The Full Belmonte, 6/14/2022
Video of then-President Donald Trump is shown on a screen Monday during the House select committee hearing investigating the attack on the US Capitol.
“The chairman of the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol told reporters that the panel won't criminally refer former President Donald Trump or others to the Justice Department. Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson's statement on Monday drew quick reactions from other members of the committee, revealing the panel is split over how to handle potential criminal referrals of Trump and his associates for prosecution. In Monday's hearing, Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren laid out ev that Trump knew he had lost the 2020 election, was told he had lost on dozens of occasions, and not only refused to accept it but actively pushed conspiracy theories and other false claims that he knew were wrong to stir up his party's base. In response, Trump lashed out in a 12-page statement trashing the committee's work.” Read more at CNN
“Trump ‘ripoff’ | The House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol aired new testimony showing members of former President Donald Trump’s inner circle advised him against pursuing claims the 2020 election was stolen. Yet he pressed on, raising about $250 million from supporters in fundraising appeals that one committee member said were then diverted to other purposes in a ‘big ripoff.’” Read more at Bloomberg
“Rudy Giuliani — who, according to one aide, was ‘definitely intoxicated’ that night — told him to declare victory. Trump did.” Read more at New York Times
“Giuliani denies he was drunk on election night when he told Trump to declare victory.” Read more at USA Today
© Associated Press / Courtney Crow, New York Stock Exchange via AP | Wall Street's S&P 500 tumbled Monday on recession fears.
“Stocks plunged again Monday, officially pushing the S&P 500 into bear market territory -- which happens when stocks close down 20% or more from their most recent high. In short, stocks are tumbling due to inflation and the Federal Reserve's efforts to tame it, experts say. One month ago, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that the central bank was not ‘actively considering’ raising interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point to fight inflation, but Wall Street is now worried that Powell may have to change his tune. The S&P 500, the broadest measure of Wall Street, is down more than 21% from its high reached in early January -- and cryptocurrencies have also joined the meltdown. Bitcoin fell below $23,000 today as investors bailed out of risky assets.” Read more at CNN
“Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina are holding primaries today. Here’s what to watch for.” Read more at New York Times
“The vast majority of Republican senators are showing they are hesitant to fully embrace the announced gun safety framework, with many telling CNN they want more details before saying where they stand. It's a sign of just how hard it will be for Republicans to hold on to the support they have and expand it, as pro-gun groups and others whip up supporters against the framework. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia -- the most conservative Democrat in the Senate -- defended the newly reached bipartisan agreement on Monday, adding it takes ‘no rights away, no privileges away’ from gun owners. Separately, Ohio’s governor Monday signed a Republican-backed bill into law that makes it easier for teachers and staff to carry guns on school premises.” Read more at CNN
“The embattled Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk is nearly completely controlled by Russian forces, according to Ukrainian military officials. The third of three main bridges to the city was deemed impassable on Monday, making evacuations extremely difficult. Meanwhile, the human rights group Amnesty International has accused Russia of war crimes during its efforts to capture the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, documenting the alleged use of cluster munitions and ‘other indiscriminate means of attack which killed and injured hundreds of civilians.’ Ukraine’s national police said authorities are also investigating the deaths of more than 12,000 civilians across the country.” Read more at CNN
The bridge to Tom Miner Basin off of Highway 89 south of Livingston has been washed out as major flooding washed away roads and set off mudslides in Yellowstone National Park in Montana on Monday. June 13, 2022.Larry Mayer, The Billings Gazette via AP
“Severe flooding has shut down Yellowstone National Park and left some people in surrounding communities trapped without safe drinking water, officials say. All park entrances have been closed to visitors through at least Wednesday, officials announced, citing ‘record flooding events’ and a forecast of more rain to come. Images of the damage show bridges partially collapsed and washed out roads across the park -- 96% of which is in Wyoming, 3% in Montana and 1% in Idaho. The Yellowstone River, which runs through the park and several Park County cities, swelled to a record high this week due to recent heavy rainfall and significant runoff from melting snow in higher elevations.” Read more at CNN
Actor Kevin Spacey attends a pretrial hearing on Monday, June 3, 2019, at district court in Nantucket, Mass. British police say actor Kevin Spacey is expected to appear in a court in London this week after he was charged with sexual offenses against three men. Spacey, 62, is accused of four counts of sexual assault and one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
“LONDON (AP) — Actor Kevin Spacey has been formally charged with sexual offenses against three men in Britain and is expected to appear in a court in London this week, British police said Monday.
