Lil Durk and J. Cole recently spent some time together for what appears to be a music video for their upcoming collab. On Saturday, Durkio shared snaps of him and Cole among a group of people, with a caption that read, “I’m sorry for the wait I’m still healing s/o my dawg Jcole #almosthealed.”
Durk’s post follows last month’s performance at Cole’s Dreamville Festival, where he revealed backstage that he and Cole had been working together.
“I was gon’ do it anyway,” Durk said of taking the Dreamville stage. “I wanted to do it anyway getting to the festival world, but me and J. Cole cooking up something too. We just vibing, working, you know what I’m saying?”
He later told XXL more about their forthcoming song, which he revealed is titled “All My Life.”
“It’s just a rap that’s just showing you what I been going through. What I been doing lately. Trying to change how I am,” he said of the song, which was produced by Dr. Luke. He said he tapped Cole as a feature because he felt the rapper could “bring the energy that I’m looking for to it.”
“All My Life” will likely appear on Durk’s The Voice 2.0, which reflects his overall growth.
“Growth. That’s what the 2.0 stand for, just be on another level. Just not only music-wise, like the things around me like I told you, growing from the friends around me, management,” he added. “Sitting with the mayor. We doin’ big charity things.”
Pharrell‘s Something in the Water festival went down over the weekend in Virginia Beach, featuring a surprise performance from Virginia native Chris Brown. The singer performed hits including “Loyal,” “Look at Me Now” with Busta Rhymes and “Under the Influence” onstage, where Skateboard P also gave him his flowers.
“Make some noise for our brother. Came all the way over here to make this happen,” P began. “Make some noise for Virginia’s own Chris Brown! Lil bro, listen, there’s only one you. There’s only one you.”
“Give this man his flowers again, make some noise for Virginia’s own!” Pharrell continued. “The dancing-est, singing-est, craziest video-making singing dude in R&B and pop music until now. Make some noise for our brother Chris Brown!”
Diddy also made a surprise appearance at the festival, during which he cleverly changed the lyrics of an old song to market his vodka brand. While joining Pharrell and Busta for 2001’s “Pass the Courvoisier, Part II,” he replaced the words “pass the Courvoisier” with “pass the Ciroc this way.”
Something in the Water took place April 28 and 29, with the third and last day canceled due to the weather.
“Dearest Virginia, we are the best,” Pharrell said in a statement. “These past few days have been the best. Even during this Tornado Watch and Lightning Storm right now as I type, we are the best. Thank you for giving the folks that travel here that energy and that LOVE that only we can give.”
P then thanked others vital in the concert’s success, adding, “Next year we will shift the dates because this rain ain’t playing, but we will be! Next year, more acts, more merch, more food… just more! Continued blessings and favor to you all.”
(NEW YORK) — Cross-examination of former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll resumed Monday in her civil defamation and battery case against former President Donald Trump, after the judge in the case denied the defense’s request for a mistrial.
Carroll, who brought the lawsuit in November, alleges that Trump defamed her in a 2022 Truth Social post by calling her allegations “a Hoax and a lie” and saying, “This woman is not my type!” when he denied her claim that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in the 1990s.
She added a charge of battery under a recently adopted New York law that allows adult survivors of sexual abuse to sue their alleged attacker regardless of the statute of limitations. Trump has denied all allegations that he raped Carroll or defamed her.
In a letter sent early Monday morning to Judge Lewis Kaplan, defense attorney Joe Tacopina said the judge had mischaracterized elements of the case and improperly shut down certain lines of questioning during cross examination last week.
Tacopina said he should have been allowed to explore why Carroll did not pursue security camera footage from Bergdorf Goodman and why Carroll did not go to the police following the alleged assault.
“[P]roof that Plaintiff never attempted to determine if any such footage of the parties existed constitutes circumstantial evidence that her accusation is false,” the letter said.
Kaplan denied Tacopina’s request for a mistrial before testimony resumed Monday morning. He offered no reason for the denial.
In his ongoing cross examination of Carroll, Tacopina introduced several of her advice columns for Elle magazine in which she suggested that her readers call police in the event of a sexual assault or threat.
“There were numerous times where you’ve advised your readers to call the police” despite Carroll never reporting her own alleged rape to police, Tacopina said to Carroll.
“In most cases I advised my readers to go to the police,” Carroll replied.
