“You never know what tomorrow will bring” Sarah Jessica Parker‘s Carrie Bradshaw is heard saying in the official trailer for season 2 of Max’s And Just Like That…, which dropped on Thursday, and in her case, it’s the return of John Corbett‘s Aiden Shaw.
Towards the end of the two-minute clip, Carrie’s seen typing an email to Aiden that reads, “Hey Stranger … Remember me? IF this is still your email, it’s me — Carrie. Was just thinking about you the other day … and I wondered how you were doing. So, how ya doing?”
Next, we see the former couple sharing dinner at a restaurant, where he says, “Sitting here with you, it’s like 10 years just… [snaps his fingers].” The two then start laughing.
Elsewhere in the trailer, the partner of Cynthia Nixon‘s Miranda, Che — played by Sara Ramírez — believes Miranda is hiding something from her; and Charlotte, played by Kristin Davis, tries to balance motherhood and a career.
There’s no sign of Kim Cattrall‘s Sex in the City character Samantha in the trailer, although the actress did finally confirm the news that she’ll return for one episode in season 2.
“Happy Pride,” Cattrall shared on her Instagram in honor of Pride Month, along with a Variety headline announcing the news.
Cattrall starred for six seasons on the HBO series Sex and the City — alongside Parker, Nixon, and Davis.
Cattrall reprised the character for a pair of films, but her character was written out of the Max’s And Just Like That… spinoff.
Season 2 of And Just Like That… launches June 22 on HBO and Max.
While the Grateful Dead’s Mickey Hart is known for his music, when he’s not onstage he loves making art. His latest collection, the Art of Mickey Hart, is going to be on display in June at two Wentworth Gallery locations, with Mickey set to make appearances at both of them.
Mickey tells ABC Audio that his first interest in art was “quite accidental,” explaining that years ago while out shopping for a birthday gift for his young daughter he picked up an art kit and decided to bring it home.
“She didn’t think much of it, but eventually I grabbed it and started using it,” he shares. “It was so sensuous; it was so attractive and it was so full of life that I just couldn’t put it down.”
Mickey says art is like “a mediation for him,” adding that it’s a “visual component” to his “sonic-driven world.”
“Life is full of beautiful colors,” he says. “These things just start to appear to me and they come out on, on the canvas or the wood or plastic” or whatever other medium he may be using.
Mickey says he feels great making his art, noting, “It’s uplifting, you know, it’s life giving.” He adds, “It’s all of those things that art does.”
Mickey is set to appear at the Wentworth Gallery at Tysons Galleria in McLean, Virginia, on Sunday, June 4, at 2 p.m., followed by an appearance at the Wentworth Gallery at Short Hills Mall in New Jersey on June 23 at 6:30 p.m. More info on Mickey’s appearances can be found at wentworthgallery.com.
Of course, he’s also currently on tour with Dead & Company. They play Bristow, Virginia, on June 3. A complete list of dates can be found at deadandcompany.com.
(COLUMBIA, S.C.) — A South Carolina teenager who police say was fatally shot by a gas station owner who they say had falsely accused him of shoplifting was remembered by his middle school as a well-liked student who was “intelligent” and “humorous.”
Cyrus Carmack-Belton, 14, died after being shot in the back on Monday, authorities said. The teen was chased from the gas station by the owner and the owner’s son after they wrongly believed he had shoplifted several bottles of water and was shot during the pursuit, according to the Richland County Sheriff’s Office.
The store’s owner, 58-year-old Rick Chow, has since been arrested and charged with murder in connection with the teen’s death.
Cyrus was a student at Summit Parkway Middle School in Columbia, where he was in its STEM magnet program, the school said.
“He was intelligent, humorous with quick wit and well-liked by his classmates,” the school said in a statement on Facebook Thursday. “We remember his infectious smile and tenacity.”
The teen often spoke of his dreams and aspirations, which included owning a tattoo shop and “being famous one day,” the statement said.
The school said it was “blessed” to have Cyrus as a student and that he “will be remembered forever in our hearts.”
Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott told reporters during a press conference Monday that the teenager did not shoplift from the Shell gas station, despite Chow’s belief that he did.
Law enforcement said there was a verbal confrontation inside the store before Cyrus left and took off running.
Lott said that “at some point” during the chase, Chow’s son reportedly said the teen had a gun.
Lott said the convenience store owner, who police said was armed with a pistol, and his son chased after the teenager toward an apartment complex.
