Meghan Trainor is a first-time mom, which means she’s still learning her fair share of painful parenting lessons. However, she hopes that by sharing her biggest parenting fail “so far,” she can spare other moms from the same embarrassment.
The Grammy winner revealed to Ellen DeGeneres‘ Mom Confessions that she and husband Daryl Sabara would take their newborn son, Riley, out on morning walks. But instead of giving the baby some fresh air and sunshine, they accidentally gave him heat rash.
“We would take him on these walks out here in California, and I would come home and he would have these little red bumps all over him,” said Trainor, 27. “I sent pictures to my pediatrician after the third day in a row, and I was like, ‘What’s going on? I rub cream on him. I don’t know what this is!'”
After finding out that Riley had heat rash, the Clash of the Cover Bands judge sheepishly admitted, “I was boiling my son on my morning walks. So, don’t do that!”
Mayo Clinic says infants can develop heat rash in hot, humid weather. However, the biggest culprit is overdressing, with the institution advising parents to dress their infants in lightweight, cool clothing when in those conditions.
Mayo Clinic says heat rashes go away on their own, but notes that cool baths or being taken out of the hot temperatures can also help.
(NEW YORK) — With supply chain issues hitting the fresh food industry, due to delays and struggles to get products from farms to store shelves, certain Thanksgiving staples like cranberries will have a steeper cost and potentially less stock.
Ocean Spray president and CEO Tom Hayes joined Good Morning America on Thursday to address the upcoming run on Thanksgiving items and how his company’s signature fruit has had to stay afloat amid supply chain woes.
“Ocean Spray has had supply chain challenges, the whole industry has. We will continue to do our best to keep supplies going and supplies on shelves, but we’ve had to be resilient this year,” Hayes said. “We’re owned by 700 family farms and they continue to do everything they have for 90 years to keep the supply flowing, but it has been a challenge. Whether it’s steel cans and making supply chain adjustments, we have had to do it, and this year has been difficult of course.”
When it comes to price forecasting, Hayes explained that his company “unfortunately” has to pass on the rising production costs to consumers.
“That’s just a reality. We have a lot of costs going up — all ingredients, transportation. It is something that is continuing to affect us as a company and we do have to pass those on,” he said. “Remember, they’re family farms, so we have to make sure they have a livelihood too and we’re balancing that. We haven’t taken pricing in 10 years at Ocean Spray. We’re doing our best to keep costs down, but we have taken pricing and are looking forward to still having a great season.”
By the end of October, there were already some shortages on other crucial Thanksgiving items.
Turkeys were 60% out of stock, which was a little more than half of stock compared to the same time last year. Yams and sweet potatoes were 25% out of stock, while stock on refrigerated pies were down 5% and cranberries were 20% out of stock.
If consumers shop early, those products should be available, but — with price increases at the highest in 30 years — they will cost more.
To save some money on the total bill, experts recommend shopping now for non-perishable items and considering a potluck style Thanksgiving to spread the cost around.
“This is our super bowl at Ocean Spray,” Hayes said. “We are working day in and day out, all night in a lot of cases, to deliver products to the market.”
“My advice is to be absolutely flexible. Whether it’s jellied, whole or fresh cranberries,” he added. “Plan early and make sure you get to the grocery store. It will be a happy Thanksgiving, but you have to demonstrate more flexibility than you have in the past.”
(BIRMINGHAM, Ala.) — A boy who weighed just 15 ounces at birth has been named by Guinness World Records as the world’s most premature infant to survive.
Curtis Means, of Alabama, was born on July 5, 2020, when his mom, Michelle Butler, went into labor just 21 weeks into her pregnancy and gave birth to twins in an emergency C-section.
Curtis’s sister, C’Asya, died one day after birth, but Curtis survived while being cared for in the Regional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (RNICU) at University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Women and Infants Center.
Bulter said she remembers praying that one of her twin newborns would survive the premature delivery.
“My prayers have been answered,” Butler told Good Morning America. “I gave God my little girl and he let me continue to be the mother to Curtis.”
