Whitney Houston performs onstage at the 2009 American Music Awards at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on Nov. 22, 2009 in Los Angeles. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
Oprah Winfrey recently made headlines by telling an unflattering story about Whitney Houston, and now the late singer’s estate is hitting back, saying Oprah’s version of the story is inaccurate.
While speaking at the Cannes Lion festival in France, Variety and other outlets reported that Oprah illustrated the influence she and her talk show had by claiming that Whitney Houston once fell off the stage during a 2009 appearance on the show because “she had gone back on drugs.”
Varietyquoted Oprah as saying, “I knew that if that story got out … [Whitney] would be destroyed by that. And so even though the audience was there and the audience had cameras, I begged them not to put those pictures out because it would ruin her life, and they did not. That would not happen today, I can tell you that.”
The official Whitney Houston Instagram account posted a statement from the late singer’s estate on Wednesday, reading, “Whitney absolutely fell off stage, but it was during a sound check and it was due to the darkness of the area and her unfamiliarity with the stage. She was absolutely not high.”
“This story was picked up by several media outlets. Like many people, she faced personal battles, but it is inaccurate and unfair to attach that struggle to every performance or every chapter of her life,” the statement continued.
The statement concluded, “What the studio audience witnessed on stage was the result of discipline, talent, and commitment not the assumptions others project. Whitney’s humanity included triumphs and struggles, but on that day, she showed up as the professional and gifted artist she always worked to be. We owe her the dignity of telling the truth not repeating myths.”
Search and recovery workers dig through debris looking for any survivors or remains of people swept up in the flash flooding near Camp Mystic on July 6, 2025 in Hunt, Texas. . (Photo by Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)
(HUNT, Texas) — Camp Mystic, the Christian all-girls sleepaway camp, filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday, according to court records.
The Chapter 11 filing comes nearly a year after a deadly flood killed 25 girls and two teen counselors at the camp’s Guadalupe River location, which is located in the Texas Hill Country.
According to the Wednesday filing, Camp Mystic has a debt exceeding $10 million.
In April, Camp Mystic said it had planned to welcome more than 800 girls to its Cypress Lake location this summer before withdrawing its application.
Families of the flood victims and some officials, including Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, had called on the Texas Department of State Health Services to block Camp Mystic’s license for the summer.
Patrick contended the camp shouldn’t reopen until the flood was fully investigated.
The parents of one of the deceased campers — 8-year-old Cile Steward, whose body has yet to be recovered after she was swept away in the Guadalupe River — have also been vocal about the camp not reopening while their daughter remains missing.
Casey Garrett, a Houston attorney hired by the state legislature to investigate the deadly flood, presented a review of the camp’s policies in April based on interviews with approximately 150 people, including campers, counselors, the camp’s owners and the victims’ families.
The attorney said there was inadequate training or drillsfor counselors and campers regarding a flood threat.
A written report of the investigation’s findings is expected later this year, The Associated Press reported.
The Texas Rangers have also opened a criminal investigation of Camp Mystic, Patrick said.
Families of the victims have also filed a lawsuit against the camp.
In a previous statement to ABC News in response to the lawsuits filed by families, Camp Mystic said, “We continue to pray for the grieving families and ask for God’s healing and comfort.”
Jeff Ray, legal counsel for Camp Mystic, said in a statement, “We intend to demonstrate and prove that this sudden surge of floodwaters far exceeded any previous flood in the area by several magnitudes, that it was unexpected and that no adequate warning systems existed in the area.”
“We disagree with several accusations and misinformation in the legal filings regarding the actions of Camp Mystic and Dick Eastland, who lost his life as well. We will thoroughly respond to these accusations in due course,” Ray added.
-ABC News’ Meredith Deliso and Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — France has confirmed its first Ebola case linked to the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as the United Nations warned that the outbreak is the fastest-growing in Africa’s history.
