Selena Gomez earned some unexpected praise from Lady Gaga after she tried on a beauty filter for one of her videos and confessed, “I wish I was as pretty as Bella Hadid.”
In a TikTok story posted Monday, Selena tried on a filter that was supposed to make her look more like the model. The filter gave her ultra-laminated eyebrows, almond-shaped eyes, a narrower nose and a contoured face.
As Selena posed with the filter on, she lipsynced to audio of the model saying, “My name? My name is Bella Hadid.” She also captioned how she wished she looked like Hadid.
Both Hadid and Selena dated The Weekend a few years back, and some fans believed that caused some tension between the two. This video is being interpreted as Selena dismissing the rumored drama.
In a second story, Selena shared another video of her with the filter turned off and joked, “Instead, this is me. I accidentally laminated my brows too much.” Laminating one’s brows is like giving them a perm to give them a fuller look.
She then tried to put her own spin on the Bella Hadid audio and remarked how her attempt “doesn’t even sound sexy.”
Apparently, Lady Gaga wasn’t in the mood for self-deprecation and commented on that video, “You look and are beautiful inside and out.” She also called Selena “one of my favorite ladies alive!”
Deftones frontman Chino Moreno has shared two previously unreleased songs with his side project Palms.
The tracks, titled “Opening Titles” and “End Credits,” are getting their debut now to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the 2013 self-titled debut Palms album, which remains the group’s only full-length effort.
You can listen to “Opening Titles” and “End Credits” now via digital outlets.
Moreno formed Palms in 2011 with bassist Jeff Caxide, drummer Aaron Harris and guitarist Bryant Clifford Meyer, who previously played together in the post-metal band Isis.
If that’s not enough Moreno music for you, his other side project Crosses just put out a new EP, PERMANENT.RADIANT, last December. The most recent Deftones album is 2020’s Ohms.
Loaded, one of the most acclaimed Velvet Underground albums — and the band’s last with Lou Reed — has been repackaged into a massive nine-LP box set featuring demos, outtakes and live recordings, including some coming to vinyl for the first time.
The box set, due March 24, includes almost all the material from the 45th anniversary edition CD Loaded: Re-Loaded, released in 2015. Called LOADED (FULLY RELOADED), it’s limited to only 1,970 numbered copies available exclusively via Rhino.com.
Weighing in at a hefty $250, the package comes in a foil-wrapped slipcase containing the nine albums, a poster of the album’s cover art and an illustrated booklet with liner notes by writer and Patti Smith Group member Lenny Kaye. There are also four 7-inch singles that reproduce the official singles released from Loaded, including the classics “Rock & Roll” and “Sweet Jane.”
Among the nine LPs are three different versions of the original album: remastered stereo and mono mixes, plus a version that includes extended versions of “Sweet Jane,” “Rock & Roll” and “New Age.” The demos and alternate mixes include some songs that eventually appeared on Reed’s 1972 self-titled solo debut album.
The live tracks come from two different shows. One of them, recorded six months before Loaded‘s November 1970 release, features the band performing as a trio, as drummer Moe Tucker was pregnant. Those tracks include early versions of “Rock & Roll” and “New Age.”
The second batch of live tracks come from a show at New York’s Max’s Kansas City on August 23, 1970, the day Reed left the band. It includes live versions of Velvets staples like “White Light/White Heat,” “Pale Blue Eyes” and “I’m Waiting for The Man” as well as “Sweet Jane.”
(EAST PALESTINE, Ohio) — The politics around the Feb. 3 derailment of the Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border intensified this week with attention only growing on East Palestine from local, state and national leaders, among others.
Former President Donald Trump is slated to visit the area on Wednesday as East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway lambasted President Joe Biden for a surprise trip to Ukraine on Monday instead of the Ohio village — a stop Conaway called the “biggest slap in the face” as his community reels from the fiery crash more than two weeks ago.
Conaway later said he would welcome Biden.
“You have a president going to Ukraine and you have people in Ohio that are in desperate need of help,” Trump said on Monday during a speech in West Palm Beach, Florida, days after he announced his upcoming trip to the site.
“The people of East Palestine need help. I’ll see you on Wednesday!” Trump wrote on in a statement on Saturday.
It remains unclear where he will appear in the area or with whom and what he will say.
