Doja Cat is not picking up the glow sticks and poi balls in her new album. The Grammy winner shut down talk that her next studio effort is inspired by “German rave culture.”
Doja told CR Fashion Book last week that she was working on her next album and they quoted her saying, “I’m very into this ’90s German rave kind of vibe right now and it’s really fun. I know that’s kind of the trend at the moment but I loved that stuff as a kid and now that I can express it… That’s kind of a hint to the album. Rave culture, not house.”
Those comments made waves on social media — so much so that the “Kiss Me More” singer clarified the comments in a series of tweets on Tuesday.
“im not doing a german rave culture album you guys,” she wrote. “i was pranking the outlet that interviewed me about it.”
Doja then followed up in a series of twotweets, saying “I’m doing an R&B album” and “Straight R&B no rap at all.”
Then, she got silly and further muddied the waters about her forthcoming work. “Yall I was lying. I’m doing an experimental jazz album. I thought it would be funny to steer you into believing i was doing r&b cuz i knew it would work but I’m doing experimental jazz now, honest truth,” she cracked.
Doja then tweeted in a voice note that she is actually “putting out a rock album,” named Rock Out Vol. 1: The Abyss 5000, that will have “emo jams.”
“I’m entering a rock phase,” she said. “… I’m gonna spit flames from my mouth on stage.”
It’s assumed this, too, is a joke. It is currently unknown when Doja will be issuing her fourth studio album.
(NEW YORK) — For 20 years, Donald Trump and his family enriched themselves through “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentations,” New York Attorney General Letitia James alleges in a new lawsuit that accuses the Trumps of “grossly” inflating the former president’s net worth by billions of dollars and cheating lenders and others with false and misleading financial statements.
The civil lawsuit, filed Wednesday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, seeks a $250 million judgment and a prohibition on any of the Trumps leading a company in the state of New York.
Among other allegations, the suit claims that the former president’s Florida estate and golf resort, Mar-a-Lago, was valued as high as $739 million, but should have been valued at around one-tenth that amount, at $75 million. The suit says that higher valuation was “based on the false premise that it was unrestricted property and could be developed for residential use even though Mr. Trump himself signed deeds donating his residential development rights and sharply restricting changes to the property.”
“We found that Mr, Trump, his children, and the corporation used more than 200 false asset valuations over a ten year period,” James said at a press conference announcing the charges.
James is referring her findings to federal prosecutors in Manhattan, who could possibly open a criminal investigation into bank fraud, according to a footnote in the lawsuit.
Through “persistent and repeated business fraud,” the Trumps convinced banks to lend money to the Trump Organization on more favorable terms than deserved, according to the lawsuit, which named the former president, three of his adult children, the company, and two of its executives, Allan Weisselberg and Jeff McConney.
“Mr. Trump made known through Mr. Weisselberg that he wanted his net worth on the Statements to increase — a desire Mr. Weisselberg and others carried out year after year in their fraudulent preparation of the Statements,” the lawsuit said. “The scheme to inflate Mr. Trump’s net worth also remained consistent year after year.”
Weisselberg last month pleaded guilty to unrelated criminal charges of tax evasion brought by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which has been conducting a parallel investigation.
Trump has denied wrongdoing and has called the investigation a politically motivated “witch hunt” by an attorney general he has called “racist.” James, who is black, rejected a settlement offer from the Trump Organization last month to resolve the matter, sources told ABC News.
“Today’s filing is neither focused on the facts nor the law — rather, it is solely focused on advancing the Attorney General’s political agenda,” Trump attorney Alina Habba said in a statement Wednesday. “It is abundantly clear that the Attorney General’s Office has exceeded its statutory authority by prying into transactions where absolutely no wrongdoing has taken place. We are confident that our judicial system will not stand for this unchecked abuse of authority, and we look forward to defending our client against each and every one of the Attorney General’s meritless claims.”
During a deposition last month, Trump repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The lawsuit includes numerous instances in which Trump invoked the Fifth when asked to explain how the company calculated the value of certain properties. In a civil trial, jurors would be able to draw a negative inference about Trump declining to answer.
The attorney general’s investigation began in March 2019, after Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified before Congress that Trump’s annual financial statements inflated the values of Trump’s assets to obtain favorable terms for loans and insurance coverage, while also deflating the value of other assets to reduce real estate taxes.
Trump valued his Trump Tower apartment at $327 million, James said Wednesday. “No apartment in New York City has ever sold for that amount, she said, adding the inflated valuation was based on exaggerated square footage despite Trump knowing it wasn’t that big.
The suit also said a 2012 statement valued rent-stabilized apartments in the Trump Park Avenue property as if they could be rented at market value. As a result, units collectively worth $750,000 were valued at nearly $50 million, according to the lawsuit.
Trump Turnberry, a golf club in Scotland, was valued at nearly $127 million, but the suit said that since it opened in 2017 the golf course has operated at a loss each year.
“As a result, using values for the golf course ranging between $123 million and $126.8 million based on employing the Fixed Asset Scheme is materially false and misleading; the golf course should have been valued at a much lower figure,” the attorney general’s suit said.
“The examples I laid out barely scratch the surface,” James said Wednesday.
“The magnitude of financial benefit derived by Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization by means of these fraudulent and misleading submissions was considerable,” the suit said.