Cyrus fell during the chase, got up and was allegedly shot in the back by Chow, police said.
According to law enforcement, a gun was found close to the teen’s body. Lott said Monday that police currently “don’t have anything that says that he did not have that gun on him” when asked if Cyrus was in possession of a gun during the incident.
Richland County coroner Naida Rutherford told reporters at Monday’s press conference that Cyrus died from “a single gunshot wound to his right lower back” that caused “significant damage to his heart and hemorrhaging.”
The Fifth Circuit Solicitor’s Office said Thursday it will determine whether any additional charges will be made in the incident once it has conducted a full review.
Chow has had two prior confrontations with alleged shoplifters that resulted in him firing a weapon — in 2015 and 2018 — but his conduct in those incidents “did not meet the requirements under South Carolina law to support criminal charges,” Richland County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Veronica Hill confirmed in a statement to ABC News.
Chow’s attorney declined to comment to ABC News in the wake of the murder charge.
According to a sheriff’s office incident report obtained by ABC News, the shooting was “not a bias motivated incident”; though an attorney for Cyrus’ family contends the teen, who was Black, was racially profiled.
“What happened to [Cyrus] wasn’t an accident. It’s something that the Black community has experienced for generations: being racially profiled, then shot down in the street like a dog,” the attorney, Todd Rutherford, told ABC News in a statement on Wednesday.
“One beacon of hope is seeing the resilience of the Black community as they wrap their arms around this family that has joined the club that no Black family ever wants to be a part of,” the statement added.
ABC News’ Teddy Grant, Deena Zaru and Brittany Gaddy contributed to this report.
(URBANDALE, Iowa) — Former President Donald Trump returned to Iowa on Thursday for a full day of campaign events, taking multiple jabs at 2024 primary rival Ron DeSantis and defending people imprisoned in connection with the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters.
In particular, Trump took issue with a comment the Florida governor has used on the campaign trail in recent days, when DeSantis has said he’s gunning for “eight years” in office in order to deliver on a myriad of conservative promises — an implicit contrast with Trump, who can only serve one more term.
“You don’t need eight years, you need six months,” Trump said Thursday morning during a breakfast with the Westside Conservative Club in Urbandale.
“We can turn this thing around so quickly. If you need eight years — who the hell wants to wait eight years? You don’t need eight years,” he said to laughter and a few claps.
“He’ll stop saying that — watch,” Trump added during his speech. “Every time I hear, I wince because if it takes eight years to turn around, you don’t want him as president,” to which someone in the crowd yelled, “You’re hired!”
Trump made similar comments earlier Thursday morning as he entered the Machine Shed restaurant for the breakfast, saying, “We only need five months.”
As part of his “eight years” argument, DeSantis has pointed to things like the Supreme Court.
Speaking last month in Florida, he said that the next “two terms” could be especially relevant for whoever is in the White House, because the president may be able to further cement the Supreme Court’s conservative majority in light of some justices’ advancing ages.
“I think if you look over the next two presidential terms, there is a good chance that you could be called upon to seek replacements for Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito and the issue with that is, you can’t really do better than those two,” DeSantis said then, adding that there may also be a chance to “make improvements with those others, and if you were able to do that, you would have a 7-2 conservative majority on the Supreme Court that would last a quarter century.”
Such comments come as DeSantis has become sharply critical of Trump, a former ally. The governor officially entered the 2024 race last week and is traveling through three early nominating states, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, this week.
“[Trump] used to say how great Florida was. Hell, his whole family moved to Florida under my governorship. Are you kidding me?” DeSantis told reporters after a campaign kickoff outside Des Moines on Tuesday.
During his own campaign events Thursday, Trump sometimes answered questions from the crowd, including from one girl who said she just graduated from high school.
When a person at one event called for “justice for people that have been in prison since Jan. 6,” Trump repeated his rhetoric of defending the rioters and said the Capitol Police officer who fatally shot one of them, Ashli Babbitt, was a “rogue cop” and a “thug.”
Authorities have said the officer acted lawfully in shooting Babbitt and a federal investigation found that Babbitt and others were trying to break through barricaded entrances near the Speaker’s Lobby that leads to the Chamber of the U.S. House, from which members of Congress were being evacuated.
In Iowa, however, Trump tried to cast the events of Jan. 6 differently, saying those arrested around the riot were being treated worse than in past protests like those related to racial inequality demonstrations.
“You look at what they’ve done to the Jan. 6 people, they’ve destroyed them and destroyed their lives,” he insisted. “And a lot of them didn’t even go into the building. It was a disgrace what’s going on.”
