Happy Birthday America 🇺🇸 #ProudToBeAnAmerican pic.twitter.com/CAc7iGa9ZS
— Jessica Simpson (@JessicaSimpson) July 4, 2017
* "LEA MICHELE STILL IN A BIKINI OF THE DAY."BONUS: "BELLA THORNE IN A BATH FOR AMERICA OF THE DAY."
* "ARIEL WINTER’S CLEAVAGE FOR AMERICA OF THE DAY."
* "CHRISTIN MILIAN STLL TRYING TO BE A KARDASHIAN FOR AMERICA OF THE DAY."
* "CHANEL IMAN MODEL IN A BIKINI ON THE BEACH OF THE DAY."
* "ALESSANDRA AMBROSIO’S BIKINI OF THE DAY."
* "PARIS JACKSON IS SPENDING HER INHERITANCE RIGHT OF THE DAY."
* "HILARY DUFF IN A BIKINI OF THE DAY."
* "PREGNANT REESE WITHERSPOON BATHING SUIT SHOOT OF THE DAY."
With my journey with the blog about to conclude, it will probably surprise no one that my quest continues. Retirement still eludes me, because I want it to. Next, I will be expanding my role in covering the Court for Constitution Daily, the blog of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. My editor there, Scott Bomboy, is as imaginative a leader as I have ever had, and the Center has grown in stature and cultural impact with Jeff Rosen in charge. The Court’s press room, thus, has not seen the last of me. I will always be reachable at lylden at aol.com.
And, through the generosity of the leaders and faculty at the University of Baltimore and its Law School, and my friend, the uniquely talented Garrett Epps, I will take on a role as a lecturer and visiting professor. Since my days with The Baltimore Sun, I have never lost my affection for Charm City, and the University is a dynamic presence in its midst.
And, who knows, I may still have a book or two waiting, inside me, to be written...
With American-backed ground forces poised to recapture Mosul in Iraq and Raqqah in Syria, Islamic State’s de facto capitals, U.S. commanders are confident they soon will vanquish the militant group from its self-declared caliphate after three years of fighting.Still more.
But the White House has yet to define strategy for the next step in the struggle to restore stability in the region, including key decisions about safe zones, reconstruction, nascent governance, easing sectarian tensions and commitment of U.S. troops.
Nor has the Trump administration set policy for how it will confront forces from Iran and Russia, the two outside powers that arguably gained the most in the bitter conflict — and that now are hoping to collect the spoils and expand their influence.
Iran, in particular, is pushing to secure a land corridor from its western border across Iraq and Syria and up to Lebanon, where it supports Hezbollah militants, giving it a far larger foothold in the turbulent region.
“Right now everyone is positioned” for routing Islamic State “without having the rules of the road,” said Michael Yaffe, a former State Department envoy for the Middle East who is now vice president of the Middle East and Africa center at the U.S. Institute of Peace. “That’s a dangerous situation.”
The risk of a broader confrontation was clear in recent weeks when a U.S. F/A-18 shot down a Syrian fighter jet for the first time in the multi-sided six-year war, provoking an angry response from Russia, which supports Syrian President Bashar Assad.
U.S. warplanes also destroyed two Iranian-made drone aircraft, although it’s not clear who was flying them. The Pentagon said all the attacks were in self-defense as the aircraft approached or fired on American forces or U.S.-backed Syrian fighters.
“What I worry about is the muddled mess scenario,” said Ilan Goldenberg, a former senior State Department official who now heads the Middle East program at the nonpartisan Center for a New American Security. “When you start shooting down planes and running into each other, it quickly goes up the escalation ladder.”
The clashes occurred in eastern Syria, where Russian-backed Syrian and Iranian forces are pushing against U.S. special operations forces and U.S.-backed Syrian opposition fighters trying to break Islamic State’s hold on the Euphrates River valley south of Raqqah and into Iraq.
Except for a few towns, Islamic State still controls the remote area, and U.S. officials fear the militants could regroup there and plan future attacks. Many of the group’s leaders and operatives have taken shelter in Dair Alzour province...
Before the cameras even started rolling, Chad Johnson was drunk. Not tipsy; hammered. By the time production on “Bachelor in Paradise” kicked off at 11 a.m. in Sayulita, Mexico, the reality star had already taken seven shots of Jack Daniel’s whiskey and downed a whole bottle of wine.Keep reading.
Because, he figured: Why not? He’d agreed to go on the third season of the spinoff of ABC’s “The Bachelor” because it seemed like a paid vacation, replete with bikini-clad women, a private beach and an open bar. Also, alcohol loosened him up — he wanted to be liked by his new cast mates, and when he drank, he felt like he was instantly funnier.
“Plus, when you’re filming the show, you have this adrenaline pump of being on TV, so you can drink more and are still capable of walking and talking,” Johnson, 29, explained. “There are points of time on the show where you’re still conscious, where in the real world, you would have been asleep somewhere 10 hours earlier.”
But no one on the production team put Johnson to bed. Instead, he passed out on the sand, as crabs crawled over his face. The next morning, he learned he engaged in an aggressive make-out session with one female cast member and hurled insults at another who was born with only one full arm. He was also told he’d soiled himself during his sleep.
Johnson’s behavior that night had consequences: Within hours, host Chris Harrison was dispatched to tell him he was no longer welcome on the show.
*****
Heavy drinking is not uncommon on the “Bachelor” shows, with contestants sometimes becoming so intoxicated that they see the extent of their behavior only when it eventually airs on national television. Often, drunken antics are played for humor — there’s usually that one person who gets so sloshed at the “Bachelor” mansion on night one that they do something embarrassing in front of their potential husband or wife. But for the first time in the franchise's 15-year history, an incident fueled by on-set drinking has led to both public scrutiny and reports of internal policy changes regarding alcohol and sexual behavior.
On June 4, the first day of filming on “Paradise’s” fourth season at the Playa Escondida resort, a male and female contestant got drunk and had an encounter in the pool that the male said in a televised interview involved a sexual act.
At first, the incident seemed par for the course in “Paradise.” Contestants regularly get frisky in the open and have sex in bedrooms without doors — though the footage rarely shows anything too raunchy.
A couple of days later, though, the two contestants were pulled aside and told that two producers had filed third-party complaints with Warner Bros., the production company that produces the ABC show, related to the pool encounter. The entire cast was flown back to the U.S. On June 11, Warner Bros. released a statement announcing production had been suspended while it investigated claims of alleged misconduct.
The female contestant, Corinne Olympios, hired a high-profile Hollywood lawyer, Marty Singer, and issued her own statement. “Although I have little memory of that night,” the 24-year-old said, “something bad obviously took place.” The male contestant, 30-year-old DeMario Jackson, retained his own counsel and told his side of the story, including a detailed description of what he says was a consensual encounter, in a televised interview on E! News earlier this week.
On June 20, Warner Bros. announced that its internal investigation did not “support any charge of misconduct” or show that the “safety of any cast member was ever in jeopardy.” Production resumed last weekend with what Warner Bros. described as “certain changes to the show’s policies” to enhance participants’ safety.
Warner Bros. declined to elaborate on those changes, but on Tuesday, TMZ reported that the show had instituted a slew of new rules: Contestants must adhere to a two-drink-per-hour maximum, and before initiating sex, they must check with a producer tasked with making sure both parties are able to give consent.
Olympios said in a statement to The Times on Thursday that she was “happy” about the changes on the show. In the statement, she said her legal team had completed its investigation to her “satisfaction” and that she had no complaints about the production...
