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When the hugely anticipated new series of Game of Thrones begins next week, fans will be seeing a little less of the Mother of Dragons.

Emilia Clarke doesn’t flinch about appearing nude on screen and stripped down in the very first episode, later famously walking out of a fire wearing nothing but her newborn dragons.

She also had a nude scene in her 2013 Broadway debut in Breakfast at Tiffany’s when audience members infamously took photos of her during the show, causing the theatre to beef up security.

But in the new series of the sex and swords fantasy, the 29-year-old is keeping hernudity to a minimum.

Emilia is now one of the show’s biggest stars and her character Daenerys Targaryen is allowed to clutch a sheet over her breasts after sex.

“There are other women who remove items of clothing on our show, so they’ve kind of got my nipple count down now,” she jokes.
And she’s obviously serious about keeping her clothes on more often these days, having turned down the role of Anastasia Steele in Fifty Shades of Grey.
“I’d done nudity before and was concerned with being labelled for doing it again,” she says. The role eventually went to Dakota Johnson .
We are in the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills the morning after the premiere of season six of Game of Thrones.

It is the first not based on the books of George RR Martin – and London-born Emilia is under strict instructions not to discuss what happens next.

“There are no more books so this is uncharted territory – brand spanking new information which is why everyone has to be so much more discreet,” she says.
“In previous seasons you could ask someone who read the books what happens and they would tell you but now it’s anyone’s game. No one is safe – literally.
“It’s so hard keeping quiet because all you want to do is scream it from the rooftops and all HBO want you to do is not scream it from the rooftops,” she laughs.
“So I’m going to try and talk in code.
HBOEmilia Clarke as Daenerys
Emilia with Jason Momoa as Khal Drogo
“It’s a really fascinating season for everyone but especially for Daenerys.
"She’s on quite a journey and I feel like every season I talk about how much she’s learned but with this season it’s not so much that she learned anything new but that she finally has an opportunity to put everything she’s ever learned into play.
“When we last saw her she was completely on her own and now she’s been landed in this area that’s alien to her and she’s forced to use all of the resources she has found within herself and it’s pretty impressive.
"She lands on her feet, does very well and it’s safe to say that her eyes are on the prize. This is like a big one for her.”
Emilia reveals her mother gave her some stern advice just before the premiere.
PAEmilia Clarke plays Sarah Connor, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays the Terminator and Jai Courtney plays Kyle Reese
Emilia Clarke played Sarah Connor in Terminator Genisys
“She said to me: ‘Don’t talk about the penises,’” laughs Emilia. “That quote about penises is following me.”
It was on the Graham Norton Show that she talked about a notorious scene in which Jason Momoa’s character Khal Drogo raped Daenerys.
“Obviously there’s nudity so you try and lighten the mood,” she said. So Jason put a pink fluffy sock over his manhood and Emilia blurted out, without thinking: “It’s huge and it’s pink!”
Before fame, Emilia studied at Drama Centre London. In her final year she landed her first TV guest spot in soap opera Doctors, followed by a role in cheesy dinosaur movie Triassic Attack.
HBOGame of Thrones rape scene
Emilia insisted that Daenerys was empowered by the rape in her marriage after she overcame it
But she has no illusions about where her career might have headed had she not landed the Game of Thrones role.
“There’s a wicked bar in Hackney in East London I was working in so I’d probably still be there,” she laughs.
She is half-joking but she says seriously: “Game of Thrones was the creation of my career. It opened all the doors.”
It led to the starring role in Breakfast at Tiffany’s on the Broadway stage and a major Hollywood role with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator Genisys.
She has two films awaiting release, the Hitchcock-style thriller Voice From the Stone and the drama Me Before You with Sam Claflin.
But her busy work schedule leaves little time for boyfriends although in the past she dated Seth MacFarlane, Kit Harrington and Jai Courtney, with whom she co-starred in Terminator Genisys.
While no longer needing to strip is a positive effect of her fame, the downside is recognition and demands from fans.
Emilia went for a drink at her local pub in Hampstead, North London, and was able to enjoy an uninterrupted laugh and a chat with her mates. Then the inevitable happened and people recognised her.
The Late Late Show with James Corden/Youtube
Game of Thrones has catapulted Emilia to stardom
“It was good for an hour and a half,” she says.
“I was sitting at a table and my mates would go up to the bar and the fact I wasn’t wearing the white wig I wear on the show does so much.
"But after a little while you sense the change in the air and people start to point and look and then it’s time to go.”
She spends what little free time she has scouring antique shops.
“Collecting art is a new, big passion of mine and I love finding different things for the house from different countries I visit.
“It’s been quite a journey and I’ve been incredibly lucky to be able to have a character where I get to show the audience her backstory,” she says.
“The only way that you’re truly going to find the empathy of an audience is to show them what you’ve been through and so with Daenerys we see the pains and the struggles that she had and then to go from there, from that desperate point of being very much a used and abused young girl, to riding off into the sunset on a dragon is kind of cool. It’s kind of amazing.”



