Takas Mini

Rabu, 18 September 2019

Free Britney: Britney Spears' conservatorship explained - Los Angeles Times

In late April, Britney Spears delivered a plea to her 22 million Instagram followers.

“Don’t believe everything you read and hear,” she wrote in a caption.

“Your love and dedication is amazing,” she went on, “but what I need right now is a little bit of privacy to deal with all the hard things that life is throwing my way.”

It had been three weeks since the pop star had checked into a mental health facility and three months since she canceled her Las Vegas residency. A particularly skeptical contingent of her fans wasn’t buying the official reasons for these developments: that she went to the facility by choice, that her dad was sick and she needed the space and time to be there for her family. Theories of what was actually happening inside Spears’ guarded private life were growing more numerous and more frenzied, but ultimately shared one notion: that she was being silenced and manipulated, and had been for years.

The Los Angeles Times spent three months examining Spears’ conservatorship and reaching out to those who might have seen firsthand how it has affected her; no one in her inner circle responded to requests for comment. The paper could find no independent evidence that Spears was being harmed by the arrangement.

Spears is a celebrity like no other — an A-list performer who pulls in millions of dollars a year but does not have full control over her life or business affairs. Since her public unraveling in 2008, she has been subject to a court-approved conservatorship — known in other states as a legal guardianship — that gives her father authority over her finances and many personal decisions. Fans who believe the arrangement is intended to exploit rather than help her have adopted a hashtag and rallying cry: #FreeBritney.

The legal oversight is highly unusual. Conservatorships are designed to protect people who cannot take care of themselves, but Spears, now 37, has worked nonstop over the course of her own, producing four albums and going on as many world tours.

Despite Spears’ insistence on social media that she is fine and in control of her life, the #FreeBritney machine has developed in ways neither the superstar nor her team can control. It’s become a tabloid staple, a social media obsession. With fans often interpreting celebrities’ actions through a personal lens, Spears has become a vessel for discussing the place of women in entertainment, mental illness and father-daughter relationships.

Her attorney Stanton Stein, whom Jamie Spears had hired for #FreeBritney damage control, rejected the idea that Spears had been coerced or manipulated in any way. “She’s always involved in every career and business decision,” he said. “Period.”

Spears didn’t mince words in her April Instagram post. In that moment, she appeared determined to show that she does, in fact, have a say over her life.

“You may not know this about me,” she wrote, “but I am strong, and stand up for what I want!”

Why is Spears under a conservatorship?

They are images not easily forgotten: Spears driving with a baby in her lap. Shaving her head. Speaking in a British accent. Being wheeled out of her Beverly Hills mansion on a stretcher.

For many, it was alarming to see the vulnerability of someone who — when judged by the metrics of money and fame — had attained unfathomable status. Spears topped Forbes’ list of the world’s highest-paid celebrities in 2002 and again in 2012.

In 2008, she twice was committed to a psychiatric ward, known in California as a 5150 hold. After the second hold, her father, Jamie Spears, petitioned L.A. County Superior Court for an emergency “temporary conservatorship.” The arrangement was made permanent by the end of the year.

Jamie Spears was appointed to watch over his daughter’s estate and physical well-being, while L.A. attorney Andrew Wallet was brought on as a co-conservator to help manage the singer’s financial assets.

Court documents show that Jamie Spears has the power to negotiate business opportunities, sell her property and restrict her visitors. He can file for restraining orders against those he believes threaten his daughter’s stability.

And he oversees much of the minutiae of Spears’ life. Every purchase she makes must be logged in annual court reports of her spending.

According to law experts, it is unusual for someone as young and productive as Spears to be in a probate conservatorship, typically used to protect the old, infirm and mentally disabled. They are intended for people who are not likely to get better and often remain in effect until the person dies.

But Spears is not a typical person. Her estate is immense and complicated to manage, so she could be subject to “undue influence“ — a factor judges consider, along with mental capacity, when deciding whether a conservatorship is a good fit.

“I imagine a person with that kind of wealth would be attracting a lot of people toward them, many of whom may not have their best interest in mind,” said psychologist Stacey Wood, an expert witness in probate conservatorship cases. “This could protect them from that.”

