(NEW YORK) — Brittney Griner thanked her family and friends and credited her faith for surviving her time in custody on Friday in her first comments since being released from a Russian prison earlier this month.
“It feels so good to be home! The last 10 months have been a battle at every turn,” Griner wrote on Instagram. “I dug deep to keep my faith and it was the love from so many of you that helped keep me going. From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone for your help.”
The U.S. swapped the WNBA star for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout on Dec. 8.
Griner was taken into custody at a Moscow area airport in February in possession of vaping cartridges containing hashish oil, an illegal substance in Russia. She pleaded guilty in July and was sentenced to nine years in prison on Aug. 7. She appealed the sentence, but was quickly rejected in October.
The U.S. had been negotiating a prisoner swap for months. President Joe Biden finally announced on Dec. 8 that he had spoken to Griner from a plane as she flew back to the United States and shared photos of himself with Griner’s wife, Cherelle, and Vice President Kamala Harris in the Oval Office.
Griner also specifically thanked Biden and urged the U.S. to continue to fight to bring imprisoned ex-Marine Paul Whelan home from Russia.
“President Biden, you brought me home and I know you are committed to bringing Paul Whelan and all Americans home too,” she wrote. “I will use my platform to do whatever I can to help you. I also encourage everyone that played a part in bringing me home to continue their efforts to bring all Americans home. Every family deserves to be whole.”
Dino Danelli, drummer for the ’60s group The Rascals, died Thursday at the age of 78. Guitarist Gene Cornish confirmed the news on social media.
“It is with a broken heart that I must tell you of the passing of Dino Danelli,” Cornish shared. “He was my brother and the greatest drummer I’ve ever seen. I am devastated at this moment.”
Cornish said that in recent years Danelli’s health had been failing, and he suffered from coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure. He added Danelli went into a rehab facility this year, where his “condition incrementally grew worse,” noting, “He’d spend every day there until his passing.”
As for his legacy, Cornish write Danelli “has been and continues to be a major influence to generations of drummers who are mesmerized with his original style, impeccable, tasteful playing and heart-stopping showmanship.”
Danelli and Cornish, along with Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati, founded the Young Rascals in 1965. They were known for such hits as “Good Lovin,’” “Groovin’” and “People Got to Be Free.” They changed their name to The Rascals in the late ’60s, with “A Beautiful Morning” their first release under their new name. The tune went to number three on the charts.
Although they broke up in the early ’70s, The Rascals did reunite several times over the years. The last time was in 2012 for a combination concert/theatrical event about the band, The Rascals: Once Upon a Dream, which was produced and directed by E Street band member Steven Van Zandt and his wife, Maureen.
The Rascals were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, with Van Zandt on hand to induct them.
(WASHINGTON) — A follower of the QAnon conspiracy theory movement who led members of the pro-Trump mob that chased Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman during the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol was sentenced Friday to five years in prison following his conviction of multiple felony and misdemeanor offenses for his actions during the riot.
Doug Jensen, 43, became one of the more recognizable figures in early pictures that emerged from the Capitol assault and was one of the first rioters to breach the building after scaling a 20-foot wall on the West Front of the complex.
Prosecutors had sought 64 months for Jensen, describing him as a leader who “was trying to fire up a revolution” that day.
Judge Tim Kelly went slightly below their recommendation in sentencing Jensen to 60 months, expressing concern at Jensen’s failure to express any remorse for his actions, including in a short statement he delivered just prior to the sentence being handed down. Jensen made no apology and said he just wanted to move forward and get back to his old life.
Kelly credited Goodman’s heroism as he detailed the rationale behind the sentence, noting if he hadn’t been able to divert the mob away from the U.S. Senate the consequences could have been dire.
“It is a miracle that more people were not injured and did not lose their lives that day,” Kelly said.
In their sentencing memo, prosecutors described Jensen as a “ringleader” during the attack who later expressed pride in becoming a “poster boy” of Jan. 6.
A jury convicted Jensen in September of five felony offenses including assaulting a law enforcement officer and obstructing an official proceeding, after a trial which featured testimony from Officer Goodman himself.
Goodman described the harrowing moment he was chased by Jensen and other rioters up a stairwell inside the Capitol where he managed to divert them away from the Senate Chamber and into the Ohio Clock Corridor where other officers joined him to provide backup.