Spacey, 62, is accused of four counts of sexual assault and one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.
Spacey is due to appear at London’s Westminster Magistrates Court on Thursday.
The alleged incidents took place in London between March 2005 and August 2008, and one in western England in April 2013. The victims are now in their 30s and 40s.
The Crown Prosecution Service authorized charges against Spacey last month.
Spacey, a double Academy Award winner, was questioned by British police in 2019 about claims by several men that he had assaulted them. The former “House of Cards” star ran London’s Old Vic theater between 2004 and 2015.
Spacey won a best supporting actor Academy Award for the 1995 film “The Usual Suspects” and a lead actor Oscar for the 1999 movie “American Beauty.”
But his celebrated career came to an abrupt halt in 2017 when actor Anthony Rapp accused the star of assaulting him at a party in the 1980s, when Rapp was a teenager. Spacey denies the allegations.” Read more at AP News
Roger Stone, with Pastor Greg Locke and his wife, Tai Locke. Stone and Locke have featured prominently at ReAwaken America rallies in several states. Photograph: AFF-USA/Rex/Shutterstock
“A growing number of prominent Christian leaders are sounding alarms about threats to democracy posed by ReAwaken America rallies where Donald Trump loyalists Michael Flynn and Roger Stone and rightwing pastors have spread misinformation about the 2020 elections and Covid-19 vaccines, and distorted Christian teachings.
The falsehoods pushed at ReAwaken gatherings have prompted some Christian leaders to warn that America’s political and spiritual health is threatened by a toxic mix of Christian nationalism, lies about Trump’s loss to Joe Biden, and ahistorical views of the nation’s founding principle of the separation of church and state.
Several well-known Christian leaders, including the president of the Christian social justice group Sojourners and the executive director of a major Baptist group, have called on American churches to speak out against the messages promoted at ReAwaken America rallies that have been held in Oklahoma, Arizona, Texas, California, South Carolina and other states,” Read more at The Guardian
“A children’s story hour at a California library was disrupted by several members of the Proud Boys on Saturday, prompting local authorities to launch a hate-crime investigation as LGBTQ and anti-extremism advocates warn that such threats by far-right extremists are intensifying.
Roughly 25 miles from San Francisco across the East Bay, the San Lorenzo Library was hosting Drag Queen Story Hour when a group of five men interrupted the event and began hurling homophobic and transphobic insults at attendees, including the drag performer known as Panda Dulce, officials said. Drag Queen Story Hour, where performers read books to children, takes place in a part of the library where any member of the community can hold a meeting, according to Lt. Ray Kelly, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office.” Read more at Washington Post
“New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) signed a series of abortion bills to protect providers and patients coming from out of state. Go deeper.” Read more at Axios
“Ohio teachers may carry firearms in schools with minimal training, under a law enacted by state Republicans. Go deeper.” Read more at Axios
“So-called ‘forever chemicals’ are linked to elevated blood pressure in middle-aged women, a new study says. Go deeper.” Read more at Axios
“Journalist Rebecca Traister's profile on Sen. Dianne Feinstein centered her long and storied career. But it also evoked questions about the 89-year-old senator's cognitive health, and highlights a political system that rewards seniority.” Read more at NPR
“Trouble brewing | UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is heading for a fresh fight with his Conservative Party after the government published plans to override the Northern Ireland protocol in its Brexit deal with the EU. The proposal was condemned by the bloc, panned by legal experts and may face stiff opposition in Parliament, including from some of Johnson’s own lawmakers.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Independence target | Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is starting a fresh drive to convince the public of the merits of leaving the UK. But as Rodney Jefferson reports, her dilemma is that while pro-independence sentiment has grown since Britain quit the EU, she’ll have trouble finding a legal way to call a referendum over the opposition of London.” Read more at Bloomberg
“New schoolbooks will teach students in Hong Kong that it wasn’t a British colony, according to the South China Morning Post, highlighting Beijing’s campaign to revamp education in the city. Four sets of textbooks for a class on citizenship say the Chinese government never recognized the 19th-century treaties that handed the UK control of Hong Kong until 1997. They also blame sometimes violent protests in 2019 on ‘external forces.’” Read more at Bloomberg
A pro-democracy advocate draped in a UK flag outside a court hearing for activists charged with violating Hong Kong’s national security law in 2021. Photographer: Lam Yik/Bloomberg
“Asylum seekers who had sought to begin a new life in the United Kingdom are instead scheduled to be flown to Rwanda today under a new program launched by the British government.
