(NOTE LANGUAGE) Pusha T may be “Dreamin of The Past,” but his recent appearance on Vevo’s CTRL series is equally worthy of attention.
The rapper teamed up with the platform to perform a live rendition of the Kanye West-produced album cut “Dreamin of The Past,” which captures him rapping the lyrics into an overhead mic.
“You hollerin’, ‘Top five,’ I only see top me,” Push spits in the black-and-white clip, enunciating every word. “Award shows the only way you b****** could rob me.”
Push’s selection of tracks comes from his last effort, It’s Almost Dry, which dropped inApril. Though he believes the project is the album of the year, he admits Kendrick Lamar‘s album Mr. Morales & the Big Steppers presents some great competition.
“I think that Kendrick does what he does lyrically. I think … man, it was impressive,” he said in an interview with HotNewHipHop.com. “I think it’s great competition. It’s a matter of what you want to hear. I feel like for what it is that I do and what I was going for, and like I said, this is Rap Album of the Year to me. It’s Almost Dry.”
Elton John‘s been traveling the world on his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, but he’s finally enjoying some much-deserved time off with his family.
As the Daily Mail reports, Elton, dressed in head-to-toe Gucci, was spotted on a yacht in the South of France Wednesday with his husband, David Furnish, and their two sons, Zachary and Elijah. His tour won’t resume until September 7 in Toronto, so he’s got plenty of vacation time left. And he’ll need it: The tour isn’t scheduled to wrap up until the summer of 2023.
Meanwhile, it hasn’t been confirmed, but Elton’s much-anticipated collaboration with Britney Spears, “Hold Me Closer,” is rumored to be coming out on Friday. Not much is known about it, other than it appears to be an interpolation, reworking or remix of Elton’s classic “Tiny Dancer.”
(NEW YORK) — Just under 1 million people utilized abortion services in the U.S. in 2020, according to recent data from the Guttmacher Institute. Another report from Guttmacher in 2016 showed that 90% of abortion patients in the U.S. obtained their procedure in the first trimester.
Medication abortion is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for up to 10 weeks into pregnancy, but there is good literature that has shown it is an effective method of abortion up to 11 weeks. This means the majority of people seeking abortion services are able to get medication abortions, Dr. Deborah Bartz, a gynecologist at Brigham and Women’s in Boston, told ABC News in an interview.
The abortion pill is the most common form of abortion in first trimester pregnancies, with recent data showing that 54% of those eligible now choose to undergo medication abortion over a procedure, Bartz said.
As access to abortion continues to be restricted in many states, more may choose to self-manage their abortions for several reasons, such as not being able to afford to travel for care, according to Dr. Meera Shah, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic.
Self-managed abortions were often risky pre-Roe, but abortion medication has offered a safe method for self-induced abortions.
Many patients in other countries have taken the abortion pill past 11 weeks, and there are several ongoing studies underway for usage of the pill beyond 11 weeks, Bartz said.
“You can take medications and induce pregnancy expulsion, essentially, at any gestation. It’s just as of right now, our literature indicates that 11 weeks is the upper limit on when we should be recommending that to most patients,” Bartz said.
The most robust and effective way to get a medication abortion is by taking two pills: mifepristone and misoprostol, Bartz said.
Mifepristone, which is taken first, blocks the hormone progesterone. Progesterone is needed for the pregnancy to grow inside the uterus. When mifepristone is taken, it begins the process of emptying the uterus.
Mifepristone can be taken at home or in a healthcare provider’s office.
The second medication, misoprostol is taken within 24 to 48 hours of the first medication. This causes uterine cramping and cervical softening and expels the pregnancy from the body, Bartz said.
Misoprostol causes cramping and bleeding, similar to a heavy period or miscarriage, to empty the uterus, according to Dr. Meera Shah, Chief Medical Officer of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic.
“By taking the two medications together, what an individual is doing is essentially inducing a miscarriage. There are other means of doing medication abortion, and many people in the United States and throughout the world use misoprostol only. That is also a very good regimen,” Bartz said.
The Mifepristone-Misoprostal regimen is about 95% effective if taken within the first 11 weeks of pregnancy, while the misoprostal alone is about 85% effective, Bartz said.
