Category: Life Style

Blake Lively’s recent fan interaction has raised eyebrows amid controversy surrounding the actor’s new movie, It Ends With Us.

While the Gossip Girl alum attended the It End With Us movie premiere in London on August 8, a fan was seen handing her a pink friendship bracelet – which she quickly looked at before handing it off to someone else. A video of the interaction has gone viral on TikTok, as Lively is heard telling the fan: “Thank you so much. That’s so sweet.”

She then informed the fan that she won’t be wearing the bracelet because it didn’t match her floral strapless Tamara Ralph couture gown. “I’m going to put it here because it doesn’t go with my outfit, but I will wear it later,” she said.

However, the same fan went on to hand a second bracelet to Lively’s co-star in the film, Isabela Ferrer, who immediately placed the hand-made jewelry on her wrist. “Thank you! Oh my God, I’m going to put it on,” she told the fan, according to the viral clip.

The TikTok went on to receive more than two million views, as many people turned to the comments section and expressed their disbelief that Lively would actually uphold her promise of wearing the bracelet.

“I will wear it later. Yeah ok,” one person sarcastically wrote in the comments.

Another commenter agreed, writing: “If someone said that to me I’d like cry.”

Multiple TikTokers also pointed out that Lively’s dress and earrings seemed to match the friendship bracelet, claiming that she shouldn’t have used her outfit as an excuse.

“The way it actually FITS her whole outfit lmaooo,” one comment read, while another wrote: “Okay but it did match her outfit though.”

“It literally matched HER EARRINGS,” a third person wrote in the comments.

The video comes after fans have increasingly criticized Lively for her “tone-deaf” approach to the It Ends With Us press tour, considering that it is an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s book about domestic violence and abuse.

Earlier this week, journalist Kjersti Flaa posted an interview with Lively from 2016 that she claimed made her want to “quit my job.” The sit-down was in promotion for Lively’s film Café Society, directed by Woody Allen. Lively was accompanied by her co-star Parker Posey. Around the same time as the interview, Lively had announced that she was pregnant with her second child with husband Ryan Reynolds. Flaa had told the actor, “Congrats on your little bump,” which led to Lively sarcastically respond: “Congrats on your little bump.”

Posey appeared to use comedic relief by showing off her backside “bump,” after which Lively went on to speak about the actor’s “lovely lady lumps” as Flaa waited to begin the interview.

Speaking about the film, the journalist said she found it “visually amazing” and asked whether either of the women enjoyed the fashion, because the film was set in the 1930s. Lively was then seen ignoring Flaa, and instead turned to Posey to say: “Everyone wants to talk about the clothes, but I wonder if they would ask the men about the clothes.”

Although Flaa insisted that she “would” have asked the male actors the same question, Lively seemed to ignore her as she went on to speak with Posey about the best outfits worn by the men in the film.

She concluded: “It’s not just the women that have the clothes, but I feel like the women get the conversation.”

It was a few months after the BBC showed my episode of Dragons’ Den that I got the call that changed my life. I’d been working through the night as I usually do, and I was doing a final check of my emails at 4am when I saw it. It was a message from a woman I didn’t know. “I know this is going to sound really weird,” Jess* wrote, “but I’ve seen your story, and I think our children have the same dad.”

Immediately I wondered, “Am I delusional? Am I really tired right now?”, I couldn’t believe my eyes. She said the name of my child’s father and that’s when I knew. It was true. But still I thought, how has she come to this conclusion? Could it be real? Is it a trick? The woman told me she had a three-year-old daughter. My son is 12 and had always wanted a sister. I was in shock, but I replied saying, “Thank you very much”. We arranged to meet.

I was 27 when I got pregnant with a man I’d known for years. We’d been friends since we were teenagers, but I’d been in a very difficult and abusive relationship with someone else. Some years after that ended, we spent more time together. It felt like it was meant to be. It happened very quickly and just felt right for the first time in my life. I’d never been in a relationship where I was treated properly.

But he started to show signs of being too domineering. He became obsessive, always needing to know where I was. I was working in nightclubs at the time, and he would get very jealous. He covered up his low self-confidence with this massive bravado of flashy cars and being “The Man”. I saw the red flags and got out; I’d learned my lesson. But it turned out I was already pregnant by that point. At first he was happy, and he went to a scan with me. But within two weeks, he’d completely switched. “You can’t have this baby,” he told me. “You have to get an abortion. I don’t want to be a dad.”

