Comedian Bert Kreischer’s popularity has skyrocketed the past few years, thanks to podcasting, TikTok and his standup specials, and now he’s starring in his first movie,The Machine, out this weekend.
The film is a spin on a true story that happened to Kreischer when he was in college, studying abroad in Russia. He got mixed up with some bad people and ended up robbing a train with Russian mob. The movie was filmed in Serbia, with the Balkan country standing in for the former Soviet Union.
“I was sincerely pitching me going to Russia to promote the movie. And they’re like,’You really don’t watch the news, do you?'” he tells ABC Audio.
Starring in the film means Kreischer was number one on the call sheet, which was amazing, but also dangerous.
“I can see how it can go to people’s heads and you can get nightmare humans, because when I came back from Serbia, I was coming in hot,” he shares. “I’m like, ‘I need a water.’ And my daughters are like, ‘Oh, mom, I don’t know who we got, but this isn’t dad.'”
Starring in the show was “like getting your ego stroked every single day,” he says.
“It’s the greatest feeling. I mean, I don’t know what it’s like to be royalty, but I will tell you, being the star of a movie has got to be really close,” Kreischer adds.
Ultimately, the 50-year-old tells ABC Audio he’s really happy that this experience came now, rather than when he was younger.
“I would be dead,” he shares. “I wouldn’t have met my wife. My wife is the reason I’m a regular human being, because she’s a regular person…. I am really lucky I got success late in life. I wish it for everyone.”
The answer is James Holzhauer. The question? “Who won the first Jeopardy! Masters tournament?” Holzhauer beat Mattea Roach and Matt Amodio, who placed second and third, respectively. Roach — the youngest player in the tournament at 24 — gave Holzhauer a run for his money, holding the lead going into the Final Jeopardy round. Both failed to answer the last question, but James ended up the winner with a score of 43,795 to Roach’s 41,685. Holzhauer earned $500,000 and a $100,000 donation to Project 150 — which helps Las Vegas-area high school students with insecure housing — while Roach got $250,000 and Amodio bagged $150,000…
Nick Gehlfuss, who played Dr. Will Halstead on all eight seasons of NBC’s Chicago Med, is hanging up his stethoscope, according to Variety, making his final appearance on Wednesday night’s Season 8 finale. Will left the series’ Gaffney Chicago Medical Center and he reunited with his ex-fiancée, Natalie — played by Torrey DeVitto, who made a surprise appearance in the episode after leaving at the end of season 6. “It was a difficult decision, but ultimately, I felt I’d taken Dr. Halstead as far as I can go with him,” Gehlfus told the outlet. Chicago Med is set to return in the fall…
Rhea Seehorn will join Will Smith and Martin Lawrence for the fourth Bad Boys film, according to Deadline. The Better Call Saul alum joins the previous cast from Bad Boys: For Life, including Paola Núnez, Vanessa Hudgens and Alexander Ludwig, who are all returning for the fourth installment. Grey’s Anatomy alum Eric Dane is also on board. Bad Boys for Life — the third installment — made more than $426 million worldwide before COVID-19 forced theaters to shut down in 2020. The Bad Boys franchise has grossed a total of $840.7 million globally…
(NEW YORK) — A person of interest in a New York murder, accused of a crime spree as he fled from police, was arrested in South Carolina, thanks partly to local tips and attention from a national crime television show, law enforcement officials said.
Michael Charles Burham, 34, was found after an exhaustive weeks-long search that ended after a resident spotted him in their backyard, police said.
“He obviously looked like he had been in the woods for some time,” Berkeley County Sheriff Duane Lewis told reporters about his Wednesday capture. “We gave him some water … he blurted out that you know he had been on the run and he wanted something to drink.”
Burham had three separate warrants for his arrest at the time of his arrest, according to the FBI.
He had been considered armed and dangerous, wanted for allegedly raping a victim in New York, holding an elderly couple hostage in Pennsylvania and being a person of interest in a New York murder before he was captured on Wednesday, officials said.
