Entertainment
Hard Rock Hotel New York introduces experiences for guests to “Love Out Loud” this June
Hard Rock Hotel New York continues to amplify their year-round commitment to the LGBTQIA+ community
NEW YORK /PRNewswire/ — Hard Rock Hotel New York continues to amplify their year-round commitment to the LGBTQIA+ community with a dynamic line-up that hits all the right notes throughout June and beyond. From a one-of-a-kind suite designed by Grammy®-winning singer songwriter Kim Petras to a late-night gala in The Venue on Music Row hosted by New York icon Susanne Bartsch, there are many moments of creative expression and inclusivity to bring the entire community together in celebration of love and solidarity. The Hard Rock Heals Foundation® is at the heart of these unique partnerships and experiences uniting various philanthropic efforts around significant causes as the brand sustains their guiding principle to Love All – Serve All.
- Love Out Loud” Suite: Notable LGBTQIA+ figures have created special ‘Love Out Loud’ Suites at select Hard Rock Hotels around the world, and Hard Rock Hotel New York has teamed up with singer-songwriter, Kim Petras, to reimagine one Platinum suite with a Terrace. The artist’s personality shines throughout with her signature pink hue infused in the design, bespoke artwork, an interactive gaming area, and photo worthy creative touches. Play Kim’s Grammy®-winning music while indulging in her hospitality rider or soak in the city views from the fully outfitted and expansive outdoor terrace. Available now through July 9 for overnight stays, the “Love Out Loud” Suite starts at $1,200, plus tax, per night. In honor of this unique offering, Hard Rock is a proud sponsor of The Trevor Project – an organization making strides in advocacy, education, and crisis support for LGBTQIA+ youth. Hard Rock has contributed a $50,000 donation supporting their mission. To reserve the “Love Out Loud” Suite, email reservations@hrhnewyork.com or call the Hotel directly at +1 (212) 970-1200.
- Take Music to New Heights: Come Early, Stay Late is a nightlife event that steals the show on Thursdays at RT60 Rooftop Bar & Lounge with performances by acclaimed DJs and celebrity talent. June brings the Pride Edition of Come Early, Stay Late with a phenomenal roster from the LGBTQIA+ community including Quiana Parks, Timo Weiland, Lady Bunny, and Nina Sky.
- Pride Ball: Known as New York City’s patron saint of transformation and inclusion, Susanne Bartsch will be hosting an extravagant Pride Ball at The Venue on Music Row on Thursday, June 15 at 10:00 p.m. Known for the elaborate, eccentric parties she has thrown for decades, all are invited to come together and celebrate into the late hours of the night.
- “Love Out Loud” Moleskine Notebooks: Authentic storytelling is at the core of the collaboration between Hard Rock Hotels and Moleskine. The Limited-Edition “Love Out Loud” Moleskine notebook – celebrating individuality and creativity – is available for purchase in Rock Shop during Pride Month. All proceeds from each notebook will be donated to the OnePULSE Foundation, which was established to open minds and hearts following the Pulse Nightclub tragedy in Florida.
- Pride in the Community: Taking Pride to the streets, Hard Rock Hotel New York is partnering with Daniel Albanese, filmmaker of Out in The Streets, and visual artist David Puck, to create a striking mural that will be on display on the Lower East Side. Known for their colorful abstract portraits, Puck’s mural in partnership with Hard Rock Hotel New York, is inspired by Sasha Colby, winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15. Their work can be seen on Houston and 2nd Avenue starting June 2.
To complement the opportunities for hotel guests and New Yorkers to celebrate the LGBTQIA+ community, Hard Rock Hotel New York will also host a series of private parties including a fashion-forward event with The Daily Front Row featuring a surprise musical performance, as well as an exclusive Artists Den Pride concert that will later air as part of season 5 in Summer 2023.
Photo and video assets for Hard Rock Hotel New York’s “Love Out Loud” Suite and supporting events and programming can be found here. For more information and reservations, please visit www.hardrockhotels.com/new-york, https://www.hardrockhotels.com/new-york/pride.aspx, or follow along at @hardrockhotelnyc.
