The film, which is based on the 1982 novel by Alice Walker and the Tony Award-winning musical of the same name, stars Halle Bailey, Colman Domingo, Fantasia Barrino, Taraji P. Henson and more.
In the trailer, Barrino sings the musical’s song “I’m Here” as clips from the movie flash across the screen.
The story, set in rural Georgia in the early 1900s, follows sisters Celie and Nettie, who were separated as girls but correspond in a series of letters spanning 20 years, according to a synopsis of the novel.
Bailey plays the younger Nettie while Ciara plays the older version of Nettie. Barrino stars as an older Celie, and Phylicia Pearl Mpasi plays the younger Celie.
In the 1985 Steven Spielberg film adaptation of the book, Whoopi Goldberg played Celie. The role earned her an Oscar nomination for best actress. Actress Margaret Avery, who played Shug Avery, and Oprah Winfrey, who played Sophia, also earned Oscar nominations for best supporting actress.
Winfrey returned to the 2023 film adaptation as a producer. In 2020, she surprised Orange is the New Black actress Danielle Brooks with a Zoom call to tell her that she had landed the role of Sophia.
“I wanted to be the one to tell you I have such love for her, this character, everything she represents and everything she brought to my life,” Winfrey told Brooks at the time. “And what I’m hoping is that she does the same thing for you.”
The Spielberg film also earned an Academy Award nomination for best picture and was nominated for five Golden Globes, with Goldberg winning for best actress in a drama.
The film is expected to be released on December 25.
(EAST PALESTINE, Ohio) — The derailment of a Norfolk Southern freight train earlier this year in East Palestine, Ohio, sent toxic chemicals into the surrounding community and brought national attention to the potential risks of transporting hazardous materials.
Since then, legislators and industry leaders have emphasized the need for more hazmat training among local emergency responders — the same kind of training that was on display earlier this month in New Jersey, where trains range from passenger rail to freight, carrying chemicals like chlorine and propane.
A captain at the Allendale Fire Department had requested a training session earlier this year on how emergency responders should react to a situation involving hazardous materials in transportation to ensure that the community’s responders knew how to deal with an event involving hazmat.
And so, on a weekend in May, dozens of emergency responders, some traveling in from other states, gathered for a daylong training at the Bergen County Police and Fire Academy.
“If you plan for the when and if and you got all the right information to train on, those folks are better prepared to respond,” said Mike Stephenson, the New Jersey state coordinator for TRANSCAER, the organization that hosted the session.
The training dealt with the practicality of learning about chemicals, the trains running through the communities and the types of train containers as well as the logistics, chains of command and points of contact.
TRANSCAER runs trainings across the country, showing communities and emergency responders how to prepare for hazmat transportation incidents.
For the event in Bergen County, they partnered with regional industries and transit systems.
“Protection of life is always the most critical element in making good and effective decisions,” said Chris Wagner, the director of compliance and regulatory affairs at AmeriGas, who also taught a session on propane emergencies.
Participants were divided into small groups that went through a series of courses taught by industry experts — from “Railcar Anatomy 101” to “Chlorine Emergencies.”
“It’s like looking at a cake,” said Robert Policht, a firefighter in Passaic, New Jersey, who was a participant in the training. “As you start digging in, there’s different layers. … Through a course like this, you understand there’s much more going on than just watching the transit train going by or how many 18-wheelers roll down your highway. You begin to understand that everybody has a stake in an incident.”
After the derailment in East Palestine in February, industry and government voices urged additional resources for hazmat preparation.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called for increased funding for training and the Bipartisan Railway Safety Act of 2023, introduced after the East Palestine derailment, proposed a fee increase for railroads that would pay for grants to train local responders.
The Association of American Railroads, an industry trade group, also announced that rail operators would train 20,000 first responders in local communities on accident mitigation and 2,000 additional first responders would go to an enhanced training at a center in Colorado.
Stephenson, from TRANSCAER, told ABC News that he’d seen a rise in requests for hazmat training after what happened in East Palestine.
“People tend to be reactive instead of proactive,” he said. “So unfortunately, it takes an event like that to get people to wake up a little bit.”
(WASHINGTON) — As the nation heads toward a potential default, possibly as soon as June 1, President Joe Biden is facing pressure from some Democrats to use the 14th Amendment to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling.
With time growing short, Biden was asked again Sunday whether he was considering such action as tense negotiations continue between the White House and congressional Republicans.
“I’m looking at the 14th Amendment,” he told reporters in Japan. “As to whether or not we have the authority, I think we have the authority.”
