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Published by AFP US cases have quickly soared to 13,500 since May, when the current outbreak began in Europe Washington (AFP) – Monkeypox vaccines will be made available at Gay Pride and other events as part of a new pilot program to stem the fast spread of the virus, US health authorities said Thursday. US cases have quickly soared to 13,500 since May, when the current outbreak began in Europe. Latest official data shows 98 percent of cases have been among men, and 93 percent among men reporting recent sexual contact with other men. Hispanic and Black people are both disproportionately impacted. The federal government “is launching a pilot program that will provide up to 50,000 doses from the national stockpile to be made available for Pride and other events,” White House monkeypox response coordinator Bob Fenton told reporters. Notable upcoming events include Black Pride in Atlanta and Southern Decadence in New Orleans, both around Labor Day on September 5 and the preceding weekend. The reopening of colleges this fall is also expected to accelerate the spread. State health departments can put in orders based on the size of the event and its ability to reach attendees at highest risk, added Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Rochelle Walenksy. But she added that since the Jynneos monkeypox vaccine comes in two doses, recipients will be advised that they won’t receive instant protection at the event itself and must follow up on their second shot. Overall, the US has delivered around one million vaccine doses to state and other local jurisdictions, and will start to make available for order an additional 1.8 million doses from next week, said Fenton. The federal government will also be sending out 50,000 courses of antiviral treatment TPOXX. Last week, the Food and Drug Administration authorized a new procedure for injecting the vaccine — in between the upper layers of the skin rather than deeper, beneath it — to get five times more out of the same amount of substance. View the full article

Published by City AM By Adam Bloodworth Cruise is one of only a handful of West End openings this August, so thank goodness it’s a hit. A lucky few were already privy to how good Cruise is, with the show making headlines in July 2021 when it opened as the first post-pandemic West End production. “I knew that a solo show would be eminently fundable because the overheads are very low,” Holden told me when the show opened. He was right, but this second run, upgraded from the 494-seater Duchess Theatre to the 775-seater Apollo, proves this one-man show is worth funding not just in a crisis, but in ordinary times when … Read More View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Lee Pace has revealed he’s married his longtime partner Matthew Foley. The ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’ star not only confirmed he and the Thom Browne Vice President of Communications had tied the knot but that they are keen to start a family. In an interview with GQ Hype, the 43-year-old actor – who lives in New York with his now-husband and their pet pooch Gus – compared being married to “an endless sleepover with your weirdest friend”. He shared: “I said to my friend, Nick, ‘You know a lot of people, who do you have for me?’ And it luckily has worked out. “What I’ll say about being married, it was once described to me as an endless sleepover with your weirdest friend. In our experience, that is absolutely true.” He added: “If you’ve found one person you can be weird around, hold on tight.” When asked if the pair would like children, he replied: “I’d love to have kids. I think there’s nothing better than little kids running around.” It was reported in November last year that the couple – who were first known to be dating in 2017 – had secretly gotten hitched. No further details such as the venue or location of the ceremony are known. Lee previously opened up about his sexuality and revealed he has dated men and women. The ‘Hobbit’ star explained how he thinks it’s important that gay actors are cast in gay roles – but he doesn’t identify with any sexual orientation and doesn’t think anyone should care about his sexuality. Speaking to W magazine in 2018, he said: “Our understanding of what it means to be gay is just so different. It’s culturally different. It’s just so much further down the road. It’s an interesting thing for me to think about in this moment while working on this play ‘[Angels in America’]. I’ve dated men. I’ve dated women. “I don’t know why anyone would care. I’m an actor and I play roles. To be honest, I don’t know what to say – I find your question intrusive.” View the full article

