Category: Worldwide

Lil Baby was reportedly arrested for marijuana possession today in Paris, according to French newspaper Le Parisien. The rapper was traveling with his friend, NBA superstar James Harden, who was not arrested. The duo was in Paris for Fashion Week, with coverage prompting fans on Twitter to coin the moniker “Le Baby” in reference to a French reporter’s pronunciation of the rapper’s moniker. However, it appears the fun and games came to a halt as local police searched the rapper’s vehicle, which they claimed: “smelled strongly of cannabis.”

Police reportedly discovered 20 grams of marijuana in the car, leading to three arrests. Harden, who was not in the car at the time, was also searched as he returned but was allowed to go free. As Le Parisien notes, the arrest was not the rapper’s first weed-related offense or run-in with police; in 2019, he was arrested for reckless driving and eluding the police in his native Georgia. Baby and his friends were taken into custody to the 8th arrondissement police station by the Narcotics Transport Chief.

Lil Baby and James Harden were also recently seen hanging out together at Michael Rubin’s Fourth Of July party over the weekend, having a laugh in the background of a viral video of Lil Uzi Vert breakdancing taken by Uzi’s girlfriend, JT of City Girls.

After releasing her debut album Collapsed In Sunbeams this January, UK songwriter Arlo Parks was one of this year’s biggest indie breakout acts. Since her LP dropped, the singer has received cosigns by the likes of Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, and Phoebe Bridgers. Now offering another look at her album, the singer shares a whimsical video alongside her “Too Good” track.

Directed by Bedroom, the visual places Parks in a vibrant house made out of cardboard. She prepares some apples in order to bake a pie, but then experiences a major déjà vu moment that completely throws her off course.

About the song “Too Good” as a whole, Parks said she was inspired by an eclectic range of artists:

“I did this one with Paul in one of our first days of sessions. I showed him all the music that I was obsessed with at the time, from ’70s Zambian psychedelic rock to MF DOOM and the hip-hop that I love via Tame Impala and big ’90s throwback pop by TLC. From there, it was a whirlwind. Paul started playing this drumbeat, and then I was just running around for ages singing into mics and going off to do stuff on the guitar. I love some of the little details, like the bump on someone’s wrist and getting to name-drop Thom Yorke. It feels truly me.”

Watch Parks’ “Too Good” video above.

Collapsed In Sunbeams is out now via Transgressive. Get it here.

This story originally appeared on 05.20.16

Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey had only been with the Food and Drug Administration for about a month when she was tasked with reviewing a drug named thalidomide for distribution in America.

Marketed as a sedative for pregnant women, thalidomide was already available in Canada, Germany, and several African countries. It could have been a very simple approval. But for Kelsey, something didn’t sit right. There were no tests showing thalidomide was safe for human use, particularly during pregnancy.

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Kelsey in her office at the FDA in 1960. Image by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

When Chemie Grünenthal released thalidomide in West Germany years earlier, they called it a “wonder drug” for pregnant women. They promised it would treat anxiety, insomnia, tension, and morning sickness and help pregnant women sleep.

What they didn’t advertise were its side effects.

Because it crosses the placental barrier between fetus and mother, thalidomide causes devastating — often fatal — physical defects. During the five years it was on the market, an estimated 10,000 babies globally were born with thalidomide-caused defects. Only about 60% lived past their first birthday.

In 1961, the health effects of thalidomide weren’t well-known. Only a few studies in the U.K. and Germany were starting to connect the dots between babies born with physical defects and the medication their mothers had taken while pregnant.

At the outset, that wasn’t what concerned Kelsey. She’d looked at the testimonials in the submission and found them “too glowing for the support in the way of clinical back up.” She pressed the American manufacturer, Cincinnati’s William S. Merrell Company, to share research on how their drug affected human patients. They refused. Instead they complained to her superiors for holding up the approval. Still, she refused to back down.

A sample pack of thalidomide sent to doctors in the U.K. While more than 10,000 babies worldwide were born with thalidomide-related birth defects, FDA historian John Swann credits Dr. Kelsey with limiting the number of American babies affected to just 17. Image by Stephen C. Dickson/Wikimedia Commons.

Over the next year, the manufacturer would resubmit its application to sell thalidomide six times. Each time, Kelsey asked for more research. Each time, they refused.

By 1961, thousands of mothers were giving birth to babies with shocking and heartbreaking birth defects. Taking thalidomide early in their pregnancy was the one thing connecting them. The drug was quickly pulled from shelves, vanishing mostly by 1962.

Through dogged persistence, Kelsey and her team had prevented a national tragedy.

