New details of late R&B star Aaliyah‘s life are being revealed nearly 20 years after her death.
Author Kathy Iandoli‘s new biography, Baby Girl: Better Known as Aaliyah, out Tuesday, includes never-before-told stories about the hitmaker’s music, her relationships and the evolution of her career.
Iandoli’s book also explores Aaliyah’s long-lasting influence since her tragic death in a plane crash on August 25, 2001, at age 22.
During an interview with Good Morning America, Iandoli shared more about her reverence for the late music icon and what drew her to creating this biography.
“I wanted to create something that celebrated her because I was sick and tired of the other static that was coming in about her — the other things, the other news — and there’s only really one way to tell a story and it’s to provide this panoramic view of the artist,” she explained.
The author and music expert said Aaliyah’s death was overshadowed by the 9/11 attacks, so many fans “weren’t able to grieve.”
“What started to happen over the years was Aaliyah became an aesthetic — she became this like mythical creature, she became almost like a statue, a piece of iconography,” Iandoli said.
The book covers many points of Aaliyah’s career and her personal life, including her secret — and brief — marriage to disgraced rapper R. Kelly in 1994, when she was just 15 and Kelly was 27. The marriage was later annulled.
In the book, Iandoli also acknowledges the possibility that the late singer may have been drugged before boarding her final flight. Iandoli is clear in stating that this is just a possibility; she is not saying it happened or did not happen.
Baby Girl: Better Known as Aaliyah is now available.
The Kid LAROI turns 18 today and he’s got a lot to celebrate. Not only is he currently number one on the Billboard Hot 100 with his hit, “Stay,” but he’s also number one in his home country of Australia. On top of that, he’s now besties with one of his idols, Justin Bieber.
On Twitter, the rapper, born Charlton Howard, wrote, “18 Years! WOAH. first of all, thank you to every single one of you mfs for supporting me. I LOVE YOU ALL BEYOND WORDS CAN F**KIN EXPLAIN MAN. you guys have literally changed my life and there’s nothing that I can ever do to repay you.”
LAROI then noted that, instead of gifts, he’d prefer that his fans donate to causes that mean something to him.
“I want to use this platform to continue to help others,” he explained. “This year I’m raising funds to help these amazing organizations —> https://pledge.to/the-kid-laroi-birthday u can also donate by texting LAROI to 707070.”
If you click on the pledge button, you’ll learn that LAROI is asking fans to help organizations that are working to help homeless young people in both Australia and the U.S. “Proper housing and the kinds of supportive programs that these groups provide can make all the difference for a young person,” writes LAROI.
(DESOTO, Texas) — After 12 years in a wheelchair, a paralyzed former football player walked for the first time since his injury at his college graduation.
In 2009, Corey Borner was a rising star at cornerback for the DeSoto, Texas, High School football team when he suffered a spinal cord injury during a routine tackle. After a nine-hour surgery, Borner was told that he had a C5-C6 spinal injury and would be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
“Being in a chair you have to make the best of it,” Borner said.
Leaning on faith and family, the 28-year-old Dallas native turned his story into his life’s mission as a motivational speaker.
“You just got to be thankful because it’s a blessing to be alive and still be here,” he said.
On Aug. 14, at the University of North Texas at Dallas, with the help of an exoskeleton suit from the Baylor Scott & White Institute for Rehabilitation in Dallas, Borner was able to surprise his friends and family by walking across the stage at his graduation.
“It was amazing being able to walk across the stage. It was actually a surprise. I told everyone that I had a special guest,” Borner said.
For Borner, walking across the stage was a culmination of over a decade of work and only the beginning of his story.
“I plan on continuing to be a motivational speaker and share my testimony to others,” he said. “I made a promise to myself in 2009 that I will always keep my story alive.”
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a new warning about the dangers of high-powered magnetic balls and cubes.
The agency announced a mandatory recall on Tuesday of 10 million products from Zen Magnets LLC — Zen and Neoballs — due to an ingestion hazard and risk of death.
Most recalls are done voluntarily, with companies and the CPSC working together to get dangerous products out of consumers’ hands, but the agency said that since “Zen did not agree to a voluntary recall, CPSC sued the company to effect a mandatory recall.”
“When high-powered magnets are swallowed, they can interact with each other or other metallic objects (material attracted to magnets) and become lodged in the digestive systems. This can result in perforations, twisting and/or blockage of the intestines, infection, blood poisoning, and death,” the CPSC warned in a press release. “These injuries can occur when infants, toddlers, and teens access and ingest the magnets, including, for example, when teens use the magnets to mimic mouth piercings and swallow them inadvertently.”
Founder Shihan Qu shared a statement in response to the recall Tuesday on the company’s website.