Clearance for departure came after appeals from human rights groups were dismissed by U.K. courts on Monday. (There is a chance that the flight will still be cancelled due to individual legal challenges; some sources reported that fewer than eight people would be on board.)
“We believe that this is all wrong … for so many different reasons,” U.N. High Commissioner For Refugees Filippo Grandi told reportersahead of the flight. “The precedent that this creates is catastrophic for a concept that needs to be shared like asylum.”
Human Rights Watch has decried the policy as a “clear abrogation of the UK’s international responsibilities and obligations to asylum seekers and refugees,” in a public letter to British authorities and argued that Rwanda’s history of human right violations invalidate British claims of a safe haven.
The British government sees things differently, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has argued that the program is necessary in order to deter the human traffickers who help migrants cross in boats from France to British soil.
Opposition politicians have come out against the move as has Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, who reportedly described it as “appalling.”
Lower down the power structure, British bureaucrats have also staged their own idiosyncratic protests—posting fake deportation notices for Paddington Bear in government offices.
Foreign inspirations. But it’s not just the British government that seeks to keep asylum seekers out of sight and out of mind. Across the Western world, politicians have gone to great lengths, and spent billions, to make sure those seeking asylum—a right under international law—don’t get it on their soil.
A key inspiration for the U.K. policy was Australia, where thousands of asylum seekers have for years been held in island camps in the South Pacific. In the United States, migrants are kept in Mexico—or turned away entirely on spurious health grounds. And the European Union has paid billions to Turkey to prevent refugees from the Middle East from making it into the bloc, as well as funding the Libyan coast guard to act as a de facto border force.
Politicians in wealthy western democracies, citing voter anger about refugees—an anger that has in many cases been stoked by far-right politicians and centrists who mimic their policies—are now afraid of losing elections if they appear insufficiently tough.
“One of the things that I’m hearing particularly from politicians is that the general publics don’t care about refugees, particularly refugees from certain countries or regions, and until the general public care, they are not going to enact policies that are more empathetic because they don’t want to be voted out,” Sally Hayden, the author of My Fourth Time, We Drowned, a book exploring Europe’s refugee policies, told Foreign Policy.
In the United States, it’s a similar story, with politicians too eager to err on the side of security in order to sidestep the fraught politics of migration, despite the solutions available, Andrew I. Schoenholtz, a professor at Georgetown Law School and co-author of The End Of Asylum, told FP.
“We can provide people with work visas, where there are legitimate reasons to do that. And we can also have a functioning asylum system, but it requires serious resources and government will. And the easier answer for the politicians, no matter what party they’re in, is: We’re going to look tough when it comes to the border,” Schoenholtz said.
Hayden holds out hope that the widespread acceptance of Ukrainian refugees may shift some political calculations, but points out another aspect of Europe’s policies that could also have appeal.