Published by OK Magazine mega Not ready to give up. As Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt continue to fight tooth and nail against each other in their many legal battles, the Maleficent star is “desperately trying to find something new” to take down her A-List ex-husband, claimed an insider. This comes after the FBI failed to file charges against Pitt in connection with a physical altercation that allegedly occurred during a private flight in 2016. mega Earlier this year, Jolie filed an anonymous lawsuit against the FBI, asking to be given access to documents connected to their investigation surrounding the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood actor’s alleged domestic violence. BRAD PITT PUSHING TO SEE KIDS ‘WHEREVER THEY ALL ARE IN THE WORLD’ DESPITE ‘HOSTILE’ SITUATION WITH EX ANGELINA JOLIE: SOURCE According to the suit, Pitt is said to have drunkenly lashed out at his then-wife while aboard a private plane with their brood. The actor “grabbed [Angelina] by the head, shaking her,” the FBI documents read. When their children asked if she was alright, Pitt yelled, “No, she’s not OK, she’s ruining this family, she’s crazy.” mega Jolie claimed she’s experienced other moments of domestic violence from her estranged ex, including him pushing her and pouring his beer on her. She also stated in the original court filing that Pitt hit their son Maddox. ANGELINA JOLIE IS HAPPY EX BRAD PITT ‘STEPPED UP’ TO MAKE TRIP TO ROME WHERE HE VISITED THE KIDS, SOURCE SHARES: ‘A HUGE WEIGHT OFF HER SHOULDERS’ Authorities reviewed the details of the case the following year in November 2017, eventually coming to the decision not to charge Pitt with a crime. mega This is only one of many legal spats between the volatile exes. Aside from their lengthy custody battle — the pair shares Maddox, 21, Pax, 18, Zahara, 17, Shiloh, 16, and 14-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne — the former spouses are also embroiled in a heated battle over their Château Miraval winery. Jolie and Pitt first bought the sprawling French winery in 2008. Prior to their 2016 split, Pitt claimed they agreed they would not sell off their interest in the property without both of them agreeing on the future buyer. However, theTroy actor is accusing Jolie of selling her cut in the business to Russian oligarch Yuri Sheffler in an attempt to “undermine Pitt’s investment in Miraval.” Page Six was first to report Jolie was “desperate” to dig up new dirt on Pitt. View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Gwyneth Paltrow is joining the ‘Shark Tank’ panel. The ‘Shakespeare in Love’ star will be joining the ABC reality show – which sees business titans Mark Cuban, Barbara Corcoran, Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec, Daymond John and Kevin O’Leary hear about potential investments from eager entrepreneurs – as a guest shark. Gwyneth – who founded the upscale lifestyle brand GOOP – will not be the only guest shark as DoorDash founder Tony Xu will also be featured on the lineup, along with previous guest sharks like Emma Grede, co-founder of Kim Kardashian’s shapewear line Skims, Daniel Lubetzky, the co-creator of Kind and British import Peter Jones, who appears on the UK edition of the same programme, which goes by the name ‘Dragon’s Den’ on the BBC. The series is heading into its 14th season with a kick off live episode on September 23. Recently, the Academy Award winner – who is married to producer Brad Falchuk and has two kids, daughter Apple, 18, and son Moses, 16, with her ex Coldplay frontman Chris Martin – called her ex Ben Affleck’s recent marriage to his rekindled love, Jennifer Lopez “so romantic”. During an Instagram question and answering session, Gwyneth gushed about it, writing “Love!!! So romantic!!!”. The ‘Iron Man’ star also recently enthused she “found the Brad I was supposed to marry” during a Goop interview to promote her ex Brad Pitt’s new line of shirts. Brad – who dated ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’ star for three years until they called off their engagement in 1997 – gushed it was “lovely” to be on such good terms with Gwyneth, adding that “I do love you”, to which she replied “I love you so much”. View the full article

