Travis Scott is giving out $1 million worth of scholarships to students graduating from HBCUs in 2022.
By way of his Cactus Jack Foundation — an organization launched by the rapper in 2020 to provide Houston youth with educational and creative resources to ensure long-term success — Scott will provide 100 Black students across 38 colleges and universities with $10,000 each.
“Excellence abounds in every Black household, but too often opportunity does not — and Black students are left behind or counted out,” Scott said in a release, as shared by Complex. “So that’s what my family and I set out to change. We congratulate all 100 scholarship recipients this year. I know we will see great things from them –and we are already looking forward to increasing our work next year.”
The fund is named after Scott’s grandfather Waymon Webster, who served as dean of the Prairie View A&M graduate school in Texas, for his dedication to Black excellence.
“My grandfather wanted me to take it all the way through college,” says a note by Scott on the foundation’s homepage. “I feel there is a power in education so to be able to give someone the opportunity to fulfill that dream as my papa thought for me is amazing.”
Students eligible for the scholarship must be a graduating senior with an average GPA of 3.5 or higher who is in need of financial assistance.
It’s been weeks since Kim Kardashian rocked Marilyn Monroe‘s infamous “Happy Birthday” dress at this year’s Met Gala, but the commentary just keeps rolling in, the latest from the dress’s designer, Bob Mackie.
The legendary fashion designer, who sketched the gown for the late icon, told Entertainment Weekly, “I thought it was a big mistake.”
“[Marilyn] was a goddess. A crazy goddess, but a goddess,” he continued. “She was just fabulous. Nobody photographs like that. And it was done for her. It was designed for her. Nobody else should be seen in that dress.”
There was also concern over the preservation of the gown. Kim wore the exact gown Marilyn wore when she serenaded President John F. Kennedy on his 45th birthday in 1962.
Mackie sketched the dress early in his career while working under the French-born Hollywood costume designer Jean-Louis.
Muscle car met muscle when a shirtless Jason Momoagoofed around with Vin Diesel on the set of the in-production Fast X.
“Jason, what are you doing on this car?” Diesel asks his co-star in the selfie-style video, as a shades-wearing Momoa attempts to seductively slide around on the car’s hood.
“I’m trying to do the new Whitesnake video!” he jokes, referencing the late Tawny Kitaen‘s famous gyrating atop Jaguars in the video to the band’s 1987 hit “Here I Go Again.”
Vin and Jason, who play enemies in the upcoming film, were apparently blowing off steam before shooting a big action scene in the tenth Fast film. “I feel amazing!” Momoa said, jumping off the vehicle and enthusing, “I finally got a Fast car!”
This is gonna be a good one,” Diesel told his nearly 80 million Instagram followers.
Soundgarden has shared a tribute to Chris Cornell to mark the fifth anniversary of his death.
“Five years we have missed you,” the grunge rockers write in an Instagram post. “You have love. You have peace. You have eternity.”
The band adds, “Love and peace for all of Soundgarden’s brothers and sisters.”
Cornell’s widow, Vicky, also shared a statement, which reads in part, “[Five] years ago today, would be the worst day of our lives.
“It would be the last time Chris would hug & kiss us, the last time he’d walk out our front door. The last time he’d wave goodbye to use from the car. The last time we’d ever seem him.”
Vicky also thanks her husband’s fans, writing, “Please know he loved you as much as you love him.”
“He was so grateful to be able to make music, perform all over the world, have his music & lyrics touch your heart & impact your lives. He loved receiving love from all of you.”
(NEW YORK) — Women who play soccer for the United States will now earn the same amount as men in a landmark equal pay win.
U.S. Soccer and the unions for both the men’s and women’s national teams announced Wednesday they reached a new collective bargaining agreement that will achieve “equal pay and set the global standard moving forward in international soccer.”
Under the agreement, players on the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) and the U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) will receive the same pay, including appearance fees and game bonuses, and be provided the same working conditions. While women’s players previously had guaranteed salaries, they will now have the same pay-to-play structure as the men’s players.
The two teams will also pool their World Cup prize money, which is unequally distributed by FIFA, the international governing body, and share the money equally, becoming the first soccer federation in the world to do so, according to the agreement.
“This is a truly historic moment,” U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone said in a statement. “These agreements have changed the game forever here in the United States and have the potential to change the game around the world.”
“Finally,” Molly Levinson, an adviser to the USWNT players in their fight for equal pay, told ABC News about the agreement. “Let this be a resounding call to every league, every sport, every workplace, every workforce, every C-suite, every boardroom.”
The USWNT’s win on equal pay has been years in the making.