For example, in June Spears’ father sought to extend a restraining order against her former friend and manager Sam Lutfi, whom the family alleged had encouraged Spears down her destructive path and attempted to benefit from her fame. More recently, Lufti has been a vocal supporter of the #FreeBritney movement.

The next status hearing on her conservatorship is set for Wednesday.

Why the renewed interest?

While lacking full authority over her life, Spears for 10 years worked relentlessly, dropping albums every two to three years and landing lucrative gigs such as her stint as a judge on the TV show “The X Factor.” She played 248 shows for her “Piece of Me” residency in Las Vegas between 2013 and 2017, each performance banking her $500,000. No more public meltdowns, no more outlandish behavior.

Then in January 2019, Spears announced she was canceling her new Las Vegas residency, “Domination.” She pinned the decision on the health of her father, who nearly died after his colon ruptured in November 2018.

“We’re all so grateful that he came out of it alive, but he still has a long road ahead of him,” Spears wrote on Instagram. “I had to make the difficult decision to put my full focus and energy on my family at this time. I hope you all can understand.”

Britney Spears’ performance served as a reminder that she has a Vegas show of her own.

In the eyes of some fans, it was a sign that not all was well in Spears’ universe. Another came in March, when Wallet resigned as co-conservator.

In court filings, Wallet wrote that the “conservatorship is engaged in numerous ongoing business activities requiring immediate attention,” and that it would be in Spears’ best interest if his resignation were accepted swiftly. He did not provide a specific reason for his resignation.

The singer, Wallet said, would suffer “substantial detriment, irreparable harm and immediate danger” if he didn’t step down.

Wallet had been granted a significant raise in November — to $426,000 a year — after arguing he had brought “stability and leadership” to Spears’ estate, which under his guidance had grown by $20 million. He claimed to have kept “the many hundreds” of people working with her from giving her drugs, thereby preventing financial ruin.

Adam Streisand, a lawyer Spears spoke with when she considered contesting the conservatorship in 2008, told The Times that Wallet’s “noisy withdrawal” might signal a disagreement with Jamie Spears over how the arrangement was handled. Neither Wallet nor Spears returned calls seeking comment.

When Britney Spears checked into a mental health facility for a monthlong stay on April 3, her fans were on high alert.

L.A.-based comedians Tess Barker and Barbara Gray had long been tracking the conservatorship with great interest. They host “Britney’s Gram,” a podcast that usually dissected the singer’s Instagram posts. But after Spears canceled her residency, the hosts dropped their lighthearted tone.

In an “emergency episode” in mid-April, Barker and Gray asserted that Spears was being micromanaged by her handlers and held captive by the conservatorship.

What really gave #FreeBritney momentum, though, was a voicemail left on the podcast hotline.

In the message, a man identifying himself as a former paralegal for an attorney who worked with Spears’ conservatorship claimed that the singer’s father was involved in getting her to drop her Las Vegas residency. He also made a series of other allegations and raised concerns about her personal autonomy.

The podcasters said they confirmed the source’s identity and his alleged position at the firm. The Times could not independently verify that the voicemail was authenticor that the claims were true.

#FreeBritney was trending on Twitter the day after the podcast dropped. Fans stormed Spears’ social media accounts with the hashtag, demanding she be released from what they were convinced was a court-sanctioned prison.

It’s hard to assess the size of the movement. But #FreeBritney was enough of a problem for her camp that in June, Jamie Spears sued “Absolute Britney” blogger Anthony Elia, accusing him of spreading false and defamatory information in the name of the #FreeBritney movement.

“Enough is enough,” the complaint declared.

A week after the podcast was released, Spears attempted to reassure her fans through an Instagram post that all was well. She just needed some privacy, she said.