The search for Burham began in Jamestown, New York, where he was charged with rape and unlawful imprisonment of a woman for an incident on March 13, 2023, police said.
Burham is also believed to be related to the murder of 34-year-old Kala Hodgkin on May 11, according to the Jamestown Police Department.
Burham allegedly drove a rental car from Pennsylvania to the area of the New York homicide, then returned his rental car the next day to Warren, Pennsylvania. Law enforcement described Burham as a “suspect” and a “person of interest” in the case.
During the manhunt, Burham allegedly kidnapped an elderly couple at gunpoint on May 20, eventually driving the couple from Sheffield, Pennsylvania, to North Charleston, South Carolina, according to the FBI.
The search for Burham gained momentum with the help of tips from locals and a national television show.
On Patrol: Live, a program that airs on Reelz, included a segment about the manhunt for Burham, which the New York law enforcement credited for helping the investigation.
“Due to the national attention that this case is now receiving, we are receiving multiple tips from across the country regarding Burham’s whereabouts,” Jamestown Police Department wrote Saturday.
A tip from a South Carolina resident on Tuesday afternoon breathed life into the search, though officers could not respond to the report quickly enough to spot Burham themselves.
“We did not get that information, however, until about seven o’clock that night after the newscast and after you all publicized that,” Charleston County Sheriff Kristin Graziano told reporters.
Graziano urged the public to keep a watchful but concerned eye for Burham, citing his possible desperation after being on the run for weeks, and asked residents to check everything from their deer stands to their doorbell camera for a sign of Burham.
“This guy is dangerous,” she noted. “This is a fugitive; he is desperate, he’s tired, he’s hungry.”
The call eventually came from a resident around 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, after Burham was spotted behind a shed, according to Lewis.
Burham was taken into custody at 5:17 p.m., with officials thanking the public for their involvement in the successful manhunt.
The Berkeley County Sheriff’s office posted a photo of the handcuffed Burham, dressed in a muddy pair of basketball shorts and a tee shirt, flanked by FBI agents in tactical gear.
(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) — A Tennessee judge has granted the parents of students killed and traumatized in a Nashville school mass shooting in March permission to intervene in a consolidated lawsuit seeking the public release of evidence seized in the on-going police investigation.
In a decision filed Wednesday night, Davidson County Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea L. Myles ruled the parents have a legal standing in the case to “permissively intervene to preserve any rights they may have on behalf of the minor children who were victims of this incident but not at the age of majority to assert their own claims.”
In a separate ruling released earlier Wednesday, Myles granted the Covenant Presbyterian Church and its school permission to intervene in the case because both have “a sufficient personal stake in the outcome of this litigation.”
Attorney Eric Osborne — who said he represents 100 families affected by the school shooting, including the parents of three 9-year-old children killed — told Myles during a hearing Monday that many of the parents want to address the court on why they don’t want any of the evidence ever released. Osborne said the parents fear releasing the shooter’s writings, including journals seized as evidence, will prompt copycat attacks and add additional pain to the children who survived the attack.
Osborne argued it would violate the parent’s rights under the Tennessee Constitution if they were barred from intervening in the litigation.
“Once this document is released …. you can’t un-ring the bell,” Osborne said in court.
During Monday’s hearing, Myles noted that such a horrific school attack is “not something we in Tennessee, and specifically Nashville, have had to deal with.”
“So, in a way, we are in unchartered territory,” Myles said. “That moment is not lost on me.”
In her ruling Wednesday night, Myles wrote of the unprecedented complexities posed by the parents’ motion.
“They wish to present their legal arguments and positions regarding an open area of the law that has not been clearly developed regarding the juxtaposition of the constitutional rights of the crime victim and the access to public records, particularly of a purported open criminal investigation,” Myles wrote.
The killing rampage unfolded on March 27, when the alleged perpetrator Audrey Hale, 28, who once attended Covenant School, shot her way into the school with an AR-15-style rifle and killed the three children and three adults, including the head of the school, Katherine Koonce. Hale was fatally shot by police officers.
Police have not commented on a motive for the attack.