I, though, wanted to keep the baby. So we cut ties, and then my son was born. I was also caring for my dad at this point – he had a stroke when I was 19. Both he and my potty-training toddler had toilet issues, and what I really needed was some kind of handheld portable toilet, which didn’t seem to exist.

For years, I had the idea for the invention in my mind, but it never came to fruition. Until 2020, that is. I had spinal surgery just before lockdown, and I remember asking myself what it was that I’d wished I’d always done, and it was to start this business. By this time, my dad had also passed. I had to give it a go. I launched the product, which I called Whizzer, in 2021 on literally nothing but credit card debt and a social media account. Within a year I was winning awards.

One day, I got a message via my website from a researcher for Dragons’ Den. They said they had found me on social media and liked the story behind the product. They asked me to apply for the show. Dragons’ Den is a very drawn-out process. I don’t think people realise just how long it is. They approached me in February 2022, and I had to go through a lot of due diligence. You’re never sure if you’ll make it to the next round, and then suddenly you do.

In May, they asked me to come and film the show with one to two weeks’ notice, if that. I went to Manchester and stayed in a hotel they booked for me and spent the time preparing.

If I hadn’t done ‘Dragons’ Den’ I would never have found out. As soon as our kids met, they were obsessed with each other

I felt confident in my business, but everyone is scared of numbers and that was one of my biggest fears in presenting the pitch. I have ADHD, so my brain has trouble with things like that. I was also nervous because I was essentially bringing a toilet onto the programme. Was it going to be made into a joke? I’d also spoken about my mental health and bipolar disorder. I didn’t want to become some kind of laughing stock.

Luckily, though, it was received really well. The sales from the show saved my business and changed everything for me. Steven Bartlett and Sara Davies both joined forces to invest in Kiddiwhizz. The show aired earlier this year and that’s when I started doing interviews. From there, an online group for single mums called Frolo asked me to write a blog post on my experience. And it was this post that Jess* saw when she reached out to me.

We met up in the park while my son played football. She was so lovely. But everyone had warned me to have my wits about me. I had so many questions. When she read my story, she said the similarities stood out to her straight away. My son’s father had done exactly the same thing to her. He’d told Jess* he wanted her to get an abortion, and used my son as an example of a child he already had and didn’t look after. She said there were even more of us.

If I hadn’t done Dragons’ Den I would never have found out. As soon as our kids met, they were obsessed with each other. We started seeing one another on odd weekends and we’ve since had our kids stay at each other’s houses. Although the children have a different ethnic mix, you can see the similarities, the same eyes in particular. If you saw them together you would assume they were siblings. My son now picks his half-sister up from nursery when he’s free as we don’t live far away from each other. We’ve got this incredible bond because of our shared experiences.

Although it’s been difficult at times for me and my son, I look at the life I ended up with and think we’re really lucky. We’ve come through a lot, and we are who we are as a result.

When my friend arrived at my place for dinner last week, she looked pretty normal. Apart from one thing. Slung across her torso was a multi-coloured rope with her phone attached. I looked closer. Was it an excessively long lanyard? A spaghetti-thin handbag? No. Apparently, it’s a phone strap.

As it turns out, the concept is pretty simple. Picture an elongated necklace, that you can wear like a cross-body bag, only it exclusively carries your device. The apparatus is having a moment in general right now: American “It-girl” models Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner are often seen sporting beaded lanyards attached to their phones. And the accessory has even made its way to the frontbenches: deputy prime minister Angela Rayner wore one – albeit a more professional and plain version – to a meeting at 10 Downing Street last month.

In practical terms, the phone strap might make perfect sense, since the average person in the UK is glued to their phone for more than three-and-a-half hours per day – so why not make it a permanent fixture in your outfit? But, really, the trend hasn’t been inspired by our limb-like attachment to our devices at all. It’s just a way to distract women from noticing the lack of pockets on our clothes.