Lil Kim posted new photos and a video on Sunday in which she appears to be completely white, and now fans are reacting to the rapper’s shocking transformation. See fan tweets below, as well as the pictures and footage she posted.

Lil Kim posted an Instagram video of herself with two friends at the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami, as well as a collection of selfies featuring herself with bleached blonde hair and what some people suspect to be bleached skin. Upon seeing the singer’s new look, a Twitter fan named @__ShaaeJay wrote, “It’s really so sad that Lil Kim didn’t realize how beautiful she was without all of the surgery & bleaching.” A person with the handle @Liberienne similarly expressed, “Lil Kim situation is sad because she was a dark skinned Black woman. Not mixed, not racially ambiguous. Dark skinned. And beautiful.”

A fan named @GavinJ4Kim said, “Dark skinned Lil Kim was perfection… I don’t know who this women is anymore,” while Twitter user @monicanen felt, “Lil Kim’s surgeries break my heart, I don’t wanna talk about it.” And a person using the handle @dante2534 noted, “I’m so sad for Lil Kim and her current face. Self hate in our community is very real and worth discussing.”

A couple of fans couldn’t help but poke fun at the situation, with @KingMagma writing, “Whoa thats lil kim looking like a One Direction member?” A fan named @pjhoody joked, “Lil Kim would rather be an ugly white woman than a pretty black one. God bless.” Meanwhile, a person with the handle @drakegroupie simply stated, “I honesty don’t know what happened to lil Kim that made her want to be white.” See the photos and video below of Lil Kim’s new look.

Amid this weekend's flurry of Lemonade-induced Beyoncé hype, you may have forgotten that Drake's new album Views From The 6 is dropping this Friday — he's already released a pair of singles this month, and now we have the cover art. You may be aware that Drake is from Toronto, and the Views cover features a photo of him sitting atop the city's iconic CN Tower. From which, I understand, there are pretty good views.

You can't deny that Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid are forces to be reckoned with in the modeling industry. Alongside their countless magazine features and runway appearances, they have the dubious honor of being ambassadors for such names as Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. But fashion purists aren't so thrilled about Kengi's rise to the top of the ranks. Vogue creative director at large, Grace Coddington, admits it took her awhile to warm up to Kendall and Gigi.

At her Grace by Grace Coddington fragrance launch, she toldRefinery29: "[Gigi and Kendall] are a different kind of celebrity — they represent this moment in time very much. [...] It sort of annoyed me at first, but I do think both Gigi and Kendall are really good models, and that they could’ve [gotten where they are] without all that Instagram." Kendall and Gigi have over 70 million Instagram followers combined, and some reports say they can get up to $300,000 for a single social media post.

Social media obviously plays a factor in Kengi's popularity, and Grace believes they'd be just as successful without it. "It's just now that everybody is judged by how many followers they have and things like that — which is a shame," she continued. "It's almost like, if you ram it down your throat, I find it unattractive. But, as I said, they have the personality and the beauty that would probably have made them as important as they are anyway, without the added importance of Instagram."

