As we’ve come to understand year after year, day after day, death is an inevitable part of life—a universal truth that spares no one. Yet, despite its certainty, the weight of loss never becomes easier to bear, nor does the act of processing its impact. For those within Black culture, where community and shared experiences often serve as pillars of strength, the pain of losing someone resonates deeply, cutting through the collective spirit like a sharp blade.
Reporting on such losses carries its own emotional toll, as it means confronting the fragility of life while also grappling with the systemic inequities that often exacerbate these tragedies. Whether it’s the passing of a beloved figure or the untimely loss of a community member, the grief is compounded by the cultural significance of their contributions and the void they leave behind. Each story of loss becomes a reminder of the resilience required to navigate a world that often feels unrelenting, and yet, it also underscores the importance of honoring those who have left an indelible mark on the lives they touched.
STAY INFORMED! CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER!
UPDATED: 6:00 pm EST, January 13th, 2026
Claudette Colvin
Civil rights pioneer Claudette Colvin, whose refusal to give up her seat on a segregated bus helped lay the groundwork for the modern civil rights movement, has died at 86.
Love Obituaries? Get more! Join the Black America Web Newsletter
Colvin was 15 when, on March 2, 1955, she declined to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, months before Rosa Parks’ more widely known protest. Her arrest became an early spark in the campaign against Jim Crow laws and highlighted the everyday injustices Black riders faced in the South. Born Sept. 5, 1939, in Alabama, Colvin later served as a key plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle, the federal case that led to the end of bus segregation in Montgomery and influenced desegregation efforts across the country. Despite her central role, she spent much of her life outside the national spotlight.
John Forté, Grammy-nominated rapper, producer, and longtime Fugees collaborator, has reportedly died at age 50 at his home in Chilmark, Massachusetts, with local police confirming his passing and noting no foul play is suspected. He was celebrated for his work on the Fugees’ landmark album The Score, his solo debut Poly Sci, and a later-life creative resurgence rooted in Martha’s Vineyard’s arts community.
T.K. Carter
T.K. Carter made lasting impressions with appearances on beloved series including Punky Brewster, A Different World, and Saved by the Bell. Carter also left his mark on the big screen, most notably appearing in John Carpenter’s sci-fi horror classic The Thing, which remains one of the most influential genre films of all time.
His body of work reflects a career built on consistency, talent, and adaptability, earning him respect from fans and peers alike. T.K. Carter’s legacy lives on through the roles that continue to resonate with audiences across generations.
Dr. Janell Green-Smith
Dr. Janell Green-Smith, a devoted midwife and advocate for Black maternal health, tragically passed away due to complications following childbirth. Her untimely death has sent shockwaves through the medical and advocacy communities, highlighting the persistent disparities Black women face in maternal healthcare.
Dr. Green-Smith, based in South Carolina, dedicated her life to empowering and educating Black women about the journey of motherhood. Her work extended beyond her practice, as she contributed to the nonprofit Hive Impact Fund, which provides resources to improve maternal healthcare. Her passion and expertise touched countless lives, as evidenced by heartfelt tributes from those she helped. One grieving mother described her as an “angel” who provided unwavering support during a challenging labor.
The American College of Nurse-Midwives expressed their sorrow and outrage, emphasizing the systemic racism and failures in care that disproportionately affect Black women, regardless of their professional expertise or socioeconomic status. Dr. Green-Smith’s passing underscores the urgent need for equitable and respectful maternal healthcare.
As corporate earnings soar and the U.S. GDP balloons, the American workforce isn’t feeling the same boom. American workers are taking home less of the country’s overall wealth, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show, and employment in the U.S. is set to continue to slow.
Labor share, or the portion of the U.S.’s economic output that workers receive through salary and wages, decreased to 53.8% in the third quarter of 2025, its lowest level since the BLS started recording this data in 1947, according to its labor productivity and costs report published last week. In the previous quarter, labor share was at 54.6%. This decade, the labor share average was 55.6%.
That’s despite corporate earnings skyrocketing, with profits for Fortune 500 companies hitting a record $1.87 trillion in 2024. The U.S. GDP grew 4.3% in the third quarter last year, exceeding economists’ predictions.
That growth has not only come at the expense of how much of the pie of wealth workers are taking home, but also how many Americans are in the workforce, economists warn.
“That decline in the share of labor has got to be either falling earnings or falling numbers of people,” Raymond Robertson, a labor economist at Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government, told Fortune. “The falling share of income is having to do with the shift towards capital.”
Indeed, there are growing signs that as national income balloons, the U.S. workforce is deflating. Unemployment ticked down to 4.4% in December, but still sits above the 4.1% rate from 12 months before. Moreover, employers added just 584,000 jobs in 2025 compared to 2 million added in 2024.
The stark bifurcation of corporate victories and weak labor data raises concerns among economists of jobless growth jeopardizing the U.S. workforce, as well as a K-shaped economy, where the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, becoming more exaggerated.
“Data right now is very mixed,” Robertson said. “But I think it also all consistently points to this idea that things are getting worse for workers and much better for billionaires.”
Making sense of jobless growth
Robertson attributes weakening labor share averages to the rise in automation, which he noted is displacing workers, with productivity—a metric essentially measuring worker output—continuing to rise. Third-quarter GDP data showed nonfarm productivity growth soared to an annualized rate of 4.9%.
“All these things, bit by bit, are replacing people, and they’re concentrating income and their share of capital,” he said.
Goldman Sachs analysts Joseph Briggs and Sarah Dong estimated in a report this week, based on Department of Labor job numbers, that AI automation could displace 25% of all work hours. They predicted that over the course of the AI adoption period, a 15% increase in AI-driven productivity would displace 6% to 7% of jobs, and, at its peak, a 1 million increase in unemployed workers.
The displacement is substantial, the analysts said, but said the impacts of automation will be tempered by a wealth of new jobs created as a result of the technological changes.
Automation is expected to be a boon to corporate profits and GDP, expected to boost GDP by 1.5% by 2035, according to a Wharton brief published in September 2025. Early signs indicate AI is already driving productivity gains, with companies who invested $10 million or more in AI reporting significant productivity gains compared to organizations investing less in the technology, according to EY’s U.S. AI Pulse Survey.
Robertson added that growing unemployment, which he expects to see rise over the next few months, keeps wages down, allowing margins and profits to expand.
