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Brothers Lean on “Granny,” Aunt, One Another After Covid-19 Loss

HOWARD UNIVERSITY NEWS SERVICE — According to a new modeling study published in Pediatrics, a child loses a parent or guardian in one of every four COVID-19 deaths, a devastating consequence that is affecting the lives of an estimated 140,000 children.
The post Brothers Lean on “Granny,” Aunt, One Another After Covid-19 Loss first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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4 years ago

May 3, 2022

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PAINDEMIC PAIN: Mending Unseen Wounds

Black and Brown families have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic. So have their children. According to the National Institutes of Health, tens of thousands of children have lost at least one parent or caregiver to COVID-19. Half of them are Black or Brown. This is one in a three-part series looking at how their lives have changed.

By Ahnayah Hughes, Howard University News Service

At first glance, they are just five rambunctious brothers doing what boys their ages do.

They like bouncing on their trampoline, riding their scooters, tossing around a football and playing video games. One is particularly fond of reading.

They are an especially tight-knit bunch.

There is Kingston, 10, the oldest, who their grandmother, Betty Hamilton, nicknamed “The Enforcer.” He makes sure the youngest get their baths and say their nightly prayers, she said.

“He’s like a little parent,” said Hamilton, 65, who retired on disability nine years ago after working 18 years at Pulaski State Prison, the women’s prison in Hawkinsville, Georgia.

Kristian, 9, has his own description for his brother.

“Sometimes he can be a bit bossy,” he said.

Kristian is the avid reader. He enjoys adventure books, drawing cartoons and is quickly moving to the next level on the Minecraft series.

“If the rest of them are outside, he’s somewhere inside with his nose in a book,” Hamilton said.

Kendall, 8, has autism and needs things to be just so, their grandmother said.

“He is very independent and wants to take his time figuring out things for himself,” she said. “He needs to do it on his own, in his own way, and he always gets it.”

Kobe, 5, is extremely smart, and he’ll let you know it, said his aunt, Carla Hamilton, 42, a registered nurse in Snellville, Georgia, 32 miles southeast of Atlanta by car. Their mother was her younger sister and only sibling.

“I had to tell him to stop calling people dumb!” she said.

And then there is the baby, Kassius, 4.

“I call him Cassius Clay,” his grandmother said, alluding the birth name of boxing icon Muhammad Ali. “He’s rough and tough. He’s always ready to fight and get his way.”

All five boys live with her in a three-bedroom house in Eastman, Georgia, with their grandmother and grandfather, Curtis Hamilton. Curtis Hamilton who holds the distinction of being the first Black National Guardsman in Eastman.

They have been reunited with brother and mother’s oldest child, Camarian, 14, who has been living there for the past three years.

Each is unique yet bound together by a common emotional scar. They share a pain and a deep fear left by COVID-19.

The signs are subtle, their grandmother said. For example, if one of them gets a cold or has the sniffles, they are quick to tell her, so she can immediately take preventive measure, or they will ask her for medicine, she said.

“They panic a little when anyone gets sick,” Hamilton said. “When their uncle got COVID, they were distraught. They thought COVID was a death sentence for everyone.”

To them, it is.

It’s the reason Kingston asked his grandmother one day, “Did my dad get his shot? If he did, would he still be living?”

It was Aug. 8, 2021, when their father, Ken Williams, a manager for a fast food restaurant in Warner Robbins, Georgia, was diagnosed with COVID-19.

Their mother, Courtney Hamilton, had died three years earlier in an automobile accident in Perry, Georgia. She was 27.

“It was a huge shock for all of us,” Carla said of her death. “You always think you have to be strong for the kids, but really, they were so strong for us.”

The couple had never married. Their relationship, family members said, was off-and-on.

After their mother’s death, their grandmother and their Aunt Carla moved in temporarily to help take care of them.

They stayed together five months until the father moved out with the boys and continued to move, five times in three years, the family said. Sometimes the boys stayed with relatives, sometimes with his girlfriend.

Still, their father set the rules and the tone, the family said. He was their primary caregiver, but more than anything, he was their father, a man who was consistently in their lives.

The kids were living with Williams’ girlfriend when he was diagnosed. The children were quickly quarantined away from their father and kept out of school, though they didn’t know exactly why at the time, their grandmother said.

Williams entered the hospital Aug. 20 in Warner-Robbins. Three days later, he was dead. He was 37.

“They were devastated,” their grandmother said. “For the past three years, he was the sole provider for them.”

The next time the five saw their father was at his wake before his cremation. He was in a casket alongside another casket that held his 57-year-old father, Kenneth Williams, who had died a day earlier of unrelated causes.

With Williams’ death, his sons joined tens of thousands of children in the U.S. who have experienced the loss of one or both parents to the COVID-19. According to a new modeling study published in Pediatrics, a child loses a parent or guardian in one of every four COVID-19 deaths, a devastating consequence that is affecting the lives of an estimated 140,000 children.