Kelsey joins President John F. Kennedy at the signing of a new bill expanding the authority of the FDA in 1962. Image by the United States Food and Drug Administration.

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy honored Kelsey with the Federal Civilian Service Medal. He thanked her for her exceptional judgment and for preventing a major tragedy of birth deformities in the United States:

“I know that we are all most indebted to Dr. Kelsey. The relationship and the hopes that all of us have for our children, I think, indicate to Dr. Kelsey, I am sure, how important her work is and those who labor with her to protect our families. So, Doctor, I know you know how much the country appreciates what you have done.”

But, she wasn’t done yet. Later that year, the FDA approved new, tougher regulations for companies seeking drug approval, inspired in large part by Kelsey’s work on thalidomide.

Reached via email, FDA historian John Swann said this about Kelsey’s legacy: “[Her] actions also made abundantly clear to the nation the important public health role that drug regulation and FDA itself play in public health. The revelation of the global experience with that drug and America’s close call indeed provided impetus to secure passage of a comprehensive drug regulation bill that had been more or less floundering during the time FDA was considering the application.”

Kelsey continued to work for the FDA until 2005. She died in 2015, aged 101, just days after receiving the Order of Canada for her work on thalidomide.

Bureaucratic approval work is rarely thrilling and not often celebrated. That’s a shame because it’s so critical.

People like Kelsey, who place public health and safety above all else — including their career — deserve every ounce of our collective respect and admiration.

Although reactions to the International Olympics Committee ruling runner Sha’Carri Richardson ineligible for the 2021 Summer Games have been split, the colorful athlete has at least one powerful ally in her corner: Sean “Diddy” Combs, who tweeted his support for her and condemned her 30-day suspension for the use of marijuana.

Stating that his heart was broken for her, he noted, “I’m tired of white people sitting in a room making up decisions that affect our hopes and dreams. They will keep treating our athletes like slaves and entertainment until we shut down on these people!”

He then compared the judgment against her to the racist results of the US’s so-called War on Drugs, pointing out parallels that allow for the unfair treatment of people using a non-dangerous substance which was criminalized mainly due to its association with use by Black people. “So many of our brothers, sisters, mothers, daughters, and sons are rotting in jail for marijuana and it’s JUST NOT RIGHT,” he wrote. “Now, to see them using this against a young Black woman that is on the edge of her greatness, all because some white man decided to make it illegal, is shameful.”

He also noted that there’s no real reason for THC to disqualify anyone from competing because, as he wrote accurately, “Marijuana does not make you run faster.” He also noted a discrepancy between the treatment of Richardson, a Black woman, and Michael Phelps, a white male swimmer who was also previously allowed to compete after testing positive for THC. While the circumstances aren’t exactly apples to apples, his point still seems valid.

Richardson was determined to be ineligible for 30 days, beginning June 28, after qualifying for the Olympics with a 10.86-second 100-meter dash time. Unfortunately, most of that month overlaps with her events and she was not selected for the Women’s 4 x 100 relay. She said that she took marijuana to cope with the recent death of her mother. Other supporters have included Seth Rogen, who also pointed to the discrepancy in calling weed a performance-enhancing drug, joking, “If weed made you fast, I’d be FloJo.”

Black Widow writer Eric Pearson knew there was a key element missing from Natasha Romanoff’s final adventure, namely, her death scene, which in the strange world of the MCU happened two years and two movies ago during the events of Avengers: Endgame. But he’s got the perfect attitude with his simple mindset about that situation, “There’s no way around it.” Which is very true. So, instead, the focus became showing sides of Natasha we’ve never seen before. Namely, watching Natasha off the grid, drinking beer, watching the James Bond movie, Moonraker.

As Pearson describes it, way more debate went into which James Bond movie Natasha should be watching than we could possibly imagine. And Pearson shares with us a cut scene in which Natasha explains that, for her, watching James Bond is the same as how housewives watch The Real Housewives. (Pearson is admittedly proud of this line and also admittedly is clear he wishes it was in the movie.)

But, it’s not just our goodbye to Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha. It’s a movie that also has to do a sort of hand-off to Florence Pugh’s Yelena. And a good way to do a hand-off is having the character we already know, Natasha, around to facilitate that. So, to ask about hand-offs, I tried to think of a bad example of a hand-off and, admittedly, this may have been too esoteric of a first question…

Are you familiar with the characters Coy and Vance Duke from The Dukes of Hazzard?

No. Actually, I’ve watched a lot of old TV, and I loved WandaVision, because I was like a big Bewitched, Green Acres guy. I never really saw The Dukes of Hazzard.