View this post on Instagram

I wanted to say hi, because things that are being said have just gotten out of control!!! Wow!!! There’s rumors, death threats to my family and my team, and just so many things crazy things being said. I am trying to take a moment for myself, but everything that’s happening is just making it harder for me. Don’t believe everything you read and hear. These fake emails everywhere were crafted by Sam Lutfi years ago... I did not write them. He was pretending to be me and communicating with my team with a fake email address. My situation is unique, but I promise I’m doing what’s best at this moment 🌸🌸🌸 You may not know this about me, but I am strong, and stand up for what I want! Your love and dedication is amazing, but what I need right now is a little bit of privacy to deal with all the hard things that life is throwing my way. If you could do that, I would be forever grateful. Love you ❤️❤️❤️

A post shared by Britney Spears (@britneyspears) on Apr 23, 2019 at 6:30pm PDT

“There’s rumors, death threats to my family and my team, and just so many ... crazy things being said,” she wrote. “I am trying to take a moment for myself, but everything that’s happening is just making it harder for me. Don’t believe everything you read and hear.”

Some of her followers weren’t convinced. Miley Cyrus yelled “Free Britney!” during one of her concerts. Dozens rallied outside West Hollywood City Hall, carrying signs with slogans like “Britney Isn’t a Slave for You.”

On May 10, Spears and her parents attended a conservatorship status hearing in L.A. County Superior Court. The star usually didn’t show up for such meetings. Members of the public and media were cleared from the courtroom.

After the hearing, Judge Brenda A. Penny ordered an independent expert evaluation of the case.

A few days later, Spears’ manager, Larry Rudolph, said in an interview with TMZ that the singer would not perform in the near future, and “possibly never again.” He later clarified his statement, saying he was “not sure if or when she will ever want to work again.”

In May, Jamie Spears filed a petition to extend the conservatorship to Hawaii and Florida, where his daughter likes to vacation, and to her home state, Louisiana (he added nine more states to the request in August).

Experts chime in

In recent Instagram posts, Spears projects a happy and healthy existence: breakfast with her boyfriend, Disneyland with her sons, shopping at Bloomingdale’s. Neither she nor her family have clarified the state of her mental health struggles and diagnosis, or how she feels about the terms of her conservatorship.

To many, fans’ claims that one of the world’s most recognizable celebritiescould be taken advantage of in some way is both horrifying and tantalizing. Law experts point out that while conservatorships can be corrupted, as some Spears fans allege, there is probably good reason the constraints still stand.

“The fact that she’s been under conservatorship for a dozen years should tell you something about the state of her mental impairment and her vulnerability,” said Streisand, who specializes in high-profile wealth disputes. “The courts will do everything they can to ensure that a person is not conserved unless they really, really need to be.”

Before granting a probate conservatorship, the court must have reason to believe that the proposed conservatee is unable to manage their own affairs and needs to be protected. And there needs to be a recognizable cognitive impairment assessed by an impartial doctor.

In 2008, Spears may have been a danger to herself and her children, said Andy Mayoras, a probate attorney who has written about her conservatorship. Drastic action, he said, was necessary at the time.

“The question is, at what point is it appropriate to scale back the restrictions and let her try living her life without them?” Mayoras said.

A probate conservatorship is designed to continue until someone involved in the case — usually the person being conserved — asks for it to be lifted. When the judge ordered an expert evaluation of Spears’ conservatorship in May, it was unclear whether the singer or someone in her camp had requested it.

“It would suggest to me a consideration of change in status,” psychologist Wood said.

For the conservatorship to be terminated, Spears would need to prove that she’s able to navigate life without one. Judges can sometimes be hesitant to dissolve such arrangements because it is hard to know if someone is truly well enough to take care of themselves, said Mary Thornton House, a retired L.A. County probate judge.

“There’s always the fear that someone could get financially, physically or emotionally hurt once it’s lifted,” she said.

One factor the court might consider is Spears’ ability to earn a living outside the conservatorship.

Former co-conservator Wallet called the arrangement a “hybrid business model” in his petition for a raise. What this could mean, in part, is that the conservatorship has enabled Spears to clinch business deals that might have been unavailable to her after her most turbulent years, Mayoras said. She might have been seen as too much of a risk otherwise.

A 2014 piece on Spears’ Las Vegas residency by veteran journalist Taffy Brodesser-Akner, published in the online magazine Matter, quoted a source at Caesars Entertainment as saying “the company had insisted on the conservatorship just in case, and that it must remain throughout her contract.”