The Department of Justice reports that more than 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with the government’s Jan. 6 investigation.
More than 300 people have been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees that day, the DOJ has said, and more than 100 defendants have been accused of using deadly weapons.
Trump was impeached by the House and accused of inciting the events of Jan. 6, but he was acquitted by the Senate. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Elsewhere in Iowa on Thursday, Trump pointed to his experience in Washington as a reason he should earn Iowan votes — a stark pivot from what he’s used as a selling point in the past: his background as a political outsider.
“I’m very experienced now, you know, it’s not like I’m going in and saying, ‘Oh, this nice office, is this the Oval Office?'” he said, adding, “I think within six months you’re gonna see a major part of the comeback.”
Trump attended three total events ahead of a town hall on Thursday night with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
ABC News’ Luke Barr, Chris Boccia, Hannah Demissie and Alexander Mallin contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — With just days until the deadline for the nation to default, the Senate now is racing against the clock to pass a bipartisan debt ceiling agreement and avoid what would be an economically catastrophic failure to pay the country’s bills.
Debate began Thursday morning as the chamber’s leaders urged swift passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, with critics voicing their concerns with the bill.
“Time is a luxury the Senate does not have if we want to prevent default,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in remarks from the floor. “June 5 is less than four days away. At this point, any needless delay or any last minute hold-ups would be an unnecessary and even dangerous risk.”
As the Senate deliberated into Thursday evening, Schumer was working with lawmakers who wanted to offer amendments to give assurances in exchange for limiting time for debate and votes.
Later Thursday, Schumer announced that voting would soon begin — with passage expected within hours, either before or around midnight, after 11 successive rounds of voting on 11 different amendments. None of those looked set to pass but allowed various senators to register their differences with the debt agreement.
“By passing this bill we will avoid default tonight,” Schumer said. “America can breathe a sigh of relief.”
Here’s how it happened.
No room for typical Senate delay
As the drama has played out, there has been almost no room for delay if the bill is to get to President Joe Biden’s desk by Monday, the day Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned the U.S. could run out of money to be able to pay all its bills on time and in full.
In addition to the deadline, it has potentially helped that that’s also supposed to be the start of a three-day weekend for senators — and getting out of Washington is a time-honored motivator for faster action.
Leadership aides previously said a vote could happen as early as Thursday night but that required cooperation from the entire chamber.
Schumer: No changes, ‘plain and simple’
Initially threatening to hold up the process was a possible filibuster or time-consuming debate and votes on amendments being sought by various lawmakers, mainly Republicans, but some Democrats too.
“We’ll be here till Tuesday until I get commitments that we’re going to rectify some of these problems,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., warned at one point on Thursday.
He and other defense hawks spoke out on their frustration with the level of military spending in the bill, but any changes to the bill would force it to be sent back to the House for approval — which would only drive them closer to the default deadline.
“We are going to do everything we can to move the bill quickly,” Schumer told ABC News on Wednesday. “We cannot send anything back to the House. Plain and simple.”
“We must avoid default, we must,” he added then.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had a similar “time is of the essence” message for his own conference.
“I can tell you what I hope happens — is that those who have amendments, if given votes, will yield back time so that we can finish this Thursday or Friday and soothe the country and soothe the markets,” McConnell said Wednesday.
How Senate passage timeline got set before the weekend
Chamber leaders scrambled behind the scenes to secure an agreement to have lawmakers voting on amendments and final passage by Thursday night.
While it was possible that 10 to 12 amendments could be voted on, lawmakers and aides said, ultimately 11 amendments were set for votes.
On Wednesday, Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., told ABC News that he thought it would be possible to get it all done by Friday.
Thune said that if Republicans got votes on roughly half a dozen amendments, even GOP opposition wouldn’t block swift passage of the deal.
Despite concerns from some senators on defense and other issues, there appears to have been general agreement on the bottom line: that if the bill changed by even a single letter, it would have to return to the House and at that point — both it and the country would face an uncertain fate.
(NEW YORK) — As debate grows over how gender identity is handled in schools, many employees at educational institutions have said that they feel caught in the middle, and some also say that they’ve been disciplined because of it.
That includes Shua Wilmot, a former residence hall director, who says his former employer, Houghton University, fired him and another residence hall director after they added their gender pronouns to their work email signatures. Houghton University is a private Christian college in upstate New York that is affiliated with the Wesleyan Church, a Methodist denomination.
