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Bachelor Nation Reacts to Christian Estrada and Jordan Kimball's Fight

Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images for Supermodels Unlimited Magazine; Craig Sjodin/Walt Disney Television via Getty Images

Punches were thrown and shirts were ripped on Bachelor in Paradise.

Picking up where things left off last week, Christian Estrada and Jordan Kimball got into a heated fight during Monday night’s episode. In the midst of their brawl, the rest of the contestants watched in shock.

“Come here, bitch,” Estrada taunted Kimball as the show’s crew held back both men. “Cheers to you being a bitch,” Jordan responded.

But Christian was ready for round two. He broke away from the crew, grabbed Jordan and threw him to the ground. Eventually, both reality TV personalities were separated and sent home. “We have a zero-tolerance policy,” host Chris Harrison told the remaining contestants.

However, Nicole Lopez-Alvar was still shaken by the whole ordeal. “I’m freaking out,” she told Onyeka Ehie. “I’m literally in shock. I’m shaking right now.”

Fans of the ABC dating series might recall last week’s episode when Christian was very territorial over Nicole, whom he had just met. He was also aggressive towards Clay Harbor, who has had his heart set on Nicole. It appeared Christian’s behavior rubbed Jordan the wrong way, so he posted up.

Of the insane brawl between Estrada and Kimball, several Bachelor in Paradise stars exclusively spoke to E! News at the iHeartRadio’s Real Street Festival about how they felt in that moment.

“I thought the fight was fake at first. I thought it was like staged—oh, this is kind of funny,” Tayshia Adams said. “But it was so intense and so scary. Watching it unfold is mind blowing. Honestly, we were standing at the bar and then I hear screaming and I was taken completely by surprise. Somebody was falling down the stairs. The next person was running after the other. And then I see security.”

ABC

Mike Johnson also shared his thoughts on the whole ordeal.

“I think that Jordan and Christian, their ego probably got the best of them,” he told us. “And I was watching. I was standing beside the biggest guy there, Clay. And I was sitting back sipping on my tequila, and I had a good time watching. I didn’t want to interrupt the two of them, they’re fighting. I wanted to make sure that they got out what they needed to get out. And I know that the Bachelor producers would make sure that we [were] safe and good to go.”

He continued, “That was the first time I had ever seen anything remotely close to that, but that s—t was wild to be quite honest.”

ABC

Wills Reid also weighed in and told E! News the fight was “surreal.”

“It definitely seemed surreal… and it was a bit frightening. A lot of the girls on the beach were terrified and it kind of threw everyone for a loop and gave everyone an adrenaline rush. It was just wild to see.”

All three contestants told us they felt the producers made the right call in sending both men home.

Additionally, other Bachelor Nation stars couldn’t help but react to the crazy episode on Monday night.

Tia Booth wrote, “I totally think @jordan__kimball was just trying to be funny, but he messed with a feisty little firecracker!! #bachelorinparadise.” Derek Peth responded, “The correct answer was…he poked the wrong bear this time.”

Even Jordan commented on the brawl, saying, “I’ve been wrestling alligators since the age of 3.”

However, Luke Stone called out Bachelor in Paradise‘s hypocritical stance on their “zero tolerance” policy. “Interesting policy on violence, bodyslamming not included I guess,” he tweeted, which was in reference to Luke Parker allegedly body slamming him on Hannah Brown‘s season of The Bachelorette.

But leave it to Evan Bass to say what we were all thinking: “Ok this Jordan and Christian thing was bad but I’m being personally attacked by Deans shirt/stache combo tonight.”

Bachelor in Paradise airs Mondays and Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on ABC.

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Islamic State could re-emerge in Syria, Chinese envoy warns

GENEVA (Reuters) – China’s envoy said on Tuesday that there was a danger of Islamic State forces reviving in Syria and called for progress in the political process between the Assad government and opposition.