To be sure, the recent productivity surge has been an “open question,” Morgan Stanley economists wrote in a note to clients this week, not unanimously attributed to increased adoption of AI or automation. The analysts suggested this increase would be cyclical, or vestigates of pandemic-era habits of companies making more from less.
An Oxford Economists research brief published earlier this month suggested companies are disguising overhiring-related layoffs as a result of AI, but said automation-related workforce reductions have not yet happened en masse. Additionally, while unemployment has been ticking up over the past year, it is still relatively low.
An immigration crackdown backfires on U.S. labor
Mark Regets, senior fellow at National Foundation for American Policy, sees a different reason for a slowing workforce. He told Fortune President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has not done what Trump administration officials, such as White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, said it would in increasing the number of U.S.-born workers. Instead, according to Regets, Trump’s immigration policies have not only decimated the foreign-born workforce, but has also created fewer opportunities for domestic-born workers to find jobs.
The most recent BLS household survey reveals a decline of 881,000 foreign-born workers since January 2025, and a decline of 1.3 million workers since a March 2025 peak, consistent with the Congressional Budget Office’s report last year indicating shrinking U.S. population growth as a result of migrants being deported or refusing to come to the U.S. out of fear of hostile polities.
“The data is raising huge red flags that we are losing immigrants of all types that we otherwise would be advancing America’s economy,” Regets said.
The rising U.S. unemployment rate, up from 3.7% in December 2024 is counterevidence to Miller’s argument that harsher immigration policy would grow the U.S. workforce, he added. In fact, fewer immigrant workers may actually make it harder for U.S.-born individuals to find work.
“A company unable to find the workers it needs for some roles could shut down operations rather than continuing,” Regets said.
He noted that skillset diversity in a workplace could boost productivity and justify employing more people. Greater immigration can also increase consumer spending and stimulate businesses, as well as encourage businesses to take advantage of ample labor market availability and seek out their labor instead of offshoring jobs.
Reversing a shrinking labor force
While friendlier immigration policies could help reverse an exodus of foreign-born workers, Robertson said addressing the workplace automation push would be key to growing the U.S. workforce.
“There are trades that are technology-assisted,” he said. “Those are going to be in higher demand, but you really still have to have a significant investment in skills.”
The young generation of workers are already prepared to adapt to a changing labor landscape. Gen Z are flocking to trade schools in hopes of a finding a job as a carpenter or welder not so easily outsourced by AI, and in 2024, enrollment in vocation-based community colleges increased 16%, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse.
Companies have taken it upon themselves to provide reskilling opportunities to employees. An Express Employment Professionals-Harris Poll survey from 2024 found that 68% of hiring managers intended to reskill employees at some point during the year, up from 60% in 2021. While the U.S. Department of Labor updated guidelines to encourage states to adapt workplace development systems, Robertson argued the government hasn’t done enough in several decades to imbue the workforce with necessary skillsets for future jobs.
“Democrats and Republicans have not significantly invested in training [or] the retraining or active labor market programs that you need to match workers to jobs,” Robertson said. “That’s the obvious solution.”
Without changes, economists see the pattern of an employment slowdown continuing, but with greater concern about the ability for the U.S. economy to sustain growth.
“We need job growth to have a growing economy, and I think we need job growth to pay our debts,” Regets said. “I don’t know how you have job growth with a shrinking labor force.”
Great Job Sasha Rogelberg & the Team @ Fortune | FORTUNE Source link for sharing this story.
Snowboarder Chloe Kim says she’s “good to go” for the Milan Cortina Olympics despite tearing the labrum in her shoulder during a training run last week in Switzerland.
Now comes a race against the clock to see if she can get ready for a contest that starts in less than a month.
The winner of the last two Olympic gold medals in the halfpipe posted an update to Instagram on Tuesday, saying she wasn’t surprised to learn she had torn her labrum — the lining of the socket that holds the shoulder together. She did not say which shoulder she injured when she fell while getting ready for this weekend’s Laax Open.
“There are two ways to do it, and the way I did it is less severe than the other, so I’m really happy about that,” she said. “Obviously, I’m really disappointed that I can’t snowboard until right before the Olympics, which is going to be hard. I haven’t gotten nearly the amount of reps that I would have liked, but that’s OK.”
The women’s Olympic halfpipe contest starts Feb. 11.
The 25-year-old Kim, who already has qualified for the U.S. team, would be the heavy favorite to win in Italy if she’s completely healthy. She said she won’t compete this weekend in Laax. She didn’t mention the Winter X Games in Aspen later this month, which are the last big contest before the Olympics.
Kim has only been in one competition this season — last month in Copper Mountain — and while warming up for the final there, she suffered a shoulder injury, as well.
Last week, she posted video of her fall in Switzerland, which showed her skittering across the halfpipe after losing her bearings on the landing of a jump. At that time, she said she dislocated the shoulder and wasn’t in that much pain. An MRI from last Friday revealed the labrum tear.
In her video, Kim said she’ll have to wear a “super-sexy shoulder brace” that is uncomfortable.
“I went through a bunch of different waves of emotions, but honestly, I’m really excited for this week,” she said.
The end of the video flashed to her picking up her boyfriend, Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett, at a train station.
“I’m so grateful to be able to do this even though the lows can get pretty damn low,” Kim wrote on the post that went along with her video. “Excited for a week of exploration!”
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Great Job Eddie Pells, Associated Press & the Team @ KSAT San Antonio Source link for sharing this story.
Craig Stingley had no legal training, no big-name lawyer or civil rights advocate by his side. Yet for 13 years, he refused to accept that the judicial system would hold no one responsible for the killing of his 16-year-old son, Corey.
The quest for justice dominated his life.
He gathered police reports, witness statements and other evidence in the Dec. 14, 2012, fatal incident inside a Milwaukee-area convenience store. The youth had tried to shoplift $12 worth of flavored malt beverages at the shop before abandoning the items and turning to leave. That’s when three men wrestled him to the ground to hold him for the police.
The medical examiner determined that he died of a brain injury from asphyxiation after a “violent struggle with multiple individuals.” The manner of death: homicide.
When prosecutors chose not to charge anyone, Stingley waged a legal campaign of his own that forced the case to be reexamined. A 2023 ProPublica investigation pieced together a detailed timeline of what happened inside the store, recounted what witnesses saw and examined the backgrounds of the three customers involved in the altercation.
