(NEW YORK) — The man accused of repeatedly stabbing author Salman Rushdie on a Western New York stage last month appeared briefly Wednesday in court as prosecutors build their attempted murder case against him.
Hadi Matar, 24, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree attempted murder and assault charges in connection with the attack Aug. 12 at the Chautauqua Institution where he allegedly stabbed the 75-year-old Rushdie about a dozen times in front of a crowd that had gathered for a lecture.
Matar is being held without bail.
Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt said investigators are examining more than 30,000 files produced by New York State Police in its ongoing investigation.
“We are currently reviewing those documents and preparing them in a manner to be appropriately disclosed,” Schmidt said.
Prosecutors are seeking a protective order preserving the confidentiality of witnesses and limiting the persons who may review the materials disclosed. Arguments were scheduled for Sept. 13.
Schmidt conceded that, to date, a limited disclosure has been made to the defense, consisting of statements which Matar made to police at the time he was in custody. He said a more substantial disclosure to the defense is coming.
“I intend to take full advantage of the time allotted to the prosecution under applicable statutes so that we can ensure our compliance with the discovery laws and maintain the integrity of our case,” Schmidt said.
Authorities have not released a motive for the attack.
Rushdie faced years of death threats after his novel, “The Satanic Verses,” was published in 1988. The late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini accused the author of blasphemy over the book and issued a fatwa against Rushdie in 1989, calling for his death.
In 1998, the Iranian foreign minister said the country no longer supported the fatwa against Rushdie, though a $3.3 million bounty for his death continues to be offered by an Iranian religious foundation.
Taylor Swift is still trying to shake off a lawsuit claiming she stole key elements of her 2014 smash-hit single. Now, her lawyers are arguing that some experts hired by the opposing side are unqualified to weigh in on the matter.
Billboardreports Taylor’s attorney asked a federal judge to exclude testimony from several experts in the “Shake It Off” copyright suit, which heads to a jury trial in January. The lawyers state one expert in particular — from George Washington University — is “not qualified to provide that or any of the other opinions he has expressed in this case, and his deposition testimony confirms he is simply making it up as he goes along.”
That expert was retained by Sean Hall and Nathan Butler, who sued Taylor in 2017 and claimed she stole lyrics from the “Playas Gon’ Play” song they wrote for 3LW. The ’90s song features the lyrics “playas, they gonna play” and “haters, they gonna hate.” This expert was hired to compare the similarities between the two songs.
Another expert Taylor’s team takes issue with is an accountant whose testimony, they say, was a “complete misfire.” They also pushed back at Hall and Butler hiring lawyer Bob Kohn, who has handled other copyright cases.
They take issue with Kohn claiming half the lyrics of “Shake It Off” are lifted from “Playas Gon’ Play,” and that Taylor’ song loses “its force, meaning and energy” without those allegedly stolen lyrics.
The singer’s team attests Kohn provided no analysis to back up his “unsupported assertions.”
Her team worries that, since the matter is heading to a jury trial, jurors won’t be trained in or knowledgeable of songwriting or making music — and they could believe supposedly erroneous statements.
(SASKATCHEWAN, Canada) — Officials have released the identities of the victims killed in a string of stabbings across Canada’s Saskatchewan province over the weekend.
Brothers Myles Sanderson, 30, and Damien Sanderson, 31, are suspected of carrying out the deadly stabbing spree in an Indigenous community in Saskatchewan on Sunday, between the James Smith Cree Nation and the town of Weldon, located northeast of Saskatoon, authorities said.
The first 911 call about a stabbing was received around 5:40 a.m. Sunday and police began receiving additional calls from multiple locations minutes later, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Damien Sanderson, 31, was found dead with “visible injuries” on Monday in a heavily grassed area near the stabbing sites, police said. Investigators are still searching for Myles Sanderson, who may be injured and seeking medical attention. He is considered armed and dangerous and is believed to still be in the provincial capital of Regina, according to authorities.
An additional 19 people were injured, but officials will not be releasing their identities, according to the Saskatchewan Coroner’s Service.
The families of those killed appeared at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.
These are the victims killed in the attacks:
Thomas Burns, 23, of James Smith Cree Nation, Saskatchewan
Carol Burns, 46, of James Smith Cree Nation, Saskatchewan
Gregory Burns, 28, of James Smith Cree Nation, Saskatchewan
Gregory Burns was the son of Brian Burns and Bonnie Burns, who were also killed in the attack. He was known by the nickname “Jonesy,” the family said.