In his role as conservator, Jamie Spears is paid $130,000 annually by his daughter’s estate. The star has had a historically strained relationship with her dad, fueling questions among fans about whether he should be overseeing the complex conservatorship on his own.

“I think it was wise to have Wallet there for checks and balances,” Thornton House said.

The relationship between Spears and her father made news again in August after Kevin Federline — the father of her two sons — filed a police report alleging Jamie Spears had abused one of his grandsons during a visit at his home. According to reports, he “violently shook” 13-year-old Sean after breaking down a bedroom door to reach him.

The boys were granted a restraining order against their grandfather.

Not long afterward, Jamie Spears requested that L.A. Superior Court allow him “to temporarily relinquish the powers of conservatorship of the person” because of health reasons, court records show. He asked that his daughter’s care manager of one year, Jodi Montgomery, adopt his duties.

Judge Penny granted the request on Sept. 9 and appointed Montgomery as temporary conservator.

According to pop culture researcher Marc Brennan, who as a professor has taught lessons on Spears for a class that tackled “celebrity as an industry,” the singer has a strong connection to her young fans, who are more inclined than in years past to examine what her situation says about our culture as a whole.

“It’s an interesting case study,” Brennan said. “Here we have a 37-year-old woman strong enough to be in the public eye and perform, but is supposedly not strong enough to look after her own children and her money.”

In the 2008 MTV documentary “For the Record,” Spears spoke candidly of her life in the spotlight. “Even when you go to jail there’s always the time that you know you’re going to get out,” she said.

The interviewer asked if she felt out of control.

“I think it’s too in control,” she replied. “There’s no excitement, there’s no passion. It’s just like Groundhog Day every day.”

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https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-britney-spears-conservatorship-20190625-story.html

2019-09-18 11:00:00Z
CAIiEAHK24zzHT-T8HJd5MHytJ0qFwgEKg4IACoGCAowjKxcMOvhCzCU9KQB

Selasa, 17 September 2019

Andrew Yang Knows You May Disagree With Him About Shane Gillis - The New York Times

Shane Gillis, a 31-year-old stand-up comedian who was named last week to the “Saturday Night Live” cast, has mimicked caricatures of Chinese accents. He has called it a “hassle” to have to speak with a waiter in a Chinese restaurant. He has used a racial slur to refer to the entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

And in response, Mr. Yang, who has emerged as one of just a handful of viable Asian-American candidates ever to seek a major party’s nomination for president, has preached forgiveness.

“Shane — I prefer comedy that makes people think and doesn’t take cheap shots. But I’m happy to sit down and talk with you if you’d like,” he said in a tweet over the weekend. “For the record, I do not think he should lose his job. We would benefit from being more forgiving rather than punitive. We are all human.”

Shane - I prefer comedy that makes people think and doesn’t take cheap shots. But I’m happy to sit down and talk with you if you’d like. https://t.co/YxbzQ5WVLX
— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYang) September 14, 2019

But lose his job Mr. Gillis did. On Monday afternoon, “S.N.L.” announced that he would not be joining the show, and in a statement, called his language “offensive, hurtful and unacceptable.”

Then, about an hour after the announcement, Mr. Yang tweeted again, suggesting that Mr. Gillis had taken him up on his offer to talk things out.

“Shane Gillis reached out,” Mr. Yang said. “Looks like we will be sitting down together soon.”

A spokesman for Mr. Yang did not have any comment on Mr. Gillis’s departure from the show on Monday night. Nonetheless, the dayslong ordeal with its swift and sudden turn has had the side effect of thrusting Mr. Yang, a long-shot candidate with a loyal following, into the spotlight and placing him at the center of a national conversation about racism, outrage culture and absolution.

For more than a year, Mr. Yang, 44, has built support from outside the political establishment by purposely staying above the political fray, posting videos of himself having fun playing basketball and preaching “humanity first” as a central tenet of his campaign. His response to Mr. Gillis over the weekend echoed those inviting approaches.

But as many “S.N.L.” viewers and others across the country clamored for Mr. Gillis to be fired, believing his jokes to be beyond excusable, Mr. Yang’s response unnerved those hoping for a more forceful condemnation from him. Perhaps the most pointed criticism has come from the Asian-American community itself, where some have expressed a mix of incredulity and weighty disappointment at the way Mr. Yang has talked about race throughout his campaign.

