EUR This N That | Urban Black News Blog

LaBelle and Smith Join Jet for Health

Dr. Ian Smith isn’t the only game in town for getting folks health conscious and helping to shed the pounds.  Ebony/Jet has a weight loss challenge themselves…and they are working together.  But also on the ticket of getting healthy and staying fit is Patti LaBelle, who has been quite candid over the years about her battle with diabetes. 

At 64, the legendary singer has partnered with  Dr. Ian Smith to help black America realize a better lifestyle with proper diet and exercise through his “50 Million Pound Challenge.”  The ”Ebony/Jet Weight-Loss Challenge,”  Ebony and Jet Magazines, along with EbonyJet.com, have kicked off a companion campaign that also encourages readers to battle the bulge through diet and exercise.

The June 16 issue of Jet magazine features Dr. Ian Smith and Patti LaBelle on the cover. “I know how important it is as a people for us to start eating properly and exercising and just start doing better things for ourselves,” LaBelle shares with Jet.  “I think people look at me because I’m a diabetic and because I’m menopausal and because I have issues and I seem to work them out.” (p. 58)

You can catch this issue of Jet on stands June 9.

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Dwele is ‘Cheating…’

Dwele

Laid back crooner Dwele — we all know who he is by now — is giving it another go with ‘I’m Cheating,’ the lead single from his forthcoming album Sketches of a Man.  We’ve always had love for Dwele, but radio hasn’t really given him the time of day, prompting his vow to make Sketches more radio-friendly.  We guess it’s great to be able to express your artistry untainted by mainstream dictates, but at some point the bills need to be paid and Dwele feels that if he can break radio, he may just have a chance at actually moving some units this time around.  A brother has to eat!  Will he do it?  

Dwele I’m Cheatin official video

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‘Dry’ Drowning Unknown Killer

Most people are unaware that their child can drown long after they’ve been in water.  A 10-year old African American boy in South Carolina just lost his life to the unknown killer, dry drowning.  He had been in the pool playing, walked home with his mom, was tired and wanted to go to bed.  Understandable right?  Most of us go swimming and are tired afterwards, so the parent wouldn’t be the wiser of this being a symptom of dry drowning.

The lungs get saturated with water during water activity: bathing, swimming, etc.   The child becomes listless, irritable in some cases, and overall behavior changes.  In the case of 10-year old Johnny Jackson, his mom had one of the warning signs, yet without the information needed to detect or even know about such a phenomena, she could not save her son’s life.  She went to check on him and his face was covered with a “spongy white material.”

On June 5, Dr. Daniel Rauch, a pediatrician from New York University Langone Medical Center, told the TODAY show’s Meredith Vieira that there are three important signs: difficulty breathing, extreme tiredness and changes in behavior.  These symptoms begin to present themselves because there is reduced oxygen flow to the brain.  According to the Centers for Disease Control, approximately 10 to 15 percent of the 3,600 people that drowned in 2005, were classified as “dry drowning” deaths, which can occur up to 24 hours after a small amount of water gets into the lungs, as reported by MSNBC.  Go here to learn more about this tragic story and this unknown killer.

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Welcome back, Craig…we think.

UK sensation Craig David crossed the pond in 2000 and gained respectable popularity with hits like ‘Fill Me In’ and 7 Days’ from the album Born To Do It.  But as it is with many ‘fad’ artists, the flame became a flicker became a, well….so, off into obscurity he went.  

Now, Heeeee’s Baaaaack (a little beefier and sans the signature pencil thin beard and goatee)!  His attempt at re-entry into the American music game is being led by the single ‘Hot Stuff’ from his new album Trust Me  (apparently already in stores), but we’re not quite sure that this is that single.  It’s an uptempo danceable track, taken from David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance,’ but we think he went a little too heavy on the retro (with ‘Let’s Dance’ being so 80’s defining) and the tempo of the song seems to put his typically smooth vocals under duress. 

See the video here. 

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Brazilian Prison has Great Rooms

What’s a room without a plasma television, gym equipment, and a couple guns?  Oh yeah, and a mere $173,000 is a must-have in the living room. Who’s living the sweet life like this you ask?  Well, let’s just say crime pays in Brazil.

A convict in northeastern Brazil was living large until officials discovered his luxurious lifestyle.  In a statewide crackdown on drug trafficking, Bahia’s Prison Affairs Department head Jose Francisco Leite said police raided the cell on Monday.  Authorities are still baffled after Tuesday’s raid as to how he was able to get all of these things in his cell.

An investigation has been ordered on how Genilson Lins da Silva got $173,000, two .38-caliber pistols and other amenities into his cell at the Bahia’s Lemos Brito Penitentiary. Silva is serving nearly 30 years for robbery and murder and has been transferred to another prison.

Leite says Silva “led a posh prison life in his cell, which he occupied all by himself.”  Well now we know that prison life isn’t all rehabilitation.

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METERED INTERNET ACCESS?!

You ever get that feeling, while riding in a cab, to shorten your trip and walk the last few blocks because you see that the meter is zipping past your budget?  Especially now in the $4 per gallon era.  Well, the same thing is getting ready to happen to your Internet access, with the exception of having an option out.  In the deal the media companies have made, we’ll be paying up whether we’re over budget or not.

Time Warner Cable Inc. is trying out metered Internet access.  On Thursday, June 5, new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, will be constricted to a monthly allowance of Internet usage on uploads and downloads.  Anything over the allotted allowance will be subject to a $1 per gigabyte overage charge, a Time Warner Cable executive told the Associated Press.

The new setup may very well scare off any new customers they expect to attract.  But, they call themselves making an attempt to be fair to the little guy because the usage is unequal.  Ever heard of big business being fair to us little people?  Only 5 percent of the company’s subscribers are on the local cable lines, yet they take up half of the capacity, according to Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable’s executive vice president of advanced technology.  Phone companies will probably not extend the same “fairness” to its customers because their lines are set up differently.  But Comcast Corp., the country’s largest cable company, will more than likely join the ranks of Time Warner. Go here for the full story.

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