Esperanza Spalding just added yet another major accomplishment to her already impressive resume. The 32 year old Grammy winning jazz musician has now landed a job as professor at Harvard University. 

Spalding will be joining Harvard’s Music Department as a Professor of the Practice, and will begin her appointment sometime in the next few weeks. .

Spalding is a self-taught musician who earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the Berklee College of Music where she taught bass lessons from 2005-2008. Her teaching credits also include Canada’s Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. She is also an activist who believes in using music as a voice for social justice. 

In other Spalding news, yesterday Esperanza announced that she will write and record her new album Exposure, during a 72-hour Facebook Livestream on September 12.

“I’m going to go into the studio with nothing prepared…and for three days, we’re going to create compose, write, record, produce and finish an album.”

See the full announcement below.

President Trump today (july 26) announced via Twitter that the US military will no longer "accept or allow" transgendered people to serve in the arm forces in any capacity. 

Making his arguement via a series of tweets, the President laid out his reason for the decision. He claim that "too much was at stake" in the military’s current operations for it to be “burdened” by the medical costs of transgender people or the “disruption” he says transgender service members would cause.

These statements by the commander-in-chief go against the current Department of Defense policy that had been crafted with Armed Services leadership, as well as medical and personnel experts.

​From the Defense Department website:

 “Transgender service members may serve openly. They may not be discharged or separated from the military solely on the basis of their gender identity.   As with other major presidential announcements from Trump on Twitter, there will likely be extraordinary backlash to this statement from liberal and moderate circles.”

GLAAD, a prominent LGBTQ advocacy organization, condemned the ban on transgender soldiers as part of “the full-scale attack on LGBTQ Americans by the Trump Administration.”

“President Trump today issued a direct attack on transgender Americans, and his administration will stop at nothing to implement its anti-LGBTQ ideology within our government – even if it means denying some of our bravest Americans the right to serve and protect our nation,” Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAAD, said in a statement. “Today further exposed President Trump’s overall goal to erase LGBTQ Americans from this nation. Trump has never been a friend to LGBTQ Americans, and this action couldn’t make that any more clear.”​

It is not known at this time if and/or when any official rule change will take place. According to ​estimates from the National Center for Transgender Equality, more than 134,000 American veterans are transgender and more than 15,000 transgender individuals are currently serving in the military.

Rapper and Chicago native Common has once again gone out of his way to help others. According to the Associated Press, Common has donated $10,000 to Renaissance School of the Arts in Harlem to aid in more supplies and science utensils.

​“I always felt like one of my biggest duties and purposes is to hit the youth with something that’s inspiring,” he said, “hit young people with something that can motivate them to be in their greatness.”

Common hooked up with Burlington Stores and AdoptAClassroom.org to help bring supplies to schools.  Dr. Mahalia Hines, Common's mother, was also in attendance for the presentation of the funds to speak on the lack of resources teachers endure each day.