Women’s clothes have rarely been designed for practical purposes. It’s something that has bothered me for most of my life. That’s why I leap for joy when I find a dress or skirt with in-built pockets (or get jealous when I see a carefree man stroll around without a bag). In reality, most of my clothes have no pockets at all. Sometimes, at first glance, a garment I’m eyeing up might appear to have a pocket but it’s merely a “fake pocket”, and totally useless. And as for my jeans, their pockets are only big enough to hold a packet of Wrigley’s Extra. Even as I write this, my outfit has one functioning pocket, and it can’t even hold my phone. By comparison there’s no pocket poverty in menswear. Lush pouches of fabric are delicately sewn into the interior and exterior of suit jackets. And when it comes to trouser pockets, they are much deeper than women’s.

If you’ll allow me to dabble in some fashion history, it’s pretty clear that pockets are political. The story of their evolution in womenswear – or lack thereof – is defined by sexism and economic inequality, with women traditionally expected to dress for beauty rather than utility

But of course, women still had to carry stuff, even back in the 17th century. Then, women wore secret, removable pocket pouches underneath their petticoats. Some women used them to keep or hide sentimental items such as letters, portrait miniatures or other mementos of loved ones, according to the V&A. While its archives have little evidence of what women were storing in these bags, police records of pick-pocketing show that women would carry around utility objects like small knives, gloves or sewing items such as thimbles.

By the 20th century, when dresses became more form-fitting, pocket pouches had fallen totally out of favour. Speaking to The New York Times last year, Hannah Carlson, a fashion history lecturer and author of Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close, explained that many dressmakers didn’t want to sew pockets into women’s clothes because it interfered with the silhouette of the garment, especially if the pockets were filled. “Activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton had to plead with her dressmaker to include a pocket in her gown,” said Carlson. “Her dressmaker countered that pockets would ‘bulge you out just awful!’” It was a different story in menswear. Pockets became a standard when the suit became industrialised in the 1850s. Carlson explained that pockets were just “a part of doing business in menswear”.

Fast forward to the ultra-modern phone strap, it’s easy to see why they’re so popular among women. The accessories industry has long benefited from women’s lack of pockets: many fashion historians credit the boom of the handbag in the Fifties to women’s new-found independence in the post-war years and the fact that, well, women had more things to carry around.

The phone strap is another accessory to reap the benefits of women’s lack of pockets. It also makes sense for our current era, since everything we could possibly need now is digitised on our phones. Already, it seems that designer brands are cashing in, too – by charging a pretty penny for what is essentially rope. Prada sells a phone case on a metal chain for £810, Miu Miu sells a leather one for £480, and at Hermes: £1,280.

But whatever the cost, I secretly can’t stand them. For while the phone strap helps you carry your essentials, it also tends to ruin your outfit. I tried my friend’s technicoloured one: it was completely unflattering as it cut down the middle of my chest. And, might I add, it’s particularly irritating to have your phone repeatedly hit your bum when you walk at a semi-fast pace. I yearn for the days when I’ll be able to leave the house with no bag at all and instead wearing an outfit with pockets capable of holding my phone, keys and card holder. But that’s wishful thinking.

My friend, meanwhile, tells me she bought her phone strap so it’s physically attached to her while she is walking and using it. There’s been a rise in phone thefts in her area: one phone is now stolen in London every six minutes, according to the Met Police. In lieu of pockets, a phone strap might act as another layer of protection and a possible deterrent from the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it thieves who trawl around the city on bikes. And ironically, women are more likely to be victims of phone theft than men, according to government statistics.

Still, I’m unconvinced a strap will actually help. To put it to the test, me and my friend decide – after a few glasses of wine – to stage a fake mugging in my living room, to see if the accessory can withstand even the hardest of tugs. I throw it on, playing the victim in this bit of amateur dramatics; my gym-going friend is the thief. When she pulls on my phone, the rope is so strong that I get pulled down with it. Suddenly I’m on the floor. Surely, by now, the thief would have just laughed at me and swanned off?

But you know what might have really helped me in this scenario? Clothes with some actual pockets. Do you hear me, fashion gods?

Lamorne Morris has revealed how his daughter hilariously responded to his tearful reaction after learning he was nominated for an Emmy Award.

The 41-year-old took to his Instagram account on August 15 to share his reaction to the big news. Last month, Morris received his first-ever Emmy nomination for his role in Fargo, specifically for the Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or TV Movie category.

