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Mayor Bill de Blasio paid tribute to Colin Powell, who died Monday from COVID-19 complications, saying the Harlem-born first black secretary of state exemplified the best of the Big Apple and made New Yorkers “very proud.” “General Powell served this nation with just tremendous distinction,” he said Monday morning during his daily press briefing, held remotely in City Hall. De Blasio noted Powell’s “absolute classic New York City story” of being born to Jamaican immigrants, growing up in Harlem and The Bronx and graduating from Morris High School before attending City College of New York. “Just an absolute great example...

A Georgia Democrat has been slammed for saying she would rather keep a Confederate statue than raise a monument to black conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. State Rep. Donna McLeod, who is also black and was born in Jamaica, told the Atlanta-Journal Constitution she strongly opposes the idea of a statue for the conservative justice, who was appointed to the court in 1991 amid allegations of sexual harassment. McLeod is so against the proposal that she would prefer to leave standing monuments to the likes of Confederate soldiers and slave owners, she said. 'I'd rather them keep a Confederate...

Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, the pioneering reggae artist, producer and songwriter, has died at the age of 85. Jamaican media outlets reported the musician passed away in hospital in Lucea, a town located on the northwest part of the island. In a series of tweets, Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness remembered the reggae icon. "Perry was a pioneer in the 1970s' development of dub music with his early adoption of studio effects to create new instrumentals of existing reggae tracks,” Holness noted. “He has worked with and produced for various artistes, including Bob Marley and the Wailers, the Congos, Adrian Sherwood,...

LGBT activists are cheering Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s announcement that he will reverse an order from President Donald Trump and put up “pride” flags at U.S. Embassies around the world. Outfront magazine reported on the development: The Biden administration is off to a hopeful start, as Secretary of State nominee, Antony Blinken, has confirmed a recommitment to LGBTQ rights. In a memo from July 2020, former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper released a list of flags permitted to be displayed at U.S. military bases. Missing from the list was the LGBTQ pride flag, which Esper compared to the confederate...

Some Jamaicans are beginning to actively demand the removal of the rainbow “pride flag” from the US Embassy in Kingston. A TV news report out of the Caribbean island nation features interviews with protesters who object to the flag as a symbol of cultural imperialism, specifically as a hostility to Christianity and the Jamaican way of life. “You have to understand what that multicolored flag represents,” said a spokeswoman for the Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society. “It represents normalizing perverse sexual behaviors and lifestyle choices, behaviors and lifestyles that lead to disease and death. Our Christian duty is to...

Concerned Jamaicans protested and demanded that the US Embassyin Kingston Jamaica, remove the LGBTQ Pride flag hoisted on its grounds. The group says it is not only goes against articles in the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations, but is a form of cultural imperialism. “Cultural Imperialism,” was the phrase on most of the placards broadly refers to the exercise of domination in cultural relationships. In such cases, the values, practices; and meaning of a powerful foreign culture are imposed upon one or more native cultures. Phillipa Davies, Advocacy Officer at the Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society says the Pride...

The evidence that we are in the midst of a ska revival is plentiful. ­Indie-punk phenomenon Jeff Rosenstock managed a critical hit with “Ska Dream,” a reimagining of his 2020 album “No Dream.” The genre thrives online, where the Ska Tune Network has more than 200,000 subscribers and ska cover versions rake in the views, including a version of Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” by Los Angeles band the Interrupters that has 5 million and counting. This year sees the release of two major books, one a 400-page oral history of American ska and the other a spirited defense of the...

The TrialSite Community Network has expanded to Jamaica, as a community member shared a recent letter authored by a number of Jamaican physicians and submitted an open letter to government health officials. Why? To bring attention to accumulating data indicating the role ivermectin can play in fighting the pandemic. Read the letter below.Dr. Christopher Tufton, MinisterDr. J. Bissasor-McKenzie, Chief Medical OfficerMs. Cynthia Lewis-Graham, Director, Standards & Regulation, Ministry of Health and Wellness10 – 16 Grenada WayKingston 5Dear Colleagues,The undersigned respectfully submits the following open letter to you and your team at the Ministry.First, we express our appreciation for your untiring...

<p>Reggae music became popular in the late 1960s, when young people were excited about it and gravitated to the new sound. The artists were mainly grass-roots people who used their voices to articulate a message and communicate to the masses. Old-time reggae lyrics described life events in the Caribbean culture to which most people could relate.</p>

The cave entrance. (Chris Grooms) You may not give a pile of bat poop gathered over 4,300 years a second look – but to a group of scientists, it's provided an intriguing insight into how bat diets and therefore climate conditions have shifted over thousands of years. Taller than the average man (2 meters or 6-and-a-half feet), the pile of poop (also known as guano) records history in clear layers, much like sediments under a lake. By analyzing the layers back through time, the scientists have been able to figure out changes in the diets of the bats that have...

