Washington (AFP) – Agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation are used to criticism, but never in the agency’s history have they faced anything like the attacks from conservatives after last week’s raid on former president Donald Trump’s Florida home.

Over its more than 100-year history, the FBI has been excoriated by southerners committed to racist segregation, by civil libertarians defending political activists and especially by African Americans whose 1960s liberation movement was treated as an acute national threat by the agency.

But the extraordinary threats of the past week originate in the FBI’s political bedrock: conservative Republicans.

“It’s the world turned upside down,” said Kenneth O’Reilly, a retired University of Alaska historian, who has written books about the FBI and politics.

According to O’Reilly, the FBI has historically been a “deeply conservative institution” with a bipartisan constituency in Washington.

But since Trump condemned the FBI as corrupt and fascist after they searched his Mar-a-Lago estate on August 8 for illegally retained top secret documents, the attacks have kept coming — and his supporters have fanned the flames. 

Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel accused the bureau of “abuse of power.”

Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, compared the agency to secret police in a Marxist dictatorship, while Representative Paul Gosar declared: “We must destroy the FBI.”

Online, including on Trump’s own Truth Social network,  the threats were more violent — and turned real. 

On August 11, an armed 42-year-old man attacked the FBI’s branch in Cincinnati after writing on social media accounts attributed to him that people should “respond with force” to the raid on Trump and “kill the FBI on sight.”

The man failed to enter the office in the Ohio city, and was later shot dead by police.

One day later, a 46-year-old man in Pennsylvania was arrested for making similar threats. 

“If You Work For The FBI Then You Deserve To Die,” he wrote on social media. 

“My only goal is to kill more of them before I drop.”

Criticism, but no violence

Long mythologized in film and television, the FBI — the storied home of the 1930s G-Men and the powerful, inscrutable J. Edgar Hoover — has regularly fielded criticism from all sides, O’Reilly told AFP.

“Among southern racists in the early 60s, there was a big backlash against the FBI, treating it like the Gestapo” when it investigated the lynchings of African Americans.

The worst period, O’Reilly said, was in the 1960s when the FBI spied extensively on and sought to undermine the civil rights movement, smearing Martin Luther King Jr. and stoking violence between rival groups to discredit them.

But the reactions at the time, said O’Reilly, who documented the FBI’s war on the Black nationalist movement, were outrage and litigation, and then a sweeping Congressional probe that exposed the abuses.

“You didn’t have violence directed at FBI agents,” he said.

Popular support until now

In 1995, FBI actions did spark a violent attack. Anti-government extremists bombed a federal office building in Oklahoma City that included the regional FBI headquarters, killing 168 people.

The two extremists were motivated in part by the FBI’s poor handling of two hostage-like sieges in 1992 and 1993 that turned deadly.

But through all of that, the FBI maintained general political and popular support.

The current anti-FBI turn has its roots in Trump’s long battle with the bureau’s investigations, and specifically its probes into hundreds of his supporters who violently stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

For O’Reilly, the open threats by Trump supporters and politicians are what makes the current moment shocking.

“I would guess the overwhelming majority of FBI agents voted for Trump,” he said.

“So it’s just a wild idea that the most conservative elements of the Republican Party see the FBI as a tool of the radical left.”

Climate of violence

The strong response by US justice authorities to the threats has also been extraordinary.

Fences were erected to protect the FBI headquarters in Washington 

“Violence and threats against law enforcement, including the FBI, are dangerous and should be deeply concerning to all Americans,” warned FBI Director Chris Wray.

The Department of Homeland Security alerted in a special bulletin that agents could be in danger.

“I don’t recall a threat stream similar to this in the last many years,” Brian O’Hare, the president of the FBI Agents Association, told NPR.

“It’s troubling. It’s unacceptable. And it should be condemned by all who are aware of it,” he said.

“It’s a climate of acceptance of violence that needs to be changed.”

Tommy Dorfman reveals she is engaged to a woman.

The ’13 Reasons Why’ actress – who came out as transgender in July 2021 and divorced from ex-husband Peter Zurkuhlen earlier this year – is staying coy about certain details of her relationship, but she confirmed her fiancee is a cis woman who she described as “just a gay girl”.

Speaking to Rachel Bilson on the ‘Broad Ideas’ podcast, she revealed she started to explore her attraction to women following the split.

She said: “I knew I was interested in women in a way that I hadn’t really been aware of since high school.

