Leah LaBelle (September 8, 1986 – January 31, 2018) was an American singer. Born in Toronto, Ontario, and raised in Seattle, Washington, she began pursuing music as a career in her teens, which included performing in the Total Experience Gospel Choir. LaBelle rose to prominence in 2004 as a contestant on the third season of American Idol, placing twelfth in the season finals. Attending the Berklee College of Music for a year, she dropped out to move to Los Angeles. Starting in 2007, LaBelle recorded covers of R&B; and soul music for her YouTube channel. These videos led to work as a backing vocalist starting in 2008 and a record deal in 2011 with Epic in partnership with I Am Other and So So Def Recordings. LaBelle released a sampler, three singles, and a posthumous extended play (EP), and received the Soul Train Centric Award at the 2012 Soul Train Music Awards. In 2018, LaBelle and her boyfriend Rasual Butler died in a car crash in Los Angeles.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leah_LaBelle

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1578:

Eighty Years' War: Spain won a crushing victory at the Battle of Gembloux, threatening the States General of the Netherlands and contributing to its move from Brussels to Antwerp. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gembloux_%281578%29

1957:

A DC-7B operated by Douglas Aircraft collided in mid-air with a U.S. Air Force F-89 and crashed into a schoolyard in Pacoima, California. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1957_Pacoima_mid-air_collision

1988:

Doug Williams became the first African-American quarterback to play in a Super Bowl, leading the Washington Redskins to victory in Super Bowl XXII. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Williams_%28quarterback%29

2010:

James Cameron's Avatar became the first film to earn over US$2 billion worldwide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_%282009_film%29

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

hover: 1. (transitive) 2. To keep (something, such as an aircraft) in a stationary state in the air. 3. Of a bird: to shelter (chicks) under its body and wings; (by extension) of a thing: to cover or surround (something). 4. (obsolete) Of a bird or insect: to flap (its wings) so it can remain stationary in the air. 5. (intransitive) 6. To remain stationary or float in the air. 7. (figuratively) 8. To hang around or linger in a place, especially in an uncertain manner. 9. To be indecisive or uncertain; to vacillate, to waver. 10. (computing) Chiefly followed by over: to use a mouse or other device to place a cursor over something on a screen such as a hyperlink or icon without clicking, so as to produce a result (such as the appearance of a tooltip). 11. (nautical) To travel in a hovercraft as it moves above a water surface. 12. An act, or the state, of remaining stationary in the air or some other place. 13. A flock of birds fluttering in the air in one place. 14. (figuratively) An act, or the state, of being suspended; a suspension. 15. (chiefly Southern England) A cover; a protection; a shelter; specifically, an overhanging bank or stone under which fish can shelter; also, a shelter for hens brooding their eggs. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hover

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

I certainly do have this feeling of affection for the absolute sense of intellectual freedom that exists as a live nerve, a live wire, right through the center of American life. … Every time I get totally discouraged with this country, I remind myself, "No, the fact is that finally we can really say what we think, and some extraordinary things have come out of that."   --Norman Mailer https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Norman_Mailer