Author: Shekari Philemon

The woman accused of opening fire outside Rihanna’s Beverly Hills home returned to a Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday for a brief hearing that ended without any change to her legal situation. Ivanna Ortiz, who pleaded not guilty last month to 14 charges including attempted murder, appeared before a new judge assigned to the case who denied a request from her public defender to lower her nearly two-million-dollar bail. The hearing was short but significant in its outcome. A date for a full preliminary hearing will be set at Ortiz’s next scheduled court appearance on May 13, moving the case…

A Georgia judge has granted NBA Hall of Famer Dwight Howard a protective order against his estranged wife, Amy Luciani, escalating what was already a deeply troubled divorce into something considerably more alarming. Under the terms of the order, Luciani must remain at least 100 feet away from Howard and his children at all times. She is also barred from contacting them by phone or social media, from approaching the family’s Georgia home and from coming near the private school the children attend. The order was signed earlier this week, weeks after Howard filed for divorce for the second time…

The popular image of bipolar disorder tends to be extreme. A person riding a wave of boundless energy, talking fast, barely sleeping, then crashing into a stretch of days they can barely get through. That version exists, but it represents only a slice of what the condition actually looks like across a population. Many people living with bipolar disorder never experience those dramatic swings at all. Experts, including those affiliated with the American Psychological Association, are increasingly framing bipolar not as a single fixed condition but as a spectrum, a shift that is reshaping how clinicians recognize, diagnose and treat…

For years, a troubling pattern has persisted in oncology. Black women are diagnosed with breast cancer at slightly lower rates than white women, yet they die from it at a rate 40% higher. Researchers, doctors and advocates have long pointed to systemic inequities as the cause, and while those factors are real, a significant new study suggests the picture is far more complex and the answer may lie inside the tumor itself. A study published in Nature Partners Journal Breast Cancer, led by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, examined more than 1,000 women, split nearly evenly between Black and…

Before the controversies, there was the music. The artist now known as Ye, born Kanye West, entered the industry not as a rapper but as a producer, crafting beats for some of the biggest names in hip-hop during the early 2000s. He then launched a solo career that would go on to redefine the genre, with a string of albums and singles that pushed the boundaries of what rap could sound like. For roughly a decade, he was considered one of the most creatively daring figures in popular music. That legacy has not disappeared, but it has been buried under…

A Monday evening that began like any other night near one of South Florida’s most prominent entertainment destinations ended with one of hip-hop’s most recognizable names in a hospital bed. Offset, the 34-year-old rapper whose legal name is Kiari Kendrell Cephus, was shot in the valet area outside the Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood after 7 p.m. local time. He was transported to a nearby hospital and is being closely monitored in stable condition, according to a representative speaking on his behalf. Law enforcement confirmed that the injuries sustained were non-life-threatening and that two people were detained in connection with the…

A single blood pressure reading taken during a routine doctor’s visit may not reflect much about what is actually happening in a person’s daily life. Clinic environments can elevate readings on their own, a well-documented phenomenon that cardiologists take into account when evaluating patients. What happens the other 23 hours of the day, at home, at work, and under the quiet pressures of ordinary life, often tells a more accurate story. That is why cardiologists increasingly recommend that patients with hypertension or borderline readings keep a home monitor and check their numbers regularly. The data gathered over days and weeks…

When asked Monday whether the conflict with Iran was winding down or escalating, President Donald Trump told reporters he could not say. The response captured the uncertainty surrounding one of the most consequential foreign policy moments of his presidency, as military pressure mounted and diplomatic efforts appeared to be losing ground. Trump said at the same press conference that Iran could be removed from the equation in a single night and suggested that night might be Tuesday. He also reiterated a firm deadline of 8 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, warning that…

A new Netflix documentary about Lamar Odom’s near-fatal 2015 overdose has reignited a complicated conversation about survival, credit, and competing memories. The film, which premiered at the end of March, focuses on the events surrounding Odom’s collapse at a Nevada brothel and the four months he spent recovering in a hospital, during which time Khloé Kardashian, his estranged wife at the time, remained consistently at his bedside despite having already filed for divorce. Odom suffered six heart attacks and twelve strokes and spent three days in a coma. What followed was a recovery that his doctors described in terms that…

President Donald Trump stood before reporters at the White House Monday flanked by his top national security officials and described what he called one of the largest, most complex, and most harrowing search-and-rescue missions ever attempted by the American military. The account centered on two airmen shot down over Iran the previous Friday, whose recovery took nearly 48 hours, involved hundreds of personnel, and required the CIA to run a deception operation inside Iranian territory while thousands of Iranian forces searched the same terrain. The American F-15E fighter jet was struck by a shoulder-fired heat-seeking missile, Trump disclosed, bringing the…