IN: Ann Margaret Veneman (born June 29, 1949) was the Executive Director of UNICEF from 2005 to 2010. Her appointment was announced on January 18, 2005 by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Previously, Veneman was the United States Secretary of Agriculture, the first, and as of 2018 the only, woman to hold that position. Veneman served as USDA Secretary from January 20, 2001 to January 20, 2005, leaving to become the fifth executive director of UNICEF.

Veneman has helped bring more awareness to the plight of women and girls. Saying, "if we care about the health and well-being of children today and into the future, we must work now to ensure that women and girls have equal opportunities to be educated, to participate in government, to achieve economic self-sufficiency and to be protected from violence and discrimination." UNICEF has launched key interventions to enhance gender equality around the world. "Despite progress in women's status in recent decades, the lives of millions of girls and women are still overshadowed by discrimination, disempowerment and poverty." "Millions of women...are subject to physical and sexual violence, with little recourse to justice." In 2007, Veneman helped launch a partnership with renowned US playwright and 'V-Day' founder Eve Ensler in 2007, to bring awareness and change to the sexual abuse and violence of women in the DRC. 'Stop Raping our Greatest Resource' is a campaign initiated by the women of eastern DRC along with UNICEF and V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls. UNICEF estimates that hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been raped since the conflict began in eastern DRC more than a decade ago. Veneman has also called for greater efforts to end female genital mutilation. In February 2009, marking the International Day against the harmful practice that three million girls and women endure each year, Veneman said, "Some 70 million girls and women alive today have been subjected to female genital cutting. While some communities have made real progress in abandoning this dangerous practice, the rights, and even the lives, of too many girls continue to be threatened."
QUESTION: What other actions were taken to bring awareness to these issues?
IN: Ashanti Shequoiya Douglas was born on October 13, 1980, in Glen Cove, New York. Her mother, Tina Douglas, is a former dance teacher, and her father, Ken-Kaide Thomas Douglas, is a former singer. Her mother named her after the Ashanti Empire in Ghana; in this nation, women had power and influence, and Tina wanted Ashanti to follow that model. Her grandfather, James, was a civil rights activist who associated with Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960s.

Before Concrete Rose was released, Ashanti did some major promotion for her single "Only U", when she premiered it at the 2004 Vibe Music Awards. She featured on "Wonderful"--with Ja Rule and R. Kelly--that year, which peaked at number five in the U.S. and at number one in the UK. In December 2004, Ashanti released her third studio album, Concrete Rose, the title of which took on Tupac Shakur's pseudonym "The Rose That Grew from Concrete". The album debuted at number seven in the U.S., with first-week sales of 254,000 copies, and eventually became her third platinum certified album. The first single, "Only U", reached number thirteen on the Billboard Hot 100 and became her biggest hit in the United Kingdom, peaking at number two. A second single, the ballad "Don't Let Them", garnered little chart success after Def Jam refused to fund a music video due to Irv Gotti's legal troubles during his money laundering trial. The single was released only in the U.S., where it failed to chart, and the UK, where it reached the lower end of the top forty. After the release of Concrete Rose, Ashanti released the DVD Ashanti: The Making of a Star, which was available only for a limited time. The deluxe DVD includes exclusive photo and video shoot footage, music from the albums Ashanti, Chapter II and Concrete Rose, special concert footage, unreleased childhood school performances and behind-the-scenes interviews with family, friends, and fans. In 2005, Ashanti focused more on her acting career, making her feature film acting debut in the film Coach Carter alongside Samuel L. Jackson, as well as starring as Dorothy Gale in the made-for-television film The Muppets' Wizard of Oz, which pulled in nearly 8 million viewers when it premiered. In Coach Carter, she played a pregnant teenager named Kyra who has to decide whether or not to abort her unborn child. The movie opened at number-one at the U.S. box office, eventually grossing $67 million domestically. Later in 2005, Ashanti was invited to Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball, which honored some of the most influential and legendary African American women of the twentieth century in the fields of art, entertainment, and civil rights. In December 2005, Ashanti released a remix album of Concrete Rose titled Collectables by Ashanti. The album was an opportunity for her to fulfill her contract with Def Jam (and have the option of working with another label), and did not fare well on the charts. In 2006, she starred in the teen comedy John Tucker Must Die, which opened and peaked at number three at the U.S. box office (competing with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Miami Vice) and grossed $68,818,076 worldwide. In 2007, she played a supporting role in the action film Resident Evil: Extinction (2007).
QUESTION: What happened to her
IN: Joe Tex was born Joseph Arrington, Jr. in Rogers, Texas, in Bell County to Joseph Arrington and Cherie Sue (Jackson) Arrington. He and his sister Mary Sue were initially raised by their grandmother, Mary Richardson. After their parents divorced, Cheri Arrington moved to Baytown. Tex played baritone saxophone in the high-school band and sang in a local Pentecostal church choir.

Tex recorded for King Records between 1955 and 1957 with little success. He later claimed he sold musical rights to the composition "Fever" to King Records staff, to get money to pay his rent. The song's credited songwriters, Otis Blackwell (who used the pseudonym John Davenport) and Joe Cooley, disputed Tex's claims. Labelmate Little Willie John had a hit with "Fever", which inspired Tex to write the first of his answer songs, "Pneumonia". In 1958, he signed with Ace and continued to have relative failures, but he was starting to build a unique stage reputation, opening for artists such as Jackie Wilson, James Brown, and Little Richard. He perfected the microphone tricks and dance moves that defined the rest of his career. Many, including Little Richard, claim that Tex's future nemesis James Brown stole Tex's dance moves and microphone tricks. In 1960, he left Ace and briefly recorded for Detroit's Anna Records label, where he scored a Bubbling Under Billboard hit with his cover version of Etta James' "All I Could Do Was Cry". By then, Tex's use of rapping over his music was starting to become commonplace. In 1961, he recorded his composition "Baby You're Right" for Anna. Later that year, James Brown recorded a cover version, though with different lyrics and a different musical composition, gaining songwriting credit, making it a hit in 1962, and reaching number two on the R&B chart. During this time, Tex first began working with Buddy Killen, who formed the Dial Records label behind Tex. After a number of songs failed to chart, Killen decided to have Atlantic Records distribute his recordings with Dial in 1964. By the time he signed with Atlantic, Tex had recorded 30 songs, all of which had failed to make an impact on the charts.
QUESTION:
what was some of joe's early recordings?