Names and faces
■ A former adviser to Melania Trump who wrote a tell-all book about the first lady has been sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for breaching an agreement not to disclose confidential information. Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the author of “Melania and Me,” is accused of violating an agreement she signed in 2017 while working as an aide to President Donald Trump’s wife, the U.S. government said in a complaint filed Tuesday in federal court in Washington. “Ms. Wolkoff never submitted a draft of the book to the First Lady, her Chief of Staff, or the Office of White House Counsel and never received authorization to disclose any information she learned pursuant to her work under the agreement,” the Justice Department said in the complaint. “Melania and Me” was published last month by Simon & Schuster, and the government is asking that any profits from the book be set aside in a trust. Wolkoff fired back in a statement saying she fulfilled all the terms of her agreement and the confidentiality provisions ended when her contract was terminated. “The President and First Lady’s use of the U.S. Department of Justice to silence me is a violation of my First Amendment Rights and a blatant abuse of the government to pursue their own personal interests and goals,” Wolkoff said. “I will not be deterred by these bullying tactics.”
■ Grammy-nominated lyricist Rapsody has written “maybe 15 verses this year to reflect the times” — as she put it — about the Black experience. So when Disney asked the rapper to pen a new tune for a new EP honoring Black lives and social justice, she thought to herself: “How else can I talk about what’s going on?” Recorded under quarantine during the pandemic, Rapsody came up with the soulful rap tune “Pray Momma Don’t Cry,” one of four songs featured on “I Can’t Breathe/Music for the Movement,” a four-song album that is a joint venture between Disney Music Group and The Undefeated, ESPN’s platform for exploring the intersections of race, sports and culture. Rapsody’s song is the sole original track on the EP with the rest of the album focused on covers of historically significant songs like Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” The Impressions’ “People Get Ready” and Marvin Gaye’s “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology).” In crafting the lyrics, Rapsody said she thought of “Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin."