Season 2 of Harlem debuted Friday on Prime Video, and shooting the episodes was extremely emotional for series star Meagan Good because she was going through a divorce from DeVon Franklin.
They filed legal papers in December 2021 during production on the new season as they were approaching their 10-year anniversary.
“That was kind of like a tough week, and then right after that we officially got divorced,” the Think Like A Man star told USA Today.
“There’s a scene when I’m crying in the first episode … that night was one of the toughest nights,” Good continues. “I could not wait to shoot that scene because I was like, I need a good cry that I’m saving for this moment. And there is something kind of cathartic about being able to release in your character and to have life experiences that only make you a better actor and make you more intuitive.”
Now Meagan is focused on Harlem season 2, as four female friends in their 30s try to balance their personal and professional lives in New York City.
Like Good, her character, Camille, was trying to cope with difficult times.
“She was going through a moment of self-discovery and she was having moments where she felt like she failed and then she also was like, ‘Oh, I gotta pick myself back up and keep moving forward and fight for that joy and continue to learn and self-reflect,'” the 41-year-old actress says.
Meagan is finding her joy not only in acting, but also working behind the camera, as she directed season 2’s second episode.
“I have such a joy in directing that it doesn’t matter how sad I am, if I get to direct I’m a happy girl,” she says.
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. Navy vessels on Monday swarmed a widespread debris field with divers and cranes to retrieve pieces of the suspected Chinese surveillance balloon shot down by a U.S. fighter aircraft off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday afternoon.
The balloon had been traveling across the continental U.S. since at least Tuesday with the White House facing mounting questions and political blowback as to why the balloon was allowed to cross the country in the first place, especially as the U.S. faces tensions with China.
Republicans continue to condemn President Joe Biden for not having ordered the balloon shot down earlier, but Biden said Saturday he did ask for such action, until the American military advised him they should wait until the balloon wasn’t over civilian territory.
“I told them to shoot it down on Wednesday. They said to me let’s wait for the safest place to do it,” Biden told reporters.
White House spokesperson John Kirby spoke with reporters Monday afternoon to give an update on recovery efforts and to defend the decision to allow the balloon to traverse over the country.
The debris field is roughly “15 football fields by 15 football fields,” he said, and some debris was recovered “off the surface of the sea,” but weather conditions weren’t favorable on Sunday.
“Our efforts to surveil this balloon and what we’re going to learn from the recovery will prove to be valuable,” Kirby said, and the fact the balloon took time to travel under tracking will give the U.S. “clarity” on the balloons’ capabilities and China’s intentions.
Suspected Chinese spy balloons flew over the continental U.S. three times under former President Donald Trump — but the Biden White House said over the weekend that Trump and other top officials weren’t aware at the time.
“This information was discovered after the prior administration left,” according to senior Biden administration officials.
“From every indication that we have, that that was for brief periods of time — nothing at all like what we saw last week, in terms of duration,” Kirby said Monday, asked about the other instances but offering limited information.
House Republicans have promised a slew of investigations into the balloon’s handling. Some Republican lawmakers are weighing introducing a resolution Tuesday condemning Biden’s response — right before his State of the Union address — but no decision has been made.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, in a statement Sunday, said the Biden administration “reacted at first too indecisively and then too late.”
“We should not have let the People’s Republic of China make a mockery of our airspace. It defies belief to suggest there was nowhere between the Aleutian Islands of Alaska and the coast of Carolina where this balloon could have been shot down right away without endangering Americans or Canadians. This was a reminder of the PRC’s brazenness and President Biden missed the opportunity to defend our sovereignty, send a message of strength, and bolster deterrence,” McConnell said.
He said he hopes Biden’s “belated decision to finally do the right thing carries over into his soon-to-be-released annual budget request,” adding, “Whether it’s spy balloons or spy satellites, hypersonic weapons or stealth aircraft, massive naval construction or nuclear stockpile expansion, China’s military modernization effort is no joke.”
In a statement on Sunday, U.S. Northern Command said the balloon was brought down “within sovereign U.S. airspace and over U.S. territorial waters to protect civilians while maximizing our ability to recover the payload.”
China’s Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng, meanwhile, lodged “solemn representations” with the U.S. Embassy in China on Sunday over the “use of force” against what it maintains is a “civilian unmanned airship.”
“What the U.S. has done has seriously impacted and damaged both sides’ efforts and progress in stabilizing Sino-U.S. relations since the Bali meeting.”
