JAY-Z Cites Racial Discrimination in Trademark Infringement Case
JAY seeks to halt arbitration in lawsuit over Roc Nation logo, due to lack of black arbitrators
JAY-Z and Roc Nation are currently embroiled in a trademark case with the brand management company Iconix Brand Group. Iconix, which bought JAY-Z’s Rocawear in 2007, claimed in the 2017 lawsuit that it owns the Roc Nation logo and that JAY-Z is infringing on its trademark by using the logo on Major League Baseball apparel. Earlier this year, according to Page Six, Iconix filed for an arbitration proceeding against JAY-Z’s team, asking them to reveal financial information about their companies.
In a new development in the case, JAY-Z’s team has asked the court to halt arbitration because of an alleged lack of diversity in the American Arbitration Association (AAA), according to The Hollywood Reporter. In the memorandum, filed today (November 28), JAY-Z’s lawyers write, “The AAA’s arbitration procedures, and specifically its roster of neutrals for large and complex cases in New York, deprive black litigants like Mr. Carter and his companies of the equal protection of the laws, equal access to public accommodations, and mislead consumers into believing that they will receive a fair and impartial adjudication.”
According to the filing, “The AAA was able to provide only three neutrals [on its ‘Large and Complex Cases’ roster] it identified as African-American: two men—one of whom was a partner at the law firm representing Iconix in this arbitration and thus had a glaringly obvious conflict of interest—and one woman.”
As a result, JAY-Z and his team claim, “The AAA’s procedures… are contrary to New York public policy and violate the Equal Protection Clause of the New York State Constitution, various state civil rights laws, and the New York Deceptive Practices Act.”
Pitchfork has contacted JAY-Z’s representatives.
Article via PitchFork
Blac Chyna Claims Huge Legal Victory Against Kylie Jenner & the Kardashians
Blac Chyna just received an early Xmas gift, because the Kardashian family just got shut down in court when they tried to have Chyna’s ongoing lawsuit against Rob Kardashian and his reality star family tossed out.
Chyna’s attorney, Lisa Bloom, just released a statement that “Today the court REJECTED the Kardashian family’s request to strike Chyna’s entire lawsuit.”
The baby mama of Rob Kardashian will now get her day in court against the famous family, including Kris Jenner, Kim Kardashian, Khloé Kardashian and Kylie Jenner.
As we reported, Chyna has been fighting for over a year, claiming the entire lot slut shamed, defamed and intended to kill her “hit show” with Rob.
Bloom says the court only struck 6 paragraphs from Chyna’s complaint, but allowed the other legal claims. The parts of the lawsuit that were taken out have to do with allegations of Blac Chyna claiming the family accused her of assaulting Rob.
Chyna’s attorney says, “We thank the court for its careful, well-reasoned rulings,” adding, “We look forward to getting a trial date next month and aggressively fighting for Chyna’s rights at trial.”
Aside from the lawsuit, Blac Chyna is still trying to hammer out custody issues with Rob, who claims he can no longer afford child support payments.
Article via TheBlast
Khloe Kardashian Fits True Thompson in a Birkin Bag for Precious Photoshoot
In case there was any doubt, True Thompson is truly living the good life. Proud mama Khloe Kardashian shared new photos of her 7-month-old daughter via Instagram on Wednesday, and dare we say these are True’s cutest yet?
“Nothing can change this love,” Khloe captioned the snapshots, which feature baby True fitting perfectly in the E! reality star’s seriously pricey Hermès Birkin handbag. Ever the aspiring fashionista, Khloe and Tristan Thompson‘s bundle of joy smiled for the camera in a navy blue dress and leopard print head wrap.
It’s been an especially exciting time for True and KoKo, who actually just revealed her little girl’s first word!
Drumroll, please… Dada!
As the 34-year-old shared on her app, she can’t believe True is growing up right before her eyes. “True now has three teeth and she’s going to crawl any second. She also smiles constantly, but I still can’t get that little munchkin to laugh unless I tickle her. Maybe I’m just not funny, LOL,” Khloe wrote.
Article via EOnline
Reginae Carter Shows Off Twerking Skills In Early Birthday Celebration: Watch
In celebration of her birthday, watch Reginae Carter show off some of her twerking skills.
This probably isn’t a clip Lil Wayne wants to see, but his daughter Reginae is about to turn 20 year old tomorrow (11/29), and it looks like she had some fun last night to kick off the early b-day celebration. TheShadeRoom obtained footage of Reginae turning up with girl friends and twerking hard on a couch at what looks to be someone’s house.
