Lifestyle
Selena Gomez ‘walked’ a short dress-jacket with lace
![Selena Gomez ‘walked’ a short dress-jacket with lace Selena Gomez ‘walked’ a short dress-jacket with lace](https://uploads.celebrityinsider.org/uploads/2022/07/selena-4.png)
29-year-old American singer and actress Selena Gomez got here out in a brief dress-jacket with lace. That is reported by the Every day Mail.
Final Wednesday, June 29, in Santa Monica, a presentation of a brand new line of lipsticks, Variety Phrases, by the beauty model Uncommon Magnificence , owned by Selena Gomez, befell.
The star personally offered the funds, showing on the occasion in a brief Alexander McQueen lace jacket gown and stiletto sandals. The picture was complemented by make-up with arrows and nude on the lips, in addition to styling with free hair.
The musician launched her make-up line in September 2020 after months of teasing her entry into the wonder pageant.
The preliminary drop included the highly-rated Uncommon Magnificence Liquid Contact Weightless Basis, which is available in 48 shades, in addition to Liquid Contact Brightening Concealer and clump-free Excellent Strokes Common Volumizing Mascara.
The opposite day, Selena Gomez appeared on the premiere of the second season of “Homicide in the identical constructing” in Los Angeles in a glittery Michael Kors gown with cutouts on the waist and a slit to the thigh.
Cara Delevingne beforehand admitted that she “had enjoyable” kissing Selena Gomez. Supermodel and actress Cara Delevingne spoke about her impressions of a kiss with Selena Gomez on the set of the sequence “Murders in the identical constructing.” Her phrases are quoted by Folks.
Delevingne joined the solid of the second season as an “artwork world insider” named Alice, who finally ends up having an affair with Gomez’s character. “It was simply enjoyable. Would not anybody on the earth wish to kiss Selena?” mentioned the actress.
The mannequin additionally added that she favored working with the singer. “She is simply an unimaginable particular person to work with. Selena is attractive; she is certainly one of my favourite actresses,” mentioned Delevingne.
Gomez and Delevingne met once they had been about 15 years outdated. In 2014, the celebrities starred collectively in Taylor Swift’s “Dangerous Blood” video and even obtained matching rose tattoos final December.
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Lifestyle
A bookstore named for James Baldwin is counting down to his 100th birthday
![A bookstore named for James Baldwin is counting down to his 100th birthday A bookstore named for James Baldwin is counting down to his 100th birthday](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/4032x2268+0+0/resize/1400/quality/100/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fa6%2Fc0%2Fca99899b4886b4d8c433cbf67690%2Fimg-1668.jpg)
James Baldwin’s face is painted on a decorative bookcase inside the Baldwin & Co. bookstore in New Orleans.
Neda Ulaby/NPR
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Neda Ulaby/NPR
Baldwin & Co. opened only three years ago, but the bookstore was packed on a recent summer afternoon. Over the past year, the Black-owned shop has featured a splashy countdown to what would have been the 100th birthday of its namesake. James Baldwin, the bookstore’s website says, is “a literary giant whose work on race, identity, and social justice continues to resonate today.”
Baldwin was born on Aug. 2, 1924, in New York City. Baldwin & Co. was born in a gleaming white building of around the same vintage in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans. The bookstore is the brainchild of DJ Johnson, who grew up in the city among a family of avid readers.
“We never had much of anything else, but we always had books in the home,” he recalled. “And my dad was a huge proponent of us reading Black literature.”
Johnson remembers his childhood as defined by the tensions of a racially segregated neighborhood. Suspicions between Black and white residents ran high. His family lived on a street with only Black families. “There was a literal wooden fence,” he said. “And on the other side of that rickety wooden fence was what we called ‘the white people lane.’”
If a friend or family was foolhardy enough to venture there, police were called, Johnson said. False accusations, violence and injustice often followed. “As I’m witnessing that, I’m reading James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time,” he said. “It spoke to me.”
![Smiling into the camera, DJ Johnson, the owner of Baldwin & Co., is wearing black pants and a dark T-shirt. In the blurry background is a kitchen with cabinets and a sink faucet.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3024x3488+0+544/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F19%2F01%2Ff2403b12489aa5df99f99882f6e4%2Fimg-1697.jpg)
DJ Johnson, the owner of Baldwin & Co., in the apartment reserved for visiting writers that’s located above the bookstore.
Neda Ulaby/NPR
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Neda Ulaby/NPR
As an undergraduate at Clark Atlanta University, a historically Black institution, the young Johnson studied technology, rather than literature. But his favorite memories include late-night rap sessions with Daniel Black, a Baldwin scholar. “It was electric,” he said. “The energy was so vibrant.”
Johnson became a tech executive and real estate developer in Washington, D.C., but he always visited independent bookstores while traveling. In Paris, he sought out the legendary Shakespeare and Company, where literature nerds sometimes stand in line to get in. While waiting, Johnson dreamed, for the first time, of opening someplace similar.
