St. John's University has fired its fencing coach, Boris Vaksman, after a video showing Vaksman on a racist tirade surfaced online.

Following the fatal shooting of David McAtee, a local business owner in Louisville, Kentucky, police chief Steve Conrad has been fired according to CNN. 

People took to the streets this week in Louisville to protest following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. After police tried to disperse a group of protestors, they were informed to “return fire” into the crowd. As a result, David McAtee was killed.

“This type of institutional failure will not be tolerated,” said Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer after the shooting. “Accordingly, I have relieved Steve Conrad of his duties as chief of Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD).”

Fischer went on to speak about McAtee, who owned a local barbecue restaurant.

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“We lost a wonderful citizen named David McAtee,” said Fischer. “David was a friend to many, a well-known Barbecue man. They’ve nurtured so many people in their bellies and in their hearts before, and for him to be caught up in this, not to be with us today is a tragedy.”

David McAtee was 53-years-old. His mother has spoken out about the death of her son.

“They killed him for no reason,” said Odessa Riley. “All I want to do is just see my son before they bring him out, that’s all I want.”

Riley says that her son was “trying to make an honest dollar to take care of his rent and his bills.”

Rest in peace, David McAtee.

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An Olive Garden restaurant in Indiana fired one of their managers for complying with a racist customer’s demand for a server who wasn’t black, after a customer at a different table exposed the manager’s actions on Facebook. The incident took place last Saturday night, after 16-year-old Amira Donahue, a hostess at the Evansville restaurant in southwestern Indiana, says that the racist customer had already made a complaint about her and another black hostess. The customer in question, a white woman, “made comments” about Amira to her manager, claiming that she “should work at a strip club instead” of the Italian restaurant. “She asked if I’m even black and if I am from here,” Amira recalled. She also noted that the woman was with a whole group of people, including two children.

When the party was then seated at a table with a black server, the racist woman exploded with rage. She demanded to one of the managers that her table have a non-black server instead, and the manager complied. Maxwell Robbins, another customer that was present at the restaurant at the time, was appalled by what he witnessed. He submitted multiple complaints to Olive Garden and even took to Facebook to document the whole ordeal. In the post, he explained how “disgusting” it was that the manager honoured the request “without hesitation.”

Maxwell told NBC News that he was motivated to call out the manager’s inexcusable actions after he saw how upset Amira was about it. “The young lady was in tears and had no one to support her,” Maxwell noted. “So I felt if I didn’t write this post, nothing would have happened and she would continue to go to work for a place that she feels uncomfortable at and unwanted at.” Amira said she felt that the manager had made the decision that the customer was more important than two of his employees. Thankfully, the company took action. A spokeswoman for Olive Garden, Meagan Bernstein, has confirmed that, after completing an investigation into the situation, the company “made the decision to separate with the manager involved.”

After hitting the Bernie Sanders camp with a cease and desist letter (over a prescheduled Public Enemy performance at a campaign event) Flava Flav found himself given the unceremonious boot from Public Enemy — a group he helped start back in 1985. Despite the obvious narrative, Public Enemy co-founder Chuck D explained that politics had nothing to do with the firing, but rather Flav’s unprofessional conduct and tendency to value “partying over work.”

Given that Flava has been part of Public Enemy for thirty-seven years, it’s surprising that such a long-running relationship would sour so publically. What’s not surprising, however, is that Flava Flav had something to say about the debacle. TMZ recently caught up with the rapper turned reality star during a stint in Vegas, and he offered up his take on the situation at hand. 

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“When I seen them use my picture to advertise that Public Enemy was performing for Bernie Sanders, yes I had a fit,” explains Flava. “Why? Because Public Enemy wasn’t performing for Bernie Sanders. It was just Chuck D and whoever he has with him. It’s only Public Enemy when myself and Chuck D are together. When Chuck D is by himself he’s not Public Enemy, when I’m by myself I’m not Public Enemy. He doesn’t own the whole group by himself, he owns it along with me. He can’t fire me and I can’t fire him. If anything, the only thing he can do is refuse to perform with me.”

Though things are bad now, Flava acknowledges that their rich history ensures that an amicable conclusion can be reached. “We made differences, we made marks, we made history together,” he muses. “I really want to continue this legacy on. I’ve been reaching out to him, he’s been turning his back. I’m like come on Chuck, let’s come to the table. He’s on his own agenda right now. We will, one day, come to the table and put this thing back together. I guarantee we’ll come back ten times stronger.”

Politics can cause division within any family and, this weekend, we saw the proof of that when Public Enemy and Chuck D officially fired Flavor Flav from the group for refusing to endorse Bernie Sanders at an upcoming rally. 

The legendary hypeman sent a cease and desist letter to the Bernie Sanders campaign, insisting that Public Enemy would not be performing at his rally after it was announced that Chuck D and the band would be there. After his statement though, Chuck D decided that enough was enough, erasing thirty-seven years of history and giving Flavor Flav the boot. The icon has since responded to his former partner in a series of tweets.

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"@MrChuckD are you kidding me right now???,,,over Bernie Sanders??? You wanna destroy something we've built over 35 years OVER POLITICS???,,,all because I don't wanna endorse a candidate,,,I'm very disappointed in you and your decisions right now Chuck," wrote Flavor Flav on Twitter. He continued by clarifying his previous substance abuse issues and the cease and desist letter that was issued.

