Cleanliness may be close to godliness, but for Great British Bake-Off vet Lottie Bedlow, it doesn’t make your cookies any better. “Anyone who bakes and has a clean kitchen at the end of it, in my opinion, you don’t wanna trust these bakers,” she jokes to ABC Audio. “You want people who are throwing stuff around. You want the chaos, you want the drama. Those are the bakers are going to turn out really, really good cakes and cookies.”
That philosophy is also baked into Bedlow’s new book, Baking Imperfect: Crush, Whip and Spread It Like Nobody’s Watching, in which the self-described “trial and error” baker seeks to bring the fun back into the kitchen. “I want to make sure that people feel supported if they feel…maybe not as confident about because of all of these kinds of perfect things they see on Instagram,” Lottie expresses. “This book is…just about making sure that you feel supported and that you remember to laugh at yourself along the way.”
Lottie learned that lesson as a contestant on the hit reality program. “I think the show above all else taught me how to fail and laugh at myself when things go wrong, which they inevitably did,” she says.
Bedlow also shared tips for getting rid of that leftover trick-or-treat booty, noting, “The easiest, easiest thing to do…would be fudge. So you take your condensed milk and your semi-sweet chocolate, melt it together in the microwave, and then you throw in anything else that you have lying around. So that can be Skittles, it could be Oreos, it could be M&Ms. Whatever you want, you throw it all in…a lined tin…and in 3 hours…you’ve got perfect fudge with your favorite candy inside.”
Following The Best Man in 1999 and its sequel in 2013, the franchise has evolved into a streaming series that will premiere in December on Peacock. A third film, The Best Man Wedding, was planned for 2016, however, Malcolm D. Lee, who directed both movies, created the series after finances prevented the film’s production.
“We couldn’t get a movie together with the budget that we really needed, and it was hard to get everybody’s schedules. And so what the series allows us to do is just to allow them to chew more scenery and tell us some unfinished stories,” Lee tells Vibe. “So those are the main things that I think are really good about making it more than just a two-hour movie.”
Morris Chestnut, Terrence Howard, Taye Diggs, Harold Perrineau, Nia Long, Sanaa Lathan, Regina Hall and Melissa De Sousa from The Best Man and The Best Man Holiday have returned for The Final Chapters. Nicole Ari Parker, from Empire, has also joined the all-star cast.
In the trailer which was released this week, writer Harper Stewart, portrayed by Diggs, learns that his book Unfinished Business is being adapted into a film.
In the first film, when football star Lance Sullivan read in the book that his friend Harper had slept with his fiancée Mia Morgan before they were engaged, Lance became so angry, he attacked the writer and nearly threw him off a hotel balcony.
In The Best Man Holiday, the two men ended their feud, and Harper wrote Lance’s biography, God, Family and Football. However, now in The Final Chapters, Harper is worried about how Lance will react to Unfinished Business becoming a movie.
All eight episodes of The Best Man: The Final Chapters are set to premiere December 22.
(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) — Former Kansas City Chiefs assistant coach Britt Reid is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday afternoon for a drunk driving crash that injured five people, including one child severely.
Reid, 37, pleaded guilty in September to driving while intoxicated in connection with the Kansas City crash.
Reid was driving his pickup truck near Arrowhead Stadium on Feb. 4, 2021, when he struck two vehicles that had stopped along the side of the highway. He had a blood alcohol content of 0.113 and was driving 84 mph in a 65 mph zone at the time of the incident, according to court documents.
Ariel Young, who was 5 years old at the time, was severely injured in the crash. She suffered “life-threatening injuries” and a “severe traumatic brain injury, a parietal fracture, brain contusions and subdural hematomas,” according to court documents.
Reid, the son of Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, faces up to four years in prison as part of a deal that his victims have spoken out against. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. local time in a Kansas City courthouse.
Prior to taking the guilty plea, Reid faced up to seven years in prison, with a trial expected to begin in September.
During a plea hearing on Sept. 12, Reid apologized for his “huge mistake.”
“I really regret what I did,” he said, according to Kansas City ABC affiliate KMBC.
At one point he turned to Ariel’s family and said, “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone that night,” KMBC reported.
When the judge asked the family if they had anything to say, KMBC reported that Ariel’s mother, Felicia Miller, said, “My family and I are opposed to the plea deal. I don’t think he should receive it.”
Tom Porto, the attorney for the five victims in the crash, said in a statement at the time that the victims are “outraged the prosecuting attorney is not seeking the maximum sentence allowable by law.”
