When Pink appeared as a guest on The Kelly Clarkson Show back in February, the two signed a soundwave art piece of their song “Broken & Beautiful” to be auctioned off for charity. The artwork, created by Tim Wakefield, raised $60,000 to benefit No Kid Hungry. Meanwhile, Pink is set to be honored as a No Kid Hungry Champion at the Los Angeles No Kid Hungry Dinner on Thursday.
Harry Styles’ beauty line Pleasing just launched a new “micro-collection” called Pollinators. The collection contains five new nail polish shades and four new apparel items. It’s described on the website as a “colorful celebration of that certain breed of ferocious optimism that blossoms at this time of year and swells as the summer months draw in.”
Another Katy Perry video has been added to YouTube’s Billion Views Club. “Wide Awake” has surpassed the 1 billion views mark, joining Katy’s five other videos in the club: “Roar,” “Dark Horse,” “Firework,” “Hot n Cold” and “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.).”
Blackpink still can’t quite believe they headlined Coachella. “Still feels surreal that we did this! Thank you @coachella for having us!” Jennie, Lisa, Jisoo and Rosé wrote on the group’s Instagram Story Tuesday. “And to all BLINKs out there, we could’ve never done this without you guys. We are forever grateful. Thank you again for these unforgettable two weeks and hope to see you all again!”
When Pink appeared as a guest on The Kelly Clarkson Show back in February, the two signed a soundwave art piece of their song “Broken & Beautiful” to be auctioned off for charity. The artwork, created by Tim Wakefield, raised $60,000 to benefit No Kid Hungry. Meanwhile, Pink is set to be honored as a No Kid Hungry Champion at the Los Angeles No Kid Hungry Dinner on Thursday.
Harry Styles’ beauty line Pleasing just launched a new “micro-collection” called Pollinators. The collection contains five new nail polish shades and four new apparel items. It’s described on the website as a “colorful celebration of that certain breed of ferocious optimism that blossoms at this time of year and swells as the summer months draw in.”
Another Katy Perry video has been added to YouTube’s Billion Views Club. “Wide Awake” has surpassed the 1 billion views mark, joining Katy’s five other videos in the club: “Roar,” “Dark Horse,” “Firework,” “Hot n Cold” and “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.).”
(AFGHANISTAN) — The terrorist allegedly responsible for planning the August 2021 bombing at the Kabul, Afghanistan, airport that killed 13 U.S. service members and at least 170 Afghans was himself killed by Taliban fighters “in recent weeks,” U.S. officials tell ABC News.
A senior Biden administration official on Tuesday described the deceased leader of the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate (also known as ISIS-K or Islamic State Khorasan) as “the mastermind” of the attack, which involved a suicide bomber detonating an explosive device from within the dense crowds desperately trying to enter the Abbey Gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal.
“We have become aware in recent weeks that the ISIS-K terrorist most responsible for that horrific attack of August 26, 2021, has now been killed in a Taliban operation,” the senior official said on Tuesday.
The U.S. did not coordinate with the Taliban in the killing of the ISIS-K leader, according to the official.
“We did not conduct this operation directly with the Taliban. We are not partnering with the Taliban. But we do think the outcome is a significant one,” the official said, adding that the U.S. did not learn of the killing from the Taliban.
The Taliban, which has been in control of Afghanistan’s government since 2021, is opposed to ISIS-K.
The senior administration official said that ISIS-K still aspires to extend the reach of its violent operations but so far has not grown strong enough to pose a major threat outside of Afghanistan.
But the U.S. military’s top general for the Middle East gave a dire warning in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee last month.
“Specifically ISIS-Khorasan, senator, it is my Commander’s estimate that they can do an external operation against U.S. or Western interests abroad in under six months, with little to no warning,” U.S. Central Command’s Commander Gen. Erik Kurilla said.
It is not clear why the Taliban has so far not publicly taken credit for such a high-profile blow against its adversary, according to the senior official.
The official would not give the name of the leader but said he “remained a key ISIS-K figure and plotter” after the Abbey Gate bombing.
While U.S. officials became aware the leader was likely killed soon after the Taliban attack, it took weeks until they were certain enough to begin informing the families of service members who were killed in the suicide bombing.
“It took a bit of time to go to a high level of confidence that this indeed was an individual who had been removed in the operation. And we of course we wanted to get that right before notifying families,” the official said.
The official said that there’s no expectation the news will take away the pain felt by grieving families, but “we felt and feel a moral responsibility” to inform them.