Finally, this week, in an extraordinary turn of events, Stingley will see a measure of accountability. On Monday, a criminal complaint filed in Milwaukee County Circuit Court charged the surviving patrons — Robert W. Beringer and Jesse R. Cole — with felony murder. The defendants are set to appear in court on Thursday.
Beringer’s attorney, Tony Cotton, described the broad outlines of a deferred prosecution agreement that can lead to the charges being dismissed after the two men plead guilty or no contest. The men may be required by the court to make a contribution to a charity in honor of Corey Stingley and to perform community service, avoiding prison time, according to Cotton and Craig Stingley.
In Wisconsin, felony murder is a special category for incidents in which the commission of a serious crime — in this case, false imprisonment — causes the death of another person. The prosecutor’s office in Dane County, which is handling the matter, declined to comment. Cole’s attorney said his client had no comment. Previously, the three men have argued that their actions were justified, citing self-defense and their need to respond to an emergency.
For Stingley, a key part of the accountability process already has taken place. Last year, as part of a restorative justice program and under the supervision of a retired judge, Stingley and the two men interacted face to face in separate meetings.
There, inside an office on a Milwaukee college campus, they confronted the traumatic events that led to Corey Stingley’s death and the still-roiling feelings of resentment, sorrow and pain.
Craig Stingley said he felt that, after years of downplaying their role, the men showed regret and a deeper understanding of what had happened. For instance, Stingley said, he and Cole aired out their different perspectives on what occurred and even reviewed store surveillance video together.
“I have never been able to breathe as clearly and as deeply and feel as free as I have after that meeting was over,” Stingley said.
Restorative justice programs bring together survivors and offenders — via meetings or letters or through community panels — to try to deepen understanding, promote healing and discuss how best to make amends for a wide range of harms. The approach has been used by schools and juvenile and criminal justice systems, as well as nations grappling with large-scale atrocities.
Situations where restorative justice and deferred prosecution are employed for such serious charges are rare, Cotton said. But, he said, the whole case is rare — from the prosecution declining to issue charges initially to holding it open for multiple reviews over a decade.
“Our hearts go out to the Stingley family, and we believe that the restorative justice process has allowed all sides to express their feelings openly,” Cotton said. “We are glad that a fair and just outcome has been achieved.”
A medical examiner determined that Corey Stingley died of a brain injury from asphyxiation after an altercation with three men at a convenience store in 2012. Prosecutors assigned to the case declined to press charges.Taylor Glascock for ProPublica
The Legal Quest
Milwaukee’s district attorney at the time of Corey Stingley’s death, John Chisholm, announced there would be no charges 13 months later, in January 2014. Cole, Beringer and a third man, Maurio Laumann, now deceased, were not culpable because they did not intend to injure or kill the teen and weren’t trained in proper restraint techniques, Chisholm determined.
Craig Stingley, who is Black, and others in the community protested the decision, claiming the three men — all white — were not good Samaritans but had acted violently to kill a Black youth with impunity. “When a person loses his life at the hands of others, it would seem that a ‘chargeable’ offense has occurred,” the Milwaukee branch of the NAACP said in a statement at the time.
Looking for a way to reopen the case, Stingley reexamined the evidence, including security video. In a painful exercise, he watched the takedown of his son, by his estimation hundreds of times, analyzing who did what, frame by frame. What he saw only reinforced his view that his son’s death was unnecessary and his right to due process denied.
Corey Stingley and his father lived only blocks from VJ’s Food Mart, in West Allis, Wisconsin. That December day, Stingley made his way to the back of the store and stuck six bottles of Smirnoff Ice into his backpack. At the front counter, the teenager provided his debit card to pay for an energy drink, but the clerk demanded the stolen items. Stingley surrendered the backpack, reached toward the cash register to recover his debit card, then turned to exit.
Cole told police he extended his hand to stop Stingley and claimed that the teen punched him in the face, though it is not evident on the video. The three men grabbed the youth. During a struggle, the men pinned Stingley to the floor.
Laumann kept Stingley in a chokehold, several witnesses told investigators. ProPublica later discovered that Laumann had been a Marine. His brother told ProPublica he likely learned how to apply chokeholds as part of his military service decades ago.
Beringer had Stingley by the hair and was pressing on the teen’s head, a witness told authorities. Cole helped to hold Stingley down. Eventually, Stingley stopped resisting. The police report states that Cole thought the teen was “playing limp” to trick them into loosening their grip.
“Get up, you punk!” Laumann told the motionless teen when an officer finally arrived, according to a police report. Stingley was foaming at the mouth and had urinated through his clothes. The officer couldn’t find a pulse. Stingley never regained consciousness, dying at a hospital two weeks later.
Corey Stingley, far right, with his siblings in a 2010 portrait. He was 16 at the time of his death.Courtesy of Craig Stingley
Craig Stingley unsuccessfully sought a meeting with Chisholm in 2015 to discuss the lack of charges. “Feel free to seek legal advice in the private sector regarding your Constitutional Rights,” an assistant to Chisholm replied to Stingley in an email. “I extend my deepest sympathy to you and your family!”
Stingley’s review of the video, however, did bring about another legal opportunity in 2017, after he notified West Allis police that there was footage showing Laumann with his arm around the teen’s throat. (Laumann had denied putting him in a headlock.) A Racine County district attorney was appointed to review the evidence again. She issued no report for three years, until pressed by the court, then concluded that no charges were warranted.
Finally, Stingley discovered an obscure Wisconsin “John Doe” statute. It allows private citizens to petition a judge to consider whether a crime had been committed if a district attorney refuses to issue a criminal complaint.
A former process engineer for an electrical transformer manufacturer, Stingley had no legal training. Still, in November 2020, he filed a 14-page petition with the then-chief judge of the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, Mary Triggiano. It cited legal authority and “material facts,” including excerpts from police reports, witness statements and stills from the surveillance video. Stingley quoted former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis in the petition and the British statesman William Gladstone: “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
That led to the appointment in July 2022 of Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne to review the case. But that process was slowed by procedural hurdles. Stingley took the delays in stride, saying he trusted that Ozanne and his staff were treating the matter seriously and acting appropriately.
In 2024, Stingley said, Ozanne’s office advised him that they had found sufficient evidence to issue charges against Cole and Beringer but could not guarantee that a jury would deliver a guilty verdict. Stingley, researching the family’s options, said he inquired about the restorative justice process. The DA’s office supported the idea, arranging for him and the two men to meet under the supervision of the Andrew Center for Restorative Justice, part of the law school at Milwaukee’s Marquette University. The program is run by Triggiano, who’d retired from the court.