Lydia Gloria Burns, 61, of James Smith Cree Nation, Saskatchewan
Bonnie Burns, 48, of James Smith Cree Nation, Saskatchewan
Bonnie Burns was a member of the Dakota First Nation and was married to Brian Burns.
The couple was married for 15 years and there were known to always laugh and joke, their family said during the news conference.
Their son, Gregory Burns, was also killed in the attack. The couple has three more sons, and Bonnie Burns lived for her children and taking care of their home, the family said.
Earl Burns, 66, of James Smith Cree Nation, Saskatchewan
Lana Head, 49, of James Smith Cree Nation, Saskatchewan
Christian Head, 54, of James Smith Cree Nation, Saskatchewan
Robert Sanderson, 49, of James Smith Cree Nation, Saskatchewan
Wesley Petterson, 78, of Weldon, Saskatchewan
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Melissa Gaffney, Teddy Grant and Morgan Winsor contributed to this report.
(ROSE ISLAND, Bahamas) — An American woman was killed in a shark attack while snorkeling with her family in the Bahamas on Tuesday afternoon, authorities said.
A family of five, from the Lake Erie area of Pennsylvania, were on a snorkeling tour in the waters northwest of Rose Island when one of them — a 58-year-old woman — was attacked by a bull shark shortly before 3 p.m. local time, according to the Royal Bahamas Police Force.
Tour operators along with family members attempted to rescue the woman but were unsuccessful, police said. The victim suffered serious injuries to the left side of her body and was transported by the tour boat to nearby Fort Montagu on the eastern shore of New Providence island, where she was pronounced dead by emergency medical responders, according to police.
The victim was identified by her employer as Caroline DiPlacido, project coordinator for the Office of Community and Government Relations at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania.
“Caroline was a powerful presence of kindness and friendship to colleagues, students, and the wider community and cherished many family ties to Gannon,” the university said in a statement. “The news is devastating, and she will be missed.”
DiPlacido, a 1986 graduate of the university, is survived by her husband and three children, according to the school statement.
The victim and her family had arrived in the Bahamas on Tuesday morning via Royal Caribbean’s cruise ship Harmony of the Seas, police said.
Royal Caribbean confirmed in a statement that the woman was a guest on the seven-night cruise, which sailed from Port Canaveral, Florida, on Sunday.
She was on an “independent shore excursion” in Nassau when attacked by a shark and succumbed to her injuries at a local hospital, according to the Miami-based cruise line.
“Royal Caribbean is providing support and assistance to the guest’s loved ones during this difficult time,” the company said in the statement Tuesday.
In June 2019, an American tourist snorkeling off Rose Island was killed in a shark attack. The victim, 21-year-old Loyola-Marymount University student Jordan Lindsey, died after a school of sharks attacked her.
In The Boys, Erin Moriarty‘s Annie January/Starlight has to endure harassment and misogynistic behavior — and as it turns out, so does the actress who plays her.
Moriarty has posted to her Instagram a fan article titled #IStandWithStarlight, which noted the real-world comments apparent Boys viewers have made at the actress’ expense regarding her photos on her social media feed.
“The harassment feels all the worse given the context of her role as Starlight on the show, a woman silenced and sexualized, treated like a celebrity canvas for others to project onto rather than a human being with her own thoughts and feelings,” the fan wrote.
“But Annie is fictional, and Erin is not,” it continues.
In response, Moriarty replied, “I do feel paralyzed. I’ve put blood, sweat and tears into this role…”
She continued, “I’ve grown UP in this character’s shoes (*emphasis on grown up — we change & evolve mentally AND physically)…” adding the article, “…does break my heart.”
Moriarty added, “I’ve opened up a vein for this role and the misogynistic trolling is exactly what this role (Annie) would speak out against…”
She closed by saying, “This has only strengthened my empathy muscle and to anyone who comes at me: I see you, I don’t hate you, I only empathize and forgive.”
Erin’s Boys nemesis Antony Starr, who plays Homelander, replied, “Support you and what you say here 100%. Well put 😉 Your work on the show is and always has been stellar and you are beautiful inside and out. Keep shining.”
Fellow co-star Jack Quaid, who plays Annie’s love interest Hughie Campbell, added in part, “Love you Erin. We’re all here for you…”
He added, “Leave the trolls to us. We got your back.”
(WASHINGTON) — Immediately after the Supreme Court released a ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, in June, a slew of major U.S. companies, like Meta and JPMorgan Chase, announced that they would cover travel costs for employees who seek legal abortions outside their home state.
Google went a step further. Having already expanded its abortion coverage to include such travel, the company told employees it would allow them to apply to relocate without their providing a reason why.