About Hard Rock Hotel New York:
Taking center stage in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, Hard Rock Hotel New York graces the iconic skyline at 159 West 48th Street. The hotel features 446 exquisitely designed guest rooms and specialty suites, including the standout two-floor Rockstar Suite complete with a private 1,600 sq. ft. terrace and floor-to-ceiling windows that showcase the city’s vibrant energy. Paying homage to the mecca of recording studios and music stores that once lined the block, the must-visit entertainment destination features a legendary memorabilia collection honoring musicians from and inspired by New York City. The show stopping event space, The Venue on Music Row plays host to A-list concerts, interviews and more, complemented by regular live and unplugged musical performances across the public spaces. Guests and locals are able to discover innovative culinary concepts including the upscale NYY Steak for fine dining, RT60 Rooftop bar and lounge offering expansive views from the 34th floor, and the brand’s signature Sessions Restaurant & Bar open day to night. In true Hard Rock style, the hotel offers an array of signature brand experiences and amenities including Rock Om® program fusing the practice of yoga with the rhythm of a custom DJ-curated soundtrack for on-demand in-room sessions, and the Sound of Your Stay® which allows guests to listen to Tracks® curated playlists by artists and musicians, Crosley record players available upon request with Wax®, or play a Fender guitar with Picks® in the privacy of their room. Additional Roxity® programming brings to life family attractions and entertainment while the Unleashed® pet program welcomes four legged friends. Guests are also invited to exchange the traditional city map for Soundtracks® interactive area guides which are curated by Hard Rock and musical artists to showcase the best of each destination. For more information, visit www.hardrockhotels.com/new-york.
About Hard Rock®:
Hard Rock International (HRI) is one of the most globally recognized companies with venues in over 70 countries spanning 290 locations that include owned/licensed or managed Hotels, Casinos, Rock Shops®, Live Performance Venues and Cafes. HRI also launched a joint venture named Hard Rock Digital in 2020, an online sportsbook, retail sportsbook and internet gaming platform. Beginning with an Eric Clapton guitar, Hard Rock owns the world’s largest and most valuable collection of authentic music memorabilia at more than 87,000 pieces, which are displayed at its locations around the globe. Hard Rock Hotels has been honored by J.D. Power’s North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Study as the number one brand in Outstanding Guest Satisfaction for two consecutive years, and among the top Upper Upscale Hotels for four consecutive years. HRI became the first privately-owned gaming company designated a U.S. Best Managed Company by Deloitte Private and The Wall Street Journal in 2021, and has since been honored threefold. Hard Rock was also honored by Forbes among the World’s Best Employers, as well as Best Employers for Women, Diversity and New Grads and a Top Large Employer in the Travel & Leisure, Gaming, and Entertainment Industry. In the 2022 Global Gaming Awards, Hard Rock was named Land-Based Operator of the Year for the second time in four years. In 2021, Hard Rock Hotels & Casinos received first place ranking in the Casino Gaming Executive Satisfaction Survey conducted by Bristol Associates Inc. and Spectrum Gaming Group for six of the last seven years. Hard Rock International currently holds investment grades from primary investment rating agencies: S&P Global Ratings (BBB) and Fitch Ratings (BBB). For more information on Hard Rock International, visit www.hardrock.com or shop.hardrock.com.
SOURCE Hard Rock Hotel New York
https://stmdailynews.com/category/the-bridge/
child education
Toy Story 5’s ‘Lilypad’ is an indictment of the world that birthed the ‘iPad Kid’
Toy Story 5 introduces “Lilypad,” a kid-friendly tablet that sidelines Woody and Buzz—and spotlights how the “iPad kid” debate is less about bad parenting and more about work, childcare costs, and a broken social safety net.
Aarushi Bhandari, Davidson College
In the trailer for “Toy Story 5,” a little girl named Bonnie is playing with her toys when a package arrives in the mail.
She opens it to find Lilypad, a tablet for children.
The iconic toys from the series – Woody, Buzz Lightyear, the Potato Heads, Forky and Slinky Dog – then watch in dismay as Bonnie casts them all aside in favor of the bright tablet screen. Rex the dinosaur exclaims, “What? Extinction? Not again!”