“I had this unresolved, unexplored thing. I was like, ‘This is the year that I’m gonna go on some dates with girls and feel that out again, and not feel ashamed about it.'”

The 30-year-old star described her partner as “the person I’m going to spend the rest of my life with”, and admitted she’s the first woman she’s been with “in a long time”, which is “very affirming”.

She added: “It’s safe. Also not safe and like being in love is so scary. So uncomfortable, so painful.

“All the universal feelings of being in love that are probably the same. “

Meanwhile, Tommy’s fiancee has also helped her with administering her estrogen shots since they got together, and actually did it for her “the first time”.

She explained: “My fiancée, she knew how, so she did it for me the first time. Then she was out of town and we FaceTimed and she walked me through it.”

Tommy came out as trangsnder in an interview with TIME magazine in July 2021, revealing she had “been privately identifying and living as a woman – a trans woman” for a year before publicly coming out.

She and her ex-husband – who were together for nine years at that point and later split after five years of marriage – both decided to “redefine” their relationship “as friends”.

She said: “It’s wild to be 29 and going through puberty again. Some days I feel like I’m 14. As a result of that shift, the types of romantic partnerships I seek out are different.

“I was in a nine-year relationship in which I was thought of as a more male-bodied person, with a gay man.

“I love him so much, but we’ve been learning that as a trans woman, what I’m interested in is not necessarily reflected in a gay man.”

Jonathan Van Ness thinks the US government’s response to the monkeypox outbreak has been “fuelled by homophobia”.

The 35-year-old TV star has blasted the government’s “botched response” to the health crisis in an essay for TIME magazine.

He wrote: “Watching the government’s botched response to monkeypox has been surreal, and in many ways, I believe it’s been fuelled by homophobia and transphobia.”

The ‘Queer Eye’ star also accused legislators in the US of being slow to react.

He said: “When an outbreak affects mainly men who have sex with men, some portion of our elected legislators will have no incentive to act. He thinks it will not touch their constituents, which is obviously messed up because people’s lives are at stake, and there are queer people in all 50 states.”

Jonathan is now calling for urgent action against monkeypox.

The TV star explained that one of his own friends was recently forced to cancel a trip to New Orleans after being diagnosed with monkeypox.

He said: “I started calling all the political contacts I have, ringing alarm bells about how quickly cases were rising, and pleading with officials to take the virus more seriously.”

So far, Jonathan has been disappointed by the reaction of politicians, including US President Joe Biden.

He also likened the government’s response to the ineffective reaction to the AIDS epidemic in the 80s.

Jonathan – who came out as HIV positive in 2019 – explained: “Once again, we’re seeing too little action taken until the situation has ballooned out of control. If nothing changes, we’ll continue to experience failures like this response, which has been plagued with too few tests, lack of access to treatments, inadequate vaccine supply, and ambiguous guidance.”

He added: “Why is it that we haven’t seen this administration prioritise the rapid procurement of monkeypox vaccines?”

The songs nominated for the 2022 Emmy for original music and lyrics are each haunted by something. Some are lively, even wacky homages that resurrect sounds of the past – the grand, old “Oklahoma!”-type musical; a calypso wedding toast delivered by (a fictional version of) Harry Belafonte.

One song spiritually guides a young woman off the knife’s edge she has been treading. Another brings its entire series full circle, built on a wisp of a melody that has lingered in the atmosphere for six seasons. And one has roots in both the story’s betrayal in love and a poignant, real-life revelation.

‘The Forever Now’

From “This Is Us”; music by Siddhartha Kosla, lyrics by Taylor Goldsmith

An elderly woman sits at a keyboard at her daughter’s wedding to play a song she wrote. She struggles to remember. She’s suffering from Alzheimer’s. When her fingers do find the notes pulled from deep in her memory, the audience – the millions of fans who’ve watched “This Is Us” for six seasons – suddenly have a similar feeling of realization, of recognition.

“The melodic concept of ‘The Forever Now‘ is something that we’ve been sort of teasing along for a while,” says series composer Siddhartha Khosla. “It’s one of the main themes for six seasons. [Series creator] Dan Fogelman had this plan that the melody we’ve been hearing would end up becoming Rebecca’s [Mandy Moore’s] song at Kate’s wedding. Dan’s mandate was ‘Go and write the best song you guys have ever written.’ No pressure.”

Fortunately, Khosla says, his co-writer, Taylor Goldsmith, “has a window into Rebecca in a way that none of us do, because his wife is Mandy Moore.”