“Zen Magnets is honored to have been the leading voice of the majority of consumers who believe that adults should be able purchase recreational high powered magnets, in the CPSC’s continual and uncompromising War on Magnets,” he wrote. “We’ve been offering a voluntary recall since 2016 allowing customers to return magnets for a refund for any reason, including if they didn’t feel safe with them, didn’t think they could keep them from being swallowed, or was unable to understand why they are dangerous, or didn’t like the name Zen Magnets.”
The founder added that his was “the first company to petition the CPSC for safer standards for recreational magnet sets after their 2016 ban was overturned by a Judge, for not having properly considered alternatives. After much work with other companies, doctors, and human factors experts, the spirit of our petition for safer magnet standards lives in a new standard ASTM F3458 — 21 which requires recreational magnets to have warnings stronger than cigarettes and fireworks combined, and packaging that’s safer that laundry detergent pods and on par with pharmaceuticals.”
In order to help protect kids from the potential hidden hazard, CPSC issued violation notices to companies that market dangerous, high-powered magnetic balls and cubes as toys for children, insisting that those companies notify purchasers and warn of the dangers of use by children. CPSC also works with major online platforms to remove these products from their sites.
“When consumers see these products marketed for children on trusted e-commerce sites, many of these items sold by foreign firms, consumers assume they are safe,” acting Chairman Robert Adler said in a statement. “But the reality is, these magnets can cause lifelong injury, or worse, to kids. That’s why it’s so important that e-commerce sites not allow these products to be sold to kids and why kids are safest when these products are not in the home.”
The CPSC also worked with e-commerce sites to issue safety alert notices directly to purchasers in the cases when magnet firms were not responsive.
Adler added that “until we can get these products off the market entirely, we just have to be vigilant.”
The nearly 10 million magnets, manufactured in China, were sold individually for 6 to 10 cents as well as in magnet sets for anywhere between $12 and $264 per set. The magnets were sold online and at certain Colorado retailers starting in January 2009.
Zen Magnets and Neoballs are high-powered 5 mm spherical magnets. Zen Magnets were sold individually and in sets of 72, 216 with 6 spares, and 1,728 with 8 spares. Neoballs were sold individually and in sets in the following colors: silver, gold, red, orange, green, red, blue and purple. “Zen Magnets” or “Neoballs” is printed on the packaging.
Consumers should immediately stop using the recalled magnets and contact Zen Magnets LLC for a refund.
As of time of publication, the CPSC said Zen Magnets LLC was aware of two children who ingested Zen Magnets and required surgery to remove them along with parts of their intestines and bowels. It was also aware of other reports of children and teenagers ingesting high-powered magnets and requiring surgery. A 19-month-girl died after ingesting similar high-powered magnets.
Nelly is calling on a few of his country friends for an upcoming episode of CMT Crossroads.
The Grammy-winning rapper is teaming up with frequent collaborators Florida Georgia Line, Kane Brown, Blanco Brown and Breland for CMT Crossroads: Nelly & Friends, which premieres on September 1 at 10 p.m. ET.
Nelly is making history as the first hip-hop artist to headline the long-running series that pairs a country act with an artist from another genre as they perform one another’s songs. The show will also mark Kane, Blanco and Breland’s CMT Crossroads debut.
All three acts are featured on the rapper’s upcoming country-influenced album, Heartland, which features FGL on “Lil Bit,” Kane on “Grits & Glamour,” and both Blanco and Breland on “High Horse.”
Nelly and FGL have been longtime collaborators, beginning with a remix of FGL’s “Cruise” that peaked inside the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2013. They’re currently climbing their way up the charts with “Lil Bit,” which is at #3 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart and in the top 20 of the Billboard Mainstream Top 40 Airplay chart.
If you just can’t wait for Josh Groban to return to the stage, you can watch him now on The Roku Channel.
The first season of a new game show called Eye Candyis now streaming, and Josh is the host. The show, based on a popular Japanese program, has contestants trying to determine, “Is it real or cake?”
Basically, contestants look at everyday objects and decide if they’re regular old inedible things — like a yoga mat or a box of crayons — or cleverly disguised delicious cakes. If they think something’s cake, they have to take a bite out of it — with often hilarious results.
Among the celebrity guests who are competing: Rachel Dratch, Michael Ian Black, Tiki Barber, Nico Tortorella, Nina Agdal and Ana Gasteyer.
When the show was first announced, Josh was quoted as saying, “I first saw this show in Japan when it was called Sokkuri Sweets and was obsessed with how fun and silly it was. To be the ringmaster of such insanity is a dream. Bon Appetit.”
If Mariah Carey was going to sell any sort of alcoholic beverage, you’d figure it’d be spiked eggnog, right? Well, the elusive chanteuse has confounded our expectations once again by launching her own brand of Irish cream liqueur: Black Irish.