In the video, Morris sat at a table and used his shirt to cover his eyes, as he was in the midst of crying about his Emmy nomination. His three-year-old daughter, Lily, was seen laughing and smiling as she sat next to him.

“Daddy, are you crying again?” she asked, as her father was on the phone in shock over the nomination.

“Really?” he said. “Oh my god!”

As the New Girl star continued to get emotional, Lily then looked towards the camera, pointed at her father, and laughed at him. After she asked Morris if he was crying multiple times, he continued to wipe his tears with his shirt and addressed her question while on the phone.

“Oh god, Lily’s like, ‘Are you crying, Daddy?’” he said, while letting out a laugh. His daughter then once again asked for his attention, before he confirmed to her: “Yes baby, Daddy’s crying.”

The video ended with Morris kissing his daughter on the back of her head, as she smiled in response.

In the caption, the actor poked fun at how his daughter was amused by his crying. “When I found out I was nominated for an Emmy, my daughter thought it was appropriate to roast me,” he wrote.

Many fans and famous faces went to the comments of the post to praise Morris for the emotional video, as well as congratulating him on his Emmy nomination.

“Thank you for sharing this vulnerable, joyous moment with us. Real men cry, work hard, are funny, and deserve the recognition. Congrats!!” one fan wrote.

“This is so awful but so funny,” actor Kevin Fredericks hilariously commented.

Comedian Rick Glassman added: “It’s so lovely to see this means so much to you! As it should. You’ve been at this for so long and, as I said to you when I introduced myself to you when we first met, I’m such a fan of yours. This is so well deserved. Congratulations, Lamorne!!”

During his August 13 appearance on Today with Hoda & Jenna, Morris first shared the now-viral video of his reaction to the Emmy nomination. Speaking to the TV hosts, Morris expressed how he’s not afraid to get emotional – whether it’s during a happy or sad time – in front of his child.

“I think it’s beneficial for young kids to understand the differences between the two and that it’s okay to cry, whether you’re sad or happy,” he explained. “There are times where she’ll see me cry, maybe if I’m sad or because I lost someone, and she’s trying to understand what that means. And in this occasion, because I’m laughing and crying she’s confused and making fun of me.”

The Bloodshot star also opened up about his approaches to parenting, as he’s a single father. “She kind of has me wrapped around her finger,” she said. “I try to be like, ‘No, this is not how this is going down,’ but it always goes down the way she wants it to go down.”

When the Emmy nominations were first announced in July, Morris took to Instagram to celebrate by sharing a poster of himself in Fargo. “Thank you to the @TelevisionAcad for finally recognizing all my hard work on New Girl,” he poked fun in the caption. “Although I believe it’s a lock, I do see I’m nominated alongside @RobertDowneyJr who stole my role in Tropic Thunder. My fellow nominees and I won’t let this slide.”

He continued: “This is a great honor and I couldn’t be more excited! Truly blessed to work with such a talented cast and crew! Special thank you Noah for the opportunity and trusting me to bring Witt Farr to life! Go @fargo”

Along with Morris, six other actors were nominated for the Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or TV Movie category, including Jonathan Bailey, Robert Downey Jr, Tom Goodman-Hill, John Hawkes, Lewis Pullman, and the late Treat Williams.

A man has been defended online after revealing why he told his family he no longer wanted to attend their monthly dinners.

In a recent post shared to the popular “Am I The A**hole?” Reddit forum, a man explained that his family has cooked monthly dinners – which are “nicer ones than your average family dinner” – ever since he was a child. He noted that while his father used to host the monthly event, every member of the family now takes turns hosting to “lessen the burden.”

While the man’s wife was initially “excited to be a part” of the dinners, he was the one who did most of the cooking for the party. However, when she wanted to start cooking for monthly dinner, her husband’s family wasn’t thrilled about it.

“My family had seemingly got along with my wife before this point but they were overly harsh of her cooking (with the exception of my two younger siblings),” the Reddit user wrote. “She tried to make them happy but no dice. I told them they could be kinder. They said she should cook better or cook different things.”

He expressed that his wife “didn’t make anything” that his family didn’t typically eat, but they still didn’t enjoy her food. From there, she “grew frustrated” at the situation while her husband “grew suspicious.”