The process itself takes a couple of hours. The further along patients are in the pregnancy, the more complex their symptoms may be and the longer their symptoms might last, according to Bartz.
Patients typically experience bleeding and cramping, which can be more severe the further along they are in pregnancy. This typically results within one to five hours, Bartz said.
“It’s probably a little bit more intense than like the first day of a person’s period. So, a little bit heavier bleeding than a period, a little bit more cramps than a period. But, there are many patients who experience symptoms that are not much more than their period,” Bartz said.
It is recommended that patients not be alone when they take the pills in case they experience more pain than expected or have heavy bleeding. Patients are usually advised to take pain medication, like ibuprofen, and maybe an anti-nausea medication ahead of time, before the cramps start, Bartz said.
Patients also experience flu-like symptoms including fevers, chills, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, all of which is normal with medication abortions, Bartz said.
When a person becomes pregnant, they are automatically in a higher risk category than someone who is not pregnant. So, getting an abortion of any kind puts a patient at less risk than if they continue a pregnancy, according to Bartz.
“The risk of maternal mortality associated with full term pregnancy and delivery is about 14 times higher than the risk of interrupting a pregnancy with a either medical or surgical abortion,” Bartz said.
Roughly 5% of patients experience incomplete abortions, meaning the pregnancy does not pass in its entirety. In these rare cases, the medication might not work the first time around, and they either have a continuing pregnancy or they have clinically significant pregnancy tissue that does not pass all the way, Bartz said.
“So they actually potentially would need either a second dose of the medications or to undergo the surgical the uterine aspiration procedure to bring those that pregnancy tissue out after they’ve taken that medication if it hasn’t worked. But 95% of patients, have the medication work just fine the first time,” Bartz said.
Rarely, some patients who experience severe bleeding may need to call their physician’s office or be seen in an emergency room for a blood transfusion. Less than 1% of patience experience bleeding significant enough that they would need a blood transfusion, Bartz said.
“If a patient is bleeding so heavily that she’s soaking pads a pad, an hour for a couple of hours, then we would want to see her,” Bartz said.
Another rare risk is the risk of an infection. As the cervix opens up a bit, there is a low risk that an infection could travel to the uterus, but doctors do not even prescribe antibiotics to prevent risk of infection because there is more risk from taking the antibiotic than there is of getting an infection, Bartz said.
Patients can experience mild or moderate bleeding and cramping on and off for up to a month after taking the abortion pill. Most get their next period one to two months after the abortion, according to Dr. Meera Shah, Chief Medical Officer of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic.
Having an abortion does not decrease your chance of having a healthy pregnancy later on, or affect your future overall health unless a rare, serious complication occurs or is left untreated, according to Shah.
Jamie Foxx has an unreleased comedy that he’s hoping sees the light of day.
In 2016, Jamie co-wrote and directed a film called All-Star Weekend that stars him and Jeremy Pivenas friends and truck drivers Malik and Danny, respectively, who win tickets to the NBA All-Star Game. During their trip across the country to get to the event, they encounter a series of characters along the way, including Robert Downey Jr., who portrays a Mexican man.
It harkens back to Robert’s role in Tropic Thunder wherein his character in the film, who is also an actor, underwent pigmentation alteration surgery to darken his skin to play a Black character.
Jamie says the film’s release is still on hiatus due to the current state of the world.
“It’s been tough with the lay of the land when it comes to comedy. We’re trying to break open the sensitive corners where people go back to laughing again,” Jamie tells CinemaBlend. “We hope to keep them laughing and run them right into All-Star Weekend because we were definitely going for it.”
Rounding out the cast is Eva Longoria, Gerard Butler and Benicio del Toro.
(LEXINGTON, MS) — A month after the police chief of a Mississippi town was fired following leaked audio allegedly of him using racial slurs, a civil rights group is suing the department.
Jill Colin Jefferson, the founder of the civil rights organization Julian, filed a lawsuit against Lexington, Mississippi, its police department, and others on behalf of five residents who claimed to have been victims of mistreatment by officers.
The lawsuit contends that the police force has had a long history of racially profiling its Black residents including with alleged targeted traffic stops, harassment and retaliation for speaking out against cops.
