• So how do you ask 85-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to let you bring video cameras into the gym to record her workout? The answer, according to the makers of the RBG documentary that's in theaters now and bound for CNN later this year, is "very meekly." A trainer pushing Ginsburg on the free weights provides one of the smile-worthy moments in the documentary, which puts meat behind the cultural phenomenon created by the 2015 book, Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The film's story traces her legal work advancing rights for women leading up to her 1993 elevation to the top court, and her role as a justice since. Mixed in is the tender love story with her husband, Martin Ginsburg, who died in 2010, and rich personal touches including her friendship with Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016. Film director Betsy West said that "we felt that many of her millennial fans didn't know her full story." When West and co-director Julie Cohen first approached Ginsburg with the idea for a documentary, her answer was "not yet." "We noticed the two words not in her email to us were 'no' and 'never,'" Cohen said. Ginsburg eventually cooperated with interviews. The request to film the workout scene was met with a dramatic pause before the answer: "Yes, I think that would be possible." "We weren't in that room for more than a few minutes, then we knew why she'd let us film this," West said. "She's an elderly woman who is keeping herself in very good shape to do the job that she loves and I think she's proud of this."
• Spotify has removed R. Kelly's music from its playlists, citing its new policy on hate content and hateful conduct. A spokesman said this week that Kelly's music is no longer available on the streaming service's owned and operated playlists and algorithmic recommendations. His music will still be available, but Spotify will not promote it. The new policy defines hateful conduct as "something that is especially harmful or hateful," such as violence against children and sexual violence. The move is another blow for the R&B superstar, who has been battling allegations that he has sexually abused women for decades. While Kelly has denied the allegations and was acquitted in 2008 of child pornography charges, recent attention and a #MuteRKelly campaign has put the singer, songwriter and producer under more scrutiny. He was recently dropped from a concert in his hometown of Chicago, and there is pressure to cancel his upcoming concerts. R. Kelly's management decried the move in a statement, saying "R. Kelly never has been accused of hate, and the lyrics he writes express love and desire." It went on to say Kelly, who has never been convicted of a crime, is the victim of an "ongoing smear campaign."
A Section on 05/12/2018