Coy and Vance are Bo and Luke Duke’s cousins that were introduced when John Schneider and Tom Wopat held out for more money. And I always remember Boss Hogg saying of Coy and Vance, these characters we never met before, that Bo and Luke looked like angels compared to them. My point is that was a bad way to do a hand-off to other characters, as opposed to showing the relationship like you do between Natasha and Yelena.

Well…

Does that make sense? It probably doesn’t…

I think so.

Like if Florence Pugh just shows up and then some other character says, “Natasha was an angel compared to Yelena,” and that’s all we get.

I totally know what you mean.

Handoffs can be difficult.

It was a tricky thing. Also, we wanted to do a Natasha Romanoff movie: this is how great she is, this is how she became who she is, here are some of her greatest hits. Here’s her, on her own, doing her own thing. I feel we did. It was a very intentional choice, too, when at the beginning of the movie, she goes on the run, she’s going off the grid. The whole idea is we feel we’ve known her for whatever: six, seven movies. She has been the most emotionally guarded, the most personally restrained Avenger. Surrounded by guys who love to talk about themselves. She was very careful about how much she’s going to let anyone get to know her. Now we get to go into this past and you realize that when she defected from the Red Room to Shield, she basically reset her life, and pretended a lot of that stuff from her past never happened.

Right…

It’s not how human beings function. You can’t just say, oh, none of that ever mattered, it didn’t ever exist. I think the best way to have fun with Natasha Romanoff – a character who is very in control of her own space – since we’re talking to sitcoms, it’s The Beverly Hillbillies. The guy goes off from the farm to become the big rich banker, but then he’s got to go home and he’s terrified.

Well, he discovered oil, they didn’t become bankers. They had to meet a banker, Mr. Drysdale. They had to find one to manage their new oil money.

Man, I’m not getting anything past you. Well, you know what I mean. She chose the Avengers as her family, but she chose them on her terms. There’s a difference between the family that’s your family, not on your own terms. And those people affect you in different ways.

Sure.

I feel I was trying to have her be mission-focused, in charge all the way through, as they just keep bothering her until they just derail her and derail her until she just gets so frustrated and explodes.

Well, speaking about when she goes off the grid the scene that got me is when she watches Moonraker. I asked Cate Shortland about that and she said I needed to ask you.

Well, that’s a whole thing. This line was cut from the movie and I’m super butt-hurt about it because I think I’m so clever. The idea was she’s going off the grid and she’s got this character, Mason, who sets everything up for her. She’s going to have to be there for a while. I even thought, a great, great humanizing moment is entertainment. I thought it would be so funny if she had the complete Bond DVD series.

That is good.

The line that was cut was huge. It was like, “Really? You wanted Bond?” The line that she had, that I love, because I thought it was clever was, “Do you know how real housewives watch The Real Housewives? Those movies are like that for me.” The idea that Bond, to her, was like reality TV, cheesy reality TV? I thought that was funny. They cut it.

That is funny. I would have liked that.

Well, I will say, I couldn’t believe – especially because we’re shooting in the UK – how much discussion there was about which Bond movie it should be. I just wanted her watching Bond, because I thought it was really fun and humanizing. Also, for her to just be there having a snack and mumbling the words out of her, it was very charming to me. But, man, I think we ultimately went with Moonraker because there’s a jumping out of a plane with no parachutes.

So it’s reversed engineered? You already had that ending and you’re like, “Hey, wait, Moonraker starts like this.”

Yeah, but all that to say, there was a whole lot of opinion about which Bond movie she should be watching. I was just happy because I also knew it might be a logistic clearance thing to get a Bond clip in there. I just was pushing for her watching Bond. I also felt like, in my mind, Natasha, she doesn’t have superpowers or anything, she’s still an Avenger, she’s still a big hero. A love of movies that we like, it just helps to bring our movie to where we wanted to be on the ground.

For some reason, Moonraker feels right. That Natasha would pick a late ’70s Bond with Roger Moore.

Also, the python line is just so fun and cheesy and it was just fun for her to get to say that. But I’m so glad, I mean, that was really my move of like, “She should be watching a Bond movie, having a snack in just pajama pants.”

And there are some similarities with the arcs of Jaws and Taskmaster.

It’s so funny. I actually haven’t seen (Moonraker) in a while. I just watched a little. I saw it when I was younger and then I watched… There’s a double-take pigeon, which I didn’t know about. Do you remember that? The double-take?

Yeah. I have the GIF on my phone. There’s a pigeon that does a double-take at James Bond’s antics.

I mean, those old Bond movies blur together after a while.

I remember my parents rented it on VHS and as a kid I was disappointed the whole thing wasn’t in space. I wanted to watch James Bond in Star Wars. It plays much better as an adult. There’s a lot of globetrotting.

