Cori ‘Coco’ Gauff, a 15-year-old Florida native, is the youngest player to qualify for Wimbledon

American tennis prodigy Cori “Coco” Gauff, 15, just became the youngest player in the Open era to advance through qualifying to reach Wimbledon’s main draw where she will play compatriot Venus Williams.

The Delray Beach, Florida, resident, who’s been touted as the next Serena Williams, told an interviewer for Wimbledon, “I’m still in shock,” adding, “Playing against the top players in the field is going to be a different feel.”

When the Wimbledon draw was announced Friday, Gauff was handed a first-round match against 39-year-old Venus, a five-time champion at the All England Club.

Gauff, who was born on March 13, 2004, secured her spot at the fabled tennis championships with a win in the final qualifying round at Roehampton on Thursday.

Gauff will be the 12th youngest overall to play at the Wimbledon main draw, but the 11 others didn’t make it through qualifying.

Wimbledon says it also doles out wild card slots to players whose world ranking isn’t high enough to automatically qualify for the tournament, but who are noteworthy based on previous performances or their ability to “increase British interest.”

The last 15-year-old to compete through a wild card slot at Wimbledon was Laura Robson in 2009, a British player who’d won Junior Wimbledon the year before.

Gauff appeared on Wimbledon’s grass courts in the junior tournament last year, making it to the quarterfinals. “I’m a little bit familiar with the grounds,” she said.

Last year Gauff raised her profile by winning the French Open girl’s championship. This year, she became the youngest woman to win a Grand Slam qualifying match in the French Open.

In 2017, a then-13-year-old Gauff told CNN, “Overall, I want to be the best I can be and be the greatest,” after becoming the youngest player to appear in a US Open junior final. Her current 301st WTA singles ranking has climbed sharply from 874 eight months ago.

If Gauff were to win Wimbledon this year, she’d be the youngest ever. But another 15-year-old woman also won the championship more than a century ago.

Back in 1887, Charlotte “Lottie” Dod, at 15 years and 285 days old, set the record for the youngest woman to ever win a singles title at Wimbledon. But she only had to survive two rounds and four other women who entered the tournament that year.

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Major Police Body Camera Manufacturer Rejects Facial Recognition Software

The largest manufacturer of police body cameras is rejecting the possibility of selling facial recognition technology – at least, for now.

Axon, formerly known as Taser International, has worked with more than 18,000 law enforcement agencies worldwide, selling a suite of products that include body cameras and software. It says 48 of 79 major city law enforcement agencies in North America are Axon customers.

On Thursday, the company announced that it is heeding the recommendation of an independent ethics board which it created last year after acquiring two artificial intelligence companies.

In a 42-page report, the ethics panel found that face recognition technology is not advanced enough for law enforcement to depend on — corroborating the worries of critics.

The board’s concerns ranged from “privacy costs to racial equity,” Barry Friedman, director of the Policing Project at New York University School of Law, told NPR.

The technology left certain groups vulnerable, Friedman said. It was less accurate in identifying the faces of women than men, and younger people compared to older ones. The same was true in people of color, who were harder to correctly identify than white people.

The board also cited privacy concerns which have long been raised by activists. “Even if face recognition works accurately and equitably—and we stress in detail that at present it does not—the technology makes it far easier for government entities to surveil citizens and potentially intrude into their lives,” the report said.

The board members included artificial intelligence experts, computer scientists, privacy advocates, police chiefs and other specialists. Despite their disparate backgrounds, Friedman said the conclusions the board reached were unanimous. (Each member received a small honorarium from Axon for their work, Friedman adds.)

He said he hoped Axon’s rebuff of face recognition software would set a precedent in the industry. “One of the most encouraging signs is that Axon heard us as we repeatedly expressed the view that their customer is not the law enforcement agency that purchases the equipment, but the community that agency serves,” he said.

Mike Wagers, Axon Vice President of Emerging Markets, tells NPR that the risks clearly outweighed the benefits. “We made the decision that just because you could deploy a certain technology does not make it right,” he said. “You think about how this could play itself out on the streets,” he added.

