San Antonio-Area Chick-fil-A Restaurants to Offer Free Nuggets This Entire Week
Participating Chick-fil-A® restaurants in the San Antonio area will offer a free 8-count Chick-fil-A® Nuggets entrée via the Chick-fil-A® App from Wednesday, Nov. 1 through Wednesday, Nov. 8.
“We are thrilled to offer our community a complimentary entrée to celebrate the fall season,” said Anthony Walker, local Owner-Operator of Chick-fil-A Austin Highway. “We hope this free offer brightens our Guests’ day and shows them how much we appreciate their support.”
Promotion is valid through the app and while supplies last. To claim the offer, guests can open the app and redeem the reward at participating San Antonio-area Chick-fil-A restaurants Wednesday, Nov. 1 through Wednesday, Nov. 8. Limit one per person, per Chick-fil-A One® account. Not valid with any other offer.
Tasha Carr is the owner of Inflatable Movies and More, owns her own Truck Driving Company as well as many other entrepreneurial projects. Tasha is full of energy, positive vibes and is no stranger to hard work and dedication. She loves to collaborate with other business owners on projects and events as well as hosting her own.
Supporting small businesses is a community economy booster. When you support a small business, you’re not just supporting the owner and their employees, you’re also supporting the local economy as a whole. Local businesses are also more likely to use local suppliers and service providers, which helps to keep money circulating within the community.
Sam Houston High School Celebrates 2 Students for Exceptional Academic Achievements
Celebrating the achievements of Sam Houston High School’s 2023 College Board National Recognition Program Awardees, Jose Combs and Zariah Ford. These two outstanding students have been honored for their exceptional academic achievements and dedication during high school.
Jose has earned the National Hispanic Recognition and is set to attend a four-year university in Texas. Meanwhile, Zariah has received the National African American Recognition and also plans to pursue her higher education at a Texas-based four-year university. Congratulations to both for their well-deserved recognition.
ASSE News – Qualified high school students are offered a unique opportunity to explore the world by spending an academic year, semester or summer in Europe, Asia, North or South America, Australia or South Africa as part of the ASSE International Student Exchange Program. A non-profit, public benefit organization, ASSE is dedicated to promoting closer ties of friendship between the United States and other countries by fostering intercultural understanding through youth exchange programs.
Students, 15 to 18 years old, qualify on the basis of academic performance, character references and a genuine desire to experience life abroad with a volunteer host family. Prior knowledge of the host country’s language is not a requirement. Scholarships are available and are based on academic performance, leadership skills and financial need.
Families abroad are carefully screened, and students do not need to know the language of the host country prior to departure but will acquire the language skills through experiencing the day-to-day local culture and attending regular high school classes along with their new teenage friends.
ASSE also provides the experience of a lifetime to American families who are interested in hosting an international student from Spain, Italy, Germany, Ukraine, Thailand, Japan, and many other countries. These exceptional young students will attend the local American high school for an academic year or semester.
Students or families interested in learning more about becoming an ASSE exchange student or host family should contact ASSE at 1-800-733-2773, visit www.asse.com or send an email to asseusawest@asse.com
ASSE International (formerly American Scandinavian Student Exchange) is a non-profit, public benefit, organization (ID# 95-3034133). ASSE is designated as an Exchange Visitor Program by the U. S. Department of State, was founded by the Swedish Ministry of Education and cooperates closely with the Canadian Provincial Ministries of Education.
Basketball icon Magic Johnson has been declared a billionaire by Forbes. He’s only the 4th sport star to be declared a billionaire by the business magazine. Johnson recently revealed he passed on an early chance to buy Nike shares that could’ve netted him billions. “My family didn’t come from money, that’s one thing that hurt us sometimes. When you don’t come from money, you don’t know. I didn’t even know what stocks [were] at that time,” Johnson told the All The Smoke podcast earlier in the year.
Magic Johnson is the newest member of the Billionaires Club, according to Forbes. The magazine estimates his wealth at $1.2 billion. The NBA legend expanded his bustling business portfolio earlier this year, adding a minority stake in the Washington Commanders. Other notable investments propelling his wealth include the Los Angeles Dodgers, reigning MLS champions Los Angeles FC, and the LA Sparks. In addition, through his Magic Johnson Enterprises, he has created an empire of movie theaters across the United States.
“Thriller 40,” a documentary about Michael Jackson’s landmark album, will premiere on Showtime and Paramount+ on Dec. 2, featuring behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Usher, Mary J. Blige and others.