That’s when the man decided to host a monthly dinner and tell his family that he did the cooking, even though it was actually his wife, just to see their reaction. After recalling how his family would criticize his wife’s food – specifically her steak and potatoes, which other friends had “gone crazy” for – he revealed how his family responded to his plan.

“When my family thought I’d cooked it? They loved it. Said it was so good my wife had decided to let a real talent take over,” he continued. “That it was so nice to have something a little different (curry) and all this very lovely stuff.”

While his younger brother and sister were aware he didn’t cook the food, they still went along with the plan. When the Reddit user’s family learned that his wife actually made the food, they “tried so hard to backtrack on all the nice stuff” they said, resulting in an awkward meal. The man then decided that he didn’t want to take part in the monthly events.

“The rest of the dinner went in tense silence and my wife’s eyes were opened. I told her I was done with these dinners and she was my priority,” he added. “She felt a little bad. I told her we could have dinners with my younger brother and sister sometimes. It’s less stress anyway.”

When he and his wife skipped two family dinners in a row, his parents and siblings “started asking questions.” They also urged him to attend future monthly dinners, which he said he wouldn’t do. “I told them each time we weren’t going again but missing two made it sink in. They told me we need to be there. I said never again. My wife doesn’t deserve their disrespect,” he wrote. “I told them they ruined what they wanted by being a**holes to her.”

He explained that his family then accused him of “overreacting, making very relationship-harming choices, and treating them badly for simply having issues with [his] wife’s food.” His family also mentioned that he didn’t want their future children to miss out on these dinners, which was a comment that “got to [his] wife a little.”

The post has quickly gone viral, with more than 16,000 upvotes. In the comments, multiple people have defended the couple’s decision to skip the monthly dinners, claiming that it seems like the Reddit user’s family has bigger issues with his wife. They also praised the man for prioritizing his wife.

“It’s pretty clear the issue isn’t her food. It’s her. For whatever reason they don’t seem to like her.  Good for you for standing up to them,” one person wrote.

“The irony! They were the ones who made the ‘relationship harming choices,’” another Reddit user said. “When they were caught, they doubled down instead of apologizing and checking in on the why of their behavior, so they could grow and move past it. You did right by your wife and your family.”

“They don’t have a problem with her food, they have a problem with her. You are a very good husband sticking up for your wife and not putting up with that BS. They ruined it for everyone and now they get the consequences,” a third wrote. “Start a new tradition that includes showing love and respect for everyone, especially someone who cooks a meal for them. Only include the ones who are real.”

Other people gave their advice on how to handle the situation, urging the Reddit user to talk with his family about their treatment of his wife.

“You really need to have a conversation with your family on why they are mean to your wife. It is unlikely this behavior will change just because she stopped cooking (they will start criticizing something else about her),” one wrote. “Also, NO you DO NOT want your future children surrounded by people who criticize their mom for no reason. You don’t want them thinking it is OK for themselves to act like this, or for future partners to treat your children like this.”

Some people enjoy the idea of purchasing a cheaper home that needs renovation, or flipping a house for the sake of selling it for more money one day. But when one woman bought her first home last year, she soon discovered that it was completely unlivable.

Hannah, who goes by the username @it_is_hannah_banana on TikTok, recently detailed the “nightmare” discovery she made in her own house. “The story of how cat pee destroyed my house,” she captioned her video at the time.

She began by showing off various pictures of the house, as she told the harrowing story through text across the screen. The house was first purchased in July 2023 with a furnished basement, but soon after moving in her cat had “noticed something was wrong.”

Hannah’s cat found “dark spots” on the wooden floors and began “spraying” in the living area, which cats typically do to mark their territory. The TikToker decided to ask her father to come over and pull up some of the dark-spotted floorboards, assuming they would need to be replaced.

After he pulled them up, it was discovered that all of the baseboards and the floorboards were “soaked in cat urine.” They were not only darker than usual wood, but also noticeably rotting away. They decided to do more investigating throughout the house and found similar baseboards and floorboards in the bedroom covered in cat urine.

“Found floor joists soaked in what appeared to be many months or even years of cat urine,” text across the screen read, showing more rotting wood. “The smell was putrid and you couldn’t breathe in the room without an N95 mask.”

Eventually, she discovered that there were dark spots all throughout the house, making the problem “much bigger than we thought.” They then found cat urine in the vents, prompting them to isolate all of their belongings in the kitchen before beginning to “tear apart the house.”