Goldsmith, frontman of the band Dawes, has watched the actor-singer work on the character for years, from the earliest stages of receiving scripts, to hashing out moments with her acting coach, to the finished product on the air. (“Also, I’m a massive fan of the show,” he says.)

He says Rebecca is, “for lack of a better phrase, a failed songwriter. She didn’t get to live that dream. So we couldn’t put on our Leonard Cohen hat or something. How do you do it through someone else’s voice” – an admittedly limited songwriter, but perhaps having her finest moment even as she struggles through the gathering fog of dementia?

“How do you speak to these themes that the show’s been touching on this whole time that she’s not realizing she’s touching on? It’s a Friday crossword instead of a Monday crossword,” says Goldsmith, and both men laugh.

Goldsmith says the title idea of “The Forever Now” came right away – an expression of perhaps the essence of “This Is Us”: the past’s constant presence, reinforced by the show’s time-jumping narrative. It was the rest that took some time. He and Khosla went back and forth, looking for the first verse. Then he found the opening line: “They say time will tell, but I think it likes to keep secrets.”

“I don’t know where that line came from, but once it showed up, then it was just like cooking with gas,” Goldsmith says.

They were soon ready to record a polished version with Moore at the top of her vocal powers. It went to No. 1 on iTunes. Then, for the performance in the show in which the 38-year-old Moore is in character as the 70-something Rebecca, they dropped the key a half-step at the singer’s urging.

“We created an alternate version where the piano chords were simpler, for someone who’s not too skilled on piano. At first she’s fumbling trying to remember it, but once she does, she’s locked in,” says Khosla. “She’s able to transcend her predicament and be a force of strength. It’s what makes Rebecca this superhero for the family.”

Goldsmith, having just returned from touring with Moore (they had to cut the tour short due to her pregnancy), says the singer made the song her final encore in the concerts. “We would play it every night and the fans treated it like one of the biggest songs she’s ever had. The eyes would go wide and they’d cheer at the first line. They sang along to every word.”

‘Maybe Monica’

From “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”; music and lyrics by Thomas Mizer and Curtis Moore

“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s” songwriting team of Curtis Moore and Thomas Mizer is used to getting requests from showrunner Amy Sherman-Palladino to tailor songs to a particular late ’50s/early ’60s genre. She managed to throw them for a loop, however, with her marching orders for “Maybe Monica.”

“Amy will call up and be like, ‘Uh, Harry Belafonte’s gonna sing at Shy’s wedding. Go!’ And then she’ll hang up,” says Mizer, laughing.

Legendary entertainer and civil rights icon Belafonte is, in the world of “Mrs. Maisel,” a friend of supporting character Shy Baldwin (a closeted crooner who has a complicated relationship with protagonist Midge).

Moore’s first reaction: “Are we being punked? He’s got a thousand amazing songs already. Why wouldn’t he be singing” one of those?

The two say they were stymied by the thought of writing a new song for the fictional Belafonte instead of simply using one of his many real hits until Sherman-Palladino gave them a key note: It was to be a wedding toast.

“Ah! Story!” exclaims Mizer. “Suddenly that was the reason for us to be writing this.”

“Now we could have fun with it on two levels,” Moore says. “One, Harry’s writing this jab, this fun little joke song to Shy about, ‘How’d you get that great girl to marry you?’ Because I don’t think Harry necessarily knows the entire backstory of Shy Baldwin. But we as writers know, and you as the audience know, so that allows us another level to write that into the song. This is a sham wedding! This is a publicity stunt.”

Lyricist Mizer says, “At the same time, it’s the question we should be asking the whole episode. ‘Why is Monica [marrying him]?’

“My favorite thing in it is just that I made the singer have to do ‘Baby made a Maybe a Yes’ over and over again: ‘Baby made a Maybe a Yes / Baby made a Maybe a Yes.’ Everybody on set was trying to say it three times fast.”

Curtis says, “It all ends up a fun play on this moment, but also, ‘What is this farce that’s happening in front of us?’ And of course, we’re trying to show that while still having a joyous, fun, Harry Belafonte calypso number.”

‘I’m Tired’

From “Euphoria”; music and lyrics by Labrinth; lyrics by Sam Levinson and Zendaya

“Euphoria” protagonist Rue (Zendaya) goes through hell on the show. She plummets in a spiral of addiction and betrayal until realizing she has to stop her descent.

