Author: Gesi Lloyd

There may be a Gator chomp mixed into a SKOL chant before the 2026 season is over. The Minnesota Vikings used the 18th overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft to select Florida defensive tackle Caleb Banks, handing interim general manager Rob Brzezinski his first major decision and his first major question mark all in one pick. Brzezinski did not ease into the role. He swung. A pick that split opinion immediately Banks arrives in Minnesota as one of the most physically imposing prospects in this draft class. At 6 feet 6 inches and 327 pounds, he is the kind…

The Cowboys walked into the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft holding two picks and walked out with what many analysts are calling the best haul of the night. Through a pair of calculated trades, Dallas added two defensive players, collected extra draft capital and somehow ended the evening in a stronger position than when it started. Texas fans had two teams to watch Thursday night. The Houston Texans also made a move, trading up with the Buffalo Bills from No. 28 to No. 26. But it was Dallas that dominated the conversation long after the picks were in.…

Jada Pinkett Smith is asking a federal judge to make Bilaal Salaam pay for the privilege of losing part of his lawsuit against her. Court documents filed this week show the actress and producer is seeking $48,975 in attorney fees from Salaam, a man who describes himself as a former associate of her husband, Will Smith. The request follows a judge’s decision to dismiss significant portions of Salaam’s $3 million emotional distress claim against her. The legal saga stretches back to the aftermath of one of the most scrutinized moments in recent awards show history. In March 2022, Will Smith…

Presidential elections command national attention, wall-to-wall coverage, and record turnout cycles. Local elections, which determine who controls school budgets, who sets community policy, and who decides which candidates even appear on future ballots, routinely draw about 20% of eligible voters. The gap between those two numbers tells a story that civic advocates have been trying to correct for years. The consequences of that gap are not abstract. They show up in classroom sizes, in school closures, in the direction a political party takes heading into a state race. The decisions made by locally elected officials land closer to daily life…

The first teaser for Clayface is here, and it does not look like any DC film that has come before it. Released yesterday, the footage leans into dread, showing Matt Hagen confined to a hospital bed, already hollowed out before his transformation has fully begun. DC Studios is not easing audiences into this one. Directed by James Watkins and set for release on October 23, 2026, the film lands exactly where the calendar suggests it should. A Halloween weekend DC horror film anchored by body horror and psychological collapse is either a brilliant read of the cultural moment or a…

There is a version of Kehlani that almost did not make it here. She has said as much herself. On April 22, in an interview timed to the release of her self-titled album, the R&B artist spoke at length about her diagnoses of bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, what getting those answers felt like, and how she has spent the past year rebuilding around them. The timing was not incidental. Kehlani first disclosed both diagnoses publicly in April 2025, around her 30th birthday. What followed was not a crisis but a reckoning, one that she has since channeled directly…

In many cultures, a name is the first gift a family gives. For Black families in America, that naming carries extra weight. It connects the living to the dead, the present to a past that was violently interrupted. And for generations, the formal practice of passing names down, through the Jr. and Sr. tradition, belonged almost exclusively to men. Some Black women are changing that, quietly and deliberately, by finding their own ways to carry names forward. A grandfather’s rule that stuck Frances “Toni” Draper, publisher and CEO of the AFRO, grew up with a name shaped by a family…

A Portland woman has filed a $10,000 lawsuit against Trader Joe’s in Multnomah County Circuit Court, alleging she found the fingertip of a rubber glove inside a bottle of the chain’s organic orange juice and may have inadvertently swallowed part of a human finger along with it. The complaint, filed Monday and first reported by OregonLive and KGW-TV, identifies the plaintiff as Julee O’Neil. She says she purchased a 52-ounce bottle of Trader Joe’s Organic Orange Juice from the chain’s location on Northeast Halsey Street in Portland’s Hollywood neighborhood sometime in June 2025. What she found, and what she feared…

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed an order Today reclassifying state-licensed medical marijuana under federal law, marking one of the most consequential shifts in American drug policy in decades. The change moves medical cannabis from Schedule I, the most restrictive federal drug category, to Schedule III, the same tier as ketamine and Tylenol with codeine. The order does not legalize marijuana at the federal level. Recreational use remains prohibited under federal law, and the cultivation, sale and possession of cannabis outside of state-licensed medical programs would still be subject to federal enforcement. What changes is how the government treats the…

Oklahoma City needed just one look at Jalen Williams reaching for his left hamstring to understand what was happening. He motioned toward the bench. They knew. The Thunder beat the Phoenix Suns 120-107 on Wednesday night to take a 2-0 series lead in their first-round Western Conference playoff matchup, but the final score was almost beside the point. With 6:26 remaining in the third quarter, Williams drove toward the basket, pulled up short and grabbed the back of his left leg. He took an intentional foul a few possessions later to exit cleanly, walked to the locker room and did…