AURN News

On Oct. 27, Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden unfolded as a troubling showcase of racism, misogyny, and anger, just nine days before Election Day.

The event opened with a comedian referring to Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage,” mocking Hispanics, and using a racial stereotype about watermelon to insult a Black man in the audience.

Other speakers attacked Vice President Kamala Harris, describing her as having “pimp handlers” and calling her “the Antichrist.” Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson added to the rhetoric by mocking Harris’ diverse background.

By the time Trump took the stage, what was advertised as a final rally had devolved into a spectacle of grievances and racial animosity.

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In this episode of Hollywood Live, Tanya Hart covers the latest viral moment involving Denzel Washington. The actor was caught on video in a tense exchange with a crowd of paparazzi and autograph seekers outside New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. When someone in the crowd shouted, “Show some love, Denzel,” the Oscar-winner firmly responded, “I got nothing but love, but respect me first.” The video quickly spread online, proving once again that Denzel doesn’t play around. And yes, he’s gearing up for his next big film, Gladiator II.

Tanya also dives into the swirling rumors surrounding Sean “Diddy” Combs and Jamie Foxx. During a taping of his upcoming Netflix special, What Had Happened Was, Jamie reportedly touched on allegations that Diddy was involved in his mysterious medical emergency last year. While some audience members claim Jamie hinted at Diddy’s involvement and said he contacted the FBI, others dispute these accounts. With so much speculation, all eyes are on Foxx’s upcoming special to see what he really has to say.

For more updates and behind-the-scenes stories, follow Tanya on social media and visit AURN online.

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(AURN News) — The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention reported Friday that the E. coli outbreak connected to McDonald's Quarter Pounders has expanded, with 75 people now sickened across multiple states, including 22 hospitalizations and one death. Three additional states have been added to the affected areas which now stands at 13, according to the CDC. 

“Taylor Farms, the supplier of slivered onions to the affected McDonald’s locations, has initiated a voluntary recall and has asked customers to stop using some onions while this investigation is ongoing. Food service customers were contacted directly and told to remove onions,” the CDC said.

Despite the outbreak's expansion, officials stated Friday that "due to the product actions taken by both companies, CDC believes the risk to the public is very low." Health officials do advise getting medical attention for severe symptoms including diarrhea, fever above 102 degrees, vomiting, and signs of dehydration. E. coli symptoms typically emerge three to four days after exposure, with most cases resolving without treatment within a week.

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DALLAS (AURN News) — Two months into her historic role as the first executive director of Public Media Women in Leadership (PMWL), Aishah Rashied Hyman is already transforming how PBS and NPR stations approach diversity in both leadership and audience engagement. "When I found public media, I felt like I found the planet that I was supposed to be on professionally," says Rashied Hyman. "But it wasn't perfect. There were still challenges."

Those challenges include a leadership landscape that hasn't always reflected America's diversity. But data supports change, she argues: "When women are leading, the conversations are more inclusive, there's more engagement, there's more mentoring and nurturing of that next generation."

Her approach stems from PMWL's boot camp program, which she credits with changing her own career trajectory. "What I realized through the program is that there weren't any insurmountable barriers other than just my own mind. My mindset was the biggest barrier to my professional advancement in public media,” she told AURN News.

Now she's focused on creating similar opportunities for others. "When I see the spark in a young person, particularly young women of color, I see myself in them. And I want to make sure everybody gets pulled up," she says. "I want that spark to become a huge flame, so that they can go on and do great things."

Under her leadership at various stations, including her recent role as Senior Vice President of Development at KERA, Rashied Hyman's leadership generated more than $200 million from diverse audiences over two decades. At the same time, Rashied Hyman has consistently pushed for systemic change in how public media operates and who it serves. She was a founding member of Public Media For All, a diverse coalition of public media workers, led by people of color, advocating for more diversity, equity and inclusion in the industry.

