---JET magazine; "Going For Gold at the Beijing Games"---
This issue of JET magazine, featuring the story, “Going for Gold at the Beijing Games: Black Athletes to Watch at the Olympics” is on stands Monday, August 4. Tennis champs Venus and Serena Williams, basketball star Dwyane Wade, and track and field great Tyson Gay are just a few of the world's elite Black athletes who are ready to compete. The best African-American sports stars are prepared to vie for the gold there when the international multi-sport competition opens Aug. 8 in China's capital, Beijing. For 21 days, they'll join more than 10,000 other men and women representing over 200 nations, all competing for the ultimate prize of Olympic glory. Silver-medal winning sprinter Allyson Felix, competing in her second Olympic Games, hopes what she learned in Athens, Greece in 2004 will give her an edge in winning her first gold medal. "I just think I'm a lot stronger than when I first came on the scene and everything was new to me," she says. Flyweight boxer Rau'Shee Warren, who is also competing in his second Olympic Games, had this to say: "We train hard, push ourselves, and push each other. We got a young team, so all of us connect at a certain level and we all bring a different type of energy to the team."

Carolyn Barley Britton, M.D., M.S.


Nelly

Business World Index

---The End of the South?---
In the August 11 Newsweek cover feature, "The End of the South" (on newsstands Monday, August 4), Newsweek looks at the race issue.

---"Middle Class Security Index"---
As CNN explored many of the aspects of the African-American experience in its "Black in America" series, a new report shows that the vast majority of African-American and Latino families who have entered the middle class are either borderline or at high risk of falling out of the middle class altogether. The 2008 study by the policy center Demos and the Institute for Assets and Social Policy (IASP) at Brandeis University shows that one in four African-American and fewer than one in five Latino middle-class families in America are financially secure. "Financial health eludes the majority of African-American and Latino middle class," said Thomas M. Shapiro, Director of the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis and one of the co-authors of the report. "Tremendous middle-class gains earned in schools, achieved on the job, and seen in paychecks are eroded by lack of assets, which seriously undermines the financial security of African-American and Latino middle class families." FYI, only 26 percent of African-American middle-class families have the combination of assets, education, sufficient income, and health insurance to ensure middle-class financial security. One in three (33 percent) are at high risk of falling out of the middle class. Also, about 95 percent of African-American and 87 percent of Latino middle-class families do not have enough net assets to meet three-quarters of their essential living expenses for even three months if their source of income were to disappear.

---New National Medical Association President to Address Cancer and Mental Health Disparities---Delivering her inaugural address as the 109th president of the National Medical Association (NMA), Carolyn Barley Britton, M.D., M.S., shared her plans to focus on cancer and mental health disparities during her administration. The NMA is the nation's premier organization for African American physicians. Dr. Britton, a recognized expert in neurovirology and infectious/inflammatory diseases of the nervous system, is currently associate professor of Clinical Neurology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and associate attending physician at New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York, NY. A native of Huntsville, Alabama, Britton is a graduate of Oberlin College and New York University Medical School, where she received her M.S. in Microbiology (Virology) and her M.D.

---Nelly and Sean John---
Sean John Underwear taps internationally renowned recording artist, Nelly, as their new spokesmodel. The first campaign features Nelly donning the Fall collection of underwear basics and loungewear. The campaign was shot by Randee St. Nicholas. Although he is the first spokesmodel for this category, Nelly follows a long list of past and present celebrity models for the Sean John brand including Dwayne Wade, Nas, Snoop Dog, Lil' Wayne, Penelope Cruz, Cassie, and Lauren London. The Sean John Underwear, Sleepwear and Loungewear collection includes the core silhouettes as well as signature styles in luxury fabrics and is available at Macy's and better department and specialty stores nationwide. Nelly said, "I have been a big fan of Diddy and the Sean John clothing line for years. So, when they asked me to work with them, it was a real honor. I hope my fans will enjoy this campaign as much as I did shooting it."