Published by AFP Strippers are not typically members of a union, but dancers at a club in Los Angeles are moving to change that Los Angeles (AFP) – Performers at a Los Angeles strip club took their first steps toward unionization Wednesday, becoming the latest US workers to seek collective bargaining power. Dancers at the Star Garden Topless Dive Bar submitted a petition with the federal government, beginning a process that could see them represented by performers union Actors’ Equity, in what officials described as a first. “We like what we do,” said Velveeta, a Star Garden dancer. “We would like our jobs even more if we had basic worker protections.” Equity already represents over 51,000 performers and stage managers across the United States, many of them in and around Los Angeles. “Strippers are live entertainers, and while some aspects of their job are unique, they have much in common with other Equity members who dance for a living,” said Actors’ Equity Association President Kate Shindle. “These dancers reported consistent compensation issues — including significant wage theft — along with health and safety risks and violations. “They want health insurance and other benefits, like workers’ compensation. They need protection from sexual harassment, discrimination and unjust terminations.” The petition was filed with the National Labor Relations Board, who will now need to schedule a vote for the 30 or so eligible strippers. If a majority votes to unionize, Equity will begin negotiating a new contract with Star Garden on their behalf. In the meantime, the exotic dancers say they will picket the club in the North Hollywood area of the city, with what Equity called “a public information campaign to engage Star Garden’s patrons.” The campaign is being supported by Strippers United, a non-profit group advocating for dancers’ rights. No one at Star Garden, which has an average four stars on Yelp, picked up the phone when AFP called on Wednesday. While Equity has never had stripper members before, this is not the first time ecdysiasts have organized in the United States. Dancers working at San Francisco’s Lusty Lady formed the Exotic Dancers Union in 1996, Equity noted. That club shut its doors in 2013. Wednesday’s move comes amid an uptick in interest among workers across the United States in unionization, with staff at several branches of Starbucks among the most high profile. Through the first three quarters of fiscal year 2022 — from October 1 to June 30 — there were 1,935 unionization campaigns filed with the National Labor Relations Board, up 56 percent from the prior year. View the full article

Published by Radar Online Mega Ellen DeGeneres has opted to celebrate the love in front of her instead of sulking over the one she lost. The 64-year-old former talk show host paid tribute to her wife Portia de Rossion their 14th wedding anniversary, which fell just days after her ex-girlfriend Anne Heche‘s death. DeGeneres didn’t hold back, posting a lovely video montage of her life with de Rossi and revealing how nice it feels to be in love. “‘It’s good to be loved. It’s profound to be understood.’ I love you, @portiaderossi. Happy 14!” she captioned the clip on Tuesday. Mega DeGeneres’ anniversary and post come on the heels of Radar’s exclusive story that she won’t be at Heche’s funeral. “Anne’s funeral will be this week and Ellen will not be invited. It’s just close family and friends. It will be small and private,” sources told us. Heche was taken off life support on Friday after she fell into a coma following an accident in which her car imploded into a home and burst into flames on August 5. The 911 call revealed horrific details of the incident, including that several neighbors tried to rescue the actress from her burning car — but she was trapped inside. Mega Heche had severe burns, an anoxic brain injury, and never came out of her coma. Her family let her die peacefully by taking her off machines after she was paired with an organ-donation recipient. DeGeneres released a statement about her death. Peaks & Pitfalls: Anne Heche Reflects On Romance With Ellen DeGeneres & Being ‘Blacklisted’ From Hollywood “This is a sad day,” the ex-professional gabber tweeted. “I’m sending Anne’s children, family and friends all of my love.” Heche dated DeGeneres from 1997-2000. Mega “Ellen felt the need to say something after Anne died. They hadn’t spoken in years but given what their relationship meant to so many people around the world, she understands why she had to speak out,” sources spilled to RadarOnline.com at the time. Heche left behind two sons — Homer, 20, and Atlas, 13. She was only 53 years old. View the full article