Mr. Yang took “a position that’s very much at odds with the Asian-American community,” said Jenn Fang, the creator of a long-running Asian-American advocacy blog, Reappropriate, who tweeted over the weekend about Mr. Yang’s comments. “He’s trying to let Shane Gillis off the hook so he can cater to other voters that he needs to get to the White House.”

Mr. Yang also received significant blowback from people within and outside Asian-American communities for appearing to draw a comparison between how society treats anti-Asian racism and anti-black racism.

“Anti-Asian racism is particularly virulent because it’s somehow considered more acceptable,” Mr. Yang argued on Twitter. “If Shane had used the n word, the treatment would likely be immediate and clear.”

As one of three remaining candidates in the race who do not have a background in politics, Mr. Yang has won fans by speaking off the cuff and peppering his stump speech with sometimes self-deprecating humor. Because he has made automation and concern over mass unemployment central themes of his candidacy, he has won the support of some young, white, male Trump voters while at the same time attracting progressives and a significant share of Asian-Americans — all groups he seeks to hold together under the apolitical campaign catch phrase “Not left, not right, but forward.”

But his handling of race has sometimes undermined that careful balancing act and raised the concerns among some who say he has been too willing to lean in to stereotypes about Asian-Americans to win support. His biggest applause line remains “The opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math”; in front of a national television audience during the debate last week, he observed, “I am Asian, so I know a lot of doctors.”

In tweets, Mr. Yang also reiterated that he had been the target of racial epithets in the past. Asked about his jokes about liking math and knowing doctors, he has maintained that the Asian-American community is diverse, that his individual experience does not speak for everyone and that Americans are smart enough to see through the model minority myth, which overgeneralizes Asians as diligent and high-achieving.

In an interview on Monday with The New York Times just hours before Mr. Gillis was dropped from “S.N.L.,” Mr. Yang said he had not meant to compare his experience as an Asian-American to “the experience of growing up black in this country.” He said he had intended only to make an “observation” about anti-Asian racism and the fact that it is not always taken seriously.

Mr. Yang said he and his wife had sat down to watch Mr. Gillis’s comedy routines for 30 minutes to an hour and had concluded that he was not “malignant or evil.” He also said he had resisted sending a tweet containing an explicative that would have more forcefully expressed his anger at Mr. Gillis.

“There’s a complex set of reactions one has,” Mr. Yang said.

He said that someone had yelled a slur at him out a car window “just the other day” and added that he had talked to his wife about the experience. He said they had bemoaned the fact that such a slur could eventually be directed at one of their boys.

Mr. Yang also denied that there were any politics at play. “This is both how I genuinely see this and what I think is best,” he said. “I totally respect people who have different points of view.”

Danielle Seid, an assistant professor of English at Baruch College who studies film and television history, said Mr. Yang had definitely found himself “in a tough spot.” He had been right to point out that anti-Asian racism has often not been treated seriously, she said, but he may not have done “a good job of parsing that with his tweets about the n-word.”

Mr. Yang’s comments could have been read as an argument that “Asians have it worse” than other minority groups, when “it’s pretty clear that, in terms of racist policies and practices and culture in the United States, so much of it is founded on anti-black racism,” said, Ellen Wu, an associate professor of history at Indiana University.

At a broader level, both Professor Seid and Professor Wu said Mr. Yang’s high profile had made him something of a spokesman for the Asian-American community. As such, Professor Seid said she wished Mr. Yang had been “more forceful in condemning Mr. Gillis’s ‘jokes’ and taken the opportunity to congratulate Bowen Yang,” one of the show’s writers who was also elevated to a featured performer’s position.

Kevin Xu, a co-host of the Model MAJORITY Podcast and a former Obama White House staff member, said he had wanted Mr. Gillis to lose his job “because he is racist and not funny.”

But he defended Mr. Yang’s handling of the situation. Given that Mr. Yang is a candidate for president, Mr. Xu said he believed it was appropriate for him to “take the high road.”