“There was so much cat pee it soaked into the ceiling underneath the bedroom floors,” she continued. “My beautiful first house became my worst nightmare.”

Her video went on to receive more than two million views, as many people turned to the comments section to express how bad they felt for the first-time home buyer. Meanwhile, others assumed the home was a “flipped house” gone wrong.

“It was a flipped house, right? They knew and hid it. I hate flippers,” one comment read.

Another commenter agreed, writing: “Must have been a hoarding situation before the house was flipped. I’m so sorry.”

Responding to the comment, the TikToker revealed that the previous owner of the house had many cats when she passed away and they were left alone for “awhile” before being found.

Other commenters pointed out that she could possibly pursue legal action if she wanted to. “Not sure where you are but in the states you can sometimes sue people you purchased your home from if they purposely didn’t disclose damage done to the house and an inspection wouldn’t normally find,” one person suggested.

Another commenter wrote: “Please please sue for non disclosure. It is worth the hassle.”

Since posting her original video, Hannah has posted several videos updating fans and showing further areas of the house affected by the cat urine. Earlier this month, Hannah revealed in a subsequent video that she and her family have finally moved into the upstairs of their house after 10 months of renovations, while they work to remove cat urine from the basement.

“We’re still getting cat pee out of the basement but so glad to be moved back in to the upstairs!” she replied to one TikTok user.

Blake Lively’s recent fan interaction has raised eyebrows amid controversy surrounding the actor’s new movie, It Ends With Us.

While the Gossip Girl alum attended the It End With Us movie premiere in London on August 8, a fan was seen handing her a pink friendship bracelet – which she quickly looked at before handing it off to someone else. A video of the interaction has gone viral on TikTok, as Lively is heard telling the fan: “Thank you so much. That’s so sweet.”

She then informed the fan that she won’t be wearing the bracelet because it didn’t match her floral strapless Tamara Ralph couture gown. “I’m going to put it here because it doesn’t go with my outfit, but I will wear it later,” she said.

However, the same fan went on to hand a second bracelet to Lively’s co-star in the film, Isabela Ferrer, who immediately placed the hand-made jewelry on her wrist. “Thank you! Oh my God, I’m going to put it on,” she told the fan, according to the viral clip.

The TikTok went on to receive more than two million views, as many people turned to the comments section and expressed their disbelief that Lively would actually uphold her promise of wearing the bracelet.

“I will wear it later. Yeah ok,” one person sarcastically wrote in the comments.

Another commenter agreed, writing: “If someone said that to me I’d like cry.”

Multiple TikTokers also pointed out that Lively’s dress and earrings seemed to match the friendship bracelet, claiming that she shouldn’t have used her outfit as an excuse.

“The way it actually FITS her whole outfit lmaooo,” one comment read, while another wrote: “Okay but it did match her outfit though.”

“It literally matched HER EARRINGS,” a third person wrote in the comments.

The video comes after fans have increasingly criticized Lively for her “tone-deaf” approach to the It Ends With Us press tour, considering that it is an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s book about domestic violence and abuse.

Earlier this week, journalist Kjersti Flaa posted an interview with Lively from 2016 that she claimed made her want to “quit my job.” The sit-down was in promotion for Lively’s film Café Society, directed by Woody Allen. Lively was accompanied by her co-star Parker Posey. Around the same time as the interview, Lively had announced that she was pregnant with her second child with husband Ryan Reynolds. Flaa had told the actor, “Congrats on your little bump,” which led to Lively sarcastically respond: “Congrats on your little bump.”

Posey appeared to use comedic relief by showing off her backside “bump,” after which Lively went on to speak about the actor’s “lovely lady lumps” as Flaa waited to begin the interview.

Speaking about the film, the journalist said she found it “visually amazing” and asked whether either of the women enjoyed the fashion, because the film was set in the 1930s. Lively was then seen ignoring Flaa, and instead turned to Posey to say: “Everyone wants to talk about the clothes, but I wonder if they would ask the men about the clothes.”

Although Flaa insisted that she “would” have asked the male actors the same question, Lively seemed to ignore her as she went on to speak with Posey about the best outfits worn by the men in the film.