In 2016, a group of players filed an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaint against the USWNT over inequality in pay and treatment.
The following year, the women’s team reached an agreement with the USSF for the EEOC complaint. The agreement included direct and bonus pay increases and per diems equal to the men’s team, according to ESPNW, as well as improved travel and financial support for pregnant players or players looking to adopt children. While it was an improvement, it was still unequal.
In 2019, the USWNT filed an equal pay lawsuit that blasted soccer’s national governing body for allegedly paying mere “lip service” to gender equality and dishing out markedly more pay to the men’s team.
The lawsuit, filed in California federal court on International Women’s Day, cited not just pay but also the denial of “at least equal playing, training, and travel conditions; equal promotion of their games; equal support and development for their games; and other terms and conditions of employment.”
“We know in our hearts, and we know with the facts that we have, that we’re on the right side of this,” Megan Rapinoe, a star forward for the team, told ABC News when the lawsuit was filed.
As an example of the pay gap, the lawsuit stated that female players earned $15,000 for making the World Cup team in 2013, while men earned $55,000 for making the team in 2014 and $68,750 in 2018.
The U.S. men’s soccer team did not qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Their best finish was third place — in 1930. The U.S. women’s team, on the other hand, has won the World Cup four times — in 1991, 1999, 2015 and 2019 — and six Olympic medals, most recently winning bronze at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
In February, the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) reached a settlement with USWNT on the lawsuit, agreeing to pay $22 million to the players in the case as well as an additional $2 million into an account to benefit the USWNT players in their post-career goals and charitable efforts related to women’s and girls’ soccer.
“This is just such a monumental step forward in feeling valued, feeling respected, and just mending our relationship with U.S. Soccer,” USWNT player Alex Morgan told ABC News at the time the settlement was announced. “I not only see this as a win for our team or women’s sports but women in general.”
Rapinoe and Morgan have both been at the forefront of the fight for equal pay, not only for USWNT but for all women.
On average, women working full-time, year-round are paid 83 cents for every dollar paid to men, according to the National Women’s Law Center, a policy-focused organization that fights for gender justice.
Last year, Rapinoe testified before Congress on the issue of equal pay, telling lawmakers, “If it can happen to us and it can happen to me with the brightest lights shining on us at all times, it can and it does happen to every person who is marginalized by gender.”
“What we’ve learned and what we continue to learn is there’s no level of status, and there is no accomplishment or power, that will protect you from the clutches of inequality,” Rapinoe said in her testimony. “One cannot simply outperform inequality or be excellent enough to escape discrimination of any kind.”
Luke Combs is filling in more of the details about his upcoming third studio album, Growin’ Up. The country star shared the full track list for the project on his social media this week, and it includes a few live favorites — and one superstar duet.
Megawatt duets aren’t a new thing for Luke, who included a collaboration with Eric Church called “Does to Me” on his last album.
This time around, the song in question is called “Outrunnin’ Your Memory,” a collaboration with Miranda Lambert. Luke had previously teased that the album would feature a duet, and hinted at a few more facts about the album in the days leading up to the track list announcement.
“Crazy thing is, I’ve only ever posted about or played lived 6 of the 12 songs on the new album, so y’all have never heard half the songs,” he wrote earlier in May.
Now that it’s out, the track list features several familiar titles — like “Tomorrow Me” and the lead single “Doin’ This” — but there’s plenty of never-before-heard stuff in the mix.
Fans will get the chance to hear a little bit more of the album before it comes out in full: Luke says that track three off the project, “The Kind of Love We Make,” will be coming out ahead of release day, on June 17.
Growin’ Up will arrive in full the next week, on June 24.
The Kid LAROI is the latest artist to head toward the Golden Arches for an all-new collaborative menu.
Eagle-eyed fans noticed something different in the latest McDonald’s Instagram advertisement, which shows the Australian singer playing an arcade game called LAROI’S WORLD. While not taking his eyes off the screen, the caption pops up “The Kid LAROI x McDonald’s.”
Then, as it appears the “Stay” singer loses the game and begins kicking the side of the machine, the date “26.5” flashes — meaning May 26.
Soon enough, McDonald’s Australia confirmed on Instagram that the forthcoming partnership launches next week.
Not much else is known about the collaboration, but it does appear it will only be available for those in the land Down Under. But, fans are holding out hope this partnership goes international.
Either way, the Grammy nominee joins fellow artists Mariah Carey, Saweetie, BTS, J Balvin and Travis Scott, who also launched self-inspired specialty menus.
These menus are usually packed with the artist’s favorite food and come with their own Mickey Dee’s-inspired merchandise sold alongside the menu options.