In the days following the crash of about 50 cars of a freight train carrying hazardous materials including vinyl chloride, a highly volatile colorless gas produced for commercial uses, uproar has ensued from Republicans and some Democrats at the response, particularly from the Biden administration — who has repeatedly sought to highlight an array of steps being taken.
Conservative media personalities have been quick to try and link the absence of Biden administration representatives in the area — not including Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan — to their claim that the president wants to neglect the area because of its politics, which Democrats have rejected.
“East Palestine is a poor, white town that voted for Trump. So honestly, who cares? No one in the Biden administration did care and that’s an atrocity,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson said recently.
The White House has said they would dispatch Federal Emergency Management Agency relief to East Palestine on Saturday, despite acknowledgement even from Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, that the state did not expect help from the agency that is “most typically involved with disasters where there is tremendous home or property damage,” like fallout from hurricanes or floods.
Trump quickly tried to take credit for the action: “Biden and FEMA said they would not be sending federal aid to East Palestine. As soon as I announced that I’m going, he announced a team will go. Hopefully he will also be there. This is good news because we got them to ‘move,'” Trump said on social media.
Democrats, however, including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, sought to place some blame on Trump for the train derailment because his administration withdrew regulations connected to “high hazard” trains, along with other EPA regulations related to harmful toxins and emissions.
The EPA administrator, Regan, came to East Palestine on Thursday, as the first Biden administration agency head to visit. Regan visited again on Tuesday — a day ahead of Trump’s scheduled trip — and reiterated that the administration has employed the EPA and Department of Transportation personnel on the ground since “day one” to support state and local emergency and environmental response efforts.
Biden himself has said little on the topic, though the White House has said he’s offered federal assistance to Ohio Gov. DeWine and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. On Tuesday after a high-profile speech in Ukraine, Biden provided his first direct update to his involvement in East Palestine, tweeting that he had just spoken with DeWine, Shapiro, Brown, U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, Mayor Conaway and Regan about the ongoing crisis.
“We’ll continue to hold rail companies accountable when they fail to put safety first. But first, we’ve got Norfolk Southern’s mess to clean. I want affected residents to know that we’ve got your back. And as I said to your govs, they’ll have every resource that they need,” Biden said.
In a series of tweets, Biden reiterated an earlier announcement from the EPA which ordered Norfolk Southern, to pay for the clean-up and disposal of hazardous materials related to the derailment.
“This is common sense. This is their mess. They should clean it up,” Biden said, before noting that his administration were on the ground working in “lockstep” with state and local officials just “hours” after the trail derailed.
Biden also echoed Buttigieg’s plea for rail companies and lawmakers to embrace safety regulations– improvements that have been resisted, according to the transportation secretary. A day before Trump’s visit to East Palestine, Biden also noted the EPA and train related regulation rollbacks made by his predecessor’s administration.
“The @USDOT has made clear to rail companies that their pattern of resisting safety regulations has got to change. Congress should join us in implementing rail safety measures,” Biden said on Twitter. “For years, elected officials – including the last admin – have limited our ability to implement and strengthen rail safety measures. Heck, many of the elected officials pointing fingers right now want to dismantle the EPA – the agency that is making sure this clean up happens.”
While uneasiness and concern remains among community members, state and local leaders joined together on during a press conference in East Palestine on Tuesday to offer their reassurances.
DeWine, Shapiro, Johnson, Conaway and Regan touted their ability to put partisan politics aside and work together in holding Norfolk Southern accountable, they said, for environmental and safety violations. (The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating what led to the derailment.)
“We recognize that we have a responsibility, and we have committed to doing what’s right for the residents of East Palestine. We have been paying for the clean-up activities to date and will continue to do so,” the rail company said in a statement to ABC News.
“I think it’s important to point out that a Republican congressman and a Democratic congressman who are here, a Republican governor and a Democratic governor who have been working together on this matter, since the moments after that train derailed …This is how government is supposed to work and both working together with the Biden administration to make sure we draw down whatever federal resources there are, whatever federal help that they need, the good people of Ohio and Pennsylvania can know that we’ve put any kind of partisan politics aside,” Shapiro said at Tuesday’s press conference.
“This is not a place for conspiracy theories or political games,” Shapiro said. “This is a place where the good people of Pennsylvania and Ohio deserve answers, deserve accountability and deserve public servants.”
The politicians stressed to the public that the city’s water supply has shown to be safe — at least so far — and that testing would continue.