“No matter how you feel about refugees and migration and all of this: It’s a huge amount of money that is being spent. Could that money not be better spent in a way that would actually improve a situation for vulnerable people?” As Muhammad Idrees Ahmad argued in FP in March, one way the West could help is by giving persecuted populations the means to defend themselves.
Recalling Europe’s initial generosity toward Syrian refugees and the subsequent shift to shutting them out or deporting them, he argued that “The real lasting help the West can provide is to prevent people from becoming refugees in the first place. A critical first step in this regard is to restore hope, either by protecting people from military aggression or by giving them the means to resist it.”
Colonial legacies. Of course, as well as being democracies, Western European countries are predominantly white and mostly former colonial powers—a subject that can’t be ignored when it comes to the immigration policies these countries pursue, FP columnist Howard French argued on April 28:
“The real problem at work here is not one of legal codes and immigration regimes, as offensive in substance and spirit as they often are; rather, it is something deeper and more personal that has a name many will find unpleasant but that needs to be faced squarely: racism.”
“Deep down, the rich of the world don’t want people of color in their midst in general because they think in terms of hierarchized identity, with Brown being undesirable and Black unbearable … imagining that newcomers of a skin color different from theirs will sully their societies and destroy what they believe makes them special.”
As much as Ukrainian refugees are enjoying a warm welcome today, it might not last, argues Ahmad. “Christianity and whiteness have not always been a guarantor of hospitality,” he noted in FP. “In Britain, blue eyes and blond hair did little to protect Poles from racism in the 2000s; in the 2010s, the focus of xenophobia shifted to Romanians and Bulgarians.”
The fearful political discourse that dominates in the West comes as climate change is creating more displacement and when rich, aging nations are even more in need of younger workers to prop up tax systems. Indeed, as Rhoda Feng wrote in FP last week, “Intensifying heat waves, rainfall, and storm surges—largely a result of the burning of fossil fuels—will displace more than 1 billion people by 2050, hitting poor and disenfranchised populations the hardest,” meaning that without significant policy shifts “tomorrow’s migration crises will be even more traumatic and destabilizing than today’s.”” Read more at Foreign Policy
“A new U.N. human rights chief. The position of U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights will soon be open after its current occupant, Michelle Bachelet, said on Monday that she would not seek a second term in a surprise announcement. Her decision comes shortly after her visit to China, which was criticized for glossing over alleged abuses of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Israel’s government. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s governing coalition is now two seats short of a parliamentary majority after Yamina party member Nir Orbach left the bloc over what he called “extremist, anti-Zionist elements,” holding the group of lawmakers “hostage.” Bennett said his government may collapse within “a week or two,” if defecting members did not return.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Korea’s Democratic Party, newly in opposition following their defeat in presidential and local elections, has banned members from using the term “watermelon” in party discourse in a bid to cool discord between rival factions. Watermelon, or “subak,” has become a byword for duplicity with its contrasting appearance on the outside and inside.
“If you call our party leader a ‘watermelon,’ isn’t that self-destructive? … I hope that you will have more dignified debates using healthy language instead,” Rep. Woo Sang-ho, the party’s interim leader told reporters in a message to party members.
It’s not the first time the fruit has caused controversy. Palestinians have made the watermelon a national symbol as a way to circumvent Israel’s periodic bans on the flying of the Palestinian (red, black, green, white) flag.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Queen Elizabeth II is officially the second longest-reigning monarch in history. Her 70 year reign is two years behind King Louis XIV of France.” Read more at NPR
“Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tested positive for Covid-19 for the second time this year after attending last week’s Summit of Americas in Los Angeles.” [Vox] Read more at Politico / Maura Forrest
“In 1977 Star Wars hit movie theaters, New York City had a blackout that lasted 25 hours, and the Apple II personal computer went up for sale. It was also the year that a remarkable one-page memo was circulated at the very highest levels of US government.
Years before climate change was part of national discourse, this memo outlined what was known – and feared – about climate change at the time. It was prescient in many ways. Did anyone listen?
