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In ASAP Rocky’s documentary Stockholm Syndrome, the Harlem rapper reportedly addresses the efforts of Donald Trump to get him out of Swedish prison in a preview shared by Rolling Stone, saying that Trump’s efforts had the opposite effect of helping.

According to Rolling Stone‘s preview of the documentary, which premiered during the Tribeca Film Festival this weekend, Rocky talks about finding out about his unexpected supporter, “I’m sleeping in my halfway dream. I heard my name. I kind of opened my eyes and closed my eyes again and then they said my name again. And I opened my eyes and I’m like, ‘Yo, what the f*ck?’” At the time, Trump inserted himself in what was later revealed to be a PR bid to clean up his image among Black voters, cajoling the Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven to intervene on Rocky’s behalf after the rapper was arrested for a fight on the streets of Stockholm and charged with assault.

“I said ‘Aw shit,” Rocky jokes. “Look like I might do a bid.”

Elaborating on his thoughts about the situation, Rocky explains, “I kinda was scared that Trump was going to f*ck it up. But then on the other hand, I’m just like, ‘That’s what’s up, man.’ You want the most support you could and it’s like, ‘Oh, the president supports you.’ That felt good. Cause for the most part, I don’t think he ever knows what’s going on in the urban communities … I was thankful for that, I can’t lie. I was also scared that it would jeopardize me being in [jail] longer.”

Rolling Stone reports that toward the end of the film, Rocky addresses the Trump administration’s insistence that he never “properly” thanked the man for his efforts. ““It was a chess move and they tried to strong-arm a lot,” he says. “In reality, I had no problem saying thank you to the man, especially if he helped me. That’s the narrative they pushin’: That he got me out. And he didn’t free me. If anything, he made it a little worse.“

Ghana kicked off an ambitious new program on Friday that its leaders hope will reverse over a century of significant deforestation and climate change. On June 11, the country celebrated its first Green Ghana Day by planting somewhere near five million trees.

“The exploitation of forest resources for national development has not been sustainable over the years,” President Akufo-Addo said in a speech marking the country’s inaugural Green Ghana Day.

“We don’t have tomorrow or the day after tomorrow to do this. We have to act now,” he added.

Ghana’s current forest cover stands at 1.6 million hectares, down from 8.2 million in 1900, according to statistics from the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources. Much of the West African country’s forests have been degraded by small-scale illegal gold miners and the indiscriminate chopping of trees without reforestation.

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Friday, 11th June, 2021 is #GreenGhanaDay. Let’s plant a tree for future generations. #GreenGhanaProject… https://t.co/YiZIBM7sfs

— Nana Akufo-Addo (@NAkufoAddo)
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The Forestry Commission mapped out places for people to start planting, including backyards, school compounds, residences, and roadside areas.

According to Sector Minister Samuel Abu Jinapor, the Forestry Commission sent six million seedlings to the country’s 16 regions. He says that the first Green Ghana Day is the beginning of a long-term commitment to repairing the country’s ecosystem.

The campaign brought together people from all walks of life, enlisting the help of corporations, schools, faith-based organizations, the media, celebrities, and political parties.

The Forest Commission created videos on social media to teach people how to plant their seedlings.

“So the Green Ghana Project is national in character and aimed at awakening national consciousness for everyone to plant a tree at his/her backyards, open spaces, school compounds, 100 meters from a road, among other places, and should be a collective efforts by all,” the Minister emphasized.

The Minister hopes to scale up the number of trees planted on Green Ghana Day from five million to 20 million in 2022 to 50 million in 2023 and 100 million in 2024. Making Green Ghana Day an annual event will also remind people to care for the newly planted trees as well.

“We’ve had similar projects in the past. Once the trees were planted everybody goes their way and they end up dying. This time we’ll make it an annual affair,” Hugh Brown from the Forest Commission told The South African.

By noon on Friday, nearly 2.7 million of the targeted five million seedlings had been planted, Ghana’s forestry commission wrote on Facebook.

U.S. Ambassador to Ghana Stephanie S. Sullivan commemorated #GreenGhanaDay by planting a Lignum Vitae tree on the U… https://t.co/Jk7GQR2O84

— U.S. Embassy Ghana (@USEmbassyGhana)
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U.S. Ambassador to Ghana Stephanie S. Sullivan commemorated Green Ghana Day by planting a Lignum Vitae tree in the U.S. Embassy grounds. The tree is known in Ghana as the “Tree of life” for its medicinal properties.