The patient in France is a humanitarian doctor who recently returned from the DRC and has been transferred to a specialist hospital, authorities confirmed.
French health officials said the case was detected quickly, the necessary precautions are in place and that there is no indication of local spread.
“France has specialized capabilities for managing highly transmissible infectious diseases,” France’s Ministry of Health said in a statement announcing the case. “Patients are treated in a designated healthcare facility, following strict biosafety protocols (negative pressure room, dedicated equipment and protocols). Health authorities are fully mobilized and the situation is being continuously monitored.”
“All precautionary measures, including the patient’s isolation, were taken upon his arrival in the country, with transfer to the hospital under secure conditions to prevent any risk of contamination,” the statement continued.
Officials said a thorough epidemiological investigation is underway to identify individuals who may have been in contact with the patient and that they will be contacted “without delay” by the regional health agency before undergoing 21 days of home isolation while being closely monitored the entire time.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said on Wednesday that the risk of infection is “low” for European residents and travelers to areas of active transmission, and “very low” for the general European population.
The development comes as U.N. officials warned on Tuesday that the Ebola outbreak in the DRC is spreading at an unprecedented pace.
As of Monday, there were 1,048 confirmed cases and 267 deaths, making it the largest number of confirmed Ebola cases recorded during the first month of an outbreak in Africa, according to Dr. Abdirahman Mahamud, director of heath and emergency alert and response operations at the World Health Organization.
Mahamud said it took just 37 days for the current outbreak to reach 250 deaths, compared to 78 days during the 2014 and 2016 West Africa outbreaks and 130 days during the 2018-2019 DRC outbreak.
Mahamud added that there are some signs the response has been scaled up to match the pace of the outbreak’s spread.
The number of beds available for treatment has risen in the last two weeks, “going from a handful to over 500 beds across 19 health zones,” he said.
Additionally, the U.N. said laboratory capacity has also increased from 30 tests a day in Kinshasa, the DRC’s capital, at the start of the outbreak to more than 2,000 tests per day through eight labs in the three provinces at the center of the outbreak.
Paolo Cravero, senior office of communications and media relations at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said there is “a lack of trust in the response” among affected communities and that the organization is “working hard with communities to bridge that gap.”
“Rumor and misinformation are creating some difficulties,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — Frank Carone, a former chief of staff to ex-New York Mayor Eric Adams, was arrested on Wednesday morning along with his brother Anthony and two others as part of a federal bribery case, according to federal investigators.
While serving as chief of staff, Carone allegedly, “agreed to accept a series of bribe payments” as part of a scheme to “exploit the city’s migrant crisis for profit,” according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court.
In 2022, during the influx of migrants into New York, the city needed to rent entire hotels to accommodate asylum-seekers using emergency contracts.
Carone allegedly accepted $120,000 in bribes from two co-defendants, Crystal Chen and Yan Po Zhu, in exchange for steering a multimillion-dollar emergency contract to a Microtel in Long Island City, Queens, that they controlled, federal prosecutors alleged.
To conceal the bribes, the payments were allegedly funneled through an account that Carone’s brother, Anthony, controlled, the indictment said.
“In total, Zhu and Chen paid approximately $120,000 to F. Carone in exchange for an Emergency Shelter Contract for the Microtel, which was laundered through the Law Firm #2 account by A. Carone and his co-defendants,” the indictment said.
The indictment included photographs of Zhu and Carone socializing at Zhu’s Long Island home in June 2022, a time when the indictment said Zhu and Chen’s efforts to secure an Emergency Shelter Contract through other means were stalling.
“Zhu leveraged his burgeoning personal relationship with the defendant, Frank V. Carone,” the indictment said.
The city ultimately awarded Microtel a nearly $7 million contract, even though it was smaller than another Long Island City hotel under consideration.
The indictment quoted an unnamed city employee who allegedly “lamented that replacing the professional’s staff’s recommendations with the Microtel ‘meant a loss of 75 units,’ which would necessitate opening more locations to make up the difference.”