The film zeros in on a uniquely 21st-century phenomenon: the “iPad kid,” a term used – often disparagingly – to describe a generation of children who grew up enchanted by screens.
A lot of the discussion around tablet use among kids shames parents, framing it as an example of lazy or bad parenting. Yet factors such as long working hours and lack of access to affordable childcare compel many parents to rely on tablets.
As a scholar of the attention economy – and also as a mom to a 4-year-old – I’ve noticed a disconnect between the resources U.S. society offers parents versus what’s expected of them in the digital age.
’ Woody, Buzz and the gang must prove that traditional toys still matter when Bonnie becomes captivated by a high-tech tablet named Lilypad.
The pandemic and the ‘square au pair’
When the first “Toy Story” came out in 1995, many single-income families could still afford to comfortably raise multiple kids. It was more common for new parents to live near their extended families, such as grandparents, to provide childcare support. Federal policies provided some low-income families with cash assistance that helped ease the cost of transition to parenthood.
Since then, parenting has become a lot more challenging. Single-income households with kids under 18 have steadily declined as wages have stagnated, forcing both parents into the workforce. At the same time, it’s harder to qualify for government benefits.
And even when moms do earn a paycheck, working moms experience what sociologists call the “motherhood penalty” – career disadvantages, such as lower wages and promotion barriers, due to childbirth – even as U.S. parental leave policies remain weak.
So it’s hardly a surprise that fewer Americans are choosing to become parents under these conditions. But those who did have kids in the years leading up to 2020 ran smack into the COVID-19 pandemic.
The lockdown that started in March 2020 following the outbreak of the pandemic led to closures of schools and many workplaces. Many parents either worked from home or provided critical work in grocery stores and hospitals. Kids stayed home and schools transitioned to remote-learning models.
It’s important to remember that many institutions with social legitimacy and authority encouraged the use of tablets during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.
School systems around the world normalized their use for remote learning. Children as young as 4 were given tablets, which gave their parents space to complete their own remote work and other household tasks, with some moms referring to it as “the square au pair.”
In this sense, the tablet became a form of school-sanctioned childcare.
Economic activity was minimally disrupted. Productivity hummed along. And the kids? Comfortably distracted.
For some households, there’s little choice
When lockdowns ended, tablets remained integrated into the education system. In 2021, 4 in 5 U.S. households with children had a tablet. Beyond schoolwork, kids also use tablets for activities, such as video games and watching TV.
The adverse impacts of excessive screen time in general has been well documented for decades. But scholars have only recently unpacked the specific harms of interactive tablet use among young children.
Children who use tablets are more likely to experience emotional dysregulation and dependency on screens. Researchers have also found tablet use among kids to be significantly associated with ADHD diagnoses.
At the same time, research shows screen time use among children is tied to social class.
Parents from working- and middle-class households are more likely to rely on screens compared to high-income parents, who can hire childcare services, such as full-time nannies.
Parental education is also a factor. Americans generally have little grasp of digital hygiene – knowledge about best practices to minimize negative effects of screens. But households with parents who didn’t graduate from college are even more in the dark.
And while schools hand out tablets, most of them fail to provide students and families with a comprehensive education on the adverse impacts of excessive screen time.
In other words, this isn’t a Generation Alpha problem. Most people – adults included, with or without children – aren’t properly educated and informed about their choices around technology use. Yet adults continue to be shamed if they hand their kid a tablet. All the while, parents navigate the added burdens of challenging the educational status quo around tablets.
Frankenstein’s village
When work is the only sturdy pillar in a society where government benefits for low-income people, family ties and community institutions have eroded, tablets replace the metaphorical village – the web of social support that helps families thrive.
In pursuit of jobs or affordable housing, many young parents move farther from their extended families and the communities where they grew up. The working parents who are forced to rely on daycare – sending kids as young as a few weeks old – end up spending an exorbitant amount of money on the service.
Meanwhile, the persistence of traditional gender roles ensures that many moms still go home to a second shift: Working women continue to disproportionately cook, clean and care for children. No matter how overworked or exhausted some parents are, they cannot afford to hire help as the inflation and cost-of-living crises hit historic highs.