During a hearing on Monday, lawyers for the church and school argued they don’t want the evidence seized in the investigation released because the material contains the school’s safety plan and other documents pertaining to health and social security records of school and church employees.
In her ruling, Myles wrote that “the court was stirred” by the argument that the public release of the sensitive private documents could have “harmful and irreversible consequences.”
The Nashville Metropolitan Government requested Monday’s hearing after being sued for the release of the documents by news organizations, the Tennessee Firearms Association Inc. and Clata Renee Brewer, a private investigator for the National Police Association.
Robb Harvey, an attorney who represents The Tennessean newspaper, countered that the parents should not be permitted to intervene, arguing they have no standing in the case because no criminal charges have been filed due to the suspect being shot to death by police.
“As horrible a thing that happened to the parents and the families of the people who were killed, they’re not victims of a crime,” Harvey told Myles. “So, the constitutional provision doesn’t apply to them.”
Harvey added, “I know that their emotions have been just jangled and rattled and disrupted, their family lives have been disrupted, but that doesn’t make them a criminal victim.”
Brewer’s attorney, Doug Pierce, suggested in court that the families of those killed and traumatized in the shooting and Covenant School officials don’t want the writings and other evidence released because they are attempting to hide what’s in the documents from the public.
“You do get the distinct impression from what has been filed, I can’t say, but it’s very strong, they all know what is in that document,” Pierce alleged.
Osborne assured Myles that none of the families are privy to what is in the police investigative file.
Laura Fox, an attorney for the Nashville Metropolitan Government, said in court that some of the material seized in the investigation through search warrants and subpoenas, including Hale’s writings, have been turned over to Myles to review in private. Fox invited Myles to come to police headquarters to review the remainder of the evidence.
Fox said the police investigation is still active and more evidence is being collected.
Myles has scheduled a “show cause” hearing for June 8 before she rules on whether to release the documents in the case.
(WASHINGTON) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is set to forgo a traditional presidential campaign launch and will instead hold his “campaign kickoff” event next week in the key state of Iowa, according to campaign plans exclusively obtained by ABC News.
The May 30 kickoff event will begin a four-day swing through 12 cities and towns in the early nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, which the campaign is billing as “Our Great American Comeback Tour.”
“Our campaign is committed to putting in the time to win these early nominating states. No one will work harder than Governor DeSantis to share his vision with the country — he has only begun to fight,” said campaign manager Generra Peck in a statement to ABC News about the plans.
During the tour, the Florida Republican governor will participate in a series of speeches, retail shops and fireside chats.
Although DeSantis has already visited key primary states over the course of the past few months, these will be his first visits as an official candidate for president.
Earlier this month, DeSantis was a special guest at Rep. Randy Feenstra’s third annual Feenstra Family Picnic in Iowa and pitched a “positive alternative” to Republican voters.
DeSantis launched his 2024 presidential bid for the White House on Wednesday, releasing a video announcing his candidacy prior to the glitch-plagued Twitter Spaces campaign launch with Twitter owner and billionaire Elon Musk.
“I am running for president of the United States to lead our great American comeback,” DeSantis said during the Twitter Space.
“We know our country’s going in the wrong direction. We see it with our eyes and we feel it in our bones,” he said, going on to criticize current Democratic policies regarding the southern border, crime and public safety and the cost of living for middle-class families.
(LONDON) — One of the world’s most wanted fugitives accused of involvement in the Rwandan genocide has been arrested in South Africa after more than two decades on the run, authorities announced Thursday.
Fulgence Kayishema was taken into custody in Paarl, about 35 miles northeast of Cape Town, on Wednesday afternoon in a joint operation by the United Nations’ International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) and South African authorities.
Kayishema allegedly orchestrated the killing of approximately 2,000 people in western Rwanda in 1994 during the genocide, according to the IRMCT’s Office of the Prosecutor.
(LOS ANGELES) — Police are searching for a suspect who allegedly stabbed a Los Angeles Metro Bus operator multiple times Wednesday evening, leaving him in critical condition.