Published by Reuters By Maria Alejandra Cardona ATLANTA (Reuters) -Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s onetime personal lawyer, testified before a special grand jury in Atlanta on Wednesday in a Georgia criminal probe examining attempts by the former U.S. president and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results. Giuliani, who helped lead Trump’s election challenges, spent more than six hours in the Fulton County courthouse after a judge ordered him to comply with a subpoena. His lawyers, who declined to comment on his testimony, said he would refuse to answer questions that violate attorney-client privilege. The former New York City mayor, 78, appeared before Georgia state lawmakers in December 2020, echoing Trump’s false conspiracy theories about stolen ballots and urging them not to certify Democratic President Joe Biden’s victory over the Republican Trump. “It’s a grand jury and grand juries, as I recall, are secret,” Giuliani told CNN on his arrival at the courthouse, when asked to comment on his testimony. “They ask the questions and we’ll see.” Giuliani left the courthouse through one of the building’s side entrances, local media in Atlanta reported. “We were ordered to be here, we showed up, we did what we have to do,” said Giuliani’s lawyer, Bill Thomas. “The special grand jury process is a secret process, and we’re gonna respect that process.” The Fulton County probe began after a January 2021 recorded phone call in which Trump urged the state’s top election official to “find” enough votes to alter the outcome. The former president has asserted falsely that he won Georgia, as well as the 2020 presidential contest. The special grand jury was convened in May at the request of county District Attorney Fani Willis. Giuliani, a former crime-fighting U.S. Attorney, was among several Trump advisers and lawyers who received subpoenas from the grand jury last month, including U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. (Writing by Rami Ayyub, editing by Ross Colvin, Howard Goller and Deepa Babington) View the full article

Published by Reuters (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors examining the role of former President Donald Trump and allies in events ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol have subpoenaed National Archives documents provided to a House of Representatives committee, the New York Times reported. The subpoena was issued in May, sought “all materials, in whatever form” that were given to lawmakers and was signed by the prosecutor leading the Justice Department’s inquiry, according to the report. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to an out-of-hours request for comment from Reuters. The select committee investigating the Capitol assault asked for multiple records from the National Archives including photographs, videos, communications, calendars, schedules, movement logs and visitor records among other files. Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. The onslaught on the Capitol by Trump supporters led to several deaths, injured more than 140 police officers and delayed certification of Democratic President Joe Biden’s victory over Republican Trump in the November 2020 election. Trump falsely claims his election defeat was the result of fraud. (Reporting by Costas Pitas in Los Angeles; editing by Grant McCool) View the full article

Published by Reuters By David Thomas (Reuters) – A Florida state attorney on Wednesday sued Governor Ron DeSantis after he was suspended earlier this month for saying he would not prosecute anyone who sought or provided abortions. In a lawsuit filed in Tallahassee, Florida, federal court, prosecutor Andrew Warren said his suspension by DeSantis violated his First Amendment rights as well as Florida’s constitution and demanded to be reinstated. DeSantis’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “Today we took action against Ron DeSantis’ abuse of power and unlawful suspension,” Warren wrote in a Twitter post. His lawyer Jean-Jacques Cabou of the Perkins Coie law firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Warren is the top prosecutor in Florida’s 13th Judicial Circuit in Tampa, an elected position. He was among a group of prosecutors who have pledged not to use their offices to criminalize reproductive health decisions following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June that overturned the constitutional right to abortion. In suspending the state attorney, DeSantis said Warren cannot “pick and choose which laws to enforce based on his personal agenda.” The governor has been courting conservatives as part of an potential presidential bid in 2024. Florida law bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Warren argued in the lawsuit that he was suspended in retaliation for exercising his First Amendment rights. Under the Florida Constitution, state attorneys can pick and choose which cases they pursue, the lawsuit said. A handful of lawsuits have been filed challenging Florida’s 15-week ban, including one by a group of abortion providers and others filed by clergy members of five religions. (Reporting by David Thomas in Chicago; Editing by Rebekah Mintzer and Matthew Lewis) View the full article