By the way, James Bond Star Wars? We might’ve just sold a movie to Disney accidentally.

Amazon probably has something to say about that these days, because I think they just bought James Bond.

If we get it, we can get it done faster.

Instead of the Spider-Man summit with Sony from a few years ago, it would be the James Bond summit so James can be in Star Wars.

Perfect. Love it.

So Natasha died in Avengers: Endgame two years ago. Writing it, that has to be frustrating? Because if I’m you, I’m looking at a movie like Logan, the final sendoff for this hero we’ve followed through so many movies. Then the death scene is kind of taken away from you.

Yeah. I mean, I knew that.

Well, yes.

I don’t know. It was one of those things, where, what was I going to do about it? It was like, I can either think about this or not. I want to do the best version of showing the audience a new, different side of Natasha. We’re trying to build up tension. You don’t know what’s going to happen with the rest of these people. They could all die at the end of this. They could all be snapped out of existence. You don’t know what’s going to happen there.

I’m thinking if there’s a young kid and this is their first Marvel movie, it’s going to be very confusing to learn the title character died off-screen.

Yeah, there’s no way around that.

There’s no way around it. No, you’re right.

It’s true because it’s also, I don’t know, that’s the nature of the MCU, I think.

Right.

Do you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of when I didn’t watch the first season of Lost. I was at my friend’s house. They were like, “Oh. Lost is back.” I was like, “What’s Lost?” Just, somehow, I didn’t know. I just didn’t know what it was. Then we watched the first episode of the second season of Lost and I was like, “Oh, God.” I went back, I had to get Netflix, all the DVDs?

They had to mail them to you.

If this were somebody’s first Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, that’s most I could hope for, because if that’s their case, I would hope that they would see this and then be like “What?” Then, just have to like, “Uh.” And want to learn it all, because I do. You can enjoy them for one story, or you can try and enjoy them for 1/24th of this story, depending on how much you want to engage.

I want to see parents walking out of the movie trying to explain Natasha’s death and their young daughter saying, “Wait, who’s the Red Skull?”

But yeah, by the way, and the best thing that you could have then, is there are answers for you.

“Black Widow” launches simultaneously in theaters and on Disney+ with Premier Access in most Disney+ markets on July 9, 2021. You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Tyler The Creator has a new video for Call Me If You Get Lost single “Lemonhead.” Clocking in at about a minute and a half, the brief clip shows Tyler pantomiming playing a tuba (next to an actual tuba player wearing a sailor get-up), driving a speedboat boat through fields (kind of brings to mind images of Luke Skywalker riding his Landspeeder through Tatooine, if you will indulge me for a second), and ultimately wheeling off into the sunset via penny-farthing. As one does!

This is the latest visual offering from Tyler’s sixth studio album. Prior to this, he released the video for the song “Corso” the day after appearing at the 2021 BET Awards to perform “Lumberjack.” Call Me If You Get Lost, which the rapper released last month, became his second consecutive chart-topping album after it debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. In his review, Uproxx’s Aaron Williams called Call Me If You Get Lost a “top-level rap album,” writing, “On Call Me If You Get Lost, Tyler is most like himself, free of the artifice that he no longer feels the need to hide behind — and free to finally let his nuts hang, so to speak.”

Watch the video for “Lemonhead” above.

Call Me If You Get Lost is out now via Columbia. Get it here.

Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow solo movie arrives on July 9, both in theaters and in streaming format via Disney+ Premier Access. In the movie, Natasha Romanoff’s in post Captain America: Civil War mode, which means that she’s still sporting red locks even though she’s technically in fugitive mode. There’s time to clear up all those pesky details later, right? What matters here is that Scarlett’s reflecting upon Natasha’s different looks over the years, which began with a catsuit tour in Iron Man 2 before the character spun through several hairstyles, including rocking those i-can’t-be-bothered-with-nice-hair-post-apocalypse red roots after the snap.

Beginning in The Avengers, Black Widow’s look became increasingly practical, and by the time that Captain America: The Winter Soldier rolled around, Natasha was allowed to sport comfier clothing. That included a brown leather jacket over a black tank and pants, as well as a movement-friendlier catsuit. That wasn’t always the total plan, however, and Scarlett has now opened up about how the below scene — in which Natasha drives up to Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson and cracks a joke about looking for a “fossil” — could have rolled very differently.