Concerns around face recognition technology have been mounting for years: There is the question of who should controlbody camera footage and whether it is meant as a tool to hold police accountable; there is the fear that law enforcement could target lawful protesters, violating their constitutional rights; there is also the possibility that the technology could lead to mass surveillance, as it has in China.

Jake Laperruque, senior counsel for a watchdog organization called the Project On Government Oversight, told NPR that Axon’s decision is a significant indication of how grave misidentification problems are in the arena of facial recognition.

“But we can’t expect the company to stick to this pledge or other vendors to follow suit — the only way to truly protect the public from unrestricted facial recognition surveillance is to pass laws properly limiting it,” he said.

Some places have already taken measures to ban face recognition software. Last month, San Francisco became the first city to ban the technology for law enforcement and government agencies. Similar measures are under consideration in Oakland and Massachusetts. Lawmakers in California are also considering a statewide ban on facial recognition programs.

But elsewhere in the United States, the technology is being pursued. Detroit reportedly signed a $1 million deal for software that let it continuously monitor “hundreds of private and public cameras set up around the city,” including gas stations, restaurants, churches and schools, according to the New York Times. Last year, Orlando police tested real-time recognition systems that it had ordered from Amazon — a discovery the ACLU made when an Amazon Rekognition executive described the city as a customer.

Axon CEO and founder Rick Smith did not rule out the possibility of facial recognition technology from being incorporated into body cameras when he spoke with NPR last year. He said it was “counterproductive to say that a technology is unethical and should never be developed. What we need to do is take a look at how this technology could evolve.”

Police officers could still pair their body cam or surveillance footage with Amazon Rekognition or other programs for facial recognition.

Axon told NPR on Thursday that democratic oversight is needed to guide how the technology will be used.

“We’re not moving ahead on commercializing facial recognition on body cameras until the board has had a chance to deliberate around the ethical framework,” Wager said.

Axon’s next meeting with the ethics board is scheduled for September.

SOURCE: NPR

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‘That Little Girl Was Me’: Harris, Biden Clash Over Busing In Democratic Debate

Sen. Kamala Harris of California directly challenged former Vice President Joe Biden over his past opposition to federal busing policy, in a heated exchange on the second night of the first Democratic presidential primary debate.

This issue, from early in Biden’s lengthy career in Congress, has hung over his campaign for president, creating a clear target for challengers to his front-runner status.

Harris took aim at Biden during a discussion about race and policing. First, she called out Biden over comments he recently made about his “civil” working relationship with two segregationist lawmakers decades ago.

“It was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country,” Harris said. “And it was not only that — you also worked with them to oppose busing.”

Harris then went on to describe the experience of “a little girl in California” who was bused as a part of the second class to integrate public schools in her county.

“And that little girl was me. So I will tell you that on this subject, it cannot be an intellectual debate among Democrats. We have to take it seriously. We have to act swiftly,” Harris said.

There was a little girl in California who was bussed to school. That little girl was me. #DemDebate https://t.co/XKm2xP1MDH—
Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) June 28, 2019

Biden called Harris’ remarks “a mischaracterization of my position across the board.”

He said he did not praise segregationists, and he defended his record on civil rights.

SOURCE: Npr

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2nd Night of Democratic Debates Highlights Divisions Over Race, Age and Ideology

Democratic divisions over race, age and ideology surged into public view in Thursday night’s presidential debate, a prime-time clash punctuated by a heated exchange between former Vice President Joe Biden and California Sen. Kamala Harris.

It was one of several moments that left the 76-year-old Biden, who entered the night as his party’s fragile front-runner, on the defensive as he worked to convince voters across America that he’s still in touch with the Democratic Party of 2020 — and best-positioned to deny President Donald Trump a second term.

“I do not believe you are a racist,” Harris said to Biden, though she described his record of working with Democratic segregationist senators on non-race issues as “hurtful.”