But the never-tested issue, Biden noted, would almost surely be litigated — likely all the way to the Supreme Court — and it’s unclear if the matter could be resolved before the default deadline or even soon after. Some critics argue the uncertainty could have just as severe consequences as failure to reach a deal.
“We have not come up with a unilateral action that could succeed in a matter of two weeks or three weeks,” Biden said. “That’s the issue.”
At the same time, he said once this debt limit crisis is over, his intention is to find a way to take the matter to the courts “to see whether or not the 14th Amendment is, in fact, something that would be able to stop it,” referring to the recurring showdowns over raising the limit.
Here’s what to know about the 14th Amendment and how whether to use it is being argued in the debt ceiling showdown.
What does the 14th Amendment say?
The 14th Amendment is primarily known for its citizenship rights and equal protection clauses, but Section 4 of the amendment relates to the nation’s public debt.
The section reads, in part: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”
It was written in the aftermath of the Civil War and refers to the debt incurred to fight the Civil War on the Union side.
Can Biden use it? Legal expert weighs in
Legal experts, both in recent weeks and in past debt ceiling battles, have debated whether the 14th Amendment can be used to essentially declare the debt limit unconstitutional and avert default absent congressional action to raise it.
“The 14th Amendment provides, in virtually no uncertain terms, that the public debt of the United States should not be questioned,” Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina, told ABC News. “Biden could rely on that language to suggest that there’s no debt ceiling and that he may have a lot of room to operate given that sort of constitutional commitment.”
But there is no precedent for such a move, and it would immediately be challenged in court, Gerhardt said.
“Biden’s going to rely on the language of the Constitution,” Gerhardt said. “Republicans will argue that there’s some kind of original meaning that undercuts the broad language of the Constitution.”
Gerhardt said he believed the 14th Amendment was a “viable option” but “whether Biden can win is a separate question, and whether he can win in litigation that goes all the way up to the Supreme Court is unclear to me.”
Who is calling for the 14th Amendment to be used?
Eleven Senate Democrats and 66 House progressives wrote letters to Biden last week urging him to use the 14th Amendment.
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, a constitutional scholar, argued Monday that the 14th Amendment “provides that the ‘validity of the public debt…shall not be questioned.’ This is not an ‘option’ but a mandate. We can’t allow the MAGA fringe to crash the economy if we don’t cave into their demands to destroy critical social programs for vets, nutrition & health.”
“Is this the perfect solution, is imposing the 14th Amendment the perfect solution? No it is not,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said during a press conference on Capitol Hill last week. “But using the 14th Amendment would allow the United States to continue to pay its bills on time and without delay, prevent an economic catastrophe, and prevent devastating cuts to some for the most vulnerable people in the country.”
Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse, in a press call on Monday advocating for the use of the 14th Amendment, made a similar argument that Republicans were leaving them no choice.
“The best case scenario, obviously, would be for Speaker McCarthy and his MAGA crew to put down the hand grenade and negotiate through the regular process of government that we’ve adhered to for 200-plus years,” Whitehouse said.
“But again there’s one person who is responsible for this and he’s unwilling to put the pin back in the hand grenade,” Whitehouse said, “and we have to face that consequence.”
What’s been the Republican reaction?
Speaker McCarthy’s said he’s opposed to the 14th Amendment, and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has advised, “Unconstitutionally acting without Congress is also not an option.”
“If you’re the leader of the free world, if you’re the only president and you’re going to go to the 14th Amendment to look at something like that, I would think you’re kind of a failure of working with people across the aisle or working with your own party to get something done,” McCarthy said earlier this month.
Backstreet Boys’ DNA world tour has come to an end. “After 4 years, 218 shows, 3 million tickets sold, and 44 countries across 6 continents, the #DNAWorldTour has finally come to a close,” the band posted over the weekend. “This was the most perfect way to celebrate 30 years, and we are so thankful to everyone who made it out to these shows – you make what we do so special and we couldn’t be here without you. We love you and we’ll see you soon.”
The Jonas Brothers’ new album, The Album, debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 albums chart, giving them their seventh top-10 album.
Get it while it’s hot: A new special edition of Taylor Swift’s Midnights – the Love Potion Purple Marbled Vinyl – is available for the next 48 hours or while supplies last on Taylor’s official online store.
Lady Gaga is teasing something. In an Instagram video Monday, Gaga sips some tea, gives a shrug and a smile, and then puts her index finger to her mouth in a “shhh!” gesture. “Having a cuppa in celebration of something exciting coming tomorrow,” she captioned the post.