“When you get to that place where you’ve gone around in circles so many times, there’s this tiredness in your soul. It’s not just tiredness physically,” says series composer Labrinth of the gospel-inflected “I’m Tired.”

“I just started singing it and then [series creator Sam Levinson] started writing lyrics to some of my melodies and Zendaya would say something; it was like us playing tennis in the studio.”

The simple, repeated lines feel like a mantra (“Hey, Lord, you know I’m tired” and “Hey, Lord, you know I’m trying”) that bends toward darkness (“I’m sure this world is done with me”). But in its naked plea, it comes around to “Hey, Lord, I wanna stay.” The vocalist for most of it is male, though the words could come directly from Rue’s heart.

“It could sound suicidal if a person listened to it very little, but for me, the end of the old you is the beginning of a new you. What we’re saying is we wanna renew ourselves.”

One might expect some hints of Kirk Franklin in Labrinth’s inspiration for a gospel song, or Prince, and he says both were in the mix. He also cites Kanye West, Queen and Nat “King” Cole as resonating in his head as he wrote.

“They all have this ethereal, kind of spiritual energy. When I was listening to Queen, those big harmonies take you somewhere. Nat “King” Cole, his ballads can have harmonies that feel like they morph into other universes and then return.”

In the show, Rue staggers into a church, where we realize the song is coming from a familiar-looking gospel singer who embraces the spiritually battered girl.

“I was a bit nervous because I hadn’t performed for a while,” Labrinth says of finally fulfilling Levinson’s request that he cameo on the show. “Then the whole church, everyone was crying. Me and Zendaya cried. We were all in tears together.”

‘CornPuddin’ ‘

From “Schmigadoon!”; music and lyrics by Cinco Paul

In “Schmigadoon!,” a couple on the rocks (played by Keegan-Michael Key and Cecily Strong) find themselves in a suspiciously quaint hamlet whose denizens have a habit of launching into well-coordinated musical numbers. The two haven’t realized they’re trapped in a bizarre musical-theater limbo when Strong’s character says she has never tried the place’s famous corn pudding and the whole gosh darn town turns up to sing and dance its praises.

There’s a side helping of smiley innuendo with this “Corn Puddin’ “: “If he wants my puddin’,” brightly sing the ladies, “he’ll have to marry me.” And several of the female dancers end in inverted splits, held up by male dancers. It’s a regular horny-on-the-down-low hootenanny, a subtle foreshadowing of the repression beneath the shiny surface.

“Ken and I would sing that song to whoever we were pitching the show,” says co-creator and series composer Cinco Paul, known for his work with writing partner Ken Daurio on big-screen Dr. Seuss animated films and the “Despicable Me” franchise. “It’s a big part of why Apple decided to buy it in the first place.

“The point was twofold — to parody those songs in musicals that have no purpose. ‘Why are you singing a song about this now?’ ‘A Real Nice Clambake‘ from ‘Carousel’ is a good example. ‘Shipoopi‘ from ‘Music Man’ is another one. They stop the story dead: ‘Let’s sing about food!’

“It was also finding the song that would be most annoying to Keegan’s character. So ironically, it moves the story forward because it gets him to the point of ‘We have to leave right now. I can’t take another song like this.’ “

There’s an undeniable earworm in this “Corn”: “You put the corn in the puddin’ and the puddin’ in the bowl/ You put the bowl in your belly ’cause it’s good for the soul.”

“I think that was the big breakthrough [in writing it], as silly as it sounds,” says Paul.

“I recently saw a T-shirt with that line in emojis. They used a corn emoji and a bowl emoji; a halo emoji for ‘good for the soul.’ That was really fun. Also, you know you have something when you hear the crew on the set singing along.”

Delighted as he is with the Emmy laurels, Paul wants to make sure everybody knows “I’m in a rivalry now with Zendaya.” Tongue firmly in cheek, he said of his fellow nominee, “It’s getting pretty heated.”

‘Elliot’s Song’

From “Euphoria”; music and lyrics by Labrinth; lyrics by Muzhda Zemar-McKenzie and Zendaya

“Elliot’s Song,” this year’s second original music and lyrics nominee from “Euphoria,” is like a radio signal from space that recedes again into darkness. Its source, however, is from a hauntingly real place.

“Elliot’s saying, ‘I’m sorry [for betraying you], but I wanted to save you. I’m in hell, but I don’t want you in hell with me,'” says series composer Labrinth, who shares the nomination with star Zendaya (again) and with his frequent collaborator (and wife), Muzhda Zemar-McKenzie.

