The video is about racism and the issues that black Americans face in the United States. Within two days, the video received more than 30 million views on YouTube.

The Messages Behind The Music

"This Is America" begins with a black man in a chair. He is playing the guitar. The camera soon finds Glover. He stands behind the man. The man's head has been covered with a bag. Glover pulls out a gun and shoots him. 

On Twitter, several have said Glover looks like a minstrel character named Jim Crow. Minstrel shows began in the 1800s. They made fun of black people. The name comes from the late 1800s. Back then "Jim Crow Laws" referred to unfair laws meant to keep white and black people separate. 

White people usually played the show's characters. White people painted their faces black with makeup. This is called blackface. This is racist and wrong.

Glover dances in a funny way in the video. He makes funny faces. This is how minstrel characters acted. Glover takes the viewer's eye from the background. Troubling events are happening behind him. This distraction seems on purpose. It shows that the bad things happening to black Americans is not being focused on.

In one scene, a church group sings. Glover dances in front of the black singers. He is handed a gun and shoots the members of the choir. The scene is a reminder of the 2015 church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, where nine black people were killed. The shooter was a white supremacist. This means he thought white people are better than people of other races. This is hateful and wrong. 

Sharon Risher's mom died in the shooting. Risher said the video has an important message. It says being killed has been made to seem normal for blacks.

"It makes you pause and think, 'How are you going to survive being black in America?'" Risher said.

In the video, police chase black people. Young people hold cellphones and watch. Cellphones have been used to record police violence. Some police officers have shot or hurt black people.

Even the cars in the video might carry a message. The cars are from the 1980s and 1990s. Most music videos show off fancy new cars. 

Some Twitter users talked about the old cars. They said the cars show black people's lives have not changed for the better. Many do not have better social or economic situations. They face more challenges to improve their living conditions. 

"This Is America" is a hard video to watch. Still, it is important we watch it.

However, they are in Los Angeles and that seems to be good enough for James. It had better be. James could not beat the Golden State Warriors with the Cleveland Cavaliers. It will be even tougher with the Lakers.

Of course, the Lakers wanted James. Not only is he famous, but he is the greatest player of his generation, possibly of all time. He could probably pull four guys from a community basketball court and take them to the NBA Finals. He has the skill and talent to carry a team. Just look at what he did with the struggling Cavaliers.

For a while, the Lakers were at the height of the NBA. In the 1960s and '70s, they had star players Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor. Later came the great shooter Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

The addition of Magic Johnson in 1979 made the Lakers America's first true star-studded team. Under their flashy head coach, Pat Riley, the team played a fast-paced offense that was new and fun to watch. Everyone knew Johnson, Abdul-Jabbar and the Lakers, even if they did not care about sports.

Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson brought a different vibe, but their games were still entertaining. They were winning titles even as the players fought off-court, a tale made for Hollywood. When the big breakup finally came, Bryant somehow managed to keep the spotlight.

All dynasties fall, though, and the Lakers were no different.

Hobbled by injuries, Bryant was just a shadow of the player he used to be. He finally stepped down 2016. The Lakers failed to make the playoffs in his last three seasons and did not even win 20 games during his last year. In the last few years, Los Angeles has failed to win even half of their games. The team might as well be playing in a different league from Golden State, Houston and Oklahoma City.

The Lakers have become like an aging star who needs something new to be important again. Enter James.

It is understandable why Los Angeles would appeal to James. He needs to think about what he will do when he leaves basketball. Now, he is in the middle of Hollywood. He can also get advice from Johnson, whose success in the business world is just as great as anything he did with the Lakers.

Best of all, he can just play basketball without the pressure of representing his hometown, Cleveland.

Championship titles, however, will be as hard to come by as they were in Cleveland. Maybe harder, because the Lakers play in a much tougher region. They will have to go through talented teams such as Golden State, Houston or Oklahoma City, just to get to the Finals.

Some people already think James gets more praise than he deserves. While he has won three championships, he has come home empty-handed in six other trips to the NBA Finals. Going to the Lakers will only make the critics bolder. They will be able to compare him to past great Lakers players. 

James may always fail to measure up to Lakers history. No matter what he does, the Lakers will never be "his" team the way it was for others. His legend is already mixed up with one, maybe two, other teams.

Those are worries for the future, however. The Lakers' concern is the present and, thanks to James, they are the biggest name in the NBA again. That is worth every penny of the $154 million they will pay him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmC_d6_SU3w

LeBron James in Game 2 of the NBA Finals in June

James did not pick up his option Friday with the Cleveland Cavaliers, the team he led to its fourth straight NBA finals this year, only to be swept by the Golden State Warriors in four games.

