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Toni Braxton to Star in Her Own Reality Show
Toni Braxton — along with her sisters Traci, Towanda, Trina and Tamar — will star in an upcoming reality show on the WE network called Braxton Family Values. Considering the fact that Braxton has a whirlwind of drama surrounding her at all times, from income-tax scandals to divorce to serious health issues, it might be…
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Oprah OWNs the Ratings
Discovery Communications made a great move when it decided to go half on a cable network with Oprah Winfrey, replacing Discovery Health with the talk queen’s new venture, OWN. On Saturday night — the network’s debut — it averaged 1 mllion viewers. For context, that’s a 389 percent boost from what Discovery Health averaged the…
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Issa to Launch 6 Investigations of the Obama Administration by March
The incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, Rep. Darrel Issa (R-Calif.), announced Sunday that he plans to go an investigating rampage against the Obama administration. New reports indicate that he was more serious than some may have realized: He plans to launch six major investigations (involving, among other things, WikiLeaks, Food…
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Allen West Learned Nothing From First Political Dustup
Rep. Allen West, one of two new black Republicans in the House of Representatives, still has a lot to learn about politics on the national stage. Mainly that you should learn from mistakes you make. West caught flack late last year when he announced that his friend Joyce Kauffman, a talk-radio host known for making…
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Mass Bird and Fish Deaths in Arkansas a Cause for Concern?
Like the scene out of some horror movie, about 5,000 blackbirds dropped dead New Year’s Eve in Beebe, Ark., littering the ground with bird carcasses. If that’s not weird enough, over the weekend, hundreds of thousands of dead drum fish have been found floating in the Arkansas River, in an area about 125 miles from…
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VIDEO: Michael Vick Stars in First Postprison Commercial
Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick served his sentence for dogfighting, but since his release two years ago, he’s still been in the professional athlete’s ultimate purgatory: no commercials! Consider the dry spell over. He’s starring in an ad for Woodbury Nissan, a New Jersey dealership close to Philly. And believe it or not, it’s pretty…
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The Essential Aretha Franklin Playlist
Lauren is a former Deputy Editor of The Root. Originally recorded in 1965 by Otis Redding, the song, which Franklin won two Grammys for in 1968, truly came alive when she sang it. In 2002 the Library of Congress added her “Respect” to the National Recording Registry, and it’s been named, by Rolling Stone and…
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Oprah Winfrey: Bringing Black Art to the Masses
Lauren is a former Deputy Editor of The Root. A Pulitzer Prize-winning play by African-American playwright Lynn Nottage, Ruined tells the story of a Congolese madam who is trying to protect herself and the women of her brothel during the nation’s civil war. Oprah Winfrey is now in talks to executive-produce and star in an…
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Why Biracial Means Black
When Halle Berry scored her milestone Oscar win in 2002, nobody was screaming from the mountaintops that the first biracial woman had won the Academy Award for best actress. It’s not too often that you hear someone calling Barack Obama the country’s first biracial president. And although I know people who are biracial and multiracial…
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The Root Interview: Kerry Washington on 'Night Catches Us'
Kerry Washington might not have much in common with her character in her latest film, Night Catches Us, in which she plays a conflicted attorney and mother who spends her days defending her former Black Panther comrades in 1976 Philadelphia. But if the two met today, they would probably bond over their intense passion for…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