“There is now a danger of terrorist organizations like ISIS being revived, we see some signs … The fight against terrorism needs to be finished,” Chinese Special Envoy Xie Xiaoyan told reporters after talks with U.N. Special Envoy Geir Pedersen in Geneva.

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X-ray of a zombie knife deliberately stabbed into a victim’s BUTTOCKS

Shocking X-ray of a zombie knife deliberately stabbed into a victim’s BUTTOCKS by a jealous love rival’s friend in vicious ‘bagging’ attack reveals depths of Wild West Britain’s blade epidemic

  • Aaron Toward-Parker, 18,  plunged the zombie knife into the victim’s buttocks
  • The menacing serrated blade lodged so deeply it had to be surgically removed
  • Wiltshire Police released the image to warn about knife crimes in the area 

This shocking x-ray shows a zombie knife embedded into a victim’s buttocks, in another chilling example of Wild West Britain’s knife epidemic. 

The menacing serrated blade was lodged so deeply it had to be surgically removed, after the attack by Aaron Toward-Parker in Covingham, Wiltshire, in January.

Jack Parfitt and accomplice Toward-Parker took part in the vicious assault, against a  supposed love rival of Parfitt’s.

Parfitt was believed to be upset a colleague of his pregnant girlfriend was flirting with her, so arranged to meet up with him at a local park.

After seeing his target Parfitt shot at him with a BB gun, then asked Toward-Parker to pull out his knife as reported by The Swindon Advertiser.

A zombie knife deeply embedded within the victim’s back in a process known as ‘bagging’, where gang members can target the lower body so the victim has to wear a colostomy bag

Parfitt is thought to have told Toward-Parker to ‘back out the shank.’

Toward-Parker told his victim – who cannot be named because he is under 18 – ‘Don’t think I won’t bore you out with the knife’, before plunging it into his buttocks. 

The lower body can be target in knife attacks in a process that is known as ‘bagging.’ 

The injured person will often have to wear a colostomy bag for the rest of their life, thought to be the ultimate humiliation.

The image was released by Wiltshire Police amid a warning from police chiefs, after a series of violent cases involving knives in the area.

A judge has put Parfitt – 17 at the time of the attack – on a youth rehabilitation order as he has served eight months inside on remand.

Toward-Parker, had denied wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, saying the blade went in by accident. A jury last week took an hour to find him guilty.

He has been remanded in custody for reports to be prepared and will be sentenced in October.

Sonja Leith, head of crime prevention at Wiltshire Police, said: ‘We are carrying out a wide range of proactive work and activities aimed at highlighting the impact that knife crime has on our communities’

‘Although these types of incidents are rare, it is still incredibly concerning when we have cases where young people are carrying weapons and then using them to assault others.

‘However, it is important to stress that the vast majority of young people do not carry knives and those who do have a much higher likelihood of becoming a victim of knife crime themselves.

‘We would hate to think that young people were arming themselves with the misguided view that this makes them safer, when in fact the very opposite is true.’

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Do You Understand the N.B.A. Salary Cap? Imagine Enforcing It.

To be even a casual N.B.A. fan in 2019 means having to become a quasi-accountant or a lawyer to decipher how the league’s salary cap works. It means understanding the difference between a soft cap and a hard cap, or the mid-level exception vs. the biannual exception. There’s the Gilbert Arenas Provision, which is not to be confused with the Derrick Rose Rule, and definitely not the Allan Houston Rule.

The league’s collective bargaining agreement is arguably the most complex in professional American sports, and it spurs the most movement of elite players between teams. So if you have trouble understanding how it all happens, imagine what it’s like being in the N.B.A.’s salary cap group, the division of roughly 10 staffers who make sure the teams follow the rules. (To that end, the N.B.A. began investigating whether teams broke rules this summer with perks offered to free agents.)

The lawyers, former consultants and data analysts who enforce the intricate system serve as a continual resource for teams looking at their own cap situation: Do we have the space to sign X player? Or trade for Y? How many picks are needed? Can we sign Z without trading X first? This pod does the front office equivalent of setting screens: their plays don’t show up on the stat sheets but are crucial to the league’s results.