Zendaya explained to Labrinth her character, Rue, and Elliot (Dominic Fike) were thick as drugged-out thieves in the show’s second season. But along the way, Elliot betrays her twice: He sleeps with her girlfriend, Jules, and rats her out for resuming her addictive ways.

Labrinth sums up Elliot’s thinking on the latter, expressed in the song he writes for Rue: “‘If I’m going to lose you, I’d rather keep you alive than lose you by my side.’ Once Zendaya spoke to me about what he’d done, I heard in my head, ‘I’ve got no place/ Buildin’ you a rocket up to outer space.'”

The lyric continues, “I watch you fade/ Keepin’ the lights on in this forsaken place” and finishes each pair of stanzas with “I hope that it was worth it in the end.”

When Labrinth had only the first verse, he talked the song over with Zemar-McKenzie. She said it made her think of a very dear friend who died in an accident when she was 17.

“They were like peas in a pod,” said her husband. “They would get in trouble together. He always said to her, ‘I think I’m gonna go early.’ He would say it as a joke. And then he did end up going.”

Years later, “She had a dream about him saying, ‘Have you read my letter?’ After she had the dream, she learned from a mutual friend that he had left her a letter that she hadn’t previously known of.

“The letter was basically him saying, ‘I want you to have the best life. Don’t stay here; go and win.’ It was deep. It kind of makes me emotional speaking about it.

“He wasn’t planning on going, but in the letter it felt like him going was for her to become what she needed to become. We started writing in that perspective: ‘I know I may have upset you by abandoning you, but I hope you see that this becomes worth it in the end, to see you become what you need to become.'”

Kenya Barris is to direct a ‘Wizard of Oz’ remake.

The ‘Black-ish’ creator has been tapped to write and helm the Warner Bros. reimagining of L. Frank Baum’s book ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’.

The story has been retold on both the big and small screens several times, most famously in the classic 1939 movie that starred Judy Garland in the role of Dorothy.

The plot follows Dorothy, a Kansas farm girl who is swept away by a tornado and finds herself – as well as her dog Toto – in the colourful Land of Oz

The movie will be a modern reimagining of the classic musical and Kenya’s Khalabo Ink Society are producing the flick.

Barris is currently completing work on his debut feature film ‘You People’ for Netflix. He wrote the comedy film together with Jonah Hill and the ensemble cast includes stars such as Eddie Murphy, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and David Duchovny.

Kenya is also writing a remake of the 1992 sports comedy movie ‘White Men Can’t Jump’, with rapper Jack Harlow set to play the role that was portrayed by Woody Harrelson in the original film.

The movie is completely separate from New Line’s previously announced remake. That version will be directed by Nicole Kassell and is described as a “fresh take” on Dorothy and the Land of Oz.

In a statement, Kassell said: “While the 1939 musical is part of my DNA, I am exhilarated and humbled by the responsibility of re-imagining such a legendary tale.

“The opportunity to examine the original themes — the quest for courage, love, wisdom, and home — feels more timely and urgent than ever.

“These are profoundly iconic shoes to fill, and I am eager to dance alongside these heroes of my childhood as we pave a newly-minted yellow brick road!”

By Richa Naidu and Ross Kerber

LONDON/BOSTON (Reuters) – Ben & Jerry’s legal battle with Unilever sheds light on an issue affecting a growing number of purpose-led brands: how to maintain their identity after being bought by a major consumer company.

Multinational consumer groups have raced to snap up socially conscious brands in recent years, seeking to tap into a surge in demand among customers for ethical products, usually sold at a premium.

Under Chief Executive Alan Jope, Unilever has added to a portfolio of “purposeful” brands – from Paula’s Choice skincare products that shun animal testing to sustainably-made supplements from SmartyPants and Nutrafol.

In 2000, the company scooped up Ben & Jerry’s for $326 million with an unusual caveat: the Vermont-based ice cream maker would retain its independent board of directors, responsible for guiding its social and political identity.

Ben & Jerry’s now believes that commitment to have been breached, following a furore over its plan to stop selling ice creams in the Israeli-occupied West Bank that eventually led Unilever to strike a deal to sell the brand’s Israeli business.

The maker of Chunky Monkey and Cherry Garcia ice creams sued its parent company on July 5 to try to stop the sale. A ruling is expected in the coming weeks.