Grace isn't the first fashion insider to express these sentiments. Calvin Klein had some harsh words for Kendall's #MyCalvins campaign, and the impact social media is having on the fashion industry in general: "[Models] are booked not because they represent the essence of the designer, which is what I tried to do — they're booked because of how many followers they have online," he said, adding: "I don't think that's a great formula for success for the product you're trying to sell."
Michelle McNamara, the crime writer and wife of comedian Patton Oswalt, has died, Oswalt's publicist confirms to PEOPLE. She was 46. 

McNamara, founder of the website True Crime Diary, died in her sleep Thursday. No cause of death was given, but Oswalt's publicist said her passing "was a complete shock to her family and friends, who loved her dearly." 


McNamara attended the University of Notre Dame and earned a master's in creative writing from the University of Minnesota. 


She founded her website, True Crime Diary, at the suggestion of her husband after becoming becoming interested in cold cases. 


"So I kind of just did it almost as a lark at first not figuring it would become such a regular thing but that was sort of the impetus for it," she said in a 2007 interview. "I wanted to get more involved in the cases than fueling my own curiosity." 


In addition to blogging and podcasting on the subject, she also appeared on the Investigation Discovery series A Crime to Remember. She was most interested in pursuing cases that weren't necessarily getting big headlines. 


"I'm drawn to cases that aren't so high profile, that are maybe even a little neglected, but which have enough evidence and clues that anyone with a will and an Internet connection can try to piece together the puzzle," she said in 2011. "That's exciting to me. It feels like the difference between looking forward or looking back." 


In addition to Oswalt, whom she wed in 2005, McNamara is survived by their 7-year-old daughter, Alice.



The world has known few superstars whose personas could match the gender-fluid extravagance of Prince, who died on Thursday at age 57. The pop and R&B icon inlaid his albums with brazen pansexuality and gender norm coquetry—provocations made all the more potent by his staggering talents as a singer, hook-writer, and guitar shredder. Years before the leaders of the gay and lesbian community began to embrace a more nuanced, less binary notion of queerness—and decades before transgender and genderqueer politics became mainstream topics of interest—Prince presented a living case study in the glorious freedom a world without stringent labels might offer.


“I’m not a woman. I’m not a man. I’m something that you’ll never understand,” Prince sang on 1984’s “I Would Die 4 U.” He was right—few could claim to fully grasp Prince’s easy embodiment of both maleness and femaleness. His schooled evasion of conventional classifiers made him endlessly fascinating. The cover of his 1988 albumLovesexy offers a classic expression of the seemingly incongruous yet thrilling gender bricolage at which he excelled.


Prince’s coy, sensuous form in a larger-than-life sea of yonic flowers telegraphs femininity. But he’s showing off his masculine features, too: Prince covers his nipple as if it were a breast, but exposes a full chest of hair. His legs look smooth and shaven, but a John Waters moustache sits above his full lips.


The cover of Lovesexy.


Like his gender-bending predecessor David Bowie, Prince was flamboyant in both his masculinity and femininity. He wielded his outrageous guitars like extensions of his manhood while vamping under winged eyeliner and plentiful jewels. He even bragged that his traditionally feminine features lent him a special sexual power. “The way I wear my knickers around this booty tight / Make a sister wanna call me up every night,” he sang on “Prettyman” in 1999. “Everywhere I go, people stop and stare / They just wanna see me swing this pretty hair.” Prince didn’t just disregard the boundaries of gender and sexuality: He kicked straight through them in platform heels, gyrating his very visible bulge in naysayers’ faces for good measure.


This kaleidoscopic conception of gender became integral to the very core of his identity. When Prince abandoned his stage moniker in favor of “the Love Symbol” in 1993, he included elements of both the Mars and Venus, or male and female, iconography in his design. Today, similar signs are used to designate trans, genderqueer, or intersex people.

Prince's symbol (left), alongside symbols for the genderqueer community.

Slate photo illustration.