Dressed down to some bedtime attire, Reginae showed off her twerking skills to the sound of a possible Bubba Sparxx remix? or who know what, while her girlfriends cheered her on. The comment section of the clip were all for the twerk session too, with many saying “go sis” and another saying “this how you suppose to be on your birthday.”
Who knows how her boyfriend YFN Lucci feels about this clip getting out, but it shouldn’t be a big deal since this appears to be just some typical bday fun. If anything, it makes him look good and envious.
Check out Reginae twerk below. Is it me or does it seem like it was just yesterday we saw Reginae singing her adorable raps in The Carter Documentary (see below). Man does time fly by fast.
Article via HotNewHipHop
Mary J. Blige Says Kim Porter Tried To Protect Her From Kendu Isaacs From The Very Beginning
On Saturday, Kim Porter was laid to rest in her hometown of Columbus, Georgia. Days later though, more and more is coming out about the heartwarming speeches given during the funeral service, including from Diddy, her son Quincy Brown, and now, Mary J. Blige. In an audio clip from the funeral obtained by The Blast, the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul opened up about how protective Porter was of her friends and family. She mentioned a time when, before Blige was set to marry Kendu Isaacs, Porter quizzed her about whether or not she was sure about him. Blige said thinking back on the questions now, she realizes she could have avoided a lot of heartbreak and pain had she taken heed to what Porter was asking and saying to her:
In 2003, my brother invited me to a boat ride [laughs], yacht ride. I’d never been on one before. It was the year I got married and he said, “This is going to be your honeymoon.” It was a honeymoon because every day I got to see him and Kim be romantic. And the most beautiful part, I got to know her, and that’s when she became my friend. She was protective over me. She asked me was I ready. She was like a mom: “Are you ready for this?” She made me question myself a lot. I think about those questions now she asked me now that I’m in the situation I’m in. Kim was always a protector, she protected me. And every time I saw her, I just felt like I was seeing my grandmother or somebody. It was just that much love and beauty. So I just want to say, what an angel. She protected us, she’s still protecting us. I love you Kim Porter, so much. This is why I’m standing up here, because I don’t do all of this speaking very well. But I’m here because… [cries] I just saw you two weeks ago. I was just dancing with you. I can’t even believe this is happening. I love you. Thank y’all.
Blige would go on to wed Isaacs at the end of that year, on December 7, 2003. In July of 2016, she filed for divorce, they battled over her money for a long time, and ultimately, the divorce was finalized in June of this year. When speaking on their contentious split and how she was doing after the fact, Blige told Variety in 2017 that she realized Isaacs had been a “con artist” all along.
“I’m doing OK. I’m living. I’m not happy about a lot of things. I thought someone loved me, right? Turns out, he was a con artist and he didn’t, and now he’s coming after me for all my money,” she said. “When you come out of something like that, you realize you were never the one. There was someone else that was his queen. I got played. I got suckered. I have to keep smiling and keep my spirits up because this is designed to kill me.”
Check out Blige’s tribute to Porter, below:
Article via MadameNoire
Check out some of Lovelyti videos:
Kendu Isaacs Daughter breaks down~ MARY I haven’t heard from you since the DIVORCE! #SIDEEYE
Kendu Isaacs GOES OFF during Mary J Blige’s BET performance~STOP this negative nonsense!
U.S. Life Expectancy Continues To Fall As Overdose And Suicide Rates Soar
It’s the longest-running decline in U.S. history since World War I, when a flu pandemic killed almost 700,000 people nationwide.
American mortality rates have continued to rise alongside worrying upticks in overdose and suicide rates, according to three new government studies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Life expectancy dropped to 78.6 years in 2017, down from 78.7 in 2016, contributing to the longest-running decline in U.S. history since World War I, when a flu pandemic killed almost 700,000 people nationwide between 1915 and 1918.
The primary group that saw jumps in their death rates were white Americans ― a 0.6 percent jump for white males and 0.9 percent for white females, according to the CDC.
“Life expectancy gives us a snapshot of the nation’s overall health and these sobering statistics are a wakeup call that we are losing too many Americans, too early and too often, to conditions that are preventable,” CDC director Robert Redfield said.
The 10 leading causes of death remained the same, with heart disease and cancer at the top of the list. Yet a second CDC report revealed that the rate of drug overdoses jumped 9.6 percent between 2016 and 2017, totaling 70,237 deaths last year. The rate of death from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl jumped by 71 percent between 2013 and 2017 and by 45 percent between 2016 and 2017 alone.
The age groups particularly affected in 2017 spanned the 25-34 range, as well as 35-44 and 45-54. The highest overdose rates were also concentrated in only a handful of states, including West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia.