Reid was a linebackers coach for the Chiefs at the time of the crash and during the team’s Super Bowl win in February 2020. He was released by the team shortly after the incident.
In November 2021, the Chiefs and Porto announced that the team worked out a plan to help pay for Ariel’s medical care.
Reid has previously served prison time over a driving-related incident.
He pleaded guilty to simple assault and flashing a gun at another driver in a road rage incident in 2007, according to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, court records, and served prison time. While in prison, he also pleaded guilty to a charge of driving under the influence of a controlled substance from a separate incident, according to court documents.
ABC News’ Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.
Imagine Dragons and Dave Matthews Band will headline the 2023 Innings Festival Florida, the East Coast spinoff of Arizona’s baseball-themed music festival.
The two-day event will take place March 18-19 in Tampa. The bill also includes Weezer, Marcus Mumford, Grouplove, The Revivalists, Third Eye Blind, The Avett Brothers, The Breeders and Japanese Breakfast.
Like the Arizona festival, Innings Florida coincides with the MLB spring training season and will feature appearances by a number of baseball greats, including John Kruk, Wade Boggs and Goose Gossage.
Tickets go on sale this Thursday, November 3 at 10 a.m. ET. For the full lineup and all ticket info, visit InningsFestival.com/florida.
Innings Arizona takes place February 25-26 in Tempe. Green Day and Pearl Jam‘s Eddie Vedder will headline.
(WASHINGTON) — Chief Justice John Roberts has granted a temporary administrative stay of a lower court order as the House Ways and Means Committee attempts to gain access to former President Donald Trump’s tax returns.
The ruling prevents the committee from accessing Trump’s tax returns as the court considers a final decision.
Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to block the House Ways and Means Committee from accessing his tax returns.
The committee has requested six years’ worth of Trump’s returns as part of an investigation into IRS audit practices of presidents and vice presidents.
In his petition to the Supreme Court, Trump accused the committee of seeking his taxes under false pretenses.
“The Committee’s purpose in requesting President Trump’s tax returns has nothing to do with funding or staffing issues at the IRS and everything to do with releasing the President’s tax information to the public,” the petition said.
A federal appeals court ruled in August that tax returns should be handed over to the House committee. The committee first sought the returns in 2019.
Trump most recently failed to block the request on Thursday when the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals shot down his request to reconsider a unanimous opinion from one of its three-judge panels approving the committee’s access to the documents.
While Trump’s team claims the panel’s bid to obtain the tax returns is purely political, the committee insists the documents are valuable to assess how the Internal Revenue Service performs. presidential audits.
“The law has always been on our side,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said in a statement after Thursday’s ruling. “Former President Trump has tried to delay the inevitable, but once again, the Court has affirmed the strength of our position. We’ve waited long enough—we must begin our oversight of the IRS’s mandatory presidential audit program as soon as possible.”
At the heart of the dispute is a federal tax law mandating that the Treasury Department “shall furnish” tax information requested by the Ways and Means Committee, a law Trump’s lawyers suggest is unconstitutional.
Democrats have been clamoring to get a glimpse of Trump’s tax returns since 2015 when he launched his bid for president and broke decades of precedent by not releasing the documents.
Besides having his personal tax returns sought after, Trump is also facing pressure by criminal probes into his personal business, possession of government documents after leaving office and efforts to block the certification of the 2020 election results.
This month will officially mark 40 years since Michael Jackson released his groundbreaking sixth studio album, Thriller. To celebrate the milestone, the late singer’s estate has teamed with Sony Music to launch a global anniversary campaign.
This worldwide initiative will allow fans across the globe to celebrate the late singer’s legacy. Two immersive fan experiences have been announced for Dusseldorf, Germany and New York City. Both events will offer photo ops, track-focused experiences, interactive elements and elements for social media engagement.
Germany’s event will run November 10 through November 13, while New York City’s will be held November 18 to November 20. Registration for both events is now open on the Michael Jackson website.
That’s not all: There will also be Thriller-themed parties held across the world that will allow fans to learn the story behind Michael’s groundbreaking album by giving them an exclusive peek at the Thriller 40 documentary. Tickets for these parties — which will be held in major cities such as London, Toronto, Madrid, Amsterdam and Seoul — will be sold on Michael’s official website.
Aside from the one-time-only screenings, there will also be fan events held worldwide that’ll feature DJs, short film screenings, giveaways and more. Details on how to register are forthcoming.
Michael released Thriller on November 30, 1982. It is hailed as one of the best-selling albums of all time. The album, which won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1984, is RIAA-certified triple Diamond in the U.S.
