Peacock got quite the wedding gift from its recently launched spin-off series The Best Man: The Final Chapters.
According to data provided to Variety, the show that reunited the cast of the franchise first started on the big screen in 1999 has become the streaming service’s first original show to hit Nielsen’s Top 10 streaming rankings.
With a cast that includes Nia Long, Taye Diggs, Morris Chestnut, Terrence Howard and Sanaa Lathan, The Final Chapters debuted in the #5 slot for the December 19-25 window, the streaming service’s best debut to date. The performance is particularly strong considering the show premiered in the middle of that viewing window, on December 22.
In 2022, Bebe Rexha and her friend David Guetta scored a worldwide hit with “I’m Good (Blue).” It’s earned them a Grammy nomination for Best Dance/Electronic Recording. So, will 2023 find Bebe continuing the dance music vibe? Well, sort of.
“It’s funny because I started working on an album that has a completely different sound,” she told ABC Audio late last year. “It has dance elements in it, but it’s a little bit of a different departure from where ‘I’m Good’ is at, completely. But it does have somewhat of dance elements to it, which is good.”
Bebe said the project was near completion, but that she wouldn’t release it until the new year. Other than that, Bebe said she didn’t necessarily have any major plans for this year — at least, none that she shared.
“I just keep doing what I’ve always been doing, which is constantly writing, staying in the studio, try to mind my business, live my life, enjoy my dog … and just writing,” Bebe said. “Honestly, I just do what I love.”
Bebe and David will find out on February 5 if they’ve won the Grammy. This Bebe’s third nomination, but she has yet to win. So far, David’s been nominated 11 times and won twice.
Last month while performing her residency show in Las Vegas, Adele spoke about her friendship with Lizzo, calling her “an amazing person”and saying she’d “like to give her all of my love.” Now, Lizzo is giving that praise right back to Adele, and even has an idea of how the two could collaborate.
The U.K. tabloid The Mirror quotes Lizzo as saying of Adele, “I look up to her a lot. She knows who she is and she honors that with every album. She gave us piano ballads that go to number one, which is so hard and rare. She’s the rarest gem of all time. We need her. I am grateful for her.”
According to Lizzo, Adele also is her go-to person for advice about navigating fame and, especially, social media commentary.
“When she first came out the culture was so different, and especially with social media,” Lizzo is quoted as saying. “Adele called me and was like, ‘Lizzo, how do you f***ing do it? Are you okay? Do you want to come over and drink some wine? Do you want to talk?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah.’”
While Adele doesn’t really do many collaborations, Lizzo says she’d be down to work with the “Easy On Me” singer — even though, as she explains, “We’ve never talked about that.”
“Y’know, what I’d do with Adele is play the flute,” Lizzo — an accomplished flutist who shows off her skills on the instrument at her live shows — is quoted as saying. “I’d play flute, [since] she is that kind of artist.”
Both Lizzo and Adele are both nominated for multiple awards at next month’s Grammys, so perhaps they can nail down some plans for a collab while they’re at the ceremony.
The Offspring is taking on 2023 with a clear goal in mind.
The “Come Out and Play” rockers have shared a video from the recording studio, declaring, “#In2023IWill spend a lot more time right here.”
The Offspring released their latest album, Let the Bad Times Roll, in 2021, nearly a decade after its predecessor, Days Go By, dropped in 2012. With the group already back in the studio, hopefully a follow-up record to Bad Times won’t take as long.
In addition to spending more time recording, The Offspring will also be hitting the road in 2023. They’re playing the Arizona Innings Festival in February alongside Eddie Vedder, Green Day and Weezer, and have a European tour booked for the spring.
(HOUSTON) — The identity of a customer who fatally shot a masked robber inside a Houston taqueria and returned the stolen money to terrified diners remained a mystery Sunday as police released a surveillance image of him and requested he come forward for questioning.
Graphic security video from The Ranchito #4 taqueria in southwest Houston captured the unidentified customer pulling a pistol and turning the tables on the bandit as he circled the restaurant demanding customers to fork over their wallets while threatening them with what appeared to be a real handgun.