Nelson George’s documentary about Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”album has a home and a release date. A new trailer for the film dropped Friday, revealing that the film will premiere on Dec. 2 via Showtime and Paramount+.
As seen in the two-minute trailer, “Thriller 40” tells the story behind Jackson’s 1982 album that caused a cultural shift in music history. Journalist Steve Ivory sums up its impact at the beginning of the trailer: “There are two things in the music business: before ‘Thriller’ and after ‘Thriller.’
The film includes much previously unreleased footage of the recording sessions of the album, behind-the-scenes footage from the short films, rare interviews with Jackson himself, and enhanced concert footage from The Jacksons’ “Victory Tour.”
The film will include exclusive interviews with A-list artists, such as Usher, Maxwell, Mary J. Blige, Mark Ronson, Misty Copeland, and will.i.am. Also interviewed for the documentary are some of Jackson’s collaborators from the album and short films, including Toto guitarist Steve Lukather, “Thriller” director John Landis, and background vocalist Oren Waters.
Jackson’s estate and Sony Music Entertainment first announced the documentary with George as director in October 2022, as part of the 40th anniversary commemoration of “Thriller.” It follows two documentaries from filmmaker Spike Lee, chronicling Jackson’s two other collaborations with producer Quincy Jones, 2012’s “Bad 25” and 2016’s “Michael Jackson’s Journey from Motown to Off The Wall,” the latter of which also premiered on Showtime.
George has written extensively about Jackson’s life and career as an author and music journalist. He wrote “Thriller: The Musical Life of Michael Jackson” in 2011 and “The Michael Jackson Story” in 1983.
“Thriller” is the biggest-selling solo studio album of all time, at 34x platinum in the U.S. alone. The album included seven Top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, including “Beat It,” “Billie Jean,” “Human Nature,” and the title track. It helped earn Jackson eight Grammy Awards in 1984, and the short films for “Billie Jean,” “Beat It,” and “Thriller” helped kick off a music video revolution.
Where do I begin? Let me preface with…The Spurs are the youngest team in the league. That being said, the boys were definitely separated from the men last night as the Spurs dropped their season opener to the Dallas Mavericks in front of a sold out Frost Bank Center crowd.
I’ll have to admit, the atmosphere inside the arena to witness Victor Wembanyama’s regular season debut was nothing short of lit. While the #1 pick in last year’s draft showed flashes of what we expect of him, his debut was marred by foul trouble. He finished the game with 15 points and 5 rebounds on 6-9 from the field and going 3-5 from the 3pt line in 23 minutes. He also had 5 turnovers as well as the aforementioned 5 fouls.
The Spurs got off to a blistering start putting up 43 points in the first quarter and taking a 68-64 lead into halftime. It was definitely a tale of two halves however as the Mavs were able to maintain contact while at the same time outscoring the home team 62-51 in the second half.
The Spurs had action late in the fourth quarter but youth reared its ugly head. With 2:09 left in the game the Spurs held a one point lead at 119-118 after two free throws by Devin Vassell. The Mavs then went on an 8-0 run starting with a Kyrie Irving three and culminating with a contested step back three from Luka (from Harlem) Doncic. TheSpurs had two turnovers (Sochan, Johnson) in that same 2:09 span to help seal their fate. Interesting enough, Pop chose not to use a timeout until the 26 second mark and the team was down 126-119.
$135 million dollar man Devin Vassell led the silver and black in scoring with 23 points on 9-17 shooting. Last year’s leading scorer, Keldon Johnson chipped in 17 points on 7-15 from the floor. Johnson also had 9 rebounds and 7 assists, both team highs of the night.
Ultimately though, the Spurs had no answer for Luka Doncic who had a triple double with 33 points, 13 rebounds, and 10 assists. He became only the third player in history to open the season with a triple double joining Giannis Antetokounmpo and Oscar Robertson. Kyrie Irving had 22 points and 6 assists in the Dallas win. The Mavs received unexpected help from rookie Derek Lively II who had 16 points and 10 boards.
I’m going to wait to reserve judgment, I mean it is only the first game, but….this FIRST game sure looked like a LOT of CLOSE games squandered LAST season.
We have a new House speaker. Breaking weeks of infighting that left the lower chamber frozen, House Republicans elected Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., to serve as the 56th speaker of the House. After 22 days, four nominations and countless closed-door meetings, Republicans finally found their unity candidate who was able to get the near-unanimous support needed to become speaker. Not a single GOP lawmaker voted against Johnson.