The suit contends the plaintiffs have “been falsely arrested, forced to undergo baseless searches and seizures at roadblocks, and subjected to unreasonable force by LPD officers when they verbally object to police mistreatment,” among other incidents experienced by Black residents over the last two years.
Roughly 1,500 of Lexington’s 1,800 residents are Black, according to the suit.
Jefferson told ABC News Live that the suit stems from the department’s operation under former police chief Sam Dobbins, who is one of the defendants in the suit. Last month, Dobbins was fired after audio from a conversation he allegedly had with other officers was leaked in which he allegedly used racial slurs against Black people.
Jefferson contends that Dobbins still has a presence over the police force due to his time spent training and instructing officers.
“The way that this town functions is that it continues to function in his shadow. His dominance is still there,” Jefferson told ABC News.
The Lexington Police Department and Lexington’s mayor’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment from ABC News about the suit. Dobbins told the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, which released the audio, that he didn’t use racial or other slurs, adding, “I don’t talk like that,” when he was asked about his recorded comments in July.
The suit cites a few examples of police misconduct against Black Lexington residents.
One was an alleged incident involving brothers Darius and Robert Harris, who were approached by officers on New Year’s Eve. The officers allegedly cited the brothers for using fireworks on Robert Harris’s private property and violating a city ordinance, according to the suit.
During the incident, which was filmed, officers allegedly tased Darius Harris, the suit said.
Jefferson told ABC News that Dobbins then harassed her client while he was still in pain.
“Sam Dobbins went to Darius and actually showed his flashlight in his face when he’s on the ground and told him to put his hands behind his back. At that moment, that was physically impossible,” she said.
The lawsuit doesn’t cite charges filed against Darius Harris, but details an alleged pattern of retaliation by police officers against both Harris brothers.
In another example, the suit cited a March incident involving plaintiff Peter Reeves, who criticized a police officer on social media. Reeves was allegedly stopped at a roadblock by the same officer, according to the suit.
Reeves was charged with felony possession of a controlled substance because he had a Tylenol bottle in his vehicle, the suit contends.
Jefferson said other Black residents have been subjected to roadblocks by the police. Tasha Walden, a Lexington resident, told ABC News, that in addition to the roadblocks, she’s seen and experienced officers following Black residents outside the city limits.
“It’s more than me, it’s basically 99% of the Black [community],” she told ABC News.
The suit is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
Jefferson said she wants more policy changes to the police department to be enacted by the city government and better accountability when residents file complaints against officers.
Last year, more than 200 complaints were filed against the police department, the suit said.
“That’s the other thing we need…a civilian complaint review board to actually review these complaints as they come in, because right now they’re just being swept under the rug,” she said. “But on a larger level, we need a federal investigation into what is happening in Lexington, not just of this police department or one of two or one or two officers, but this entire municipality.”
Mariah Carey‘s attempt to trademark the phrase “Queen of Christmas” has encountered more pushback from Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Darlene Love, who has been called the “Queen of Christmas” for many years thanks to her classic holiday song “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).”
After posting a note on Facebook Monday expressing displeasure with Mariah’s attempt to secure the trademark for the phrase to use for everything from clothing to soy milk to dog accessories, Love has now issued a statement to ABC News, in which she says, “I adore Mariah Carey as an artist and songwriter, but to register the term ‘Queen of Christmas’ for her sole usage doesn’t reflect on the holiday spirit of love and gratitude.”
Love’s statement concludes, “‘Queen of Christmas’ should not be exclusive to anyone except for Mary, Mother of Jesus.” Mariah admitted as much herself in an interview last year with BBC Radio, saying, “To me, Mary is the Queen of Christmas.”
Christmas artist Elizabeth Chan, who has also been called “Queen of Christmas” and whose lawyers have asked the U.S. Trademark Office to reject Mariah’s trademark application, told ABC’s Good Morning America Thursday, “Christmas is meant to be shared, and Christmas is for everyone.”
On GMA Thursday, ABC News legal analyst Dan Abramssaid of Mariah’s filing, “This is a tough argument for her to make: the idea that she should be able to own all ‘Queen of Christmas’ merchandise moving forward … you have these other singers who’ve specifically used that phrase and [have] been called that, so I don’t see how she’s going to be able to win this sort of trademark application.”