"It's not enough for us to have diverse storytellers and diverse staff working inside of public television and radio stations," she explains. "We need the people who support public media to represent our communities across the country as well, because investment from donors has the biggest impact on our ability to tell the stories of our diverse community. The collective input from our supporters impacts whose stories we tell, who produces the content, what stays on the air."

She also points to her successful initiative at Georgia Public Broadcasting, where partnerships with organizations like African Ancestry.com opened new pathways for community engagement. "People in our community were telling us that they didn't feel like we were asking them to get involved. They didn't feel like they were invited to the table when it came to giving and supporting public media."

Rashied Hyman is equally focused on transforming content creation and programming. "The days of one or two people at a station or at a network deciding what a potential audience might want to see... that's just a really antiquated approach," she says. "We've got to engage our audience, really our community, as storytellers, as content creators and as programmers."

Her mission is deeply rooted in public media's founding principles. "It was absolutely created for underserved communities," she says. "That's why it was invented in the first place. That's what the Public Broadcasting Act was all about. If you go back and read it, that's exactly what it says."

The impact of representation remains central to her vision. Speaking of her own experience wearing natural hair and traditional African clothing on air, she recalls: "Little girls would come up to me and say, 'Oh, that's the lady with the real black hair and the black name.' There was something about not just me being a black woman on television, but the way I was showing up as my authentic self."

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Beyoncé will join Vice President Kamala Harris at a rally in Houston today, marking their first joint appearance, according to sources familiar with the event.

The rally, which will also feature Willie Nelson, is set to be a major campaign moment. Harris’s team has been working behind the scenes for months to arrange the appearance ahead of Election Day.

Beyoncé’s collaboration with Harris has been ongoing, with the artist previously granting permission for her song “Freedom” to be used as the campaign’s anthem, a move first reported in July. While Beyoncé has endorsed Democratic candidates in the past, this will be her first official rally appearance for Harris.

During the event, Harris is expected to highlight abortion rights and draw distinctions between her stance and former President Trump’s, particularly criticizing Texas’ restrictive abortion laws.

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DALLAS (AURN News) — Real estate mogul Grant Cardone, whose portfolio reportedly exceeds $4.88 billion (AUM), is taking an unconventional approach to addressing economic disparities in Black communities, advocating for radical changes in how Americans think about wealth creation and financial education. In an extensive exclusive interview with AURN News, Cardone emphasized his commitment to challenging traditional financial advice that he believes has held back generations of Black Americans. "If you came from parents that maybe were slaves 400 years ago, or your great grandparents, and you look at your life today and say, 'Man, I got a suit on, I look good, I got nothing to complain about' —so you have everything to complain about," Cardone said. 

“I was raised in the middle class. I was a drug addict at 15 years old. I went from being a middle-class family, brought up, taken care of. My dad dies, the leadership in the family was gone, the man image was gone. The direction, and the strength in the family was gone. And then the next thing you know, five years later, I'm a daily drug user. I get trapped in drugs for 10 years. I end up living on the streets. I destroyed everything, the money, a little bit of money I had, the education that I was being given where I lived. I'm out on the streets. I'm literally homeless. I had to rebuild. So the first thing to rebuild is to admit, hey, I'm screwed up here. Everything has to be relearned, and everything should be challenged,” he added.

The entrepreneur, who overcame early personal struggles including drug addiction and homelessness, has faced both praise and criticism for his direct approach to addressing racial economic disparities. Cardone strongly challenges conventional wisdom about paths to wealth creation, particularly within minority communities. He argues against traditional advice about college education, which he sees as a potential trap. “If you've been told that higher education is the only way for Blacks and Browns and for poor White people to get up, it is not true. It's a trap. We have $1.6 trillion worth of college debt, $1.3 trillion of credit card debt. We have the highest bankruptcies in history, with the highest credit card delinquencies and the highest interest rates, and people are still doing this stuff, like, like, you got to relearn things,” he told AURN News.