During the same press conference, Conaway said he “stood by” comments he made on Fox News on Monday night, during which he called Biden’s trip to Kyiv “the biggest slap in the face that tells you right now, he doesn’t care about us.”
“He can send every agency he wants to, but I found that out this morning and one of the briefings that he was in the Ukraine giving millions of dollars away to people over there, not to us, and I’m furious,” Conaway told Fox News host Jesse Watters on Monday.
On Tuesday, however, Conaway said Biden would be welcomed into the community.
“I would never turn anybody away, if he wants to come visit come visit. We don’t want to be political pawns,” Conaway said at the joint press conference.
“He’s more welcome to come if he wants to come. I was very frustrated last night. If you’re talking about the comments I made last night, I was very frustrated. And, you know, I stand by those comments,” the mayor said.
More heat on Transportation Secretary Buttigieg
Buttigieg also ramped up his response to the train derailment this week with pressure from the DOT for Congress to take action, a multipart push to hold the freight rail industry accountable and a strongly worded letter to Norfolk Southern, in which he accused the company of repeatedly prioritizing profit over safety.
The transportation secretary has faced his own intense criticism. Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio even wrote to Biden, calling on Buttigieg to resign.
Buttigieg responded to some of the criticism on a Monday night press call, saying that some of the most critical lawmakers were also some who have tried to “block or weaken rail safety standards” in the past.
He has maintained that he plans on visiting East Palestine when the independent NTSB investigation is finished.
“I am planning to go, and our folks were on the ground from the first hours. I do want to stress that the NTSB needs to be able to do its work independently. But when I go, the focus is going to be on action,” he told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday on Good Morning America.
On Tuesday, DeWine also called for Congress to take a sharper look at rail standards — something he and Shapiro have talked at length about, he said.
When the makers of Game of Thrones accidentally forgot to strike somebody’s Starbucks cup from a table in Westeros, it became a viral sensation; same when The Mandalorian gang didn’t spot an errant crew member in a shot in the middle of a gunfight. Now, it appears The Last of Us has suffered a similar flub.
One eagle-eyed Twitter user managed to spot some crew members in the hit show’s most recent episode.
In a shot from the sixth episode that takes place in the series post-apocalyptic United States, Pedro Pascal‘s Joel and Bella Ramsey‘s Ellie trudge across a snowy bridge. But at the 15:18 mark, Scott T. Jones noticed they weren’t alone.
No, it wasn’t clickers, but a group of film workers hauling gear. “Brilliant episode,” Jones commented. “Something you might want to fix and reupload though. You can see the film crew in this shot,” he tweeted the show’s executive producer Neil Druckmann.
He also tweeted another version of the same shot, but with handy markers in case one has trouble spotting the problem. Referencing Game of Thrones‘ flub, he used Starbucks cups to mark the crew members’ position, and some of their gear.
Nowadays, such boo-boos can be deleted digitally, and the episode re-uploaded to a streaming service — which is what the makers of The Mandalorian did, but not before “Jeans Guy” got a nickname and fan-made action figures to memorialize his moment.
As of Wednesday, however, the Last of Us flub is still there.
Foo Fighters are headlining Canada’s 2023 RBC Bluesfest, taking place July 6-16 in Ottawa.
The bill also includes Radiohead offshoot group The Smile, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Weezer, Death Cab for Cutie, Mumford & Sons, AJR and White Reaper.
RBC Bluesfest is one of several festivals Foo Fighters are playing this year as part of their live comeback following the death of drummer Taylor Hawkins last March. They’re also headlining Bonnaroo and Boston Calling, among others.
Turns out the return of Rihanna‘s 2016 album Anti- to the Billboard top 10 following the Super Bowl was just part of the story: She’s now one of only a handful of artists who’ve had at least five albums in the top 50 at the same time.
Prior to Rihanna, only six acts have ever managed to place at least five albums in the top 50 of the Billboard 200 album chart simultaneously. In addition to Anti- jumping to number eight, as previously reported, her album Good Girl Gone Bad is #15, Unapologetic is #18, Loud is #26 and Talk that Talk is #49.
Notably, Rihanna performed several songs from those albums in her halftime show set, including Loud‘s “What’s My Name” and “Only Girl (In the World),” “We Found Love” and “Where Have You Been” from Talk that Talk, “Pour It Up” and “Diamonds” from Unapologetic,” and “Umbrella” from Good Girl Gone Bad.