As Scarlett describes things to Fatherly, the writers initially wanted Natasha to pull up in the sports car while wearing (presumably) short-skirted tennis outfit with a blonde wig. That idea swiftly got axed, and Scarlett attributes the idea as being down to “a lot of male writers,” which makes this all the more amusing:

When we were doing Captain America: The Winter Soldier — this is a really funny thing — the look is fantastic and utilitarian. She first drives up in this beautiful car and picks up Cap, and initially in the script, it was like, she arrives in her tennis whites, with a blonde wig. It was very quickly killed.

You work with a lot of male writers. Things were shifting. You have to be a part of the change. Audiences are also demanding stuff and there’s a cultural shift and it feeds everything into a more progressive direction. It’s been a process, it’s been a process.

Scarlett also explains that Marvel initially wanted Black Widow to be “a shape-shifter,” but even if that had turned out to be the case, an all-legs tennis outfit would have been bizarre. That’s especially the case because Steve Rogers couldn’t even handle profanity at the time. The dude got used to it, but he probably would have turned bright red to see Natasha in a blonde wig at that point, which may have meant a larger CGI budget, and so on. Alright, now I’m being the silly one, but seriously, thank goodness for an absence of Tennis Natasha in the MCU.

(Via Fatherly)

Britney Spears’ legal battles have been making headlines for well over a year. The public’s interest in Spears’ situation has apparently led to her current conservator receiving death threats. As a result, the conservator has reportedly asked Spears’ estate to front the cost of a 24-hour security team. But she didn’t receive any sympathy from Spears’ team, as they’re apparently used to taking the brunt of public criticism.

According to a report from TMZ, Spears’ court-appointed conservator Jodi Montgomery filed court documents requesting the singer’s estate to pay an estimated $50,000 a month for around-the-clock security, citing a “flood of death threats” following Spears’ public statements about her conservatorship. Spears’ father Jamie reportedly filed an objection to the request, stating that he’s “been getting death threats for years,” as has Spears’ former attorney Sam Ingham.

Jamie didn’t deny Montgomery’s request completely, according to TMZ’s report. He said that the court should evaluate the cost of a reasonable amount of security to ensure Montgomery remains safe. But if he was expected to shell out $50,000 a month for Montgomery, Jamie anticipates that multiple others would come forward with the same request.

News of Montgomery’s security plea arrives shortly after Jamie blamed her for Spears’ frustrations about her restricted personal freedoms. In her public statement about her conservatorship, Spears claimed the situation was “abusive” and that she has been denied the right to remove her birth control.

On Wednesday was the Balenciaga 50th Couture Collection show for Paris Fashion Week. Aside from the inherent noteworthiness of the brand itself, also drawing attention to the festivities were high-profile attendees like Kanye West (and his elaborate face mask), NBA star James Harden, and Lil Baby. The latter two spent time together outside of the show, and there was one moment that has left the rapper trending today.

A clip shows Harden and Baby seemingly caught off-guard by some paparazzi photographers. Some of them shouted his name, but instead of Lil Baby, they seemed to have put a French spin on it by calling him “Le Baby.”

The rapper seemed a little amused by either the nickname or the attention in general, as he offered a polite smile and a wave. Following that run-in, both “Lil Baby” and “Le Baby” were trending on Twitter, with some users suspecting that Lil Baby was low-key into the new moniker.

Meanwhile, it was recently revealed that Lil Baby was one of streaming music’s top songwriters of 2020, according to a report. He also recently was crowned the ASCAP songwriter of the year and performed at the BET Awards alongside Kirk Franklin.

Check out some more reactions below.

Last night, Japanese Breakfast offered a performance for the ages on Jimmy Kimmel Live, playing Jubilee single “Paprika” from the Sellersville Theater in Pennsylvania.

Backed by horns and banging a gong, band leader Michelle Zauner wore a billowing white dress with her hair tied back into two slick braids. The rest of the band were in formal attire as well, rocking full tuxes and playing all manner of instruments: strings, keys, percussion, the aforementioned horns. The pale spotlight onstage also created a gauzy, sepia-toned look for the camera, which complimented “Paprika”‘s lighthearted melody. Check out the performance above, introduced by guest host Wanda Sykes.

It’s probably safe to say that Zauner is exceedingly close to becoming a massive pop cultural triple-threat right now, what with the glowing reviews for Jubilee, plus her New York Times bestselling memoir Crying In H Mart, which is going to be adapted into a film, for which Japanese Breakfast will provide the soundtrack. As if that wasn’t enough, Zauner is behind the soundtrack of the anticipated new game Sable, coming September 23. So yes, 2021 is a pretty good year to be Michelle Zauner.

Check out our interview with Zauner about her new album here, as well as our more recent interview about her video game endeavors here.

Jubilee is out now on Dead Oceans. Get it here.