Biden called Harris’ criticism “a complete mischaracterization of my record.” He declared, “I ran because of civil rights” and later accused the Trump administration of embracing racism.

The debate marked an abrupt turning point in a Democratic primary in which candidates have largely tiptoed around each other, focusing instead on their shared desire to beat Trump. But the debate revealed just how deep the fissures are within the Democratic Party eight months before primary voting begins.

Thursday’s debate, like the one a night earlier, gave millions of Americans their first peek inside the Democrats’ unruly 2020 season.

The showdown featured four of the five strongest candidates — according to early polls, at least. Those are Biden, Sanders, Pete Buttigieg of Indiana and Harris. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who debated Wednesday night, is the fifth.

There are so many candidates lining up to take on Trump that they do not all fit on one debate stage — or even two. Twenty Democrats debated on national television this week in two waves of 10, while a handful more were left out altogether.

The level of diversity on display was unprecedented for a major political party in the United States. The field features six women, two African Americans, one Asian American and two men under 40, one of them openly gay.

Yet in the early days of the campaign, two white septuagenarians are leading the polls: Biden and Vermont Sen. Sanders.

Thursday’s slate of candidates — and the debate itself — highlighted the unprecedented diversity of the Democratic Party’s 2020 class.

South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a 37-year-old gay former military officer, is four decades younger than Sanders, and has been framing his candidacy as a call for generational change in his party. Harris is the only African American woman to qualify for the presidential debate stage. Any of the three women featured Thursday night would be the first ever elected president.

Buttigieg faced tough questions about a racially charged recent police shooting in his city in which a white officer shot and killed a black man, Eric Logan.

Buttigieg said an investigation was underway, and he acknowledged the underlying racial tensions in his city and others. “It’s a mess,” he said plainly. “And we’re hurting.”

One of the lesser-known candidates on stage, California Rep Eric Swalwell, called on Buttigieg to fire his police chief, even though the investigation was only beginning.

Swalwell also took a swipe at Biden’s advanced age. Either Biden or Sanders would be the oldest president ever elected.

“Joe Biden was right when he said it was time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans 32 years ago,” Swalwell jabbed.

Biden responded: “I’m still holding on to that torch.”

The party’s broader fight over ideology played a back seat at times to the racial and generational divisions. But calls to embrace dramatic change on immigration, health care and the environment were not forgotten.

Sanders slapped at his party’s centrist candidates, vowing to fight for “real change.”

Biden downplayed his establishment leanings. For example, the former vice president, along with the other candidates on stage, raised his hand to say his health care plan would provide coverage for immigrants in the country illegally.

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper predicted that an aggressive lurch to the left on key policies would ultimately hurt Democrats’ quest to defeat Trump.

“If we don’t clearly define we are not socialists, the Republicans are going to come at us every way they can and call us socialists,” he warned.

Others on the stage Thursday night included Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Michael Bennet of Colorado, New York businessman Andrew Yang and author and social activist Marianne Williamson.

The showdown played out in Florida, a general election battleground that could well determine whether Trump wins a second term next year.

Biden sought to sidestep the intraparty divisions altogether, training his venom on Trump.

“Donald Trump thinks Wall Street built America. Ordinary middle-class Americans built America,” said the former vice president. He added: “Donald Trump has put us in a horrible situation. We do have enormous income inequality.”

Biden’s strategy is designed to highlight his status as the front-runner, and as such, the Democrat best positioned to take down the president at the ballot box. Above any policy disagreement, Democratic voters report that nothing matters more than finding a candidate who can beat Trump.

Their first round of debates is finished, but the real struggle is just beginning for most of the candidates.

All will work aggressively to leverage their debate performance and the related media attention to their advantage in the coming days. There is a real sense of urgency for more than a dozen candidates who fear they may not reach donor and polling thresholds to qualify for subsequent debates.

Should they fail to qualify, and many will fail, this week’s debates may have marked the high point for their personal presidential ambitions.