“I was born in 1943,” she said. “I am a member of the silent generation. Women like me were taught to keep our chins up and not complain. The fact that I never went to the police is not surprising for someone my age. I would rather have done anything than call the police.”
The answer was stricken from the record as nonresponsive to the question posed, but the exchange continued the defense’s questioning of Carroll’s actions following the alleged assault, and their suggestions that her behavior — not going to the police, not seeking security camera footage, continuing to shop at Bergdorf’s — is at odds with how other sex assault victims might behave.
Earlier, Tacopina asked Carroll about her shopping habits, saying, “You’ve made many purchases at Bergdorf’s since 1995-96?”
“I’ve not made many but I’ve made several,” Carroll replied.
Tacopina displayed an itemized list of 23 purchases Carroll made from 2001-2018 totaling more than $13,000, and said the purchases made it clear that Carroll was not afraid to enter the store where she was allegedly assaulted.
“Bergdorf’s is not a place that I’m afraid to enter,” Carroll said.
Tacopina asked Carroll about a time she was in the store with Lisa Birnbach, one of two women Carroll has said she told about the alleged rape by Trump.
“That day where you were discussing your niece’s wedding dresses, having champagne with Lisa, did the alleged attack ever enter your head?” Tacopina asked.
“I don’t remember,” Carroll answered. “This was a very happy occasion. I wasn’t there to remember the time in the dressing room in 1996.”
The nine-member jury of six men and three women is weighing Carroll’s defamation and battery claims and deciding potential monetary damages.
Carroll’s lawsuit is her second against Trump related to her rape allegation.
She previously sued Trump in 2019 after the then-president denied her rape claim by telling The Hill that Carroll was “totally lying,” saying, “I’ll say it with great respect: No. 1, she’s not my type. No. 2, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” That defamation suit has been caught in a procedural back-and-forth over the question of whether Trump, as president, was acting in his official capacity as an employee of the federal government when he made those remarks.
If Trump is determined to have been acting as a government employee, the U.S. government would substitute as the defendant in that suit — which means that case would go away, since the government cannot be sued for defamation.
This month’s trial is taking place as Trump seeks the White House for a third time, while facing numerous legal challenges related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, his handling of classified material after leaving the White House, and possible attempts to interfere in Georgia’s 2020 vote. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said Monday she would decide whether to file criminal charges against Trump or his allies this summer.
KISS’ Paul Stanley is facing some backlash after posting his thoughts about gender confirmation treatment for children, suggesting it’s been “turned into a sad and dangerous fad.”
“There is a BIG difference between teaching acceptance and normalizing and even encouraging participation in a lifestyle that confuses young children into questioning their sexual identification as though some sort of game and then parents in some cases allow it,” Stanley writes on Twitter.
He seems to suggest that it’s OK if adults make the decision to change their gender, but he has some issues with parents “normalizing” the choice for kids.
Stanley adds, “With many children who have no real sense of sexuality or sexual experiences caught up in the ‘fun’ of using pronouns and saying what they identify as, some adults mistakenly confuse teaching acceptance with normalizing and encouraging a situation that has been a struggle for those truly affected and have turned it into a sad and dangerous fad.”
The post has quickly been met with backlash. One of those blasting Stanley is The Offspring guitarist Kevin “Noodles” Wasserman, who tweeted, “This is a very disappointing take, especially from someone who wore high-heels, makeup, & teased up hair his whole career. As a young kid your band helped teach me that I could be whatever I wanted to be. I guess it was just gimmickry after all. #thatsashame.”
Led Zeppelin’s seventh album, Presence, hit number one on the Billboard Album chart.
The band, unable to tour due to injuries Robert Plant sustained in a car accident, completed the album in just 18 days, with Plant doing his vocals from a wheelchair.
The album, which spent two weeks on top of the chart, featured the 10-minute opener “Achilles Last Stand,” one of the band’s longest studio recordings.
Presence received mixed reviews and is the band’s lowest-selling album. It was one of seven Led Zeppelin albums to reach number one. The others include 1969’s Led Zeppelin II, 1970’s Led Zeppelin III, 1975’s PhysicalGraffiti, 1979’s In Through the Out Door and 2003’s live album How The West Was One.