The footage showed the defiant customer pulling his weapon and firing from his seat at a booth, where he was dining with a man, hitting the robber multiple times in the back as some of the patrons dove under tables. The assailant collapsed near the front of the restaurant before the patron who shot him got up, stood over him and fired one more time point blank, the video shows.
The shooting unfolded around 11:30 p.m. Thursday as 10 customers were dining inside the taqueria, according to the Houston Police Department.
“Witnesses told officers the suspect entered the restaurant and pointed a pistol at patrons as he demanded their money. As the suspect collected money from patrons, one of the patrons, described as a white or Hispanic male, produced a gun of his own and shot the suspect multiple times,” police said in a statement.
The gun the robber used to menace diners turned out to be a toy gun, police said.
“The shooter collected the stolen money from the suspect and returned the money to other patrons. He and other patrons (victims) then fled the scene,” police said.
The security video shows the armed customer picking up the robber’s weapon and throwing it against a wall.
A surveillance image of the customer and his vehicle, a battered 1970s or 1980s pickup truck, were released by police, who said they want to question him and other patrons who left the scene without providing officers a statement.
“Investigators want to speak with the man for his role in the shooting,” police said in a statement, adding that no charges have been filed.
At least nine gunshots could be heard on the video. No one else was injured in the incident.
The identity of the dead suspect, who is believed to be in his 20s, is pending verification by the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences, police said.
At the time of the robbery, the suspect was dressed all in black, including a black ski mask and black gloves, according to police.
He was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics, authorities said.
(FORT WORTH, Texas) — A former U.S. defense intelligence agency analyst convicted of spying for Cuba was released from federal prison on Friday, prison officials confirmed with ABC News.
Ana Montes, 65, was arrested in 2001 for receiving encoded messages from the Cuban government and revealed the names of at least two covert U.S. intelligence officers, according to previous ABC News reporting.
She had been scheduled for release on Sunday. However, when those dates fall on the weekend, the Federal Bureau of Prison usually releases on Friday.
Montes was most recently at a federal facility in Fort Worth, Texas, according to the Associated Press.
Author Jim Popkin, who wrote about Montes in his recently released book “Code Name Blue Wren: The True Story of America’s Most Dangerous Female Spy―and the Sister She Betrayed,” told ABC News that he’s spoken to her family and they believe that she will be moving to Puerto Rico.
“She served her time and [is] free. She’ll have the opportunity to rebuild her life,” Popkin said. “There’s a large community [in Puerto Rico] who consider her to be a hero and, in some cases, a martyr.”
In 2002, she pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit espionage and, as part of a plea deal, was sentenced to 25 years in prison but only served a little over 21 years.
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration last week announced a significant new crackdown on unauthorized migration at the border while opening new legal pathways for some people to enter the U.S
At issue once again is Title 42, a decades-old public health law that was first used by the Trump administration in the wake of COVID-19 to initiate restrictions on humanitarian protections and quickly expel migrants.
While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention attempted last year to rescind the border expulsion order, a federal judge in Louisiana kept it in place — and then the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from mostly GOP-led states, stopping another federal judge’s ruling that Title 42 had to end in December.
The government under President Joe Biden has both defended and been critical of Title 42, but officials now say they must enforce it while the legal battles play out even as Biden said last week, “I don’t like Title 42.”
The plan announced last week will utilize Title 42 and other methods like the standard authority under Title 8 to send as many as 30,000 unauthorized Haitians, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to Mexico each month.
At the same time, the Department of Homeland Security is expanding a parole program to allow up to 30,000 migrants per month to seek asylum as long as they meet specific criteria. Applicants will need sponsorship in the U.S. and are required to pass background checks. Those who cross into the U.S. illegally will be disqualified.
“What we heard today was a major expansion of enforcement at the border but, at the same time, the creation of some legal pathways for people to come into the country lawfully and some ways of applying for an asylum appointment ahead of time as well,” said Andrew Selee, president of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
Diplomatic tensions and logistical challenges have prevented the return of many Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to their home countries. The new agreement with Mexico will allow for more of them to be swiftly returned across the border as long as the Title 42 order remains in place, pending a Supreme Court decision. (Arguments before the court are scheduled for February.)
