Nobel Peace Prize in the spotlight, Pennsylvania school district officials go too far to shame parents, Blue Ivy Carter sends Twitterverse into a tailspin

The Lion King, starring Beyonce and Donald Glover, earned a whopping $185 million in its opening weekend. The Jon Favreau directed film is good for the eighth-best opening of all time and the best opening ever for a family-friendly PG film, narrowly edging out Incredibles 2. Moreover, the film has earned over $346 million overseas, priming The Lion King to be another $1 billion worldwide hit for Disney.

Blue Ivy Carter is on her way! The Twitterverse went crazy when it discovered Beyonce's 7-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy, sings and has a writing credit on "Brown Skin Girl," one of the tracks released from The Lion King: The Gift, the album Beyonce curated for the film. Blue Ivy begins and ends the song, which features her mother, Beyonce, SAINt JHN, and Wizkid.

Donald Trump hosted in the Oval Office at the White House survivors of religious persecution from 17 countries around the world, including Nadia Murad, an Iraqi Yazidi human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner. And, Trump is being roundly slammed because he was so focused on the fact that Murad has a Nobel Prize that he couldn’t focus on why she won or what happened to her family. Also, speaking of Trump, his friend, Jeffrey Epstein was denied bail in his sex trafficking case.

School Lunch Program Officials Running Amok. Roughly 1,000 letters were sent to parents whose kids are in school in the Wyoming Valley West School District in Pennsylvania. The letter said pay your lunch debt, or your kids will go into foster care. Joanne Van Saun, who runs the local child and youth services agency, is not happy and clapped back at the Wyoming Valley West School District, saying, 'To weaponize my agency was just outrageous'. 

Once the media made Ms. Van Saun's comments public, the West Wyoming School District pulled back its comment about putting kids in foster care.

Unfortunately, last week, there was so much national attention on Donald Trump’s outrageous use of Congressional Representative Ilhan Omar, as his poster child to get votes for 2020, that the American people did not know that Representative Omar had introduced legislation to end school lunch debt shaming.

Janet Jackson and Daddy Yankee perform for 30,000 people in Harlem; LisaRaye criticize for ending engagement | VIDEO

QUICK TAKES

It’s official. Tamar Braxton has confirmed she’s NO LONGER with her ex, Vincent Hubert. Also, they quietly sold their L.A. property for $9.25 million, much less than the original asking price and even less than the $10.5 million they paid to buy it in 2012. They also paid their former nanny $213,431.37 from a judgment she won relating to unpaid wages.

The beef between Nicki Minaj and her ex-boo, Safaree, has gotten so loud that MTV beefed up its Video Music Awards security.

ESPN has decided to not televise the National Anthem during NFL Games.

Jesse Williams went before a judge to get his child support payments lowered, but the Judge in the case said no way. So, thus far, the Grey’s Anatomy actor will continue to pay his ex-wife Aryn Drake-Lee the court-ordered $50K for his two children. OUCH!

Bossip is reporting that Lauryn Hill’s NJ mansion is in foreclosure because a nearly $1 million tax bill has gone unpaid.

Pop star Janet Jackson performed before 30,000 adoring fans in front of the State Office Building in Harlem for Harlem Week.

And, we end this Quick Takes segment with condolences to the family and friends of two icons, Kofi Annan and Aretha Franklin. Annan was the first Black person to serve as UN Secretary-General, and the first officeholder to be elected from the UN staff itself. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize.

Aretha Franklin, The Queen of Soul, was not only a pop singer but a cultural icon that helped to bridge the racial divide with her music. Franklin’s first hit, “Respect,” immediately became an anthem of the African-American civil rights movement and later other movements. In addition to Franklin’s 20 Grammy Awards, she was the first woman to receive a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame award. She performed at the White House for several presidents and received a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George Bush in 2005. Thank you, Aretha, for your life-long contributions to the world.

WHAT’S POPPIN – CULTURE

The culture of taping everything. In the last few weeks, we have learned that Omarosa Manigault Newman has perhaps, hours of tape from her time in the White House. And, we already know that Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, has hours of recorded telephone conversations with Donald Trump.

WHAT’S POPPIN –RELATIONSHIPS

Recently, LisaRaye McCoy got engaged to Anthony B. on the television show, The Proposal. A month after a 2nd proposal at her home with family and friends, LisaRaye has called off the wedding. During a Facebook Live, LisaRaye said she's glad she did the show, and that she did the show because she was "lonely" and wanted to find a companion. LisaRaye then went on to say that she wants a man that's "equally yoked."

Soon after that comment, some on the Facebook Live started calling her a gold-digger because in effect, she considered Anthony B’s net worth to be too low.

Q. Is it fair to call LisaRaye a gold digger?

WHAT’S POPPIN – HEALTH

Southwest Airlines has joined the list of airlines to crack down on “Emotional Support Animals” flying with passengers.

The airline is limiting the ESAs to dogs and cats, so no, you can’t bring your pet peacock or kangaroo, and claim they are emotional support animals.

Q. As one who travels by plane often, do you welcome this announcement? Do wish the NYC Transit would do the same?

WHAT’S POPPIN – RELATIONSHIPS

Refinery29 posted an article, What Happened When I Moved in With A Casual Fling. A woman’s roommate unexpectedly moved from their rent-stabilized NYC SoHo apartment, so she now had to find a new roommate or a new apartment, and a guy she had been dating for six weeks became her new roommate. They broke up for financial reasons and both moved on with their lives. Lo and behold, a few years later they are both financially stable, living in L.A. and married with children.

Q. This story went well, rather fairytale like. Do you think this happens more than we know?

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

Our Quote of the Week is:

“Kindness comes back like a boomerang by those who are kind. Perhaps its return takes years. Perhaps the kindness returns from a different direction. But, it will return. It is never lost.”

This is a quote attributed to John Marks Templeton and was posted by Denise Hurley.

If you would like for us to shine a light on a quote, hit us up on our Facebook page or on LinkedIn.

 PHOTO OF THE WEEK:

Our Photo of the Week is a photo of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West at the wedding of 2Chainz and Kesha Ward this past weekend in Miami.