Playground Karen Calls Black Toddler the N-Word, an 11-Year-Old Florida Boy Dies By Suicide, Tucker Carlson Drags Michelle Obama, Georgia Teen Honors His Slain Prom Date, Track Meet Stabbing Suspect Raises Crazy Money and More From the Week in News
A Florida family was forced to bury their sweet 11-year-old boy after an apparent suicide. However, the lawsuit they filed points to a shocking suspect in the bullying he experienced before his death. - Kalyn Womack Read More
In a recent episode of Megyn Kelly's podcast, Tucker Carlson threw some serious low blows toward former First Lady Michelle Obama after expressing her plight as a Black woman and wife. His hateful comments only fueled right-winged social media to drag her. - Kalyn Womack Read More
Three years have passed since the death of Denise Broadie after a long battle of health complications. Though, following her passing, her husband was charged in connection to her death which authorities now consider to be a murder. The reason behind the charges stems from a long-held secret that could have saved Denise's life. - Kalyn Womack Read More
A Georgia teen did not deserve to have her excitement of going to senior prom soiled by the senseless killing of her prom date. However, she still made a decision to make sure he was honored in his absence. The tribute will bring you to tears. - Kalyn Womack Read More
Despite the ongoing threats targeted at Karmelo Anthony —the teen who allegedly fatally stabbed another teen at a track meet — supporters are still pushing through the hate to undergird his defense. In fact, they raised so much money for this kid, he could buy a mini mansion. - Kalyn Womack Read More
Questions continue to swarm the mysterious death of a pair of 19-year-old twins found in a hiking mountain in Georgia. Newly discovered evidence only makes the family feel more 'clueless' about what truly happened to them — and they're not going for the 'murder-suicide' theory. - Kalyn Womack Read More
Houston City Council Member Julian Ramirez called the behavior of 12 Houston Fire Training Academy cadets 'regrettable and very disappointing' after they circulated racist content in a private Instagram group chat. They were even bold enough to continue their racist behavior online even after receiving warnings to stop...and for that they paid the ultimate price. - Angela Wilson Read More
On this segment of Black people having their hard-earned property snatched from them, we have an odd case to look at down in Houston, Texas. An 84-year-old man says he's fighting to reclaim properties that he already paid for. Now begs the question, how did they get taken in the first place? - Kalyn Womack Read More
Southern Indiana police thought they solved the murder of a 35-year-old woman earlier this month by throwing the suspect in jail. However, new evidence led to a crazy plot twist that you have to read to believe. - Kalyn Womack Read More
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Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
What is the Mann Act? Here's what to know about the law used to convict Sean 'Diddy' Combs
Sean 'Diddy' Combs was convicted Wednesday of prostitution-related offenses under the federal Mann Act, an anti-sex trafficking law with a century-old history. Though he was acquitted of more serious charges, Combs was still convicted of flying people around the country, including his girlfriends and male sex workers, to engage in paid sexual encounters. Over the years, the law has been applied to prominent convictions, including R&B superstar R. Kelly, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, musician Chuck Berry and more than a century ago, boxer Jack Johnson. Its broad wording and a subsequent Supreme Court interpretation once allowed prosecutors to bring cases against interracial couples, and eventually many others in consensual relationships, according to Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute. The law was amended in the 1980s and today it is primarily used for prosecuting interstate prostitution crimes or people accused of taking underage children across state lines for sexual purposes. Here's what to know about the law. Why is it called the Mann Act? In 1910, Congress passed the bill, which was named after Republican U.S. Rep. James Robert Mann of Illinois. It's also known as the 'White-Slave Traffic Act' of 1910. How does it apply to Combs' case? Combs was convicted of counts involving two former girlfriends: the R&B singer Cassie and a woman who testified under the pseudonym Jane. Both women said at trial that Combs had pressured them into degrading sex marathons with strangers, who were paid for the sexual performances. Jane said she was once beaten by Combs for declining to participate. Cassie said that when she tried to walk out of one such event, Combs beat her and dragged her down a hotel hallway. Combs was acquitted of sex trafficking and racketeering charges but convicted of transporting people to engage in prostitution. What's the history behind it? The 1910 law originally prohibited the interstate or foreign commerce transport of 'any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose.' It followed a 1907 congressionally appointed commission to look into the issue of immigrant sex workers, with the view that a girl would only enter prostitution if drugged or held captive, according to Cornell's Legal Information Institute. The law was used to secure a conviction against Jack Johnson, who became the first Black boxer to win a world heavyweight title in 1910. Johnson was convicted in 1913 by an all-white jury for traveling with his white girlfriend, who worked as a sex worker, in violation of the Mann Act. (President Donald Trump posthumously pardoned Johnson in 2018, saying Johnson had served 10 months in prison 'for what many view as a racially motivated injustice.') How has the law changed since 1910? In a 1917 Supreme Court case, the justices ruled that 'illicit fornication,' even when consensual, amounted to an "immoral purpose,' according to Cornell's Legal Information Institute. A 1986 update made the law gender-neutral and effectively ended the act's role in trying to legislate morality by changing 'debauchery' and 'immoral purpose' to 'any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense.' The act received additional amendments in 1978 and 1994 to address issues of sexual exploitation of children. Nevertheless, Combs ' legal team made a motion last February to dismiss a Mann Act charge, writing that the law 'has a long and troubling history as a statute with racist origins." Prosecutors said there was nothing racist about pursuing charges under the act. Most of Combs' accusers are people of color.