While the move was met with criticism from both sides of the political spectrum — Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., called it a “disastrous and inhumane relic” — Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that the immigration system is constrained by Congress’ inability to pass bigger changes.
The Department of Homeland Security intends to implement the newly announced migrant removal plan even if Title 42 ends, officials said Thursday.
However, some experts say using standard immigration processes to return non-Mexicans to Mexico could be difficult and will require full cooperation with the Mexican government — a topic that is likely to arise when Biden meets with Andrés Manuel López Obrador for a summit this week.
“It is going to be a little more complicated because Mexico would have to sign an actual agreement with the United States to take people back under Title 8, which was the regular way of returning people,” Selee, with the Migration Policy Institute, told ABC News. “But it is possible to do that.”
Mexico has opposed so-called “safe third country” agreements to take migrants in the past and was reluctant to cooperate even with admitting migrants temporarily under the “remain in Mexico” protocols begun under the Trump administration. But throughout the pandemic, Mexico has taken back some non-Mexican migrants, primarily from northern Central American countries.
The U.S. conducted nearly 345,000 expulsions of El Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Hondurans in fiscal year 2022. The vast majority were sent back to Mexico, one U.S. official said.
Small numbers of Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans had also been returned to Mexico prior to last week’s announcement, according to two U.S. officials.
Despite the potential diplomatic and legal complications that could prevent deportations, Mayorkas said Thursday that the administration intends to use standard immigration processing under Title 8 of U.S. law to return unauthorized Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans once Title 42 ends.
“The longevity of these programs is something that, of course, depends on what we are experiencing at the border and the dynamism, as I mentioned, of the migration challenge that is gripping this hemisphere — and quite frankly, the entire world,” Mayorkas said. “With respect to Mexico, Mexico makes its independent decisions with respect to the needs it must address through the mechanisms it has available to it.”
Immigrant advocates remain concerned that the Biden administration’s new plan will effectively result in an expansion of the Title 42 order for Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans, curtailing their access to asylum and other humanitarian protections due to the swift nature of the removal process.
Eleanor Acer, senior director Human Rights First, said the strategy signified a “doubling down on cruel and counterproductive policies” from the Trump administration.
“Every day that these policies are in place, people seeking refuge will be turned away to suffer horrific abuses,” Acer said in a statement. “This subversion of human rights and refugee law is a stain on the record of President Biden and his administration that will inflict indelible harm on human lives, human rights, and the refugee protection system globally.”
While the Trump administration did attempt to strong-arm Mexico into accepting more migrants, there are significant distinctions with the Biden administration’s approach, such as the pairing of parole options and a commitment to tripling refugee admissions from the Western Hemisphere over the next year.
“I think we have to see the details before we know — there are certainly echoes of what we saw during the Trump administration, even if it’s not exactly the same policy,” Selee said.
There are limited exceptions made for those who might be subjected to the Title 42 order, including those deemed “particularly vulnerable” by the Department of Homeland Security.
(CINCINNATI, Ohio) — As the Buffalo Bills took to the gridiron Sunday wearing T-shirts bearing his number, Damar Hamlin, the 24-year-old player who suffered a cardiac arrest on the field after just seven days ago, posted a new photo online of himself from a hospital bed forming a heart with his hands.
Hamlin’s teammates and the New England Patriots players honored Hamlin at the Bills’ home game at Highmark Stadium in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park by wearing shirts with Hamlin’s No. 3 on them along with the words “Love for Damar” during their pregame warmups.
Fans packing the stadium also showed their support for Hamlin by holding signs wishing him a speedy recovery and red hearts encompassing the player’s number. During pregame ceremonies, the Bills also acknowledged the team’s medical staff members who saved Hamlin’s life after he collapsed on Jan. 2 on the turf at Cincinnati’s Paycor Stadium.
