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Rapper Stunna Girl Says She Was Shot in Chest, Posts Gruesome Injury
![Rapper Stunna Girl Says She Was Shot in Chest, Posts Gruesome Injury Rapper Stunna Girl Says She Was Shot in Chest, Posts Gruesome Injury](https://imagez.tmz.com/image/c8/16by9/2024/07/28/c88b7ef4c18e4847a8b776cd04ce6c19_xl.jpg)
Stunna Girl‘s sharing a harrowing story … saying she took a bullet to the chest recently — and sharing pics of a shocking injury.
The rapper posted several photos and videos to her Instagram showing what she says is the bullet wound … and, if you’ve got a weak stomach, we recommend looking away from this one.
A large gash sits over her left breast — seemingly after it’s already been stitched up … and, she gets right up close to it — giving fans the option to instantly react to the wound with a series of emojis.
Stunna’s posting receipts too … sharing what looks like a prescription for medication to treat a “gunshot wound” — trying to clear up any confusion among her followers.
SG says a bullet hit just above her left breast and exited through her underpit … a clean shot through her.
As for details about what exactly went down … Stunna’s staying mum — telling her followers they shouldn’t make up stories but refusing to say where and how she ended up getting shot.
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We’ve reached out to Stunna Girl’s team for more details on what happened here … so far, no word back.
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Lifestyle
Olympic hurdles for women athletes; plus, big trucks and big questions : It's Been a Minute
![Olympic hurdles for women athletes; plus, big trucks and big questions : It's Been a Minute Olympic hurdles for women athletes; plus, big trucks and big questions : It's Been a Minute](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/07/24/untitled-design_wide-6a7f64793ed10b11b95c46c1a08fd16985b444ca.png?s=1400&c=100&f=png)
A group of runners at the Tokyo Olympics – one of whom is Christine Mboma (second to the right), who has been impacted by restrictions on athletes with differences of sex development.
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Ryan Pierse/Getty Images
A group of runners at the Tokyo Olympics – one of whom is Christine Mboma (second to the right), who has been impacted by restrictions on athletes with differences of sex development.
Ryan Pierse/Getty Images
This is the first year the Olympics have gender parity between men’s and women’s teams – but does it mean gender equity? ESPN writer Katie Barnes and Rose Eveleth, host of NPR’s Tested, join Brittany to discuss the barriers that women athletes still face – from men-only categories to women-only sex testing.
![Tested: The Choice](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/07/18/episode-1-art---square_sq-f11ea29dcdecd59852336992f51da2ff32c40a51.jpeg?s=100&c=85&f=jpeg)
And later – in recent years, you may have noticed some new behemoths prowling the streets of America: giant trucks. The sheer size of them has sparked policy debates – many are so big that it’s not possible to see a child crossing directly in front of them, and there’s been a spike in pedestrian deaths. Brittany is joined by Angie Schmitt, author of Right of Way, to chat about why these big trucks are so popular and what they say about our cultural anxieties.
This episode was produced by Liam McBain and Alexis Williams with support from Corey Antonio Rose and Barton Girdwood. It was edited by Jessica Placzek. Engineering support came from Becky Brown. We had factchecking help from Jane Gilvin. Our VP of programming is Yolanda Sangweni.
Lifestyle
So how do you 'accurately' speak English in ancient Rome?
![So how do you 'accurately' speak English in ancient Rome? So how do you 'accurately' speak English in ancient Rome?](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3600x2025+0+0/resize/1400/quality/100/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ffe%2Fab%2F8a1a0d38474e8a8804b480cfd1ad%2Fgl2-29680rc2.jpg)
There’s been a lot of online chatter about Denzel Washington and his accent in the upcoming movie Gladiator II. There are longstanding conventions around using a posh-sounding British accent for ancient characters … but why? Nobody spoke English in Rome.
Cuba Scott/Paramount Pictures
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Cuba Scott/Paramount Pictures
Gladiator II doesn’t come out until November. But the recent release of the trailer has prompted a lot of online chatter about the actors’ accents — especially Denzel Washington’s. The actor plays a powerful mercenary who keeps a stable of gladiators. His character, Macrinus, is based on a real historical figure.
“I love me some Denzel,” wrote Sophia Johnson on X.com. “But his masterful acting skills cannot erase his vernacular and no amount of adoration can make it fit for a film depicting ancient Rome.”
If there was EVER a need for a “Dislike” button…it would be now!
🤦🏽♀️
Nope.
I love me some Denzel…
But his masterful acting skills, CANNOT erase his vernacular and NO AMOUNT of adoration can make it fit for a film depicting ancient Rome.
So please—stop it.
“…those who… https://t.co/oiL6lA25Ux
— Sophia Johnson (@Pattyfree) July 11, 2024
“What accent is he supposed to have?” countered treythekage in a TikTok video. “Are you going to make Denzel Washington do a goofy-ass British accent to seem noble? Or are you going to let him be his noble-ass self?”
