there are still many concerns not being addressed by HUD or by Global Ministries Foundation. She also said the new appointed receiver has expressed that he has no interest in working with tenants.
“It seems that being a criminal has more benefits than being a law-abiding citizen. The citizens that do their best with the resources, they are forced to live impoverished and the ones that compromise and give into the corruption more than thrive,” Johnson-Peterson said.
On March 11, 2016, Watkins posted an email he sent to Memphis city councilman Worth Morgan, members of the administration of Memphis mayor Jim Strickland and management at Memphis Code Enforcement onto the MSPJC Facebook page.
The post detailed a proposal that would create two initiatives between MSPJC and Memphis Code Enforcement. Both initiatives would have used Serenity Towers as a “pilot program.”
The initiatives listed included the creation of tenants associations that would be recognized by HUD and a program in which college interns who work with MSPJC would be paired with residents of Serenity Towers who have mobility issues.
In the meantime, the MSPJC is keeping track of HUD’s responses to the violations in Serenity Towers and Warren and Tulane Apartments.
The MSPJC Facebook page is consistently updated with local news articles about the apartment buildings and the tenants who called them home.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. You can write for us.
Cover Photo Credit: Guillaume Capron/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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