“It’s a 650-page agreement, and you have 30 teams who are thinking about new and interesting ways to do things,” said Katelyn Cannella West, the senior director and associate counsel for player matters.

Some teams rely on the group more than others. Many used to relegate cap duties to their chief financial officer.

“I felt like I had a really good grasp of the cap back in 1996, when I was still coaching the Phoenix Suns,” said Danny Ainge, the president of basketball operations for the Boston Celtics. “Obviously, a lot of rules have changed so we consult with the league periodically.”

A big misconception, members of the league’s cap group said, is that when news of a trade breaks, the transaction is complete. For a trade to be official, there must be a trade call, a conference call between the involved teams and the cap group. Sometimes, the group learns about deals weeks ahead of time as they are consulted about possible structures.

“That’s unusual, but it happens,” said David Weiss, a vice president and assistant general counsel for the group.

The day of the trade deadline is “a higher stress day than most days,” said Andy Taub, who has helped lead the cap group for more than two decades.

Few league officials have been with the N.B.A. as long as Taub, who is unknown to many fans but crucial in shaping how they experience the game. Having an encyclopedic knowledge of the collective bargaining agreement is less important than attention to detail, Taub said. (He happens to have both.)

“If we gave the wrong advice to a team and a team acted on it, it would be on ESPN fast,” Taub said.

Much of the group’s tasks delve into minutiae. For example, Tony Leotti, a senior director and lawyer for the group, tracks days off for players, who are entitled to 18 during each regular season. Leotti helps teams decide what constitutes a day off: Can a player who sits out a practice show up to the facility to shoot around on his own? Can he sit with the team on the bench?

With great minutiae comes great responsibility. The cap group must police front offices trying to game the system, while at the same time making sure the league’s decisions don’t run afoul of the players’ union.

“They’ve done a very good job of it. But then people like me come along and start bunking with it because my job is different,” said Rafael Stone, the executive vice president of basketball operations for the Houston Rockets. “My job is to try and take advantage of the loopholes.” The league’s salary cap group prompted the Rockets to change how they maneuvered to bring star point guard Chris Paul to their team in 2017.

The team wanted to sign Paul as a free agent, but didn’t have the cap space. One option to get it was waiving the sharpshooting big man Ryan Anderson and spreading the impact of his contract over several years, called stretching or using the stretch provision.

But the Rockets wanted to keep Anderson. So the front office, primarily Stone and Eli Witus, an assistant general manager, found a loophole in the collective bargaining agreement. The Rockets could stretch Anderson immediately, sign Paul when free agency began and then re-sign Anderson. A new rule barred the move, but it wasn’t set to take effect for at least a couple days.

Stone said the league argued that the team’s plan violated the collective bargaining agreement in spirit. (A league spokesman said that even without the new rule, the N.B.A.’s position was that the maneuver would have violated other regulations .)

Ultimately, Houston traded for Paul instead of signing him as a free agent, and kept Anderson.

Mark Cuban, who owns the Dallas Mavericks, said in an email that his disagreements with the cap group have been mostly limited to defining “likely” bonuses — payments to players based on thresholds that have a high probability of occurring. Likely bonuses count against the cap immediately, affecting how much teams can spend elsewhere.

If a player disagrees with how the cap group interprets the collective bargaining agreement, there is an arbitration process.

“We’ve had a fair amount of fights,” said Ron Klempner, the senior counsel for the players union, who also said the relationship between the two factions was cordial.

One dispute came during the 2011-12 season, when several prospective free agents, including Jeremy Lin and Chauncey Billups, were claimed off waivers. Under the collective bargaining agreement, teams can go over the salary cap to re-sign and give raises to their own players if the player has been on the team for three years, a cap exception known as “Bird Rights,” named after Larry Bird. If a player gets traded, he keeps those rights. The union argued the exception extended to players claimed off waivers. The league disagreed. The union won in arbitration.