“This is the best way he could have handled something like this,” Mr. Xu said. “I think over all he’s doing a pretty good job owning up to his minority status while still doing what he needs to do to run for president.”

“I don’t think that, for someone like him — just like Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or any other historical candidate trying to break any sort of ceiling — they can do this perfectly,” Mr. Xu added. “It’s a very, very high-wire act. It’s very hard.”

Andrew Yang Knows You May Disagree With Him About Shane Gillis - The New York Times

And in response, Mr. Yang, who has emerged as one of just a handful of viable Asian-American candidates ever to seek a major party’s nomination for president, has preached forgiveness.

Shane - I prefer comedy that makes people think and doesn’t take cheap shots. But I’m happy to sit down and talk with you if you’d like. https://t.co/YxbzQ5WVLX
— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYang) September 14, 2019

But lose his job Mr. Gillis did. On Monday afternoon, “S.N.L.” announced that he would not be joining the show, and in a statement, called his language “offensive, hurtful and unacceptable.”

Then, about an hour after the announcement, Mr. Yang tweeted again, suggesting that Mr. Gillis had taken him up on his offer to talk things out.

”Shane Gillis reached out,” Mr. Yang said. “Looks like we will be sitting down together soon.”

“There’s a complex set of reactions one has,” Mr. Yang said.

Kevin Xu, a co-host of the Model MAJORITY Podcast and a former Obama White House staff member, said he had wanted Mr. Gillis to lose his job “because he is racist and not funny.”

But he defended Mr. Yang’s handling of the situation. Given that Mr. Yang is a candidate for president, Mr. Xu said he believed it was appropriate for him to “take the high road.”

Andrew Yang Knows You May Disagree With Him About Shane Gillis - The New York Times

And in response, Mr. Yang, who has emerged as one of just a handful of viable Asian-American candidates ever to seek a major party’s nomination for president, has preached forgiveness.

Shane - I prefer comedy that makes people think and doesn’t take cheap shots. But I’m happy to sit down and talk with you if you’d like. https://t.co/YxbzQ5WVLX
— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYang) September 14, 2019

But lose his job Mr. Gillis did. On Monday afternoon, “S.N.L.” announced that he would not be joining the show, and in a statement, called his language “offensive, hurtful and unacceptable.”

Then, about an hour after the announcement, Mr. Yang tweeted again, suggesting that Mr. Gillis had taken him up on his offer to talk things out.

”Shane Gillis reached out,” Mr. Yang said. “Looks like we will be sitting down together soon.”

“There’s a complex set of reactions one has,” Mr. Yang said.

Kevin Xu, a co-host of the Model MAJORITY Podcast and a former Obama White House staff member, said he had wanted Mr. Gillis to lose his job “because he is racist and not funny.”

But he defended Mr. Yang’s handling of the situation. Given that Mr. Yang is a candidate for president, Mr. Xu said he believed it was appropriate for him to “take the high road.”

Cops Can't Take Aaron Carter's Guns Unless He's Declared Mentally Unfit - TMZ

Exclusive

TMZ.com

Aaron Carter's arsenal isn't going to be taken from him ... at least not yet, but that could change if authorities decide he's mentally unfit to own firearms.

Carter has been erratic lately ... friends and family have been so worried they've called police to do welfare checks.

Law enforcement sources tell TMZ ... until a court, board, commission, judge or other lawful authority determines Aaron suffers from a mental illness or condition that causes him to be a danger to himself or others, he can keep his guns.

If this were to happen, we're told Carter would possibly be asked to voluntarily hand over his weapons first, but then if he failed to comply ... ATF could seize his collection.

That said, the L.A. County Sheriff's Dept. tells TMZ the Dept. is investigating the entire matter and dealing with Aaron's family members who have expressed concern and even alarm.

TMZ.com

Aaron spoke with TMZ Monday, telling us cops responded to a call Monday night and showed up at his home with the intent of taking him away on a 5150 psychiatric hold.

The singer says he warned deputies he had loaded weapons scattered around his home, but he also convinced them and a mental evaluator he was not a danger to himself or others.

He also claims he doesn't know who sent the authorities to his house, but one thing he's clear about -- he's not going to give up his guns because he says he fears for his safety.