More recently, after receiving questions from federal lawmakers, the company last month began rolling out a product update that will set default results on Google Maps and local locations for the search query “abortion clinics near me” to only include institutions that perform abortions.
The change will exclude from default results institutions that do not provide the operation, such as pregnancy centers that often attempt to dissuade a woman from seeking an abortion.
Users who choose to manually expand the results beyond those displayed, however, will be able to see institutions that do not provide abortions, a Google spokesperson said.
In addition, Google Maps and local search results will include labels showing whether an institution does or might not provide an abortion, a Google spokesperson said.
Still, outspoken employees at Google say the company hasn’t gone far enough in its response to the overturning of Roe — both on product performance and employee treatment.
The Alphabet Workers Union, or AWU, an advocacy group made up of more than 1,000 employees, has called on Google to strengthen its approach to abortion-related issues or risk an escalation in employee pressure. The AWU functions as a “minority union,” which means it pressures the company through worker organizing but does not formally represent workers in collective bargaining.
The confrontation between workers and management at one of the world’s largest tech companies sits at the convergence of several hot button issues: abortion access, content moderation online and the growing militancy of employees amid a surge of labor organizing nationwide.
“With this new labor movement, workers feel that it’s their due to have a say in what’s going on,” Nelson Lichtenstein, the director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told ABC News.
“Workers can come together and make demands on their company on any issue — it doesn’t have to be a wage question or bread and butter,” he added.
Google should extend abortion-related health benefits to contract workers, whom AWU estimates make up roughly half of company staff, the group says.
Moreover, AWU has called on Google to remove pregnancy centers entirely from search results that appear after a query such as “abortion clinic near me,” rather than merely setting the default search results in Google Maps and local locations to exclude such groups. Under the current policy, the app and site display pregnancy centers in an expanded set of search returns.
Alejandra Beatty, a technical program manager who has worked at Alphabet for six years and serves as the Southwest chapter lead with the AWU, applauded the steps that the company has taken on abortion-related issues since the Dobbs decision but said the company still could do more to protect users and employees.
“We’re excited to see some progress,” she told ABC News. “But we recognize that there is still so much more to do.”
A Google spokesperson said that the recent update prioritizing and labeling abortion clinics on Google Maps and in local search results is part of a wider effort to improve search results when a user is seeking a specific service, such as a particular COVID vaccine brand or electric vehicle charging facility.
“We’re now rolling out an update that makes it easier for people to find places that offer the services they’ve searched for, or broaden their results to see more options,” a company spokesperson said.
“We get confirmation that places provide a particular service in a number of ways, including regularly calling businesses directly and working with authoritative data sources. We followed our standard testing and evaluation process to confirm that these updates are more helpful for people,” the spokesperson added.
Google did not respond to a request for comment on the demand from AWU that it extend abortion-related health coverage to contract workers.
Beatty, the Alphabet employee and member of the ALU, said that the group’s call for the removal of pregnancy centers from search results seeking abortion clinics is a matter of keeping harmful disinformation off of the platform.
“We think it is important search results do not mislead users, so while the additional tagging with services is certainly more useful, it’s still letting the fake clinic be in the list,” she said.
“A good analogy would be how much disinformation spread during the outbreak of Covid-19,” she added. “If websites had started to spring up offering counseling to those seeking vaccinations, they would’ve been immediately removed.”
Google retains a duty to provide accurate search results for the high-stakes pursuit of an abortion, said Joan Donovan, research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.
“Google has become the go-to place for information related to life and death issues, and as a result Google has more than just a responsibility but a duty to ensure that people are getting the right information about abortion services every time across all Google products,” she told ABC News.
Donovan’s prescription for the company appeared to align with Google’s shift toward default results that prioritize institutions that provide abortions.
“It’s very important that if someone is searching for an abortion, the top results should be about obtaining those services first and foremost,” she said.
Beatty, the Google employee, said the AWU will escalate its pressure on Google if the company does not provide contract workers with abortion-related health benefits and remove pregnancy centers from search results; though the group does not yet have specific plans.
“As more and more states pass incredibly restrictive laws, like Tennessee and Texas have done, we know we must take action,” she said.
The AWU sent a petition in mid-August signed by hundreds of employees calling on Google to extend abortion-related health care benefits, including reimbursement for travel costs, to contract employees.
As of late last month, the company hadn’t responded, Beatty said. “It’s not that unusual,” she added. “There’s a fair number of petitions happening these days.”
The AWU will continue to advocate on issues related not only to working conditions but to the performance of Google products, she said.
