Kelsea Ballerini‘s ready to burn her “Baggage” with a new Ranger Station candle inspired by her latest hit.
“anyone that knows me knows that wherever i am – bus, hotel, or home – i’m going to have enough candles lit to be a fire hazard, and i’ve been a ranger station diehard for years,” she shared on her socials. “to me, scent is such a powerful sense that can make you feel nostalgic or peaceful, highlight your favorite season or holiday, or help invigorate new ideas or beginnings.”
Kelsea calls the Burn the Baggage candle her “favorite kind of fragrance,” mixing “a bit of a grounded warm amber and a bit of a comfortable light iris.”
On the outside, you’ll find a “meter of healing” that “tracks your emotional journey as the candle burns down.” It starts with “Examine Patterns” — Patterns, of course, is the name of Kelsea’s album — and ends with “Baby, look at you now.”
“we wanted to tell the story of the journey of the duality of hurting and healing,” Kelsea explains, “and as you burn the candle i hope it keeps you company on whatever journey you’re on.”
The 8-ounce candle goes for $45, with 10% of the profits helping Porter’s Call, which provides counseling to those in the music industry.
Ten years after their last tour, Simon & Garfunkel reunited to launch the Old Friends tour in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania.
Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel’s relationship had soured after their 1993 tour, but after the pair received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys, and performed together, they decided to reunite for a full-scale tour.
The shows had the duo performing many of their classic tunes, including “Homeward Bound,” “The Sound of Silence,” “Mrs. Robinson,” “America” and “The 59th Street Bridge Song,” as well as some of Simon’s solo material.
The first leg of the tour consisted of 40 shows, with a second leg launching in June 2004, followed by a 12-city European leg that wrapped with a free concert in front of the Colosseum in Rome.
Britney Spears and Kevin Federline arrive to 2006 Grammy Nominees party, Hollywood, February, 2006 (Matthew Simmons/Getty Images for Rolling Stone)
Britney Spears is speaking out about the claims her ex-husband Kevin Federline makes in his new memoir You Thought You Knew.
On Instagram, Britney wrote, “The constant gaslighting from ex-husband is extremely hurtful and exhausting. I have always pleaded and screamed to have a life with my boys … I have felt demoralized by this situation and have always asked and almost begged for them to be a part of my life.”
“Sadly, they have always witnessed the lack of respect shown by own father for me. They need to take responsibility for themselves,” she continued. “With one son only seeing me for 45 min in the past 5 years and the other with only 4 visits in the past 5 years. I have pride too. From now on I will let them know when I am available.”
In his book, Federline claims, among other things, that Britney once watched their two sons sleep while holding a knife, drank wine while she was pregnant, and did cocaine while she was still breast-feeding. He also writes that he needs to “sound the alarm” about Britney because “something bad is going to happen if things don’t change.”
But Britney wrote, “Trust me, those white lies in that book, they are going straight to the bank and I am the only one who genuinely gets hurt here. I will always love [my sons] and if you really know me, you won’t pay attention to the tabloids of my mental health and drinking.”
“I am actually a pretty intelligent woman who has been trying to live a sacred and private life the past 5 years. I speak on this because I have had enough and any real woman would do the same.”
A rep for Britney previously told ABC News, “With news from Kevin’s book breaking, once again he and others are profiting off her and sadly it comes after child support has ended with Kevin. All she cares about are her kids … and their well-being during this sensationalism.”
Trucks carrying food aid and fuel, accompanied by a United Nations team, passed through the Kerem Shalom border crossing and arrive in the Gaza Strip on October 16, 2025. (Photo by Hani Alshaer/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A U.S.-led coordination center based in Israel that will oversee implementation of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza is expected to become operational in coming days, two U.S. officials tell ABC News.
The command center, which is tasked with coordinating security, aid and rebuilding efforts inside Gaza, will be led by a U.S. three-star general, at least initially, who has not been identified publicly. The commander will have a foreign deputy, who would be the equivalent of a two-star officer, the officials said.
The center is located inside Israel, just northeast of Gaza at a location not being disclosed to the public for security reasons. Officials said the center will not be located on an Israeli military base to ensure it can remain open to officials from other countries involved in the rebuilding of Gaza.
The center is seen as key to being to execute the extraordinary logistics involved in trying to rebuild and secure Gaza after two years of war. The U.S. and other countries are still discussing what an international security force might look like and how it would operate inside the strip, as well as how food and other aid will be distributed.
Trump has already sent 200 U.S. troops to coordinate the heavy lift; those military units specialize in transportation, planning, logistics and security. They will be working alongside representatives from other partner nations, the private sector and non-governmental organizations.