The concept of restorative justice can be traced back to indigenous cultures, where people sat together to talk through conflict and solve problems. It emerged in the United States in criminal justice systems in the 1970s as a way to provide alternatives to prison and restitution to victims. Elsewhere, it has notably been used to address the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda, where beginning in 2002 truth-telling forums led to forgiveness and reconciliation.
Stingley, who has three remaining grown children and four grandchildren, desperately wanted “balance restored” for his family. He decided the best path forward was to meet with the men he considered responsible for his son’s death.
Stingley now sees the charges as a message of accountability in his son’s case.Taylor Glascock for ProPublica
The Quest for Closure
Stingley brought photos of Corey to the restorative justice meeting with Berringer in April.
The goal: to respectfully share their perspectives on the tragedy and how it impacted each of them personally. What was said was not recorded or transcribed. It was not for use in any court proceeding.
The sessions began with the Stingley family sharing heartfelt stories about Corey as a son, brother, student and friend. They spoke of their great bond, Corey’s love of sports and their struggle to cope with his absence.
When discussion turned to what happened in the store, Stingley said, Berringer described having only faint memories of the fatal encounter. He recalled a brief struggle and grabbing the teen by his jacket, not his hair.
Before departing the meeting, a tearful Beringer told Stingley he was looking for peace, Stingley recalled.
Cotton, Beringer’s attorney, told ProPublica that the incident and the legal steps affected his client in profound ways. “He’s had anxiety really from this from day one,” Cotton said.
The result, he said: “Sleeplessness. Horrible anxiety. Fearful because he has to go to court.”
Does the resolution ease Beringer’s mind? “I don’t know,” Cotton said, adding that the hope is that the Stingley family finds solace in the resolution process.
Cole, in a meeting in May with Stingley and some of his family, brought a gift: a pair of angel wings on a gold chain with a small “C” charm and several clear reflective orbs. With it came a handwritten note, saying: “I hope this sun catcher brings a gentle reflection of the love & light of Corey’s memory and that you feel his presence shining on you each day.”
“I told him I appreciate the gesture,” Stingley said.
Cole, according to Stingley, told him that he felt something other than the altercation — perhaps some health ailment — led to Corey’s demise.
Stingley invited Cole to watch the surveillance video together at a second session. As that day neared, in July, Stingley considered backing out. “It was almost as if I had to drag myself up out of the car,” he said. But he said he realized that he’d been preparing for such an event for 13 years: to come to some honest reckoning with the men involved.
After watching the video, he and Cole reviewed the death certificate, showing the medical examiner’s conclusions. Stingley said Cole stressed that he did not choke Corey but came to realize that what happened in the store caused the teen to lose his life, not any preexisting condition. The acknowledgment eased Stingley’s burden.
“I felt like I was reaching a place where I was finally going to get the justice that I’ve been pursuing,” Stingley said, “and this is one of the steps I had to go through to get that completed.”
Triggiano commended each of the participants for their courage in meeting and the Stingley family for “seeking the humanity of their son as opposed to vengeance.” She said Beringer and Cole “keenly listened, reflected and really acknowledged their connection to the events that led to Corey’s death.”
“The conversations were emotional and difficult but deeply human,” she said.
After the loss of his son, Stingley wanted to see the three men imprisoned. But so many years later, justice now looks different. Now Laumann is dead. Beringer is changed by the experience. And Cole is a father eager to protect his own children.
Now, in Stingley’s eyes, prison is beside the point. Criminal charges will stand instead as a strong signal of accountability, of justice — and of a father’s unyielding love.
Great Job Megan O’Matz & the Team @ ProPublica Source link for sharing this story.
For everything that we love about reality television, it’s often overlooked that before our eyes are real people — scripted or not! — doing their best, and most times the most, to simply entertain us. For those that succeed in doing so, the pressure to continue finding ways of putting on for the world while maintaining that same persona the world originally fell for can be taxing for any one person from year to year.
Let’s take decades-spanning reality TV queen Joseline Hernandez for example.
Her introduction in 2012 by way of the debut season of Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta brought forth a rambunctious, unfiltered and by all means unruly personality. It’s what Black America had been craving since the fire-hot debut a near-decade prior of Tiffany “New York” Pollard as a castmember-turned-solo-star from Flavor Of Love. You could say VH1 was on a roll.
After exhausting the LHH franchise, Hernandez branched out into branding herself in music, films, daytime hosting and television production by way of her very own reality TV franchise, Joseline’s Cabaret. However, living the life of a wild child stripper in exchange for fame and notoriety came with its vices; for Joseline, that happened to be cocaine.
Love Entertainment? Get more! Join the Black America Web Newsletter
While in some ways fueling the machine that kept her in the limelight, in reality the drug abuse was taking her away from motherhood — her beautiful daughter with Stevie J turns 10 this year — and pretty much everything positive that we mentioned above. Thankfully, through the power of strong will and dedication, it appears that she’s not only been sober for the past three years but had an important message to share to young girls in particular.
“My mind is clear and the body is strong,” she wrote in a lengthy note shared to her social media channels today (January 13), highlighting a three-year journey of being, in her words, “off that nose candy,” in addition to achieving clear-mindedness and a sense of solitude. Thanking God for giving her the grace to push forward and humbleness to forgive herself for past mistakes, she gave all praised to The Most High that she didn’t succumb to “the white girl” — again, her words. Speaking to the young girls directly, she ended the caption by adding, “it’s not a game and it’s not worth it.” Ain’t that the truth.
We can only pray she intends to practice what she’s currently preaching, especially with the nature of a typical season of Cabaret in mind. Nonetheless, we have to give credit where it’s due when someone dedicates to the work of overcoming drug addiction and getting clean. Not to mention, she is getting busy with that hand-to-eye coordination in terms of the therapeutic slap-boxing.
Respect to The Puerto Rican Princess!