Source: KTLA

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Raiders Select AEG Facilities to Operate New State-of-the-Art Stadium Under Construction in Las Vegas

The National Football League’s Oakland Raiders have announced that AEG Facilities, a stand-alone division of the world’s leading sports, venue and live entertainment company AEG, has been selected to operate their new 65,000-seat stadium now under construction. Set to open in August 2020, the approximately $2 billion, state-of-the-art multi-purpose domed stadium will serve as the new home of the NFL’s most iconic and popular franchise in addition to hosting the NCAA FBS University of Nevada Las Vegas Rebels football team along with events including concerts, collegiate championships, international sporting events, family shows, festivals and corporate and special events including the Las Vegas Bowl pitting a Pac-12 team against an opponent from either the SEC or Big Ten Conferences each year.

“We are honored to have the opportunity to partner with one of sports’ most recognizable, successful and iconic international brands and with a City known as the ‘sports and entertainment capital of the world’ in a Stadium destined to set new standards for the fan experience that will be created”

As part of a comprehensive management agreement, AEG Facilities will be responsible for the stadium’s operations beginning with providing pre-opening functions including overseeing the hiring and training of the venue’s full-time staff and planning and executing the stadium’s grand opening schedule of events and activities while managing key departments such as guest services, event operations, booking, security, ticketing, finance and human resources.

Further expanding its global footprint comprised of more than 150 elite venues including stadiums on three continents, AEG will fully integrate the Las Vegas Stadium into its global purchasing network while providing vendor venue services; sustainability consulting through its internationally recognized AEG1Earth division and event day operations including staff training through AEG’s proprietary Encore program following the Stadium’s opening.

“We are honored to have the opportunity to partner with one of sports’ most recognizable, successful and iconic international brands and with a City known as the ‘sports and entertainment capital of the world’ in a Stadium destined to set new standards for the fan experience that will be created,” said Bob Newman, President, AEG Facilities.

“The addition of the Las Vegas Stadium into our global stadia network will provide immediate opportunities to bring new high-profile events to Las Vegas to take advantage of the incredible new stadium and a City that knows how to deliver best in class experiences and events,” continued Newman.

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Supreme Court declines to change double jeopardy rule in a case with Manafort implications

The Supreme Court on Monday said a person can be charged and tried in state and federal court for the same conduct without running afoul to the double jeopardy clause of the US Constitution because state and federal governments are separate sovereigns.

The case has implications for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who is facing charges in New York State that are similar to the federal charges for which he has been tried.

The Supreme Court declined on Monday to change the longstanding rule that says putting someone on trial more than once for the same crime does not violate the Constitution’s protection against double jeopardy — a case that drew attention because of its possible implications for President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.

The 7-2 ruling was a defeat for an Alabama man, Terance Gamble, convicted of robbery in 2008 and pulled over seven years later for a traffic violation. When police found a handgun in his car, he was prosecuted under Alabama’s law barring felons from possessing firearms. The local U.S. attorney then charged Gamble with violating a similar federal law. Because of the added federal conviction, his prison sentence was extended by nearly three years.

The Fifth Amendment says no person shall be “twice put in jeopardy of life or limb” for the same offense. But for more than 160 years, the Supreme Court has ruled that being prosecuted once by a state and again in federal court, or the other way around, for the same crime doesn’t violate the protection against double jeopardy because the states and the federal government are “separate sovereigns.”

The case attracted more than the usual attention because of the prospect that Trump may pardon Manafort, who was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for violating federal fraud laws. A presidential pardon could free him from federal prison, but it would not protect him from being prosecuted on similar state charges, which were filed by New York. Overturning the rule allowing separate prosecutions for the same offenses would have worked in Manafort’s favor.

Gamble’s lawyer, Louis Chaiten of Cleveland, said the nation’s founders understood the protection against double jeopardy to ban any second prosecution for the same offense. Under English common law, the roots of American law, there was no “separate sovereigns” exception. A person could not be put on trial in England if already tried for the same offense in another country.

Chaiten also argued that the states and the federal government are not truly independent anyway and are instead part of a complete national system. He quoted Alexander Hamilton, who described them as “kindred systems, part of one whole.”