The successful businessman also takes particular aim at conventional homeownership advice, which he believes can impede wealth creation in Black communities. "Paying a mortgage of $4,000 a month and another $2,500 to $10,000 a year in insurance, plus property taxes, plus maintenance, plus the interest — is slavery," Cardone stated emphatically. Instead, he advocates for investment in income-producing real estate and business ownership.

"One person can make a difference to a community," Cardone insisted, drawing parallels to influential figures in Black history. "Jesus Christ had them. Martin Luther King had them. Malcolm X had them. Every successful person on the planet has been hated by others that did less than they did."

The real estate investor expressed a deep personal connection to his mission: "I have this unexplainable interest in the Black community. Always have... It's so alive, it's so fun, it's so rich, and it pains me to watch a group of people suffer financially when it's not necessary."

His message ultimately focuses on breaking free from traditional financial constraints: "We have to relearn what our parents and great-grandparents got wrong," he emphasized, adding that modern wealth creation requires new thinking and strategies that go beyond conventional wisdom about savings and investment.

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In this breaking episode of Hollywood Live, Tanya Hart delivers the latest buzz about Beyoncé possibly joining Vice President Kamala Harris at a rally in Houston this Friday. While The Hollywood Reporter has yet to confirm the news, the rumors are swirling. If true, Beyoncé’s appearance could be a game-changing moment, given her massive influence and dedicated fan base.

Adding to the excitement, the rally might also feature appearances by Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, and country music legend Willie Nelson. With such star power on stage, this event could generate serious momentum for Harris’ campaign. As always, Tanya is keeping you in the loop with the latest updates, so stay tuned for more details.

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On this day, Oct. 24, 1996, Berry Gordy, the visionary founder of Motown Records, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Gordy established Motown in 1959 in Detroit, creating a musical powerhouse that would change the industry forever.

Under his leadership, Motown launched the careers of iconic African-American artists like Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and the Supremes, along with many other household names. Known for its distinctive sound, Motown broke racial barriers and became a symbol of unity and cultural pride.

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AURN News) — Federal health officials are investigating a multi-state E. coli outbreak linked to McDonald's Quarter Pounders that has sickened 49 people, hospitalized 10, and resulted in one death, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported Wednesday. The outbreak, first identified on October 22, has prompted McDonald's to temporarily halt the use of slivered onions and quarter-pound beef patties at restaurants across multiple states while investigators work to identify the specific contaminated ingredient.

According to the CDC, the restaurant chain has removed these ingredients from locations in Colorado, Kansas, Utah, Wyoming, and portions of Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. The majority of illnesses have been reported in Colorado and Nebraska.

The CDC also reports that most affected individuals fell ill after consuming Quarter Pounder hamburgers, though investigators have not yet determined which specific ingredient is responsible for the contamination. "McDonald's is collaborating with investigation partners to determine what food ingredient in Quarter Pounders is making people sick," the CDC said.

CDC officials advise seeking medical attention for severe E. coli symptoms, including diarrhea, fever above 102 degrees, vomiting, and signs of dehydration. E. coli symptoms typically appear three to four days after exposure, with most people recovering without treatment within five to seven days.

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AURN News) — With more than 22 million Americans having already cast their ballots in the presidential race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, a new survey reveals concerns about accepting potential election losses among voters from both major parties. The research, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), a nonpartisan organization, found that one in five Republican voters would support Trump declaring invalid results and taking office by force if he loses the election. By comparison, one in ten Democratic voters indicated they would back similar actions by Harris in the event of her defeat.

The national race remains close between Trump and Harris, though polling indicates Harris maintains a slight advantage in critical swing states that are likely to determine the election's outcome. The PRRI survey also revealed broader concerns about potential authoritarian governance, with 49% of those surveyed expressing worry that Trump would use the presidency to become a dictator. A smaller portion, 28%, indicated similar concerns about Harris.

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