Kenan Thompson may have a sequel to Good Burger in the works.
The 1997 film starring Kenan and Kel Mitchell as cashiers at a burger joint that was based off of a sketch featured in the Nickelodeon show All That has built a cult following over the years. In an Instagram post celebrating its 25th anniversary last month, Kenan wrote, “‘sup with that part 2?!'”
During his appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy FallonWednesday night, the Saturday Night Live star hinted that a sequel is not out of the question.
“Are you saying that Good Burger2 is happening?” the host asks.
“I would like it to,” Kenan replies. “We are working harder on it than ever, so it’s about meeting the numbers, letting the numbers match up because I need them numbers.”
If the sequel does get the green light, Kenan says he hopes that Kel’s character, Ed, has “a million kids” and predicts that his character, Dexter, will be “coming out of jail for something that he put me in jail for. He got me in trouble,” he quips.
Kenan also recalls the day he and Kel met on the set of All That as teenagers, realizing from “day one” that they had comedic chemistry. “I immediately recognized he was brilliant and we were very similar, so we hit it off from that point,” he says.
Kel stated in 2018 that talks about doing a Good Burger sequel were taking place.
If there’s one person Keke Palmer would love to play in a film, it’d be the late Whitney Houston. Her desire comes from wanting to do the singer some justice and tell her full story, unlike the projects that mainly discuss her highly publicized lows.
“I think that with Whitney’s story, a lot of times people exploit just the more sensational aspects in terms of her relationship with Bobby or the conversations around drug use,” Keke said in an interview with E! News. “I think there’s so much to Whitney that has not been explored in terms of just her family and her relation to the kind of music she did and how that was accepted culturally.”
“There’s just so many other nuanced aspects of who Whitney Houston is and the barriers that she broke, that I think have not been as explored,” she continued. “When I think about her story, I just would want to show her truly as the sweetheart that she was and everything that she did that changed culture forever.”
Keke’s wish to portray the “I Have Nothing” star is not far-fetched, at least not in the eyes of social media users. Last week, a fan sharing a compilation of funny Whitney clips tweeted, “Keke Palmer and Whitney Houston act exactly the same.”
Keke replied, “Let’s get the movie made y’all. I’m ready to ACK, we abt to weep in the theaters.”
New Found Glory guitarist Chad Gilbert has shared an update after undergoing surgery earlier this week to remove a tumor on his spine.
“Things went really well,” Gilbert writes in an Instagram post that went up Wednesday. “They were able to remove almost all of it besides a microscopic amount of tumor that was in the bone. Once we get test results back from the tissue, we’ll be able to blast it with whatever treatment it needs so we can keep it at bay or even kill it completely.”
“All news has been good so far for what the situation is and things have been going great!” he adds. “First two nurses I saw post-op were big NFG fans which was really special. Their compassion and love me feel not alone.”
Gilbert shared earlier this that he would be having surgery to remove the rare tumor, called a pheochromocytoma. The musician was hospitalized with the same type of tumor late last year.
(UVALDE, Texas) — When students in Uvalde, Texas, return to school in September, they will have brand new picnic tables where they can sit and gather.
Many of their classrooms will be stocked with school supplies ranging from new books to new pens and pencils, all donated by strangers. And some kids will ride to school on the first day on new bikes, also donated by strangers.
It’s all part of a national, grassroots effort to help the community after 19 students and two teachers were killed in a shooting at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School on May 24.
“For the Uvalde community, it’s just letting them know that they are not forgotten,” said Amanda Stevens, a mom of two from Dallas, Texas. “We will be here and we will honor their losses and support them with whatever they need.”
Stevens is one of the organizers behind an effort to fulfill Uvalde teachers’ wish lists — specifically teachers from Robb Elementary.
Across the country, as the back to school season approaches, many teachers post public wish lists of supplies they would otherwise have to pay for out of pocket, including everything from snacks for kids to books, educational materials and classroom supplies like tissues and hand sanitizer.
The wish lists are often shared on social media, where strangers can find them and donate the supplies.
For teachers in Uvalde, their lists have been shared far and wide this year, with people like Stevens working hard to make sure teachers there don’t have the extra burden of finding supplies.
