Biden to be on Vogue’s cover
The White House appears to be back in Vogue’s good graces.
Jill Biden, the first lady, will appear on the cover of the August issue of the magazine, continuing a tradition that Anna Wintour, the magazine’s editor, had paused during the Trump presidency.
In interviews with writer Jonathan Van Meter, Biden, who is the first in her role to keep her day job, said the mood of the country had changed with President Joe Biden’s election.
As first lady, Biden keeps a busy travel schedule that currently outpaces her husband’s, and she is viewed as something of a secret weapon by administration officials. She has traveled to promote pandemic relief legislation and encourage young people to receive the coronavirus vaccine.
Biden’s staff has told the president’s advisers to use her in whatever way might be helpful to further the president’s agenda.
In a separate interview for the Vogue piece, Joe Biden said that Jill Biden came into the White House understanding how to use the platform after spending eight years as second lady.
“It was clear to me that she knew exactly what she would do if she were first lady,” Joe Biden said.
Melania Trump, who had been featured on the cover as part of a feature on her marriage to Donald Trump, was informally barred from the magazine by Wintour, who, when asked about featuring Trump in the magazine, said in 2019 “I don’t think it’s a moment not to take a stand.”
— New York Times
Ex-husband, singer support Spears
Two prominent figures from Britney Spears’ past have added their voices to the growing chorus of support for the pop musician following last week’s bombshell court hearing.
Spears’ ex-husband Kevin Federline and fellow “Mickey Mouse Club” alum Christina Aguilera both spoke out on behalf of the “Toxic” artist Monday.
Their statements come nearly a week after Spears delivered an emotional plea to a Los Angeles court requesting termination of her controversial conservatorship.
“What is best for her, Kevin supports her in being able to do that,” Federline’s attorney, Mark Vincent Kaplan, told “Entertainment Tonight.”
“It doesn’t matter how positive of an effect a conservatorship has had if it’s having a deleterious effect and detrimental effect on her state of mind.”
Spears shares two children - Sean, 15, and Jayden, 14 - with Federline, the backup dancer-turned-dj to whom she was married from 2004 to 2007.
Federline believes Spears should have “the best environment for her to live in and for his children to visit with their mother in,” his lawyer said, and “feels that the best thing for his children is for their mother to be happy and healthy.”
In a lengthy Twitter thread, Aguilera also defended Spears, whom she met in the early 1990s while shooting “The Allnew Mickey Mouse Club.”
“It is unacceptable that any woman, or human, wanting to be in control of their own destiny might not be allowed to live life as they wish. To be silenced, ignored, bullied or denied support by those ‘close’ to you is the most depleting, devastating and demeaning thing imaginable,” Aguilera added. “The harmful mental and emotional damage this can take on a human spirit is nothing to be taken lightly.
”Every woman must have the right to her own body, her own reproductive system, her own privacy, her own space, her own healing and her own happiness.“
After appearing on the revival of ”The Mickey Mouse Club“together as children, Aguilera and Spears went on to launch parallel careers in music. — Los Angeles Times
Actresses appointed to museum’s board
Actresses Sofía Vergara and Eva Longoria, musician and producer Emilio Estefan, and chef-activist José Andrés have been appointed to the board of trustees of the planned National Museum of the American Latino, the Smithsonian Board of Regents announced Tuesday.
Also named are Alberto Ibargüen, chief executive of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and former publisher of the Miami Herald; Henry Muñoz III, who served as chairman of the commission that reported to Congress on the museum’s potential; José Luis Prado of Wind Point Partners and former Quaker Oats North America president; and health care executive and physician J. Mario Molina, one of five siblings who donated $10 million to the Smithsonian for the Molina Family Latino Gallery, the precursor to the museum that is expected to open next spring in the National Museum of American History.
Three executives will represent Smithsonian’s corporate partners: Bank of America’s Raul A. Anaya, Coca-cola Co.’s Alfredo Rivera and Target executive Rick Gomez. — Washington Post