The other artists who’ve pulled this off include Taylor Swift, who’s done it more than a dozen times with as many as six albums; Whitney Houston, who’s done it three times, with as many as eight albums, following her death; Prince, who did it three times with as many as eight albums, following his death; Garth Brooks, who did it four times; the cast of Glee, who did it once, and Mac Miller, who did it once in 2018 following his death.
Thanks to Anti-, Rihanna now has an album in the top 10 for the first time since 2016. She told British Vogue she’d like to release an album this year, but that was before she knew she was expecting her second child.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Feb. 21, 2022, that he had recognized two Russian-backed separatist areas in eastern Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, as independent states.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy followed the announcement by saying that Ukraine had cut diplomatic ties with Russia. Putin then gave a speech on Feb. 24, 2022, announcing he would launch a “special military operation” in Ukraine.
Minutes after the announcement, explosions could be heard in Kyiv. What followed was a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with thousands of troops crossing the country’s borders.
Russia seizes a quarter of Ukraine
In the early days of the invasion, it seemed as though Russians forces would enter the capital, Kyiv, after reaching the edge of the city very quickly.
Russia had planned to topple the Ukrainian government within days of the invasion, but Putin and other officials had underestimated the strength of Ukraine’s resistance.
By March 19, Russian troops had seized about a quarter of Ukraine’s territory.
Western countries respond
The U.S. and its allies announced a wave of sanctions and trade controls against Russia in response to the invasion, along with its recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk as “independent” states.
Sanctions were placed on Russia’s biggest banks, Russian elites and their families. The imposed sanctions restricted Russia’s ability to raise funds by adding additional prohibitions related to new debt and equity of major Russian state-owned enterprises and large privately owned financial institutions.
A turning point
At the beginning of April, it became clear that Russia lacked the forces it needed to take over Kyiv.
Russian forces retreated and abandoned nearly all the territory they had taken in the north of the besieged capital. As Russian troops retreated, they left behind a trail of horrors, which many observers would call human rights abuses.
Mass graves containing hundreds of murdered civilians were discovered in Bucha, a town outside Kyiv.
By late May, Russia was devastating Mariupol in the south, a city that became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance. After over three months of siege, Ukrainian troops were forced to surrender the city.
US supplies long-range weapons
By June, after retreating from Kyiv, Russia switched its focus to capturing eastern Ukraine, including the Donbas region.
What followed was a grueling artillery war, with Russia using its technical advantage and firepower to grind forward as Ukraine was battling to hold the line. The U.S. in July began to supply Ukraine with long range missile launchers, including U.S.-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems.
Russia also began struggling with shortages of men and ammunitions, as Ukraine appeared to be taking control of the war.
Another turning point
A crucial turning point came in September, when Ukraine launched a spectacular counteroffensive in the northeast near Kyiv, collapsing Russia’s lines and liberating thousands of square miles of territory.
Some military analysts said the route Ukraine took put an end to Russia’s ability to go on the offensive. Russia was fighting to just hold on to the areas it has already captured.
By the fall, faced with the risk of full defeat, Putin declared a partial mobilization calling up 300,000 men. He began making threats about striking Ukraine with nuclear weapons.
On Sept. 30, desperate to hold on to Russia’s war gains, Putin declared that he had annexed four Ukrainian regions: Zaporizhia, Luhansk, Donetsk and Kherson. But Russia didn’t at the time fully control any of them. It lost the capital of one within weeks of Putin’s declaration.
The U.S. and other western allies announced another wave of sanctions in response.
Ukraine liberates Kherson
In November Ukraine liberated Kherson, one of the regions Putin had annexed. Russian troops were forced to withdraw.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met days later with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Cambodia.
The success in Kherson “is a testament once again to the remarkable courage of the Ukrainian armed forces, the Ukrainian people, as well as the strong support that Ukraine has from countries around the world,” including the U.S., Blinken said ahead of their talks.
Russia changes its strategy
By the fall, Russia appeared to shift its strategy as it launched a massive campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Human rights groups would accuse Russia of attempting to freeze Ukrainians as winter approaches.
There were Russian barrages of cruise missiles and Iranian supplied kamikaze drones causing nationwide blackouts in Ukraine.
Ukraine continued throughout the winter to call on Western countries to provide it with better air defense and more weapons.
By December, the war was focused on the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut as Russia brought in thousands of troops into the battle.