We salute Joseline Hernandez again on the three-years-and-counting sobriety journey, and most importantly for spreading the message of anti-drug use when it comes to cocaine. See what others are saying on social media below:
1. I’m so glad Joseline Hernandez is 3 yrs sober. It’s beautiful to see her growth
via @Sam_E_Couture
2. All glory to God Joseline Hernandez marks 3 years clean#joselinehernandez #godisgreat #hiphopculture #follow #jviewsdaily
via @jviewsdaily
3. “Three years off that nose candy” – Ms. Joseline Hernandez, MY PR Princess!
via @TheeMomager_Kai
4. I love Joseline Hernandez
via @bomb_2domme
5. I love how she’s honest about her journey
via @itsMagicHeaux
6. The white girl . Go, Joseline .
via @niinabelle
7. Love this for her. Go awf Joseline. The PR Princess.
via @YaFavJamerican
8. It’s a few of y’all on this timeline that needs to follow Joseline’s lead and put down that WhyGurr
via @itsKARY_
9. damn i am proud of Joseline bein 3yrs clean. That takes a lot of discipline and dedication!!
via @DelBaby7
10. Good for her! Now can she go whoop Amber’s ass? I want Joseline to get her lick back.
via @JoshuaJamal
Great Job Keenan Higgins & the Team @ Black America Web Source link for sharing this story.
The parents of an 8-year-old boy have filed a lawsuit against the man accused of sexually assaulting their child at a Houston Texans game last month, along with the food, beverage and housekeeping provider at NRG Stadium and the company that manages the stadium and surrounding complex.
According to the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Harris County, the family of the victim accuses Ushay Marquise Nixon, 21, of assailing the boy during a Dec. 14 football game at NRG Stadium. Nixon, beverage and housekeeping provider Aramark Sports and Entertainment Services of Texas, LLC, and NRG Park managing company ASM Global Parent Inc. are listed as defendants in the lawsuit, which seeks monetary damages as well as court costs.
Sign up for the Hello, Houston! daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.
Nixon, who worked for Aramark at the time, is also facing criminal charges of indecency with a child and aggravated sexual assault of a child, according to Harris County court records. The Houston Police Department, in a Tuesday social media post, said it wanted to speak with anyone who might have information about the alleged crime.
“This case is every parent’s worst nightmare,” attorney Anna Greenberg, who is representing the boy’s family, said in a statement. “An 8-year-old boy went to his first NFL game expecting excitement and joy, and instead he was targeted by an employee who never should have been allowed anywhere near children.”
Nixon is alleged to have approached the boy in a bathroom before locking him into a stall with him and attempting to assault him, according to court documents, which show the boy then rushed out of the stall back to his parent, who was waiting outside the bathroom.
According to the lawsuit, a “good Samaritan” witnessed the incident in the bathroom and alerted the boy’s parent. The boy then pointed out Nixon as the alleged assailant, causing Nixon to run away, court documents state.
The lawsuit claims that Aramark was negligent in hiring Nixon because he had previously been charged with indecency with a child and indecent assault. Nixon was charged with those crimes in 2022, according to Harris County court records, which show the charges were later dismissed.
In a statement to Houston Public Media on Tuesday, an Aramark spokesperson said the company was aware of the “very disturbing situation” and that Nixon was no longer employed with the company. The spokesperson also said the company was fully cooperating with authorities.
The lawsuit accuses ASM of not adequately protecting the 8-year-old boy while he was on the company’s property. ASM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nixon’s defense attorney in the criminal case did not immediately respond to a request for comment. An attorney for him in the civil case was not listed in online court records as of Tuesday.
Great Job & the Team @ Houston Public Media for sharing this story.
The sizzling temperature pace set nationally in recent years continued in 2025, as the contiguous 48 United States experienced its fourth-hottest annual average temperature on record. As reported by NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) on January 13, the 48-state temperature of 54.64°F for 2025 placed fourth behind 2024, 2012, and 2016. The average for 2025 came in 2.63°F above the average of 52.01°F for the entire 20th century (1901-2000).
Across the entire 131 years of U.S. recordkeeping, the ten warmest years are now packed into the last two decades, and nine of those years have occurred since 2011. For over half a century, the Dust Bowl year of 1934 reigned as the nation’s hottest on record, but since 2015, most years have ranked warmer than 1934.
Figure 1. Average annual temperature for the 48 contiguous U.S. states for each year through 2025 in records that go back to 1895. (Image credit: NOAA/NCEI)
The annual-scale warmth is especially impressive given that the year got off to a relatively chilly start. But the consistent warmth that arrived in springtime — and especially from autumn onward — made the difference. The latter part of December was astonishingly warm in many parts of the country, including the warmest Christmas Day national average (December 25) by a margin of 3°F.
Month by month, the 48-state average played out this way: January: 33rd coldest February: 54th warmest March: 6th warmest April: 13th warmest May: 26th warmest June: 7th warmest July: 19th warmest August: 27th warmest September: 7th warmest October: 7th warmest November: 4th warmest December: 5thwarmest
Consistency also pushed 2025’s heat over the top on a state-by-state basis. Two states – Nevada and Utah – experienced their warmest year on record, as did the four-state Southwest region as a whole, and every state made it into its respective Top 30 list for heat.
Figure 2. A map of state-by-state rankings for temperature in 2025 as compared to all 131 years in the period 1895-2025. Higher numbers denote warmer conditions. (Image credit: NOAA/NCEI)
About three times as many record highs as record lows
Independent meteorologist Guy Walton, who publishes at guyonclimate.com and on Bluesky as @climateguyw, has compiled and analyzed local heat records from the United States and beyond for more than 15 years, cowriting peer-reviewed papers on the topic. According to preliminary NOAA/NCEI data as analyzed by Walton, locations across the 50 U.S. states set or tied 38,956 daily record highs in 2025 compared to 13,204 daily record lows — meaning that there were close to three times as many record daily highs as there were lows. The ratio was even more skewed in the more rarefied categories of monthly record highs vs. lows (2,572 vs. 296) and all-time record highs vs. lows (135 vs. 17).
A drier-than-average 2025 for the nation as a whole
The year 2025 ranked as the 40th driest on record when averaged across the 48 contiguous states. This national-scale level of dryness wasn’t especially unusual, although it did mean that five of the last six years have fallen below the long-term increase in nationwide precipitation (see Fig. 3).
Figure 3. Average annual precipitation for the 48 contiguous U.S. states for each year through 2025 in records that go back to 1895. (Image credit: NOAA/NCEI)
Precipitation records are almost always more variable in time and space than temperature records, and this year was no exception. The Great Plains and the Tennessee and Ohio valleys were among the few areas that racked up heavier-than-average precipitation for 2025 (Kentucky had its 10th wettest year on record). An absence of hurricane landfalls in 2025 for the first time in a decade (see below) contributed to drier-than-average conditions for the year along most of the U.S. Eastern Seaboard, particularly Florida, which had its 11th driest year on record.
