Arrested Thursday on a 13-count indictment, R Kelly has been brought up on federal charges. For his sexual abuses against women and minors, Kelly is facing 13 new charges including child pornography and enticing a minor. But the singer’s woes don’t end there. According to a five-count indictment from the Eastern District of New York, he is also facing racketeering charges.

Federal charges against R. Kelly now include:

– 10 for sexual abuse against 4 women (3 were minors).
– 11 for sexual assault and abuse against 1 woman who was a minor.
– 13 new charges for federal sex crimes including child pornography and enticing a minor. pic.twitter.com/KNOO75mIwH

— AJ+ (@ajplus) July 12, 2019

While R Kelly was out walking his dog, agents of Homeland Security and New York Police Department detectives apprehended him. On the grounds of two separate indictments, officers began conducting a search of his Trump Tower residence in Chicago. As of now, R Kelly is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Illinois and is expected to appear in court later today.

“Where is my daughter?!”

R Kelly’s publicist, Darrell Johnson, held a press conference today in Atlanta where he discussed the events of the arrest, but he was interrupted by Joycelyn Savage’s family. Timothy Savage along with his wife, two daughters, and publicist Dontaye Carter arrived in Atlanta Friday morning after an unsuccessful wellness check in Chicago. The family says they arranged a visit to Kelly’s Trump Tower residence with the Chicago PD. Unfortunately, the Savages were unable to contact their daughter because the residence had been vacated. The Savages hoped to see their daughter for the first time since December 2016 and hear her voice for the first time since the phone call that followed the explosive interviews from two months ago.

Demanding to know the whereabouts of Joycelyn, the Savages thought their best course of action was to attack the press conference after hearing of Kelly’s arrest. However, Darrell Johnson denies having any knowledge of where Azriel Clary or Joycelyn Savage are. Johnson stated he had only arrived after spending time in New York and was not in Chicago. But Timothy Savage said they were tipped off that the girls were in Atlanta. Addressing previous attempts to reach an agreement, Johnson said he tried negotiating with the Savages but the talks fell through. Since then, there have been no updates provided to her family, which prompted the wellness check.

An Afrofuturist festival set in Detroit has received immense backlash following the discovery that Non POC patrons were expected to pay higher ticket prices for entry. Organizers at Afrofuture Youth say they’ve been bombarded with threats and suffered a loss of support. Comments on their Instagram and statements from artists set to perform influenced a change in their ticketing model.

Based in Detroit, Afrofuture Youth is an initiative founded on the support of Black lives through Afrofuturism via art, tech, media, and healing. Asserting their “resistance stems from creation,” festival organizers designed a tiered ticket model to prevent the exclusion of marginalized groups. To balance the scales and prevent “those with cultural, monetary, and class privileges” from co-opting the event, AFY listed ticket prices on Eventbrite that favored the audience for which their content is designed.

For Us, By Us

As more Black and Brown people are being excluded from events intended for their communities due to aggressive gentrification, AFY’s decision was well received by many within the POC audience. Those who have grown tired of cultural appropriation expressed their support for the initial ticket model on Twitter. Mimicking the social experiment of Saartj, a pop-up food stall in New Orleans, the pricing model was meant to resolve racial wealth disparity. However, once artists caught wind of the news, they pulled their performance. Once Eventbrite found out about the ten dollar difference in price, they threatened to unpublish the event from the site.

Rapper Tiny Jag, who planned to perform music from her project “Polly”, pulled out of the engagement stating her views didn’t align with AFY’s. A biracial woman, Tiny Jag could not reconcile the ticket price model because the project she intended to perform is named after her white grandmother. Confused by the decision, Tiny Jag wondered “How do you want me to come to a performance and perform these songs off a mixtape that is titled after this white woman that you would have charged double to get in here?” The rapper says she was notified by a Non POC friend and announced her decision to pull out July 2nd.

Comply or Else

In a statement released to CNN, Eventbrite said “events that require attendees to pay different prices based on their protected characteristics such as race or ethnicity” are not permitted. Event coordinators at AFY were then notified that if they hadn’t changed their price model on their own accord, the event would be unpublished from the site. July 7th, Afrofuture Youth made an announcement on Twitter explaining their decision to alter the pricing. Citing threats received by White supremacists, AFY changed to a $20 general admission fee and suggested donation from Non POC.

Do you agree with their decision to alter ticket prices? Did you agree with their initial concept?

The teen seen in the viral video licking Blue Bell ‘Tin Roof’ ice cream is facing up to 20 years in prison. Having been identified through Wal-Mart’s surveillance footage, authorities intend to arrest and charge her with a felony.

Lufkin Police Detectives are consulting the FDA to press federal charges against a girl who tampered with Blue Bell ice cream. Around 11pm, the woman and a male accomplice were spotted entering a Lufkin Wal-Mart. Being filmed by her partner, the teen selected a half-gallon carton of ice cream from the shelf, removed the lid, and licked the surface before replacing it. Now authorities are looking to charge the juvenile with second-degree felony tampering with a consumer product, a crime that carries a 2-20 year sentence. Authorities are also looking for the male she was seen with, potentially to charge him as her accomplice.

According to a statement released by Blue Bell, the contaminated ice cream was never sold. However, they could not be sure which unit of ice cream was tampered with. As an act of caution, Blue Bell made the decision to yank the full stock of ‘Tin Roof’ from the shelves of the Lufkin location. Authorities have made contact with the suspect stating, “She is a juvenile from San Antonio tied to the Lufkin area through her boyfriend’s family.”

Because of her status as a minor, police will not release her identity and further developments will be handled by the Texas Juvenile Justice Department.

Do you think prison is necessary?