The animated series X-Men ’97 has become be a Juggernaut-sized hit for Disney+.
Deadline is reporting that the series, which continues the adventures of the beloved 1990s X-Men: The Animated Series, attracted some 4 million views on the streaming service in the first five days since its release on March 20.
According to the trade, that makes it the most-watched first season premiere for an animated series since the premiere of Marvel Studios’ What If…? in 2021.
Also, the trade reports that the new series spurred interest in the original one, which is also available on Disney+. Deadline says views for the five seasons of X-Men: The Animated Series jumped 522% since the trailer for the follow-up debuted on February 15.
For approximately $70, you can now own a share of the company behind former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform.
Trading in Trump Media & Technology Group — which uses the ticker symbol DJT — began on the Nasdaq Tuesday morning after last week’s vote for a merger between Trump Media and special purpose acquisition company Digital World Acquisition Corporation.
The company’s market capitalization is approximately $2.7 billion.
Trump himself owns 58 percent of the shares in the company, placing his stake at more than $5 billion based on early trading Tuesday.
“Truth Social is doing very well. It’s hot as a pistol and doing great,” Trump told reporters in New York on Monday.
Trump can’t sell or leverage his stake in the company for at least six months due to a lockup provision intended to prevent a rapid selloff that could shake investor confidence, but the company has already bolstered Trump’s net worth. On the heels of Friday’s merger vote, Trump joined the Bloomberg Billionaires Index for the first time with a reported net worth of $6.5 billion.
In public statements, Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes has expressed confidence in the long-term success of the social media platform.
“As a public company, we will passionately pursue our vision to build a movement to reclaim the Internet from Big Tech censors,” Nunes said Monday. “We will continue to fulfill our commitment to Americans to serve as a safe harbor for free expression and to stand up to the ever-growing army of speech suppressors.”
Trump Media has a long road before it reaches profitability, according to a recent SEC filing, and most new social media companies face a low likelihood of success. In the first nine months of 2023, Trump Media brought in less than $3.4 million in revenue while losing $49 million.
Shares in the special purpose acquisition company Digital World Acquisition Corp have performed well in recent months ahead of the merger, partially due a support from smaller investors rallying the price.
Trump himself is intertwined with the fate of the company as not only its majority shareholder but also the platform’s most prominent user. If he were to stop using the platform, its share would likely suffer, a recent SEC filing acknowledged.
“If Truth Social fails to develop and maintain followers or a sufficient audience, if adverse trends develop in the social media platforms generally, or if President Trump were to cease to be able to devote substantial time to Truth Social, TMTG’s business would be adversely affected,” a recent filing said.
The Straits Times reports that Taylor Swift‘s dad, Scott Swift,won’t face any charges after he was accused of assaulting a photographer in February in Sydney, Australia.
Australian police said on March 26 that no action would be taken against Scott. Photographer Ben McDonald had claimed that Scott confronted him and punched him while he was taking photos of Taylor getting off of a private yacht.
He reported the incident to police, but Swift then left the country as the Eras Tour moved onto Singapore.
A Taylor Swift spokesperson told ABC News after the alleged altercation, “Two individuals were aggressively pushing their way towards Taylor, grabbing at her security personnel and threatening to throw a female staff member into the water.”
Capitol Police on Tuesday morning arrested 13 protesters who were demonstrating against the Supreme Court’s examination of restrictions to the abortion pill mifepristone.
The Supreme Court justices on Tuesday are hearing arguments over whether the Food and Drug Administration lawfully relaxed restrictions to make it easier to access the drug to end a pregnancy. Mifepristone, the first pill taken in a two-drug regimen for a medication abortion, is the most common method of abortion in the country.
Capitol Police said the 13 protesters were moving around the Capitol grounds and “illegally blocking roads and then a walkway.”
“Our officers warned the group to stop blocking the walkway or they would be arrested. They refused, so our officers arrested them,” a Captiol Police spokesperson said.
Throughout the morning, there were large competing demonstrations outside the building. Small groups of pro-abortion rights demonstrators staged sit-ins on sidewalks and roadways.
It’s not yet clear if the protesters were part of a specific group.
In the wake of the blockbuster news that Kate Middleton has cancer, add Stephen Colbert to the list of people who are backpedaling jokes they made about her.
On Monday night’s The Late Show, Colbert struck a somber tone and apologized for recent zingers he told related to Middleton’s highly-publicized Photoshop fail.
“I tell a lot of jokes,” Colbert said. “And for the last six weeks to two months, everybody has been talking about the mystery of Kate Middleton’s disappearance from public life.”
He explained that two weeks ago, he made some jokes about the situation, intimating Prince William was cheating on her. “When I made those jokes, that upset some people — even before her diagnosis was revealed,” he said.
“I do not make light of someone else’s tragedy,” he continued, adding, “Far too many of us know that any cancer diagnosis of any kind is harrowing for the patient and for their family.”
The Emmy winner closed his comments by saying, “Though I’m sure they don’t need it from me, I and everyone here at The Late Show, would like to extend our well wishes and heartfelt hope that her recovery is swift and thorough.”
When Middleton revealed to the world that she was undergoing cancer treatment, other celebs took to social media to make similar apologies for joking about the Princess Kate headlines, including Blake Lively, and Alyssa Farah Griffin, Sara Haines, Ana Navarro and Sunny Hostin from The View.
Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign aide who was indicted alongside the former president in the Georgia election interference case, has been subpoenaed as part of a separate probe in Arizona investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in that state, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The subpoena, which has not been previously reported, comes as part of an ongoing investigation by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, whose office previously confirmed to ABC News she was investigating the so-called “alternate elector” plot in the state.