Some listeners took one of Prince’s tracks, 1987’s “If I Was Your Girlfriend,” as a sideways entrée into issues of trans identity. “If I was your girlfriend / Would u remember 2 tell me all the things u forgot / When I was your man?” he sang. “Would u let me wash your hair / Could I make u breakfast sometime / Or then, could we just hang out, I mean / Could we go 2 a movie and cry together? … I mean, we don't have 2 make children 2 make love / And then, we don't have 2 make love 2 have an orgasm.” 


For fans, Prince’s expansive presentation of gender and sexuality offered promise of a more honest, open existence. “I became unafraid to display the many stereotypically feminine qualities that were within me,” StainedGlassBimbo, a self-described heterosexual man, wrote on a Prince fan forum. “[He showed me that] you don’t have to be a masculine in order to be a man.” Another message board commenter marveled at Prince’s macho braggadocio wrapped in the trappings of the fairer sex: “Here was a man wearing lace and jewels—and he's singing of having sex with women in ways I didn't even know existed!”


Prince’s androgyny and unbridled sexuality inspired generations of musicians, too. Adam Levine, who’s covered the Purple One and called the artist “limitless…fearless, and unselfconscious,” posed nude for Cosmo U.K. in 2011 with wife Behati Prinsloo’s hands covering his junk. The image echoed a Notorious cover Prince did decades earlier, wearing a bouffant, hoop earring, fuzzy purple coat, and the wandering hands of a female lover. In 2006, gay musician Rufus Wainwright wrote in the Guardian that Prince’s genderfuckery is still unmatched in modern pop music. “It feels weird talking about Prince as a gay icon now, but you have to applaud a black man in the American record industry who could be so playful with androgyny,” Wainwright wrote. “Justin Timberlake wouldn't do that. He is a marine dressed as a pop star.” In memoriam, on Thursday, bisexual singer and rapper Frank Ocean wrote his own heartfelt tribute:

He was a straight black man who played his first televised set in bikini bottoms and knee-high heeled boots, epic. He made me feel more comfortable with how I identify sexually simply by his display of freedom from and irreverence for obviously archaic ideas like gender conformity.


Though Prince openly embraced a fluid concept of gender, his personal sexuality kept everyone guessing. His lyrics demonstrated a kind of omnisexual thirst for pleasure, though certain lines led fans to wonder if he was some flavor of queer. On 1981’s “Controversy,” Prince addressed his multiracial background along with his sexuality: “Am I black or white? Am I straight or gay?” In 1980’s “When You Were Mine,” he sang of sleeping in bed with a female lover, but with her new man in between them. Prince sometimes told curious interviewers that he was straight, but more often, he hedged with a shrug or a “Why does it matter?” That didn’t stop even straight-identified men from lusting after him. On a forum called Testosterone Nation—in the muscle-building way, not the transgender hormone therapy way—a user by the name of byukid neatly summarized the feelings of thousands of hetero dudes who found themselves drooling in the audience of a Prince show: “I would go gay for Prince, except I'm not entirely sure Prince has a gender.”


But Prince probably wouldn’t have returned the sentiment. He became a Jehovah’s Witness in 2001 and began to sound more vocally homophobic as he aged. The New Yorker asked him about his positions on gay marriage and abortion in 2008; Prince “tapped his Bible” and said, “God came to Earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out. He was, like, ‘Enough.’ ” In 2013, the artist dropped a track called “Da Bourgeoisie” that contained lyrics many deemed anti-gay or bi-phobic: “Yesterday I saw you kickin’ it with another girl / You was all wrapped up around her waist / Last time I checked, you said you left the dirty world … I guess a man’s only good for a rainy day / Maybe you’re just another bearded lady at the cabaret.”


Still, Prince’s gender fluidity and sexual ambiguity granted a kind of permission for future musicians, queer and otherwise, to explore new means of expression of the self and sexuality. That he was simultaneously a beloved gay icon and perhaps an anti-gay proselytizer is just one ripple in the vast sea of contradictions that made Prince such a spellbinding artist, a virtuosic performer of music and gender alike.




Prince, the iconic music legend, died unexpectedly at only 57. He had a large, extended family who will miss him dearly. He has eight brothers and sisters, along with numerous cousins, and nieces and nephews.