The Afghanistan withdrawal received renewed public attention last month after the most gravely wounded U.S. survivor of the blast at Abbey Gate gave powerful testimony during a GOP-led House hearing on the matter.
Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who lost two limbs in the attack, said he believes his sniper team had the suicide bomber in its sights before the explosion but was not allowed to take the shot.
Writer/director James Gunn had teased his upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 as an origin story for Bradley Cooper‘s beloved, bruising Rocket, and a new clip of the film exclusive to Collider shows just that.
For the uninitiated, Rocket was the subject of illegal animal experimentation that turned him into the character fans have come to love.
This clip shows Rocket in his youth, where he and other animals are being held — and experimented upon — by a character they call Sire.
The anthropomorphic animals have all been equipped with various implants and given the ability to speak, and one by one, they choose names for themselves as they dream of freedom.
An otter voiced by Linda Cardellini names herself Lylla, as opposed to her serial number, 89Q12. A walrus dubs himself Teefs (Asim Chaudhry), while a rabbit (Mikaela Hoover), cruelly retrofitted with spider legs and a metal speaker over her face, chooses Floor, as that’s where she finds herself.
The little raccoon known as 89P13 says, “Someday I’m gonna make great machines that fly. And me and my friends are gonna go flying into the forever and beautiful sky: Lylla and Teefs, and Floor and me, Rocket.”
As heart-wrenching as the scene is, Gunn insists to Collider that no real animals were harmed in the making of the film.
He commented, “I was very, very careful about what we see in terms of animals being hurt because it is something I’m incredibly squeamish about, and people are squeamish about. So I think the difficult stuff to watch in the movie … is because of the idea of what’s happening more than what you actually see.”
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 launches May 5 from Marvel Studios, which is owned by ABC News’ parent company, Disney.
(FLORIDA) — A woman has admitted to dressing up as a clown and fatally shooting her husband’s first wife at the victim’s Florida home more than 30 years ago, though her attorney still maintains her innocence.
Sheila Keen Warren, 59, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in a Palm Beach County court on Tuesday as part of a plea deal reached weeks before her trial was set to begin. She was arrested in 2017 for the murder of Marlene Warren, who was shot in the face after opening the front door of her home in Wellington in 1990 and died two days later.
Keen Warren withdrew her plea of not guilty and changed her plea to guilty during Tuesday’s court appearance. The plea deal calls for a 12-year sentence, though Keen Warren’s attorney, Greg Rosenfeld, told reporters outside the courtroom that he expects her to be home in 10 months. If convicted, she faced a life sentence.
Keen Warren, who has been in jail since her arrest, will receive 2,039 days of credit toward her sentence, Judge Scott Suskauer said while accepting the deal.
Rosenfeld called the plea “a big win for our client” — while continuing to deny her guilt in the shocking crime.
“It was an incredibly hard decision for our client, saying you did something that you didn’t do,” Rosenfeld said. “I mean, nothing’s harder than that.”
“Our client wanted to go home,” he added.
During the hearing, prosecutors outlined evidence they would have brought forward during the trial that they say implicated Keen Warren in the fatal shooting on May 26, 1990 — including testimony from witnesses from a local costume shop that placed her buying a clown costume and wig approximately two days before the incident.
Palm Beach County Assistant State Attorney Reid Scott said that witnesses inside the home at the time of the shooting saw “a clown come to the front door, hand Miss Warren balloons and flowers before shooting her in the face,” then drive away in a white Chrysler LeBaron.
A white Chrysler LeBaron was found approximately four days later in a Winn-Dixie parking lot that had “trace evidence,” including long brown human hairs and what law enforcement officers “described as artificial orange-like fibers,” Scott said. A search of Keen Warren’s home at the time turned up similar fibers, he said.
At the time of the murder, Keen Warren was a repossession agent who would repossess cars for the victim’s husband, who operated a used car and rental business, prosecutors said.
Keen Warren and the victim’s husband, Michael Warren, would go on to own a restaurant in Tennessee and marry in 2002, prosecutors said. The two lived in Abingdon, Virginia, until Keen Warren’s arrest in 2017.
The facts of the case “would lead a jury to find her guilty of the crime,” Reid said.
When asked by the judge if they were aware of any physical evidence that may exonerate the defendant, Keen Warren and her attorney both responded no.
Warren’s son, Joseph Ahrens, was at home at the time of the shooting, authorities said. He told Judge Suskauer he agreed with the terms of the plea deal.