Published by OK Magazine mega Two years before her tragic death, Princess Diana confided in her legal advisor, telling him that she believed she may be killed or injured in a car accident. The shocking revelation was disclosed in a sneak peek of The Diana Investigations, a four-part Discovery+ docuseries set to premiere on Thursday, August 18. mega The beloved royal informed legal advisor, Victor Mishcon, that “reliable sources” had told her that a “car accident might be staged” leaving her “dead” or “seriously injured” while discussing the matter in a private meeting in October 1995. ‘IT LITERALLY ALMOST COST THE MONARCHY’: HOW THE DEATH OF PRINCESS DIANA NEARLY SPARKED A BRITISH ANTI-ROYAL ‘REVOLUTION’ On August 31, 1997, Diana was pronounced dead from injuries sustained in a car crash that occurred in the Paris’ Pont de l’Alma tunnel. Her driver, Henri Paul, and her and her partner, Dodi Al-Fayed, also died in the crash. mega Mishcon then gave the detailed notes taken during their meeting to Sir Paul Condon, who served as London’s Metropolitan Police commissioner at the time. However, word of the existence of the notes was not released to the public until sometime later, when John Stevens took over the role of commissioner. PRINCE HARRY BEGS FRENCH INVESTIGATOR TO REVEAL DETAILS OF DIANA’S DEATH FOR HIS NEW TELL-ALL BOOK “When the coroner announced his inquest, I made sure that letter was immediately given to the royal coroner, who at that time was Michael Burgess and then subsequently became Lord Justice Scott Baker,” Stevens explained. mega “I interviewed Lord Mishcon on three occasions and took further statements on that letter, because it’s something that caused me great concern,” Stevens continued. “I saw Lord Mishcon about a month before he died, in about the spring of 2005, and he held course to the fact that he thought [Diana] was paranoid, and he hadn’t held much credence to [the note].” Diana is also believed to have written her own letter in October 1996, sharing similar fears, according to the book A Royal Duty written by a former royal butler, Paul Burrell, and published in 2003. This wasn’t the only time Diana expressed chilling concerns about potentially being murdered. The royal once tearfully told her bodyguard that she was worried she may be assassinated like her friend Gianni Versace. “She asked if I thought his murder outside his home was a professional killing. I thought it was,” former bodyguard Lee Sansum shared in a recent interview. “Then she said something that always stayed with me — ‘Do you think they’ll do that to me?’ She was shaking and it was clear from her tone that she really thought that they might, whoever ‘they’ might be.” The Daily Beast was the first to report Stevens’ recollections regarding the Mishcon notes. View the full article

Published by AFP The Federal Bureau of Investigation seal at the bureau's headquarters, the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building, in Washington 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.” View the full article

Published by The Sacramento Bee SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A member the far-right group Proud Boys who recently lost a bid for the California state Assembly has filed papers to run for a seat on a Sacramento-area school board. Jeffrey Erik Perrine, 38, plans to challenge San Juan Unified School District Board of Education member Michael McKibbin in the November election. Tanya Kravchuk, who works at Children’s Receiving Home of Sacramento, is also running against McKibbin. They’re competing to represent the district Area 5, which represents the Orangevale area. San Juan Unified serves more than 40,000 students from Sacramento’s Ar… Read More View the full article

Published by The Mercury News A monkeypox case reported in the San Francisco Bay Area adds to the growing evidence that people can contract the virus in multiple ways — and raises questions about just how easy it is to get infected during casual encounters with others. A case investigation released this week by the Centers for Disease Control reveals that a man in his 20s who sought care at Stanford Hospital tested positive for monkeypox even though he hadn’t recently engaged in sexual activity. Epidemiologists have long thought the virus was primarily being transmitted through close skin-to-skin contact. The case also hig… Read More View the full article

Published by Raw Story By Sarah K. Burris A person purporting to be a Chicago police officer has been posting on the anonymous message board 4chan in the politics board. It has prompted a conversation over whether the poster is an actual officer, reported Fox23. Users of the site only get a serial number when they post Many of the posts are racist or homophobic and they include photos of the Chicago police uniforms, ID badge and a gun, but they’re covered so that the owner can’t be identified. “The person making the posts claimed to be a military veteran and a beat cop who worked in the Rogers Park and Chicago Lawn … Read More View the full article