Sources say the command center is starting off slow, reaching what the military calls “initial operational capability” in coming days.
Senior White House advisers told reporters Wednesday that creation of the International Stabilization Force is under way. They said that Indonesia, Egypt, the UAE, Qatar, Azerbaijan and other Arab and Muslim countries have offered to play a role.
“The International Stabilization Force is starting to be, starting to be constructed and and once that occurs, there’ll be more efforts, but there’s a lot of planning and a lot of very positive conversations between the sides,” one senior U.S. official said.
ABC News’ Isabella Murray contributed to this report.
Diane Keaton attends the Handprint and Footprint in Cement Ceremony for Actress Diane Keaton hosted by TCL Chinese Theatre on August 11, 2022 in Hollywood, California. (Jerod Harris/Getty Images)
The cause of death of Oscar-winning actress Diane Keaton has reportedly been revealed.
Keaton, 79, died on Oct. 11 of pneumonia, according toPeople magazine, which cited a statement from the actress’ family. The statement also expressed thanks for “the extraordinary messages of love and support” from fans following her death.
Details were not immediately available when her death was confirmed on Saturday.
At the time, the Los Angeles Fire Department said it responded to a medical call to Keaton’s Brentwood home at 8:08 a.m. local time on Saturday and took a patient to the hospital.
Keaton rose to fame in the 1970s with her role as Kay Adams in The Godfather films, and, in 1978, she won the Academy Award for best actress for her performance in Annie Hall.
She is also known for her roles in Play It Again, Sam, Baby Boom, The First Wives Club and the Book Club franchise.
She told ABC News in 2022 that she had been “very fortunate to have many opportunities that came my way.”
She said, “What made my life interesting was I had freedom. You know, that I had the opportunity to make my choices with time as it went on.”
Upon learning the news of Keaton’s death, many across Hollywood mourned the actress on social media, including her co-stars over the years, like Mary Steenburgen, Goldie Hawn and filmmaker Nancy Meyers, who worked with Keaton on Something’s Gotta Give and Father of the Bride.
The family’s statement published by People went on to say: “She loved her animals and she was steadfast in her support of the unhoused community, so any donations in her memory to a local food bank or an animal shelter would be a wonderful and much appreciated tribute to her.”
Tessa Thompson‘s newest series is headed to Netflix soon. The actress stars opposite Jon Bernthal in the new drama His & Hers. The show comes from filmmaker William Oldroyd and follows two Georgia residents who have a connection to a shocking murder. Thompson also executive produces the series, which costars PabloSchreiber, Crystal Fox and Sunita Mani. It arrives to the streamer on Jan. 8 …
A Bosch prequel series has been greenlit at MGM+. The new show, called Bosch: Start of Watch, stars CameronMonaghan as a young Harry Bosch. This series will explore the detective’s origin story. It will costar OmariHardwick as veteran officer Eli Bridges and will begin production in 2026 …
Kate McKinnon has joined the cast of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Variety reports that the actress will portray Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, as a recurring guest star in season 3 of the series …
(NEW YORK) — ABC News Live’s original docuseries “Last Lands,” the Emmy-nominated and Webby-winning show, is returning for season 2, kicking off in Guatemala’s Petén region. “Last Lands” covers the two-day journey by ATV through the jungle of Guatemala in search of the ancient Mayan city, El Mirador.
Produced in partnership with ABC News Live and Global Conservation, the only international group focused solely on protecting endangered national parks and Indigenous territories in developing countries. The series takes viewers around the world, highlighting the urgent mission to protect our planet’s most threatened places.
Hosted by award-winning correspondent Bob Woodruff, “Last Lands” dives into the hidden stories of Guatemala’ s jungle. This is where the story of the Americas began in the remote area of El Mirador National Park, where the Mayan civilization thrived 2,000 years ago. Their existence ended with a mysterious collapse, leaving behind ruins of their cities in Guatemala’s northernmost corner.
The once-vibrant city stands tall within the forest today, having endured since before the time of Christ. The Mayans built a sprawling city with monuments and buildings up to 200 feet high, featuring ornate facades. They studied science and built roads to last 1,000 years, just as the Romans did.
It was sustained by a rich agricultural economy and connected by a network of causeways, all within 820 square miles located in the Mirador Basin. These cities were interconnected by the world’s first super-highway system, with these ruins being among the 51 pre-Hispanic Mayan cities created around 3,000 years ago.
There are three ways of getting there, either by chartering a helicopter, going on a three-day hike or taking a two-day trip by ATV, which is most preferred by the park rangers linked to the Foundation for Ecodevelopment and Conservation.