“The only thing I want to say is, all through this trial, I didn’t see any remorse,” Ahrens told the court while appearing remotely.
“God be with her,” he added.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Unit reopened the homicide investigation in 2014. After contacting witnesses and conducting additional DNA analysis, authorities said they established probable cause linking Keen Warren to the murder. A grand jury subsequently issued a true bill for first-degree murder a month before her arrest in September 2017.
(FLORIDA) — A woman has admitted to dressing up as a clown and fatally shooting her husband’s first wife at the victim’s Florida home more than 30 years ago, though her attorney still maintains her innocence.
Sheila Keen Warren, 59, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in a Palm Beach County court on Tuesday as part of a plea deal reached weeks before her trial was set to begin. She was arrested in 2017 for the murder of Marlene Warren, who was shot in the face after opening the front door of her home in Wellington in 1990 and died two days later.
Keen Warren withdrew her plea of not guilty and changed her plea to guilty during Tuesday’s court appearance. The plea deal calls for a 12-year sentence, though Keen Warren’s attorney, Greg Rosenfeld, told reporters outside the courtroom that he expects her to be home in 10 months. If convicted, she faced a life sentence.
Keen Warren, who has been in jail since her arrest, will receive 2,039 days of credit toward her sentence, Judge Scott Suskauer said while accepting the deal.
Rosenfeld called the plea “a big win for our client” — while continuing to deny her guilt in the shocking crime.
“It was an incredibly hard decision for our client, saying you did something that you didn’t do,” Rosenfeld said. “I mean, nothing’s harder than that.”
“Our client wanted to go home,” he added.
During the hearing, prosecutors outlined evidence they would have brought forward during the trial that they say implicated Keen Warren in the fatal shooting on May 26, 1990 — including testimony from witnesses from a local costume shop that placed her buying a clown costume and wig approximately two days before the incident.
Palm Beach County Assistant State Attorney Reid Scott said that witnesses inside the home at the time of the shooting saw “a clown come to the front door, hand Miss Warren balloons and flowers before shooting her in the face,” then drive away in a white Chrysler LeBaron.
A white Chrysler LeBaron was found approximately four days later in a Winn-Dixie parking lot that had “trace evidence,” including long brown human hairs and what law enforcement officers “described as artificial orange-like fibers,” Scott said. A search of Keen Warren’s home at the time turned up similar fibers, he said.
At the time of the murder, Keen Warren was a repossession agent who would repossess cars for the victim’s husband, who operated a used car and rental business, prosecutors said.
Keen Warren and the victim’s husband, Michael Warren, would go on to own a restaurant in Tennessee and marry in 2002, prosecutors said. The two lived in Abingdon, Virginia, until Keen Warren’s arrest in 2017.
The facts of the case “would lead a jury to find her guilty of the crime,” Reid said.
When asked by the judge if they were aware of any physical evidence that may exonerate the defendant, Keen Warren and her attorney both responded no.
Warren’s son, Joseph Ahrens, was at home at the time of the shooting, authorities said. He told Judge Suskauer he agreed with the terms of the plea deal.
“The only thing I want to say is, all through this trial, I didn’t see any remorse,” Ahrens told the court while appearing remotely.
“God be with her,” he added.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Unit reopened the homicide investigation in 2014. After contacting witnesses and conducting additional DNA analysis, authorities said they established probable cause linking Keen Warren to the murder. A grand jury subsequently issued a true bill for first-degree murder a month before her arrest in September 2017.
(NEW YORK) — Donald Trump “banged the door closed and lunged at her,” an attorney for writer E. Jean Carroll told jury members as she recounted what Carroll said happened in 1996 at the Bergdorf Goodman department store, during the opening statements of Carroll’s defamation and battery case against the former president, Tuesday in Manhattan federal court.
But Trump attorney Joe Tacopina told the jury in his opening statement that Carroll’s defamation and battery claims are an “affront to justice,” accusing the writer of taking Trump to court “for money, for political reasons and for status.”
Carroll, who brought the lawsuit in November, alleges that Trump defamed her in a 2022 Truth Social post by calling her allegations “a Hoax and a lie” and saying “This woman is not my type!” when he denied her claim that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in the 1990s.
She added a charge of battery under a recently adopted New York law that allows adult survivors of sexual abuse to sue their alleged attacker regardless of the statute of limitations.