Published by DPA Chanté Adams (left) as Max and Gbemisola Ikumelo as Clance in Amazon Prime’s “A League of Their Own.” Nicola Goode/Prime Video/Amazon Studios/dpa Penny Marshall’s 1992 “A League of Their Own” movie introduced the world to a group of women who fought their way onto a baseball field, but it only featured women who were straight, white, presentable. The new series, which premiered Friday on Prime Video, does much more. “Our intention here is to tell the stories that the film overlooked and did not focus on and really open up the lens to a generation of women who played baseball and who played it so f—ing well,” co-creator Abbi Jacobson, the 38-year-old actress who also stars as Rockford Peaches catcher Carson Shaw, told the Daily News. “The reality is that the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, there’s so much that we love, but it’s so important that we show the flaws of that institution. We’re not trying to critique the film, but we’re examining and critiquing the time.” The series sets itself in the same world as Marshall’s film: the AAGPBL, founded in 1943 when the men went to fight abroad in World War II. A group of men, including chewing gum manufacturer Philip K. Wrigley and Branch Rickey, who broke MLB’s color barrier when he signed Jackie Robinson, founded the league. But the series branches out from between the lines, with the luxury of eight one-hour episodes and freedom to tell a wider story. “There was a much bigger story to tell about this generation of women who wanted to play ball,” co-creator Will Graham told The News. “That story has the same humour and heart and fun and flawed characters as the movie, but it’s telling the story of a whole generation.” Now, “A League of Their Own” has expanded its team. There are gay women, including first baseman Greta (D’Arcy Carden). There are Hispanic women, including Izzy (Priscilla Delgado), a young prodigy who left Cuba and landed in the Illinois cornfields to play baseball without speaking a word of English. Roberta Colindrez, who plays another Hispanic player, says she grew up watching the movie and picturing herself in the story, “even though I didn’t have any business really seeing myself in there because they didn’t have Latin people.” That, the cast says, is the beauty of their show. “For Penny Marshall, for a woman filmmaker to make stories about women, it was an impossible act, a huge feat in 1992,” Kelly McCormack, the 31-year-old actress who plays outspoken pitcher Jess, told The News. “All props to Penny Marshall, who was probably up against stuff that we will never understand and never know. The industry is so male-dominated that even just making a movie as a woman is impossible, but women are always change-makers. We’re always the ones who make room for progress.” “We’re the ones who are going to make the show that’s more diverse, that’s telling the truth about segregation at the time, telling the truth about diversity,” McCormack added. “We’re just happy to be another notch in the belt of moving things forward.” Carden, the “Good Place” alum who plays Greta, echoed the same sentiment: Marshall’s work was “revolutionary,” she told The News. “Looking back on it, you can say, ‘Oh, I wish they explored this or that,’ but they really did a lot for the time,” the 42-year-old actress said. “And now we are able … to really tell the story.” That truth opens the new “A League of Their Own” to a darker side of the time period than the movie showed, one rife with sexism, racism and homophobia. Maxine Chapman (Chanté Adams), a Black woman with a pitching arm to die for, isn’t even allowed to try out for the AAGPBL because of her skin colour. A secret gay nightclub is raided by police, brutally and violently. The women are expected to look right, with their dresses and heels and hair and makeup. “A League of Their Own” doesn’’t want to hide that, but it doesn’t want to focus on it, either. “This story is about finding joy and falling in love with the person you want to fall in love with or doing the thing that you want to do when the world doesn’t want you to,” Graham told The News. “That’s heroic and it’s hard. But like Tom Hanks says in the movie, the hard is what makes it great.” Melanie Field as Jo in Amazon Prime’s “A League of Their Own” series. Anne Marie Fox/Prime Video/Amazon Studios/dpa View the full article