‘We must start now to develop the new, unconventional sources of energy we will rely on in the next century,’ he said in an address to the nation outlining its main goals.
The climate memo arrived on his desk a few days after the Independence Day celebrations on July 4. It has the ominous title ‘Release of Fossil CO2 and the Possibility of a Catastrophic Climate Change.’
One of the first thing that stands out is the stamp at the top, partially elided, saying THE PRESIDENT HAS SEEN.
The memo’s author was Frank Press, Carter’s chief science adviser and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Press was a tall, serious, geophysicist who had grown up poor in a Jewish family in Brooklyn, and was described as “brilliant” by his colleagues. Before working with the Carter administration, he had been director of the Seismological Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, and had consulted for federal agencies including the Navy and NASA.
“Carter had a great respect for Frank [Press] and for science,” said Stu Eizenstat, who served as Carter’s chief domestic policy adviser from 1977 to 1981.
Press starts the memo by laying out the science of climate change as it was understood at the time.
Fossil fuel combustion has increased at an exponential rate over the last 100 years. As a result, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 is now 12 percent above the pre-industrial revolution level and may grow to 1.5 to 2.0 times that level within 60 years. Because of the “greenhouse effect” of atmospheric CO2 the increased concentration will induce a global climatic warming of anywhere from 0.5 to 5°C.
These far-sighted assertions were in line with the climate science that originated the previous decade, when the US government funded major science agencies focused on space, atmospheric and ocean science. Research produced for President Lyndon B Johnson in 1965 found that billions of tons of “carbon dioxide is being added to the earth’s atmosphere by the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas”.
Press’s memo was on the mark. In 2021, for the first time ever, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 reached 420PPM, the halfway point to the doubling of pre-industrial CO2 levels that Press posited.” Read more at The Guardian
Pope Francis: ‘We do not see the whole drama unfolding behind this war, which was, perhaps, somehow either provoked or not prevented.’ Photograph: Claudio Peri/EPA
“Pope Francis has said Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine was ‘perhaps somehow provoked’ as he recalled a conversation in the run-up to the war in which he was warned Nato was ‘barking at the gates of Russia’.
In an interview with the Jesuit magazine La Civiltà Cattolica, conducted last month and published on Tuesday, the pontiff condemned the ‘ferocity and cruelty of the Russian troops’ while warning against what he said was a fairytale perception of the conflict as good versus evil.
‘We need to move away from the usual Little Red Riding Hood pattern, in that Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad one,’ he said. ‘Something global is emerging and the elements are very much entwined.’
Francis added that a couple of months before the war he met a head of state, who he did not identify but described as ‘a wise man who speaks little, a very wise man indeed … He told me that he was very worried about how Nato was moving. I asked him why, and he replied: ‘They are barking at the gates of Russia. They don’t understand that the Russians are imperial and can’t have any foreign power getting close to them.’
He added: ‘We do not see the whole drama unfolding behind this war, which was, perhaps, somehow either provoked or not prevented.’”
Image caption, Campaigners persuaded Grenoble's city authority to allow burkinis in public pools last month (file pic)
“The city of Grenoble has gone to France's highest administrative court to challenge a ban imposed on a new city rule allowing full-body ‘burkini’ swimsuits in public pools.
Grenoble's decision to authorise all swimwear, including burkinis, sparked a legal battle with the government.
Burkinis are worn largely by Muslim women, as a way of preserving modesty and upholding their faith.
But religious expression in public life in France can be divisive.
Ahead of Tuesday's court case, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin described Grenoble city council's swimwear policy as an ‘unacceptable provocation’ that was contrary to French secular values. Last month, a local court in Grenoble suspended the policy on the grounds that it seriously undermined the principle of neutrality in public services.
