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Cardi B Sold Out
RodeoHouston And Set Attendance Record
Rapper Cardi B performs at RodeoHouston on
March 1, 2019 in Houston, Texas. - The rodeo
said that the rapper set an all-time
attendance record of 75,580 people. (Photo
by SUZANNE CORDEIRO / AFP) (Photo credit
should read SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP/Getty
Images)
Bardi Gang just helped Cardi B set a record. The
“Please” rapper made history by selling out a
Houston Rodeo. Cardi headlined the Black Heritage
Day festivities at the Houston Livestock and Rodeo
show yesterday (March 1st) and sold out the venue by
bringing in 75,580 fans.
Cardi beat Garth Brooks’ record that he set last
year when he brought out 75,577 people.
The Bronx native is following in her idol
Selena’s footsteps by making history at the Houston
Rodeo. Selena also set a record back in 1995 when
she set her own record by filling the venue with
67,000 fans.
Cardi has been breaking and setting records for
the past year. Not only did her Fashion Nova
collection sell out in one day, but she also became
the first solo female artist to win best rap album
at this year’s Grammys. She also broke Beyonce’s
record for most simultaneous Billboard U.S Hot 100
entries by a female artist and most simultaneous
Billboard U.S Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Top 10 entries by a
female artist when 13 of her songs charted.
Date/time: April 30th, 7:00pm to
11:00pm
Venue:
Smart Financial Centre
Address:
1811 Lexington Blvd, Sugar Land, 77002
Prosecutor declares
freed Texas death row inmate Alfred Dewayne
Brown innocent, paving way for state
compensation
Alfred Dewayne Brown spent nearly a decade on
Texas’ death row before his conviction was thrown
out by the courts. But despite being freed
in 2015, he didn’t qualify for the state payout
given to those wrongfully convicted because he was
never declared “actually innocent.”
On Friday, that changed. Harris County District
Attorney Kim Ogg held a press conference announcing
that an outside attorney she had assigned to
investigate the case had found Brown innocent,
paving the way for Brown to receive $80,000 for each
year he was wrongfully in prison plus smaller
monthly payments over the course of his life. She
filed an amended motion in the trial court. That
motion is expected to be approved and clear Brown’s
last hurdle to get compensation.
The appointed attorney, John Raley, is well
known for his years-long fight to free
Texas’ Michael Morton from a 25-year-long
wrongful sentence in his wife’s murder, a case that led
to new legislation requiring prosecutors to
share their complete investigation with defense
attorneys.
“Now there is no evidence sufficient for a
reasonable juror to find that he is guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt, which is the legal definition of
innocence, and Alfred Dewayne Brown is innocent,”
Raley said at the press conference
Brown was released from prison nearly four years
ago after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals tossed
out his conviction and death sentence in the 2003
murder of a Houston police officer, Charles Clark,
during a botched robbery. Phone records found in the
prosecution’s possession but not shared with the
defense at trial supported Brown’s alibi that he was
at his girlfriend’s house during the crime. But the
court tossed the case because of the prosecution’s
violation, not because of Brown’s innocence.
After the conviction was tossed, then-District
Attorney Devon Anderson dismissed the case
completely, saying there wasn’t enough evidence to
retry Brown for capital murder. Two other men,
including one on death row, had also been convicted
in the officer’s murder.
But the Texas Comptroller, which handles
payments for wrongful incarcerations, denied Brown’s
request for payment after his case was dismissed.
Texas statute says a person qualifies for
compensation if he is pardoned; if an appellate
court finds him legally innocent in post-conviction
proceedings that look at constitutional issues; or
if that appellate court tosses the conviction, the
charges are dismissed and the prosecutor says in an
affidavit she “believes that the defendant is
actually innocent of the crime for which the person
was sentenced.”
Until Friday, Brown was missing the last piece,
the prosecution’s declaration of innocence. Ogg said
at the conference that she accepted Raley’s
recommendations that Brown is innocent. A
spokesperson for the comptroller confirmed Ogg’s
court filing of his innocence was what Brown needed
to qualify for compensation. Brown’s lawyer, Neal
Manne, said the filing and new case dismissal needed
to be approved by the court, but it was expected to
be approved with the prosecution and defense on the
same side. Then, Brown will file a new petition with
the comptroller for money.
“[Brown’s] really happy,” Manne told The Texas
Tribune Friday. “It’s been a long, long road for
him, and it feels really good that the district
attorney is now on his side.”
But not everyone believes in Brown’s innocence.