What does it mean to understand or analyze the current unrest that is the Israel-Palenstine conflict? The Israel-Palenstine conflict has been going on for quite some time and even in 2023, in what could be seen as a new era of foreign policy, much could be debated about what this conflict will now be.
Writer Chris McGreal, in his 2023 article for The Guardian, “What are the roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict?”, writes, “the starting point for many people is the United Nations’ vote in 1947 to partition land in the British mandate of Palestine into two states – one Jewish, one Arab – following the destruction of much of European Jewry in the Holocaust….About 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled – about 85% of the Arab population of the territory captured by Israel – and were never allowed to return.
Palestinians called the exodus and eradication of much of their society inside Israel the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, and it remains the traumatic event at the heart of their modern history.”
The United States has not been a stranger to international conflicts and much to the polarizing dismay of its citizens, the role the United States plays in settling this ongoing conflict is yet to be determined. Recently, President Biden has called to stand in solidarity with Israel in its war against Hamas. His sentiments have been met with divided reactions.
According to a 2023 article for The New York Times, “Americans, Weary of Foreign Conflicts, Face Another”, several US citizens have “expressed trepidation as they considered the widening conflicts in the Middle East and Europe. Some questioned how deeply the country should be involved…their thoughts — a snapshot in time — reflect the polls but also this nation’s own considerable fractures after nearly a decade of partisan rage, pandemic grief and the open hostility of the Trump years.”
According to experiences in history, the United States involvement in wars across the globe has left an indelible impact on generations that lived through it. The mere notion of terrorism has become a controversial topic since the turn of the century. Now, twenty-three years in, perhaps the American people are not only desensitized from ongoing strife but are rather exhausted from other wars.
Wars have a peculiar position in the greater context of politics and economy. On one end, war generates profit through international trade but on the other, at the cost of the physical and mental well being of its people, it breeds irreversible consequences, begging the question of worth.
As payments resume after a three-year pause, several Black students and graduates say they aren’t ready to take on the disproportionately hefty financial obligation.
After Covid completely upended life on college campuses, students and recent graduates are encountering a new challenge: student loans.
Federal student loan payments are resuming this week, ending the three-year pause enacted through policies in 2020 to ease financial burdens when the Covid pandemic rattled the economy and countless people’s livelihoods.
Millions of college students and graduates — including Black women, who carry the highest burden of student debt — held on to the hope of President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, which the Supreme Court struck down in June. Yet, Biden is aiming to push policies that would provide relief for loan borrowers, with his announcement Wednesday approving $9 billion in student loan forgiveness for 125,000 borrowers.
Still, as payments resume, several Black students and graduates told NBC News that they are not ready for the financial obligation, including those who say the pandemic stripped away large portions of their college experience.
A lackluster college experience
Halfway through Anne Laurie Joseph’s freshman year at George Washington University, the pandemic essentially shut down campus. The English literature and music double major said she was one of the few students who could remain on campus during her sophomore year. But there were so few students around, Laurie Joseph said, that her college experience was mostly nonexistent.
“All of that was just basically living in my dorm and doing classes on Zoom,” said Laurie Joseph, 23, who lives in Arlington, Virginia, and was a first-generation college student.
While George Washington University resumed in-person classes during her junior year, Laurie Joseph said the pandemic disrupted her major plan of studying abroad in France. Born and raised in Haiti — where French is the second spoken language after Haitian Creole — Laurie Joseph said traveling to France would have given her the opportunity to become fluent in French.
Anne Laurie Joseph, a graduate of George Washington University.
“I had everything set to study abroad for an entire year,” Laurie Joseph said. “I had gotten all the scholarships that I needed to do it. And then it all got ruined.”
Senior Demari Jetter had a similar experience when she started attending Jackson State University in August 2020. She said she envisioned her first year attending classes in person, participating in engaging classroom discussions and meeting friends. Instead, she said she experienced the exact opposite. While Jackson State told NBC News in a statement that certain annual traditions were offered virtually or postponed, Jetter said she was not aware of them.
“I didn’t even know what a welcome back week was or a freshman welcome week was because I never had it,” she said.
It was also difficult adjusting to a new learning environment that was completely opposite from her high school experience, she said.