Some of these rangers are part of the FUNDAECO Genesis Program — a team of six tasked with stopping poaching and illegal logging. Given cartel activity surrounding the park, these rangers are unarmed but wear bullet proof vests. Some choose to protect their identities.
“All of them are threatened,” program director Francisco Asturias told ABC News. “They are the ones who take people to jail.”
The threats are often from those who were stopped by the Genesis team for destroying the park, which can be anyone from hunters to cartel members. Pulga Garcia told ABC News he has received 500 death threats during his time as a ranger.
“But we always want to continue with the heart of a conservationist, because we were born here,” Garcia said. “To pass it on to my children and from my children, to their children. Because if we lose this jungle, we’re dead.”
(KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip) — While there was joy on the faces of some Palestinians returning to the Gaza Strip this week after two years of war, many said they found their old neighborhoods unrecognizable from the relentless fighting that reduced many of the buildings to rubble.
Following the historic ceasefire agreement enacted on Monday, tens of thousands of displaced residents and nearly 2,000 Palestinians released from Israeli prisons made it back to Gaza, only to find themselves homeless.
“Of course, I was happy about being released, but not happy of being displaced with no safety in place, no life necessities,” said 23-year-old Abdullah Wa’el Mohammed Farhan, one of the former Palestinian prisoners freed on Monday as part of a ceasefire deal that President Donald Trump helped broker.
Standing outside a tent in Khan Younis, where he and his family are living, Farhan told ABC News that he was imprisoned for 20 months as the war with Israel raged on. He said that while detained, he and the other Palestinian prisoners were “completely isolated from the world.”
“When I was told about my release, I didn’t believe it because more than once [Israeli authorities] told us about our release and moved us from one prison to another while being tortured and beaten,” Farhan said.
ABC News has contacted the Israel Defense Forces and the Israel Prison Service about the allegations from Farhan and other released prisoners about being tortured and subjected to starvation while incarcerated, but have not received a response.
Fahan’s sister, 21-year-old Samaher Farhan, told ABC News that while she is thankful they have been reunited, she conceded that she was saddened her brother had to return to a community wrecked by the war.
“When I saw Abdullah yesterday, it was mixed feelings of happiness and sadness because of how he looked before he went to prison and how he looked now,” Samaher Farhan said.
She said she hopes to resume living in their home, which is still intact but in an area that is not habitable. For the time being, she said her family is living in a tent.
“We felt bad that this is not a worthy welcoming of a prisoner,” Samaher Farhan said. “How can he come out to a worn tent? So, it was a sad feeling. I even tried not to meet him or sit with him for a long time because the situation is dire in this worn tent.”
She said that when her brother was taken prisoner, their neighborhood was still in good shape, adding, “It was barely 1% of the destruction we have now.”
The United Nations and other organizations have reported that there is no safe place in the Gaza Strip, which is about 25 miles long by 7.5 miles wide. The IDF has designated most of the war-torn territory a “no-go zone,” issuing evacuation orders for civilians there, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
According to a damage assessment by the U.N. Satellite Centre, 83% of all structures in Gaza City, the capital of the Palestinian territory, are damaged. The assessment identified at least 17,734 structures that have been destroyed, about 43% of the total number of structures damaged.
In a report issued on Tuesday, the U.N. estimated that it will cost around $70 billion to reconstruct Gaza.
In its latest report on Wednesday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said that nearly 68,000 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip during the war, which started when Hamas terrorists launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 people and taking about 250 others as hostages.
The final 20 living Israeli hostages were released by Hamas on Monday as part of the ceasefire deal.
Shadi Abu Sido, a Palestinian photojournalist who was among those released from an Israeli prison on Monday, said he was shocked by the widespread devastation that has occurred in Gaza since he was detained in March 2024.
“I entered Gaza and found it to be like a scene of Judgment Day,” Sido said in a video testimony. “This is not Gaza. Where is the world?”
He said that while he was in prison, he was told by an Israeli prison officer that his wife and two children had been killed during the war. But once he returned to his home in Khan Younis, he said he learned that was not the case.
“I heard her voice, I heard my children, I was astonished. It cannot be explained, they were alive,” Sido said in an interview with Reuters.
But for another Palestinian prisoner, the euphoria of being freed was quickly replaced by agony when he learned his three children — ages 2, 5 and 8 — had died in the war.
In a video testimony, the man, whose name was not released, is seen falling to his knees and sobbing.
In the video, the man held a bracelet in the palm of his hand and said he had made it in prison and planned to give it to his youngest daughter.
“I made this for my daughter, whose birthday was supposed to be in five days,” he said in the video.