And Chaiten said Congress has made the problem worse by dramatically expanding the number and scope of federal laws in recent years, creating more duplication with state laws — something never envisioned in earlier court decisions that allowed double prosecutions.

But the Trump administration said the longstanding double jeopardy rule allows states and the federal government to pursue distinct interests without interfering with each other. Changing the current understanding by barring subsequent prosecutions would allow foreign court actions to preclude U.S. trials for crimes against Americans, the government said.

Civil liberties groups also said the rule has allowed the federal government to pursue notorious civil rights violations that states were unwilling or unable to pursue.

Gamble’s argument appealed to some of the court’s liberals and conservatives. Two years ago, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas joined liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in saying that the court’s past double jeopardy rulings were due for a “fresh examination.” #SPMGMedia#FollowSupremeCourtDecisions

Fashion icon Gloria Vanderbilt dies at 95

Gloria Vanderbilt, the New York-born fashion designer, heiress and socialite, died Monday at the age of 95, her son Anderson Cooper said.

Also a longtime actress, Vanderbilt became known for her line of fashions and perfumes bearing her name in the 1970s.

CNN, with Cooper reporting, aired her obituary Monday morning. He said that the family recently learned that Vanderbilt had advanced stomach cancer that had spread.

“Gloria Vanderbilt was an extraordinary woman, who loved life, and lived it on her own terms,” her son said. “She was a painter, a writer, and designer but also a remarkable mother, wife, and friend. She was 95 years old, but ask anyone close to her, and they’d tell you, she was the youngest person they knew, the coolest, and most modern.”

Vanderbilt and Cooper co-wrote “The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Loss and Love” in 2016.

 

The “poor little rich girl” heiress was at the center of a scandalous custody battle of the 1930s. She was the great-great-granddaughter of financier Cornelius Vanderbilt, and her life was recorded in sensational headlines from her childhood through four marriages.

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P&G Reimagines Creativity to Reinvent Advertising Through Innovative New Creative Partnerships

P&G debuts bold partnerships with John Legend and Arianna
Huffington’s Thrive Global, breakthrough creative work, and new
technology-enabled consumer experiences at the 2019 Cannes Lions
International Festival of Creativity

CANNES, France–(BUSINESS WIRE)–TheProcter
& Gamble Company
(NYSE:PG) today announced a series of
innovative new creative partnerships with John Legend, Arianna
Huffington’s Thrive Global, and others that reimagine creativity to
reinvent advertising at a time when change is needed.

Meeting growing consumer demand for authentic stories and experiences
that positively impact society and humanity, these partnerships embrace
the convergence of advertising, journalism, filmmaking, music, comedy,
and technology. They also bring together creative innovators who embrace
equality and inclusion to create more inspiring creativity that people
want to experience time and time again.

“For too long, the ad world has been in its own world – separate from
other creative industries and becoming less relevant to consumers. It’s
time to reimagine creativity to reinvent advertising,” said Marc
Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer, Procter & Gamble. “There are vast
sources of creativity available, and today P&G is taking action to merge
the ad world with other creative worlds though partnerships that embrace
humanity and broaden our view of what advertising could be.”

This week at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, P&G
is calling on the industry to lead disruption by joining forces with
other creative worlds, and is announcing several new partnerships:

A creative partnership with John Legend that integrates multiple
genres to explore various aspects of humanity and the human experience –
such as parenthood, modern masculinity, music and social justice – with
P&G and its Pampers, Gillette and SK-II brands.

A humanity-based partnership with Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global, which
embeds “micro-step habit stacking” into P&G brands such as Oral-B and
Crest, Pampers, Venus, Secret and Pantene, blending cognitive and
behavioral science with life science to help consumers reduce stress and
improve daily health.

A courageous partnership with Saturday Morning, a
ground-breaking, socially conscious creative collective who, together
with P&G, will preview a new short film called “THE LOOK” that tackles
head on the issue of racial bias, building on the success of “The Talk”
which won several Lions, including a Grand Prix.