L-R: Andrew, Joey, and Matthew Lawrence — Matthew Simmons/Getty Images
On their Brotherly Love podcast, Joey, Andy and Matthew Lawrence discussed something they feel isn’t talked about enough in show business: the so-called Hollywood “casting couch” when it comes to young male actors.
Matthew began by praising the #MeToo movement for exposing such abuse by those in power in the entertainment industry, but says it happens to guys, too — including himself.
“There’s been many times in my life where I’ve been propositioned to get a huge role,” Matthew explained. “I’ve lost my agency because I went to the hotel room — which I can’t believe they would send me to — of a very prominent Oscar Award-winning director who showed up in his robe, asked me to take my clothes off and said he needed to take Polaroids of me.”
He continued, “And then if I did X, Y and Z, I would be the next Marvel character. I didn’t do that, and my agency fired me because I left this director’s room.”
He mentioned Terry Crews, who went public with an accusation against a powerful producer he claims groped him in public. Brendan Fraser also made headlines for accusing a former leader at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association of doing the same.
“Terry Crews comes out and says it; people are laughing at him,” Matthew said. “People don’t support him. They kick him out. Why? Because he’s a man that represents masculinity, and I think our society is less ready to hear that situation going on with men.”
He continued, “Not a lot of guys, in my opinion, have come out and talked about this in the industry. … Now granted, it’s probably about a third of what women go through. … Men go through this as well, whether it’s another woman or another man in power.”
Author Jancee Dunn talks about her new book, “Hot and Bothered: What no one tells you about menopause,” on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” May 1, 2023. — ABC News
(NEW YORK) — As more women pull back the curtain on their journeys with menopause — a topic that previously felt taboo to discuss openly — Jancee Dunn dives into the subject in her new book, Hot and Bothered: What No One Tells You About Menopause.
For Dunn, the first signs of menopause started when she turned 45.
“I had no idea what it was. I wasn’t in that space at all,” she told Good Morning America.
While there were plenty of pregnancy books on the shelves, Dunn said she found just one outdated book on menopause from the ’90s. So she set out to change that, spoke with experts in the field and wrote the book she wished she’d had.
“I really wanted to write a book where there was humor in it and not make it so dire,” she said.
Her book instead offers simple advice on how she handled some of the common symptoms, like hot flashes. “I breathe in, count of five, hold it for eight count, then breathe out. There’s something about giving yourself control,” she said.
Other symptoms she outlined include brain fog, mood change, irregular periods, thinning hair and dry skin.
“[Skin is] probably going to get dryer and more sensitive and your go-to products might not work any more,” Dunn explained from her personal experience. “You want something that gets rid of that dry outer layer. Gentle retinol products can help.”
Dunn also shared her message to women struggling with menopause: “Normalize this transition by talking as much as possible to everyone you know about it. The more we talk about it, the more normal it is. Less scary it is.”
ABC News Chief Medical Correspondent and OB-GYN Dr. Jennifer Ashton shared her expertise to further shed light on the topic and help women better understand the phase of time and transition.
When does menopause begin?
“The average age of menopause in this country is 51. It can start as early as 45 or even earlier,” Ashton said. “Perimenopause can start 10 years before menopause actually begins.”
What is perimenopause?
“Our definition is one year without a menstrual period,” Ashton said.
What are the perimenopause symptoms?
The head-to-toe symptoms, as Ashton called it, include “bleeding patterns can change, mood swings, skin changes, hair change [and] weight changes.”
“It is so pervasive and so distinctive woman to woman that we tend to say to a woman 40 and up, ‘If you are experiencing something new, something different, think hormonal, think perimenopause or menopause first.’ That’s how diverse and broad the signs and symptoms are,” Ashton said.
Recommendations for menopause symptoms
“The first thing we have to remember is that hormone replacement therapy is and should be an option on the table for the vast majority of women,” Ashton said, adding that “women should talk to their gynecologist about that.”
When it comes to hot flashes specifically, Ashton said, “There are numerous non-hormonal prescription medications that work very effectively.”
Additionally, she said wellness behaviors can help, such as getting exercise and avoiding alcohol, caffeine and spicy foods, which, she says, can trigger the onset of a hot flash.
What to know about hormone replacement therapy
“Women have to discuss this with their gynecologist,” she encouraged.