Here’s what you need to know.

His Father Was a Pianist and His Mom Was a Jazz Singer

Prince’s father, John Lewis Nelson, was also known as Prince Rogers. Prince was named after his dad. John co-wrote some of Prince’s songs. John died in 2001 at the age of 85. You can see a photo of John

Prince’s mom, Mattie Della Shaw, was a jazz musician and singer. She and John met in 1956 at a show in Minneapolis. You an see a photo of her with Prince and Tyka from Tumblr.


2. He Has Eight Brothers and Sisters, Including One Who Had to Stay in a VA Hospital After Serving in Vietnam


Prince has six brothers and sisters. (Getty)

Prince has eight brothers and sisters. Tyka Nelson is his only full-blooded sibling. He has five half-brothers and half-sisters from his dad, John L. Nelson, and Vivian Nelson. They are Lorna Nelson, Norrine Nelson, Sharon Nelson, Duane Nelson, and John R. Nelson.

Duane Nelson, Prince’s half brother, was Prince’s head of security and he passed away when he was only 52. Lorna Nelson, Prince’s sister, passed away when she was only 63, in 2006.

Prince also has two lesser-known half-brothers, born to his mom, Mattie.

Omarr Baker was born to his mom, Mattie Della Baker, after she married Hayward Baker following her divorce from Prince’s dad. Not much is known about Omarr, except he may have been born in 1970, according to an online ebook about Prince.

Alfred Jackson, Prince’s older half-brother, was born to his mom Mattie Della Baker. He’s named “Alfred Jackson” in Baker’s obituary, but Tyka refers to him as Alfred Frank Alonso. In a book called “Possessed” written by Charles Smith, a former drummer for Prince, he talked a lot about Alfred. He said that Alfred influenced Prince musically but later had to be committed to an institution. Prince’s sister, Tyka, explained the situation more thoroughly on Facebook when she posted about Alfred’s birthday. She said he was drafted to serve in Vietnam at 17 and when he returned, had was admitted to the Vets hospital in St. Cloud, Minnesota, where he still is today. She said she visited him there on his birthday and he was delighted to know how many people were wishing him a happy birthday.

Prince’s Family: His Parents, Brothers & Sisters

Prince, the amazing musical legend, had eight siblings. These are photos, tributes, and stories of his brothers and sisters, parents, and extended family.


3. His Sister Tyka Is Also a Musician



Tika Nelson, who goes by Tyka Nelson, is Prince’s only “full” sibling. She was born in 1960, two years after Prince. Tyka is a musician, too. Her 1988 debut album was Royal Blue. It received positive reviews, but she said her fear and self-doubt kept her from making “the music her own,”CityPages reported. She put out another album in 2008 that was more aligned with “her.” The album focused on her addiction, which Prince helped her overcome.

She and Prince collaborated on music when they were very young, but not as adults. Around the time that Prince got a record deal, Tyka was running away from home. She found a new home at Bethany Apostolic Church in California and views her times with the church as being among the happiest of her life.

Tyka was at Prince’s home after his death and went outside to thank his fans and let them know how much he loved all of them:





Prince is survived by his sister, Tyka Nelson, 55, who is also a musician. Find out more about her here.


4. Prince Had Many Relationships And Was Married Twice


Prince and his wife Mayte. (Getty)

Prince was married twice and had numerous relationships. He was romantically connected to many actresses, including Madonna, Kim Basinger, Sheila E. Carmen Electra, Anna Fantastic, Sherilyn Fenn, Susanna Hoffs, Susan Moonsie, Bria Valente, and more. He was engaged to Susannah Melvoin in 1985.

Prince’s two marriages were to Mayte Garcia and Manuela Testolini. He was not married when he passed away.



Manuela Testolini was the second wife of Prince, the legendary musician who died on April 21. The couple divorced in 2006 after five years of marriage.

5. He Had a Son Who Died a Week After Birth


Prince only had one child. (Getty)

Despite his numerous relationships, Prince only had one child. Boy Gregory was born in 1996 to Prince and Mayte Garcia. He died a week after he was born of Pfeiffer syndrome. The two also had a child they lost in miscarriage. The grief ultimately led to their divorce.