(WASHINGTON) — Just weeks before the planned meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea, China dramatically expanded its restrictions on rare earth minerals, a move the Trump administration sees as a sharp escalation in China’s efforts to tighten its grip on global manufacturing.
China’s new rules, which apply to all countries, are set to take effect in phases on Nov. 8, then Dec. 1.
“It is an exercise in economic coercion on every country in the world,” Ambassador Jameison Greer said Wednesday during a press conference alongside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “This will give China control over basically the entire global economy and the technology supply chain.”
The move prompted Trump to threaten 100% tariffs on all products from China starting Nov 1st. So far, Beijing hasn’t shown any public indication that it’s pulling back on its controls, but Bessent remains sanguine.
“I am optimistic that this can be de-escalated. Ultimately, we are confident in the strong relationship between President Trump and President Xi,” Secretary Bessent said. ” We’ve had substantial communication with the Chinese over the past few days, and we believe that there will be more forthcoming this week.”
Some experts say Beijing is playing hardball to increase its leverage in these upcoming talks, while undercutting U.S. efforts to boost its industrial base.
Bessent said Wednesday that Trump is still expected to meet with Xi in South Korea despite the tariff threats.
The Chinese government stated on Sunday that it does not want a trade war, but it will also not shy away from it.
“On the tariff issue, China’s position remains consistent: we do not want a trade war, but we are not afraid of one,” China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement Sunday. “If the U.S. persists in its course, China will resolutely take appropriate countermeasures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.”
China’s move to restrict rare Earth minerals could have global implications.
The restrictions affect a wide swath of the U.S. and global economy. Rare earths are key to producing computer chips, which are needed for many things like smartphones and AI systems. They’re also critical to making magnets to power drones, robots and cars. Rare earths are also crucial for defense technology, including F-35 fighter jets, Tomahawk missiles, and radar systems.
The restrictions mean that foreign firms must obtain Chinese government approval to export products that have even trace amounts of certain rare earths that originate from China.
Given that China is overwhelmingly dominant in this sector, this could have major national security implications.
Ambassador Greer gave an example on Wednesday, saying that “if a car is built in America and sold in Mexico, you would need to seek approval from China before making a sale because of the chips in the car.”
The broad scope of this rule from China is similar to how the U.S. has implemented export restrictions to control chip production around the world that uses American technology.
The sweeping new restrictions are a sign, some analysts say, that China wants the U.S. to roll back its own export controls, and that this fight is about more than just tariffs.
Viktor Kovalchuk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
(LONDON) — Russia overnight fired more than 300 drones and about three dozen missiles at targets throughout Ukraine, including civilian energy infrastructure and emergency services, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday.
The strike included an attack on the State Emergency Service department in the Kharkiv region, he said.
“There are wounded,” Zelenskyy said on social media. “Recovery efforts are underway everywhere. Emergency services are working.”
Zelenskyy, who is scheduled on Friday to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House, said on Thursday that the ongoing strikes only showed that the West needed to continue applying “pressure” on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
That pressure included continuing to update sanctions, but, he said, it could also include longer-range capabilities for the Ukrainian military to strike targets farther into Russia.
“Strong decisions are possible, decisions that can help. And this depends on the United States, on Europe, on all partners whose strength directly determines whether the war will be ended,” Zelenskyy said.
He added, “Now there is an important momentum toward peace in the Middle East. In Europe, this is also possible. That is exactly what I will be discussing today and tomorrow in Washington.”
The Kremlin on Wednesday also addressed the potential for the West to supply weapons for or to greenlight longer-range Ukrainian strikes within Russia.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was quoted in Tass, a Russian state-affiliated media outlet, saying that deliveries of U.S.-made Tomahawks would amount to a “dangerous escalation of tensions” between Russia and the United States.
The Russian strike on Ukraine overnight targeted several Ukrainian regions — with a focus on the Poltava and Kharkiv regions — with a total of about 320 drones, about 200 of which were Shahed attack drones, the Ukrainian air force said. About 37 missiles were also fired, the military said.
Most of those aerial attacks were thwarted by Ukraine or otherwise failed, the air force said. At least 37 drones and 14 missiles made it through Ukraine’s air defenses, the military said.
The Russian Ministry of Defense also reported downing at least 51 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory. Local authorities said the electricity supplies to several settlements in the Volgograd, Voronezh and Belgorod regions were disrupted by the Ukrainian attacks.
Trump on Wednesday said during an Oval Office press conference that he thought Russia and Ukraine were close to a ceasefire deal about two months ago, blaming the impasse on animosity between Zelenskyy and Putin.
“You know, it’s an obstacle. It’s an obstacle,” Trump said. “There’s no question about it.”