A collective partnership to relaunch Free the Bid into Free the Work,
a curated talent discovery service founded by award-winning filmmaker
Alma Har’el, designed for women and underrepresented creators to develop
new-to-the-world stories never experienced before – because creativity
loves diversity.

A creative partnership with GLAAD to celebrate all aspects of
human inclusion and expression, including a new film from Pantene that
updates the brand’s iconic “Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Beautiful”
campaign.

Technology partnerships that embed cutting-edge technology into
brands to create superior consumer experiences. The interactive P&G
LifeLab will open at Cannes featuring new P&G products and experiences
like Oral-B Sense, Olay Skin Advisor, SK-II FutureX Smart Store, My
Black is Beautiful, and an immersive virtual reality experience from
Verizon Media supported by content from HuffPost.

“Now more than ever, it’s critical that those of us with influence use
it to make a positive impact on the world. I’m committed to connecting
people, opening their hearts and minds and helping them see each other’s
concerns and aspirations,” said singer, song-writer, actor, activist and
producer John Legend. “We can change the game when we talk about
justice, community, family and how brands can create products and foster
conversations that make the world better. I’m happy to partner with a
company that strives to be a force for good in the world and develops
thought-provoking creative work that will drive change.”

“Great brands are habits for their consumers – and P&G’s brands are
daily habits for up to 5 billion consumers around the world,” said
Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO of Thrive Global. “Thrive’s
innovative partnership with P&G is focused on leveraging the daily habit
moments associated with P&G products – like brushing your teeth or
changing diapers – as a springboard for Thrive’s Microsteps,
scientifically-backed ways to reduce stress, improve health and increase
performance. Behavioral science shows that habit-stacking – attaching a
new habit to an existing habit so that it becomes a sustainable routine
– is the fastest way to build a new habit and make it stick. At a time
of unprecedented stress and burnout and a mental health epidemic, our
partnership represents a new and important way to deliver on our
missions of improving consumers’ lives and helping people lead
healthier, more fulfilled lives through the brands and products they
love and use every day.”

These partnerships build from the foundation P&G established last year
at Cannes:

A Katie Couric Media partnership, which has produced compelling
programs through humanity in journalism – including profiles of
accomplished women sponsored by P&G’s Olay, Secret and Pantene brands, a
short film about expectations of women with SK-II, a recent project with
Gillette on raising boys, and a smart daily newsletter, Wake-Up Call,
offering insights and commentary on the day’s top stories and lifestyle
features.

Last year P&G also introduced The Queen Collective with Queen
Latifah, Tribeca Studios and United Talent Agency to accelerate gender
and racial equality behind the camera by creating and distributing films
produced by multicultural women directors, starting with B’Monet’s Ballet
After Dark
and Haley Elizabeth Anderson’s If There is Light –
short documentaries that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.

And P&G is partnering with National Geographic and Global
Citizen
to develop ACTIVATE, a documentary series that raises
awareness around extreme poverty, inequality and environmental
sustainability to mobilize global citizens to drive lasting change.

“When we partner with creative people who believe in the importance of
equality and inclusion, we can create stories like we’ve never
experienced before – because creativity loves diversity,” Pritchard
said. “And when we embrace creativity through humanity, we can literally
change the world by using our voices not only as a force for growth, but
as a force for good.”

About the P&G LifeLab

Visit the P&G Life Lab at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity June
17-21, 9:30-17:30 in Palais II. Originally debuted at the Consumer
Electronics Show in January 2019, the P&G LifeLab is an immersive
exhibit that showcases how we are combining breakthrough science and
technologies with deep consumer understanding to deliver connected
innovations and experiences that transform people’s lives.

