Top 5 Live-WURD Wednesday June 17
1. LeBron gave it all he had, but in the end it’s just another Cleveland loss
LeBron James sat alone, wearing nothing but oversized gym shorts and a white towel draped over his face.
Each knee was wrapped in ice. Each foot sat in a bucket of freezing water.
Other than a couple brief hugs from his teammates, everyone left him alone.
It should surprise no one that James was beaten down – physically, mentally, emotionally and, most painfully, on the scoreboard 105-97 in Game 6 of these NBA Finals, losing the series 4-2 to the Golden State Warriors, who were outside, in his house, spraying champagne.
He’d hauled an undermanned team here, deep into June, six games into the Finals, like few, if any, ever had. It wasn’t enough.
“If I could have given more, I would have given it,” he said later.
2. Rachel Dolezal, in Center of Storm, Is Defiant: ‘I Identify as Black’
When she moved in with her uncle in the largely white town of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, in 2004, Rachel Dolezal was still blond, pale-skinned and identified herself as a white woman — one who’d left a black husband and had a biracial child.
But within a few years, co-workers and relatives began hearing from her or others that her background was mixed-race — and even that she had called herself black.
Many of them questioned that description, while others accepted it.
That all crumbled when her parents outed her as white. She resigned as president of the local NAACP, and went on the talk show circuit.
Matt Lauer of NBC’s “Today” show asked her, “When did you start deceiving people?” But Dolezal pushed back.
3. FDA orders food manufacturers to stop using trans fat within three years
Artificial trans fat will have to disappear from the American diet, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The FDA on Tuesday ruled that trans fat is not “generally recognized as safe” for use in human food.
The department gave food manufacturers three years to remove the partially hydrogenated oils, or PHOs, from their products. The companies can petition the FDA for a special permit to use it, but no PHOs can be added to human food unless otherwise approved by the FDA.
Eating a diet rich in trans fat is linked to higher body weight, heart disease and memory loss. It has been shown to raise the “bad,” or LDL, cholesterol in the blood, which can lead to cardiovascular disease — the leading cause of death in the United States.
4. Arrested Prison Worker Joyce Mitchell ‘Distraught’ as Husband Visits
The husband of prison worker Joyce Mitchell visited her behind bars Tuesday for the first time since her arrest for allegedly helping to spring two inmates from an upstate New York lockup.
Through his attorney, Lyle Mitchell said his visit doesn’t mean support. In fact, he said, “There’s no way I’m standing behind her.”
Lyle Mitchell said he visited to ask his wife some questions in light of reports that she may have wanted the inmates to murder her husband.
Lyle Mitchell also worked at the maximum-security Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, where convicted killers David Sweat and Richard Matt escaped about 11 days ago.
Joyce Mitchell, a 51-year-old seamstress at Clinton, appeared in court briefly Monday after pleading not guilty Friday to charges that she supplied tools to help Sweat and Matt bust out of their cells.
5. Psychiatrist: Holmes thought 3-4 times a day about killing
A psychiatrist who treated James Holmes described him Tuesday as someone who thought obsessively about killing people in the months before he opened fire in a crowded movie theater, killing 12 and wounding 70.
Dr. Lynne Fenton testified that Holmes told her in March 2012 that he had “homicidal thoughts” — as often as three or four times a day. As his treatment progressed, he told her his obsession with killing was only getting worse.
And yet, Fenton told a jury there was little she could do because Holmes never talked about specifics. And he never named a target, she testified.
Fenton, who headed the student mental health clinic at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus, was perhaps the most anticipated witness at Holmes’ capital murder trial.
Fenton testified that she treated Holmes from mid-March until June 11.
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Solomon Jones is an Essence bestselling author and award-winning columnist. He is the creator and editor of Solomonjones.com and morning host on 900 am WURD radio. Click here to learn more about Solomon