“We will announce something in the relatively near future,” Mayes said recently of the investigation.
Attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who is accused of helping devise the Trump campaign’s fake elector plan, sat for an interview with investigators in Arizona in recent weeks, sources also told ABC News. Chesebro was indicted in the Georgia investigation and took a deal with prosecutors, changing his plea to guilty to a single felony charge and agreeing to cooperate.
A source said Chesebro was not subpoenaed in Arizona and sat for the interview voluntarily.
An attorney for Roman and a spokesperson for the Arizona attorney general’s office declined to comment to ABC News.
A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
ABC News previously obtained a Dec. 6, 2020, memo authored by Chesebro, that laid out a plan for “alternate” electors to meet, vote, and send in their certificates to be counted in a proposal that prosecutors said was designed to “mimic as best as possible the actions of the legitimate Biden electors, and that on January 6, the Vice President [would] open and count the fraudulent votes, setting up a fake controversy that would derail the proper certification of Biden as president-elect.”
Roman was previously indicted in Georgia in August alongside Trump and 17 others over allegations that the group attempted to overturn that state’s election results. He pleaded not guilty to the seven counts he faces, which include charges relating to his alleged efforts to help coordinate and appoint alternate slates of electors.
The indictment alleges Roman was involved in that effort in multiple states.
“I need a tracker for the electors,” Roman allegedly wrote in a December, 2020 email, according to the indictment, in which he allegedly instructed individuals associated with the Trump campaign to update a spreadsheet listing presidential elector nominees in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, and other battleground states.
Prosecutors in multiple other states have also brought charges over the alleged effort to submit alternate slates of electors. In June, prosecutors in Michigan filed felony charges against 16 Republicans over their alleged efforts to replace Michigan’s electoral votes for Joe Biden with electoral votes for then-President Donald Trump, with nine of them subsequently pleading not guilty.
In December, the Nevada attorney general indicted six so-called alternate electors for falsely portraying themselves as Nevada’s duly-elected presidential electors. Earlier this month, Politico reported the office had issued a number of grand jury subpoenas.
In November, Mayes told CNN that the Arizona investigation was “robust.”
“We’re going to make sure that we do it on our timetable, applying the resources that it requires to make sure that justice is done, for not only Arizonans, but for the entire country,” she said.
Sleeping with Sirens has announced a U.S. tour, during which they’ll be playing their 2011 album, Let’s Cheers to This,in full.
The headlining outing will run from September 21 in Minneapolis to October 17 in Portland.
“This is the record that really changed everything for this band,” vocalist Kellin Quinn says of Let’s Cheers to This. “Couldn’t be more excited to explore these songs again and relive the memories.”
Presales begin Tuesday, March 26. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday, March 29, at 10 a.m. local time.
For the full list of dates and all ticket info, visit SirensMerch.co.
A vinyl reissue of Let’s Cheers to This will be released on April 12. Sleeping with Sirens will also play Let’s Cheers to This in full at Las Vegas’ When We Were Young festival in October.
jxdn has announced a headlining tour in support of his upcoming album, WHEN THE MUSIC STOPS.
The U.S. leg launches July 6 in Minneapolis and wraps up July 27 in Los Angeles. Tickets go on sale Thursday, March 28.
For the full list of dates and all ticket info, visit jxdnMusic.com.
WHEN THE MUSIC STOPS will be released June 28 via Travis Barker‘s DTA Records. It’s the sophomore follow-up to jxdn’s 2021 debut, Tell Me About Tomorrow.
A new documentary about the The Beach Boys is set to premiere next month on Disney+.
The Beach Boys, directed by Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny, takes fans back to the beginning of the California band and will include never-before-seen footage as well as all-new interviews from band members Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, David Marks and Bruce Johnston.
The documentary will also include a new interview with former member Blondie Chaplin, audio from another former member Ricky Fataar plus appearances by late members Carl and Dennis Wilson. In addition, fellow musicians like Lindsey Buckingham, Don Was, Janelle Monáe and Ryan Tedder contribute to the documentary.
The Beach Boys will stream exclusively on Disney+ starting May 24. The official soundtrack to the documentary will also be available on streaming services the same day.
The documentary is just one of several treats in store this year for fans of The Beach Boys. The group will release their official book The Beach Boys by The Beach Boys on April 2. They are also reissuing their Shut Down, Vol 2 albumon limited edition blue and white marble vinyl on March 29.
Shakira recently told The Sunday Times that she sacrificed her career for her former partner, soccer star Gerard Piqué, who is the father of her two sons. While appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on March 25, she said she was only able to create her new album because he was no longer “dragging me down.”
The new album, whose Spanish title translates to Women No Longer Cry, is her first in seven years, and it’s already been RIAA-certified seven times Platinum. Shakira told Jimmy, “I’ve been putting out music here and there but it was really hard for me to put together a body of work. I didn’t have time. It was the husband factor.”
While Shakira and Piqué were never married, they were together for 11 years.
“Now I’m husband-less. Yeah, the husband was dragging me down,” she laughed. “Now I’m free! Now I can actually work!”
Explaining the title of the album, Shakira said, “It’s men’s turn now. For too long we have been sent to cry with a script in our hands and without an end, just because we are women. We have to conceal our pain in front of our kids, in front of society. We have to heal in a certain way.”
“I don’t think anyone is supposed to tell us how to heal,” she added. “Now women decide when to cry, how to cry and until when.
Shakira also revealed that her sons, Milan and Sasha,appear on the album, singing on a song called “Acróstico.” Shakira said after they did the song, “they wanted to be on the video, and now they’re asking for royalties!”