Published by Reuters By Liliana Salgado and Nathan Layne JACKSON, Wyo. (Reuters) -U.S. Representative Liz Cheney, a fierce Republican critic of Donald Trump who has played a prominent role in the congressional probe of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, lost to a Trump-backed primary challenger in Wyoming on Tuesday. But Senator Lisa Murkowski, another Republican who has defied the former president, cleared a hurdle in Alaska. She was set to face Trump-endorsed challenger Kelly Tshibaka in the Nov. 8 congressional election, as the two candidates advanced in that state’s non-partisan primary. Cheney’s defeat, by Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman, marks a significant victory for the former president in his campaign to oust Republicans who backed impeaching him after a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol building last year. In conceding the race, Cheney said she was not willing “go along with President Trump’s lie about the 2020 election” to win a primary. “It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic. That was a path I could not and would not take,” she told supporters. Cheney told NBC’s “Today” show on Wednesday she was considering running for president and “will be doing whatever it takes to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office”. “It is something that I am thinking about, and I’ll make a decision in the coming months,” she told “Today” when asked about a presidential run, adding that she had a lot of work left to do with the Jan. 6 committee investigating the assault on the Capitol. With 99% of expected ballots counted in Wyoming, Hageman led the Republican field with 66.3% of the vote, followed by Cheney with 28.9%, according to Edison Research, an election monitoring firm. The results were less clear cut in Alaska. With 72% of expected ballots tallied, Murkowski narrowly led with 42.7% of the vote, followed by Tshibaka at 41.4% and Democrat Patricia Chesbro at 6.2%, according to Edison. The non-partisan primary format in that state weeds out all but the top four vote-getters. Murkowski, a moderate who is one of the more independent voices in the Senate, has held the seat since 2003. Also in Alaska, Edison predicted that no candidate would emerge as a clear winner in the three-way contest to complete the term of Representative Don Young, who died in March. That race pits Sarah Palin, a former governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee who has been endorsed by Trump, against fellow Republican Nick Begich III and Democrat Mary Peltola. The winner will be announced on Aug. 31. Both Wyoming and Alaska are reliably Republican, making it unlikely that the results will influence whether President Joe Biden’s Democrats lose their razor-thin majorities in Congress. Republicans are expected to retake the House and also have a chance of winning control of the Senate. WEEDING OUT TRUMP CRITICS The ousting of Cheney is the latest sign of Trump’s enduring sway over the Republican Party. Trump, who has hinted that he will run for president in 2024, made ending Cheney’s congressional career a priority among the 10 House Republicans he targeted for supporting his impeachment in 2021. Cheney, the daughter of Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney, has used her position on the Jan. 6 committee investigating the circumstances surrounding the Capitol riot to keep attention on Trump’s actions that day and his false claims that he won the 2020 election. Republican leaders are expected to dissolve the Jan. 6 investigation if they win control of the House in November. The representatives in the new Congress take their seats in January. Hageman, a natural resources lawyer who has embraced Trump’s election lies, criticized Cheney’s concession speech, saying it showed she cared little about the issues facing her state. “She’s still focusing on an obsession about President Trump and the citizens of Wyoming, the voters of Wyoming sent a very loud message tonight,” Hageman said on Fox News. Cheney, in the House, voted to impeach Trump on a charge of inciting the Capitol riot, while Murkowski, in the Senate, voted to convict him on that charge. Trump was ultimately acquitted. Of the 10 Republicans who supported impeachment, it is possible that only one – Dan Newhouse of Washington – will be in Congress after November’s election. (Reporting by Liliana Salgado in Jackson, Wyoming, and Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut, additional reporting by Kanishka Singh, Eric Beech, Moira Warburton and Chris Gallagher; Editing by Andy Sullivan, Scott Malone, Alistair Bell, John Stonestreet and Alex Richardson) View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English 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.” View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English 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?” View the full article

Published by New York Daily News NEW YORK — Melissa Etheridge plans to be “the only one” to rock off-Broadway this fall. The Grammy and Academy Award-winning singer-songwriter announced that she will take center stage for a theatrical-styled, solo show, titled “Melissa Etheridge Off Broadway: My Window — A Journey Through Life.” Written by Etheridge with additional material by her wife, Linda Wallem-Etheridge, the Amy Tinkham-helmed production will play a limited engagement at the New World Stages beginning Oct. 13. “My Window” will include tales of her childhood in Kansas, groundbreaking career highlights and music from the … Read More View the full article