He said the U.S. has “obviously overreacted” and that China “resolutely opposes and strongly protests this.”
The so-called “Gang of Eight” of congressional leadership is still slated to have a briefing on the balloon this week as Republicans warn Biden of investigations to come over his handling of the matter.
Montana Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat who chairs the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, also announced Friday that he’ll hold a subcommittee hearing on the ballon.
It’s unclear when Secretary of State Antony Blinken will move forward with plans for high-level meetings in Beijing postponed last week as relations with China remain tense.
“This balloon incident has done nothing to help improve U.S-China bilateral relations,” Kirby said earlier. “And now it’s just not the appropriate time for us to have those sort of face to face discussions with them on larger diplomatic issues.”
ABC News’ Luis Martinez, Ben Gittleson, Karson Yiu, Allison Pecorin, Justin Gomez and Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Nearly 150 New York City police officers violated department rules during 2020 protests over the death of George Floyd, according to a new report issued Monday by the Civilian Complaint Review Board.
The Board substantiated misconduct against 146 officers. Most of the violations involved excessive force, including improper use of batons and pepper spray. Other violations involved discourtesy or offensive language.
The report said there were hundreds more allegations the CCRB could not investigate because officers wore bands over their badge numbers or refused to be interviewed remotely.
“The Black Lives Matter protests that occurred in the summer of 2020 were massive in scale, but not unprecedented in nature,” said interim CCRB chairwoman Arva Rice. “Given what is happening across the country regarding reproductive rights, immigration, affordable housing, and police brutality, people will continue to protest for their rights. It is key for New York to know how to best respond to protests, especially protests against police misconduct.”
The NYPD said the substantiated allegations amount to less than 15% of complaints.
The department also objected to the way the CCRB characterized its response to the protests, including a failure to acknowledge that officers were working under sustained, dangerous conditions.
“At the peak of the protests, there were more than 22,000 NYPD officers deployed in a single day, attempting to facilitate people’s rights to peaceful expression all while addressing acts of lawlessness including wide-scale rioting, mass chaos, violence, and destruction,” the NYPD said.
The department continued, adding, “Officers were faced with perpetrators who were looting, setting fires, and destroying property. During this period, more than 400 uniformed members of the NYPD were injured, with over 250 of them hospitalized, and nearly 300 NYPD vehicles were vandalized, including several that were destroyed by arson from the throwing of Molotov cocktails.”
Elvis Presley may have changed rock ‘n’ roll, but did you know he walked on the moon? That’s just one of the adventures The King gets up to in the trailer to Netflix’s adult animated series Agent Elvis, with Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey voicing Presley.
The series, co-produced by Priscilla Presley, posits that Elvis “trades his jumpsuit for a jetpack” after he’s actually recruited into “a secret government spy program to battle the dark forces that threaten the country he loves — all while holding down his day job.”
McConaughey is also producing the project, which was shepherded by Archer veteran Mike Arnold. Indeed, the animation and madcap action definitely share some DNA with that other cartoon spy show: At one point, Elvis dispatches a baddie with a “really nice pen” and also sees an interrogation suspect murdered by a chimp secret agent holding a revolver.
(NEW YORK) — New York City workers will no longer need to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to be employed by the city, Mayor Eric Adams announced Monday.
The mayor said the vaccine mandate for city employees will end Friday, nearly 15 months after his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, implemented the policy, during a vote by the city’s Department of Health. Adams said 96% of the city workforce has received both shots so the mandate for current and prospective employees served its purpose.
“This is the right moment for this decision,” Adams said in a statement.
By comparison, 90% of New York City residents over 18 have completed their COVID-19 vaccine series as of Monday, according to data from the city’s Health Department.
De Blasio issued the mandate on Oct. 29, 2021, and was met with protests and criticism from some employees from various city agencies, including the fire department, police department and department of education.
Roughly 84% of the city’s roughly 331,000 workforce was fully vaccinated when the mayor announced the mandate, according to city data.
Despite those protests, the number of vaccinated city employees rose between de Blasio’s announcement earlier in October and the deadline, with 83% of all city employees reporting they were fully vaccinated before the deadline, city data showed. By Nov. 1, the first full weekday after the mandate went into effect, 90% of the city’s workforce was fully vaccinated, the data showed.
Those who weren’t granted a religious or medical exemption were placed on unpaid leave and some later were terminated.