Capitol Police Inspector Thomas Lloyd said in a new letter to Judge Kelly this week that the quick thinking by Goodman likely prevented a shootout inside the Capitol to prevent rioters from reaching Senators who were at the time sheltering in place.
“Thankfully, the Defendant was able to walk out of the Capitol Building on January 6. He can thank Officer Goodman,” Lloyd said. “If Officer Goodman had not led the Defendant and the rest of the mob away from the Senate Lobby and an attempt was made to breach those doors, there would have been tremendous bloodshed.”
Even after Goodman was joined by his fellow officers, Jensen continued to confront them — demanding they “back up” and arrest Vice President Mike Pence. Prosecutors later revealed he had been carrying a knife in his pocket with a three-inch blade.
After the riot, when Jensen was first interviewed by the FBI, he was asked by agents if he regretted his actions and told them “it would have been worth it” if former President Trump was able to stay in power as a result of the attack, prosecutors say.
And while his attorneys said leading up to his trial that he was reformed and no longer believed in the QAnon conspiracy theory movement, he was later caught using an unauthorized cell phone to stream Mike Lindell’s so-called “Cyber Symposium” that propagated more conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen.
Tom Petty’s Malibu beach home can be yours, if you have $10 million to spare. The home, which the late rocker owned until his death in 2017, is now on the market.
“When Tom first walked into the home, he just loved the essence and the spirit,” listing agent Chris Cortazzo of Compass tells People. “He loved its originality — it was unpretentious which was very much his spirit. What a luxury for a massive celebrity to walk on the beach and not be bothered.”
The 16,000-square-foot home, which reportedly inspired Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ 2010 song “Something Good Coming,” comes with two bedrooms and a guest house, with direct access to Escondido Beach, 66 feet of beach frontage and views of the Pacific Ocean from the terrace off the living room.
The whole house has a rustic feel, as does the guest house, which is set up as a music studio.
The teaser trailer for the highly anticipated Barbie movie is here.
The first look, which debuted Friday on YouTube, features Margot Robbie as the titular Barbie in a hilarious spoof of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
“Since the beginning of time, since the first little girl ever existed, there have been … dolls. But the dolls were always and forever baby dolls until …” a voiceover says.
At this point, the camera slowly reveals Robbie in a retro black-and-white swimsuit: the first Barbie doll’s iconic look. As Strauss‘ “Also sprach Zarathustra” plays, as it did in 2001, Robbie lowers her glasses and winks for the camera as the little girls then throw and smash their baby dolls.
The teaser trailer also reveals first glimpses of Ryan Gosling as Ken, as well as other cast members, including Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings star Simu Liu and Insecure star Issa Rae.
In April, Warner Bros. shared a first look of the live-action movie, which showed Robbie dressed as the iconic doll, sitting in the driver’s seat of a pink convertible. In June, the studio released an image of a tanned Gosling in an all-denim look as Ken.
The film is directed by Greta Gerwig and is slated to hit theaters on July 21, 2023.
Gerwig is wrote the screenplay alongside fellow filmmaker and partner Noah Baumbach. Plot details have been kept under wraps.
Dave Grohl & Billie Eilish at 2021 MTV VMAs; Theo Wargo/Getty Images for MTV/ViacomCBS
Dave Grohl made a surprise appearance during Billie Eilish‘s concert at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles Thursday and joined the “bad guy” star for an acoustic rendition of the Foo Fighters classic “My Hero.”
The onstage collaboration was a long time coming for Grohl and Eilish, who’ve shared their love for the other’s music over the years. Prior to the performance, Grohl told the crowd about watching Eilish perform on the Grammys while wearing a Taylor Hawkins shirt in honor of the late Foo Fighters drummer, who’d just passed away the week before.
“Earlier this year, all of the Foo Fighters and our families gathered together at my house to watch the Grammys,” Grohl shared. “When Billie came out for her performance in the Taylor Hawkins T-shirt, the room was filled with real tears of love and gratitude.”
You can watch footage of Grohl’s comments and his performance with Eilish now via the Forum’s Twitter.
Eilish’s concert also featured a guest appearance by Phoebe Bridgers. The two performed a collaborative version of Bridgers’ song “Motion Sickness.”
(NEW YORK)– The New York Giants pulled off what some call the biggest upset in NFL history in 2008 by beating the undefeated New England Patriots 17-14 in Super Bowl XLII.