Curtis, who was born 132 days premature, was so delicate at birth that Butler said she had to wait four weeks after giving birth to hold her son. At the time, he could fit in palm of her hand.
Curtis would go on to spend the next nine months in the RNICU, where doctors and nurses cared for him around the clock.
Butler, also the mother of two older children, ages 14 and 7, commuted from her house to the RNICU three or four times a week, a three-hour commute round trip, to see her son. On days she could not visit in person, Butler said the nurses would coordinate video calls so she could see Curtis.
“It was ups and downs, good and bad days,” she said. “For a couple of weeks he’d do really well and then he’d get sick and go about five steps backwards.”
Though he had a less than 1% chance of survival at birth, according to doctors, Curtis graduated from the RNICU after 275 days.
Butler took him home on April 6, 2021, where he met his siblings for the first time. They had not been able to visit Curtis in the RNICU due to COVID-19 restrictions.
“I surprised my kids,” said Butler. “They didn’t know we were coming home and they were so excited.”
Six months after that surprise, Butler and Curtis returned to the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Women and Infants Center, where they were surprised by doctors and nurses who presented them with the Guinness World Records certificate naming Curtis as the world’s most premature infant to survive.
Curtis, now 16 months old, now weighs nearly 19 pounds.
He is still on oxygen and is still on some medications, but is continuing to thrive at home, according to Butler.
“He’s a happy baby,” said Butler. “He’ll laugh and smile at you.”
Looking back on Curtis’ long journey since birth, Butler said she would encourage other parents of premature babies to be their child’s “biggest advocates.”
“Us parents are the biggest advocates for our children, so whatever you feel in your heart you go by it,” she said. “And continue to pray.”
Selena Gomez is heading back to the kitchen with a fourth season of her HBO Max show Selena + Chef.
The streamer announced the renewal of her home cooking show on Wednesday and revealed that the upcoming season will feature an exciting change of scenery. For season four, Selena, along with her friends and family, will head to a beach house to continue their cooking lessons.
Like previous seasons, the “Lose You to Love Me” singer will expand on her cooking skills with the help of all-star chefs. They’ll also continue to highlight a different charitable organization during each episode, hopefully adding to the already $400,000 raised.
Selena said in a statement, “I am looking forward to another season of being in the kitchen with some of the world’s best chefs. Hopefully, my skills have improved. More importantly, we’ve been able to raise money for incredible charitable organizations.”
Season four of Selena + Chef is slated to premiere next year.
Travis Scott‘s attorney has issued a statement saying that authorities should stop insinuating that the rapper is to blame for the tragedy at last weekend’s Astroworld Festival — which left eight fans dead and hundreds more injured — because Scott didn’t immediately stop the show.
In the statement, obtained by ABC News, Attorney Edwin F. McPherson said, “There has been multiple finger-pointing, much of which has been by city officials, who have sent inconsistent messages and have backtracked from original statements.”
McPherson goes on to say that Houston Police Chief Troy Finner had been quoted as saying that officials felt they couldn’t stop the concert because there were 50,000 people there, and they were concerned that “a group [of fans] that young” would start to riot. However, McPherson says that Finner later stated that it was Travis Scott’s responsibility to stop the show.
McPherson notes, “It was reported that the Operations Plan designated that only the festival director and executive producers have authority to stop the show, neither of which is part of Travis’s crew.”
McPherson also points out that at 2019’s Astroworld Festival, it was the Houston PD that “shut down the power and sound…when the performance ran over 5 minutes.”
“Investigations should start proceeding over finger-pointing so that together, we can identify exactly what transpired and how we can prevent anything like this from happening again,” McPherson concludes.
Lady Gaga is sharing some secrets about her upcoming movie House of Gucci, in which she plays Patrizia Reggiani, the ambitious socialite who orchestrated the death of her ex-husband Maurizio Gucci.
Speaking toEntertainment Tonight, the “Applause” singer revealed that one of the standout lines heard in the movie’s first trailer was not part of the script, but something that came organically when running lines with her co-star.
“That was something Jared [Leto] and I came up with together,” Gaga revealed of the improvised prayer, “Father, son and house of Gucci.” “Well, it was the first time, and then we kept it.”