"And @MrChuckD ,,,i didn't sue you on Friday,,,i asked the @berniesanders campaign to correct misleading marketing,,,that's all it was,,,I'm not your employee,,,i'm your partner,,,you can't fire me,,,there is no Public Enemy without Flavor Flav,,,so let's get it right Chuck,,, i'm not on drugs like you're saying and have been clean for 10 years,,,i have battled addiction before and like millions of other Americans I know the massive toll it takes,,,Chuck you know better than to lie about shit like that."

Are you choosing a side in this battle?

Loni Love’s former friend and ex-comedy writer, Cookie Hull, has revealed that Tamar Braxton’s suspicions that Loni had her fired from the daytime talk show, The Real, were correct. 

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After she was let go from The Real in 2016, Tamar Braxton always maintained that Loni Love had gone out of her way to get her fired. In September, after seemingly putting her beef with The Real women to rest, Tamar exposed Loni for getting her fired. She posted screenshots of text messages from an inside source that told her, “So I just found out Lonnie Love was writing letter to get you kicked off the show. She wrote the network.” Tamar responded to this person, pointing out, “I told everyone that it was her no one wanted to believe me.” Her source wrote back that she had “got confirmation” on Tamar’s beliefs since a “person who wrote and worked for her is spilling all the tea.” In the caption of the post, Tamar told Loni to “cut the BS.”

At the time, Loni commented, “Who writes letters? Who sent this? …let’s talk it out…stop going on every other show. You know you want to…and bring ya man!” However, the “person who wrote and worked for” Loni that was “spilling all the tea” appears to have been revealed, as Cookie has indeed spilled on the whole situation. Cookie alleges that Loni absolutely plotted to get Tamar fired, because “she wanted to be the only ghetto one” on the show. According to Cookie, Loni pointed out to the network that “if [Tamar] missed 52 tapings” to film Dancing With The Stars, “and the ratings didn’t change or didn’t get any better, they really didn’t need her.” Cookie said that Loni also “pointed out the fact that if Tamar got hurt on DWTS, that she would be a liability. I know she didn’t specifically get her fired, but she was influencing things.”

If you ask Omarion, he'll tell you that Jermaine Dupri has a pretty peculiar routine in the studio. At times, it may not feel as though the legendary figure is actually working as hard as he can on things. Obviously, that's not the case. His catalogue does all the necessary talking for him. However, his longtime collaborator and mentee Bow Wow just wasn't feeling things when he and Omarion got to work with the producer on Face Off and, in the new episode of the Rap Radar podcast, they revealed that JD was given the boot one day into the project's inception.

In their first-ever joint interview, Omarion and Bow Wow linked up to speak about their reconnection on the upcoming Millennium Tour. Both artists are entering their twentieth years in the entertainment industry and their talk with Elliott Wilson and Brian Miller was incredibly nostalgic, including one moment when Bow's relationship with Jermaine Dupri was called into question.

"At one point in time, we were doing the Face Off album and, I'm thinking to myself, 'alright, we gon' have Jermaine [Dupri] do this half and then we gon' work with these other two producers,'" recalled Omarion. "The first day in Atlanta, Bow fires Jermaine. 'No no no, fuck that, we going, O.'" Omarion's impression of Bow had everybody cracking up before the man himself interjected to explain his side of the story. 

"We didn't even get a chance to record over a Jermaine Dupri track," said Bow Wow. "Day one, we go to the studio and I believe me, O, and Jermaine were just talking. And I'm just like 'you know, I'm just not really feeling what the fuck you doing.'"

Bow Wow and JD were on their "father-son shit" at that point and things got so heated that Bow and O ended up moving their studio sessions to Los Angeles, finishing up there and still making a hit, even without Jermaine. Listen below at the 11-minute mark.

This past weekend, the XFL had its very first full slate of games and so far, the league has shown a ton of promise. Despite most of the games being blowouts, we were able to see some high-level football that will certainly keep our palets cleansed between now and April. Some think Spring football doesn't work but the XFL is trying to feed you a different narrative and so far, it's working. Fans are already excited for next week and in all honesty, so are we.

One XFL team is starting off their season with an unexpected bang. After losing to the Houston Roughnecks by a score of 37-17 on Saturday, the Los Angeles Wildcats have fired their defensive coordinator, Pepper Johnson. As you can imagine, the news came as a bit of a shock but the team's general manager, Winston Moss, offered an explanation.

A High School principal in Washington State has resigned following backlash to an insensitive Facebook post about Kobe Bryant, according to KGW.

NBC has revealed that their investigation into claims of racial insensitivity and discrimination on the set of the their show, America's Got Talent, is ongoing, and that they "take anyone’s critique who comes to work here incredibly seriously." In November, the public was made aware of the "toxic culture" on set of AGT, after two of the competition show's judges, Gabrielle Union and Julianne Hough, did not have their contracts renewed. The two female judges were reportedly criticized for their appearances often, and Gabrielle was specifically told that the hairstyles she wore onscreen were "too black." Furthermore, after Jay Leno made a racist remark towards Asian people during an AGT segment, Gabrielle tried to report the inappropriate joke. Her complaints were not taken seriously by higher-ups, and it was reported that she was ultimately fired for this reason.

NBC addressed the issue at the time, stating, "'America’s Got Talent' has a long history of inclusivity and diversity in both our talent and the acts championed by the show. The judging and host line-up has been regularly refreshed over the years and that is one of the reasons for AGT’s enduring popularity. NBC and the producers take any issues on set seriously.” After Gabrielle received plenty of public support, NBC initiated closed door meetings to discuss the issue with her. On December 4th, Gabrielle revealed on Twitter, "We had a lengthy 5-hour, and what I thought to be, productive meeting yesterday. I was able to, again, express my unfiltered truth. I led with transparency and my desire and hope for real change."