Bunny Wailer, a quiet figure who became one of reggae's founding fathers, has died at 73. Manager Maxine Stowe confirmed his death to the . No cause was given, but Wailer suffered a stroke – reportedly his second – in 2020. Born Neville Livingstone in April 1947 in the Nine Mile District of St. Ann Parish in Jamaica, Wailer cofounded the Wailers band with Peter Tosh and childhood friend Bob Marley. Wailer and Marley met Tosh through Tosh's mentor Joe Higgs, known as the Godfather of Reggae. The group's initial lineup also included singers Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso and Cherry...

Heavy rains followed by an extended drought, an increase in local consumption and a drop in the number of marijuana farmers have caused a shortage in the island’s famed but largely illegal market that experts say is the worst they’ve seen. “It’s a cultural embarrassment,” said Triston Thompson, chief opportunity explorer for Tacaya, a consulting and brokerage firm for the country’s nascent legal cannabis industry. Jamaica, which foreigners have long associated with pot, reggae and Rastafarians, authorized a regulated medical marijuana industry and decriminalized small amounts of weed in 2015.

In a letter sent to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris after their presumptive win on Saturday, Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors said the support of the group’s movement is going to cost them. The BLM Global Network Foundation leader started by congratulating the two and noting how relieved the group is “that the Trump era in government is coming to a close.” Nevertheless, she acknowledged the “intolerable conditions faced by Black people in America” will not end overnight. Cullors asked for a meeting with the pair “to discuss the expectations that we have for your administration and the commitments...

Joe Biden's transition team is threatening to use legal action or "other options" if the General Services Administration refuses to "promptly ascertain Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as president-elect and vice president-elect," according to a team official.

A former senior aide to Joe Biden said rejoining the Iran nuclear deal was “high on his agenda” and that the US president-elect would move to do so shortly after taking office. “I believe that in the first months [of Biden’s presidency], we’ll either see him rejoin the deal fully, or what I would call ‘JCPOA-minus,’ meaning lifting sanctions in exchange for suspending some of the Iranian nuclear programs [developed] in the past three years,” Amos Hochstein said Sunday in an interview in Hebrew with Channel 12 news.

Congressman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn) called for the US to defund Israel due to what she defined as “ethnic cleansing.” On Friday, Omar tweeted a reaction to the news that Israel had demolished illegally built structures in Khirbet Humsah, also known as Humsah Al Bqai’a, located in Samaria in the Jordan Valley. “This a grave crime—in direct violation of international law,” Omar wrote. “If they used any US equipment it also violates US law. An entire community is now homeless and will likely experience lifelong trauma. The United States of America should not be bankrolling ethnic cleansing. Anywhere.”

As the connection between the mainstream media and the Democratic Party gets more blurred, The New York Times reported an MNSBC contributor is writing speeches for Joe Biden. After assisting in writing Biden's acceptance speech, presidential historian Jon Meacham has appeared on MSNBC at least three times since Saturday, per Mediaite. The Times reported he has been a paid contributor to the network, which has been very critical of President Donald Trump. The network has now told the Times he will no longer be paid, but he will continue to appear on the network for free. Meacham did not disclose...

In a revelation announced Monday by The New York Times, former Newsweek editor, liberal historian, and MSNBC/NBC contributor Jon Meacham has been writing speeches for former Vice President Joe Biden, including his Saturday night “victory speech.” Of course, Meacham and the Comcast-owned networks never disclosed this fact.The lack of ethics wasn’t entirely surprising, given how Meacham both endorsed Biden during the campaign and spoke August 20 at the Democratic National Convention, and neither network seemed to care. And that’s in addition to the fact that their ethically-challenged ranks include Mike Barnicle, Joy Reid, and Brian Williams.As per Annie Karni and...

Presidential historian Jon Meacham was reportedly let go as an MSNBC contributor after he apparently failed to disclose to the network that he was a speechwriter for President-elect Joe Biden, including the victory speech he gave on Saturday night. Sources told The New York Times that Meacham had been "playing a larger role than was previously known" behind the scenes, "both writing drafts of speeches and offering edits on many of Mr. Biden’s big addresses, including one he gave at Gettysburg last month and his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention." Biden campaign press secretary TJ Ducklo told the...

Israeli Settlements Minister Tzachi Hanegbi warns that a Biden presidency could ignite war in the Middle East, while Egypt fears Biden would aid the resurgence of Islamists in the region. Hanegbi pointed out that Biden has indicated he will resurrect America’s nuclear agreement with Iran which was cancelled by the Trump administration. For Israel, this would represent an existential threat to national security and drastically increase the chances of war with Tehran. “If Biden stays with that policy, there will, in the end, be a violent confrontation between Israel and Iran,” said Hanegbi. Meanwhile, other Middle Eastern countries such as...