Some had expected the move to Los Angeles, where the Ohio native owns two homes. The announcement came on the first day of free agency.

James, 33, is a four-time NBA Most Valuable Player and arguably the league's most dominant player.

He joined the league In 2003 as the first overall draft pick by Cleveland.

But he shocked fans in 2010 by going to Miami, where he won his first championship with the Heat in 2012.

Two years later, it was back to the Cavs. And in June 2016, they beat the Golden State Warriors 93-89 in a deciding Game 7 to win the NBA Championship. His performance earned him unanimous MVP honors.

The victory was the first major sports championship for a Cleveland team since 1964.

The Lakers haven't made the playoffs in five years

The MCU has not been without its bumps, most notably in the early days with The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 2, but Marvel Studios was able to right the ship enough to get to The Avengers, which is where the MCU was permanently solidified as one of the most successful franchises around.

In anticipation of Infinity Warand to celebrate a decade of moviemaking, Marvel Studios has released a new extended featurette that somewhat details the history of the production studio and the road that led them to Infinity War. It opens delightfully with footage of Favreau weeks before Iron Man hit theaters, in which he predicts that the ceiling for Iron Man’s success would be as a solid single. As we all know, the film was more like a home run, and the featurette then features footage shot on the set of Infinity War in which the actors and filmmakers discuss the MCU’s evolution and rise in hindsight.

It’s a fun featurette, but I do hope we get a deeper piece on the MCU with the Infinity War Blu-ray, preferably in the form of a feature-length documentary that doesn’t cut corners. I’d love to hear Feige talk candidly about The Incredible Hulk or how Iron Man 2 nearly wrecked the MCU idea or frequent criticisms lobbied against Marvel movies. Something that bare is probably too much to ask for, but Collider’s own Matt Goldberg has been doing a great job diving deep on each MCU film individually in his retrospective series, so we’ve got that.

Up to 180,000 employees at Starbucks stores and at its headquarters received training from a "tool kit" with a "focus on understanding prejudice and the history of public accommodations in the United States." Starbucks also said future training will address "all aspects of bias and experience."

Stores closed for three hours or longer starting at 1 p.m. or 2 p.m., across the U.S. Tuesday.

The training followed an incident at a Starbucks store in Philadelphia in April in which a manager called police on two African-American men who were quietly waiting for a friend. Her complaint: They hadn't bought anything. Staffers also denied letting one use a restroom. Police arrested the pair for trespassing, but they were later let go without charges and Starbucks and police apologized.

With demonstrators marching on the Philadelphia store chanting "A whole lot of racism, a whole lot of 🤬, Starbucks coffee is anti-black" after the incident came to light, CEO Kevin Johnson ordered the anti-racial bias training session.

The sessions began after the lunch rush. The training is going to be expensive, with some experts estimating the undertaking will cost more than $12 million in lost profit alone.

Executive Chairman Howard Schultz said he considered the training necessary. Starbucks also offered a chance to talk to a few employees that it has selected later int eh day. The company's plan to shield the sessions from outsiders, including members of the media, isn't unusual and may actually help the company achieve its goals. 

 "An important part of discussing sensitive topics like race, class, gender and sexuality is creating safe spaces for open dialogue. You cannot accomplish that goal with people external to the exercise disrupting these safe spaces," said Dr. Nsenga K. Burton an expert on the intersection of race, class, gender and sexuality and media and chair of Mass Media at Clark Atlanta University.

 "Having people present who are external to the diversity training process like members of the media changes the group dynamics and may make some members less likely to be share or receive needed information thereby undermining the purpose of the training," she said.

"Whether we want to admit it or not, we all have unconscious biases," Schultz said at the 2015 session held at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=3V_rqb6Nuc4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=69&v=o__5xvIE3bU

Aquaman sees Jason Momoa reprise the titular role, as he’s forced to contend with his royal legacy and his outsider status. While the character’s pop culture status has made him the butt of jokes over the decades, largely thanks to his rather useless role in the 1970s animated series Super Friends, Aquaman looks to pull from the character’s rich comic book history – most notably Geoff Johns' run on the character in 2011, and make him a power player with popularity akin to Wonder Woman in the eyes of general audience members. By injecting the same adrenaline rush that has served Wan well in both the realms of horror and action, Aquaman looks like a wholly unique moviegoing experience that may be the latter half of 2018’s biggest event film.

