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April 2020

Madonna and activists send 100,000 surgical masks to jails and prisons

Wednesday, 22 April 2020
Madonna is partnering with Meek Mill's advocacy group REFORM Alliance to send much-needed personal protective equipment to jails and prisons which have become coronavirus hotspots across the country.

More than 50,000 surgical masks will be donated to Chicago's Cook County Jail, which has been hit hard by the pandemic. Six inmates have died, while 210 staffers and 235 inmates have tested positive, according to the county sheriff's department. Another 192 detainees and 120 staffers have recovered from the virus.

The Louisiana Department of Corrections will also receive 20,000 masks, while another 30,000 will be sent to California's Vacaville Prison, FCI Ray Brook in New York and the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department in Massachusetts.

REFORM and Madonna's Ray of Light Foundation worked with several activist groups for the initiative, including apparel company Pair of Thieves, The Bail Project and #cut50.

'More than 2 million lives in prisons across America are currently at stake due to the COVID-19 pandemic,' REFORM co-chair Michael Rubin said in a statement. 'It's absolutely crucial that we protect our inmates and prison staff, especially since social distancing guidelines are difficult to abide by in these facilities.'

Earlier this month, REFORM sent 100,000 face masks to facilities including the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman and Rikers Island jail complex in New York City.

From CBS News

Posted at 04:00 PM in General News | | Comments (0)

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The Story Behind Madonna’s Iconic Jean Paul Gaultier Cone Bra

Sunday, 19 April 2020
On the first night of Madonna’s Blond Ambition tour, held in April 1990 in Chiba, Japan, few in the audience could have prepared themselves for the spectacle about to unfold. With its $2 million dollar stage set, explosive choreography by voguing legends from the New York City ballroom scene, and headline-grabbing aesthetic fusion of Catholic imagery and BDSM, the show solidified Madonna’s position at the top of music’s pantheon. In less than two hours, she was no longer just a pop star—she had graduated to become a fully-fledged pop culture icon.

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For her fans, though, it was less of a surprise: Madonna was merely following up on the string of controversies that accompanied her latest album, Like a Prayer, a year earlier. A $5 million sponsorship deal with Pepsi was swiftly pulled after she debuted the video for her lead single, “Like a Prayer,” the plot of which implicitly drew a link between racial injustice and organized religion. Featuring Ku Klux Klan-style burning crosses and Madonna receiving the stigmata, it led to a direct call from the Vatican to boycott Pepsi and its subsidiaries. “Art should be controversial, and that’s all there is to it,” Madonna told the New York Times with nonchalance in the lead-up to the album’s release. (This laid-back response may have been due to the fact that Pepsi, eager to extricate themselves from the kerfuffle, let Madonna keep the $5 million check.)

To read the rest of the article visit: www.vogue.com/article/madonna-blonde-ambition

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Madonna says she's lost three people in 24 hours in 'quarantine diary'

Monday, 13 April 2020
Madonna has shared her latest “quarantine diary” in which she says she has lost three people in 24 hours.

The Queen of Pop, 61, has regularly been updating fans during the coronavirus lockdown.

Her latest Instagram video sees her tapping away on a typewriter as she reveals she has lost three people close to her.

“We can’t always have a good day … I didn’t sleep last night, not one minute and today I have been dysfunctional,” she starts the message.

The singer goes on: “The pain-o-meter was on 10 and when it’s on 10, I just need to, want to, have to, get out of my body.

“The burning spear makes its way into the core of me and slithers down my leg, and I can concentrate on nothing except the idea of escape, and I wonder what form that will take.”

Madonna then announces that in the last 24 hours her cousin, her security guard’s brother and dance music executive Orlando Puerta - who the star worked with - had died.

“These three people I have lost in the last 24 hours,” she said.

“Today wasn’t a good day,” she added. “I’m over it.”

Madonna did not give details of how the three people died.

From Yahoo! News

Posted at 04:00 PM in General News | | Comments (0)

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Madonna Donates $1 Million to Gates Philanthropy Partners’ Coronavirus-Relief Efforts

Friday, 03 April 2020
Madonna has donated $1 million to the Gates Philanthropy Partners’ COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, a rep for the organization confirmed to Variety.

'Her contribution is alongside the commitments by the Gates Foundation, Wellcome, Mastercard, U.K. Government and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative - all partners in the initiative,' the rep said, clarifying that 'The money will go through the COVID-19 Response Fund operated by Gates Philanthropy Partners, so not directly to the Gates Foundation.'

In a statement on her website, Madonna wrote:

'I’m joining the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation effort to find a drug that will prevent or treat COVID-19. We need this to protect our health workers, the most vulnerable, and all of our friends and families.'

'I’m talking about this: I am so impressed by the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator’s urgent efforts to find new or existing drugs that could effectively prevent or treat the disease. Harnessing the strength and knowledge of the research community, the Accelerator’s critical scientific progress will inform how we end this pandemic and prevent future impact from the virus. I send enormous gratitude and strength to the courageous first responders, medical professionals and scientists who are protecting our communities, those suffering and our most vulnerable.'

An excerpt from an update on the Accelerator’s progress posted on its website reads: 'There are two trials starting pretty much simultaneously, using chloroquine and a drug with a slightly different structure, hydroxychloroquine. Now, you may have heard of the WHO SOLIDARITY Trial that was announced two weeks ago, which will look at chloroquine as a treatment for people who are sick, to see if it shortens the duration of their sickness. The two Accelerator studies are looking instead at prophylaxis - stopping people exposed to the virus from getting sick.

'From the existing data, which need validation in a trial, it looks like hydroxychloroquine could be a good agent for prophylaxis. It actually blocks the entry of the virus into the cell, so the hypothesis makes a lot of sense: if you have the drug in your system and you get exposed, you won’t let the virus get into your cells and you won’t get onset of disease. That is what the trials are aimed at showing.

From Variety

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