A third report found that suicide rates also continue to climb, particularly among rural Americans. Between 1999 and 2017, the suicide rate increased by 33 percent. Men saw a 26 percent jump while women experienced a 53 percent increase. More remote areas have seen rates almost twice as high as in urban areas.
“I think this is a very dismal picture of health in the United States,” Joshua M. Sharfstein, vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told The Washington Post. “Life expectancy is improving in many places in the world. It shouldn’t be declining in the United States.”
Article via HuffingtonPost
North Carolina Man Shoots Son on Thanksgiving After Fight Over Kneeling NFL Players
Police in North Carolina say a man shot and wounded his son on Thanksgiving after a heated fight about NFL athletes kneeling during the national anthem.
Cary police say 21-year-old Esteban Marley Valencia and his brother argued during dinner about the athletes’ protest of racial injustice.
News outlets report 51-year-old Jorge Luis Valencia-Lamadrid told officers Valencia then physically attacked his other son so he retrieved a shotgun.
Valencia-Lamadrid said Valencia started throwing furniture and hit him in the face with a water bottle. He said he had been holding the gun by its pistol grip and squeezed the trigger.
Valencia was shot in the hand and leg. He was taken to a hospital for treatment.
Valencia-Lamadrid was arrested and charged with aggravated assault. It’s unclear if he has a lawyer.
Woman Accused of Beating, Choking Santa Ana McDonald’s Manager Over Missing Ketchup Is Arrested
A woman who was wanted for beating and choking a Santa Ana McDonald’s manager in a caught-on-video dispute over ketchup last month has been arrested, police officials announced Wednesday.
Mayra Berenice Gallo, 24, allegedly became enraged when she discovered there was not enough ketchup in the order when the incident occurred on Oct. 27.
After ordering in the drive-thru of the McDonald’s restaurant in the 1500 block of North Bristol Street, she went into the restaurant through the employee entrance and asked for more ketchup.
The manager told her she couldn’t be in the building and Gallo allegedly “became combative” and started pushing, punching and choking the employee, police said.
Another employee tried to intervene and called other workers to help, the video showed.
A man who was believed to be with Gallo is credited with stopping the attack when he pulled the woman off the manager. The two then left the restaurant.
Police said in a news release Wednesday that they received numerous tips from the public on the woman seen in the video, which led them to Gallo. She was arrested Tuesday on a $15,000 warrant at her home in Santa Ana.
She was booked on suspicion of assault.
Police provided no new information on the man who was believed to be with Gallo during the incident.
Bronx man who killed his brother for waking him up gets 10 years
CASTLE HILL, The Bronx —A Bronx man who fatally stabbed his younger brother was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Tuesday, prosecutors said.
Dennis Martinez, 53, woke up on March 4, 2016 because his brother, Jorge Montanez, was making noise, court documents show. They argued in their Castle Hill Houses apartment and then Martinez stabbed his 36-year-old brother in the chest, back and right leg.
“The defendant killed his brother because the victim was being loud and woke him up,” District Attorney Darcel Clark said. “Now the defendant will serve 10 years in prison for a senseless crime.”
Martinez told police a group of men had attacked his brother. He said he’d tried to help him, but was stabbed in the leg.
Martinez will also face five years of post-release supervision.
via: https://pix11.com/2018/11/27/bronx-man-who-killed-his-brother-for-waking-him-up-gets-10-years/
Donald Glover and Rihanna’s mysterious movie project has a mysterious leaked trailer
Back in August, we reported that Donald Glover and Rihanna were working on something together in Cuba, possibly with frequent Glover collaborator (and This Is America director) Hiro Murai. It was one of those things where fan pages we had never heard of had somehow gotten big inside scoops, which somehow makes them seem more trustworthy even though their veracity was impossible to prove, with the general consensus being that Murai was directing Glover and Rihanna in a movie that may or may not have been called Guava Island. As we noted at the time, though, it was entirely possible that the fan rumors were totally wrong and that the three of them were just hanging out in Cuba.
Now, even though there has been some Guava Island-related movement, we’re still not entirely convinced that it’s a real thing. Over the weekend, Glover held his PHAROS festival in New Zealand and showed off a trailer for Guava Island that seemingly confirms it’s both real and a movie, and though the trailer hasn’t been publicly released, there is a fan-filmed version floating around on social media.
There are a handful of interesting things in this trailer (Letitia Wright!), but one thing we want to point out is that it bills the movie as a “Childish Gambino film,” connecting it to Glover’s musical artist persona, which sort of implies to us that it’s related to Glover’s musical career and not his acting career. Either way, everything we know about the movie is courtesy of leaks, so we’ll have a better idea about all of this when/if it actually gets announced/released.
Article via AVClub