[2Pac:]
I see no changes, wake up in the morning and I ask myself:
"Is life worth living? Should I blast myself?"
My I'm tired of being poor and, even worse, I'm black
stomach hurts so I'm looking for a purse to snatch
Cops give a damn about a negro
Pull the trigger, 🤬 a 🤬, he's a hero
"Give the crack to the kids: who the 🤬 cares?
One less hungry mouth on the welfare!"
First ship 'em dope and let 'em deal to brothers
Give 'em guns, step back, watch 'em 🤬 each other
"It's time to fight back," that's what Huey said
Two shots in the dark, now Huey's dead
I got love for my brother
But we can never go nowhere unless we share with each other
We gotta start making changes
Learn to see me as a brother instead of two distant strangers
And that's how it's supposed to be
How can the 🤬 take a brother if he's close to me?
I'd love to go back to when we played as kids
But things change... and that's the way it is

[Talent:]
That's just the way it is
Things'll never be the same
That's just the way it is
Aww yeah
That's just the way it is
Things'll never be the same
That's just the way it is
Aww yeah

[2Pac:]
I see no changes, all I see is racist faces
Misplaced hate makes disgrace to races
We under, I wonder what it takes to make this
One better place, let's erase the wasted
Take the evil out the people, they'll be acting right
'Cause both Black and White are smoking crack tonight
And the only time we chill is when we 🤬 each other
It takes skill to be real, time to heal each other
And although it seems heaven-sent
We ain't ready to see a black president
It ain't a secret, don't conceal the fact:
The penitentiary's packed, and it's filled with blacks
But some things will never change
Try to show another way, but you staying in the dope game
Now tell me, what's a mother to do?
Being real don't appeal to the brother in you
You gotta operate the easy way
"I made a G today," but you made it in a sleazy way
Selling crack to the kids
"I gotta get paid!", well hey, but that's the way it is

[Talent:]
That's just the way it is
Things'll never be the same
That's just the way it is
Aww yeah
That's just the way it is
Things'll never be the same
That's just the way it is
Aww yeah

[2Pac talking:]
We gotta make a change
It's time for us as a people to start making some changes
Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live
And let's change the way we treat each other
You see the old way wasn't working
So it's on us to do what we gotta do to survive

[2Pac:]
And still I see no changes
Can't a brother get a little peace?
It's war on the streets and a war in the Middle East
Instead of war on poverty
They got a war on 🤬 so the police can bother me
And I ain't never did a crime I ain't have to do
But now I'm back with the facts giving it back to you
Don't let 'em jack you up, back you up
Crack you up and 🤬-smack you up
You gotta learn to hold your own
They get jealous when they see you with your mobile phone
But tell the cops they can't touch this
I don't trust this, when they try to rush I bust this
That's the sound of my tool
You say it ain't cool, my mama didn't raise no fool
And as long as I stay black, I gotta stay strapped
And I never get to lay back
'Cause I always got to worry 'bout the payback
Some buck that I roughed up way back
Coming back after all these years
"Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat!" That's the way it is

[Talent:]
That's just the way it is
Things'll never be the same
That's just the way it is
Aww yeah
(You're my brother, you're my sister)
That's just the way it is
Things'll never be the same
That's just the way it is
Aww yeah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3rMOjb5OgQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXvBjCO19QY

Police departments and safety officials around the world are warning against the trend, and in some cases reprimanding people who take part in this extreme version of it.

On June 29, Shiggy posted a video to Instagram showing himself dancing in the street to Drake's "In My Feelings." The video went viral, and thousands of people, including celebrities, started filming and posting their own homemade music videos.

Singer Ciara and her husband, NFL star Russell Wilson, shot their video in Cape Town, South Africa. Will Smith did his own "In My Feelings" dance on top of a bridge in Budapest. And that's just a start. A search of the hashtag #InMyFeelingsChallenge on Instagram pulls up over 200,000 posts.

But the challenge soon morphed into something more extreme. Not only are people dancing to "In My Feelings," but they are jumping out of moving cars and busting a move in the middle of a street. People are trying to top others' videos, and are getting hurt in the process. 

While some people appeared to successfully hop out of a slow-moving car and dance alongside it, others have been injured trying to replicate the stunt. Some people recorded themselves falling out of the moving car. Others danced alongside their cars on a busy street, running the risk of getting hit by oncoming vehicles. A few have even posted videos of themselves getting hit while dancing in the street.

The challenge has promoted some police departments in the U.S. and worldwide to issue warnings. InMassachusetts, Police Chief Joseph Solomon called the challenge "super dangerous" and urged people not to try it.

On Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) got into the act and issued a warning against the challenge as well. The NTSB shared a link to its statement via Twitter, saying "We have some thoughts about the #InMyFeelings challenge. #Distraction in any mode is dangerous & can be deadly." 

"In transportation, distraction kills. Drivers and operators in all modes of transportation must keep their hands, eyes, and minds focused on operating their vehicle," the warning on NTSB's website says.

