Forbes Highest Paid Entertainers-Men

Recently Forbes announced its list of Entertainment's Highest Paid Men. Mentally, pick five men that you are sure would be on this list.  Here's a few hints: only one actor..well maybe two, depending how you look at it.  There's only one sports' figure, one writer, and one radio personality. Look out for surprises! Here we go.

Leila Lopes of Angola Crowned Miss Universe

Newly crowned Miss Universe Leila Lopes hopes her victory will allow her to assist her native Angola further escape its history of war and impoverishment and said she plans to focus on combatting HIV around the globe. Lopes is Angola's first winner. She beat out 88 other competitors to win the title during the 60th anniversary of the world's biggest beauty pageant. She replaces last year's winner, Ximena Navarrete of Mexico.

The first runner-up was 23-year-old Olesia Stefanko of Ukraine and the second runner-up was Priscila Machado of Brazil. The third was Miss Philippines and the fourth Miss China. Miss USA Alyssa Campanella, from California, failed to end a long losing spell for the U.S. in the competition. An American has not been named Miss Universe since Brook Lee won the title in 1997.

Contestants spent the past three weeks in Sao Paulo, trying to learn samba dance steps, visiting impoverished children and kicking a football around for cameras as the Miss Universe pageant came to Brazil for the first time.

She deftly handled the interview question that is asked of the remaining top five contestants. She was questioned about what physical trait she would change if she could.

"Thank God I'm very satisfied with the way God created me and I wouldn't change a thing," Lopes said. "I consider myself a woman endowed with inner beauty. I have acquired many wonderful principles from my family and I intend to follow these for the rest of my life."

U. S. Poverty Rate Swells to 1 in 6 Americans

The ranks of U.S. poor swelled to nearly 1 in 6 people last year, reaching a new high as long-term unemployment woes left millions of Americans struggling and out of work. The number of uninsured edged up to 49.9 million, the biggest in over two decades.

The Census Bureau's annual report released Tuesday offers a snapshot of the economic well-being of U.S. households for 2010, when joblessness hovered above 9 percent for a second year. It comes at a politically sensitive time for President Barack Obama, who has acknowledged in the midst of his re-election fight that the unemployment rate could persist at high levels through next year.

The overall poverty rate climbed to 15.1 percent, or 46.2 million, up from 14.3 percent in 2009.

Reflecting the lingering impact of the recession, the U.S. poverty rate from 2007-2010 has now risen faster than any three-year period since the early 1980s, when a crippling energy crisis amid government cutbacks contributed to inflation, spiraling interest rates and unemployment.

Measured by total numbers, the 46 million now living in poverty is the largest on record dating back to when the census began tracking poverty in 1959. Based on percentages, it tied the poverty level in 1993 and was the highest since 1983.

AZ Charges Families to Visit Prison Inmates

Arizona State Prison

Arizona is now charging adults who visit any facility that houses state prisoners a $25 fee. The one-time “background check fee” is believed to be the first of its kind in the nation.
Prisoner advocates say the fee will be too steep for the family members of inmates, who in many cases travel long distances to remote areas where many of the prisons are located, the New York Times reports.
The $25 background check fee took effect July 20, but it doesn’t actually go towards paying for a background check. Instead, the money is deposited in the Department of Correction’s Building Renewal Fund.
Wendy Baldo, chief of staff for the Arizona Senate, confirmed to the Times that the fees were intended to help make up the $1.6 billion deficit the state faced at the beginning of the year.
“We were trying to cut the budget and think of ways that could help get some services for the Department of Corrections,” Baldo said. She added that the department “needed about $150 million in building renewal and maintenance and prior to this year, it just wasn’t getting done and it wasn’t a safe environment for the people who were in prison and certainly for the people who worked there.”
There are already reports of the background check system not working as planned. A woman who had UPS confirmation of her 4-applications a $100 check being delivered had to send another $100 before her applications were processed — months after she began the application process.
“I have now spent $200 of my own money to get family in,” the woman said, adding that it could take up to 60 days for the department to approve the applications.

Article by Jorge Rivas-Color Lines Blog

Woman in Fake-address Case Grateful to Ohio Governor

An Ohio woman who was jailed for using her father's address to enroll her children in a neighboring school district says she's grateful for her break from the governor.
Kelley Williams-Bolar told Cleveland's WJW-TV on Thursday she can live her life and be a productive citizen now that she's no longer a convicted felon.

Gov. John Kasich on Wednesday reduced the Akron woman's records tampering counts to misdemeanors. He said the original penalty was too harsh.

Williams-Bolar says she knows that what she did wasn't right, but she was looking out for her daughters.

She served nine days in jail earlier this year for falsifying information on records to send her daughters to the suburban Copley-Fairlawn schools. She has said the girls' safety was her main concern.

Warren Jeffs Sentenced to Life in Prison

Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for sexually assaulting two underage followers he took as child brides, the Associated Press reports.

The 55-year-old head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was convicted last Thursday.

The jury deliberated for less than 30 minutes before returning the maximum sentence on both counts. Earlier in the day, several jurors broke down in the courtroom while prosecutors played a recording of Jeffs instructing the girls on how to service him sexually and threatening God would “reject them” if they didn’t have sex with him, Fox News reports.

Related articles

• Warren Jeffs sentenced to life in prison for sexual assault (news.blogs.cnn.com)
• Polygamist Leader Warren Jeffs Gets Life in Prison For Sexually Assaulting Underage Followers (perezhilton.com)
• Warren Jeffs gets life in prison (bbc.co.uk)

Billionaires Invest in Young Black and Latino Men

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg

There's not much in the media today that bears anything close to something positive or something that leaves you with some hope for the future.  Unfortunately, the idiotic antics of our law makers takes center stage to other news so we don't hear much about someone actually trying to do something positive. But I read a story in The Grio that lifted my spirits:

New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the billionaire financier George Soros have teamed up to aid African-American and Latino youth.

The Young Men's Initiative, as it is called, will overhaul how the city government interacts with the 315,000 African-American and Latino males between the ages of 16 and 24. The aim is to be pro-active: by addressing the much discussed, but rarely confronted, issues affecting this undereducated, over-incarcerated and underemployed minority.