In addition to posting an photo of himself from his hospital bed, Hamlin took to Twitter Sunday, writing, “GameDay.. Nothing I Want More Than To Be Running Out That Tunnel With My Brothers. God Using Me In A Different Way Today. Tell Someone You Love Them Today!” The tweet was accompanied by a video of Hamlin taking the field with his teammates at a previous game.
When Hamlin’s face was projected on Highmark Stadium’s jumbotron, fans and players on both sidelines cheered loudly and gave the injured player a standing ovation. Buffalo players charged onto the field waving flags reading “Pray for Damar” and gathered at midfield collectively flashing No. 3 with their fingers.
Hamlin was also honored in pregame ceremonies at NFL stadiums across the country, with announcers calling for support and prayers for the injured defensive safety, who remains in the intensive care unit at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. Bills players also wore patches with Hamlin’s number on their jerseys during the game, which began with an electrifying 96-yard kickoff return by Nyheim Hines.
Hamlin made his first public comments since his life-threatening injury on Saturday in an Instagram post.
“When you put real love out into the world it comes back to you 3x’s as much,” Hamlin wrote. “The Love has been overwhelming, but I’m thankful for every single person that prayed for me and reached out.”
“We brung the world back together behind this,” the post continued. “If you know me you know this (is) only (going to) make me stronger. On a long road keep praying for me!”
Hamlin shared another message on Twitter Saturday and expressed how much he felt the overwhelming support of the past week.
“The love is felt, & extremely real. No matter race or religion everybody coming together in prayer!” he tweeted.
Hamlin was hospitalized in critical condition after collapsing on the field during Monday night’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals. After several days on a ventilator, the Buffalo Bills updated on Friday that Hamlin was now breathing on his own and talking to family and doctors.
The team said in an update on Twitter on Saturday that Hamlin is “making continued progress” but “remains in critical condition” at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.
The team said Hamlin “continues to breathe on his own” and that “his neurological function is excellent.”
Hamlin was able to FaceTime with the Buffalo Bills’ players and team on Friday, saying, “Love you boys.”
“The thing that makes me laugh is — he did this to the guys right away — he flexed,” Bills head coach Sean McDermott told reporters Friday about the call. “He flexed on them, I guess. He’s just got some staple things that they know him for and that he does.”
McDermott told reporters Thursday that the Bills going forward with Sunday’s game is what “Damar would’ve wanted.”
After Hamlin collapsed on the field Monday night, scores of concerned fans showed their support via an online fundraiser created by the young NFL star previously. The fundraiser, which is aimed at helping buy toys for kids in need, has now received more than $8 million in donations.
ABC News’ Victoria Arancio and Matt Foster contributed to this report.
St. Charles County Department of Corrections via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — The attack fits a pattern of deadly vehicle attacks throughout Europe over the past two years.
The first federal death penalty trial of the Biden administration opens Monday in New York City, where Sayfullo Saipov is charged with the 2017 killings of eight people when he allegedly plowed a rental truck into pedestrians and cyclists along the West Side Highway.
The truck attack, which was on Halloween, was the deadliest terror attack in New York since Sept. 11, 2001.
Saipov, a native of Uzbekistan who lived in Florida, Ohio and New Jersey following his arrival in the United States, has pleaded not guilty to charges that include murder in the aid of racketeering.
He was allegedly inspired to commit the killings by ISIS videos he viewed, prosecutors said. The rental truck used in the Oct. 31, 2017, attack was decorated with an ISIS flag.
The suspect allegedly drove the truck on a bike lane and pedestrian walkway in lower Manhattan, near Stuyvesant High School. When the truck collided with a school bus, the driver exited the vehicle holding two objects, a paintball gun and pellet gun, prosecutors said.
“Moments after Saipov got out of the truck, he yelled, in substance and in part, ‘Allah Akbar,'” according to charging documents filed in the case.
MORE: Feds interviewed accused NYC truck attacker in 2015 about possible terror ties
Prosecutors alleged Saipov rented the pickup nine days before the attack “so he could practice making turns with the truck in advance of his attack,” prosecutors said.