She continued, “These things came to us, I think they came from a real place of spontaneity on set, where you can do as much work as possible before, and then when you get there, you just throw it out, and you just talk to each other.”
Gaga admits she fell very deep into character, so much so that she had a hard time separating herself from Reggiani when filming wrapped.
“I think the hardest thing for me, was psychologically to drop the character,” she admitted. “For what it’s worth, I don’t know entirely what my process is like to get rid of a character. I do know that when I went home, a lot of people in my life told told me that I had no accent, but was acting weird.”
Benedict Cumberbatch isn’t proud of the bad habits he picked up while filming his new Western, The Power of the Dog.
Speaking to Esquire, the British actor admitted he fused with his character, Phil Burbank, a rancher from the 1920s that smoked like a chimney and rarely bathed — two unsavory habits that rubbed off on the actor.
“That was really hard,” Cumberbatch said of having to constantly smoke on camera. “Filterless rollies, just take after take after take.”
The Doctor Strange star said he smoked so much he “gave myself nicotine poisoning three times.”
“When you have to smoke a lot, it genuinely is horrible,”admitted Cumberbatch.
Bathing was another obstacle, with the 45-year-old revealing, “I wanted that layer of stink on me. I wanted people in the room to know what I smelt like.”
“It was hard, though. It wasn’t just in rehearsals,” he continued. “I was going out to eat and meet friends of Jane and stuff,” referring to director Jane Campion. “I was a bit embarrassed by the cleaner, in the place I was living.”
Benedict became so entrenched in the character of Phil Burbank, he didn’t break from his newfound stinky, smoking persona until filming wrapped. He even adopted an “ominous Montana drawl.”
However, he admits there is one thing he really tried but failed to master.
“I really wanted to become world class at the banjo,” Cumberbatch lamented, “And I’m very much not. I’m very far off.”
The Power of the Dog, also starring Kirsten Dunst, rides into theaters on November 17.
PATRICK KOVARIK/AFP via Getty Images, Greg Doherty/Getty Images
It looks like Kanye West and Soulja Boy are officially back on good terms — at least for now.
Taking to Instagram on Wednesday, the Yeezy founder shared a screenshot of a brief text conversation, where he seemed to apologize to Soulja for leaving him off of Donda, his most recent album.
“Yo it’s Ye. Love you bro. I should have told you I wasn’t gonna use the verse,” Ye admitted. Soulja responded, “Love you too bro. That’s all I wanted.” The post, captured by The Shade Room, has since been deleted.
The beef between the two rappers originally started in August, when Ye’s highly anticipated album Donda was released and Soulja’s verse was nowhere to be found on it. The 31-year-old rapper apparently was supposed to be featured on “Remote Control.” After learning the news, Soulja went on a Twitter rant, slinging insults and other verbal jabs at the Chicago native.
Fast-forward to last week, when Soulja’s rage was reignited when Ye appeared on the Drink Champs podcast and said that the reason the verse was left off was because it wasn’t good enough.
“Yo album was trash,” Soulja fired back during a livestream over the weekend. “You said my verses wasn’t hard,” he continued. “Just ’cause it’s your album don’t mean you get to pick what’s hard. Put it out and let the people decide.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will sign the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill into law on Monday, joined by a bipartisan group of members of Congress during a ceremony at the White House, according to a White House official.
A bipartisan group of governors and mayors, as well as labor union and business leaders, would also join Biden at the ceremony, according to the official. The members of Congress who will attend will include those who helped write the legislation, the official said.
Facing low poll numbers, rising inflation and challenges getting the rest of his legislative priorities passed, the president has put off signing the infrastructure bill in order to put his major, bipartisan accomplishment on display.
During his remarks Monday, Biden also plans to address how the infrastructure legislation will play a role in bolstering supply chains and dealing with bottlenecks, the White House official said. The president planned to visit a port in Baltimore on Wednesday with a similar message.
The House of Representatives passed the bill late Friday, after the Senate passed it in August. Biden has said he wanted to hold a ceremony with members of Congress, who were on recess and out of Washington this week, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris, who is currently visiting France.