Joe Gamaldi, the president of the Houston police
officer’s union, told the Tribune in January that
Brown couldn’t touch the high standard of actual
innocence “with a 10 foot pole” and that he remains
the main suspect. Saying he knew what was in Raley’s
pending report, Gamaldi said Ogg went through Raley
to “give herself cover from the political fallout.”
At the conference, Ogg acknowledged the
discontent from the police union, and said before
the findings were released that she knew there were
those who would disagree with them.
“That happens every time a district attorney
anywhere makes a decision of this magnitude about a
person’s life,” she said.
Raley said at the conference that his team spent
more than 1,000 hours in investigating and
compiling his
nearly 200-page report on Brown’s case. His
report also recommended further investigation of Dan
Rizzo, the trial prosecutor in Brown’s case who
failed to turn over the phone records that led to
his ultimate release from prison.
The failure to turn over the phone records was
said to be “inadvertent,” but Ogg asked the state
bar to investigate Rizzo last year after unearthing
an email that showed he was told about the
corroborating phone records before Brown’s trial.
The state bar ultimately found no cause to issue
disciplinary sanctions against the attorney, the Houston
Chronicle reported
“It is impossible to examine the conviction of
Alfred Dewayne Brown without confronting
prosecutorial misconduct,” Raley said in his report
Everyone Has a Story in
Life
A 24 year old Man seeing out from the train’s window
shouted…
“Dad, look the trees are going behind!”
Dad smiled and a young couple sitting nearby, looked
at the 24 year old’s childish behavior with pity,
suddenly he again exclaimed…
“Dad, look the clouds are running with us!”
The couple couldn’t resist and said to the old man…
“Why don’t you take your son to a good doctor?” The
old man smiled and said…“I did and we are just coming
from the hospital, my son was blind from birth, he just
got his eyes today.”
Every single person on the planet has a story. Don’t
judge people before you truly know them. The truth might
surprise you
The smaller the Club the Bigger the
Party!
Come out relax and enjoy the
sounds of DJ Chatterbox. Click
on picture below to see who's up
in the club.
Report: Harris County buyouts of flooded homes have been less than strategic
Long after the rains stopped and floodwaters receded, thousands of Texans whose homes were flooded by Hurricane Harvey tried to participate in buyout programs that would help diminish the property damage of future floods.
And while some homeowners have taken advantage, these buyouts did not always happen in the most strategic possible way, according to a new report by Texas A&M University and The Nature Conservancy.
Historically, experts and politicians have seen buyouts as essential to disaster recovery, a means to avoid repeated flooding and to take chronically flooded homes and transform those lots into open space to improve drainage. Looking at more than 74,000 Harris County properties, researchers studied current buyout practices there and saw an uncoordinated, checkerboard approach. To avoid a future patchwork of vacant lots, the study endorses a clustered buyout approach.
The Nature Conservancy and Texas A&M University study says a clustering of buyout properties can still be cost effective for communities and has the added benefit of nearby green spaces, like parks and protected areas. It’s easier, the study says, to manage “fewer, larger areas with multiple functions rather than scattered, empty lots.” The idea is that those open spaces could become sites for outdoor recreation or land to absorb storm water
“By developing an approach that promotes the clustering of homes in proximity to open spaces, you can combine a nature-based solution with smart development,” said Lily Verdone, director of Freshwater and Marine at The Nature Conservancy.
Verdone said Harris County is “advanced in what they’re doing,” but adds there is a better way to do buyouts.
But in Harris County, which has had its own buyout program since the 1980s, the process is no simple matter.
Officials at the Harris County Flood Control District — the main entity managing buyouts in the Houston area — say a clustered buyout approach, while preferred, isn’t always possible. That’s because the district, when using grant dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, must have voluntary participation from homeowners. They don’t always receive it.
There are 72 areas in Harris County where the district is focusing its buyout efforts. In those areas, roughly 30 percent of the 9,000 identified properties there have been purchased by the district over time. James Wade, the district’s acquisitions manager, said a checkerboard pattern can emerge when some homeowners decide to do repairs and stay in their homes, while others participate in a buyout program.
“There are going to be folks who don’t want to sell for various reasons,” Wade said. “We do encourage them to reconsider, but when using federal FEMA grant dollars, the program has to be voluntary.”
Wade said their program is “happening in a coordinated effort.”
He adds there are always more voluntary sellers than available funds. Of the 4,000 property owners who’ve volunteered so far, just over a quarter of that have been approved for the district’s buyout program. Of those, 200 have had their homes purchased. Hundreds more buyouts are in progress.