While some are weary of the treatment, Ashton pointed to the 2002 Women’s Health Initiative trial, in which “data was boiled down to a misleading headline: ‘Hormones bad, hormones dangerous.’ Now, there are oncologists who actually, in evaluating the data both past and present, really find that most data suggests and shows conclusively that estrogen does not increase the risk of breast cancer.”
When it comes to other conditions that affect women, Ashton said, “Heart disease, osteoporosis and dementia cause more deaths than breast cancer and there are some real benefits to hormones.”
(NEW YORK) — Four types of Gold Medal all-purpose flour, bleached and unbleached, have been recalled due to possible salmonella contamination.
General Mills announced a voluntary recall with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday.
According to the recall, the strain was “discovered during sampling of the five-pound bag product.”
The affected products included two date codes of Gold Medal Unbleached All Purpose Flour in 5- and 10-pound bags, as well as two date codes of Gold Medal Bleached All Purpose Flour in the 2- and 5-pound bags. The recalled bags of flour have a “better if used by” date of March 27, 2024, and March 28, 2024.
No other types of Gold Medal Flour were affected by this recall.
General Mills urged customers to check their pantries at home and asked them to discard any of the affected products.
The FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned consumers to refrain from consuming any uncooked products made with Gold Medal flour.
The agency wrote, “Salmonella Infantisis [is] killed by heat through baking, frying, sautéing or boiling products made with flour. All surfaces, hands and utensils should be properly cleaned after contact with flour or dough.”
Tim Bachman, guitarist and one of the co-founders of the Canadian band Bachman-Turner Overdrive, passed away Friday at age 71. The news was announced by the artist’s son Ryder in a post on Facebook, with an earlier post revealing that doctors had found “cancer riddled all throughout his brain.”
“My Dad passed this afternoon. Thank You Everyone for the kind words,” Ryder wrote. “Grateful I got to spend some time with him at the end. Grab yer loved ones and hug em close, ya never know how long you have.”
BTO also featured Bachman’s brothers Randy and Robbie, along with Fred Turner. Tim was featured on two of the band’s albums, Bachman–Turner Overdrive and Bachman–Turner Overdrive II, with the latter featuring the band’s two biggest hits, “Takin’ Care of Business” and “Let It Ride.”
Tim left the group in 1974 and was replaced by Blair Thornton. He did return for a 1984 reunion album and tour, which had BTO opening for Van Halen.
Tim’s death comes after the January passing of his brother Robbie,at the age of 69.
(LONDON) — Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, will attend the coronation of his father King Charles III, but travel back to the U.S. to celebrate his son’s birthday, ABC News has learned.
Harry’s trip to the United Kingdom could possibly only last about 24 hours, as he is expected to attend the coronation and then leave shortly afterward to return home to his family, according to ABC News royal contributor Omid Scobie.
Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and their two children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet will not attend, according to the palace.
“Buckingham Palace is pleased to confirm that The Duke of Sussex will attend the Coronation Service at Westminster Abbey on 6th May. The Duchess of Sussex will remain in California with Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet,” the palace previously said in a statement.
The coronation ceremony is scheduled to take place Saturday, May 6, at Westminster Abbey. The date coincides with the birthday of Archie, who will turn 4.
Harry was most recently in the U.K. in March, on a solo trip to attend court hearings in a tabloid lawsuit, but he is not believed to have met with Charles or his older brother Prince William.
Harry has described tensions with his father and brother for several years, most publicly after he and Meghan stepped down from their roles as senior working royals in 2020.
It is not known whether Harry has seen William and Charles in person since the release of his memoir “Spare” earlier this year, in which he details their family rift.
“He’s had conversations with King Charles over the months since the release of that book. And so I think for a chance to see his son, their supporting him on the day of the coronation will mean a lot. Whether that gives them any time to change how the relationship is — I don’t think so. The focus is really on the coronation weekend, but it does at least sort of build one extra step on that very long bridge to reconciliation,” Scobie added.
Harry last appeared publicly with his family in September, when he and Meghan attended the funeral of Harry’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II.
Despite being at odds with Charles and William, the heir to the throne, Harry has said he would like to see the monarchy continue.
He told GMA co-anchor Michael Strahan in January that in speaking out, he hoped to be able to reconcile with his family.
“If we can get to the point of reconciliation, that will have a ripple effect across the world,” Harry said in the interview. “I genuinely believe that, and that’s kind of what is pushing me. And if that doesn’t happen, then that’s very sad.”