Published by OK Magazine mega Twice as nice: Madonna took a trip to Italy to not only celebrate her own birthday, but her son Rocco Ritchie‘s too! The superstar, who turned 64, posted photos and videos on Instagram of their fun family-filled dinner, where they were treated to table-side performances and plenty of food. “From one Leo to another!! Happy birthday Rocco#rocco ,” she captioned one set of pics, which she followed up with a montage video from the trip, calling her brood the “Sicilian clan.” The latter showed the star in her hotel room, where she uttered in a melodic tune, “happy birthday to me.” mega Other highlights from the video include scenic surroundings and Madonna dancing up a storm before Rocco, now 22, is serenaded with the birthday song and presented a fancy cake shaped like an old school suitcase. MADONNA’S MANAGER SAID HER CAREER WAS ‘OVER’ AFTER ICONIC MTV PERFORMANCE “It’s a vintage bag for a vintage lover,” the mom-of-six noted of the cake choice. mega While the vacation footage of the Grammy winner was relatively tame, some of her kids have grown embarrassed of her nonstop partying and skin-baring outfits. “They can’t understand why [her behavior] needs to be so hyper and gratuitous. She’s constantly looking for ways to push the envelope, and the kids worry among themselves about where it’s all going to end,” a source said. “It makes them cringe to see her writhing around naked and making a fool of herself.” The superstar clearly brushes off their complaints, as earlier this summer, she released her first nonfungible token (NFT), which featured a nude rendering of herself giving birth to bugs. Unsurprisingly, she received a ton of backlash for the artwork, but as usual, she stood her ground and defended herself. “I’m doing what women have been doing since the beginning of time, which is giving birth. But on a more existential level, I’m giving birth to art and creativity and we would be lost without both,” she explained. “I think it’s really important that a lot of thought and conversation went into creating these videos. I say we need a forest with creepy crawly bugs coming out of me. Not often does a robot centipede crawl out of my vagina.” View the full article

Published by New York Daily News We’re always hungering for more Viola Davis. The Oscar winner, 57, is joining the “Hunger Games” prequel as the villainous head game-maker Dr. Volumnia Gaul in “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” based on the novel by the original trilogy’s scribe, Suzanne Collins, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “The ‘Hunger Games’ films have always been elevated by their exceptional casting, and we are thrilled to be continuing that tradition with Viola Davis as Volumnia Gaul. Her formidable and powerful presence will add layers of complexity and menace to this story,” said Nathan Kahane, Lionsgate mo… Read More View the full article

Published by Reuters By Nandita Bose WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed into law a $430 billion bill that is seen as the biggest climate package in U.S. history, designed to cut domestic greenhouse gas emissions as well as lower prescription drug prices. At a White House event, Biden was joined by Democratic leaders including Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, whose support was crucial to passage of the Inflation Reduction Act along party lines after he had initially opposed a similar measure. “Joe, we never had a doubt,” Biden said of Manchin. Biden used the event to criticize Republicans as he sought to use a string of Democratic-led legislative victories to help boost Democrats in congressional midterm elections in November. “In this historic moment, Democrats sided with the American people and every single Republican sided with the special interests,” said Biden. “Every single Republican in Congress voted against this bill.” The legislation to fight climate change and lower prescription drug prices aims to cut domestic greenhouse gas emissions. It will also allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for the elderly and ensure that corporations and the wealthy pay the taxes they owe. Democrats say it will help combat inflation by reducing the federal deficit. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said the new law will have an opposite impact. “Democrats robbed Americans last year by spending our economy into record inflation. This year, their solution is to do it a second time. The partisan bill President Biden signed into law today means higher taxes, higher energy bills, and aggressive IRS audits,” he said, referring to the Internal Revenue Service. (Reporting by Nandita Bose and Steve Holland; Editing by Leslie Adler and Lisa Shumaker) View the full article

Published by The Spun By Daniel Bates After spending the first two years of his career in Cleveland, Carl Nassib made his name as a member of the Bucs before signing on with the Las Vegas Raiders. On Tuesday, Nassib signed a one-year deal to rejoin the team (and coach) that he once thrived with. The NFL world reacted to the Nassib’s signing news. “No brainer signing. I love it, especially with Gill missing time,” a Bucs fan commented. “Wasn’t he also a captain in 2019? So, he brings leadership too.” “How important is the signing of Carl Nassib by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers?” asked Cyd Ziegler. “It could be one of the… Read More View the full article

Published by DPA Rachel Brosnahan in "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel". The show's season 4 song "Maybe Monica" is among this year's Emmy-nominated songs. -/Amazon Prime/dpa 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.'” View the full article