Harris County residents face a high degree of uncertainty when it comes to buyouts because of the complex eligibility criteria the district uses. The district prioritizes buyouts in neighborhoods where flooding cannot be fixed through engineering and areas that are several feet deep in the floodplain.
Once they’ve been bought by the district, structures can never again be developed as private property
In August, Harris County voters overwhelming approved a $2.5 billion bond measure to finance more than 230 flood-control projects. Included is the largest flood-related home buyout program in U.S. history.
Buying out severely damaged properties was also one of several recommendations listed in a December report by the Commission to Rebuild Texas, which Gov. Greg Abbott authorized to prepare Texans for the next major storm.
“Buyouts are complicated and being impacted over and over again by flooding is a frustrating, time-intensive thing,” Verdone said. “This [study] is important for anybody to read, from homeowners in Harris County to policymakers at the federal level and all of that in between.”
The great ones
endure, and
Gladys Knight has
long been one of the
greatest. The seven-time
Grammy winner has
enjoyed #1 hits in Pop,
Gospel, R&B and Adult
Contemporary, and has
triumphed in film,
television and live
performance, comes to Smart
Financial Centre at Sugar
Land on April 13 as part of
the Mercedes-Benz of Sugar
Land Concert Series
Lynne Patton defends herself: ‘The President Does Not See Color’
Lynne
Patton, Eric
Trump‘s
former
party
planner,
made
a
fool
out
of
her
life
when
she
stood
by
Republican
Rep. Mark
Meadows at Michael
Cohen‘s
congressional
hearing
in a
futile
attempt
to
prove
that
Trump
isn’t
racist.
She
is
now
defending
herself
— on
Fox
News,
of
course.
“I’ve
said
it
before,
I’ll
say
it
again.
The
president
does
not
see
color,
race,
creed,
religion.
What
he
sees
is
success
and
failure,”
the
hacks
at
“Fox
&
Friends”
heard
Patton
tell
them
on
Thursday.
“Trump
has
time
and
time
again
done
so
much
for
the
Black
community
and
I’m
proud
to
be a
part
of
it.”
Of
course,
no
one
asked
her
what
he
has
done
for
the
Black
community.
She
also
attacked
Michigan Rep. Rashida
Tlaib,
who
said
using
Patton
as a
stunt
was
“racism
in
itself.”
Patton
responded,
“What
I’d
like
to
ask
the
congresswoman
from
Michigan
is
you
know,
why
does
she
take
the
word
of a
self-confessed
perjurer,
and
criminally
convicted
white
man,
over
a
Black
female
who
is
highly
educated,
rose
up
through
the
ranks
of
one
of
the
most
competitive
companies
in
real
estate,
spoke
before
25
million
people
at
the
Republican
National
Convention
and
now
works
in
one
of
the
most
historic
administrations
in
history?”
In
case you
missed
it, at
Cohen’s
hearing
Meadows
babbled,“Lynne
Patton
says she
would
not work
for a
man who
is
racist…
She
disagrees
with
you. She
says as
a
daughter
of a man
born in
Birmingham,
Alabama,
that
there is
no way
that she
would
work for
an
individual
who was
a
racist.”
Meadows,
who
somehow
believes
Patton
represents
all
African
Americans,
asked,
“How do
you
reconcile
the two
of
those?”
As
Patton
silently
stood
behind
Meadows, willingly
debasing
herself even
more
than she
already
has
being
part of
the
Trump
administration,
Cohen
said,
“Ask Ms.
Patton
how many
Black
people
are
executives
at the
Trump
Organization?
The
answer
is
zero.”
During
Cohen’s
opening
remarks
he said
about
Trump,
“He is a
racist.
The
country
has seen
Mr.
Trump
court
white
supremacists
and
bigots.
You have
heard
him call
poorer
countries
‘shitholes.’
In
private,
he is
even
worse.
He once
asked me
if I
could
name a
country
run by a
black
person
that
wasn’t a
‘shithole.’
This was
when Barack
Obama was
President
of the
United
States.”
He
continued,
“While
we were
once
driving
through
a
struggling
neighborhood
in
Chicago,
he
commented
that
only
Black
people
could
live
that
way.
And, he
told me
that
Black
people
would
never
vote for
him
because
they
were too
stupid.”
Renee's on the
Bayou 2541, N.
MacGregor Way,
Houston, TX
Click
picture
below to see
who's up in
the club!
The
PINNACLE Center is free* for use to Fort Bend and City
of Houston residents that are ages 50 and above.