While other Prince fans will remember partying like it was 1999, or trying to figure out exactly when doves cry as their first real memory of the prolific pop music icon in the wake of Prince's death at the age of 57, I will remember being a 9-year-old girl watching the video for "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World" with my little sister over and over on VH1. This was in 1994, right after Prince had become the Artist Formerly Known As. He had just taken on that unpronounceable symbol as his moniker, and the first thing he did was release this ballad about his soon-to-be wife, Mayte Garcia. It's a rather cheesy love song, with a sexy groove that is not too provocative for a 4th grader who wasn't really that interested in boys. It's a song that most Prince fans probably wouldn't admit they love.

Certainly, with his impressive lists of hits, it's worth only a passing mention, but, it was the one song I immediately thought of after Prince's death was officially confirmed to Bustle in a statement: "It is with profound sadness that I am confirming that the legendary, iconic performer, Prince Rogers Nelson, has died at his Paisley Park residence this morning at the age of 57. There are no further details as to the cause of death at this time." With all of his hits — and he's got so many hits — this was the song that would never define his career, but it could be the example of who he was as a person. Someone who loved and respected the women he collaborated with in life, love and work — and more often than not, all three.

"The Most Beautiful Girl In The World" is a tribute to one woman, but it sounded as if it was a dedicated to all women. In that falsetto, Prince sang about physical beauty, the kind only God could create, but he also sang about the kind of beauty you won't see just by looking at someone. "And if the stars ever fell one by one from the sky/ I know Mars could not be too far behind," Prince speak-sang on the bridge. As a kid, it made me laugh. But, as I got older, I started to appreciate for its last two lines, "Cuz baby, this kind of beauty has got no reason to ever be shy/ 'Cuz honey, this kind of beauty is the kind that comes from inside." Prince had sexy songs, but this was about love and devotion. Here was this guy who surrounded himself with beautiful women, letting them know he bowed down to them.
Fast & Furious 8 cartel



Well this is going to be a tough pill to swallow. Vin Diesel just revealed a poster for the eighth film — and the first without Paul Walker.

Vin Diesel is about to break all of our hearts. on April 19, the actor, 44, took to his personal Facebook page to share a poster — which is reportedly unofficial — for the eighth film. Now we told you that Scott Eastwood has been cast to join the movie, along with Charlize Theron, but of course they can’t ignore that it’s missing the irreplaceable, Paul Walker.

“New roads ahead,” the poster that Vin posted on Facebook read. Now we have to point out this is most likely a fan photo as the film has reportedly been titled Fast 8, and the poster reads Furious 8. That is to be determined.

In it we see Vin’s character, Dominic Toretto, looking very somber standing next to a car and staring out into the air. Of course, this will be the first Fast movie of the franchise that Paul Walker will not be part of. The title of course is keeping along with the theme used in the last films in the franchise. For Fast & Furious 6, the tagline read “All roads lead to this; for Furious 7, it was “One last ride.” Watch any of the Fast franchise on Amazon Prime.

Of course, Paul was only in parts of Furious 7, as he was killed in a car accident during a production break on the film in November 2013. And Vin’s character was not only extremely close with Paul’s, but he considered him a brother. At the People’s Choice Awards in January, Vin actually won for the role and took the opportunity to honor Paul. “You know, as I was coming up here — I always do this, I say, ‘I’m not gonna get emotional about winning these awards,’ and I was cool while I was sitting in my seat, and then, they handed me two awards — one for favorite action movie and one for favorite film. You all thought that this was your favorite film,” he said in his speech. “So, I think of Dom (his character) and Brian (Paul’s character), and I start to think of Paul.”

Following that, he sang the lyrics to “See You Again,” which was also added to the movie after Paul’s death. It was definitely tough to watch, but we know that the film and the entire franchise will always pay tribute to him.
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) at the Iowa GOP Lincoln Dinner at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Cedar Rapids, Iowa April 11, 2014.One of the best running jokes in American politics is the one about Republicans releasing their own alternative to the Affordable Care Act. Any day now, GOP leaders have been saying for many years, they’re going to have a plan that rivals “Obamacare,” and it’s going to be awesome.