“Virtually, the professor don’t know you,” she said. “They don’t know how you are. They don’t know how you learn. It’s hard to ask questions because you don’t want to unmute yourself, and then they’ll say, ‘Hold on, wait until the end of class.’ You can’t raise your hand. It was just a lot of challenges.”
Aaron Waithe, an information technology major at Towson University who is graduating next year, said he’s had to do the verification process for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, a form that determines college students’ eligibility for student financial aid, with little help for the past four years. He also said many students are often left in the dark when it comes to repaying their student loans.
“I would have loved to have it,” Waithe said about Biden’s blocked student loan forgiveness plan. “But either way, the payments are going to have to be paid.” Waithe said he currently has about $20,000 worth of student loans.
Students have mixed feelings about paying education loans
While Jetter and Waithe will have a six-month grace period before they start making student loan payments after graduating next year, they both said they are still not prepared for the financial changes that lay ahead.
Jetter began college while the pause was in effect, and while her tuition was being paid with loans, she said she was not made aware that she would be on the hook to pay them once she graduated. “No one ever spoke on them since I enrolled in college,” she said. “Now all of a sudden I have a 35, $45,000 balance.”
Black borrowers disproportionately burdened by student debt
Almost one-third of Black families carry student loan debt.
Black college students face specific challenges when it comes to eliminating their student debt. Black graduates hold an average of $25,000 more in student loan debt than their white counterparts, according to the Education Data Initiative. Four years after graduation, Black college graduates also owe an average of 188% more than white students borrowed, EDI reported.
These disparities for Black graduates are directly linked to the lack of generational wealth in Black families. The median white family with a full-time worker has 7.6 times more wealth than the median Black family that also has a full-time worker, according to the American Sociological Association’s Contexts magazine.
Though she received scholarships while she was in school, Laurie Joseph said she didn’t have the financial support of her family to help with her expenses. She said she owes about $30,000 for her education at George Washington University and will have to pay back her loans by herself.
She also acknowledged the struggles that many recent graduates like her face, but that going to college is “kind of a choice that you have to make,” she said.
“It’s either you go straight into the workforce after high school, or you make a decision to take out loans in pursuit for their education, which most likely is investment in yourself,” said Laurie Joseph, who currently works at the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. “For some of us, college was the only option.” Paying back student loans, she added, “is definitely a burden.”
Like Laurie Joseph, Saundrea Rupert-Shropshire started school in 2020 as a part-time law student at Georgetown University and had to attend classes virtually.
Rupert-Shropshire, who is 31 and lives in Alexandria, Virginia, said doing so removed the social aspect of learning from her educational experience.
“I think law school is one of those kind of experiences where you don’t just pay for law school, you’re paying for the network of professors and colleagues that will attend that school with you,” said Rupert-Shropshire, who will complete law school in December. One example she cited is a weekly happy hour for law students.
“I have such a great cohort of classmates that we all still ended up pretty close,” she continued. “But, I think it’s definitely a lesser version of what I would have had if we would have started in person our first year.”
Rupert-Shropshire earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Howard University in 2014. She said she was able to fully pay off her undergraduate loans by receiving a full scholarship and working as a congressional staffer for six years, which offered a student loan repayment program, capping payments at $10,000 a year. While Rupert-Shropshire has managed to repay $10,000 toward her student loans from law school, she said she still owes about $75,000.
Rupert-Shropshire has a job offer at a law firm, but it doesn’t start until next year, so she recently started waiting tables at a local restaurant to earn income in the meantime. Paying back these student loans, she said, will be burdensome on top of her other expenses — including the rent for her one-bedroom apartment with parking, which is $2,200 a month. Despite that, she said she is as “prepared as I’m going to be” to pay back her student loans, even though that might interfere with some of her future goals, like buying a house.
“Am I ready? No, like, absolutely not,” Rupert-Shropshire said. “But, the debt exists and it has to be paid. I don’t come from an affluent family. So, if I don’t pay my loans, no one pays them.”
Despite the challenges the pandemic created, there were some positive outcomes.
Demari Jetter attends Jackson State University.
Jetter, who is a part-time content creator and restaurant server, said going to college during the pandemic gave her “no other choice but to be focused on school.” In the future, she hopes to become a social media or digital marketing manager. Now, she said that she’s getting the full college experience since everything is back to normal.
As for Waithe, he said the pandemic allowed him to grow closer to his peers.
“It made me more close-knit with my friends that I met here and the friends that I came up here with, because we were more, like, sticking together with ourselves,” Waithe said.
