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Harry Styles just earned his “beauty mogul” title after launching his new company, Pleasing, but it appears he’s added yet another feather in his cap — that of NFT maker.
VOGUE has the scoop. Last year, Harry turned heads when he wore a colorful patchwork JW Anderson cardigan and, since then, the outfit has become somewhat of a TikTok meme. Influencers who had a pair of knitting needles handy tried recreating it and sparked the #harrystylescardigan challenge over the summer.
So, what happened to Harry’s eye-catching cardigan? The Victoria and Albert Museum in London acquired the green, orange, yellow and red patchwork piece in 2020, where it remains on display today. But the sweater has gained new life in the form of an NFT.
Xydrobe, an NFT auction platform that focuses on virtual fashion, partnered with JW Anderson to digitize that $1,890 sweater — a process that took over 300 hours.
The lucky winner of the auction won’t be able to physically wear the cardigan, unfortunately, but they will be able to slip it on in the virtual world.
The auction starts Sunday, December 12 and will run for 48 hours on Xydrobe’s official website.
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, allow buyers to exercise sole ownership over a unique piece of digital media, such as individual songs, videos and images … and, now, cardigans.
Michael J. Fox covers the December-January issue ofAARP the Magazine, as the now-60-year-old actor-turned activist nears the 30-year anniversary of his Parkinson’s diagnosis.
As previously reported, Fox underwent surgery in 2018 to have a benign tumor removed from around his spinal cord. During his recovery, he fell at home, crushing the bones in his left arm and requiring extensive surgery.
That episode led him into “darkness” — and then out the other side. “I started to notice things I was grateful for…I concluded that gratitude makes optimism sustainable,” he tells the magazine.
Fox officially retired from acting in 2020. “When…I reached the point where I couldn’t rely on my ability to speak on any given day, which meant I couldn’t act comfortably at all anymore. So, last year I gave it up,” he says.
The actor remains a tireless advocate for Parkinson’s research, through his eponymous foundation. “We created what has become this giant network of patients, scientists and institutions. We’ve put more than a billion dollars into it…” he says.
About seeing a cure in his lifetime, Fox says he’s “blunt”: “I’m 60 years old, and science is hard. So, no.”
That still hasn’t dampened his optimism, however. Fox said watching, of all things, the fan-favorite Back to the Future, also taught him to lighten up.
“…I came across it on TV last Christmas. And I thought I was really good in it, better than I thought I’d been. More important, I got the spirit of the movie. I understood…that we all need…to take credit for what we’ve done and the lives we’ve touched and to occasionally step back a bit and appreciate that much of life has been great and that there’s a lot more to live.”
Taraji P. Henson as Miss Hannigan in “Annie Live!”; Paul Gilmore/NBC
Taraji P. Henson is one of the stars of Annie Live!airing Thursday, and she’s enjoying being cast in the role of Miss Hannigan, which was was portrayed by Carol Burnett in the 1982 Annie film.
“As a young, Black artist, studying in college all those years ago, and wanting to be, dreaming to be, I never saw myself as Miss Hannigan because back then, we weren’t into this nontraditional casting that we’re doing nowadays, which is so beautiful,” the 10-time NAACP Image Award winner tellsExtra.
Annie Live!, which also stars Harry Connick Jr., Nicole Scherzinger and 13-year-old Celina Smith in the title role, airs Thursday, December 2 at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT on NBC.
In other news, Kevin Hart is making it a merry holiday season by donating $100,000 each to youth organizations in Houston, Orlando, Oklahoma City, Los Angeles, and Springfield, Missouri for a total of $500,000.
“One of the best things you can do for yourself is believe in other people,” the True Story star said in a statement. “I’ve always had people in my life that believed in me, and I believe in the power of passing that onto others. The donations we made went to organizations that believe in the future of kids and their families. I’m proud we were able to work together to make a big impact.”
Finally, Issa Rae is dropping the soundtrack for the final season of Insecure on Friday, according to Variety. “Music has always been an essential part of every project I do and working with emerging talent is a personal passion,” Rae said. The 12-track album features Saweetie, Nnena, Thundercat and more.
(NEW YORK) — Two Iowa 16-year-olds accused of murdering a high school Spanish teacher in early November have pleaded not guilty, according to documents filed Monday.
Willard Noble Chaiden Miller and Jeremy Everett Goodale were charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the death of 66-year-old Nohema Graber on Nov. 2.