On November 18, Sony Music will release Michael Jackson Thriller 40, a double CD set with a bonus record filled with rare audio recordings and demos that Jackson worked on during the 1982 album’s sessions.
(NEW YORK) — Midterm election results may come down to the price of a gallon of gas.
Roughly half of Americans say either the economy or inflation is the most important issue in their vote for Congress, making bread-and-butter financial issues by far the most dominant in the lead-up to the midterm elections, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released on Sunday.
Meanwhile, research has established a relationship between gas prices and presidential approval ratings that reaches back decades, despite the limited control that presidents exert over fuel costs, experts told ABC News. Presidential approval ratings, in turn, mark a key indicator of midterm success or failure for the party in control of the White House, they said.
After reaching a summer peak, gas prices declined for about 100 consecutive days, buoying Biden’s approval rating. But a price spike in early October weighed on his approval.
Over the last few weeks, prices have returned to a steady decline – though they remain elevated – leaving an open question about whether consumers will recognize the trend and reward the Democrats or punish them for too little, too late.
“Swing voters will be deciding as they’re literally walking into the voting booth,” Colin McAuliffe, co-founder of left-leaning research firm Data for Progress, told ABC News.
The ubiquity of gas prices emblazoned on towering roadside signs can affect the financial attitude of those who do not even purchase gas. For those who do, filling up the tank offers a few minutes of repose with little to do but watch the price slowly add up, the experts said.
“People know their grocery bill has gone up but they can’t say necessarily how much the price of meat versus milk versus cereal has changed,” Laurel Harbridge-Yong, a professor of political science at Northwestern University who has studied the political implications of gas prices, told ABC News. “Gas is a very visible item and an item you buy one at a time, without bundling it with others.”
In 2016, a study in the academic journal Political Psychology examined the relationship between gas prices and presidential approval rating between the mid-1970s and mid-2000s, finding that elevated gas prices drove a president’s approval downward. To be exact, each 10-cent increase in the gas price was associated with more than half a percentage point decline in presidential approval, the research showed.
Further, the researchers studied press coverage of the gas prices, finding that the effect on presidential approval occurred regardless of how much attention the prices got. On that score, gas prices contrast with other economic indicators, like the unemployment rate or overall inflation, which typically require media coverage that gives voters a sense of the trend, said Harbridge-Yong, one of the researchers who conducted the study.
McAuliffe, of Data for Progress, has established more recent findings, demonstrating a correlation between gas prices and presidential approval during Biden’s time in office stretching to as recently as August. “The correlation has held up pretty strongly,” he said.
The continued salience of gas prices amid inflation under Biden comes as no surprise to Jon Krosnick, a professor of political science at Stanford University who co-authored the 2016 study. “When we see gas prices go up as much as they have gone up, clearly there are implications,” he said.
Despite the relationship between gas prices and presidential approval rating, presidents exert little control over fuel costs, leaving them largely powerless to address perceptions of their performance in this area, experts said.
The U.S. is set to produce an average of 11.8 million barrels oil per day in 2022, which stands 500,000 barrels short of a record set in 2019, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But oil prices are set on a global market, where supply shortages caused by the Russia-Ukraine War and OPEC+ output cuts cannot be offset by a comparable short-term increase in U.S. oil output.
Typically, gas prices drop ahead of midterm elections, since the Fall brings a decline in demand as Americans scale back from summer travel, said Patrick De Haan, an oil and gas analyst for GasBuddy. In recent weeks, the drop has also stemmed from the repair of damage at a string of oil refineries, which brought them back online and increased overall output, he added.
“It’s normal for prices to go down this time of year,” De haan told ABC News. “It’s not political.”
The price relief may have arrived too late for voters to notice, said Krosnick, of Stanford University.
“There’s not a lot of time between now and election day,” he said. “Obviously any change in gasoline prices has to take place and be detected by the public.”
Biden highlighted the issue on Monday, threatening oil and gas companies with higher taxes if they do not relieve a supply shortage with increased output. Many of the major oil producers have reported recorded profits in recent quarters.
On election day, gas prices will play an unmistakable role in the outcome, Krosnick said.
“People bring to the table a mix of issues. You can think of it as making a complicated soup with lots of ingredients that play a part,” he said. “Gas prices clearly are a part of the soup.”
The entertainment world is mourning the shocking death of Migos member Takeoff.
As previously reported, the rapper from Lawrenceville, Georgia was fatally shot early Tuesday morning in Houston, Texas. He was 28.
Houston ABC News affiliate KTRK reported that police were called to 810 Billiards & Bowling at about 2:30 a.m. local time for reports of a shooting. According to TMZ, Takeoff and fellow Migos member Quavo were playing a game of dice when an altercation broke out and someone opened fire, shooting Takeoff.