Former coach Tom Coughlin has written a book, A Giant Win, about that game and how he, quarterback Eli Manning and the rest of the team overcame the odds.
Coughlin and Manning sat down with ABC News Live’s Trevor Ault to reflect on the game and their time in the NFL.
TREVOR AULT:I got to admit, this is the only interview where I’ve been tempted to be 5 minutes late just to see what would happen.
ELI MANNING:That would have been a bad decision by you. [laughs]
AULT: Your book is full of a ton of good stories. I know you said to Michael Strahan earlier that you believed that this was the best Super Bowl of all time.
TOM COUGHLIN:I do.
AULT: Why do you believe that?
COUGHLIN: Because it’s against an opponent that was the greatest scoring machine in the history of the National Football League. All the statistics, and no one pointed to the fact they were fourth in many categories on the defensive side of the ball. They had great personnel. They had played well together. We had played them in Week 17, [and] we go out, [and] they beat us 38-35. But we led the game and we were in the fourth quarter with the lead. But when we walked off the field that night, we knew we could play with them.
AULT: It’s funny how you started that answer verbatim with something that I wrote down from the book, which is, “We knew they were the greatest scoring machine in NFL history, just like we knew Tom Brady was the best quarterback to ever play the game.” [To Manning:] Does that hurt your feelings?
MANNING: No. The guy’s got 7 Super Bowls, he’s got five or six MVPs; he’s 44, still playing at [an] elite level.
And so, it does not hurt my feelings; and I was just fortunate to be on two great teams… including that 2007 team. I’ve gotten to know Tom over the years and I never say anything to him and I never talk about that game, but he brings it up. That game bothers him badly, because they would go down as the greatest team in the history of the NFL probably, and they can’t say that because we beat them and it hurts them and it bothers them. So I kind of like having that on him.
AULT: You know, 15 years down the line, what makes this Super Bowl and this story worth telling so?
COUGHLIN:Well, to me the greatest, certainly the greatest upset in the history of the Super Bowl. But it’s also the timing. We’ve been through COVID. We’re into a recession.
Anybody that’s down on their luck or had a bad day or whatever can relate to this because it’s about hope and inspiration.
First of all, they wanted to fire the coach. The coach was gone after the [2006] season, and had to battle to get really, quite frankly, to get his job back.
The second half of the season wasn’t easy. And yet we just hung in there and hung in there and made things happen and got ourselves in position.
Between hope, between inspiration and between someone telling you can’t do something, the reality of that you can’t underestimate.
AULT: You talk about in your forward how the two of you rebounded not just from your successes, but also you know what it’s like to have New York want to run you out of town. I would imagine it makes the success all the more sweeter.
MANNING:No doubt. And that year, 2007, we were both on the hot seat.
We started 0-2, but we never got down. We never started making excuses or panicking.
It wasn’t easy, but we hung together. We stuck together as a close team, and it was special. There was something special about the group.
COUGHLIN:It’s hard to describe that feeling.
I mean, I said to John Mara, “John, you know, I’m not big on parades. I don’t know.” He said, “You’re not going to wanna miss this one.” And my God, thank God.
Just two million people hanging out of the buildings and throwing stuff.
AULT: I’m curious because when that happened, it was the story. It was an unbelievable upset. Everyone knew what a huge moment that was 15 years down the line. Do you feel any differently about it? Do you have any new thoughts about it?
COUGHLIN:Not at all. Matter of fact, I was really invigorated by thinking about the game again.
You match up the greatest quarterback in the history of the game; the probably the greatest big game quarterback in the history of the game.
I’m looking down at the field and that third [down], and seven [yards] and three guys have got Eli in their grasp.
He wiggles his way out somehow. And we’ve got David Tyree going to the post.
Next thing I know, he’s launching a ball down the middle of the field. I’m going, “Oh, no, no, don’t overthrow. Don’t overthrow that ball in the middle of the field.”
This kid goes up in the air. He catches the ball in two hands. He’s got a safety, Rodney Harrison, who’s 20 pounds at least heavier than him.
He has the wherewithal to pin the ball to his helmet for the side of his head….[and] he hangs on to the ball on the ground.
AULT:You make the point in your forward about the similarities between the two of you about the importance of attention to detail and the fundamentals. Another similarity that I’ve heard about both of you is that you’re both secretly very funny.