Big Tech takes advantage of this crisis with a “solution” that ultimately treats children as products, manipulating their emotions and mining their data. As I argue in my book, “Attention and Alienation,” children’s dependency on screens is a key component of the attention economy.
The earlier a life is monetized, the longer it is profitable.
“Toy Story 5” and its critical take on the tablet may be helpful. But it will take more than a blockbuster movie to protect small kids from the harms of too much screen time. Instead, I think it will require strong parental leave policies, expansive and affordable childcare access, fair wages and shared household labor.
In other words, there needs to be a full rehabilitation of the village.
Aarushi Bhandari, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Davidson College
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
📰 Enjoying STM Daily News? Join the conversation!
💬 Leave a comment, share your thoughts, and subscribe to our newsletter for the latest stories, updates, and “News You Can Use This Moment!” delivered to your inbox.
Stay connected with STM Daily News!
Entertainment
30 years after ‘Reasonable Doubt,’ Jay‑Z’s career embodies hip‑hop’s biggest contradictions
Share article
Print article
“Reasonable Doubt” was not the first rap album I ever owned. But Jay-Z’s debut was the first hip-hop album I bought with my own money.
30 years after ‘Reasonable Doubt,’ Jay‑Z’s career embodies hip‑hop’s biggest contradictions
Jabari M. Evans, University of South Carolina
“Reasonable Doubt” was not the first rap album I ever owned. But Jay-Z’s debut was the first hip-hop album I bought with my own money. More importantly, it was the first one I studied as a young writer who aspired to become a rapper, a dream that eventually came true.
Jay-Z sounded cool in a way that resembled a jazz musician more than a conventional rap star. He rapped with a quiet calm that also conveyed supreme confidence. His lyrics were layered, skillful and unorthodox.
Yes, the tracks often revolved around drug dealing. But the hustlers who populated “Reasonable Doubt” weren’t degenerates. They were refined and astute thinkers. And unlike other gangsta rappers, there was a moral quandary at the heart of his storytelling. In tracks like “D’Evils,” Jay-Z’s narrator turns crime, aspiration and paranoia into meditations on capitalism and the psychic cost of wealth:
We used to fight for building blocks
Now we fight for blocks with buildings that make a killing
The closest of friends when we first started
But grew apart as the money grew, and soon grew black-hearted
And later:
My soul is possessed by D’Evils in the form of diamonds and Lexuses
The cinematic complexity displayed in its tracks helps explain why “Reasonable Doubt” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and why it still matters 30 years later.
But the album also launched the career of a rapper whose own trajectory has come to mirror hip-hop’s own transformation.
In 1996, hip-hop was still fighting for legitimacy. Three decades later, it had been folded into the mainstream. Kendrick Lamar can win a Pulitzer Prize, Nas can have an endowed fellowship at Harvard University, and Jay-Z, who once couldn’t get signed to a label, can create a label of his own and become a billionaire business mogul.
Is it even possible for hip-hop to be seen as countercultural in 2026? And what happens when hip-hop’s most successful outsider becomes central to the very institutions he once seemed to challenge?
From moral panic to corporate behemoth
When “Reasonable Doubt” was released, hip-hop was both ascendant and under siege.
In February 1996, Tupac Shakur came out with “All Eyez on Me,” which became one of the bestselling rap albums of all time; seven months later, he was shot and killed. His friend-turned-rival, The Notorious B.I.G., was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting the following year. The media often cast these high-profile deaths as proof that rap music was inseparable from street violence, and the moral panic around hip-hop’s influence on young listeners only intensified.
How times have changed. Today, hip-hop powers advertising campaigns, luxury branding and streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, rap surpassed rock music as the most popular music genre in the U.S. in 2018. Today, it accounts for roughly 1-in-4 on-demand audio streams.
Jay-Z has played an outsized role in that transformation.
Since 1998, he’s won 25 Grammys for his own music. In that time, he’s also built a business empire. There’s his talent agency, Roc Nation; his streaming platform, TIDAL; his venture capital firm, Marcy Venture Partners; and his luxury alcohol brands, Armand de Brignac and D’Ussé. Through Roc Nation, he’s also a strategic partner with the NFL, advising the football league on its entertainment programming.