Player agents, who have quickly become a powerful force in shaping league dynamics, typically consult the players’ union and their own staffers rather than the cap group.

Perhaps the most ironic part of all this is that the stakeholders who pay the least attention to salary cap machinations, especially during the regular season, are the players themselves, according to Richard Jefferson, who played for eight teams and was traded six times. Teammates didn’t talk much about salaries, trades or free agent possibilities until the summer, and even then, he said, most of the details were left to agents. “It’s different now, but in general, players don’t pay attention to the cap,” Jefferson said.



Sopan Deb is a culture reporter, writing about the intersection of politics and culture, among other topics. He covered Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign for CBS News, and his work has appeared on NBC, Al Jazeera America and elsewhere. @sopandeb

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Evelyn Hernandez: Woman who gave birth to baby in toilet cleared of murder in El Salvador

A 21-year-old woman in El Salvador who says she was raped and unwittingly gave birth to a stillborn son in a toilet has been cleared of murder during a retrial.

Evelyn Hernandez had always maintained she was innocent and did not know she was pregnant.

She was a teenager when she went to an outhouse in April 2016 to use the toilet after having stomach pains and her mother found her passed out.

A 32-week fetus was later found in the septic tank and Ms Hernandez was arrested – but both women said they did not know she had given birth.

Forensic experts were unable to determine whether the child died during birth or in the septic tank.

Ms Hernandez was previously convicted of intentionally inducing an abortion – which is illegal in the Central American country.

She had already served three years of a 30-year prison sentence which was overturned by the supreme court in February and a new trial was ordered.

Prosecutors argued during the retrial in Ciudad Delgado that Ms Hernandez had failed to protect her fetus and asked for a 40-year sentence.

But she was acquitted by a judge on Monday, with her lawyer Bertha Maria Deleon saying: “He has said that there was no way to prove a crime and for that reason he absolved her.”

“We believe the judge has been very fair in his ruling,” she added.

“Thank God, justice was done,” Ms Hernandez said afterwards. “There are many women who are still locked up and I call for them to be freed soon too.”

El Salvador, which has a population of just over six million, is a deeply religious country with 80% of the population identifying as Catholic or evangelical Christian.

Each year an estimated 25,000 women fall pregnant after being raped.

Those convicted of having abortions face prison sentences of between two to eight years.

Women who turn up at public hospitals following a miscarriage are sometimes accused of having killed the fetus and charged with aggravated homicide, which carries a sentence of 30 to 40 years.

Recent polls have shown support for more lenient abortion laws, though many in the country believe rape victims should be made to carry pregnancies to term.

President Nayib Bukele, who took office earlier this year, has pledged a softer approach to abortion and has said he favours legal terminations in cases where the life of the mother is at risk.

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International, said it was time El Salvador stopped “criminalising women once and for all by immediately revoking the nation’s draconian anti-abortion laws”.

“This is a resounding victory for the rights of women in El Salvador. It reaffirms that no woman should be wrongly accused of homicide for the simple fact of suffering an obstetric emergency,” she added.

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Lightning strike caused power cuts in Britain: grid operator

LONDON (Reuters) – A blackout in Britain which left one million homes without power on Aug. 9 was the result of a lightning strike, the grid operator said in a preliminary report on Tuesday.

Regulator Ofgem commissioned the report into the causes of the outages from National Grid and said it would open its own investigation to establish whether any of the grid and network operators or generators breached their licence conditions.

“Having now received National Grid’s interim report, we believe there are still areas where we need to use our statutory powers to investigate these outages,” said Jonathan Brearley, Ofgem’s executive director of systems and networks.

“This will ensure the industry learns the relevant lessons and to clearly establish whether any firm breached their obligations to deliver secure power supplies to consumers,” he added.

Ofgem’s powers under the Electricity Act, which it will use to conduct the investigation, allow it to impose penalties up to a maximum of 10% of the regulated companies UK turnover.