Takeoff, born Kirshnik Khari Ball, formed Migos with Quavo, his uncle, and Offset, his cousin, in 2008. Takeoff and Quavo released an album as a duo, Only Built for Infinity Links, last month and dropped their Halloween-themed “Messy” video on Monday.
Gucci Mane collaborated with the duo on the second single from their new album, “Us vs. Them.” He shared a photo of Takeoff on Instagram and commented, “This broke my heart. Rest in peace.”
More celebrity reactions to Takeoff’s death:
Teyana Taylor-“Please tell me this is just a bad dream pleaseeeeeeee I don’t want to believe this lil bro please.”
Bow Wow – “Gone way to soon… we was just at magic and Kevin hart show together. This beyond unreal”
Ja Rule– “Rip Takeoff this s*** has to STOP… sending love to friends and family”
Keri Hilson – “Rest In Peace Healing love to your brothers, family, & friends”
Lloyd Banks– “My condolences to his family and close friends, very dope artist gone too soon.”
Winston Duke– “I’m lost for words! What an incredible loss for his family, friends, fans and the culture … may we all be comforted during this time of grief.”
DJ Premier – “Condolences to Takeoff’s Family. This is beyond sad to be killed in a senseless situation with so much success.”
A new animated video for “I’m Only Sleeping,” one of the songs featured on The Beatles‘ new remastered edition of Revolver, just hit YouTube.
The trippy clip opens with an oil-painting image of John Lennon sleeping, which swirls into a series of dreamy, watery images, some featuring the other Beatles, their manager Brian Epstein, fighter planes dropping bombs, birds and more. The concept seems to be that everything we’re seeing is part of Lennon’s dream.
As the dream progresses, time seems to progress backwards: We see more swirly, oil-painting images of The Beatles running onto a stadium field for a concert, the band performing onstage, headlines trumpeting their success, the group playing at the Cavern Club in their early days, a quick glimpse of Liverpool’s Penny Lane and what looks like Lennon receiving his first guitar.
The clip ends with the final image being wiped away in real life by an artist, who’s apparently been painting the entire thing in his studio.
(NEW YORK) — New research is shedding light on just how much higher proportions of dangerous toxins people in minority communities are breathing in.
Populations in racially segregated communities in the U.S. may be more likely to be exposed to a form of air pollution, according to a study published in Nature Communications on Tuesday.
Researchers combined air pollution monitoring and American Community Survey data from 2014 to 2019 to assess air pollution exposure across the U.S. and found that communities with a high degree of racial residential segregation are exposed to concentrations of total fine particulate matter that are two times higher. Concentrations of metals from anthropogenic sources are over 10 times higher when compared to communities with a low degree of racial residential segregation, John Kodros, who authored the study as a research scientist at Colorado State University, told ABC News.
The research also suggests these communities were exposed to an even more toxic form of air pollution, with a three times higher mass proportion of known toxic and carcinogenic metals — including lead, nickel and chromium.
“What this is showing, is that communities across the United States are not exposed to the same mixture of particulate air pollution,” Kodros said.
While scientists have long proven that residents in impoverished and minority communities are suffering greater environmental detriments than other populations, little was previously known about the distribution of exposure among racially segregated communities to specific toxic chemical elements contained in particulate matter, the researchers said.
There has been “extensive research” looking at the disparities of total fine particulate matter across lines of racial and ethnic demographics, Kodros said. The new findings illustrate the disproportionate burden of air pollution faced by some populations, according to the study.
“Even normalizing by total air pollution, the concentrations of these metals are much higher in content in more racially segregated communities compared to well integrated communities,” Kodros said.
Segregation has “been systematic in the history of our country,” Kodros added.
“Often when areas are building a road or a factory, it goes into a certain part of the city,” Kodros said. “Putting in that factory or that highway often ends up in areas that are more racially segregated and in the communities of color.”
This leads to emissions from the factories and roads occurring at different rates based on segregation and race and ethnicity, Kodros said.
The researchers found evidence that disproportionate exposure could be reduced through regulatory action, including recent regulations on marine oil that have reduced concentrations of vanadium and lessened the pollution risk faced by racially segregated communities
The scientists hope the research helps to inform regulations to reduce air pollution exposure.
Policymakers also need to consider targeted regulations to reduce emissions through a lens of environmental justice, as opposed to just trying to reduce emissions everywhere, Kodros said.
“We need to really think about reducing emissions in communities that are not often well representative at the table,” he said.