“Vice President Harris and I look forward to having a formal signing ceremony for this bipartisan infrastructure soon,” Biden told reporters Saturday.
“I’m not doing it this weekend,” he added, “because I want people who worked so hard to get this done — Democrats and Republicans — to be here when we sign it.”
The bill, officially known as the the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, provides hundreds of billions of dollars to improve the nation’s highways, bridges and roads; passenger rail; public transit; broadband access; and the power grid, among other investments in physical infrastructure.
The White House has cited outside economists to argue it will create hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next decade.
Despite wide public support for the infrastructure bill — as well as for the “Build Back Better” social bill he is also trying to push through Congress — the president himself has suffered from low approval ratings.
Biden and his administration have launched a public relations campaign to promote the two bills, with the president visiting a port in Baltimore on Wednesday and sitting for an interview with a Cincinnati television station, and Cabinet officials conducting interviews to explain how the infrastructure bill in particular will benefit Americans.
A nationwide poll from Monmouth University conducted Nov. 4 to 8 found that 42% of Americans approved of the way Biden was handling his job, and 64% of respondents said they believed things in the United States have gotten off on the wrong track.
But 65% of respondents said they supported the infrastructure package, and 62% said they supported the larger social spending plan.
In the coming weeks, the president, vice president, and Cabinet will continue to travel the country to communicate how the law will help communities, grow the economy, and position America to compete in the 21st century.
(WASHINGTON) — For Bryan Bowman and Bob Mohr, there was no question about making the nearly 400-mile trip from Canal Fulton, Ohio, to Virginia and Arlington National Cemetery for the chance to lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
To mark the tomb’s centennial, members of the public were given a rare chance to come close and lay flowers — for the first time since 1948.
“It was just surreal, very surreal,” Mohr said. “Who knows if we’ll ever get to do it again, in our lifetime.”
“It’s a reminder of service echoing back to 1921,” Bowman said.
One hundred years ago this week, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was dedicated to commemorate the final resting place of an unknown soldier from World War I, interred on Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1921.
Since then, the tomb has served as a site of mourning and reflection in honor of unknown service members who died in all of America’s wars.
Bowman and Mohr, a Marine Corps veteran, were among the first members of the public to pay their respects on Tuesday, the first of two days visitors were being permitted to come near the tomb.
The line, hundreds long, included Americans from all ages and backgrounds: elderly veterans in faded uniforms, young children in the arms of their parents, military spouses and loved ones, melded together.
Each paused a moment to gently place a flower atop of a growing pile a few yards from the tomb. Some held hands over their hearts, while others raised them in salute.
Many eyes welled with tears.
Piles of roses, daisies, carnations and sunflowers with long, green stems lay under a red velvet rope, the colorful flowers in poignant contrast with the white marble sarcophagus, inscribed with the words, “Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.”
On the opposite side, a member of the U.S. Army’s “Old Guard” marched in silence exactly 21 steps back and forth across the length of a black mat, pausing at each end for 21 seconds, echoing the honor of the 21-gun salute.
Tomb guards, also called Sentinels, maintain their post 24 hours per day, seven days per week, throughout the year. A guard-changing ceremony takes place on the hour every hour during the winter and every half-hour during the summer.
“All gave some, some gave all,” said Amber Vincent, a cemetery public affairs specialist. “And some of them lost their identity in the process of serving our nation … That’s really what this ceremony and this centennial commemoration is about. Honoring those not only who have served that we know, but also those that we will never know.”
In the distance, the sound of three-volley 21-gun salutes at military funerals rang out over the hushed crowd.
Up to 30 funerals a day were taking place, Monday through Friday, elsewhere in the cemetery during the centennial.
Some 400,000 service members are buried there.
Wednesday, Nov. 10, marked the day before Bob Mohr would end a 22-day journey to run 22 miles per day, for veteran suicide awareness.
“So, I’m here today for this ceremony and then I’m gonna run my 22 miles through the streets of D.C. for my twenty-first day,” he said.