She concluded: “It’s not just the women that have the clothes, but I feel like the women get the conversation.”

Hong Kong’s beloved female panda Ying Ying has given birth to twins, becoming the oldest first-time giant panda mother.

The glorious panda gave birth to the cubs on Thursday in Hong Kong’s Ocean Park, a day before she turned 19. Ying Ying was born in Wolong, China on August 16, 2006.

Her babies are a rarity because if she were a human, she would be 57 years old.

As per the caretakers, the baby pandas are very fragile and to stabilize, they require time and care. They also said that the cubs are under 24-hour intensive care.

“We are all looking forward to meeting the giant panda cubs. Please wait a few months patiently to make their debut and officially meet everyone!” Ocean Park Hong Kong stated as quoted by BBC.

The female panda has given birth to a male and a female cub. Of the two, the sister panda looks to be weaker than her brother because her body temperature is lower and her cries are weaker than the male baby panda. It also does not help that she weighs just 122g.

Giant pandas are reserved when it comes to mating but Ying Ying and the cubs’ father, Le Le, successfully mated at the Ocean Park in March. The pair have been at the park since 2007 when they were presented as a gift by Beijing to Hong Kong.

China has been working tirelessly to prevent the population decline of panda bears. The country’s efforts have led to panda being considered a vulnerable species but not on the verge of extinction.

Boxer Imane Khelif has shown off a new look after her performance at the Paris 2024 Olympics became met with an online row over her gender.

In a joint video shared on Instagram by Beauty Code and Khelif, the Olympian could be seen standing front and center, wearing a blue shirt and her red boxing gloves. The video then switched to a shot of Khelif in a different look, as she wore a white button-down floral shirt and hoop earrings, which had pink flowers attached to them.

She also wore pink eyeshadow and matching lipstick, as well as a silver necklace. Khelif completed her look with her gold medal, which she won in the women’s welterweight tournament in Paris on August 9. The video ended with the Algerian athlete smiling at the camera with her flowing curled hair.

In the caption, which has been translated from Arabic to English, Beauty Code noted that while Khelif was “changing her appearance” in the video, the boxer was not defined by her looks. She also “did not seek to change her form to fit the molds that the world wants to confine us to.”

“Her message is much deeper: clothes do not make a monk, and appearance does not reveal the essence of a person,” the caption read. “She can be feminine and elegant when she wants, but on the ring, she does not need makeup or high heels. She only needs strategy, strength, and to throw blows, which is where the essence of her personality lies.”

On X, formerly Twitter, many people praised Khelif’s new look while also expressing that the boxer shouldn’t have to make her appearance seem more feminine.

“Very stunning woman. the internet owes her an apology,” one person wrote, while another added: “She looks absolutely gorgeous and the haters are still crying.”

“The fact that she was forced into a hyper-feminine aesthetic to please the gaze of strangers is kinda lame. But, the makeover eats — nibbles a bit, I should say,” a third person posted.

Another argued: “She did not need to do this. I saw her Instagram and there’s nowhere where this is her persona. They should have just left her alone in peace.”

During the Olympics, Khelif first outboxed Yang Liu to win gold in the women’s welterweight tournament, becoming Algeria’s first woman to ever win a gold medal in boxing at the games. However, days earlier, outrage exploded following Angela Carini’s withdrawal after 46 seconds in her round-of-16 bout against the Algerian. During the match, Carini could also be heard telling her coach, “It’s not right, it’s not right!” – which prompted an online row about Khelif, who allegedly failed a gender eligibility test in 2023.

Last year, Khelif was disqualified hours before her gold-medal bout at the women’s World Championships in New Delhi, after she failed to meet the International Boxing Association’s (IBA) eligibility criteria. Taiwan’s double world champion Lin Yu-ting also lost her bronze medal at the same competition after she too failed to meet the criteria.

The IBA did not specify why the boxers failed their gender eligibility tests but did clarify that neither underwent testosterone examinations. Neither Khelif nor Lin, 28, identifies as transgender or intersex. However, the International Olympic Committee said in July that they were both cleared to compete in the 2024 Olympics.

Following her gold medal win at the Olympics, Khelif addressed how she’d be scrutinized on social media with comments about her gender. “I’m a woman, I was born a woman, I lived a woman. There’s no doubt about that,” she declared at the event. “All that is being said about me on social media is immoral. I want to change the minds of people around the world.”