Yesterday, The Hill reported on the latest installment in this ongoing fiasco.
A group of senior House Republicans is promising to deliver proof that the party is making headway in its six-year struggle to replace ObamaCare.

“Give us a little time, another month or so,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) told reporters this week. “I think we’ll be pretty close to a Republican alternative.”
Upton is not just some random figure in the broader effort: The Michigan Republican is a key committee chairman and a member of House Speaker Paul Ryan’s “task force,” responsible for coming up with the GOP’s reform alternative.

Upton said the Republican group is currently in “listening mode” – which it’s apparently been in since its creation 14 months ago.

And yet, we’re apparently supposed to believe that in “another month or so,” House Republican lawmakers will be “pretty close” to having their own reform plan.

Who knows, maybe the GOP is making enormous strides towards its goal. Maybe “listening mode” is going so well that the Republican alternative to the Affordable Care Act is nearly complete. Maybe, with “a little time,” they’re ready to deliver.

It’s certainly possible, but the odds are heavily against it.


As we discussed when the Republican “task force” was created early last year, the political world may not fully appreciate just how overdue this GOP health care plan really is. It was on June 17, 2009 that then-Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) made a bold promise. The Missouri Republican, a member of the House Republican leadership at the time, had taken the lead in crafting a GOP alternative to the Affordable Care Act, and he was proud to publicly declare, ”I guarantee you we will provide you with a bill.”

The same week, then-Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told reporters that the official Republican version of “Obamacare” was just “weeks away.” We’d all see the striking proof that far-right lawmakers could deliver real solutions better than those rascally Democrats.

This was nearly seven years ago. The Huffington Post’s Jeffrey Young has gotten quite a bit of mileage out of a joke, documenting all of the many, many times in recent years GOP officials have said they’re finally ready to unveil their big health care solution, only to quietly fail every time.

In early April 2014, then-House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said his party’s health plan was nearly done, but it was being delayed “at least a month.” That was 24 months ago. In 2015, assurances that the Republican plan was on the way were also wrong.

In 2016, however, a GOP leader has been reduced to arguing, “Give us a little time,” seemingly unaware of how hilarious this is.

As we talked about last week, the problem probably isn’t dishonesty. In all likelihood, Republicans would love to have a health care plan of their own – no one likes to appear ridiculous while breaking promises – but haven’t because they don’t know how to craft one.

As New York’s Jon Chait explained, “The reason the dog keeps eating the Republicans’ health-care homework is very simple: It is impossible to design a health-care plan that is both consistent with conservative ideology and acceptable to the broader public. People who can’t afford health insurance are either unusually sick (meaning their health-care costs are high), unusually poor (their incomes are low), or both. Covering them means finding the money to pay for the cost of their medical treatment. You can cover poor people by giving them money. And you can cover sick people by requiring insurers to sell plans to people regardless of age or preexisting conditions. Obamacare uses both of these methods. But Republicans oppose spending more money on the poor, and they oppose regulation, which means they don’t want to do either of them.”

Or as a Republican Hill staffer famously put it in 2014, “As far as repeal and replace goes, the problem with replace is that if you really want people to have these new benefits, it looks a hell of a lot like the Affordable Care Act…. To make something like that work, you have to move in the direction of the ACA.”

Which, of course, Republicans can’t bring themselves to do.

But hope springs eternal, and I can’t wait to hear more about the GOP’s progress in “another month or so.”




Swiss snowboard champion Estelle Balet has been killed in an avalanche.
The 21-year-old Balet, who was the Freeride World Tour champion, had been filming above the village of Orsieres in the Swiss Alps Tuesday when the avalanche struck.

She was reported to be wearing safety equipment including a location device in the event of an avalanche as well as a helmet and an airbag to help stay above sliding snow.

"Despite immediate efforts to revive her, she died at the scene," Valais police said in a statement. "An investigation has been started to determine the causes of the accident."