Aaron's been adamant with us recently that he's mentally stable, despite going on "The Doctors" and rattling off that he's been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. When he spoke to us Monday, he refuted that and claimed he's passed all the mental health checks to own a gun.

So, for now ... he remains locked and loaded.

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https://www.tmz.com/2019/09/17/aaron-carter-guns-cops-cant-take-mentally-unstable/

2019-09-17 08:00:00Z
CBMiUmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRtei5jb20vMjAxOS8wOS8xNy9hYXJvbi1jYXJ0ZXItZ3Vucy1jb3BzLWNhbnQtdGFrZS1tZW50YWxseS11bnN0YWJsZS_SAVJodHRwczovL2FtcC50bXouY29tLzIwMTkvMDkvMTcvYWFyb24tY2FydGVyLWd1bnMtY29wcy1jYW50LXRha2UtbWVudGFsbHktdW5zdGFibGUv

Senin, 16 September 2019

'KUWTK': Kim Kardashian's Mystery Illness Finally Revealed Following Lupus Scare - msnNOW

Replay Video

Last week's Keeping Up With the Kardashians left fans wondering if Kim Kardashian-West did, in fact, have lupus after the reality star tested positive for lupus antibodies.

On Sunday, Kim went in for an ultrasound on her hands -- where she's been experiencing pain the worst -- to see if having lupus antibodies meant she was actually afflicted with the ailment.

Fortunately, the doctor deemed that Kim was not battling lupus. However, her joint pain is very real, and not a result of the carpal tunnel she was diagnosed with last year. Instead, it turns out she's got psoriatic arthritis, resulting from her psoriasis.

"First of all, if you have any evidence for lupus, we would have screened it," Kim's doctor explained in the episode. "You do not have lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. So, you can be reassured. You probably have psoriatic arthritis because psoriasis comes and goes. There’s nothing there right now."

Kim went on to explain that she felt "so relieved" to know that her health issues were not nearly as severe as they could have been.

"The pain is going to come and go sometimes, but I can manage it," Kim explained. "This isn’t going to stop me."

ET spoke with Kim last week, where she revealed that she's "on a medication now, so everything seems to be fine for right now," and she's "just rolling with it day by day."

However, when she first found out she potentially could have lupus, the mother of four admitted she felt scared and depressed at what that would mean for her family.

"When you do have a diagnosis -- or you get tested for something and you get a result that you weren't expecting -- you definitely get in your head and for a second you kinda get this little depression of, like, 'OK, what are all of the possibilities that can happen? What's my life gonna look like? I really wanna be active for my kids.' And so it triggers something," Kardashian shared.

"I really had to get myself together because I do have kids and I do have a family that I just have to be positive and get it together for," she continued. "No matter what's going on in your life, you can take that time to grieve for a second… and then figure out how to be positive about it because it's not going to change. There's no point in being depressed and staying in that head space, but I felt it for a minute."

Keeping Up With the Kardashians airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on E!

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/celebrity/kuwtk-kim-kardashians-mystery-illness-finally-revealed-following-lupus-scare/ar-AAHlWuX

2019-09-16 10:00:00Z
52780383174346

Ric Ocasek, frontman of the Cars, found dead in his Manhattan apartment - The Washington Post

Ric Ocasek of the Cars performs at the band's induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland in April 2018. (Aaron Josefczyk/Reuters)

September 16 at 6:47 AM

Shortly after the Cars released its third album in 1980, singer, songwriter and guitarist Ric Ocasek played a cassette in his at-home recording studio in north Boston for a Rolling Stone writer, showing off the rough-cut demos of the songs from “Panorama.” The album had received mixed reviews from critics, but fans loved it, filling concert venues across America.

Listening to the stripped down versions of the songs, though, the writer told the frontman his solo performances were “far stranger and more obsessed-sounding” than the tracks on the album. A bandmate described the recordings as “inside-out music.” The reporter told Ocasek he liked these odd early recordings better than the final ones.

“I have to admit,” Ocasek responded with a smile, “in my heart of hearts, that sometimes I do, too. But the band can’t always play this stuff the way I envision it.”