“Prompt reforestation is critical,” Sullivan said in a statement. “The goal of 5 million trees set by the Government of Ghana is an ambitious but necessary one, so we must all do our part, one tree, or many at a time. I strongly encourage Ghanaians to embark on restoring Ghana’s forest cover, repair degraded landscapes, and protect water bodies.”

For nearly two years now, Kelly Clarkson has had her own daytime talk show, the fittingly titled The Kelly Clarkson Show. Over the course of 300+ episodes, the program has yielded some fun moments, like chatting with Seth Rogen about a certain iconic The 40-Year-Old Virgin line, a terrific poop story, and an awkward Vin Diesel moment. A recurring feature on the show is “Kellyoke,” in which Clarkson and her band bust out a cover. Well, on today’s episode, the chosen song was Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License.”

Clarkson is a seasoned vocalist, so naturally, she nailed it. Clarkson’s band put a more rock-oriented spin on the instrumental, which both works in light of the pop-rock style of Clarkson’s biggest hits and with some of the more guitar-based material on Rodrigo’s Sour album. Even in the shortened-for-TV version of the song, Clarkson got to the emotional core of the song, even if the feeling of just getting her driver’s license isn’t so fresh in her mind these days.

Clarkson isn’t the only high-profile figure to focus their attention on Rodrigo lately. Kyle MacLachlan recently turned in a wonderful Rodrigo cosplay, while Zooey Deschanel looked back at Rodrigo’s previous acting role on New Girl.

Watch Clarkson perform “Drivers License” above.

The 2012 Judd Apatow movie This Is 40 is a spiritual successor to 2007 film Knocked Up. And though the former isn’t even a decade old, there are things in the film that don’t hold up nearly as well as those involved would have hoped. The movie was the topic of conversation between several actresses over the weekend, with Apatow being called out for the way a character played by Megan Fox was treated in the film.

This Is 40 stars Apatow’s wife, Leslie Mann, and Paul Rudd as a married couple navigating a fairly comfortable life in Los Angeles. Mann, who owns a store with younger female workers. Fox plays a character named Desi, who is sexualized in a number of ways throughout the movie. There’s a lingering scene in the movie, for example, where Fox’s Desi is changing in the store and invites Leslie Mann’s character to touch her breasts while only wearing a bra.

There’s other awkwardness with Desi that’s meant to be played for laughs, too. Men (and women) ogle her, and a competitive co-worker says disparaging things about her and later accuses her of theft. But one person not laughing is Emily Ratajkowski. As Us Weekly detailed, Ratajkowski said “that movie is not aging well” when it came to Desi in particular:

“So that movie is hilarious and very spot-on,” Ratajkowski, 30, explained during a conversation with Schumer, 40, at the Tribeca Film Festival on Saturday, June 12. “I recommend everybody who has a husband or wife and kids to watch it [but] Megan Fox is treated in it so badly.”

Ratajkowski got support from Schumer on stage despite her work with Apatow on Trainwrecked.

“It’s Judd Apatow,” Schumer said. “I don’t care, I’m ready to burn that bridge to the ground tonight.”

Comedies tend to fare worse than other movies in the passage of time, but the way Fox was treated earlier in her career is far from a new topic of concern for herself and others in the industry. As US Weekly notes, Fox has spoken about the way she’d been portrayed in Hollywood, including with the marketing for the Diablo Cody horror comedy Jennifer’s Body. But Ratajkowski pointing it out at Tribeca is another example of how quickly something from even just a few years ago can make viewers cringe when considered in a different light.

[via Us Weekly]

The Phoenix Suns have won seven straight games dating back to Game 4 of their first round series with the Lakers, polishing off a sweep of the Nuggets on Sunday in Denver to reach their first conference finals since 2006.

The catalysts for the Suns recent run have been their superstar backcourt of Chris Paul and Devin Booker, who combined for 71 points in their series clinching Game 4 win over the Nuggets. It was the culmination of a thorough destruction of a good but undermanned Denver team by a Phoenix squad peaking at the right time with two star guards who recognize when a team’s down and pounce on them. That mentality also extends to the Suns fan base, apparently, as after Game 3 a video of a Suns fan laying a beatdown on a Nuggets fan that tried to fight him in the stands while yelling “Suns in 4” went viral.