After their father’s death, their grandmother and their aunt scurried to gather all the documents related to children – school, medical and birth records — and the boys moved into Carla Hamilton’s four-bedroom house with her five children in Snellville.

Kingston, 10, right, and his aunt, Carla Hamilton, have become even closer following the death of his mother, Hamilton’s younger sister and only sibling, in a car accident in 2018, and the death of his father from COVID-19 in August. Hamilton took in Kingston and his brother following their father’s death before they moved to live with their grandmother in Eastman, Georgia. Photo courtesy of the Hamilton family.

The property owner, however, said their presence was a violation of Hamilton’s lease. The children were forced to move again, this time with their grandmother, who had been keeping Camarian Hamilton, since his mother’s death.

These days, the four oldest boys are enrolled in South Dodge Elementary School, and Kassius is in pre-kindergarten, his grandmother said. Camarian, attends Dodge County High School.

Having responsibility for the care and feeding of five boys thrust upon them at the age most people retire would be considered a burden by many, but not the boys’ grandmother.

“I’m loving every minute of it,” Hamilton said. “Having all of them in the house really gives me a good purpose for living. I never realized how much I stayed in the house and did nothing but watch TV. But with them here, there’s something to do constantly.”

The boys seem to like it too, according to “The Enforcer.”

“I think it’s good [living with Granny],” Kingston said. “I like living down here. I like my new school. I like that most of my family lives here, and we get to see Cam and our cousins.

“I do my chores. I help my grandma and Pop Pop. I help with Kassius and Kobe. I just like being helpful.”

Their aunt said she has seen a change in the five.

“There’s a feeling of relief,” she said. “They’re settled. They’re calm. They’re finally stable, and they know they’re not going anywhere.”

Outwardly, the boys seem fine, Betty Hamilton said. She has noticed, however, they don’t talk much about their parents unless it’s among each other.

Their grandmother said, the boys put her on notice they want vaccinations as soon as possible.

“They want the shots,” she said. “They let me know that. They don’t have them yet, but as soon as I can find out where they can get them, I’ll get them.”

She has enrolled them in counseling.

“Everybody grieves differently,” she said. “This is the first week. The counselor will meet them on a one-on-one basis. I wanted them to be able to talk and not be scared something is going to happen to me.

“I want them to be kids and not have to worry about things like that.”

Every year on their mother’s birthday, the boys release six purple balloons—her favorite color—at her gravesite in Chauncey, Georgia, 15 miles from their home., their grandmother said. This year, a month after Williams’ passing the boys asked if they could get six red balloons in his honor and release them all together.

While chatting among themselves, Kingston said, “Well, my mom got a big old birthday present today!”

He was asked if he was talking about the balloons.

“No,” he said. “I’m talking about my dad. They’re together in heaven.”

Even on the days when the boys ask tough questions, like every time they hear anything on the news about COVID-19, or have the occasional nightmare, they appear to be at peace, their family said.

“All six of them are together again, and I think that’s how my daughter and Ken would have liked it,” their grandmother said. “I think they’re happy, because they know this is where they’ll be from now on.”

The post Brothers Lean on “Granny,” Aunt, One Another After Covid-19 Loss first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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A Nation in Freefall While the Powerful Feast: Trump Calls Affordability a ‘Con Job’

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — There are seasons in this country when the struggle of ordinary Americans is not merely a condition but a kind of weather that settles over everything.

Published

4 weeks ago

December 3, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

There are seasons in this country when the struggle of ordinary Americans is not merely a condition but a kind of weather that settles over everything. It enters the grocery aisle, the overdue bill, the rent notice, and the long nights spent calculating how to get through the next week. The latest numbers show that this season has not passed. It has deepened.

Private employers cut 32,000 jobs in November, according to ADP. Because the nation has been hemorrhaging jobs since President Trump took office, the administration has halted publishing the traditional monthly report. The ADP report revealed that small businesses suffered the heaviest losses. Establishments with fewer than 50 workers shed 120,000 positions, including 74,000 from companies with 20 to 49 workers. Larger firms added 90,000 jobs, widening the split between those rising and those falling.

Meanwhile, wealth continues to climb for the few who already possess most of it. Federal Reserve data shows the top 1 percent now holds $52 trillion. The top 10 percent added $5 trillion in the second quarter alone. The bottom half gained only 6 percent over the past year, a number so small it fades beside the towering fortunes above it.

“Less educated and poorer people tend to make worse mistakes,” John Campbell said to CBS News, while noting that the complexity of the system leaves many families lost before they even begin. Campbell, a Harvard University economist and coauthor of a book examining the country’s broken personal finance structure, pointed to a system built to confuse and punish those who lack time, training, or access.