He chose Halloween to commit the attack, anticipating there would be more civilians on the streets that day, prosecutors alleged.
The attack required “substantial planning and premeditation,” prosecutors said, describing how Saipov carried it out as “heinous, cruel and depraved.”
“Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov caused injury, harm, and loss to the families and friends of Diego Enrique Angelini, Nicholas Cleves, Ann-Laure Decadt, Darren Drake, Ariel Erlij, Hernan Ferruchi, Hernan Diego Mendoza, and Alejandro Damian Pagnucco,” according to court records. Five of the victims were tourists from Argentina.
If Saipov is convicted there would be a penalty phase of the case in which the jury would decide whether he deserves the death penalty or life in prison.
It has been a decade since the Southern District of New York last prosecuted a death penalty case. Its last capital murder case was against Khalid Barnes, who was convicted of murdering two drug suppliers but was ultimately sentenced to life in prison in September 2009.
The last time the death penalty was carried out in a New York federal case was in 1953 when Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a married couple, was executed after being convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage for the Soviet Union during the Cold War two years before.
There is no end in sight for the unrelenting rainfall inundating the West Coast with severe flooding and widespread power outages.
Residents in Wilton, California, who live along the Cosumnes River, are being urged to evacuate immediately amid the storm in anticipation of the river flooding over.
“We are urging residents to get out now while roads are still clear; don’t wait for an evacuation order,” the Sacramento County Office of Emergency Services told residents in its announcement on Sunday.
This same area was slammed by last weekend’s atmospheric river, which led to multiple levee failures along the Cosumnes and inundated much of the area with flooding.
That flooding prompted a shelter-in-place order in Wilton after flood waters cut off routes for residents to evacuate, and three people died in the weather event. They were found in their vehicles.
Nearly 500,000 customers across California were without power on Sunday morning as the state continues to be walloped by an ongoing atmospheric river.
The ground that is typically parched as a result of a decadeslong megadrought has now been overly saturated with moisture that threatens to continue for several days. Some coastal roads have been washed away and homes flooded, and heavy rain and mountain snow continued into Sunday morning.
Northern California will see about a 12-hour break from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. local time on Sunday, with another round of heavy rain and snow to follow Sunday overnight into Monday morning. The region will be afforded with another break from about 7 a.m. Monday to midnight on Tuesday, forecasts show.
Further south, the “fire house” of rain is expected to move down the state, with heavy flooding rains expected to hit the area between San Francisco and Los Angeles with non-stop rain from Sunday evening to Monday evening.
There is no light at the end of the tunnel for Californians hoping to see a break in the rain. The pattern is expected to continue in the coming week and into the next week wave after wave of atmospheric moisture affecting the coast.
Rain totals through Tuesday in northern California and the central coast are expected to be 2 inches to 5 inches in the valleys, up to 7 inches in the hills and between 6 inches and 12 inches in the mountains, forecasts show.
The influx of moisture will likely create more mudslides, debris flows — especially in the burn scar areas — and rapid rises of creeks, streams and rivers.
The San Lorenzo River near Santa Cruz, a coastal town about 90 miles south of San Francisco, is forecast to reach a major flood stage on Monday, nearing 23 feet. At about 21.76 feet, major flooding occurs in the Felton Grove neighborhood, with roadways several feet deep and waters inundating the approaches to the Felton Covered Bridge, according to the National Weather Service.
The Alameda Creek near Niles, about 30 miles southeast, of San Francisco, is forecast to reach near record at 15 feet on Monday. The Alameda Creek in general will be near a record height, not just at this location.
Winds with gusts up to 70 mph will continue to bring down trees and power lines, causing power outages and an unrelenting danger for people and homes within a short distance of trees.
Up to three feet of snow will have fallen in the Sierra Nevada by the time the weekend is over. Another 4 feet is possible in some regions through Tuesday alone, with more to come as the week progresses.
The moisture is also making its way further east, with western Colorado reporting 13 inches of snow over the weekend.
ABC News’ Nicholas Kerr contributed to this report.