That fan became something of a cult hero for the Suns and while fighting in the stands is never good, the Nuggets fan certainly didn’t shower himself in glory with his actions to get that beating (particularly trying to go back at him with a cheap shot and earning more punches to the face). On Monday, Booker put a call out for Suns fans to find the “Suns in 4” guy and get him his contact info so the Phoenix star could, in theory, hook him up with some gear.

Booker wants to show some love to a guy who has quickly become a legend on Suns Twitter, and maybe during this week off, the fellas can link up.

One of the internet’s finest resources is Common Sense Media. The website is the self-proclaimed “leading source of entertainment and technology recommendations for families and schools.” In other words, it tells the Helen Lovejoys of the world what they should and shouldn’t let their kids watch. Here’s the “What Parents Need to Know” for HBO Max’s wonderful Harley Quinn: “Harley is working to become one of the best supervillains in Gotham. This comes with a lot of gratuitous violence and death. Characters are killed in gruesome ways, including being shot, stabbed, dissolved in acid, and having their limbs removed. There are frequent mentions of sex and sexual innuendo as well as the appearance of some pixilated genitalia. Characters use every curse word in the book (“f-ck,” “sh*t,” etc.). Underneath the racy and grisly nature of this series are themes of female resilience and empowerment.”

I’m not saying Harley Quinn rules because of all the “gratuitous violence and death” and “frequent mentions of sex and sexual innuendo,” but I’m also not not saying it. There is a line that the funny and filthy animated series isn’t allowed to crossover, however.

“It’s incredibly gratifying and free to be using characters that are considered villains because you just have so much more leeway,” co-creator Justin Halpern told Variety. “A perfect example of that is in this third season of Harley [when] we had a moment where Batman was going down on Catwoman. And DC was like, ‘You can’t do that. You absolutely cannot do that.’ They’re like, ‘Heroes don’t do that.’ So, we said, ‘Are you saying heroes are just selfish lovers?’ They were like, ‘No, it’s that we sell consumer toys for heroes. It’s hard to sell a toy if Batman is also going down on someone.’”

I always assumed Batman was the DJ Khaled of superheroes, but I was wrong. My apologies to the Dark Knight. As for all the bat stuff, though…

(Via Variety)

Saweetie is still aiming for a summertime release for her long-awaited debut album, Pretty B*tch Music, and continued her seemingly everlasting media tour with a cover story for Complex and an appearance on the outlet’s interview show GOAT Talk. In the latter, she named her favorite culinary concoctions (for which she’s garnered almost as much attention as her music), as well as her favorite songs from her prime influences, J. Cole and Nicki Minaj.

Long before she’d released her breakout single “ICY GRL” and become a household name, Saweetie rapped for J. Cole outside one of his shows, receiving a bit of encouragement from the older rapper. When asked which of his songs is his greatest of all time, Saweetie chose “Cost Me A Lot” from Cole’s 2010 mixtape Friday Night Lights. In the interview for the cover story, she’s asked whether she’d want to collaborate with her underground hero and replies in the affirmative… with one caveat. “On production, yes,” she says.

When it comes to her favorite Nicki Minaj song, Saweetie can’t settle on just one. “I feel like we have to go into two different libraries,” she argues. “There’s mixtape Nicki and mainstream Nicki… For mixtape Nicki, ‘Itty Bitty Piggy‘ [from 2009 mixtape Beam Me Up Scotty] is the obvious choice, but a song I just loved from the depths of my soul was [Lil Wayne-featuring 2008 Sucka Free cut] ‘Higher Than A Kite.’” Saweetie picks “I Wanna Be With You” from DJ Khaled’s 2013 album Suffering From Success because of the velocity Nicki’s flow reaches.

Watch Saweetie reveal her “GOATs” in the latest episode of GOAT Talk above.

Saweetie is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Back in March 2021, Old Forester dropped the first in a new line of bourbons with a limited-edition expression. The newly minted line is called “The 117 Series” and the first entry is “High Angels’ Share.” The new series and flagship bottle were created utilizing the palate of Old Forester’s Master Taster Jackie Zykan, of whom we’re big fans. So naturally, it had us pretty excited.