“It’s a wake-up call for the folks who do deals to be more vigilant and ensure not only do the financials support a deal, but the underlying potential future conflicts are free and clear,” said Mark Cohen, a professor at Columbia University Business School.

Unilever declined to comment for this story. Ben & Jerry’s had no immediate comment.

Ben & Jerry’s, now worth over 1 billion euros ($1 billion), says the Israeli sale is against its values by allowing its products to remain available in the West Bank.

The ice cream brand should have been aware that “Unilever might see fit to put the Ben and Jerry’s brand anywhere and everywhere in the world,” Cohen said.

On the other hand, Unilever should have understood Ben & Jerry’s founders “have taken a political stance on a variety of issues, not the least of which being their objection to the actions of the State of Israel,” he added.

Unilever may have already learned the lesson. Home products brand Seventh Generation, which it bought in 2016, created a “social mission” board meant to keep the business focused on causes such as diversity and generating less packaging waste.

But the messaging on the brand’s website and Twitter feed covers a narrower range of issues than that of Ben & Jerry’s.

“Seventh Generation has a broad mission for environmental, racial and social justice. Ben & Jerry’s mission may be broader,” said Mindy Lubber, CEO of climate advocacy group Ceres and a member of the Seventh Generation board until this year.

‘CONSIDER WHAT YOU’RE GIVING UP’

Organic food company investor Gary Hirshberg, who co-founded yogurt brand Stonyfield, now part of French dairy group Lactalis, said entrepreneurs cannot rely on a publicly-traded buyer to continue a social mission because the new owner’s executives will come and go. He called the Ben & Jerry’s dispute with Unilever “a classic difference in the cultures.”

But he added a good way to protect a brand’s mission was to build it around a legal standard like having organic ingredients, hard for a buyer to change.

Oregon Treasurer Tobias Read, who oversees state pension fund investments worth about $100 billion including Unilever shares, said the Ben & Jerry’s dispute shows how socially-minded businesses can have contrasting obligations once they become part of a publicly-listed company.

“If you’re a founder and you’re considering being acquired, you might want to consider what you’re giving up,” Read said.

Family-owned outdoor apparel and gear maker Patagonia values having oversight over decision making.

“Many of our boldest moves have been enabled by our independence,” said Matthijs Visch, its general manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

“Today, the argument ‘We can’t do that because we have shareholders’ simply doesn’t hold water.”

Concerns that ethical principles could be compromised after a buyout have held some companies back from agreeing deals.

British beauty brand Lush markets its bath ‘bombs’ and soaps as vegetarian, cruelty free and handmade. The firm’s staff hold 10% of its shares and have a say in how the business is run.

That independence will not be given up, no matter how attractive an offer might be, said ethics director Hilary Jones.

“External capital would not find us an attractive partner, and we would not relish having financial returns being the main goal and restricting our choices, so we have deliberately resisted taking outside investment,” she said. “We love what we do and we love to do it our way.”

($1 = 0.9823 euros)

(Reporting by Richa Naidu and Ross Kerber; Additional reporting by Doyinsola Oladipo and Jessica DiNapoli; Editing by Matt Scuffham and Mark Potter)

Doja Cat says people who don’t like her buzzcut can “go f***” themselves.

The ‘Say So’ hitmaker took to Instagram Live to explain she feels she was “never supposed to have hair” earlier this month and is continuing to clap back at the critics to her new look.

On Monday (15.08.22), Doja took to Twitter to take aim at those who continue to come for her shaved head.

She wrote to her followers: “I won a grammy and traveled the f****** globe i’ve had a #1 and i went platinum. I make hit after hit after hit and you all want me to look f******* for you so that you can go home and jerk your c**** all day long while you live in your mothers basement. Go f*** yourselves.”

At the time, the 26-year-old rapper explained: “I don’t like having hair. I cannot tell you one time since the beginning of my life that I’ve ever been like, ‘This is cool.’

“There was a moment where it was natural, and I don’t even wear it natural because I don’t feel like it and it’s just a f****** nightmare, dude.”

Doja explained she was “over” sporting wigs as they make lots of things – like swimming, sweating and exercising a lot harder – and thinks there is little point to have “hair if you’re not going to f****** wearing it out.

The ‘Woman’ admitted she never been “so f****** happy” with her new do after sharing a bathroom selfie of her new look over the weekend.

