Life

News from Bujumbura, Burundi, later confirmed in a statement from the Burundian Government, indicate that Pierre Nkurunziza, the President of Burundi, has died following a cardiac arrest on June 8, 2020 at the Karusi Fiftieth Anniversary Hospital. He was  55 years old.

Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson, NASA mathematician, physicist, and scientist. Credit NASA

Katherine Globe Johnson, known as the  "Black Woman Who Advanced Human Rights and Humanity With A Slide Rule and a Pencil" (see AfroAmerica Network),  died on Monday, February 24, 2020. She was 101.

She was depicted as one of the history-making and barrier-breaking NASA mathematicians  in "Hidden Figures,"  the  biographical drama film based on the non-fiction book of Margot Lee Shetterly.  She along with Octavia Spencer, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson were the black NASA employees who participated in calculating flight trajectories for Project Mercury in 1962. 

Kobe Bryant's Mamba Academy

Kobe Bryant, one of The Greatest Basketball Players of All Time,  died  at the age of 41,  in a helicopter crash in California on Sunday along with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven other people. Kobe Bryant, beyond being known as one of the most extraordinary players in the history of basketball, has inspired young people around the World and especially in his state of California, to play Baskeball and other sports.