High Angels’ Share also marks the first time in Old Forester’s 150-year history that a woman’s signature adorns the bottle. It’s a well-deserved nod to Zykan’s prowess and another step in the march towards better gender balance in bourbon.

While High Angels’ Share is the first release in The 117 Series, it certainly won’t be the last. Each future whiskey will carry on the experimental nature Old Forester has become known for. While their plans for future releases have not yet been made public, it’s safe to say there will be bottlings that highlight specific barrelhouses, interesting blends, and much more. To say the launch of this series is exciting for aficionados is an absolute understatement.

“Creating The 117 Series has been a labor of love and seeing my signature on the label is one of the highlights of my career,” Zykan said in a press release. “My mind is exploding with the endless possibilities of this smaller scale of experimentation and innovation. We’re playing in uncharted territory here and those who love Old Forester, like we do, will have the chance to explore with us.”

After tasting this initial release, we’re definitely hyped for any and everything that is coming next. Here’s what we thought of High Angels’ Share.

Old Forester The 117 Series High Angels’ Share

ABV: 55%

Price: $49

The Story:

The 117 Series is named for the location of Old Forester’s original home in Louisville (KY), where the distillery resided from 1882 to 1919, only to return with a brand new distillery in 2018 on the same spot. The bourbon in the bottle is a marrying of casks selected specifically because they lost a large amount of their volume to evaporation (known as the angel’s share) during the maturation process. The result is an exceedingly rich, full-bodied, highly complex juice.

It’s bottled at 110 proof, so it should appeal to the most ardent, high-proof whiskey aficionados.

Tasting Notes:

On the nose, you’ll find exciting, vibrant aromas of the musty rickhouse as well as caramelized sugar, raisins, subtle maple syrup, and rich, charred oak. The palate swirls with sticky toffee, raw sugar, candied pecans, and features a nice herbal backbone. It all finishes with a one-two punch of butterscotch candy and subtle peppery rye, leaving you with a lingering warmth.

The Bottle:

This is a classic Old Forester bottle. The label is a little word-heavy but to the point and subtle. Overall, it’s a good-looking bottle for any shelf.

Bottom Line:

To truly appreciate a whiskey of this magnitude (and this potency), you’ll want to pour it into a glass with a single ice cube or a few drops of water — that’ll help open up the various, nuanced flavors.

This expression was made available to the public at Old Forester’s retail shop on March 24th. While it probably won’t be easy to find a bottle at the retail price of $49.99, the price doesn’t seem to have spiked too much yet. This is still a very solid value (and piece of history!) as it nears the $80-$100 range.

Rating:

90/100 – Bottled at 110 proof, you’d assume this would be a little potent for some drinkers. But even with its high alcohol content, this expression still manages to be extremely mellow, rich, and highly sippable. Definitely, a whisky to seek out.

Courtney Love has spoken openly about her experiences with abuse in the entertainment industry. In February, for example, she said “a bunch” of incidents prompted her to leave acting behind. Over the weekend, she addressed something similar in a now-deleted Instagram post, in which she accuses Nine Inch Nails leader Trent Reznor of “systemic abuse” of “girls as young as 12.”

Screenshots and a full transcript of the post were shared by Metal Injection. The publication does not note the date post was made, but NME reports the post was shared on June 13.

Describing Reznor as “talented but still a creep,” Love wrote, “I’ve never seen so much systemic abuse of kids, girls as young as 12, by him and his crew, we all (the members of Hole) witnessed it.”

Elsewhere in the post, she had some criticisms about Dave Grohl, criticizing his handling of financial matters related to Nirvana. She wrote:

“3 months before I left LA, I signed a document that effectively gives Dave (and Krist [Novoselic]) my descendants money in perpetuity. I was so broken. So scarred, so exhausted by him, I just f*cking signed it. But it’s a lie. So I’m unsigning it.

Because it’s nonsense. The chaos and fury over Kurt’s death being directed at me, deflected by Dave, while he enriched and continues to enrich himself, gorging on Kurt’s fortune and Kurt’s goodwill. 27! Years!!! I’ve had enough.

I’m over being made small. And being ‘forced’ to ‘just drop it’ when it affects every generation of my descendants. Nicest guy in Rock ? No.”

Read Love’s post in full below.