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Black America Web
2 hours ago
- Black America Web
Why Sean Combs Was Never Going To Be Fully Held Accountable [Op-Ed]
Source: Neilson Barnard / Getty Over the coming days, there will be no shortage of commentary and debate about the split verdict in the Sean 'Diddy' Combs case. Cable news panels will argue over whether justice was served. Pundits will parse the difference between prostitution charges and sex trafficking. And social media will fill with memes, outrage, and hot takes about celebrity privilege, race, and misogyny. Some will call the partial conviction a victory for survivors. Others will say he got off easy. And some folks will invoke Bill Cosby and R. Kelly to say that rich Black men are always singled out for sexual crimes while white predators walk free. But there's a much bigger ideological and cultural backdrop here that shapes how a case like this gets prosecuted, adjudicated, and received. We are living through an era of reaction against women's rights and bodily autonomy. The last decade has seen the rolling back of Roe v. Wade , a fierce assault on contraception and gender-affirming care, and a mainstreaming of violent misogyny, from incel forums to the halls of government. Recall that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed despite credible allegations of sexual assault aired in nationally televised hearings. Our twice-impeached president, Donald Trump, was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation in civil court, yet pays almost no political cost. Harvey Weinstein may be in prison, but countless other high-profile sexual assault cases have ended in acquittals or hung juries, from Bill Cosby's initial mistrial to Danny Masterson's first trial, to the repeated failures to secure convictions against powerful men. Cosby was freed on a technicality despite dozens of women accusing him of assault, highlighting how even convictions can be undone for powerful men. Even Jeffrey Epstein died before facing a full trial, while Ghislaine Maxwell's sentencing is treated as a kind of closing chapter, leaving the network of clients untouched. Meanwhile, states pass forced-birth laws that deny even child rape victims abortions, and online influencers monetize misogyny, normalizing harassment, coercion, and rape as male entitlement. Taken together, all this produces a numbing effect. Source: Al Pereira / Getty When sexual violence is so widespread, so normalized, and so often excused or minimized at the highest levels of power, juries and the public become conditioned to see these crimes as murky, negotiable, or even inevitable. Jurors may hesitate to impose the harshest possible penalties, reasoning that if presidents, judges, and billionaires can skate by with little consequence, why should this man be singled out for life in prison? The sheer scale of impunity can breed a weary cynicism, a reluctance to draw hard moral lines, and a tendency to downgrade even serious crimes to something more socially acceptable, like 'bad behavior,' 'transactional sex,' or 'poor judgment.' This is not an accident, but part of a broader cultural project to protect male sexual entitlement while eroding women's autonomy and credibility. In the courtroom, that cultural backdrop becomes an unspoken defense, making it harder to secure the kind of verdict that would meaningfully challenge the system itself. This is not an accident or a glitch, but part of a broader cultural project that protects male sexual entitlement while eroding women's autonomy, even becoming an unspoken defense in the courtroom. In this context, the era of MAGA, convicting a powerful media mogul on sex trafficking and sending him to prison for life would have been about more than punishing one celebrity. It would have been an unambiguous statement that women's sexual autonomy matters, that forced or coerced sex is not simply 'transactional,' and that the state will intervene to defend women from male sexual entitlement. But that's precisely the kind of moral stance that is under assault in this era and women's resistance is a threat to social order. In that world, handing down a life sentence for sex trafficking against an ultra-rich, connected, male celebrity, especially one who can also claim racial targeting, would be more than punishing Diddy. The racial dynamics here are complex. While Black men are disproportionately criminalized, that fact can also become a shield for wealthy Black celebrities facing sexual abuse claims. Source: Frederick M. Brown / Getty It would set a precedent. It would say: The state is willing to define this behavior as beyond the pale. It is willing to protect women's autonomy and dignity against male power, even the most elite male power, regardless of race. That is a dangerous precedent for a system moving in the other direction. Because the rise of a Gilead-like social order depends on blurring the lines around sexual coercion, on normalizing men's right to use women's bodies, on criminalizing women's control over their own reproduction, and on trivializing or excusing sexual violence as misunderstanding, regret, or 'transaction.' A life sentence for sex trafficking wouldn't just punish Diddy. It would be a declaration of values that the system currently refuses to make. So even if the jury isn't consciously thinking: We have to protect Gilead, they are steeped in a cultural logic that sees women's sexual victimization as negotiable, deniable, less important. Lost in the parsing of verdicts are the voices of the women who described coercion, fear, and degradation—whose experiences the system still struggles to name fully as trafficking. And the legal system reflects and enforces that culture. This is not just about one