“If I was ever to open up a store … I would call it Baldwin and Company, and I would want people to stand in line like this,” he recalled. “I would want them to stand in line just like they’re standing here, [but at a bookstore] that pays homage to a Black literary great.”
Soon after that, Johnson moved back to New Orleans to care for an aging parent.
“I got bored,” he admitted. “As I was walking around the community and talking to people, talking to the young kids, I always had a book in my hand. People would ask me, why do you always have a book in your hand? And I was like, why don’t you have a book in your hand?”
That question helped fuel the bookstore’s creation. Although he says he wasn’t motivated by financial success, Johnson is now convinced that his independent bookstore sells more books by Baldwin than any other, anywhere. “They’re our No. 1 seller,” he said. “Every single week, we have recurring orders. Every single week, we are ordering large shipments of James Baldwin books.”
Baldwin fans visit from all over the world, with a notable number from China, but Johnson said his primary goal is for Baldwin & Co. to serve as a community hub.
“We do book festivals where we give away thousands of books for free to kids,” he explained. “We just held a banned-book festival. The books they’re banning, we’re giving them out for free. At our book festivals, we provide free food, free drinks and free entertainment.”
“We allow local authors to come in and set up tables,” he continued. “They can sell their books. There’s no commission. Whatever the authors sell the books for, they get to keep. We allow vendors to come and sell their personal handicrafts. We don’t charge anything. We also do free summer literacy tutoring services and financial literacy services, because we are dedicated to ending generational poverty and building financial wellness within our communities. We also offer community meetups where individuals can come to Baldwin and discuss issues from health care to childhood obesity, young parenting and needs for new mothers.”
Every child who attends the store’s monthly story time gets a free book, he added. “Because we’re dedicated to building home libraries.”
Along with all his celebrated novels, essays, short stories, plays and poems in print, Baldwin’s book for children, Little Man, Little Man, is available at the bookstore.
“James Baldwin has changed my life,” Johnson said. “His literature, his perspective, his insight. They have changed my life. And I wanted to give that opportunity to others.
“The first week, we had lines three blocks long every day, the entire day, to get in,” he added. “And I was like, ‘Oh, this is like Shakespeare and Company. That’s what this is like.’”
A place of pilgrimage for readers from all over the world who find in James Baldwin truth, beauty and guidance for how to bear being in this world.
Lifestyle
Donald Trump Assassination Attempt 'Total Failure' For Secret Service
![Donald Trump Assassination Attempt 'Total Failure' For Secret Service Donald Trump Assassination Attempt 'Total Failure' For Secret Service](https://imagez.tmz.com/image/98/16by9/2024/07/27/985b5c34d0fa41f9bc1f10ea563a6f71_xl.jpg)
TMZ Studios
The Secret Service dropped the ball in spectacular fashion at Donald Trump‘s campaign rally where he was nearly killed by a would-be assassin … so says a former USSS special agent.
TMZ Studios has a new special, “TMZ Presents: Under Fire: The Trump Assassination Attempt,” where we explore the many, stunning security failures that lead to the attempt on Trump’s life at a Butler, Pennsylvania rally.
7/13/24
Richard Staropoli, a former Secret Service Special Agent, doesn’t mince words … he says Trump’s security detail totally failed him and left him inexplicably exposed to mortal danger.
Shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks slipping past security and taking perch on a rooftop with an AR-15 style rifle and a clear view of Trump is the epitome of failure by the Secret Service … at least as far as Richard is concerned.
7/13/24
Another former USSS Special Agent, Cheryl Tyler, has a different view. She’s planned security for similar presidential events and says the security plan here was “textbook.”
Still, Richard and Cheryl agree … the building where Crooks squeezed off shots from should have been better secured and someone from law enforcement should have been on the roof.
TMZ.com
7/13/24
Fortunately, the shooter missed Trump’s head and only shot his ear.
Of course, some of the other bullets hit folks in the stands … killing firefighter Corey Comperatore and wounding 2 others.
With that in mind, former Secret Service Special Agent Michael De Geus says this was absolutely NOT a failure … if for no other reason than the fact Trump is still alive.
TMZ Studios
Watch “TMZ Presents: Under Fire: The Trump Assassination Attempt” … now streaming on Tubi.
Lifestyle
To learn 'The Truth About Dragons,' go on a quest through this kids' book
![To learn 'The Truth About Dragons,' go on a quest through this kids' book To learn 'The Truth About Dragons,' go on a quest through this kids' book](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3291x1852+0+625/resize/1400/quality/100/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F95%2F8f%2Fdb649b564ea4b288ec4de2904eb5%2Fthetruthaboutdragons-9781250820587-int-01.jpg)
Hanna Cha / Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
A little boy goes on a quest — into two very different forests — to discover the truth about dragons.
“You must put your favorite cloak around your shoulders and your sturdiest boots upon your feet,” Julie Leung writes in her Caldecott Honor children’s book, The Truth About Dragons.
“Leave on a day when the air is crisp as new paper, the wind is gentle, and the skies are clear.”