The defendants appeared in court for individual bond review hearings on Nov. 23. Each asked for his bond to be reduced from $1 million to $100,000 cash or surety.
District Court Judge Joel Yates is expected to issue a written ruling on the bond reduction requests later this week.
The teens are being charged as adults in the death of the teacher who worked at Fairfield High School, which they both attended, according to Jefferson County authorities.
Law enforcement officials said they received a tip from an associate of the two teenagers that included social media messages between Miller and Goodale allegedly sharing details of their motive and plan for killing Graber, according to a criminal complaint filed against Miller.
Graber had taught Spanish at Fairfield High School in Fairfield, Iowa, since 2012. According to online court documents, Graber was reported missing on Nov. 2 by family members.
Multiple law enforcement agencies reportedly started to search Chautauqua City Park, where Graber was known to take walks during the afternoon.
Officials later found Graber’s body in the park “concealed under a tarp, wheelbarrow and railroad ties,” according to the complaint.
Authorities determined Graber had “suffered inflicted trauma to the head.”
Miller and Goodale are set to appear for individual pre-trial conferences on March 21, and are scheduled to face a jury on April 19.
(NEW YORK) — The wife of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison for conspiring to distribute cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana for import into the U.S; money-laundering and helping run the Mexican drug cartel in which her husband was the boss.
Emma Coronel Aispuro will also serve 48 months of supervised released.
The Justice Department initially asked for four years in prison.
In June, she pleaded guilty, and voluntarily forfeited $1.5 million to the government.
She was arrested in February 2021 at Dulles International Airport, just outside the nation’s capital.
She was also accused of conspiring with others to assist El Chapo in his July 2015 escape from Altiplano prison and prosecutors said she also planned with others to arrange another prison escape for the drug kingpin before his extradition to the U.S. in January 2017.
“The defendant was not an organizer, leader, boss, or other type of manager” a Justice Department prosecutor told the judge during sentencing on Tuesday, calling her the “cog” in a very large criminal machine.
Aispuro, through an interpreter begged for forgiveness, vowing she will teach her daughters right from wrong.
“I beg you to not allow them to grow up without the presence of a mother,” she said.
Guzman was found guilty in February 2019 of running an industrial-sized drug trafficking operation, the Sinaloa cartel, one of the world’s largest, most profitable and most ruthless drug smuggling organizations.
He was sentenced to life in prison, and has since tried to appeal the conviction.
(NEW YORK) — The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season ended on Tuesday after 21 named storms, continuing a record-breaking pattern from 2020, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
This year’s storms used each of the names from the tropical cyclone list, marking the first time in recorded history the list has been exhausted two years in a row, NOAA said. Storms are named when wind speeds hit 39 mph.
This was also the seventh year in a row that a named storm formed before the official start of the season on June 1, NOAA said.
Before the season began, NOAA predicted a 60% chance that the season would be busier than usual, but said it would not surpass 2020’s historic level of activity. Seven of the named storms in 2021 were classified as hurricanes.
The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season had 30 named storms, the most in recorded history, with two more than in 2005, which included Hurricane Katrina. Six of 2020’s storms were designated as hurricanes.
The effects of climate change already may be evident in the behavior of recent hurricane seasons.
The increase in activity in the past two years can be attributed to higher-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, weaker tropical Atlantic trade winds and an enhanced west African monsoon, NOAA scientists said.
Although most of the storms stayed out in the open ocean, 2021 proved to be more costly than 2020.
Total losses due to property and infrastructure damage this year have totalled about $105 billion — eclipsing $100.2 billion in 2020, according to NOAA.
Hurricane Ida, which made landfall in Louisiana in late August and tracked northeast to New York City before exiting into the Atlantic Ocean, was responsible for about $60 billion in damage alone, according to NOAA.
(SAN JOSE, Calif.) — Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is back on the stand Tuesday, facing questions from prosecutors after she tearfully told the jury Monday about what she described as nearly a decade of mental and physical abuse at the hands of her former romantic partner and company COO, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani.
Holmes, 37, said that Balwani, 56, forced her to have sex with him and “prescribed” her a schedule which included who to meet with and what to eat.
“He impacted everything about who I was,” said Holmes, who paused before continuing. “And I don’t fully understand that.”
“He would force me to have sex with him when I didn’t want to because he would say that he wanted me to know that he still loved me,” Holmes also told the court while being questioned on the stand by her lead attorney, Kevin Downey.
