After winning the humanitarian award at the BET Awards, Beyoncé encouraged her fans to vote "like our life depends on it" in the upcoming US election.
"I want to dedicate this award to all of my brothers out there, all of my sisters out there inspiring me, marching and fighting for change. Your voices are being heard and you’re proving to our ancestors that their struggles were not in vain. Now we have one more thing we need to do to walk in our true power, and that is to vote," she said.
"We have to vote like our life depends on it, because it does."
Michelle Obama, who presented the honour to the singer, praised her for her accomplishments and for "calling out sexism and racism when she sees it".
The award celebrated Black excellence in music, film, sports and philanthropy, and paid tribute to dozens of Black people who died in police custody in recent years.
It was a mix of pre-recorded performances and virtual appearances due the coronavirus pandemic.
OJ Simpson, the onetime football star infamously tried and acquitted of double-murder charges, was cremated on Wednesday during a private gathering of friends and family in downtown Las Vegas, according to the executor of his estate.
Britain's Prince William will return to public duties on Thursday for the first time since his wife Kate revealed she was undergoing preventative chemotherapy for cancer.
British actor Hugh Grant has settled a lawsuit against the publisher of Rupert Murdoch's tabloid newspaper, The Sun, over claims journalists used private investigators to tap his phone and burgle his house, he said on Wednesday.
Hannah Gutierrez, the chief weapons handler for the Western movie "Rust," was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Monday in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was shot when actor Alec Baldwin was handling a gun during the film's production in 2021.