An hour-long outage on the evening of Aug. 9 left one million homes without power while two of London’s busiest train stations closed at rush-hour because of overcrowding as services were canceled or delayed.

National Grid said the power cuts were the result of a rare and unusual issue that led to the almost simultaneous loss of output from two generators – Orsted’s Hornsea off-shore windfarm and RWE’s Little Barford gas-fired power plant.

In its preliminary report, National Grid said there was a lightning strike on a transmission line at 1652 local time, which returned to normal operation after around 20 seconds.

Around 500 megawatts of generation capacity was also disconnected – all of which is normal for such events.

However, immediately after the lightning strike and within seconds of each other, Hornsea and Little Barford reduced supply to the grid, disconnecting 1,378 MW of generation.

“As generation would not be expected to trip off or de-load in response to a lightning strike, this appears to represent an extremely rare and unexpected event,” National Grid said.

“This unexpected loss of generation meant that the frequency fell very quickly and went outside the normal range of 50.5Hz – 49.5Hz,” it added.

Back-up power and other tools were used but the size of the generation loss meant the frequency fell to 48.8Hz which is a level at which secondary backup systems were required to disconnect some demand to ensure the safety of the network.

A final report is due to Ofgem by Sept. 6. Separately, an emergency committee will also investigate the incident, the government said last week.

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Syrian rebels withdraw from area in NW after government advance – Observatory

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian rebels withdrew from a town in southern Idlib province and from their last remaining territory in neighboring Hama province after government troops advances in the area, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and local activists said.

It marks an important gain for President Bashar al-Assad into the northwestern region which is the last major rebel stronghold in Syria. Backed by Russia, Syrian government forces have been attacking the region since late April.

Syrian government forces advanced into the town of Khan Sheikhoun in southern Idlib late on Monday. The town had been in rebel hands since 2014. The opposition’s territorial foothold in neighboring Hama province dates back to the earliest days of the eight-year-long conflict.

Russian-backed Syrian government advances around Khan Sheihkoun had threatened to encircle rebel fighters in their last remaining territory in northern Hama, including the towns of Latamneh and Kafr Zeita.

The rebels quit those towns, local activists said.

The Observatory said Syrian rebels who had stayed behind in that area had gathered at a Turkish military position in the town of Morek, in the territory abandoned by the rebels.

Khan Sheikhoun was targeted in sarin gas attack in 2017 that prompted U.S. missile strikes against Syria.

An investigation conducted by the United Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said the Syrian government was responsible for releasing sarin on the town on April 4, 2017. Damascus denies using such weapons.

The latest Syrian government offensive in the northwest has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee towards the Turkish border.

The U.S.-based Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM), which supports medical facilities in the northwest, says more than 730 civilians had been killed by government or Russian forces since late April.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has said more than 500 civilians have died in hostilities.

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13 Chinese killed as tour bus crashes in Laos

A tour bus carrying dozens of Chinese passengers crashed in Laos, killing at least 13, officials said Tuesday.

The bus was carrying 44 Chinese when it careened off a road between the Lao capital, Vientiane, and the northern tourist town of Luang Prabang on Monday, the Chinese Embassy in Vientiane said on its website.

In addition to the 13 who were killed, 31 other Chinese passengers were injured, two of them seriously, the embassy said. The bus driver and a guide, both Lao, suffered minor injuries.

Members of a Chinese People’s Liberation Army medical team who were in Laos for a joint medical event with the Lao government flew to Luang Prabang to help with treating the injured, the embassy said. Some of the injured were being treated at a hospital in Luang Prabang, while others were resting at their hotel.

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Wendy Williams Apparently Can Enter 50 Cent’s Party Despite Being Banned – Get the Details

According to multiple sources, the 55-year-old TV personality only comes to the ‘In Da Club’ rapper’s Tycoon party in New Jersey to meet Snoop Dogg, who is her son Kevin Hunter Jr.’s idol.