COUGHLIN: Not me. [Eli] is obviously.
MANNING:He is, in the right situation.
Coach has an in-season personality and an off-season personality. And in season, you got to stay away from [when] you see him down the hall. People are ducking in the room, [and] in the bathrooms, and he’s on a mission. Then off season, you see the lighter side. You see his passion for his charity, you see his passion for family and understanding the importance of getting players home to their families and being around your kids.
AULT: But was there ever a moment where it slipped a little bit when you were being the tough coach, but then something was just too funny?
MANNING:I remember at a Saturday practice. So this is a walk through before, you know, before a game and Chris Snee, who was coach’s son-in-law, all of a sudden he’s kind of over there and you see him, he’s like, ‘Hey, Chris, come over here.’ And he looks like he’s kind of yelling at him. He’s got the script and he’s kind of hitting it like he’s yelling out.
I was kind of close enough where I could hear and he says, “Hey, are the grandkids coming over today? What time are they coming?”
He wanted it to look like you’re serious and yelling at him, but you saw the lighter side and knew there was more to this man than just football, football, football.
AULT: When you’re in that year, when you’re in that year coaching, you’ve got Eli, you’ve got my now coworker, Michael Strahan, were you looking at the roster thinking this team has an incredible future in broadcasting?
COUGHLIN:What I was really thinking is these two have a really great sense of humor. They’ll be really good after they get done, after they hang it up.
AULT: Once you’re done with them, then they’ll be good on TV.
COUGHLIN:Yeah, they’ll be able to really exert their personalities once they get away from me.
AULT: Any tough love feedback to improve the Manning cast?
COUGHLIN: No, I couldn’t even advise. Those guys are way, way beyond me.
MANNING:He said, “Just keep making fun of Peyton.”
AULT:I wanted to ask you, coach, before you wrote this book, you wrote an incredible op-ed in The New York Times about being a caretaker for your wife, and it was very powerful. Is there a message that you would just like to give people beyond football?
COUGHLIN:The message was that the role of the caretaker is an all-consuming job. Everything you do, your schedule, your life is around the loved one that you’re taking care of. The message really was, is, too, for people to give themselves a break.
I know for myself, if Judy was having a good day, I was having a good day. If she was having a bad day, I was a failure — What am I doing here?
For 18 months. Judy couldn’t walk, she couldn’t talk, she couldn’t do anything.
It’s something to behold in terms of what people go through and they need support. They need the support of family, they need supportive friends. And I’m in a position where I could, I hired caregivers, too, because it took two of us. One couldn’t do it. Well, there are people out there that can’t afford that.
And believe me, the burden, the physical and mental burden is extremely difficult to deal with. And that’s why I wrote the article, because I wanted people to pay attention to caregivers and realize what they were going through. And even a pat on the back, [or] drop off a dinner on Saturday night, don’t forget about that.
AULT:Before I let you both go, how do we feel about the Giants this season? Eli?
MANNING:You know, they’re still in control of their own destiny right now.
They’re playing close games and that’s good. Early in the year they’re finding ways to win them; now, late in the year it’s gonna be the same thing: Can they win tight games? Those are the teams that make the playoffs.
(DALLAS) — A jury has begun the sentencing phase Friday for former police officer Aaron Dean, one day after he was found guilty of manslaughter in the death of Atatiana Jefferson.
The same jury decided to convict Dean on Thursday for manslaughter as opposed to a harsher murder charge during roughly 13 hours of deliberations. Manslaughter is a second-degree felony, according to the Texas penal code. It’s punishable by two to 20 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine.
Jefferson, a 28-year-old Black woman, was fatally shot by Dean, a white police officer, in her Fort Worth, Texas, home on Oct. 12, 2019.
Dean and another officer responded to a nonemergency call to check on Jefferson’s home around 2:30 a.m. because a door was left open to the house.
Dean did not park near the home, knock at the door or announce police presence at any time while on the scene, according to body camera footage and Dean’s testimony.
Dean testified that he suspected a burglary was in progress due to the messiness inside the home when he peered through an open door. When Dean entered the backyard, body camera footage showed Dean looking into one of the windows of the home.
Jefferson and her young nephew Zion were playing video games when they heard a noise, according to Zion’s testimony. Zion said his aunt had left the door open because they burned hamburgers earlier in the night and were airing out the smoke.