Figure 4. A map of state-by-state rankings for precipitation in 2025 as compared to all 131 years in the period 1895-2025. Higher numbers denote wetter conditions. (Image credit: NOAA/NCEI)
Flood and fire produced the deadliest and most damaging U.S. weather/climate disasters of 2025
The year 2025 brought 23 weather-related U.S. disasters that each topped at least $1 billion in damage, according to the U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters website. The site was adopted by Climate Central last October after it had been discontinued by NOAA, its original creator, last May. Adam Smith, who had served as lead NOAA scientist on the project over the last 15 years, continues to lead the project at its new home at Climate Center, where he is now senior climate impacts scientist.
The billion-dollar disasters of 2025 caused a total of 276 direct fatalities. Their estimated cost, according to Climate Central, is $311 billion (USD 2026). This puts the year in eighth place among the 46 years of data after adjusting for inflation. The year’s tally of 23 billion-dollar events was the third highest in the 46-year database.
After the US admin cancelled the $B Climate + Weather Disaster dataset, @climatecentral.org hired the scientists who ran it and set it back up. Now the 2025 numbers are in: it’s 3rd highest year on record and highest year w/o land-falling hurricanes. More: www.climatecentral.org/climate-serv…
The costliest event of the year by far was a series of cataclysmic wildfires that ravaged more than 57,000 acres (89 square miles) across the Los Angeles area in early January (see photo at top). As reported by Climate Central, the total direct losses were estimated to excdeed $60 billion, making it by far the nation’s most expensive wildfire disaster in modern records. Most of the damage was wreaked by the massive Eaton and Palisades fires, which together destroyed more than 12,000 structures.
In a classic and tragic sequence, two wet years had led to abundant grasses and shrubs that then dried out in the months leading up to the fires. Virtually no rain had fallen over the area from May through December 2024, the second-driest such stretch in records going back to 1877. Topping things off, an unusually potent wind-making weather setup arrived in early January, pushing fierce winds far deeper into the Los Angeles area than usual.
At least 31 people were killed in the L.A. fires, but as with many such disasters, the indirect toll was far greater. One study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in August estimated that the fires contributed to at least 440 deaths. These deaths were related to such factors as smoke inhalation, which complicated cardiovascular and respiratory conditions, and physical and mental health emergencies in which response was compromised by fire-related disruption.
An event that didn’t make the billion-dollar disaster list, but that produced the year’s highest direct/immediate death toll from a U.S. weather disaster, was the catastrophic flash flooding that peaked early on the July 4 holiday along the Guadalupe River in the Texas Hill Country. At least 138 people died in the floods, most of them on the Fourth, when torrential rains that fell from a slow-moving thunderstorm complex triggered a rapid rise along the Guadalupe that inundated cabins, vehicles, and campgrounds.
Figure 5. Texas Game Wardens and local law enforcement carry the body of a flood victim from the banks of the Guadalupe River during recovery operations on July 5, 2025, near Hunt, Texas. (Photo by Eric Vryn/Getty Images)
A three-hour rainfall total of around 6.5 inches (170 mm) was recorded in the predawn hours along the Guadalupe at Hunt, at a location ideally positioned to flood the narrow canyon just downstream. (An even larger five-day total of 20.32 inches for July 3-8 was estimated near Bertram, about 100 miles to the northeast of the Guadalupe flood.) These rains were fed by the remnants of former Tropical Storm Barry, which had moved north over several days after its landfall in northeast Mexico.
Although a flash flood warning had been issued along the Guadalupe by the National Weather Service several hours ahead of the worst flooding, multiple weak or missing links in the warning-to-response process left dozens of people, including many children, unaware of the grave danger and unable to evacuate once the flooding struck full force. The event was the deadliest U.S. flash flood in 49 years, and it marked the latest in a string of weather-disaster tolls that would once have been considered unlikely or even unimaginable in the 21st century.
The Texas floods also followed several months of intense drought — a premier example of the “weather whiplash” that’s been increasing as a warming climate boosts hydrologic extremes. The syndrome both increases the impacts of drought, mainly through landscape-parching heat, while also forcing more water to evaporate into the atmosphere, which raises the odds of intensified rainfall events.
As I work through the 1.5 hour edit I’m reviewing images captured on the day of the tornado outbreak in North Dakota.This was an image I had yet to review clearly showing the EF5 Captured south of Enderlin, June 20, 2025Video edit to be premiered via www.youtube.com/DanielShawAU
U.S. tornadoes: A busy but not-super-destructive year, and the first EF5 in more than a decade
Based on preliminary local reports compiled by the NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center, an estimated 1559 tornadoes plowed across the U.S. landscape in 2025. This is substantially above the 2005-2015 average of 1402, and the third-highest total in a separate analysis dating back to 2010.
The tornado death toll of 67 in 2026 was close to the recent annual average of around 69. The deadliest single tornado crashed through Laurel County in southeastern Kentucky after dark on May 16. This mile-wide tornado, which peaked at EF4 on the enhanced Fujita scale, took 17 lives. The tornado’s location east of the Mississippi and its arrival after dark exemplify two dangerous ongoing trends. The areas of peak tornado activity are tending to shift from Tornado Alley of the Southern Great Plains toward the mid- and lower Mississippi Valley and points east, where rural populations are more dense than in the Plains and often lack easy access to robust shelter. Moreover, tornado season here often starts by late winter; this pushes more hours of potential twister development into the nighttime period, when visibility is poor (especially in forested areas).
Of the year’s fatalities, 25 (about 40%) occurred in mobile/manufactured homes, which are especially vulnerable in tornadic winds.
Another tornado – one that took three lives but caused relatively little property damage, striking near Enderlin, North Dakota, on June 20, 2025 – made history by ending a highly publicized record-long “drought” of top-end tornadoes, those ranked as EF5 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. Prior to this event, the last EF5 tornado had struck more than 12 years earlier, in Moore, Oklahoma, on May 20, 2013. Research published online just months before the Enderlin tornado suggested that the unprecedented absence of EF5 twisters could be related to changes in how single-family-home destruction was rated before and after the switch from the original Fujita Scale to the Enhanced Fujita Scale.