The ban on burkinis in state-run pools is also advocated for reasons of hygiene. Men are normally obliged to wear tight-fitting swimming trunks - another rule that Grenoble has decided to overturn. The city council has also permitted men to use Bermuda shorts, which are not usually allowed.” Read more at BBC
Data: Nielsen; Chart: Kavya Beheraj/Axios
“Last week's prime-time Jan. 6 hearing has nearly topped viewership of all the Trump era's high-drama political hearings, Axios' Sara Fischer and Neal Rothschild report.
Why it matters: The House Select Committee tried hard to grab Americans' fleeting attention by holding the hearing in prime time, and by enlisting former ABC News President James Goldston.
The opening hearing nearly doubled the TV audience of the first three games of the ongoing NBA Finals, which averaged nearly 12 million viewers on ABC, per Nielsen.
Hearing 2 was yesterday. Screenshot: CBS News
Major Trump-era hearings also drew high engagement compared to other national TV events:
The final games of the 2021 World Series and the NBA finals drew 11.7 million and 9.91 million viewers, respectively. The Brett Kavanaugh and James Comey hearings drew around 20 million viewers each.
The Academy Awards, Grammys, Emmys and Golden Globes all drew fewer than 10 million viewers in 2021.” Read more at Axios
“The quarter honoring Wilma Mankiller, the first woman elected principal chief of the Cherokee Nation and the first woman to lead a major Native American nation in the U.S., will be available for purchase today.” Read more at USA Today
“$25 million+
The amount Habitat for Humanity International plans to spend over the next three to five years to boost efforts with other groups to create three million new Black homeowners in the U.S. by 2030. The nonprofit group said the initiative was in the works before billionaire MacKenzie Scott donated $436 million earlier this year, but her contribution helped speed up plans.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“June’s strawberry moon will appear opposite the sun and reach its peak illumination at 7:52 a.m. ET Tuesday, and it will remain full through Wednesday morning, NASA reported. But the unique moon won’t be visible to stargazers in North America until later Tuesday night when it drifts above the horizon, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac. Supermoons happen when the moon’s orbit is closest to Earth, giving off the appearance of a larger and brighter full moon, the Old Farmer’s Almanac said. June’s full moon has traditionally been nicknamed the strawberry moon because the Native American Algonquin tribes inhabiting the northeastern U.S. used the strawberry moon to mark the time for gathering ripened June-bearing strawberries, the Almanac said. For all the early risers looking to catch a glimpse of the strawberry moon, Tuesday also will feature 2022’s earliest sunrise at 5:42 a.m. EDT, according to NASA.” Read more at USA Today
The strawberry full moon rises behind the ancient marble temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion, about 45 miles south of Athens, on Thursday, June 24, 2021.Petros Giannakouris, AP
“The 2022 U.S. Open Championship at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, happens to be one of the toughest tests in golf. But this year the tournament is about more than just the game. Phil Mickelson arrived in Brookline, Massachusetts, from London where he was among a dozen players at the U.S. Open who took part in the Saudi-funded debut of the LIV Golf Invitational. Half of those players were PGA Tour members a few weeks ago. Mickelson still is, choosing not to resign his membership despite criticism for taking payment from an organization funded by a government shrouded in human rights allegations. The topic is unavoidable and threatens to overshadow the second-oldest championship in golf.” Read more at USA Today
“'They should be banned'' from majors: Fiancée of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi criticizes LIV.” Read more at USA Today
Phil Mickelson ponders a question at a press conference, Monday, June 13, 2022, at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, ahead of the U.S. Open golf tournament.Robert F. Bukaty, AP
“The Warriors beat the Celtics in Game 5 of NBA Finals: Here are key takeaways from the game.” Read more at USA Today
Game 5: Warriors guard Klay Thompson gets pumped after a big fourth-quarter bucket.Cary Edmondson, USA TODAY Sports
“Major tampon manufacturers in the United States have pledged to make more of the sanitary products to address shortages in the country.
One firm told the BBC the pandemic had caused staff shortages at its plants.
Social media users have been posting about their experiences as they struggle to find sanitary products.