Stevens is working alongside Frank Gomez, a teacher at her kids’ school and a Uvalde native, who said he specifically wanted to help the teachers at Robb Elementary School who are being relocated. The superintendent of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District announced in June that students and staff would not return to Robb Elementary when the new school year begins on Sept. 6, and would instead be served “on other campuses” around the district.
“Myself as a teacher, I started to think about what about the teachers,” said Gomez. “As they go into new buildings, what are they going to have to take with them? How are they going to get started?”
Gomez and Stevens said they have collected thousands of dollars worth of supplies for teachers in Uvalde by sharing teachers’ wish lists with their own school community and on social media. A GoFundMe started by Gomez also raised over $5,000, which he said is being used to purchase everything from books to classroom decorations to help the first day back at school seem more normal.
“The kids will see their teachers, their smiling faces,” Gomez said. “They’ll be a little bit nervous and scared and everything, but hopefully they’ll see their teacher and they’ll concentrate on getting back to school and getting back to the business of learning.”
On the first day of school, Uvalde students will also see new picnic tables at their schools, thanks to more than $15,000 that was raised in less than one day earlier this summer.
Katie Grossbard, 29, of Los Angeles, along with two of her friends, Val Vogt and actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, was an organizer of that fundraiser. She said she and the others spoke with Uvalde school officials to find something specific they needed for the new school year.
Uvalde:365 is a continuing ABC News series reported from Uvalde and focused on the Texas community and how it forges on in the shadow of tragedy.
“We said to them, ‘How can we help?,’ and they said, ‘We need picnic tables,'” Grossbard recalled. “We said, ‘Great, send us links to what you want. We’ll figure out how much money it’s going to cost and we’ll make it happen.'”
In less than 18 hours, $15,000 was raised, according to Grossbard. She said the money has been used to purchase one dozen picnic tables that will be placed at schools to help accommodate students from Robb Elementary.
“One of the things that the people at the school district talked about when we were talking about making this happen was just creating a sense of community that was welcoming these students in with open arms and ready for them — and it not feeling like they were out of place or like that they weren’t supposed to be there,” Grossbard said. “They didn’t want it to feel like, ‘Oh, now we’re crowded and now you’re reminded every day that you’re not supposed to be here, you’re supposed to be somewhere else.'”
The picnic tables, according to Grossbard, will also be used as locations for students to sit and talk with mental health counselors as needed.
“People can sit down and be together and know that they’re not alone and know that they didn’t go through these experiences alone,” she explained.
The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District did not reply to ABC News for this story.
The district’s school board has held special sessions throughout the summer to plan accommodations for the new school year, including upgrading security measures and allowing all students K-12 the opportunity to attend classes virtually after parents said their children do not feel comfortable returning to school in person. The district also pushed the start of school back from mid-August to Sept. 6.
Tensions within the community have often spilled out at the board’s meetings, particularly in the wake of a 77-page report by a joint committee of the Texas Legislature slammed the police response to the incident and the school district’s lack of preparation for such an attack.
Earlier this month, the school district announced Mandy Gutierrez, the principal of Robb Elementary School, who was briefly suspended following the probe into the attack, will be leaving the school for a position in district administration.
The district’s police chief, Pete Arredondo, remains on unpaid administrative leave, and the school district has recommended he be fired.
Amid the grief and tension in the community, Uvalde’s local library, the El Progreso Memorial Library, located just a few blocks from Robb Elementary School, has become a center of healing and community for people, largely thanks to strangers’ donations, according to library director Mendell Morgan.
Morgan said thousands of children’s books have been donated since the shooting, along with items like kids’ bicycles and toys.
“At a time like this, books can be such a comfort, a wonderful means to escape and a wonderful way to transport yourself into a different world where there is not hurting or pain,” Morgan said. “It’s always been our effort to bring the community here for times when we need to be together, in times of joy as well as times of sorrow when we need to comfort one another.”
The library has become a place to mourn and grieve through both reading and mental health counseling, as well as a place to have fun. Throughout the summer, the library has hosted everything from ponies and bounce houses to a special day that featured superhero characters reading books to kids, according to Morgan.
“People are so incredibly kind,” he said. “Great evil came to our community on May 24, no one can deny this, but the outpouring of good, the response has been overwhelming in the other direction, and we are so grateful.”