“Creditors are just breathing down their necks,” Carol Fox told Bloomberg News, while noting that rising borrowing costs, shrinking consumer spending, and trade battles under the current administration have left owners desperate. Fox serves as a court-appointed Subchapter V trustee in Southern Florida and has watched the crisis unfold case by case.

During a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Trump told those present that affordability “doesn’t mean anything to anybody.” He added that Democrats created a “con job” to mislead the public.

However, more than $30 million in taxpayer funds reportedly have supported his golf travel. Reports show Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel have also made extensive use of private jets through government and political networks. The administration approved a $40 billion bailout of Argentina. The president’s wealthy donors recently gathered for a dinner celebrating his planned $300 million White House ballroom.

During an appearance on CNBC, Mark Zandi, an economist, warned that the country could face serious economic threats. “We have learned that people make many mistakes,” Campbell added. “And particularly, sadly, less educated and poorer people tend to make worse mistakes.”

Stacy M. Brown

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The Numbers Behind the Myth of the Hundred Million Dollar Contract

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Odell Beckham Jr. did not spark controversy on purpose. He sat on The Pivot Podcast and tried to explain the math behind a deal that looks limitless from the outside but shrinks fast once the system takes its cut.

Published

4 weeks ago

December 3, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

Odell Beckham Jr. did not spark controversy on purpose. He sat on The Pivot Podcast and tried to explain the math behind a deal that looks limitless from the outside but shrinks fast once the system takes its cut. He looked into the camera and tried to offer a truth most fans never hear. “You give somebody a five-year $100 million contract, right? What is it really? It is five years for sixty. You are getting taxed. Do the math. That is twelve million a year that you have to spend, use, save, invest, flaunt,” said Beckham. He added that buying a car, buying his mother a house, and covering the costs of life all chip away at what people assume lasts forever.

The reaction was instant. Many heard entitlement. Many heard a millionaire complaining. What they missed was a glimpse into a professional world built on big numbers up front and a quiet erasing of those numbers behind the scenes.

The tax data in Beckham’s world is not speculation. SmartAsset’s research shows that top NFL players often lose close to half their income to federal taxes, state taxes, and local taxes. The analysis explains that athletes in California face a state rate of 13.3 percent and that players are also taxed in every state where they play road games, a structure widely known as the jock tax. For many players, that means filing up to ten separate returns and facing a combined tax burden that reaches or exceeds 50 percent.

A look across the league paints the same picture. The research lists star players in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, all giving up between 43 and 47 percent of their football income before they ever touch a dollar. Star quarterback Phillip Rivers, at one point, was projected to lose half of his playing income to taxes alone.

A second financial breakdown from MGO CPA shows that the problem does not only affect the highest earners. A $1 million salary falls to about $529,000 after federal taxes, state and city taxes, an agent fee, and a contract deduction. According to that analysis, professional athletes typically take home around half of their contract value, and that is before rent, meals, training, travel, and support obligations are counted.

The structure of professional sports contracts adds another layer. A study of major deals across MLB, the NBA, and the NFL notes that long-term agreements lose value over time because the dollar today has more power than the dollar paid in the future. Even the largest deals shrink once adjusted for time. The study explains that contract size alone does not guarantee financial success and that structure and timing play a crucial role in a player’s long-term outcomes.

Beckham has also faced headlines claiming he is “on the brink of bankruptcy despite earning over one hundred million” in his career. Those reports repeated his statement that “after taxes, it is only sixty million” and captured the disbelief from fans who could not understand how money at that level could ever tighten.

Other reactions lacked nuance. One article wrote that no one could relate to any struggle on eight million dollars a year. Another described his approach as “the definition of a new-money move” and argued that it signaled poor financial choices and inflated spending.

But the underlying truth reaches far beyond Beckham. Professional athletes enter sudden wealth without preparation. They carry the weight of family support. They navigate teams, agents, advisors, and expectations from every direction. Their earning window is brief. Their career can end in a moment. Their income is fragmented, taxed, and carved up before the public ever sees the real number.

The math is unflinching. Twenty million dollars becomes something closer to $8 million after federal taxes, state taxes, jock taxes, agent fees, training costs, and family responsibilities. Over five years, that is about $40 million of real, spendable income. It is transformative money, but not infinite. Not guaranteed. Not protected.

Beckham offered a question at the heart of this entire debate. “Can you make that last forever?”

Stacy M. Brown

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FBI Report Warns of Fear, Paralysis, And Political Turmoil Under Director Kash Patel

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Six months into Kash Patel’s tenure as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a newly compiled internal report from a national alliance of retired and active-duty FBI agents and analysts delivers a stark warning about what the Bureau has become under his leadership.