man. It's about a society that is deliberately keeping the door open for sexual exploitation, forced birth, and male sexual dominance. Diddy's conviction on the lesser charges was, in many ways, a political dodge. It allows the justice system to claim it held a powerful man accountable while sidestepping the far more disruptive verdict that a trafficking conspiracy conviction, and a potential life sentence, would have delivered. And beyond the courtroom, this compromise verdict teaches the public where the lines are drawn, and where they're carefully avoided. By convicting him only for transporting women for prostitution, the jury avoids making the bold moral and legal statement that his actions were organized, coercive exploitation deserving the label of trafficking. It's a compromise verdict that satisfies calls for some punishment without threatening the social order that depends on tolerating, excusing, and even monetizing men's sexual access to women's bodies. Dr. Stacey Patton is an award-winning journalist and author of 'Spare The Kids: Why Whupping Children Won't Save Black America' and the forthcoming 'Strung Up: The Lynching of Black Children In Jim Crow America.' Read her Substack here . SEE ALSO: Sean Combs Acquitted Of Most Serious Charges There Is No Defending Diddy SEE ALSO Why Sean Combs Was Never Going To Be Fully Held Accountable [Op-Ed] was originally published on
Black America Web
2 hours ago
- Black America Web
Celebrities React To The Diddy Verdict
Source: Amanda Edwards / Getty Hollywood is talking up a storm now that a final verdict has been handed down in the months-long sex trafficking and racketeering trial of Sean 'Diddy' Combs. On July 2, a jury unanimously acquitted the 55-year-old hip-hop mogul of racketeering conspiracy and two serious charges of sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion — despite disturbing testimony involving alleged sexual abuse, drug-fueled episodes during his infamous 'freak offs.' However, jurors did convict the 'All About The Benjamins' rapper on two lesser charges — Counts 3 and 5 — for violating the Mann Act by transporting individuals across state lines to engage in prostitution. Jurors sided with prosecutors' claims that Combs paid male escorts to travel around the country and engage in sex with his girlfriends, according to NBC News. MUST SEE: The Diddy Trial: In Pictures In reaching a not-guilty verdict on Counts 2 and 4 — which involved allegations of sex trafficking by former girlfriend Cassie Ventura and an anonymous woman referred to as 'Jane' — jurors concluded there wasn't sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the women were coerced or forced into sexual acts. Both charges carried mandatory minimum sentences of 15 years, with the potential for life in prison, making the acquittal a significant legal win for Combs. Rapper 50 Cent—who has been opinionated about the intense trial from the start— was the first to share his thoughts on the verdict via Instagram on Wednesday. 'Diddy beat the Feds that boy a bad man !' the 49-year-old rapper and entrepreneur penned, attaching several clapping emojis along with his message. 'Beat the Rico, he the Gay John Gotti @50centaction.' Notably, Yung Miami, the Bad Boy Records CEO's former girlfriend, also took to Instagram shortly after the decision was made public with a video of Justin Bieber pinching his fingers together. It's unclear if the post was meant to serve as a reaction to the news. Aubrey O'Day, a former member of Danity Kane and one of Combs' past artists, expressed frustration over the decision. The 41-year-old star said she felt 'physically ill' upon learning that the embattled music mogul would walk away without conviction on the sex trafficking and racketeering charges. 'Cassie probably feels so horrible,' the singer said filled with emotion, in a video posted to her Instagram Story. However, the verdict was met with celebration by Lil Boosie, who called it a 'great day in hip-hop.' 'Man I'm so glad Diddy Free,' the 42-year-old rap star said in a video post shared to Instagram. 'The reason is, I'm so tired of seeing us Black moguls get took down… And I'm tired of seeing us Black people go against us Black moguls.' The Baton Rouge-based hitmaker said he was thinking about Diddy's children and the fear they may have about today's verdict. 'Not knowing if your daddy is gon' come home is a burden on the child,' he added. Douglas H. Wigdor, the attorney for Cassie, spoke with Variety shortly after the verdict and praised the singer for bravely coming forward with her explosive 2023 lawsuit, the complaint that ultimately laid the groundwork for the trial. 'Although the jury did not find Combs guilty of sex trafficking Cassie beyond a reasonable doubt, she paved the way for a jury to find him guilty of transportation to engage in prostitution. By coming forward with her experience, Cassie has left an indelible mark on both the entertainment industry and the fight for justice,' Wigdor said. 'We must repeat – with no reservation – that we believe and support our client who showed exemplary courage throughout this trial. She displayed unquestionable strength and brought attention to the realities of powerful men in our orbit and the misconduct that has persisted for decades without repercussion. This case proved that change is long overdue, and we will continue to fight on behalf of survivors.' Combs is now awaiting sentencing for the two transportation convictions, with each count carrying a potential sentence of up to 10 years behind bars. DON'T MISS… 5 Nontraditional Media Personalities Covering The Diddy Trial Biggie's Mother Voletta Wallace Wants To 'Slap The Daylight' Out Of Diddy SEE ALSO Celebrities React To The Diddy Verdict was originally published on