The Health Department said 1,780 city employees were fired for not complying with the mandate. The agency said those former employees won’t automatically return to their previous positions but “will be able to apply for positions with their former agencies through existing city rules and regulations and hiring processes.”
Adams urged residents to get their vaccine shots and boosters if they haven’t done so.
Since the vaccines were made available to the public two years ago, the weekly hospitalization rate of COVID-19 cases among 100,000 unvaccinated New Yorkers was 36.84 compared to 6.82 among 100,000 boosted New Yorkers, Health Department data showed.
(WASHINGTON) — New York Rep. George Santos, who continues to claim his mother was in downtown Manhattan on 9/11 despite immigration documents indicating she wasn’t even in the United States, has invited a former ground zero volunteer firefighter to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday.
According to a Monday news release from Santos’ office, his guest, Michael Weinstock, joined first responders in New York City on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, and was later diagnosed with neuropathy, a nerve disorder.
“[Weinstock’s] condition is a direct result of the dust and toxins released from the World Trade Center, and the condition is not covered under the World Trade Center Health Program,” the news release states, referring to the federal coverage for people sickened in the attacks and their aftermath.
In a statement quoted in the news release, Weinstock, a former Democratic congressional candidate, said: “I have travelled to Washington to bring attention to firefighters with neuropathy. This is an issue that transcends politics and speaks to my heart.”
Santos took to the House floor on Monday to advocate for expanded health coverage for people who suffer from 9/11-related illnesses. He also displayed a photo of what he said was Weinstock on Sept. 11.
“Since the World Trade Center Health Program does not cover neuropathy, people like Michael must pay out of pocket for treatment, medications and other medical needs. I ask my colleagues that we work together and find a solution and have conditions such as neuropathy be covered under the World Trade Center Program Act,” Santos said.
9/11 has become a point of controversy for Santos as one of several key parts of his biography that have been shown to be false, exaggerated or disputed by other information.
He maintained in an interview with One America News last week that “the toxic dust that permeated throughout Manhattan and my mother being present [in] downtown Manhattan” led to her death in 2016.
Santos’ campaign website also currently states that his mother “was in her office in the South Tower on September 11, 2001, when the horrific events of that day unfolded.”
However, ABC News previously obtained documents showing Santos’ mother was not in New York during the Sept. 11 attacks.
According to the documents from the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services, Santos’ mom, Fatima Devolder, applied in February 2003 for an immigrant visa from the American consulate in Brazil. The form states that she had not been in the United States since June 1999.
During his interview with OAN, Santos said he didn’t understand the immigration documents showing his mom wasn’t in the U.S. on 9/11.
“That, to me remains a mystery because I was here and I was 13 years old. So I want to understand where they’re coming from with this,” he said.
He added that while his family believes his mother died from a 9/11-related illness, “We’ve never been able to prove that through claims and we’ve never been able to qualify for claims as a family and we just let it go.”
Santos, a first-term Republican representing New York’s 3rd Congressional District, has been dealing with controversy and investigations since before he took office last month.
County, state and federal authorities are looking into a number of issues raised about Santos, including related to his campaign’s finances, while Brazilian prosecutors have said they are seeking to revive check fraud charges against Santos from when he was a teenager and New York Democrats Reps. Dan Goldman and Ritchie Torres have filed a complaint with the House Ethics Committee.
Santos said in December that “I am not a criminal.”
“This [controversy] will not deter me from having good legislative success. I will be effective. I will be good,” he told The New York Post.
Last week, Santos told House Republicans he would temporarily recuse himself from his two assigned committees, on small business and on science, space and technology.
A spokesperson for Santos told ABC News at the time that “the congressman is reserving his seats on his assigned committees until he has been properly cleared of both campaign and personal financial investigations.”
Speaker Kevin McCarthy indicated that if he were to fill Santos’ committee seats, it would be on a temporary basis.
McCarthy insisted to reporters last week that he did not pressure Santos to recuse himself but said he has “some new questions” about the embattled congressman.
“I think going through ethics will answer some others. I think until he goes through that, it would be better that he doesn’t serve on committees,” McCarthy said on Wednesday.
Country music’s most famous stage unveiled its new look this weekend, as Jon Pardi, Ricky Skaggs and many more played the Grand Ole Opry.
While the show made its typical January move to the historic Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville, the Opry House got busy putting $4 million worth of updates into place.
