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☆ Actor Bruce Willis diagnosed with dementia
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Danielle Broadway | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

LOS ANGELES, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Actor Bruce Willis has been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, his family said on Thursday, nearly a year after the "Die Hard" franchise star retired due to aphasia that hampered his cognitive abilities. “Since we announced Bruce’s diagnosis of aphasia in spring 2022, Bruce’s condition has progressed and we now have a more specific diagnosis: frontotemporal dementia (known as FTD), his family said in a statement posted on The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration website. "Unfortunately, challenges with communication are just one symptom of the disease Bruce faces. The actor’s oldest daughter, actor Rumer Willis, also posted the announcement on Instagram and received support from others in the entertainment industry. But Willis is perhaps best known for playing the tough-as-nails New York cop who pursued bad guys in the five "Die Hard" movies, released from 1988 to 2013.

☆ Bruce Willis' 'condition has progressed' to frontotemporal dementia, his family says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Saba Hamedy | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Bruce Willis attends the Comedy Central Roast of Bruce Willis at Hollywood Palladium on July 14, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. Actor Bruce Willis has frontotemporal dementia, his family said Thursday. In a heartfelt Instagram post, ex-wife Demi Moore and Rumer Willis, the couple's eldest daughter, shared that the actor's aphasia diagnosis, which the family had announced in March 2022, has progressed. In March, the Willis/Moore family had said Willis would be "stepping away" from his career following the aphasia diagnosis, which they said had impacted his cognitive abilities. Representatives for Moore and Willis did not immediately respond to further request for comment on Thursday.

LONDON, Jan 20 (Reuters) - British police fined Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Friday for travelling in the back seat of a car without wearing his seat belt while filming a social media clip, a potentially embarrassing blow as he tries to revive his party's fortunes. Sunak, who apologised on Thursday for a "brief error of judgement", filmed a video in the back seat of his car while travelling in the north of England, without wearing a seat belt. "The prime minister fully accepts this was a mistake and has apologised. It is the second penalty Sunak has received from police after last year they found he broke COVID-19 lockdown rules, along with then-prime minister Boris Johnson. Sunak becomes the second prime minister after Johnson to have been fined in such a manner.

Last week, the Bruces’ great-grandsons sold it back to the county for nearly $20 million. However, equally as shortsighted is treating this case as a model for reparations for all Black Americans, as some have suggested. Doing so would ignore that true reparation requires repair, and this solution doesn’t address the sources of racial inequality in America’s real estate system. Invariably, Blacks’ property was most endangered when it became valuable, or when it threatened the value of white property and business interests. In gentrifying housing markets, tax sales serve as a lucrative profit source, whose main victims are Black, elderly and low-income people.

☆ Los Angeles County to pay Black family $20 million to buy back wrongly seized beach
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( Brendan O'Brien | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Jan 4 (Reuters) - Los Angeles County will spend $20 million to purchase a prime beachfront property from the heirs of an African-American couple who were given the land back a century after local officials unjustly stripped it from them. The Bruce family has informed county officials that they have decided to sell Bruce's Beach to the county for the estimated value of the Manhattan Beach property, Janice Hahn, chairperson of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, said in a tweet on Tuesday. Before it was taken by the county, the property had been a rare resort where Black people could gather and enjoy the beach in segregated and discriminatory Los Angeles County of the early 20th century. When it was returned, the Bruce family had agreed to lease it to the county for $413,000 per year, while the county retained the right to buy it. Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Chicago Editing by Peter GraffOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The city did nothing with the property, and it was transferred to the state of California and then to Los Angeles County. The county built its lifeguard training headquarters on the land, which includes a small parking lot. And then it turned into a tragic story for my family,” Anthony Bruce, the great- great-grandson of the Bruces, previously told NBC News. And unfortunately, my family was the victim of a hate crime and the prejudice that was around during those times. Hahn learned about the property’s history and launched the complex process of returning the property, including determining that two great-grandsons of the Bruces are their legal heirs.

☆ The not-quite-redemption of South Africa's infamous ultra-marathon cheats
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( Ryan Brown | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +35 min

"A runner can always recognize another runner," Eugene tells me. Ryan Brown for insiderIn those days, they didn't run for South Africa, but for QwaQwa – one of ten "homelands" established for Black South Africans. Tiny, non-contiguous territories – supposedly, the original territory of different Black South African ethnic groups – dotted across the country. It didn't turn out like that, but it didn't turn out like that for most Black South Africans either. As I sat speaking to Sergio, South Africa's president, Cyril Ramaphosa, was fighting for his political life after revelations that wads of cash, potentially ill-gotten, had been stolen from inside his sofa.

☆ For $15k and a signed NDA, students at Kanye West's unaccredited Donda Academy start the day with 'full school worship' before parkour enrichment classes
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-22 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

The unaccredited pre-K through 12th-grade school, Donda Academy, costs $15,000 per year to attend, Rolling Stone reported. In comparison, Donda Academy charges $15,000 per student, Rolling Stone reported, with about half of students receiving some sort of financial aid. Donda Academy, its principal, Brianne Campbell; assistant principal, Allison Tidwell; and sports director Shayla Scott did not respond to Insider's requests for comment. Tamar Andrews, an educational consultant for Donda Academy, confirmed to Rolling Stone that parents are asked to sign an "informal agreement" to enroll. "The process of Donda school is for the parishioners, for the attendees," Yusef told Rolling Stone.

☆ Analysis: Falling demand for COVID boosters puts price hikes on the table
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Michael Erman | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Last year, many on Wall Street were estimating the number of COVID-19 shots would be in line with the annual flu vaccine, which is the vaccine market leader with more than 160 million shots per year in the United States and 600 million shots globally. A recent poll by Kaiser Family Foundation found that two-thirds of American adults do not plan on getting a COVID vaccine soon. He added that instances of COVID infections in those who have been vaccinated has left many to question the effectiveness of the vaccine. The companies could make up for some of the weaker demand with price increases. That would mean annual revenue of $3 billion to $5 billion over the long-term for a company like Moderna, he added.

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