The defendants are charged with 13 counts, including conspiracy, federal program bribery and obstruction.
Carone helped with Adams’ transition into office in January 2022 and served as the mayor’s chief of staff until December that year, when he departed the administration.
As he departed, he said that in his position it had been an “honor keeping the trains running for this administration,” according to a press release at the time.
Arthur Aidala, an attorney representing Carone, said in a statement to ABC News that Carone was notified that he was under federal investigation three years ago and denied the allegations.
“Frank Carone was part of an administration that publicly challenged what it viewed as the previous White House’s dangerous immigration policies and their harmful impact on New York City,” Aidala said in a statement to ABC News. “Following an extensive three-year investigation that examined numerous aspects of Mr. Carone’s personal and professional life, prosecutors ultimately brought these charges.”
“Mr. Carone maintains his innocence and looks forward to addressing these allegations through the legal process. He is confident that the facts will demonstrate that he acted lawfully and appropriately at all times,” Aidala added.
Attorney information for the other defendants was not immediately available.
Todd Shapiro, a spokesperson for former Mayor Adams, said in a statement that his “prayers are with [Carone’s] family”
“Frank Carone has dedicated decades of his life to public service, the legal profession, and helping countless individuals, businesses, and charitable organizations throughout New York,” he said.
Mike D of Beastie Boys attends Saint Laurent at the Palladium on February 10, 2016 in Los Angeles, California for the Saint Laurent Los Angeles show. (Larry Busacca/Getty Images for SAINT LAURENT)
Beastie Boys member Michael “Mike D” Diamond has announced a new run of U.S. solo shows.
The dates will take place Aug. 30 in Boston, Sept. 1 in Washington, D.C., Sept. 3 in Asheville, North Carolina, Sept. 5 in Atlanta and Sept. 9 in New York City.
Presales begin Thursday at 10 a.m. local time, and tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday at 10 a.m. local time.
Mike will release his debut solo album, Thank You, on Aug. 28. It marks the first full-length solo release from a Beastie Boy since the group disbanded in 2012 following the death of member Adam “MCA” Yauch.
The Thank You songs “Switch Up,” “What We Got” and “True Colors” are out now.
A view of gas pumps at a USA Gasoline station on May 04, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump has called for the Department of Justice to “immediately start looking into” oil companies as he accused them of price gouging and not lowering the “price at the pump” fast enough in a message on social media.
“The big Oil Companies are not dropping their price at the pump commensurate with the sharply lower prices they are paying for Oil,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “Those prices are dropping like a rock! In other words, customers are being ‘gouged.’”
“I have instructed the DOJ to immediately start looking into this,” Trump continued. “Gasoline prices better start going down a lot faster than what I’m seeing!”
A DOJ spokesperson responded to Trump’s post, telling ABC News that “The price of fuel is not only a national security issue, it impacts the wallet of every American. We will always commit to ensuring affordability in this nation.”
Trump’s call for the investigation comes amid reports of ships beginning to move oil and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) through the Strait of Hormuz.
Oil prices have continued to lower recently as peace talks between the United States and Iran have been taking place. U.S. oil is trading at $70.13 a barrel — down 4.18% — and global oil is trading at $73.74 — down 4.28%. Oil is now close to where it was before the war began — U.S. oil ended at $67 a barrel the Friday before the war started.
The Treasury’s move allowing more Iranian oil onto the market until Aug. 21 and reports there was more traffic in the Strait of Hormuz are helping push oil prices lower.
The average price of a gallon of regular gas is $3.90, down 9 cents from last week’s average, according to GasBuddy.
Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said Sunday that oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is “already back to normal” after the U.S. and Iran signed a preliminary agreement to reopen the critical waterway while negotiators spend the next two months trying to work out yet-to-be-resolved nuclear issues.