This debate about whether it’s OK to play ancient historical figures with an American accent instead of a posh English one highlights how longstanding conventions around accents persist in movies — even when they defy logic.
Ancient Rome: A linguistic melting pot
Gladiator II is set in ancient Rome. Far from being a single-accented monoculture, it was a linguistic melting pot.
“The Roman citizen body had people who came from an enormous number of different places — tons of Africans, tons of Greeks and tons of Gauls,” said Eleanor Dickey, a classics professor at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom.
Dickey said we know about speech variances in ancient Rome because of writings by grammarians like Pompeius.
“There were a lot of Greek speakers, not everybody spoke Latin” said Dickey. “And of the ones who spoke Latin, many of them were not native speakers of it. And the ones who were native speakers of it, didn’t all necessarily speak the same kind of Latin.”
There were some people in Rome from the country that centuries later would become known as England. Dickey said most of us wouldn’t recognize the language those people spoke.
“There was no such thing as English in the third century,” she said. “What you would have had is Celtic speakers.”
Where history and Hollywood part ways
But Hollywood has never concerned itself too much with the facts.
“We simply expect to hear characters in a film set in ancient Rome speaking in RP — Received Pronunciation — that sort of Queen’s or King’s English accent,” said dialect coach Erik Singer. “It’s just a convention, though.”
Singer, whose resume includes helping California native Austin Butler perfect his Mississippi accent in the 2022 Elvis biopic, said RP English is a prestige accent. So it’s obvious for filmmakers to associate it with colonial power.
“Roman Empire, British Empire — there’s something there that sort of makes sense,” he said.
As a result, RP has been standard issue for movies set in the ancient world, from 1963’s Cleopatra to 2009’s Agora. (The original Gladiator movie from 2000 also made much use of this accent.)
But Singer said some filmmakers are becoming more thoughtful about what accents to use for movies set in faraway places and times.
“There’s no one way to handle a situation where you have a story set in ancient Rome, or another country with characters speaking a language other than English, and we’re just hearing it in English because it’s an English language film for an English language audience,” Singer said. “You can have everybody speak RP. You can have everybody speak a variety of accents and kind of try to match them to the class. And then there’s sort of no plan at all.”
The danger of judging a film’s accents by its trailer
It’s hard to know how much thought went into the accent choices for Gladiator II. Neither the production company nor the dialect coach responded to NPR’s requests for comment.
Judging by the trailer — and that’s not ideal, since it’s noisy, action-packed and only features a few lines of dialogue — the accents do seem to be all over the map.
Irish actor Paul Mescal is speaking a version of RP English — though some viewers of the trailer have said the actor lapses into his Irish accent at points. Lior Raz appears to be using his native Israeli-inflected speech. Singer said when he listened to Chilean American Pedro Pascale’s most discernible line in the trailer — “Rome has so many subjects; she must feed them” — he didn’t hear enough to make a judgement about what accent he was using.
“What are we to make of this?” the dialect coach wrote in an email. “Without consulting any of the artists involved, and without more to go on, it isn’t responsible to even speculate here.”
As for Denzel Washington, Singer said the actor’s voice and delivery are so familiar, people tend to tune-out subtle changes.
“His voice is likely to be perceived as being ‘Denzel’s normal accent’ even when it’s not,” said Singer. “This is the sort of perception trap that leads a lot of movie stars, past and present, to avoid big accent risks, as they feel they can’t win — they’ll be mercilessly criticized either way.”
This story was edited by Jennifer Vanasco for air and digital. The audio version was produced by Isabella Sarmiento-Gomez.
Lifestyle
Sinéad O’Connor Exact Cause of Death Revealed as Respiratory Issues
![Sinéad O’Connor Exact Cause of Death Revealed as Respiratory Issues Sinéad O’Connor Exact Cause of Death Revealed as Respiratory Issues](https://imagez.tmz.com/image/b9/16by9/2024/07/28/b97079c16aae4d5bbb22ac1b85cb08ba_xl.jpg)
Sinéad O’Connor’s cause of death has been revealed one year after her tragic death … with her death certificate listing multiple respiratory issues, according to reports.
The Irish Independent reports O’Connor passed away from COPD — chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — exacerbated by bronchial asthma. She’d also been suffering from a respiratory tract infection, a contributory factor.
While British authorities announced back in January O’Connor passed from natural causes — no foul play suspected — we didn’t know the exact cause until this week.
As we told you … Sinéad was found unresponsive in her Southeast London apartment last year. Efforts were made to revive her, but it was too late.
O’Connor suffered from mental health issues for years … telling Dr. Phil she’d tried to take her own life at least eight times. Her 17-year-old son Shane committed suicide in early 2022 with Sinéad tweeting out she’d “Been living as an undead night creature since.”
However, it seems mental health ultimately played no role in her death.
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Numerous stars — including Conor McGregor, Pink and Brandi Carlile — all paid tribute to the controversial singer in the weeks after her death. She was 56.
RIP
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.
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