In the first forest, full of old, gnarled oak trees, the child evades mischievous hobgoblins, mossy bridges, glowing will-o’-the-wisps, and winding brooks before arriving at a yellow cottage in the middle of a boggy swamp.
There lives a wise woman who tells him the truth about dragons.
“Dragons are fearsome and fire-breathing, my child,” the wise woman says, “with wings like a bat’s and the body of a lizard. Piercing horns grace their reptilian heads.”
And that, for sure, is one truth about dragons. But our hero still has another journey to go on.
![TheTruthAboutDragons_9781250820587_INT_02.jpg](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6600x2700+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F26%2F11%2F88f5438c4427a40baa6d90eb693d%2Fthetruthaboutdragons-9781250820587-int-02.jpg)
Hanna Cha / Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
“The book was inspired by my firstborn son,” explains Julie Leung. “We had debated a lot about which last name to give him. My husband having a very common Americanized name that’s synonymous with a soup company, and me having one that’s always been traditionally a little harder to pronounce.”
Leung was grappling with the idea of her son growing up feeling like he needed to choose between cultures — his mom’s Chinese heritage or his father’s American heritage. So she turned to folklore.
“There’s such different interpretations of the dragon mythology between Eastern and Western cultures,” Leung says, “it’s a perfect metaphor.”
![The Truth About Dragons](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3375x2775+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F13%2F9d%2Ff3d960134e3d831075bead13efe9%2Fthe-truth-about-dragons.jpg)
The Truth About Dragons
Hanna Cha / Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
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Hanna Cha / Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
To depict the two mythologies, Hanna Cha illustrated the book in two completely different styles.
“I decided to use pen nibs for the first half of the book,” says Cha. “I got inspired by a lot of the older folktales and storybooks. And I loved how in those books they use borders to create a separate layer that adds to the story.”
In the first half of the book, the pages are lush and warm. A border of trees and leaves, flowers and mushrooms, frames each page. The wise woman’s cottage is full of rough-hewn wooden furniture and a stone hearth. Dried flowers hang from the ceiling, a cauldron bubbles away over a fire. “Her house smells of cedar chests, sugar cookies, and apple cider,” Leung writes.
Then, midway through the book, after the wise woman gives our hero one truth about dragons — basically that they’re all like Smaug from The Hobbit, sitting on piles of treasure and shooting flames at trespassers — the little boy steps over and out of the border of the first story, and straight into another.
![TheTruthAboutDragons_9781250820587_INT_03.jpg](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6600x2700+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ffb%2Fe2%2Fde6da8d14d79b52d6c3352cd55fc%2Fthetruthaboutdragons-9781250820587-int-03.jpg)
Hanna Cha / Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Now the illustrations are airy and cool — greens and blues replace the warm reds and browns of yore. The borders have disappeared. The oak trees have been uprooted by a bamboo forest. The child is guided by nine-tailed foxes, ghostly maidens, and the white rabbit who dwells on the moon.
“For the second half I used sumi ink and calligraphy brushes,” explains Cha. “These brushes are beautiful brushes from Korean folk art. For me, I’m more comfortable doing brushes. That has been most of my work beforehand.”
Instead of a swampy cottage, the second wise woman lives in a palace overlooking a towering waterfall. It smells of jasmine and incense. She drinks chrysanthemum tea in a tiny porcelain bowl. And, of course, she knows another truth about dragons.
“Dragons are majestic creatures of air and fire,” Leung writes. “They rule in the skies and rivers, commanding the rain to fall and the floodwaters to rise.”
Hanna Cha says she gave careful consideration to how she’d draw the two dragons in this story differently. The fire-breathing Western dragon is deep red — on the page where you meet it, the border is made out of dented armor and bits of skeletons, evidence of its destructive powers. The god-like Eastern dragon is almost ethereal — it moves through the air like swirls of light blue liquid.
“I also really focused on a lot of the dynamic movements of how the dragons would move,” says Cha. “For the blue dragon, I imagined it kind of twisting and turning, serpent-like… this very majestic movement… And for the red dragon, I made sure to create this weight that is almost immovable, almost indestructible.”
![TheTruthAboutDragons_9781250820587_INT_04.jpg](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6600x2700+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F2b%2F1a%2F6df97f614e3da24f6dcba9b60e39%2Fthetruthaboutdragons-9781250820587-int-04.jpg)
Hanna Cha / Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Most people think they have to choose between the two dragons — red or blue, fearsome or holy, Eastern or Western mythologies. But at the end of his quest, our hero learns the real truth about dragons.
“I think a lot about the ways that we describe mixed or blended or half. There’s a lot of terminology we use when we talk about kids who are coming from different cultural and racial backgrounds,” says author Julie Leung. “And I want the idea of my kid’s future feeling like it is doubled, it is enriched, it is limitless.”
Or, as the omniscient narrator (actually his mother), tells the little boy, “Inside your heart is where the two forests meet. Both journeys are yours to take. Both worlds are yours to discover.”
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