AceShowbiz -In contrary to what 50 Cent declared on his Instagram account, Wendy Williams was apparently able to get into his Tycoon party at BarCode in New Jersey on Sunday, August 18. TMZ reported that the TV personality entered the party venue without any troubles, unlike what the video depicted.

Multiple sources told the publication that Wendy and his son, Kevin Hunter Jr., were escorted by New Jersey police directly to Snoop Dogg‘s section, because meeting the veteran rapper was the sole reason why they were there. Fortunately for them, they didn’t encounter Fofty inside the bash because if they did, they would get kicked out right away. After all, the “Power” creator did put her on the blacklist for the party.

Wendy allegedly was at the party for about 20 minutes. She quickly left after introducing Kevin to Snoop and going to get some food. As for how she was able to get into the bash, it’s said that Wendy has connection with “her family town” of Elizabeth.

Over the weekend, Fofty blasted Wendy for coming to his party despite their longtime feud. He took to Instagram to share a video of the 55-year-old whispering something to her son before talking to someone who appeared to be a guard outside the party venue. “You can’t just show up to my PARTY if you been talking about me. B***H wait outside,” Fofty wrote in the caption.

Wendy and Fofty have been feuding for a long time. The former has often talked about the rapper during the Hot Topics segment of her talk show, prompting the “Candy” rapper to always hit back at her. In addition to that, he has body-shamed Wendy and called her out for her former drug addiction and more.

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The Challenge’s Tori Deal Is ‘Working on a Family’ With Fiance Jordan Wiseley


It’s not about size for Tori Deal. 

The Challenge star, 26, revealed she’s working on a family with fiancé, Jordan Wiseley, 28, after fans criticized the size of her engagement ring.  

Deal took to her Instagram Stories on Sunday, August 18, to clap back at those who asked why her engagement ring doesn’t have a “bigger diamond.” 

“Basically, I just wanted to come on Instagram this morning and update you with my thoughts on society’s standards on engagement rings,” Deal said in the video. “My engagement ring is a simple half carat on a gold band. So relaxed, so simple, so classy, and I love that. And I’m getting some comments from people like, ‘Where’s the umph? Where’s the bigger diamond? Doesn’t he have money?’”

Deal then went on a rant about how “f–ing ridiculous” it was for her followers to insist she have a more expensive engagement ring when she and her soon-to-be husband were trying to start a family.  

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1USv5JFgZW/

This mf ring needs to stop sliding around my finger and let me take a proper selfie 💍

A post shared byTori Deal (@tori_deal) on

“I think it’s f–ing ridiculous to expect someone to walk around with a $10 million ring on their finger. I need that money in my bank account,” she said. “We’re trying to work on a family. We’re trying to build a house together.”

The MTV star then gave her advice to couples who are thinking about marriage but are unsure about how much to invest in their engagement ring. 

“For all the couples out there that are talking about engagements, don’t feel pressured to spend all that money on a ring,” she said. “You don’t need to prove anything to anybody. Your engagement is about your love. Use that money on your future, not your finger.”

Deal and Wisely, who met on The Challenge XXX: Dirty 30 in 2017, announced their engagement on Tuesday, August 13. The proposal, which happened during the filming of The Challenge: War of the Worlds, will air when the next season premieres on MTV on August 28.  

https://www.instagram.com/p/By0VDkXFwhv/

We started f***** on this day exactly 2 years ago. Happy Sexiversary baby. I love you with all of me @jordan_wiseley

A post shared byTori Deal (@tori_deal) on

“We could not be happier to spend the rest of our lives together,” the couple said in an exclusive statement to Us Weekly. 

The couple made it to the finals of Dirty 30 and started dating soon after. In November 2018, Deal posted a video on her YouTube channel documenting the couple’s relationship and revealing that the two had moved in together.

“We’re super excited to see where life takes us and share the behind the scenes with you guys,” she wrote in the video description. “We’ve been growing together since we filmed Dirty 30 and have yet to stop. No Challenge or TV in the pool could hold us back.”

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