Hurricanes steered clear of the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts, but two former tropical cyclones contributed to havoc in Texas and Alaska
As summarized by Jeff Masters in a 2025 season wrap-up post on December 1, four out of this year’s five Atlantic hurricanes reached Category 4 or 5—the highest percentage on record for any Atlantic season. However, prevailing steering currents kept all of those behemoths away from U.S. shores. This was the first year since 2015 that not a single hurricane made landfall on the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coasts.
The only system to reach the nation while still an active named storm was Tropical Storm Chantal, which brought 50-mph sustained winds to northeastern South Carolina on July 6. Torrential rains from slow-moving Chantal struck North Carolina, and the storm led to $500 million in damage while taking three lives.
A great deal of additional U.S. impact came from two named storms – one from the Atlantic and one from the Northwest Pacific – that affected the nation long after they had gone post-tropical. As noted above, the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry fueled the catastrophic floods in Central Texas in early July, almost a week after Barry’s landfall in Mexico. And in Alaska, the remnants of Typhoon Halong caused widespread destruction in a number of Native Alaskan communities along and near the state’s southwest coast. More than 1500 people were forced from their homes, and record storm surge flooded many structures in the town of Kipnuk.
Figure 6. As I watched this aurora play out above Louisville, Colorado, on November 11, 2025, it was only perhaps 25% as vivid to the naked eye as it looks here – but the structures and colors were all there, shifting in mesmerizing fashion. (Image credit: Bob Henson)
An autumn feast for skywatching eyes
Perhaps the most captivating atmospheric event of 2025 wasn’t too destructive at all – except maybe to the pride of aurora lovers who missed out on it. A fast-evolving pair of coronal mass ejections from the sun, the second one moving faster than the first, teamed up for a “cannibal” solar storm that led to an impressive northern-lights sky show across much of the United States and other parts of the Northern Hemisphere, especially on November 11-12.
Arriving with only a few hours of notice, the event was photographed by countless people using cellphone cameras that can now capture auroras in far more vivid colors than the naked human eye can detect. So don’t despair — your friend who saw the aurora while you missed out may not have gotten quite as much of a visual treat as their phone pix might suggest!
Jeff Masters contributed to this post.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Great Job Bob Henson & the Team @ Yale Climate Connections Source link for sharing this story.
Throughout the segment, Evening News treated climate change as contextual background in a story explicitly framed around youth climate anxiety and individual reproductive choices. Global warming was presented as one influence among many, not as a driver of instability meriting examination on its own terms. The framing steered viewers to question whether climate is given too much weight in personal decision making, effectively displacing a discussion about the real, worsening, and existential impacts of climate change.
After citing a survey showing that climate concerns influence some young people’s reproductive decisions, the story pivoted to fertility and economic data suggesting that declining birth rates are driven by economic factors rather than climate change. Regardless of whether this is even accurate, the claim further narrowed the frame, positioning climate concern as secondary and contestable rather than as a rational response to worsening conditions and separating climate disruption from the harm it compounds.
To reinforce that narrowing frame, CBS featured Alina Voss, communications director of the American Conservation Coalition, which CBS described as an “environmental nonprofit that promotes conservative values.” The ACC describes itself as a “pro-innovation,” limited-government organization that prioritizes market-based approaches to environmental issues. Voss told viewers that “the innovation is working” and, according to the correspondent, expressed confidence that “technology will protect families from the worst impacts of climate change,” a claim the segment did not challenge or contextualize. By presenting that reassurance without scrutiny, the segment also laundered technological optimism, a familiar narrative that downplays climate change.
Great Job Media Matters for America & the Team @ Media Matters for America Source link for sharing this story.
Black men face unique barriers when it comes to seeking and receiving mental health care. Here are some of them.
Cultural Stigma
When it comes to mental health stigma in the Black community, many community members tend to adhere to an unhealthy definition of strength, particularly when it comes to Black men, says Derrick Gordon, PhD, a psychologist and an associate professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut.
“As folks of color, we’re supposed to be able to kind of endure independently. We’re supposed to have the capacity to kind of manage this on our own,” Dr. Gordon says.
“Black men are taught inherently to be strong and stoic, and there’s this idea of like John Henry–ism – this inherent need, or at least socialization, of Black men, to be strong and to outperform everyone and everything,” says Omotola K. Ajibade, MD, MPH, apsychiatrist and the founder of Ajibade Consulting Group in Atlanta.
“That’s really in order to not be perceived as weak,” says Dr. Ajibade. “Black men tried to hide their vulnerabilities, even from those who love them and would want to help nurture and heal some of those vulnerabilities.”
According to research published in the Journal of Black Psychology, certain faith communities, especially the Christian tradition, sometimes exacerbate negative stigma around mental health issues and care within the Black community, encouraging members to “pray about it” rather than also seek professional help.
“One of the biggest barriers that we encounter sometimes has to do with folks’ belief that, ‘if I have these mental health challenges, I don’t believe in my faith tradition as strongly as I should.’” Gordon says. He tries to reframe this conversation with clients so they can understand that it’s possible to rely on both psychotherapy and faith. “Those two things are not in opposition to one another,” says Gordon.
Medical Mistrust
Medical mistrust involves fear of harm or exploitation by medical professionals or institutions. This mistrust may stem from previous negative experiences, familial narratives, or systemic inequities such as racial biases and other discriminatory practices.
When discussing medical mistrust, we often point to the Tuskegee Experiments as an example, says Ajibade. The Tuskegee Experiments were held by the United States Public Health Service (PHS), which was the precursor to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and involved using Black men without adequate consent to test the effects of untreated syphilis over a 40-year span. But the origins of the Black community’s healthcare hesitation go back much farther.
“There are generations of things that have happened to Black people before and since, that all contribute to the nature of mistrust. Especially when you think about mental health, you also have to think about the fact that mental health issues are not divorced from the societies that birthed them.”
Another historical example is drapetomania, a fabricated mental illness that was once said to be what led enslaved people to run away, says Ajibade. Coined in 1851 by Dr. Samuel Cartwright, drapetomania was seen as a legitimate disease and used to justify slavery in the 19th century.
“The idea that you would want to escape your own dehumanization and oppression was seen by the mental health community as an illness,” says Ajibade. “When you’ve had generations of this medical gaslighting come and go, you tend to not trust the system at large.”