Forbes currently pegs his net worth at US$2.8 billion.
Confronted on capitalism
In April 2026, GQ published a long interview with Jay-Z.
This was a big deal: Jay-Z hadn’t interacted with the media like this since 2017, when he was promoting his 13th solo album, “4:44.”
How would one of hip-hop’s elder statesmen reflect on his career and his many successes?
In the interview, Jay-Z didn’t present his riches as a complicated outcome of capitalism’s contradictions. Instead, he talked about his wealth as if it were something his critics had failed to understand. When asked about the belief that there’s something inherently suspect about accumulating so much money, he pushed back:
“It’s almost like a cop-out. You get to demonize this group of folks without fixing the actual system that exists […] Your morality defines who you are. Your morality is not defined by a dollar amount.”
As for the notion that his career trajectory was somehow hypocritical:
“The only thing I heard coming up was the American dream. You could make it, if you pull yourself up by the bootstraps. I heard that my entire life – until we started being successful. Then it was like: You’re selling out because you’re making money.”
He then went on to insist that being handsomely paid is not some sort of betrayal to hip-hop, art or his community.
“I make art first and then I make sure that I’m compensated for my art. … That [capitalist] structure exists; I just see the world for what it is, not for what I want it to be. I’m a realist.”
To me, Jay-Z certainly sounded persuasive. He also sounded defensive. I think that’s because hip-hop has long been haunted by the idea that wealth compromises credibility, even as the tracks have always contained aspirational themes of luxury and entrepreneurship.
Don’t hate the player, hate the game
For my generation, Jay-Z sold aspiration in addition to albums.
I wore Rocawear denim suits in high school with a kind of conviction that now feels almost funny to admit. In college, drinking Belvedere vodka, which appeared in many a Jay-Z track in the early 2000s, felt like a rite of passage.
That’s because Jay made luxury seem urbane, sophisticated and distinctly Black. Even later in life, when I’d smoke Cohiba cigars, drink D’USSÉ or read about art collecting, I felt like I was living inside a script he had helped write.
Looking back, I can see that much of my admiration for him was cloaked in materialism. Now, I think about the work of political scientist Cedric Robinson, who wrote extensively about what he called “racial capitalism.”
He argued that capitalism has always been structured through race. It does not merely tolerate racial hierarchy; it depends on it. That means Black wealth – even spectacular Black wealth – does not automatically equal Black liberation. One Black billionaire can be held up as evidence of progress, while the broader system that continues to produce Black inequality remains intact.
In other words, if Jay-Z’s ascent becomes shorthand for Black progress, then the critique of the system that continues to oppress those at the margins starts to fade. The culture begins to confuse exceptional mobility with collective freedom.
At the same time, I don’t think Jay-Z can be simply understood as a sellout. Communication scholar A.J. Escoffery has written a lot about what he calls “reparative media.” Essentially, he calls for media institutions to do more than offer tokens of representation to marginalized communities. Media companies need to be built or owned by those communities.
Jay-Z’s defenders will sometimes describe him along these lines – as a Robin Hood-like figure who has taken capital from historically white-owned institutions and redirected some of it toward Black communities or Black entrepreneurs. Even if those gestures remain, at heart, capitalist – like his investments in cannabis brands – he’ll often use his positioning and clout to fund minority-owned businesses.
In the GQ interview, the rapper seemed to acknowledge the compromises he felt compelled to make, and he spoke of the limits Black artists face in industries they do not own:
“[There’s] nowhere you’re going to go that Black people control distribution and control media. At some point you’re going to have to partner with somebody.”
In that, Jay-Z highlights what hip-hop continues to grapple with. The genre no longer has to prove it belongs in the mainstream. But it has to figure out what it means to survive without being fully absorbed by it.
Jabari M. Evans, Assistant Professor of Race and Media, School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of South Carolina
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
📰 Enjoying STM Daily News? Join the conversation!