Doja said: “I’ve never felt so fucking happy. It’s very funny how much of an effect taking my hair off my head has positively influenced me.”

Anne Heche wanted Miley Cyrus to play her if a movie was ever made about her life.

The late actress – who died on Sunday (14.08.22) aged 53 – recorded an episode of the ‘Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef’ podcast back in January seven months before her fatal car crash and she named Miley and Kristen Bell as the two actresses she’d pick to star in a biopic.

When asked who would portray her on screen, Anne said: “I’ve already thought about it. Miley Cyrus or Kristen Bell … The two of them share a personality ability to face the world the way that I would want, that I feel like I have and would want portrayed.”

According to New York Post gossip column PageSix, she added the two stars would be able to “pull off the humour that I have” and do justice to “the journey that I’ve gone through”.

When asked what appealed to her about Miley, Anne praised her for breaking away from her Disney child star roots to forge a successful music and acting career.

She said: “The ability for her to be able to pull off … I’ve seen her in ‘Hannah Montana’ To be able to do that, to be able to express that, to be able to be as bold as she’s been – going from Disney into, you know, ‘Wrecking Ball’ …

“The way she moves, the way she sings, her voice, her compassion, (the way) she f****** loves everyone, her ability to get out on stage and sing a cappella … And I think she’s a f****** great actress.”

She previously worked with Kristen in a 2004 TV movie called ‘Gracie’s Choice’ and Anne said she saw a lot of herself in the younger actress.

Anne said: “Kristen Bell gave me my second Emmy nomination. She and I played a mother and daughter in a Lifetime movie years ago … I see myself a lot in her. I don’t think it was any mistake that I played her mom, and I want her to play me.”

The podcast was recorded in January but was not released until Tuesday (16.08.22).

Anne died on Sunday (14.08.22) nine days after she was critically injured in a car crash.

The ‘Donnie Brasco’ star was declared “legally dead according to California law” on Friday (12.08.22) after suffering a severe anoxic brain injury but her family wanted to wait until organ donor matches had been found before turning off her life support.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The federal judge overseeing the search warrant on President Donald Trump’s Florida home scheduled a in-person hearing for Thursday on motions to unseal search warrant materials, court records showed on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien; Editing by Tim Ahmann)

Jackson (United States) (AFP) – Republican dissident Liz Cheney looks set to lose her US Congress seat Tuesday to an election-denying conspiracy theorist, in the latest signal of her party’s disavowal of traditional conservatism in favor of Donald Trump’s hardline “America First” movement.

Once considered Republican royalty, the lawmaker from Wyoming has become a pariah in the party over her role on the congressional panel pursuing Trump over the plot to overthrow the last election that culminated in the 2021 assault on the US Capitol.

All eyes are on the Wyoming Republican primary, where defeat for the 56-year-old elder daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney would mark the end of the family’s four-decade political association with one of America’s most conservative states.

Even her loyal backers have privately accepted that Cheney will likely lose to 59-year-old lawyer Harriet Hageman — Trump’s hand-picked candidate who has amplified his false claims of a “rigged” 2020 election. 

The latest survey from the local Casper Star-Tribune has Cheney with just 30 percent support compared with 52 percent for Hageman, reflecting all recent polling.

‘We will win’

Yet there is already speculation that Cheney may challenge Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 — or even run as an independent — and insiders are expecting her to deliver a concession speech that will double up as the launchpad for her political future.

“No matter how long we must fight, this is a battle we will win,” she said in a video message posted before the weekend.

“Millions of Americans across our nation — Republicans, Democrats, independents — stand united in the cause of freedom.”

Cheney has framed her campaign as a battle for the soul of a party she is trying to save from the anticonstitutional forces of Trumpism.

She is the last of 10 Republicans in the lower House of Representatives who backed Trump’s second impeachment to be facing primary voters. 

Four retired rather than seek reelection, three lost to Trump-backed opponents, and only two — California’s David Valadao and Dan Newhouse of Washington state — have made it through to November’s midterm elections.

Cheney, a tax-cutting, gun-loving right-winger, voted in line with Trump’s positions 93 percent of the time when he was president but that hasn’t blunted his retaliation for her role in the House committee probe.

Trump has made Cheney his bete noire, calling her “disloyal” and a “warmonger,” prompting death threats that have forced her to travel with a police escort.

Palin comeback bid

The blonde, bespectacled former attorney has also been made persona non grata by the Wyoming Republican Party, whose chairman himself participated in the protests on the day of the US Capitol assault.