“Here’s a few receipts from some mega aggressions I’ve had to deal with, make myself small for, stop righteous lawsuits over, (‘we are not doormats’ my sponsor always quotes to me) due to male privilege in all its vile toxicity. When @sharonstone was asked if she had any #metoo’s, she just laughed. [woman raising hand emoji]. We only get 1 right?

I’ve had enough of this [poop emoji] from these clowns leaning into my being scapegoated for breathing, for my husband’s death, for my ‘overt’ sexuality, because I’m an addict, etc, and a WOMAN, for over 27 years.

3 months before I left LA, I signed a document that effectively gives Dave (and Krist) my descendants money in perpetuity. I was so broken. So scarred, so exhausted by him, I just f*cking signed it. But it’s a lie. So I’m unsigning it.

Because it’s nonsense. The chaos and fury over Kurt’s death being directed at me, deflected by Dave, while he enriched and continues to enrich himself, gorging on Kurt’s fortune and Kurt’s goodwill. 27! Years!!! I’ve had enough.

I’m over being made small. And being ‘forced’ to ‘just drop it’ when it affects every generation of my descendants. Nicest guy in Rock ? No.

As for Reznor, At least? HE’S talented but still a creep. I’ve never seen so much systemic abuse of kids, girls as young as 12, by him and his crew, we all (the members of Hole) witnessed it. So while these two jack asses are not my #metoo’s because I’m saving my 1 up (because we only get 1) they’re darn close.

#f*ckoff @treznor @nineinchnails @foofighters I really hope my example of standing up to them, putting a stop to them, will prevent any other women (or men) from this soul shattering level of personal and cultural abuse in future . Sexually, spiritually, financially.. #metoo #me3 #me88 etc etc ad nauseam. [poop emojis] [folded hands emoji] #blessed? Yeah to be breathing long enough to tell the tale. I’m cramming as much into every song as I can. Nam myoho renge kyo. ‘We are not doormats.’”

“Oh my God, I’m in the mouth of a whale.”

Those aren’t the words commercial lobster diver Michael Packard expected to go through his head on Friday—or any day—but that’s what he thought when he found himself swallowed whole by a humpback whale off the coast of Cape Cod.

Packard dives to the bottom of the ocean every day to collect lobsters, but he’s never had an encounter like this one before. When he was about 45 feet down, he suddenly found himself enveloped in darkness. He told NBC 10 Boston it hit him like a truck, and for 30 seconds he was trapped inside a humpback whale’s mouth. His scuba regulator fell out of his mouth, which caused extra concern momentarily, but he was able to retrieve it. However, during the ordeal, he was sure he was going to die.

“I just was struggling, but I knew this was this massive creature. There was no way I was going to bust myself out of there,” Packard said. He thought of his two sons, ages 12 and 16, his wife, and his mother, believing he was going to die inside a whale and leave them all behind.

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However, the whale thankfully decided that it did not actually want to have a human dessert, swam to the surface, and spit Packard out. “All of a sudden he went up to the surface and just erupted, and just started shaking his head, and I just got thrown in the air and landed in the water, and I was free.”

It’s the kind of story that seems too far-fetched to be believed. But Packard’s crewmate, Josiah Mayo, was driving the boat and witnessed Packard’s release from the whale’s mouth.

“It was just a huge splash and kind of thrashing around,” Mayo to NBC 10 Boston. “I saw Michael kind of pop up within the mess and the whale disappeared.”

Lobster diver survives after nearly being eaten by humpback whale

www.youtube.com

Dr. Iain Kerr is a marine biologist at The Ocean Alliance and has been studying whales for more than 30 years. He told CBC This Morning that this is the second time he’s heard of something like this happening.

In fact, in 2019, wildlife photographer Rainer Schimpf found himself with his head and torso inside a 15-ton whale’s mouth off the coast of South Africa, missing a story like Packard’s by a mere few feet. That incident was caught on camera.

Both incidents were quite clearly accidents. In general, whales are not aggressive to humans and certainly don’t want them as food.

“Basically, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Kerr said of Packard’s adventure. “I think he was very lucky. It could have been a nasty situation. But I am sure the whale was almost as freaked out as Michael was.

Packard was examined at Cape Cod Hospital, having sustained some soft tissue damage but no broken bones or serious injury. He says as soon as he is healed, he’ll be back in the water catching lobster again.

And he’ll definitely have one heck of a tale to tell the rest of his life.