“While the details of individual personnel matters are confidential, Houghton University has never terminated an employment relationship based solely on the use of pronouns in staff email signatures,” a university spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News. “Over the past years, we’ve required anything extraneous be removed from email signatures, including Scripture quotes. Houghton remains steadfastly committed to offering the Christian education that our students are promised.”
ABC News’ Linsey Davis spoke to Wilmot about what he says led up to his termination. Wilmot shared details about a letter he says he previously sent to the board of Wesleyan Church suggesting changes to their written statement on gender identity and expression.
LINSEY DAVIS: So you say that you were fired from the church, at least, in part, because you put your preferred pronoun in your email signature. Did the school tell you that that was their rationale for ending your career there?
SHUA WILMOT: Yeah. So, actually I was fired from the university, not from the church, but the university is an institution of the Wesleyan Church, and that’s correct. They cited that as one of the two main reasons that I was fired.
DAVIS: A university spokesperson released a statement saying that personnel matters are confidential, but that Houghton has never terminated employment based on use of pronouns and signatures and over the years have required anything additional in signatures, including scriptures, removed. Were you aware of any such policies about signatures?
WILMOT: Yeah, that’s a new policy, though. I mean, the phrase “over the years” kind of surprises me, because that policy was announced in September and sort of passed in October. This is after I had signed my contract for the year, and it was also never added to the employee handbook up until, you know, maybe to this day, but at least until the time that I was told my contract wouldn’t be renewed. It was still not in the employee handbook, but it was communicated as a policy, this academic year, yeah.
DAVIS: I’m curious, did they give you a chance to get rid of that in your signature line – the pronouns in your signature line – before terminating you, or how did that process play out?
WILMOT: Yes. So my supervisor was asked to address it with me and with Reagan [Zelaya]. And so we were asked to comply with this policy, and we declined. And then I personally had to meet with the dean of my department to have a similar conversation. Reagan was never asked to have a conversation like that, because she had already resigned, effective at the end of the academic year.
But I had intended to continue working at Houghton, and so I had this conversation with the dean, and the long and short of it is, eventually I said, “I don’t want to resign, and I don’t want to comply with this policy.” I gave him my reasons why, and he said, “I will take this news to the president and HR.” And then after that, next thing I know, I’m told that my contract won’t be renewed. It was never explicitly said to me that that could be an end result, until it was.
DAVIS: If you knew that you could just remove the pronoun from your signature line and could keep your job, would you have done that?
WILMOT: I think probably not. After a hard conversation with my dean, there were a few days that I did take my pronouns out of my email signature, thinking, “OK, maybe I can concede this one small thing.” But I just didn’t have peace with it throughout that weekend that I had my pronouns removed. I didn’t have peace with it, because I don’t want to actively play a role in making the community any less inclusive.
DAVIS: You’ve said that you believe that another reason for your firing includes a letter that you wrote to church officials about problems that you had with Wesleyan Church’s views on gender identity and expression. You say the entire viewpoint makes unsupported claims to justify trans exclusion. What points do you take exception to?
WILMOT: Yeah, sure. Well, I would say most of my letter to the board of the Wesleyan Church was really making helpful suggestions to improve their view of gender and identity, to improve their statement on the Wesleyan view of gender expression and identity. And some of those suggestions include that — the Wesleyan view claims that transgender and transsexual are synonyms, which they’re not and they long have not been. They also use the phrase “birth designated gender,” which I recommend that they change to “sex assigned at birth,” because doctors assign sex, which is anatomical, physiological, genetic and physical attributes. Doctors don’t assign gender. But there are other things to it as well. I think that their theology on it should be reexamined, but I explicitly state in the letter that I am not asking them to change their convictions. I just want them to have accurate information and to consider making improvements to the statement.
DAVIS: Do you believe that your termination infringes on your First Amendment rights?
WILMOT: Yeah, I would say in a way it does, but Houghton University is a private institution, so free speech is not protected in the same ways that it is at public institutions. I know this, because I studied higher ed law in 2017. So yeah, I mean, that’s not my complaint here.
DAVIS: I just want to follow up on that, because other faith-based organizations have argued for their own First Amendment rights, saying religious freedom protections allow them to create policies to treat LGBTQ and transgender people differently. What’s your response to that argument?