The experimental vision of the lanky, black-haired artist turned the Cars into an international phenomenon by straddling the line between his avant-garde interests and melodic, radio-friendly rock. His songs sometimes confounded critics, who were unsure where to place the Cars in an emerging constellation of New Wave bands, but crowds flocked to the band, which landed in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.

Ocasek died in his Manhattan apartment on Sunday afternoon at age 75, New York City police told the Associated Press. Officials said they do not suspect foul play and are awaiting a medical examiner’s report. He is survived by his estranged wife, supermodel Paulina Porizkova and their two adult sons.

Born Richard Otcasek in Baltimore, he got his first guitar as a gift from his grandmother. But Ocasek’s musical career really began in Cleveland, where he graduated from high school in 1963. He sneaked into a folk club there and played acoustic guitar in front of an audience for the first time as a teenager, he told Rolling Stone in 2017. He met bassist Benjamin Orr in Cleveland while Orr was often playing for a local TV program with a band called the Grasshoppers. That’s also where Ocasek said he smoked his first joint.

Ocasek and Orr joined forces and traveled the country before settling in Boston and starting the Cars, a five-man group that played local bars and recorded its first demo album in 1977. Boston radio stations played the band’s demos for “Just What I Needed” and “My Best Friend’s Girl” so often that Elektra Records signed the group in 1978 and produced its debut album, “The Cars,” which was a near-instant hit. Three songs from the album⁠ — “Just What I Needed,” “My Best Friend’s Girl,” and “Good Times Roll” ⁠ — made the Billboard Hot 100 chart. In 1984, the band had another huge success with “Heartbeat City,” an album with five Top 40 singles.

The Cars’ music video for the song “Double Life” was one of the first 30 aired on VH1, and the band won the inaugural MTV Video of the Year award in 1984 for “You Might Think.”

Viewed by many as standoffish and eccentric, Ocasek acknowledged that people could see him as “forbidding or aloof.” But those who worked with Ocasek described him as dedicated to his craft.

“Ric was very, very sober and very down to earth, which is rare,” Roy Thomas Baker, who produced several albums for the Cars, told Rolling Stone in 1979.

Ocasek wrote seven albums with the Cars, and also released seven solo albums. After the Cars broke up in 1988, Ocasek began producing music for other bands, including Bad Religion, No Doubt and Weezer. A towering figure, Ocasek was known for dressing in black and wearing his signature sunglasses. He described himself as an “outcast” for much of his early life, but he said music was a way to connect with people.

“To me, music’s a powerful emotional force,” he told Rolling Stone in 1980. “It can make people cry, feel happy or feel sexual. But more important than all of that, it’s a way to communicate without alienating people, a way to get beyond loneliness. It’s a private thing people can have for themselves any time they want. Just turn on a radio and there it is: a sense of belonging. Without having to surrender to anybody else’s needs.”

As news of Ocasek’s death spread on Sunday evening, rock bands shared tributes to the late artist. Weezer posted photos of Ocasek in the studio, calling him “our friend and mentor.”

“We will miss him forever, & will forever cherish the precious times we got to work and hang out with him,” Weezer posted on Twitter. “Rest in Peace & rock on Ric, we love you."

The weezer family is devastated by the loss of our friend and mentor Ric Ocasek, who passed away Sunday. We will miss him forever, & will forever cherish the precious times we got to work and hang out with him. Rest in Peace & rock on Ric, we love you. #RIPRicOcasek #karlscorner pic.twitter.com/JcTXevr6V8
— weezer (@Weezer) September 16, 2019

At a show in Boston on Sunday, Brooklyn-based rock band the Hold Steady walked onstage playing the Cars’ “Since You’re Gone.”

Ocasek’s career brought him back to Cleveland in 2018, where the Cars performed “My Best Friend’s Girl” during the ceremony to induct the band into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

“I kind of started playing here and I could stop playing here, in Cleveland,” Ocasek told Rolling Stone the day he found out the Cars would be joining the Hall of Fame. “This could be the bookends. One guy on a guitar playing bad songs and then I’m in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 45 years later.”

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/09/16/ric-ocasek-cars-frontman-dead-manhattan/

2019-09-16 09:51:47Z
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