“As stewards of being able to share information in an equitable and democratic way, it is our job to make sure that continues,” she said.
(KYIV, Ukraine) — In an exclusive interview with ABC “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said officials weren’t certain about the scale of a potential Russian invasion before Moscow launched its war on Ukraine.
Zelenskyy, when pressed by Muir if he had had “any regret that you didn’t tell the Ukrainian people earlier about what could be coming,” said that the world was “disunited” over whether Russia would actually launch at attack.
“The European leaders were saying, ‘Putin gave us his word that he’s not going to invade.’ Nobody knew for sure, for sure, 100% what scale of invasion was there to be expected,” Zelenskyy told Muir.
“No one knew that those Russian troops will kill, maim, rape people and just erase our cities from the ground, to the ground,” he said. “I asked all the intelligence, ‘Show us what concrete directions, ‘Give us more weapons.’ But then, they said, ‘If they begin invasion, we give you more weapons.'”
Zelenskyy’s remarks come as Russia’s invasion, launched in February, morphs into a grinding exchange of artillery fire, largely in southern and eastern Ukraine. Kyiv has launched a counteroffensive in both regions, and officials claim to have made modest gains.
Ukraine was able to repel Russia’s initial attempt to capture Kyiv, but evidence later surfaced of alleged civilian killings, rapes and what officials said were other possible war crimes during the Russian military’s retreat from the areas around the capital — including the horror in the city of Bucha, where authorities have found more than 400 bodies, many buried in mass graves.
Zelenskyy said early uncertainty over Russia’s invasion hindered delivery of military aid even as Ukraine was pressing for assistance from the U.S. and elsewhere.
“We cannot only put any blame on the United States, that United States should have provided us with everything; the whole world wasn’t 100% sure that they will start this invasion,” he said.
“If you have any additional information, why don’t you provide us with this information, or why don’t you give us more potent arms and weapons?” he added. “You don’t need these weapons yourselves, but we need it here now. Now — now, they are saying, ‘Yes, we warned you,’ but we, we wanted not extra words and warnings; we wanted extra weapons.”
Gabby Barrett‘s daughter is going through a princess phase.
The hit singer took to Instagram Stories to share a rare clip of her 1-year-old daughter, Baylah, playing dress-up at home. The toddler can be seen walking around the house in a sparkly purple dress with her hair in a bun with a purple bow.
“We’ve entered princess dress phase,” mom shares in the caption as “A Whole New World” from Aladdin plays in the background, Baylah peering into the large planter they have in the living room.
Gabby and husband Cade Foehner welcomed Baylah in January 2021. She’ll soon be joined by a baby brother, as Gabby announced on Mother’s Day that she and her husband are expecting their second child sometime this fall.
Elton John remains firm that once he wraps his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour he’s permanently closing the chapter on touring.
Speaking with the U.K.’s The Hits Radio Breakfast Show, the legendary singer said, “I can assure you it’s the final tour. I will be doing some charity shows, if I’m asked, but … I’m really adamant that I’m not touring again. I can’t.”
Elton continued, “I’ll be 76 when I finish [this tour]. I need to be with my family. My boys will be teenagers!”
But just because he’s done with touring doesn’t mean he’s writing music out of his life. “I will always make music,” the Grammy winner professed. “I will always be doing my radio stuff and whatever. But, I’ve been playing music since I was 17, professionally — that’s 57 years!”
Elton admits he doesn’t know what’ll happen once he wraps his current tour, adding, “Life is full of surprises.”
“I wasn’t expecting to do a record this year and look what happened,” the “Hold Me Closer” singer continued, referencing his new collaboration with Britney Spears.
Elton added “one phone call” can significantly alter his plans, as happened with the 1994 Disney animated movie The Lion King — a movie he says “changed my life.”
He said he got a phone call from lyricist Tim Rice, who asked Elton to collaborate with him in composing the movie’s soundtrack. “Look what happened,” the Oscar winner said. “You never know what the phone’s going to [have].”
Elton and Rice composed the tracks “Circle Of Life,” “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” “Hakuna Matata,” “Be Prepared” and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” the latter of which won an Oscar, Golden Globe and Grammy.
Coheed and Cambria frontman Claudio Sanchez has announced a new signature guitar pedal.
Made in collaboration with the company Wren and Cuff, the device mirrors Sanchez’s oft-used combination of his ’80s Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive and ’78 “op-amp” Big Muff pedals. It’s decorated with art inspired by Coheed’s 2002 debut album, The Second Stage Turbine Blade, which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year.