Khelif also said that by winning gold, she was sending the IBA a message about “dignity and honor.”

“As for if I qualify or not, if I’m a woman or not: I made many statements in the media, I’m fully qualified, I’m a woman, I was born a woman, I lived a woman. There’s no doubt about that,” she added. “These people [who claim I am not], they are the enemies of success. It’s what I call them. It gives my success a special taste because of these attacks.”

Khelif later filed a legal complaint, citing herself as the victim of online harassment. In the lawsuit, her lawyer Nabil Boudi alleged that she was the target of “aggravated cyber-harassment.” In a statement, he described the online backlash as a “misogynist, racist and sexist campaign” against the boxer.

On August 13, Boudi told Variety: “JK Rowling and Elon Musk are named in the lawsuit, among others.” He added that Donald Trump would be part of the investigation. “Trump tweeted, so whether or not he is named in our lawsuit, he will inevitably be looked into as part of the prosecution.”

19 Kids and Counting star Jana Duggar has tied the knot two months after getting engaged to fiancé Stephan Wissmann.

The oldest daughter in the family of 19 children celebrated her wedding on Thursday, August 15, in Prairie Grove, Arkansas, in front of 500 guests, according to People.

“I think it is one of those things that all girls envision someday,” Duggar, 34, told the outlet, two days before the ceremony. “For me, it felt like, ‘Okay, it’s never coming.’ But now it’s starting to sink in. Reality is starting to set in. And I’m like, ‘Wow, this truly is something that I’ve dreamed of.’ And just to see it coming about is incredible and kind of hard to believe. It’s a dream come true.”

Members of her large family were all featured in the wedding, including her sister Jessa Duggar Seewald as her maid-of-honor. Her sister-in-law, Abbie Duggar, and sisters Joy-Anna Forsyth, Johannah Duggar, Jinger Duggar Vuolo, and Jordyn Duggar were all bridesmaids.

The bride added that because both her and her fiancé come from large families – Wissmann is one of 13 siblings – their goal throughout the planning process was to keep the wedding simple and accommodate both families.

“The venue is already so gorgeous and picturesque that I didn’t want to take too much from that. The guys will be in black suits, the girls in champagne-colored dresses, and then just white flowers and greenery,” Duggar said. “Coming from two bigger families, we love to be able to get together and celebrate moments like these. And so to have all of them there, it just means a lot.”

The now-married couple first met through their families years before getting together. “[The Wissmann’s] would travel and sing. I remember them coming to our home, probably 13 or so years ago and they ended up getting snowed-in here, which hardly ever happens in Arkansas,” Duggar recalled.

“I remember just playing games late into the night, doing puzzles together until the snow melted off, and they were able to travel back home. I don’t really remember Stephen that well because I’m older than him and so he was not at all on my radar.”

They went on to briefly date before ending the relationship, although they did keep in touch and “talked to each other on and off over the years.”

Duggar and Wissmann reconnected when they became in-laws. Her brother, Jeremiah Duggar, and his sister, Hannah Wissmann, got married in 2022, which led to the two of them reevaluating their relationship. “It was like, ‘What are we doing? We still enjoy each other. We still really appreciate each other,’” Duggar said.

She explained that despite taking extra time to open up to her now-husband, he proved to her that he was worth it.

“I had been a slower mover on it, but just over time, his character, his coming back, still loving me no matter what,” the oldest Duggar daughter said. “I know we have a big crazy family and still kind of putting up with a lot of things. I’m like, my goodness, there are not too many people that do that. He must really, genuinely care about me.”

“It takes me a bit to open up, but I think just his continuing to be there, no matter what, through ups and downs. He’s been a good friend over the years and has not pressured me in a lot of ways,” she added.

Duggar’s family came to fame on the TLC reality show, 19 Kids and Counting. The series followed her parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, as well as their 19 children – all of whom have names that begin with J – and the family’s devout Christian faith.

The show ran from 2008 until its cancellation in 2015, following allegations that Josh Duggar – the eldest son of the Duggar family – molested five girls, including some of his sisters. He is currently in prison after being convicted in 2021 of one count of receiving and one count of possessing child pornography. He had pleaded not guilty.