Balwani was charged as her co-defendant but was granted a severed trial in March after learning that Holmes’ lawyers might use the abuse claims as part of their defense.
Balwani’s trial is scheduled for early 2022. He denies all allegations.
The former Theranos CEO, who dropped out of college at 19 and went on to launch the once burgeoning biotech start-up that promised to revolutionize blood testing, is charged with nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She could face decades in prison if convicted. She has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Holmes testified that Balwani did not force her to make misleading statements to the press and investors. But the impact of Balwani’s alleged abuse on her was pervasive, she said.
Holmes also testified that before she met Balwani, she was raped by someone else while attending Stanford University, which she said factored into her decision to drop out and “pour” herself into building Theranos.
“I decided I was going to build a life by building this company,” she told jurors.
Holmes was 18 years old when she met Balwani, then 38, overseas in China. She said she understood at the time he was a “really successful business person” and asked his advice on building a company.
The pair dated from 2005 to 2016, a relationship Holmes characterized as persistently abusive.
“He told me that I didn’t know what I was doing in business … that he was astonished at my mediocrity … and that I needed to kill the person that I was to become what he would call a new Elizabeth who could be a successful entrepreneur,” Holmes said.
Santa Clara Law professor Ellen Kreitzberg said the bombshell allegations about Balwani could be used by her counsel to argue she had no intent to defraud — a key element of the charges leveled against her.
Prosecutor Robert Leach should be “very focused on her intent to defraud in [his] questions,” she said.
“[His] tone should also be non-confrontational, especially to start since she projected a sympathetic figure yesterday,” Kreitzberg added. “They need to be able to argue that, even if she was influenced by Balwani, she knew information was false, she intentionally gave it to investors, and she did so to get money from them.”
Here’s a bit of news that will almost certainly make the members of Mötley Crüe feelgood: the Los Angeles metallers have sold their entire recorded catalog to the global music company BMG.
The sale includes all of the Crüe’s nine studio albums, as well as various live records and compilations.
“It feels amazing to be collaborating with our new partners at BMG,” the band members say in a collective statement. “Their extensive track record of success in rock made them the perfect home to continue preserving and growing our musical legacy, ensuring we always stay at The Top.”
The exact financial terms of the agreement were not officially announced, only that it’s the “largest single catalog acquisition” in BMG’s 13-year history. According to Variety, the deal is worth around $150 million, though the trade also notes that “other sources cited a significantly lower number.”
Mötley Crüe is set to launch the band’s long-awaited reunion tour in June 2022. The trek was originally scheduled for 2020 but has been postponed multiple times due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
(OXFORD, Mich.) — Three people, all believed to be students, were killed in a shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford, Michigan, on Tuesday, authorities said.
Six others were shot and injured, including a teacher, authorities said. Their conditions were not immediately clear.
The suspected shooter, a 15-year-old male student, was taken into custody within five minutes, authorities said. A handgun has been confiscated, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said.
Authorities said they believe he acted alone. The teen has not mentioned a motive, authorities said.
Over 100 calls poured into 911 as the shooting unfolded, authorities said. The entire incident lasted five minutes, authorities said.
Oxford is about 40 miles north of Detroit.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — A woman prosecutors have referred to as “Jane,” one of the three alleged minor victims whose allegations against Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell are detailed in a federal indictment, testified on the second day of her trial.
She told the jury that she met Maxwell and Epstein while attending summer camp at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan, the beginning of what prosecutors earlier called “a nightmare that would last for years.”
After returning home to Palm Beach, Florida, “Jane” said, she began visiting Epstein at his seaside mansion, where she testified that she had her first sexual contact with Epstein in 1994 when she was just 14. According to “Jane,” Epstein abruptly took her to his pool house, pulled down his pants and “proceeded to masturbate on me” while she remained “frozen in fear.”
The abuse continued, “Jane” said, during subsequent visits to Epstein’s house, and Maxwell contributed, she alleged, by “leading me to a massage table and showing me how Jeffrey likes to be massaged.”
On Tuesday morning, Epstein’s former pilot, Larry Visoski, testified that he met “Jane” in the cockpit of Epstein’s plane, though he later acknowledged he did not know how old she was at the time and could not recall whether she had actually taken a flight.
Maxwell faces a six-count indictment for allegedly conspiring with and aiding Epstein in his sexual abuse of underage girls between 1994 and 2004. She has been held without bail since her arrest in July 2020 and has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