Published

4 weeks ago

December 2, 2025

Stacy M. Brown

By Stacy M. Brown

Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent

Six months into Kash Patel’s tenure as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a newly compiled internal report from a national alliance of retired and active-duty FBI agents and analysts delivers a stark warning about what the Bureau has become under his leadership. The 115-page document, submitted to Congress this month, is built entirely on verified reporting from inside field offices across the country and paints a picture of an agency gripped by fear, divided by ideology, and drifting without direction.

The report’s authors write that they launched their inquiry after receiving troubling accounts from inside the Bureau only four months into Patel’s tenure. They describe their goal as a pulse check on whether the ninth FBI director was reforming the Bureau or destabilizing it. Their conclusion: the preliminary findings were discouraging.

Reports Describe Widespread Internal Distrust and Open Hostility Toward President Trump

Sources across the country told investigators that a large number of FBI employees openly express hostility toward President Donald Trump. One source reported seeing an “increasing number of FBI Special Agents who dislike the President,” adding that these employees were exhibiting what they called “TDS” and had lost “their ability to think critically about an issue and distinguish fact from fiction.” Another source described employees making off-color comments about the administration during office conversations.

The sentiment reportedly extends beyond domestic lines. Law enforcement and intelligence partners in allied countries have privately expressed fear that the Trump administration could damage long-term international cooperation according to a sub-source who reported those concerns directly to investigators.

Pardon Backlash and Fear of Retaliation

The President’s January 20 pardons of individuals convicted for their roles in the January 6 attack ignited what the report calls demoralization inside the Bureau. One FBI employee said they were “demoralized” that individuals “rightfully convicted” were pardoned and feared that some of those individuals or their supporters might target them or their family for carrying out their duties. Another source described widespread anger that lists of personnel who worked on January 6 investigations had been provided to the Justice Department for review, noting that agents “were just following orders” and now worry those lists could leak publicly.

Morale In Decline

Morale among FBI employees appears to be sinking fast. There were a few scattered positive notes, but the weight of the reporting describes morale as low, bad, or terrible. Agents with more than a decade of service told investigators they feel marginalized or ignored. Some are counting the days until they can retire. One even uses a countdown app on their phone.

Culture Of Fear

Layered over that unhappiness is something far more corrosive. A culture of fear. Sources say Patel, though personable, created mistrust from the start because of harsh remarks he made about the FBI before taking office. Agents took those comments personally. They now work in an atmosphere where employees keep their heads down and speak carefully. Managers wait for directions because they are afraid a wrong move could cost them their jobs. One source said agents dread coming to work because nobody knows who will be reassigned or fired next.

Leadership Concerns

The report also paints a picture of leaders unprepared for the jobs they hold. Multiple sources said Patel is in over his head and lacks the breadth of experience required to understand the Bureau’s complex programs. Some said Deputy Director Dan Bongino should never have been appointed because the role requires deep institutional knowledge of FBI operations. A sub-source recounted Bongino telling employees during a field office visit that “the truth is for chumps.” Employees who heard it were stunned and offended.

Social Media and Communication Breakdowns

Communication inside the Bureau has become another source of frustration. Sources said Patel and Bongino spend too much time posting on social media and not enough time communicating with employees in clear and official ways. Several told investigators they learn more about FBI operations from tweets than from internal channels.

ICE Assignments Raise Alarm

Nothing has sparked more frustration inside the FBI than the orders requiring agents to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The reporting shows widespread resentment and fear over these assignments. Agents say they have little training in immigration law and were ordered into operations without proper planning. Some said they were put in tactically unsafe positions. They also warned that being pulled away from counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations threatens national security. One sub-source asked, “If we’re not working CT and CI, then who is?”

DEI Program Removal

Even the future of diversity programs became a point of division. Some agents praised Patel’s removal of DEI initiatives. Others said the old system left them afraid to speak honestly because they worried about being labeled racist. The reporting shows a deep and unresolved conflict over whether DEI strengthened the organization or weakened it.

Notable Incidents

The document also details several incidents that have become part of FBI lore. Patel ordered all employees to remove pronouns and personal messages from their email signatures yet used the number nine in his own. Agents laughed at what they saw as hypocrisy. In another episode, FBI employees who discussed Patel’s request for an FBI-issued firearm were ordered to take polygraph examinations, which one respected source described as punitive. And in Utah, Patel refused to exit a plane without a medium-sized FBI raid jacket. A team scrambled to find one and finally secured a female agent’s jacket. Patel still refused to step out until patches were added. SWAT members removed patches from their own uniforms to satisfy the demand.

A Bureau at a Crossroad

The Alliance warns that the Bureau stands at a difficult crossroads. They write that the FBI faces some of the most daunting challenges in its history. But even in despair, a few voices say something different. One veteran source said “It is early, but most can see the mission is now the priority. Case work and threats are the focus again. Reform is headed in the right direction.”