Jefferson grabbed her gun from her purse before approaching the window, Zion testified. Police officials have said Jefferson was within her rights to protect herself.
Dean’s lawyers argued during the trial that he was confronted by deadly force when he saw Jefferson with the gun and was within his right to respond with deadly force. However, Dean admitted on the stand that his actions constituted “bad police work.”
In body camera footage, Dean can be heard shouting, “Put your hands up, show me your hands,” and firing one shot through the window, killing Jefferson. According to a forensics video expert, there was half a second between his commands and when he shot Jefferson.
Dean resigned from the police department before his arrest. Fort Worth Chief of Police Ed Kraus has said Dean was about to be fired for allegedly violating multiple department policies.
(NEW YORK) — Missing American college student Kenny DeLand Jr. has been found in Spain three weeks after he walked away from the University of Grenoble Alpes and apparently stopped communicating with friends and family, according to a French prosecutor’s office.
DeLand called his father on Friday after last being heard from Nov. 27, according to the Grenoble prosecutor. The prosecutor’s office said DeLand sounded OK.
A website DeLand’s family had launched for information posted Friday that he “has been found.”
“We will update with more information as we get it! THANK YOU to everyone for helping us bring Kenny home!” the message on the website stated.
His family had previously said they last heard from their son on the popular WhatsApp messaging app after he left the home of his host and was headed on a train to Valence, France.
According to his dad, the last time his son’s phone had pinged was on Nov. 30. A surveillance camera captured him walking inside a sporting goods store on Dec. 3.
DeLand Jr. was learning French abroad at the University of Grenoble Alpes through the study abroad program American Institute for Foreign Study (AIFS). In the U.S., he was a senior at St. John Fisher University in Rochester, New York, his parents said.
Grenoble prosecutor Eric Vaillant said earlier this week that Ken DeLand Jr. was having a hard time while living in France and expressed a desire to leave early.
DeLand Jr. reportedly told several people that he arrived in France “insufficiently prepared” and had a hard time making friends, Vaillant said earlier this week. “He was not feeling well. He himself had mentioned that he wanted to leave earlier by going to Marseille.”
He was scheduled to leave France on Dec. 15, according to Vaillant.
(WASHINGTON) — A follower of the QAnon conspiracy theory movement who led members of the pro-Trump mob that chased Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman during the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol is set to be sentenced Friday following his conviction of multiple felony and misdemeanor offenses for his actions during the riot.
Doug Jensen, 43, became one of the more recognizable figures in early pictures that emerged from the Capitol assault and was one of the first rioters to breach the building after scaling a 20-foot wall on the West Front of the complex.
In their sentencing memo requesting Judge Timothy Kelly sentence Jensen to more than five years in prison, prosecutors describe Jensen as a “ringleader” during the attack who later expressed pride in becoming a “poster boy” of Jan. 6.
A jury convicted Jensen in September of five felony offenses including assaulting a law enforcement officer and obstructing an official proceeding, after a trial which featured testimony from Officer Goodman himself.
Goodman described the harrowing moment he was chased by Jensen and other rioters up a stairwell inside the Capitol where he managed to divert them away from the Senate Chamber and into the Ohio Clock Corridor where other officers joined him to provide backup.
Capitol Police Inspector Thomas Lloyd said in a new letter to Judge Kelly this week that the quick thinking by Goodman likely prevented a shootout inside the Capitol to prevent rioters from reaching Senators who were at the time sheltering in place.
“Thankfully, the Defendant was able to walk out of the Capitol Building on January 6. He can thank Officer Goodman,” Lloyd said. “If Officer Goodman had not led the Defendant and the rest of the mob away from the Senate Lobby and an attempt was made to breach those doors, there would have been tremendous bloodshed.”
Even after Goodman was joined by his fellow officers, Jensen continued to confront them — demanding they “back up” and arrest Vice President Mike Pence. Prosecutors later revealed he had been carrying a knife in his pocket with a three-inch blade.
After the riot, when Jensen was first interviewed by the FBI, he was asked by agents if he regretted his actions and told them “it would have been worth it” if former President Trump was able to stay in power as a result of the attack, prosecutors say.
And while his attorneys said leading up to his trial that he was reformed and no longer believed in the QAnon conspiracy theory movement, he was later caught using an unauthorized cell phone to stream Mike Lindell’s so-called “Cyber Symposium” that propagated more conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen.