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/ntsb-issues-warning-over-challenge-inspired-by-drakes-in-my-feelings/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agrcPybNT8s

One of the biggest of these young YouTube celebrities is a 6-year-old named Ryan, who plays with toys. Videos of Ryan playing entertain millions of children across the globe.

Since he was 3 years old, Ryan's parents have been capturing videos of him opening toys. They take videos of him playing with the toys and "reviewing" them. The videos are then posted on their YouTube channel, "Ryan ToysReview."

Ryan's last name is a secret. So is where he lives. There's a good reason for that: Thanks to his videos, Ryan has become a multi-millionaire. Forbes magazine just put out a list of the highest-paid people on YouTube. Ryan was listed at number eight. He earned $11 million between June 1, 2016, and June 1, 2017. That was before before his family paid taxes.

Soon the boy started playing with not just one toy at a time, but two, and then dozens. After about four months, his YouTube channel saw an explosion in the number of viewers. This happened because of a video of Ryan reviewing 100 toy cars at once. 

"Ryan ToysReview" took off. Views started doubling every month. In January of 2016, he hit 1 million subscribers. A year later, he had more than 5 million. Now, he's at more than 10 million subscribers. His videos have over 16 million views.

There are many ads on Ryan's YouTube channel. When millions of people see that Ryan loves a toy, that means good sales for that product in the stores. Each time someone clicks on one of Ryan's videos, his family makes money.

James knows what it’s like to be an at-risk student himself. As a fourth grader, he says, he missed 83 days of school while he and his mother moved from one couch or spare room to the next. He credits mentors, some of whom he met at school, with a turnaround that helped him attend every day of fifth grade — which was also the first year he played organized basketball.

Now, 240 third- and fourth-graders will make up the inaugural class at the I Promise School, which opened this week in James’ hometown of Akron, Ohio.

James, who has won three NBA championships and four league-MVPs, called the school opening the greatest moment of his career.

“Walking these hallways and seeing, when I was driving here, just the streets that I walked, some of the stores are still up when I was growing up,” he told ESPN. “It’s a moment I’ll never forget — and hopefully the kids, starting with the 240 kids that we have going in here right now starting today, will never forget it, either.”

The school day runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., along with an extended school year that runs from July through May. During a seven-week summer session, the school will provide STEM-based camps. Students will spend time each day on social-emotional learning.

Nutrition is also central to the school’s mission. Every day students will receive free breakfast, lunch, snacks and drinks. They will have access to a fitness trainer. James says that, as a kid, he used his bicycle to explore different neighborhoods of Akron — so he gave one to every incoming student.

Students get one other notable benefit: If they successfully complete the school program and graduate from high school, James will cover their full tuition at the local public college, University of Akron.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMEcUa3mcds

https://nba.nbcsports.com/2018/07/29/lebron-james-speaks-on-opening-of-i-promise-school-in-akron-video/

https://channel961.iheart.com/featured/brooke-morrison/content/2018-07-31-lebron-james-takes-us-on-a-tour-of-his-new-i-promise-school-in-akron/

This technology immerses users in a completely virtual environment that is generated by a computer. The most advanced VR experiences even provide freedom of movement – users can move in a digital environment and hear sounds. Moreover, special hand controllers can be used to enhance VR experiences.

You need to wear a special VR headset to experience virtual reality. Most VR headsets are connected to a computer (Oculus Rift) or a gaming console (PlayStation VR) but there are standalone devices (Google Cardboard is among the most popular) as well. Most standalone VR headsets work in combination with smartphones – you insert a smartphone, wear a headset, and immerse in the virtual reality.

In augmented reality, users see and interact with the real world while digital content is added to it. If this sounds unclear think of Pokemon Go – millions of people all over the world have been rushing with their smartphones in search for small virtual creatures. That’s the most vivid example of augmented reality. Or think of Snap Chats selfie filters.

Mixed reality that starts with the real world – virtual objects are not just overlaid on the real world but can interact with it. In this case, a user remains in the real-world environment while digital content is added to it; moreover, a user can interact with virtual objects. This form of mixed reality can be considered an advanced form of AR. 

The destruction of 5 Pointz was a controversial one for both New York City residents and lovers of the culture, as it continues to remove the beauty and authenticity of its neighborhoods to use it for luxury apartments. 

The artists' graffiti was painted over in 2013 and the buildings were demolished a year later. Developer Gerald Wolfkoff was behind the move, ordering 45 pieces to be whitewashed at the time, which immediately sparked local outrage. The artists later sued under the Visual Artists Rights Act, a 1990 law that protects artwork of "recognized stature."

Each graffiti artist was awarded over $300,000.