Jo Dee Messina will appear on the historic National Memorial Day Concert presented by PBS on Sunday, May 28. The special airs at 8 p.m. ET. Visit pbs.org/national-memorial-day-concert for more information.
Craig Morgan has announced his God Family Country Tour 2023. Tickets go on sale Thursday, May 25. For the full schedule and to grab tickets, visit Craig’s website.
Dylan Marlowe has released his new track, “You Were Right (Nat’s Song).” Dylan dedicated the romantic ode to his wife, Natalie, who he just married on Friday, May 19.
In our post-Kardashian world, quite a few celebrities have co-starred with their families in reality shows. For example, Sylvester Stallone just launched The Family Stallone, starring him, his wife and his three daughters. But Lionel Richie says he’d never consider doing something like that with daughters, Nicole and Sofia— because he thinks their entire lives have been a reality show.
Nicole has starred in two different reality shows, The Simple Life and Candidly Nicole, and has been a judge on several more. She’s also married to fellow celebrity Joel Madden of the band Good Charlotte. Sofia, meanwhile, is a model and fashion designer. And Lionel, of course, has judged American Idol for several seasons.
That’s why Lionel told E! News, “Let me say this to you: Living with my kids has been a reality series that I’ve been trying to forget for a long time. So, to bring it to the public right now would be something called post-traumatic syndrome.”
The “All Night Long” singer explained that his daughters have much more of a taste for stardom than he does.
“You know my kids, they have a journey. They’re used to this thing called ‘all your business, every day out in the street,'” he said. “I’m a little bit more reserved, so I’ll let them do their thing, and Papa Richie can kinda go home and enjoy the fireplace.”
Streaming service Max has parted the curtain on a new “rom-doc,” or romantic-documentary, called Swiping America.
The show will launch on the newly rebranded streaming service on June 15 with the first two of six episodes.
Producers tease the show “follows a group of diverse singles from New York City (Ashleigh, Kesun, Kris, Reagan) on an introspective, eight-city dating app journey, as they explore personal issues around sex, relationships, love and connection.”
Each episode finds the group in a new American city, from Asheville, North Carolina, to Seattle, Washington, “as producers swipe through possible matches and curate blind dates for them.”
Max continues, “While forging a special friendship with each other over the course of the season, their journey culminates in Hawaii, where they hand-pick their best match from the season and ultimately decide whether their relationship can go the distance.”
(NEW YORK) — TikTok sued Montana in federal court on Monday over a ban of the app enacted by the state last week.
“We are challenging Montana’s unconstitutional TikTok ban to protect our business and the hundreds of thousands of TikTok users in Montana,” the company said in a statement. “We believe our legal challenge will prevail based on an exceedingly strong set of precedents and facts.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Going to be in Nashville on Saturday, June 3? Then be sure to pop by the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Besides its wide array of must-see exhibits, the museum will be hosting a special Blinged-Out Bandanas session as part of its Family Program.
The event will take place from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the Taylor Swift Education Center. Entry is included with museum admission tickets.
The all-ages, family-friendly event is offered in conjunction with the Country Music Hall of Fame’s ongoing exhibit, Western Edge: The Roots and Reverberations of Los Angeles Country-Rock.
For more information, visit the Country Music Hall of Fame’s website.
Longtime foes Noel Gallagher and Damon Albarn called a truce when the respective Oasis and Blur members collaborated on the song “We Got the Power,” a cut off the 2017 Gorillaz record, Humanz. Perhaps it’s a good thing that the two didn’t try to mend fences at the height of their Britpop rivalry in the ’90s, because Gallagher may have had an extreme reaction.
In an essay for Big Issue, Gallagher wonders what his younger self might think of him working with Albarn.
“It would depend entirely on what side of the bed I got out of that day,” Gallagher writes. “If you caught me on a good day I’d be like, yeah, I could see that happening. On a bad day, I’d f****** knife myself in the bollocks.”
While Gallagher and Albarn eventually made up, Noel and his brother Liam Gallagher have remained estranged since Oasis broke up 2009.
Elsewhere in the Big Issue piece, Gallagher shares what moment in his life he’d want to relive: a concert he attended in the ’90s featuring David Bowie and Morrissey. Not because it was such a great show, but because Gallagher was so “high and pissed” that he doesn’t remember meeting Bowie that night.
“Before Bowie came on, somebody came up to me and said, would you like to come and meet David?” Gallagher shares. “I was taken to see David Bowie in his dressing room. And I have no recollection of it whatsoever.”