Carroll’s attorney, Shawn Crowley, said she was taking jurors “back to an evening in 1996” when Carroll said she bumped into Trump in the department store.
“Trump was famous in New York City. His name was on a bunch of buildings and his face was in the tabloids,” Crowley said. “Carroll was a well-known writer,” she said, and when Trump asked for her help selecting a gift Carroll agreed, thinking it would make for a good story.
“She thought it would be something to laugh about with her friends later,” Crowley said.
The pair moved through the store, joking and laughing, and eventually made their way to the lingerie department on the sixth floor where Trump tossed a lace body suit at her and asked her to try it on, Crowley said, before leading her by the arm to the dressing room, where he lunged at her.
“Ms. Carroll will tell you she was shocked,” Crowley said
In 2019, when Carroll decided to write about the alleged encounter, Crowley said that “Donald Trump’s response was explosive.”
“Suddenly Ms. Carroll was all over the headlines. The most powerful person in the world … had branded her a liar.”
Tacopina, in his opening statement, told jurors that “you can hate Donald Trump” — but that the appropriate place to express those feelings is at the ballot box and not in a court of law.
“She’s abusing the system,” Tacopina said of Carroll. “You cannot let her profit from this process.”
Tacopina insisted that Carroll’s “story isn’t true” and she lacks the facts to convince the jury otherwise.
“E. Jean Carroll cannot produce objective evidence to back up her claim, because it didn’t occur,” Tacopina said. “She can’t tell you the date that she claims to have been raped. She can’t tell you the month that she claims to have been raped. She can’t tell you the season. She can’t even tell you the year she claims to have been raped by Donald Trump.”
Tacopina said Carroll “falsely alleged that he raped her,” and that’s why Trump publicly attacked her.
“E Jean Carroll fabricated a story about Donald Trump while he was president and then made that story the center of her life and her lifestyle,” Tacopina said.
The nine-member jury of six men and three women is weighing Carroll’s defamation and battery claims and deciding potential monetary damages.
“Battery refers to the unjustified touching of another person without the consent of the person touched, with the intent to cause bodily contact that a reasonable person would find offensive,” Judge Lewis Kaplan instructed the jurors.
Trump has repeatedly denied Carroll’s allegations. The trial is expected to last around five days.
Two women are expected to testify during the trial that Carroll told them about the alleged attack shortly after it occurred. Two other women are expected to testify that Trump sexually assaulted them, claims that he denies, as Carroll’s attorneys try to show a pattern of conduct.
The judge has also agreed to allow excerpts of the so-called Access Hollywood tape on which Trump is overheard in 2005 bragging to then-host Billy Bush about groping women.
During the selection of the jury Tuesday morning, the judge told prospective jurors that he was looking to select jurors who are “willing and able to decide this case in a manner that is fair and impartial,” no matter what they may know about those involved.
“The name of the game here is utter fairness and impartiality,” Kaplan said. “The job of the jury will be to decide what did or didn’t happen at the department store, whether Ms. Carroll was or wasn’t raped” — and whether she should be compensated and whether defamation occurred, the judge said.
The judge began questioning prospective jurors with this question: “Is there anything about the nature of this case or the parties that would make it difficult for you to be entirely fair to both parties and to come to a just or impartial verdict?”
He asked prospective jurors about everything from their vaccine status to whether they watched The Apprentice, the reality game show that Trump hosted from 2004-2015.
The judge also asked whether they would find Carroll’s battery claim “less reliable” because she brought it 30 years after it allegedly happened.
Prospective jurors were asked whether they maintain a Twitter account, whether they’ve ever been wrongfully accused of misconduct, and whether they feel Trump has been unfairly treated by the press.
The former president was not present in court Tuesday.
Tacopina told the judge Thursday that Trump will decide whether or not to attend as the trial proceeds.
The civil trial is being heard a block from the criminal courthouse where Trump pleaded not guilty earlier this month to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with an alleged hush money payment to an adult film actress.
Kaplan last week denied Trump’s attempt to delay the start of this week’s trial for a month after Trump’s attorneys sought a four-week delay on the grounds that a “cooling off” period was necessary following intense media coverage of Trump’s criminal indictment.
“There is no justification for an adjournment,” Kaplan ruled. “This case is entirely unrelated to the state prosecution.”
This week’s trial is taking place as Trump seeks the White House for a third time, while facing numerous legal challenges related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, his handling of classified material after leaving the White House, and possible attempts to interfere in the Georgia’s 2020 vote. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said Monday she would decide whether to file criminal charges against Trump or his allies this summer.