One Reddit user said they visited eight stores to find tampons with a cardboard applicator, before deciding to buy them online ‘at a noticeable mark-up’.
It comes as the war in Ukraine is making the raw materials used in sanitary products more costly.
The shortage is also adding to concerns that supply chain disruptions could further push up prices for essential goods around the world.” Read more at BBC
“A man once married to singer Britney Spears - for 55 hours - has been charged with felony stalking after showing up unannounced during her wedding to Sam Asghari.
Jason Alexander, 40, pleaded not guilty to the charge, as well as to trespassing, battery and vandalism.
He was arrested last week after allegedly gate-crashing and streaming a video from inside Spears' home.
Mr Alexander was briefly married to the pop star, a childhood friend, in 2004.
But the union was annulled after less than three days.
Spears, 40, and her longtime partner Asghari, 28, tied the knot in an intimate ceremony in California last week.” Read more at BBC
“Pop star Lizzo has changed the lyrics to her latest song after fans complained it used an ableist slur.
Grrrls, which was released last week, originally contained a derogatory term for a form of cerebral palsy known as spastic diplegia, in the first verse.
Fans said they were ‘shocked’ and ‘disappointed’, and asked her to re-record the song with alternative words.
The star took the criticism to heart and released a new version omitting the "harmful word" on Monday night.
‘Let me make one thing clear: I never want to promote derogatory language,’ she wrote in a statement posted to social media.
‘As a fat black woman in America, I've had many hurtful words used against me so I understand the power words can have (whether intentionally or in my case, unintentionally).’
The hastily reworked version of Grrrls now includes the lyric ‘hold me back’ in place of the original. Lizzo said the change was ‘the result of me listening and taking action’.
‘As an influential artist I'm dedicated to being part of the change I've been waiting to see in the world.’
The new version has already replaced the original on streaming services including Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube, the BBC has confirmed.
Over the weekend, fans criticised the singer for her choice of lyrics, pointing out that the offensive term had often been used to attack people with disabilities.
Among them was Hannah Diviney, who contacted Lizzo on Twitter to explain why the word had upset people.
‘Cerebral palsy is literally classified as spastic diplegic cerebral palsy, which basically means that I have spasticity, or tightness, in my legs specifically,’ she told the BBC.
‘It's something I can't control and it makes my life quite difficult and painful. Seeing that word used to suggest someone has lost control or had an emotional outburst is really weird because that's not at all what it's like; and that's not at all what my life as a disabled person is.’
Diviney posted a message on Twitter after Lizzo changed the lyric, describing her as a ‘real true ally’.” Read more at BBC
“Lives Lived: Philip Baker Hall, a gravelly-voiced character actor, radiated quiet authority in films and shows like “Secret Honor” and “M*A*S*H.” He died at 90.” Read more at New York Times
Jennifer Hudson accepting a Grammy in 2009.Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
The latest EGOT
“This weekend, when Jennifer Hudson received a Tony for the musical “A Strange Loop,” she became one of 17 people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. Or, as it is known, an EGOT.
The actor Philip Michael Thomas, who played Detective Rico Tubbs on “Miami Vice,” first used the term in the 1980s, and it entered the mainstream after “30 Rock” popularized it in 2009.
Some notable winners:
Richard Rodgers: The composer was the first person to win all four major prizes (before anyone called it “EGOT”) in 1962, when he received an Emmy for the series “Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years.”
Whoopi Goldberg: The actor reached EGOT status in 2002 after winning a Tony for the musical “Thoroughly Modern Millie” and an Emmy for hosting “Beyond Tara: The Extraordinary Life of Hattie McDaniel.”
John Legend, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice: The artists all joined the club in 2018 thanks to NBC’s “Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert.”
Who’s next? Multiple celebrities are just one award away. Among them: Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is missing an Oscar; Cher, who has all except for a Tony; Elton John, who doesn’t have an Emmy; and Viola Davis, who is without a Grammy.” Read more at New York Times