The Freeride World Tour, a global extreme snowboarding event, said in a statement: "Estelle Balet was a naturally gifted shining star and demonstrated remarkable talent ... bringing home her second title as World Champion just a few weeks ago in Verbier.

"Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Estelle Balet as we send our deepest sympathy and condolences during this very difficult time."




When most of us watch “The Walking Dead” or a movie like “28 Days Later,” we don’t actually worry about catching a zombie plague. “The Strain” doesn’t make us fear a vampire virus.

But in the real world, Ebola may be rearing its head again, and we’re told that mosquito-borne Zika is even scarier than previously thought. Who knows what new catastrophic contagion could be right around the corner?

That makes “Containment,” arriving tonight (Tuesday, April 19) on the CW, horror drama of a particularly personal kind. Divorcing ourselves from the idea that the next big disease outbreak could hit home proves difficult, especially as “Containment” finds it striking and quickly crippling Atlanta, a large city not that different in some ways from St. Louis.

People die gruesomely in “Containment,” adapted from a Belgian series by Julie Plec, co-creator of “The Vampire Diaries.” The action starts well into the outbreak, then flashes back to brief, happier days when people could still shake hands and a sneeze didn’t mean quick progression to bleeding from the eyes and nose, collapse and agonizing death.

Those in jeopardy include the obligatory busload of schoolchildren, a young pregnant woman, an immigrant family from Syria, and doctors and nurses at the hospital treating the first victims.

The government steps in to “help,” but the only solution is ordering containment, closing a chunk of Atlanta off from the rest of the city to stop the spread of the quick-incubating disease. “Only 48 hours,” the people in the quarantine zone are told. “I know it’s an inconvenience, but trust me, it will be worth it,” police insist. As if.

The point, Plec says, is to examine human behavior in the wake of a crisis, not simply to scare us.

“The stuff I like to do is always grounded in really simple but honest and deep themes of love and family and friendship,” Plec said when the CW introduced the series to TV critics meeting in Los Angeles.

“To be able to drop that into an environment that’s extremely chaotic and terrifying, it’s just it’s a different way of exploring a genre. It’s a horror genre where the monster is an illness, is a virus.”

While she was writing, life echoed art.

“About the time I was finishing my first draft, the Ebola outbreak happened, and suddenly, it was exactly the cultural conversation,” she says. “You are seeing what you are trying to portray as what could happen in a very real-world situation, and then you turn on the news, and it’s happening in the real world.”

At that point, she says, “You feel this obligation to not aggrandize it and not exploit it,” avoiding an “icky, ripped-from-the-headlines (treatment), which of course is never the intention.”

Icky, though, “Containment” certainly is. In just the first two episodes, there is enough blood and body fluid to make the strongest stomach turn.

Writers “worked really hard to be grounded” in medical realities, executive producer Chris Ord says. “We had a representative from the CDC helping us” with questions of ‘this would happen or not happen.’ By putting in those rules ... you don’t have to rely on supernatural or anything like that.”

“Containment” adheres closely to real-life disease protocols, Plec says.

“We talked to the Georgia Department of Public Health (and) were schooled very quickly in the hierarchy of how things need to happen, that it begins at a local level before it becomes the state, that the CDC doesn’t immediately come in. They come in later to take jurisdiction.”




Politics is always in play, Plec says.

“There’s a lot of ways to ruffle feathers and to get people very upset if you make assumptions. I said, ‘Well, when does the World Health Organization come in?’ They were like, ‘That’s the worst question you could have ever asked us. We are offended deeply.’ So it’s a whole world of politics and hierarchy.”

On set, actors learned they were infected when they showed up for the day, the producers said.

The makeup department “essentially created, like, five stages of the disease, different looks for all five stages,” Ord says. “We as writers could say, ‘This person is going to be at Stage 2 or Stage 4,’ or ‘They are about to die at Stage 5.’ Having that structure in place made everything stay consistent and really adhere to how the disease would affect people.”

The graphic symptoms also make “Containment” as chilling for viewers as any recent series, and those with sensitive constitutions may well find it too graphic