Author: Jeric Macaraan

Eight experienced on-air reporters and anchors lost their jobs at WGN-Ch. 9 in Chicago on Monday, February 23, in a sweeping round of cuts that rattled one of the city’s most storied newsrooms. Some staffers were informed mid-shift and cleared out before the day ended. By Monday evening, the full picture had come into focus — leaving colleagues stunned, shaken, and deeply uncertain about what lies ahead. The reductions were confirmed by multiple insiders at the station, with budgetary pressures tied to parent company Nexstar Media Group cited as the driving force. Station management told those affected that the cuts…

The underground music world is grieving today. Luci4, the Los Angeles rapper born James Dear who pioneered the internet microgenre sigilkore and captured a generation with his viral hit BodyPartz, has died at just 23 years old. His passing on February 22, 2026, has sent shockwaves far beyond the niche online communities that first discovered him — and the circumstances surrounding his death have left his family, fans, and the music industry deeply unsettled. The Los Angeles Fire Department responded to a medical emergency call at a friend’s residence in Los Angeles at 11:40 AM on Saturday. When first responders…

There are songs that chart, and then there are songs that define a generation. For Alicia Keys, Fallin’ is undeniably the latter. As the iconic track approaches its 25th anniversary — having first arrived in March 2001 — Keys is taking a rare and meaningful look back at the moment that launched her from a fiercely talented young artist into one of the most celebrated musicians of her era. She was just 20 years old when Fallin’ introduced her to the world. Young, determined, and armed with a voice that felt completely unlike anything on the radio at the time,…

Salesforce is having a rough year — and the numbers make that impossible to ignore. Shares of the enterprise software giant recently hit a 52-week low of $180.24 on February 12, a level that signals just how far the Salesforce stock has fallen from its previous highs. Over the past 12 months, Salesforce has shed roughly 40% of its value, a steep and painful slide that has rattled investors and drawn intense scrutiny from Wall Street analysts. The decline puts the company at a crossroads. It is navigating a brutally competitive tech landscape, broader economic headwinds, and growing questions about…

New Jersey woke up Monday buried. A powerful winter storm that rolled in overnight has dumped historic amounts of snow across the state, with totals that are turning heads and breaking records from the northern counties all the way down to the Jersey Shore. The numbers are striking. Data from the National Weather Service shows that much of North Jersey has been blanketed with more than a foot of snow, while coastal areas along the Jersey Shore have seen totals creeping closer to two feet of accumulation. In some spots, residents stepped outside Monday morning to find their cars completely…

PayPal Holdings is in full crisis mode. The San Jose-based digital payments company delivered a fourth-quarter earnings report that fell short of revenue and adjusted earnings expectations, sending shares tumbling more than 20% and forcing a dramatic leadership overhaul at one of Silicon Valley’s most recognizable financial brands. Alex Chriss is out as chief executive officer. Enrique Lores, the former chief executive of HP Inc., will step in to lead the company as it attempts to reverse a prolonged slump that has left investors frustrated and competitors emboldened. The timing could hardly be more precarious — PayPal is fighting to…

The corner of Archer Street and Greenwood Avenue in Tulsa, Oklahoma holds more history per square foot than almost anywhere else in America. That gold-and-green street sign — Black Wall Street, planted right above North Greenwood Ave — is not just a marker. It is a declaration. And right now, that corner is at the center of a national conversation that is only getting louder. Greenwood District, once the most prosperous Black community in American history, was torn apart by a violent white mob in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. For decades, the story was buried, the losses went uncompensated,…

Southern California’s uneasy relationship with the ground beneath it was on full display again Sunday night when a 3.5 magnitude earthquake rolled through the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Rancho Palos Verdes. The tremor struck at approximately 9:40 p.m., hitting roughly 14 miles south-southwest of the coastal city at a depth of about 6.7 miles beneath the ocean floor. A smaller 1.9 magnitude aftershock followed within minutes, rattling nerves already on edge from weeks of heightened seismic chatter up and down the California coast. The U.S. Geological Survey’s Did You Feel It system lit up with reports from thousands…

There are old schools, and then there is Shaw University. Sitting in the heart of downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, behind a gold-lettered sign that reads Founded 1865, Shaw carries a weight that most institutions could not begin to comprehend. It was born in the same year slavery was abolished in America — not as a coincidence, but as a declaration. Shaw University did not just open its doors. It swung them wide open for an entire people who had been told, by law, that education was not for them. That story, 160 years in the making, is one of the…

A group photo should not be this powerful. But there they are — young Black men and women, side by side, draped in HBCU hoodies and jackets, smiling wide in front of a brick wall like they own every inch of it. And honestly? They do. That image captures something that numbers alone cannot fully explain, but the numbers sure do help tell the story. HBCU pride is no longer a quiet thing There was a time when wearing your HBCU on your chest was seen as a niche flex — a regional thing, a family tradition thing, a historically…