Carroll’s lawsuit is her second against Trump related to her rape allegation.
Carroll previously sued Trump in 2019 after the then-president denied her rape claim by telling The Hill that Carroll was “totally lying,” saying, “I’ll say it with great respect: No. 1, she’s not my type. No. 2, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” That defamation suit has been caught in a procedural back-and-forth over the question of whether Trump, as president, was acting in his official capacity as an employee of the federal government when he made those remarks.
If Trump is determined to have been acting as a government employee, the U.S. government would substitute as the defendant in that suit — which means that case would go away, since the government cannot be sued for defamation.
(ALABAMA) — Nearly 90 shell casings were found on the floor of the Dadeville, Alabama, dance studio where four people were killed and 32 others were injured this month, according to court testimony on Tuesday.
In a bond hearing for the six defendants, Jess Thornton, a special agent with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, revealed new details about the April 15 shooting, which terrorized attendees of a Sweet 16 party and rattled the small Alabama community.
A Tallapoosa County official, who was in the courtroom, confirmed to ABC News the contents of Thornton’s testimony, which was recounted in local reports.
Thornton said that roughly 50 to 60 people were inside the dance hall at the time of the shooting.
At one point, he added, a DJ’s speaker fell over, making a sound similar to a gunshot and prompting several of the partygoers to lift their shirts to show they had guns.
An adult told the crowd that anyone over 18 or carrying a gun needed to leave. Soon after, shots rang out.
Thornton described how at least two of the defendants were linked to the massacre.
He said that one of the defendants, Willie Brown, denied being at the party, but shell casings from an unrelated incident, in which Brown was a suspect, matched a casing found in the dance hall.
Another suspect, whom Thornton did not name, was wearing an ankle monitor from an unrelated shooting, whose GPS tracker showed he was in Dadeville.
Meanwhile, a gun that was determined to have been fired was found on the chest of Corbin Holston, one of the victims, said Thornton.
A circuit court judge has 48 hours to determine whether the defendants will be held on bond.
Frankie Goes to Hollywood is getting back together.
The classic lineup — Holly Johnson, Brian Nash, Paul Rutherford, Mark O’Toole and Peter Gill — is reuniting to perform at the opening ceremony of the Eurovision Song Contest, their first time playing together in 36 years.
The band, best known for such ’80s hits as “Relax,” “Two Tribes” and “The Power of Love,” is celebrating the fact that this year’s Eurovision contest is taking place in their home city of Liverpool, England.
Nash tells the BBC that getting back together “felt like a good thing to do” for their home city, noting that he moved back to Liverpool three years ago and the reaction from people has been “always massively positive, uplifting and heartwarming.”
The 2023 Eurovision Song Contest opening ceremony is happening May 7, with the finals set for May 13.
As the annual motion picture industry confab CinemaCon rolls on in Las Vegas, Warner Bros. Discovery dropped its cards on the table Tuesday morning, with sneak peeks of Wonka, The Color Purple, the sequel to Aquaman and a second trailer to The Flash.
According to Deadline, Oprah Winfrey made her first appearance at the expo to talk up the musical reboot of The Color Purple, with the producer calling it a “full-circle moment.” She earned an Oscar nomination for the Steven Spielberg-directed 1985 original.
She was joined by director Blitz Bazawule, calling his version “a celebration of sisterhood.” The movie, starring Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, Colman Domingo, Jon Batiste and Halle Bailey, opens December 25.
The studio also unveiled a peek at Wonka, starring Timothée Chalamet as the man in the hat and Hugh Grant as an Oompa Loompa. That musical film hits theaters December 15.
Chalamet was also on hand for a preview of the sequel to the Oscar-winning sci-fi epic Dune, with director Denis Villeneuve calling the first movie the “appetizer” to the sequel’s “main course.”
Also among the teases was something non-attendees can watch: a second trailer to The Flash, starring Ezra Miller and two Batmen, Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck.
“I spent a lifetime trying to right the wrongs of the past, as if fighting crime could actually bring my parents back,” Keaton’s Bruce Wayne says to Miller’s time-skipping Barry Allen. “You actually did it.”
Barry’s playing with time sends him back to the events of 2013’s Man of Steel, and Michael Shannon‘s world-conquering General Zod. For the first time, both Batmen are seen kicking butt, with Keaton’s character calling back the 1989 original, saying, “You wanna get nuts? Let’s get nuts!”