First Russian gain in months
In January, Russia made its first gain in months, capturing the small town of Soledar.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Jan. 25 agreed to give Ukraine heavy tanks, clearing the way for Germany and other European allies to do the same for the first time.
At the one-year mark
As the first anniversary of the invasion approached, Biden arrived in Kyiv on an unannounced trip. He met with Zelenskyy and other high-ranking officials, before announcing an additional $500 million in aid.
Putin the next day, on Feb. 21, 2023, announced during his state-of-the-union address in Moscow that he had suspended the key U.S.-Russia nuclear treaty, opening the possibility for new nuclear tests.
Ukraine has liberated nearly 30,000 square miles of its territory since the Russian invasion began. But Putin appears to be preparing Russia for a long war.
Jethro Tull has released a new single from their forthcoming album RökFlöte, due out April 21.
Tull’s Ian Anderson previously explained that the songs on the album were inspired by “the characters and roles of some of the principle gods of the old Norse paganism.” On Instagram, he writes that the lyrics of the new song, called “The Navigators,” “explore the Norse god Njord, who was the god of wealth, fertility, the sea and seafaring.”
The animated video for the song takes place on the tempest-tossed, shark-filled sea, where Viking ships, and then a more modern vessel, attempt to survive a storm.
Anderson sings, “Lord of all the stormy deeps/the wealth of ages at his knee/Protects and nurtures navigators/Raiders bold who loot and plunder/Giving strength to hold at bay/the tallest wave, the savage thunder.”
“The Navigators” follows the first single released from the album, “Ginnungagap.”
(NEW YORK) — Everyone has different relationships with diet and sugar, but when that sweet tooth turns on, it can be hard to combat cravings in a healthy way.
ABC News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton lent her expertise as a nutritionist to break down the overall impact sugar has on our bodies as well as some alternate ways to satisfy that sweet tooth.
How much added sugar is recommended for adults?
The brain, as with every cell in our bodies, needs glucose to function, so while not all sugar is bad, too much added sugar can pose problems.
For most adult women, the American Heart Association suggests a stricter added-sugar limit of no more than 100 calories per day, which is equal to about 6 teaspoons or 24 grams; for most men, the suggestion is no more than 150 calories per day, which is about 9 teaspoons or 36 grams of sugar.
However, common processed snacks and drinks can contain much more than the recommended amount, which is why reading labels is so pivotal.
For example, a 12-ounce can of cola contains 10 1/4 teaspoons of sugar; a 12-ounce glass of orange juice contains 13 teaspoons of sugar; a cup of frosted corn flakes cereal has 3.65 teaspoons; and sweetened applesauce has a little over 5 teaspoons in one cup.
Negative impact of too much sugar in the body
Using a wet sponge, Dr. Ashton demonstrated how too much sugar can be damaging to the way a body processes and stores it.
The water in the sponge represents insulin — a hormone mainly responsible for regulating blood sugars that allows cells to take in the sugar — and when a small amount of sugar is sprinkled evenly over the surface, the sugar is absorbed quickly and easily. But on a second sponge topped with heaping spoonfuls of sugar, the sponge is unable to absorb all of the water, which is what it would look like if insulin was overloaded with sugar intake.
“You take a lot of sugar, your body can overwhelmed and you develop what’s called insulin resistance and that sugar stays there. It then gets deposited as fat, it causes inflammation,” Dr. Ashton explained. “Fat is hormonally active tissue, and then that gets you on the path to cancers, cardiovascular disease.”
How sugar affects pregnant women, in utero environment
Dr. Ashton merged her combined knowledge and two specialties as an OB-GYN and nutritionist to explain the impact sugar can have on a baby in pregnant women.
“There is good data for this phenomenon known as epigenetics, meaning [when] a pregnant woman consumes too much sugar, the fetus sees that high sugar environment, and then there are changes in DNA and increases the risk of that offspring then develops metabolic syndrome Type 2 diabetes, obesity,” she said.
Top sugar substitutes and tips
Dr. Ashton suggests people “take a five-day, two-day approach” which means being very strict Monday through Friday, then easing up for two days.
“Read the labels, use those spices as substitutes and be patient with yourself because it takes time to retrain your taste buds,” she said of three easy ways to cut down on sugar.
Swerve, avocado, whole fruit like citrus or apples, and honey are “all great sugar substitutes if you’re cooking or baking,” Ashton added.
Finally, anything that tastes “sweet” tends to produce the same reaction in the brain, activating the “reward center” and making you want more.