“‘Medical gaslighting’ [is] an act that invalidates a patient’s genuine clinical concern without proper medical evaluation, because of physician ignorance, implicit bias, or medical paternalism,” according to research published in the American Journal of Medicine. This often results in dismissal of symptoms and concerns, including the refusal to adequately test or investigate a medical issue, the same research states.
While drapetomania is now seen as pseudoscience, the racism and dismissal that gave rise to it is still prevalent within the medical community, research shows.
In addition to historical trauma, socioeconomic disparities, and medical trauma, Black men also face medical gaslighting, according to Ajibade.
Examples of this from earlier studies showed how medical professionals held beliefs rooted in racism, such as the notion that Black patients have higher pain tolerances, leading to biases within treatment and assessments.
Because of factors like this, it’s important for providers to make a hesitant patient comfortable once they arrive for care. “Once you get them through the door, they recognize that they can share themselves with you and you don’t judge them, and that this can be reparative and helpful to them — it creates a safe space,” Gordon says.
Ajibade agrees. “I go to work every day knowing that I participate in a system that has contributed to numerous harms against people that look like me,” he says. “But, I also know that we have the capacity to act differently and to use those very same tools to help heal people rather than harm them.”
Lack of Representation
Black men make up just under 6 percent of active therapists in the United States, according to the American Psychological Association.
These numbers, in conjunction with some prevailing negative ideas about mental health, can contribute to the overall lack of investment or accessibility to mental wellness for Black men. “A lot of folks think that mental health is a ‘white people thing,’ but it’s a fundamental part of the human experience,” Ajibade says.
Part of Ajibade’s work includes supporting clients within the correctional system. He shared an encounter with a patient’s family member that recognized his last name as Nigerian and asked for his help.
“The mere fact that he recognized my name as a Nigerian and we sort of speak the same language lifted a huge weight off of his and his family shoulders — he knew that someone was going to see about his loved one. That’s something that no textbook is going to teach you,” he says.
“Representation really matters, especially if we’re trying to increase access to these kinds of supports and services,” Gordon says.
“I have worked with men of color across the diasporas, and we have to be thinking about the way representation shows up, and how it can be so powerful to have them hear their own stories, to tell their stories,” Gordon says.
Insurance Barriers
With the exception of peer-run spaces, mental health support often doesn’t come cheap. Instead of solely focusing on professional licensure, peer support groups are led by individuals who have lived experience.
But for those who opt for more traditional therapy arrangements, it can be difficult to finance. Many individuals aren’t able to pay for sessions out-of-pocket and rely on their health insurance coverage to foot at least some of the bill. According to a report from KFF, Black individuals are uninsured at rates higher than that of their white counterparts.
Even for those with healthcare coverage, accessibility issues arise, especially if you’re interested in connecting with a provider that shares your cultural background or identity. Not every practitioner is paneled with every health insurance carrier. This means that if you’re going through your health insurance, you are picking from a smaller pool of people, rather than any professional within your state.
Because the number of Black male therapists is already small, the extra limit of insurance coverage can significantly impact your options for a practitioner that looks like you.
And, some experts don’t take insurance at all. There’s an understanding that this can make it hard on clients, but the reality is that getting paneled with insurance carriers can serve as a barrier for practitioners as well. “Some people don’t take insurance because there’s so many hoops to jump through,” Gordon says.
Great Job Zuri White-Gibson & the Team @ google-discover Source link for sharing this story.
Houston freshman Guard Kingston Flemings (4) taking a shot against Texas Tech at the Fertitta Center in Houston Texas, on Tuesday, Jan. 6| Raphael Hernandez/The Cougar
No. 7-ranked Houston Cougars battled it out against the No.14 Texas Tech Red Raiders in a top-15 matchup on Tuesday, Jan. 6, at the Fertitta Center. The last time these two teams played, Houston won 69-65. Now, Houston leads the series 38-32.
Texas Tech started with an early lead and tried to maintain it, but Cougars responded and took the lead five minutes into the game. Both teams would go back and forth, trying to keep the lead and run with it, but the score would stay close.
The game then stayed tied 16-16 until the halfway point of the first half, when Houston freshman forward Chris Cenac Jr. scored two points to give the Cougars a lead.
Going back and forth, each team dealt blows to the other, but Houston would lead 25-19 and extended that lead with five minutes left in the first half.
Both teams’ defenses battled and endured, and the score was tied 31-31 at the end of the first half. Houston’s Senior guard Emanuel Sharp, was on fire, leading in points with 11 after the first half.
In the second half, Houston began scoring to take the lead, 37-33, and tried to pull away from Texas Tech, but the Red Raiders narrowed the lead to two points.
Although the score was 39-35, Texas Tech struggled to make shots and set up their offense, allowing Houston to capitalize on the Red Raiders’ mistakes.
The score were in Texas Tech’s favor as they took the lead 44-41 while on a 9-0 run for over two minutes. Houston broke the scoring streak but were still be down by three points with 12 minutes left in the second half.
Texas Tech still had the lead 55-49 as Houston narrowed the score down to four points. With six minutes left, the Cougars, determined to come back and grab the lead, narrowed the deficit to two.
The score stayed 57-55 with the Red Raiders on top for over two minutes until Texas Tech would score again to increase the lead to four. Houston responded quickly as junior forward Joseph Tugler made a two-pointer to close the lead back down to two.
Houston’s freshman guard Kingston Flemings made a 3-pointer to take the lead 60-59 with two minutes left in the game.
Houston increased the lead to three, but Texas Tech lowered the lead back to one. Then Flemings made another critical three to bring the lead to four. With just 13 seconds left, Houston got the ball again and won against Texas Tech 69-65.
Flemings scored 23 points, five assists and a block. Tugler and Cenac combined for 21 rebounds, as Cenac grabbed 11 and Tugler snatched 10. Sharp also contributed with 17 points, two assists and a steal.
Overall
Houston made a statement against Texas Tech by showing determination, perseverance and game sense. Flemings dominated by scoring points, while Cenac and Tugler found ways to rebound and contribute defensively.
Both Sharp and Houston senior guard Milos Uzan made shots that mattered to turn the tide in Houston’s favor.
Houston at home has a 117-7 record since 2018, with a win percentage of 94%, the best record among all teams since that time. The Cougars are bringing a lot of confidence to their next game, as they face the infamous Baylor Bears on Jan. 10 at 12 pm.
sports@thedailycougar.com
Great Job Micah Clay & the Team @ The Cougar for sharing this story.