“Liz is representing the constituents that are in her mind, and they aren’t the constituents of Wyoming,” said Mary Martin, chairwoman of the Republican Party in Teton County — Cheney’s Wyoming base.

Leaning on his red motorcycle, Bill Gonzales, 59, is one of the few voters who spoke to AFP in Cheyenne to defend Cheney’s record, saying she “has stood up for what is proper within the country.”

There are also elections in Alaska, where 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s comeback battle — to complete the term of a congressman who died in office — is dividing locals.

Fourteen years after rising to international fame on the losing Republican presidential ticket headed by John McCain, Palin remains popular among women as the “soccer mom” who pioneered the ultra-conservative “Tea Party” movement that paved the way for Trumpism.

But many voters blame her for abandoning her single term as govenor halfway through, amid ethics complaints, and a recent poll showed her to be viewed unfavorably by 60 percent of Alaskans.

By Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Cheered by a decisive win for abortion rights in a Kansas vote and eyeing November midterm elections, the White House is launching a push for abortion access that aims to influence men as well as women, sources with direct knowledge told Reuters.

The Biden administration’s three-prong playbook leans on two specific federal statutes to target states that limit abortion, communicates to voters the impact on women, and accentuates how forced pregnancies negatively affect both women and men.

Senior White House officials, advisers and abortion rights advocates have held multiple strategy and engagement calls in recent days, including an Aug. 4 call with nearly 2,000 participants, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private meetings.

Abortion rights advocates have accused U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration in the past of being slow to act around a Supreme Court ruling in June that ended the constitutional right to abortion. Two Biden executive orders and engagement with key stakeholders led by Vice President Kamala Harris have assuaged some concerns, several told Reuters.

The White House is “really going all the way in trying to promote their message on the issue of abortion in the midterms,” said Lawrence Gostin, faculty director of Georgetown University’s Institute for National and Global Health Law, who has been working with the White House. “They are hoping this will play well among suburban women and that was Biden’s edge in the presidential election.”

A senior White House official said that the administration thinks the issue could win Democrats’ support from many Republican voters during the midterms.

NEW LITIGATION STRATEGY

The Biden administration plans to lean on two specific federal statutes, which predated the abortion ruling, to fight its legal challenges – the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) and FDA preemption under the Federal Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act (FDCA), the sources said.

EMTALA requires hospitals that accept Medicare funds to provide medical treatment to people that arrive with an emergency medical condition. That includes providing a woman an abortion if her life is in danger https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/hhs-says-federal-law-preempts-state-abortion-bans-emergency-situations-2022-07-11.

This law is the backbone of the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit against the state of Idaho, but may be hard to enforce, some legal experts say https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/federal-guidance-life-saving-abortions-puts-doctors-bind-2022-07-20.

The FDA preemption argues states cannot ban an approved abortion drug because federal law preempts or overrides state law. More than 30 states have enacted legislation that restricts access to medication.

Mini Timmaraju, president, NARAL Pro-Choice America, who also is working with the White House on the issue, said the litigation strategy is key.

“It’s not just executive orders and policies, it’s (legal)enforcement,” she said.

VOTING, RESEARCH AND MESSAGING

The White House plans to replicate the success in Kansas, said the sources. It is closely tracking similar ballot initiatives in California, Kentucky, Michigan, and Vermont and gubernatorial races like Michigan’s, where abortion has become a central issue, sources said.

In Kansas, a team of the Democratic National Committee made about 30,000 phone calls and sent over 130,000 text messages to help turn out the vote.

The White House is compiling research on the physical and mental harms women face if they’re denied access to abortion, as well as the economic impact that forced pregnancies can have on men, women and families; and plans to communicate that to voters with a consistent messaging plan, sources said.

It will target men in its messaging, asking them to consider how their sisters, nieces, cousins could be affected if abortions were unavailable, and to think about the costs related to supporting an unplanned pregnancy, the sources said.

In 2020, the National Bureau of Economic Research found that women who are forced to have an unwanted baby face medical costs associated with prenatal care, birth, postpartum recovery in addition to costs associated with raising a child that exceed $9,000 a year.

Another message will be aimed at religious Americans, telling them they don’t have to change their faith to support abortion rights, they just need to resist government overreach, they said.

“The idea is to be much more disciplined and consistent in messaging to break through to the everyday American,” said one of the sources.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Heather Timmons and Aurora Ellis)