About P&G

P&G serves consumers around the world with one of the strongest
portfolios of trusted, quality, leadership brands, including Always®,
Ambi Pur®, Ariel®, Bounty®, Charmin®, Crest®, Dawn®, Downy®, Fairy®,
Febreze®, Gain®, Gillette®, Head & Shoulders®, Lenor®, Olay®, Oral-B®,
Pampers®, Pantene®, SK-II®, Tide®, Vicks®, and Whisper®. The P&G
community includes operations in approximately 70 countries worldwide.
Please visit http://www.pg.com
for the latest news and information about P&G and its brands.

Digital Press Kit
https://news.pg.com/cannes-2019-press-kit

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Nas and Will Smith Invest in Mobile App to Help Teens Gain Financial Literacy

Nas and Will Smith have invested in a new banking app for teens that will help them gain financial literacy. The startup company behind the app is called Step, and the two celebs participated in a funding round of $22.5 million, according to TechCrunch.

The app will be attached to a MasterCard, and parents will be able to view their child’s transactions, add money and place restrictions on their account.

The services will also change as teens get older. For example, it’ll lend money for computers and books when they get into college.

The CEO and founder of Step, CJ MacDonald, said it makes sense to teach young people about money management through an app since most of them make purchases with their smartphones.

“Schools don’t teach kids about money,” he stated. “We want to be their first bank accounts with spending cards, but we also want to teach financial literacy and responsibility. Banks don’t tailor to this, and we want to be a solution teaching the next generation of adults to be more responsible with money in the cashless era. It was easy with cash to go to the mall, but now everyone is using their phone for Uber and more.”

The app will first be rolled out in the U.S. market, which reportedly has a little less than 50 million teenagers. MacDonald also said the app will give teens a sense of independence, even though their parents can still monitor their transactions.

Smith and Nas aren’t the only Black celebrities who’ve put their money toward helping young people gain financial literacy.

Last year, 21 Savage teamed up with the organization “Get Schooled” to teach kids about banking, and he also started the “21 Savage Bank Account Campaign” to help kids learn how to properly handle their money.

SOURCE: ATLANTA BLACK STAR

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Black-Owned Vegan Cookie Brand Secures $1 Million Investment From Jay-Z’s Venture Fund

Partake Foods, a Black-owned company that makes health-conscious and allergy-friendly food products, has recently secured a $1 million investment from Marcy Venture Partners, which is co-founded by fellow Black entrepreneur Jay-Z.
Denise Woodard, the company’s CEO and founder, started making healthy cookies when they found it hard to look for snacks that are both safe and tasty for her young daughter who was diagnosed with multiple food allergies.

When she realized that there is a market for her products, not only for allergy-prone consumers but also for those who are looking for gluten-free, vegan, and healthy foods, she left her position as the director of national sales at Coca-Cola in their Venturing & Emerging Brands division and she focused in launching the business.

“When I left my career at Coca-Cola in 2017, I literally sold cookies out of my car for six months, demoing every day and meeting store managers and customers,” Woodard said in a statement.

At first, she started funding her business through Kickstarter. Then she joined the round of funding from Marcy Venture Partners, the consumer-focused VC fund co-founded by Jay-Z, Jay Brown, and Larry Marcus. Eventually, other investors came including The Factory, Backstage Capital, SoFi Venture, and Chuck Muth, who is an executive in the meat alternative company, Beyond Meat.

Marcy Venture Partners particularly aims to support game-changing businesses and mass-market brands across consumer products and services. Partake Foods has proven to be a perfect fit for what they are looking for.

“Partake has the ingredients to build a mass market brand: compelling values, a great tasting product, and a tenacious and experienced operator. We are honored to back Denise and the team and help grow their business,” said Larry Marcus, Marcy Venture Partners co-founder and managing director.

The $1 million fund from MVP will be used to grow the Partake team, in which Woodard is the only full-time employee now. They also hope to add new pack size and further increase their growing targeted markets across the United States.

“Our products can now be found in over 300 stores, and we expect to finish this year with a new pack offering and in over 1,000 stores. We are so excited to collaborate with the MVP and Factory teams, as they both bring a wealth of knowledge in brand building and scaling consumer companies.”

For more information about Partake Foods, visit www.partakefoods.com

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