WILMOT: Yeah, I think that they have that right. I don’t think that it’s a good practice. I think that there are plenty of ways in which Christian institutions will and do marginalize people in ways that are antithetical to the way that Jesus would have wanted them to be treated and still wants them to be treated. And that’s a shame, but I think that they should have that right to make different sorts of policies.
DAVIS: Shua Wilmot, we thank you so much for talking with us tonight. Thank you.
(NASSAU, Bahamas) — Five people were rescued after a private plane crashed into waters near the Bahamas on Thursday, the Bahamas’ Aircraft Accident Investigation Authority told ABC News.
The plane was en route to Florida when it crashed into the water about 10 nautical miles north of Andros, an island in the Bahamas, the Royal Bahamas Police Force said during a press conference Thursday.
The passengers were rescued and transported back to Andros Island, authorities said. They are being transported to receive medical care for non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said.
The plane — a single-engine Piper PA-32 aircraft with United States registration — crashed around 3:10 p.m., the Aircraft Accident Investigation Authority said.
The aircraft had departed the San Andros Airport in Andros and was en route to Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach when “the pilot encountered issues and attempted to return to Andros Island,” the agency said.
The crash was caused by “mechanical issues,” the Royal Bahamas Police Force said in a statement
“The pilot was able to land the aircraft safely into shallow waters, without any casualties,” police said.
The U.S. Coast Guard, Royal Bahamas Defence Force and Royal Bahamas Police Force responded to the scene.
The crash remains under investigation.
ABC News’ Jared Higgs and Rachel DeLima contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — The case against the Marine veteran charged in the chokehold death of a homeless man aboard a New York City subway train is now before a grand jury, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Prosecutors are currently trying to secure an indictment after Daniel Penny, 24, was charged with second-degree manslaughter last month in the death of Jordan Neely, 30.
Penny’s lawyers have said the veteran is prepared to testify before the grand jury but no decision had been made.
It is unusual for criminal defendants to testify at the grand jury but, in this case, his lawyers have been considering whether Penny could head off an indictment by explaining his actions.
“Any speculation regarding a client’s intent to testify at this stage would be premature,” Steven Raiser, part of Penny’s legal team, said on May 26.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office declined to comment.
Video showed Penny putting Neely in a chokehold on May 1 for several minutes following reported outbursts from Neely on an F train.
Some witnesses reportedly told police that Neely, who had a documented mental health history, was yelling and harassing passengers on the train, authorities said. Police sources told ABC News that Penny was not specifically being threatened by Neely when he intervened and that Neely had not become violent and had not been threatening anyone in particular.
Neely’s death was ruled a homicide.
Following Penny’s arrest, assistant district attorney Joshua Steinglass said prosecutors conducted a “thorough investigation” that included interviews with eyewitnesses, 911 callers and responding officers before moving forward with the criminal charge.
Attorneys for Penny have said they fully expect him to be exonerated of all charges.
The maximum penalty for second-degree manslaughter is 15 years in prison.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — The family of Marvin Gaye’s co-writer on “Let’s Get it On” intends to appeal a verdict in Manhattan federal court for Ed Sheeran, according to a court filing Thursday.
The family of Ed Townsend filed a notice of appeal after it lost a copyright infringement case involving Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” last month.
The document did not say on what grounds the Townsend family would appeal but it did signal the family would challenge the outcome and several rulings made by the judge.
A Manhattan jury decided in Sheeran’s favor in May when they found that the singer did not engage in willful copyright infringement following a trial that saw Sheeran playing the guitar and singing in court.
“I’m obviously very happy with the outcome of the case. And it looks like I’m not having to retire from my day job after all,” Sheeran told reporters outside the courthouse at the time. “But at the same time, I’m unbelievably frustrated that baseless claims like this are allowed to go to court at all.”
Sheeran insisted he chord progression of his song was common and belonged to no particular artist.
Sheeran also testified that he wrote most of his songs in a day, suggesting under questioning by his attorney, Ilene Farkas, that he did not stop to think about copying elements from “Let’s Get It On” when he composed “Thinking Out Loud,” as alleged by Townsend’s heirs.
Townsend’s family said Sheeran copied the sheet music of “Let’s Get it On” and positioned the case as justice for Townsend’s legacy and Black musicians whose work has been misappropriated by white artists.
Ben Crump, who represented the plaintiffs, said during opening remarks that the suit was about “giving credit where credit is due.”
Sheeran previously won a 2022 copyright infringement case involving “Shape of You,” while Gaye’s heirs, who are not involved in this current lawsuit, won a case in 2015 against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams involving “Got to Give it Up.”