“Introducing BLACK IRISH. Two years in the making. Truly a cause for celebration,” Mariah wrote on her socials. “A cause for celebration” is a lyric from Mariah’s 2005 track “It’s Like That.”
Available in original, white chocolate and salted caramel, the liqueurs are 17% ABV, and made by blending “aged Irish whiskey and superior dairy sourced from Irish farms.”
According to Food & Wine magazine, Mariah dubbed her liqueur Black Irish as a “a playful nod to her Black and Irish lineage.” Her mom is of Irish descent, while her late father was Black and Venezuelan.
Food & Wine quotes Mariah saying in a statement: “I have been putting my heart into this project for almost two years and I am so excited to finally share this news with you all. I wanted to create something that embodies the holidays and gives everyone a reason to celebrate year-round, and I really think we have done that with Black Irish.”
Black Irish is now available online. And should you ever get so drunk that you forget whose product it is, the bottlecaps are emblazoned with an “MC” as well as Mariah’s signature butterfly.
Netflix has just released an eerie teaser for its anticipated documentary Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed, about the rise of late, legendary soft-spoken painter Bob Ross.
According to the streaming service, this “shockingly untold story” examines the life of the prolific landscape artist and The Joy of Painting host, whose “kind and gentle demeanor…encouraged everyone he met to embrace their creativity and believe in themselves, becoming a cultural phenomenon along the way.”
However, Netflix teases, “Beyond the iconic hair, soothing voice and nostalgic paintings lies a mystery that many have yet to discover.”
The teaser is no less mysterious: “We want to show you the trailer,” a title card reads as off-putting xylophone music tinkles in the background, “but we can’t.”
“Find out why on August 25,” it concludes.
Melissa McCarthy and her husband and producing partner Ben Falcone co-produced the film, which was directed by Joshua Rofé, who also called the shots on the documentaries Lorena and Sasquatch.
Lorde has released a third advance song from her much-anticipated upcoming album, Solar Power.
The latest cut is titled “Mood Ring,” and is available now for digital download and via streaming. The acoustic-driven jam follows the lead single title track and the song “Stoned at the Nail Salon.”
“This is a song I am very excited about, it’s so much fun to me,” Lorde says of “Mood Ring.” “Obviously when making this album I did a deep-dive into ’60s, Flower Child culture. I wanted to understand the commune life, dropping out from society and trying to start again. That really resonated to me when writing this album.”
Fittingly, “Mood Ring” is accompanied by a video that finds Lorde in a hippie-commune setting.
“One thing that occurred to me as a major parallel between that time and our time is our wellness culture and our culture of spirituality, pseudo-spirituality, wellness, pseudo-wellness,” Lorde explains. “Things like eating a macro-biotic vegan diet or burning sage, keeping crystals, reading tarot cards or your horoscope.”
She continues, “These were all things that they were dabbling in back then, and that me and my girlfriends are dabbling in today. I was like, ‘I think there’s a pop song in here.’ So this is kind of my extremely satirical look at all of those vibes.”
Solar Power the album arrives this Friday, August 20.
In other news, Lorde will be joining The Late Late Show with James Corden for a week-long residency starting August 23.
(WASHINGTON) — Millions of Americans who struggle to get food on the table will soon receive new assistance thanks to a historic increase in funding.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a reevaluation to its Thrifty Food Plan, marking the first major update in over 45 years to reflect current cost realities for low-income families.
The plan estimates the price of a budget-conscious diet for a family of four and calculates the average need for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits. The recalculations to the program, formerly referred to as food stamps, will go into effect Oct. 1. Each qualified recipient, on average, will see a rise from $121 to $157 per month.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack called the modernized plan “an investment in our nation’s health, economy, and security” that will better provide healthy food to low-income families.
“Ensuring low-income families have access to a healthy diet helps prevent disease, supports children in the classroom, reduces health care costs,” he said. “The additional money families will spend on groceries helps grow the food economy, creating thousands of new jobs along the way.”
The historic increase approved by President Joe Biden’s administration will help food aid rise by more than 25% from pre-pandemic levels for all 42 million program beneficiaries.
According to the Agriculture Department, the retooled plan’s average monthly benefits, which were $121 per person per month before the pandemic, will rise by $36.24 under the new rules.
“The reevaluation concluded that the cost of a nutritious, practical, cost effective diet is 21% higher” than the current plan, according to the Agriculture Department.
This boost comes on the cusp of emergency SNAP benefits that are set to expire at the end of September. They were first put into place as a pandemic protection measure as part of the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion relief bill signed in March.
The USDA called SNAP “the most far-reaching, powerful tool available to ensure that all Americans, regardless of background, can afford healthy food.”
The program helps to feed 1 in 8 Americans each month with evidence showing that SNAP increases food security, including among households with children who have been disproportionately impacted by hunger during the COVID-19 pandemic.