A male suspect boarded the bus in Woodland Hills and began arguing with the driver before stabbing him, Metro Los Angeles said on Twitter.
“The bus driver and the suspect exited the bus and continued the argument, at which time the suspect produced a knife (or sharp object) and stabbed the bus driver multiple times,” police said in a press release.
The suspect then fled on foot near Erwin Street and Topanga Canyon Boulevard, officials said.
L.A. Police Department officers began a grid search of the area, Chief Michel Moore said, adding that the department “has mustered a number of night watch detectives and uniform personnel to investigate this senseless attack.”
Police officials released a statement with images of the suspect.
“This heinous act of violence is horrific and the harm done to one of our Metro drivers is tragic. I join the entire City family in praying for him tonight, and my heart also goes out to his family,” Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement.
Police described the suspect as a 21-year-old white man with blonde curly hair and a thin build. He is about 6 feet tall. He wore a red shirt, black pants and a black backpack.
Detectives from the LAPD’s Topanga Division are seeking the public’s assistance in identifying the suspect who stabbed a Metro bus driver. Anyone with information is urged to contact Los Angeles Police Department’s Topanga Division Detectives at (818) 756-4820. pic.twitter.com/Mf7hOFbajK
(LONDON) — An American tourist was seriously injured in a shark attack in Turks and Caicos on Wednesday, authorities said.
The 22-year-old Connecticut woman was snorkeling with a friend in the waters off Blue Haven Resort on Providenciales island at around 3 p.m. local time when a shark attacked, according to the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Department.
A resort employee contacted police and requested an ambulance, telling officers that the victim had her leg bitten off. Officers and an ambulance were then dispatched to the scene, police said.
The victim was transported to the nearby Cheshire Hall Medical Centre, where she remains hospitalized in serious condition, according to police.
(WASHINGTON) — Richard “Bigo” Barnett was sentenced on Wednesday to four years and six months in prison for his role in the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol.
Barnett became one of the most recognizable figures in the 2021 attack after images circulated showing him with his feet propped up on a desk in then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office.
Barnett profited from online fundraisers and even tried selling signed copies of the photos on social media.
He was convicted in January on all charges, including felonies for obstruction of an official proceeding and civil disorder as well as several misdemeanors.
In explaining his sentencing decision Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper noted Barnett’s lack of remorse, saying he didn’t believe that Barnett was simply swept up in the rioting mob, as Barnett had testified.
“You were an active participant,” Cooper said.
Leaning back in his chair — and wearing a long white beard, gray suit jacket, silver tie and dark red shirt — Barnett, 63, gazed back at the judge. When he was called forward for his final remarks before sentencing, he struck a mostly defiant tone but apologized for being “angry that day.”
He also said he’d “behaved perfectly” while he was free on supervised release.
Despite touting his admiration and support for law enforcement, Barnett claimed “peaceful” protesters were attacked by police at the Capitol two years ago.
“I was angry that day,” he said. “I admit I was angry, and I apologize for that.”
Barnett insisted the government “misconstrues every word I say” and that “they want me to be remorseful for things I did not do.”
He was ordered to self-surrender to authorities after getting his affairs in order Wednesday.
According to prosecutors, Pelosi’s staff were “psychologically traumatized” by the events of Jan. 6. Many aides left the office afterwards and some left government altogether.
X Ambassadors have premiered a new song called “Happy People.”
The track is the “Renegades” outfit’s first release as part of their new record deal with Virgin Music. It features guest vocals from Teddy Swims and Jac Ross.
In a statement, frontman Sam Nelson says that “Happy People” is “about struggling to maintain your own health and happiness while constantly being assaulted with images of everyone else’s seemingly perfect lives.”
“This is something we all come up against every day, just looking down on our phones,” Nelson continues. “Having the opportunity to work with Teddy and Jack on this song was a transcendent experience with both of them.”
You can listen to “Happy People” now via digital outlets and watch its accompanying video streaming now on YouTube.
“Happy People” follows X Ambassadors’ 2021 album, The Beautiful Liar, and is part of their continuing (Eg) collaborative project.