💬 Leave a comment, share your thoughts, and subscribe to our newsletter for the latest stories, updates, and “News You Can Use This Moment!” delivered to your inbox.
Stay connected with STM Daily News!
amusement and theme parks
Mattel Adventure Park and VAI Resort Continue to Grow, But Opening Date Remains Uncertain
Get the latest update on Mattel Adventure Park and VAI Resort in Glendale, Arizona. Construction continues in 2026, but officials have yet to announce an opening date.
GLENDALE, Ariz. — One of Arizona’s most anticipated entertainment developments continues to make visible progress, but visitors eager to experience Mattel Adventure Park and VAI Resort will likely have to wait longer.
Located near State Farm Stadium in Glendale, the massive VAI Resort project and the adjacent Mattel Adventure Park have been under construction for several years. While the development has transformed the skyline west of Phoenix, recent updates indicate that neither attraction currently has a confirmed opening date.
New Reports Suggest Further Delays
Recent reports published in spring 2026 indicate that VAI Resort officials continue to maintain their policy of announcing an opening date approximately nine months before welcoming guests. Because no such announcement has been made, industry observers and local media outlets now believe a 2026 opening is becoming increasingly unlikely.
The uncertainty extends to Mattel Adventure Park, which was originally expected to open in 2022 before being delayed multiple times. After missing its latest target of late 2025, references to a specific opening date were removed from public materials. Park representatives have stated that they currently have no update regarding an opening timeline.
Construction Continues Across the Property
Despite the delays, construction remains active throughout the resort and theme park complex. Visitors traveling along Loop 101 can easily spot the towering Hot Wheels-themed roller coasters that have become some of the most recognizable structures on the site.
Drone footage and construction updates posted throughout 2026 show ongoing work on hotel towers, entertainment venues, infrastructure, and various attractions within Mattel Adventure Park.
The official VAI Resort website continues to promote its future offerings, including luxury accommodations, restaurants, entertainment venues, retail spaces, and the world’s first Mattel Adventure Park.
What Guests Can Expect
When completed, Mattel Adventure Park is expected to feature attractions inspired by some of Mattel’s most recognizable brands, including:
- Barbie™ Beach House
- Hot Wheels™ Bone Shaker™: The Ultimate Ride
- Hot Wheels™ Twin Mill™ Racer
- Thomas & Friends™ attractions
- Masters of the Universe-themed experiences
- Mattel Games-themed attractions and activities
The park will be Arizona’s first fully themed indoor-outdoor amusement park and is designed to offer experiences for guests of all ages.
Meanwhile, VAI Resort is planned to include four hotel towers with approximately 1,100 rooms, a large entertainment district, multiple restaurants, retail shopping, convention facilities, and a state-of-the-art amphitheater designed to host major concerts and events.
A Growing Vision
One factor contributing to the project’s lengthy timeline appears to be the continued expansion of the resort’s scope. Developers have repeatedly described VAI as a destination that has evolved far beyond its original vision, adding new hospitality, dining, entertainment, and retail components over time. Earlier project statements noted that these expansions affected scheduling for the adjacent theme park.
The development remains one of the largest tourism and hospitality projects currently underway in Arizona, with investments estimated at more than $1 billion.
Looking Ahead
For now, both VAI Resort and Mattel Adventure Park remain works in progress. Construction activity continues, new attractions are still being promoted on official websites, and developers have shown no indication that the project has been abandoned. However, without an announced opening date, Arizona residents and visitors will need to remain patient as Glendale’s ambitious entertainment destination moves closer to completion.
While many expected to be riding Hot Wheels coasters by now, the latest updates suggest that the world’s first Mattel Adventure Park is still a destination for the future rather than the present.
Related External Links
- Mattel Adventure Park Official Website
- VAI Resort Official Website
- City of Glendale Economic Development News
- State Farm Stadium Official Website
- Visit Glendale Arizona Tourism Guide
- Epic Resort Destinations
📰 Enjoying STM Daily News? Join the conversation!
💬 Leave a comment, share your thoughts, and subscribe to our newsletter for the latest stories, updates, and “News You Can Use This Moment!” delivered to your inbox.
Stay connected with STM Daily News!