Though it is the first major set change in more than two decades, the new version still preserves the classic look that’s built around a huge barn. The updated barn adds new lighting elements and capabilities, plus there’s now a high resolution video wall upstage of it.
You might also notice some new lighting elements in the audience, plus a striking new “halo” effect on the Opry stage’s legendary circle of wood, taken from its former home at the Ryman.
Chris Janson, newcomer Shane Profitt,Connie Smith and many more are set to walk onto the new stage Tuesday, February 7.
Items from Paul McCartney, Fleetwood Mac, Joe Perry and more brought in big bucks at the annual MusiCares Charity Relief Auction, which was held at Julien’s Auction House in Beverly Hills this weekend.
Big sellers included a personally signed copy of McCartney’s The Lyrics book, which sold for $25,600, 25 times more than expected, as well as a Rolling Stones signed 2022 60th anniversary European tour poster, which brought in $16,000, 16 times its original estimate.
Other items that brought in the big bucks include: a Joe Perry stage-played and signed Gibson Les Paul electric guitar, which went for $25,000; Fleetwood Mac’s band-signed MusiCares Person of the Year Gibson Les Paul, which was purchased for $19,200; a signed SG Electric guitar that belonged to Ozzy Osbourne, which sold for $19,200; Joni Mitchell’s original print of Jimi Hendrix, signed by Mitchell, which sold for $10,240; and a black Epiphone acoustic guitar from the 2015 celebration of honoree Bob Dylan, signed by the artists who paid tribute to him, including John Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen, which sold for $12,800.
The auction also featured items from Robert Plant, Sting, Don Felder, David Lee Roth and others.
Proceeds from the auction benefit MusiCares, the Recording Academy’s charity arm that provides health and human services to the music community.
(EAST PALESTINE, Ohio) — Officials are making an urgent call for evacuations as they plan to burn off the chemicals from a derailed Norfolk Southern train in East Palestine, Ohio, in order to avoid a major explosion.
Residents in a 1-mile by 2-mile area surrounding East Palestine — which includes parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania — must evacuate immediately, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said.
“The vinyl chloride contents of five rail cars are currently unstable and could potentially explode, causing deadly disbursement of shrapnel and toxic fumes,” the governor’s office said in a statement. “To alleviate the risk of uncontrollable shrapnel from an explosion, Norfolk Southern Railroad is planning a controlled release of the vinyl chloride at approximately 3:30 p.m. today.”
Officials released a map showing a red zone and a yellow zone, downwind from the burn, with Norfolk Southern saying anyone who remains in the red area will be exposed to deadly toxins and anyone in the yellow area could suffer “skin burns and serious lung damage.”
The train, traveling from Illinois to Pennsylvania, derailed around 9 p.m. Friday, ignited and prompted a response from more than 50 fire departments across three states, according to East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway.
Janet Meek, who lives about one block from the railroad tracks, said she heard a “loud boom” around 9 p.m. Friday. Her husband reported seeing a “billowing ball of fire” while walking their dogs.
The National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday that two videos show preliminary indications of mechanical issues on one of the rail car’s axle. The train’s emergency brake was activated after crews said an alarm went off, according to the NTSB. There were no injuries, the agency said.
Fire chief Keith Drabick told reporters Saturday that the train was carrying hazardous substances but could not confirm if the fire impacted the train cars carrying the hazardous goods. Drabick said the odor permeating East Palestine was not harmful at current levels, but representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency were monitoring the situation.
East Palestine is a small village on the border of Pennsylvania and Ohio with roughly 4,700 residents.
Efforts to contain the fire stalled Saturday night when firefighters withdrew from the blaze due to concerns about air quality and explosions.
Conaway said firefighters withdrew from the fire Friday night due to concerns about air quality, with a plan to reengage once they get a “better grasp of what exactly is what chemical is burning.” At Saturday’s press conference, Drabick said there had been multiple explosions overnight, which posed a risk to firefighters.
ABC News’ Darren Reynolds contributed to this report.
Ashley McBryde‘s still getting used to the reality that she and Carly Pearce won their first Grammys Sunday night.
“@carlypearce remember that time we wrote us a song because we really really wanted to sing together?” she tweeted on Monday. “And then it sent us on all kinds of adventures? And then we won a freaking GRAMMY?! GAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”
Ashley and Carly won Best Country Duo/Group Performance for “Never Wanted to Be That Girl,” marking the first time a collaboration between two women has won in that category.