“I’m long out of the business of predicting oil or gasoline prices, but they will continue to head down. Flows of oil and natural gas through the straits have already returned to normal, and they will continue that way whatever happens with the negotiations with the Iranians,” Wright said on ABC News’ “This Week.” “We’ve got growing American production, surging production in Venezuela. We’ve got cooperation with all the other energy producers of the world. So, I think Americans can expect continued declines in energy prices.”
U.S. and Iranian leaders signed a memorandum of understanding last week that appears to have broken the monthslong stalemate in the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway in the Gulf region through which around 20% of the global oil supply normally transits to enter the market.
Energy prices spiked in May, with U.S. gas prices averaging $4.56 per gallon over the month, according to Gas Buddy.
Gen. Chris Donahue assumed command of U.S. Army Europe and Africa in December 2024. (U.S. Army)
(WASHINGTON) — One of the Army’s most seasoned and high-profile officers is abruptly relinquishing command next week, according to the service.
Gen. Chris Donahue has spent the past 18 months leading U.S. Army Europe and Africa, the command responsible for Army operations across both continents. He will relinquish command halfway through what is normally a three-year assignment.
“Gen. Christopher Donahue, commanding general of U.S. Army Europe and Africa and commander of NATO’s Allied Land Command, will relinquish command on July 2, 2026,” an Army spokesperson said in a statement. “The Army thanks Gen. Donahue for his leadership of U.S. Army Europe and Africa.”
His departure comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth presses ahead with a sweeping overhaul of the Pentagon’s senior ranks, firing or sidelining large numbers of top officers with little public explanation, including the Army’s top officer Gen. Randy George.
The command Donahue now leads is also set to be downgraded from a four-star command to a three-star post, according to another U.S. official, part of Hegseth’s broader push to shrink the number of generals across the force.
Officers serving as four-star generals are only eligible to hold a position of that rank. If there are no other slots available, then the only option left for them is to retire.
The Atlantic first reported Donahue’s expected departure.
Lt. Gen. Kevin Admiral, the current commander of the Army’s III Armored Corps, is expected to be nominated to take over the role, according to a U.S. official.
Donahue’s resume includes command of the Army’s elite Delta Force and the famed 82nd Airborne Division, along with extensive combat experience across two decades of war. Inside the Army, he has long been viewed as one of its top officers and a potential future Army chief of staff.
He rose to wider public attention as the last U.S. service member to leave Afghanistan during the 2021 withdrawal, photographed in night vision boarding a C-17 when he was commanding the 82nd Airborne Division.
Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, deputy commander, U.S. Army Europe and Africa, will serve as acting commander, according to the Army.
(NEW YORK) — A wildfire burning in Utah has grown to more than 31,000 acres, prompting mandatory evacuations of homes and campgrounds and completely closing a highway in the mountainous area.
Fueled by drought conditions and blustery winds, firefighters are waging twin battles against two major blazes, both measuring more than 48 square miles, officials said.
The Cottonwood Fire in Beaver County started Monday afternoon and spread rapidly, fanned by wind gusts of up to 50 mph, according to Utah Fire Info.
Overnight, the Cottonwood fire grew by nearly 7,000 acres “due to high temperatures, gusty winds, and extremely dry fuels,” the U.S. Forest Service said in a statement early Wednesday. The fire remains 0% contained.
The Cottonwood Fire ignited around 3:36 p.m. on Monday, threatening populated areas in Beaver County, according to officials.
Just after 9 p.m. local time on Monday, residents in the Eagle Point and Merchant Valley areas of Beaver County were ordered to evacuate immediately as flames bore down on the area, authorities said.
Evacuation orders remained in effect on Wednesday morning.
Fire officials said on Tuesday that they suspect the Cottonwood Fire is a human-caused blaze, but released no additional details, according to ABC affiliate station KTVX in Salt Lake City.
The Cottonwood Fire is one of 349 wildfires currently burning across Utah consuming more than 105,000 acres combined, according to Utah Fire Info.