Neil Diamond‘s ABeautiful Noise is coming to Broadway.
A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical — a show based on the life of the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, featuring all his famous songs — is currently rehearsing for a six-week engagement in Boston from June 21 through July 31. It’s just been announced that following the Boston stint, the show will be moving to the Great White Way this fall.
According to producers, the show chronicles Diamond’s journey, from his beginnings as a “poor Jewish kid from Brooklyn” to his rise to becoming “one of the most universally adored showmen of all time.” It’ll premiere at the Broadhurst Theatre, with preview performances starting November 2. The show’s official opening night will be Sunday, December 4.
Not coincidentally, 50 years ago, in the fall of 1972, Diamond did a series of concerts at Broadway’s Winter Garden Theater.
A Beautiful Noise was written by Oscar nominee Anthony McCarten, who wrote the movies Bohemian Rhapsody, Darkest Hour and The Theory of Everything. It’s directed by Michael Mayer, who also did Spring Awakening, American Idiot and Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Of course, all the music is by Neil Diamond.
(WASHINGTON) — The House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing Wednesday on abortion access as the nation awaits a final decision from the Supreme Court in a case that result in the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., kicked off the hearing with a warning that if the landmark 1973 decision legalizing abortion is in fact overturned — as was indicated in a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion — the impact will be “devastating.”
“Making decisions about when and how to start a family is essential to women’s lives,” Nadler said. “The right to decide whether to carry or terminate a pregnancy is central to life, liberty and equality. It is the very essence of what it means to have bodily autonomy, which is a prerequisite for freedom.”
Expert witnesses speaking at Wednesday’s hearing include Dr. Yashica Robinson, a board-certified OBGYN and board member with Physicians for Reproductive Health; Michele Bratcher Goodwin, a chancellor’s law professor at the University of California, Irvine; Catherine Glenn Foster, the president and CEO of the anti-abortion law firm Americans United for Life; and Aimee Arrambide, the executive director of the abortion rights nonprofit Avow Texas.
Goodwin told committee members that if the draft opinion holds, it would be an “incredibly unusual” moment in American democracy.
“The Supreme Court has never gone back to in fact revoke what has been freedoms that have been well-articulated and established in the Constitution and also by the Supreme Court,” she said.
The draft opinion, which is not the final ruling, was published by Politico on May 2 — and later confirmed by the court to be authentic. Politico later reported that the Feb. 10 draft was still the only one circulated among the group and that none of the conservative justices have changed their vote in the wake of the bombshell leak.
Protests have been a near-daily occurrence since the document became public, with demonstrations extending to the homes of Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Brett Kavanaugh. A nationwide day of protest was held on May 14 featuring hundreds of “Bans Off Our Bodies” events organized by abortion rights groups.
Security measures at the Supreme Court and for all nine justices have been increased since the demonstrations began.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, ABC News reported, domestic violent extremists have invaded the national abortion debate “to incite violence amongst their supporters.” Targets of threats include the justices, members of Congress, public officials, clergy, health care providers and more.
Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, ranking chairman on the House Judiciary Committee, focused his opening statement Wednesday on accusing Democrats and activists of a trying to strong-arm the Supreme Court.
“You know why they’re trying to bully and intimidate the court?” Jordan asked. “You know why, because the evidence for overturning Roe is overwhelming.”
Legendary R&B singer Bobby Brown has often been in the limelight regarding his difficult life and career struggles. In a recent chat with People, the 53-year-old musician opened up about a traumatic secret he’s kept for many years: being molested by a priest as a young boy.
Speaking in the exclusive interview ahead of his new A&E documentary, Biography: Bobby Brown, premiering on May 30, the Boston native described the experience as one of the reasons he resorted to using drugs and alcohol.
“I was sent to a temporary custody by social services which was supposed to be a religious place but it wasn’t a very nice place to be for a child,” he told People. “One of the priests tried to molest me. He tried to touch my private parts … At that time, I was a young boy. I didn’t know what sexual boundaries were. I just knew I didn’t like being touched.” He added, “Some things are hard to forget.”
Before admitting that he tried to bury the memory, hoping to never relive the moment again, Brown said he fought back against the priest who inappropriately touched him and ran away from the facility. “I had tucked it down so deep into my soul that I didn’t think that I would talk about it again.”
The Grammy winner says music helped him to cope with the tumultuous issues he dealt with growing up. Now, after 20 years free from narcotics, he says talking about his journey and sharing his story helps.
“I could see where things went wrong for me,” he said. “[Talking about it] helped me get through a lot of other things that had been bothering me, especially that.”