The biggest active fire is the Iron Fire burning in Juab County, about 28 miles southwest of Provo. As of Tuesday, the Iron Fire had burned 31,314 acres and was 9% contained, said Al Nash, public information officer for the Great Basin Team 3, a federal agency in charge of the incident.
The fire has prompted numerous evacuations in the area, including the complete evacuation of the town of Eureka, which has a population of just over 600.
Kelly Wicken, a spokesperson for the Utah Division of Forestry, said the blaze started on private land and has now spread across Juab and two other counties, crossing onto federal land and shutting down a highway.
Before the fire, the National Weather Service had issued red flag fire danger warnings for a large part of the state.
Red flag warnings and fire weather watches are in place across southern and central Utah and through much of western and central Colorado, Southern California, Arizona and Nevada. Strong winds and low humidity are expected to fuel the existing fires and enable new fires to spark and spread rapidly.
Federal agents patrol the halls of immigration court at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building on March 04, 2026 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from arresting migrants at immigration courts, saying that officials violated the Administrative Procedures Act in enacting the policy.
U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts of the Northern District of California wrote in a blistering 71-page decision Tuesday that policies by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Executive Office of Immigration Review were “arbitrary and capricious” and violated the APA, and he issued nationwide injunction blocking the practice across the United States.
“Because the record before the Court demonstrates ICE and EOIR failed to provide reasoned explanations for their actions, the Court concludes that each of the challenged policies is arbitrary and capricious in contravention of the APA,” he wrote in his decision.
The Justice Department attempted to curtail the request to only the Northern District of California instead of a nationwide block.
Scenes of migrants being arrested at immigration courts across the country, including notably in New York City, drew scrutiny from local lawmakers and advocacy organizations, who said migrants were often arrested after their deportation cases were dismissed.
Deportation hearings in immigration court are legal proceedings initiated by the Department of Homeland Security in which an immigration judge determines whether a migrant should be removed from the United States. Often, an immigration judge will dismiss a case to allow the individual to pursue legal relief by seeking asylum, according to attorneys. Other times, DHS attorneys will request dismissals if the individuals are not a priority for removal.
In most cases, when a deportation case is dismissed, it is a positive outcome for a migrant. Immigration attorneys ABC News spoke with said the Trump administration has been using dismissals to detain people at immigration courts and place them into expedited removal without allowing them to fight their cases.
In previous years, ICE has prioritized conducting courthouse arrests of people who were considered risks to the public or were convicted or accused of certain crimes.
The Trump administration had argued that an executive order issued by President Donald Trump allowed for the agencies to enact the policy, but Judge Pitts disagreed.
“It is now clear that the lack of connection between ICE’s stated rationales for the 2025 courthouse-arrest policies and the expansion of arrests at immigration courthouses results not from merely unreasoned decision making but a complete lack of decision making. As the government recently revealed, contrary to its prior representations, ICE’s 2025 courthouse arrest policies do not cover immigration courthouses at all,” he wrote.
That is a reference to a case in New York, in which the DOJ notified a judge that it had been erroneously relying on an ICE memo to justify arrests at immigration courts, according to a court filing. In fact, the ICE memo does not apply to civil immigration enforcement actions in or near immigration courts, the DOJ told the judge in that case.
James Percival, the DHS general counsel, said Tuesday’s ruling is “anti-American.”
“When a judge sentences a defendant, the defendant is taken into custody. If an alien is ordered removed by an immigration judge, the same should happen,” he said in a post on X. “A district judge ordering otherwise is naked judicial activism in service of an anti-American, open borders agenda.”
U.S. President Donald Trump arrives for a working session on promoting economic growth with G7 leaders and G7 outreach partners as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz looks on, during the G7 Summit on June 17, 2026 in Evian-les-Bains, France. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday he is putting off signing a bipartisan housing reform bill until Congress passes his SAVE America Act.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