Tom Hardy proved he’s been keeping up with his training from his days in the 2011 martial arts movie Warrior: He reportedly took gold after competing in the 2022 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Open Championship in Milton Keyes, England on Saturday.
According to the local paper Teeside Gazette, the blue belt quietly entered the Oakgrove School and competed under his birth name Edward Hardy —but that didn’t stop fans and fellow competitors from spotting the Mad Max: Fury Road star.
“I recognized him straight away. Everyone knows who Tom Hardy is, don’t they?” said one of Hardy’s competitors, local martial artist Danny Appleby. “I was shell-shocked. He said ‘just forget it’s me and do what you would normally do.'”
After submitting to the actor’s arm bar, Appleby admitted Hardy was the real deal, saying, “He’s a really strong guy. You wouldn’t think it with him being a celebrity.”
The amateur fighter was no slouch, for the record, explaining he fought his way to the medaling podium six times prior to facing Hardy; Appleby took bronze to Hardy’s gold. “[H]e’s probably the toughest competitor I’ve had – he certainly lived up to his Bane character, that’s for sure,” Appleby said.
Hardy played the brutal, muscled Batman villain in Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight Rises.
Incidentally, this isn’t the first time this year Hardy has been spotted testing his skills. Last month, he also took gold at a charity BJJ event in Wolverhampton, England. As he did on Saturday, the scruffy Venom series actor took time to pose for pictures with fans.
Steve Perry, Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain in 2017; Mike Coppola/Getty Images
Ex-Journey frontman Steve Perry has launched legal action against his former bandmates Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain seeking to block their claimed ownership of trademarks involving 20 of the band’s popular songs.
Billboard reports that Perry filed a petition at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on September 11, asking that 20 trademark registrations secured by the Freedom JN LLC company, which the singer says is controlled by Cain and Schon, be invalidated.
The trademarks, which include the rights to the names of such tunes as “Open Arms,” “Anyway You Want It,” “Wheel in the Sky” and others, cover the use of those titles on T-shirts, hooded sweatshirts and other merch items.
Perry claims that Cain and Schon didn’t have the right to register trademarks for the song titles without his approval because the three musicians had signed a partnership agreement requiring all of them to consent unanimously to the use of the tunes for products or other purposes.
Perry charges that Cain and Schon committed “fraud on the trademark office” by applying to register the song names without informing the agency of the true status of the ownership of the songs.
The petition also maintains that using the song titles in products would falsely suggest that he endorsed or had a connection to those items.
In addition, the petition notes that Perry, who split with Journey in 1998, was lead singer on all 20 songs in question when they were originally released and became popular, adding, “Their respective titles have become uniquely and unmistakably associated with and point to petitioner Perry.”
Billboard reports that, as of Tuesday, a lawyer for the Freedom JN company had not returned the magazine’s request for a comment about the matter.
A dozen new episodes of AXS TV’s popular music-themed countdown series Top Ten Revealed will premiere on the channel this fall, starting with a show dubbed “Bands on the Map” that will debut on Tuesday, October 4 at 8 p.m. ET.
The episode will profile 10 bands who named themselves after a geographical location, among them Chicago, Boston, Asia, Berlin, Miami Sound Machine, Nazareth, Europe and LA Guns.
The show will feature a variety of celebrities offering up humorous commentary about the groups, including Carnie Wilson, longtime John Fogerty drummer Kenny Aronoff, current Warrant singer Robert Mason, former Tina Turner sax player Tim Cappello and ex-MTV host Matt Pinfield.
ABC Audio is debuting an exclusive preview segment of the show focusing on Asia, which is #7 on the list.
In the clip, Pinfield declares, “Asia had a huge debut album, one of the biggest,” referring to the prog-rock supergroup’s 1982 self-titled record, which spent nine weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200.
Cappello, meanwhile, explains that the prog-rock supergroup featured members of Yes, King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and adds, “They had a bunch of hits. You gotta give props to ‘Only Time Will Tell.'”
The segment also quips that the band’s name didn’t necessarily make sense since the four members were all from the U.K.
The 12 new episodes of Top Ten Revealed will all be part of the second half of the series’ fifth season.
Here’s a partial list of the show’s other upcoming episodes along with their premiere dates:
10/18 — “’80s Hair Bands”
10/25 — “Songs of the Occult”
11/15 — “Fallin’ Jams”
11/22 — “Songs with Fire”
12/6 — “Christmas Crooners”
12/13 — “Hip Hop Trios”
One of the two people who accused Tiffany Haddish and Aries Spears of child molestation have reportedly withdrawn their lawsuit against the stars, TMZ is reporting.
The celebrity comics were accused of hiring two then-children to appear in a past Funny or Die sketch called Through a Pedophile’s Eyes.
The two plaintiffs in the withdrawn suit, identified as Jane Doe, 22, and her now-14-year-old brother, John Doe, were respectively 14 and 7 years old at the time they were paid by family friend Haddish to appear in the sketch, the suit alleged.
One reportedly had the female eating a hero sandwich while moaning and simulating sex acts she was coached to perform; the other had the boy playing and bathing as Spears’ character leered and interacted with him suggestively.
In a statement to TMZ on Tuesday, Jane Doe noted, “My family and I have known Tiffany Haddish for many years – and we now know that she would never harm me or my brother or help anyone else do anything that could harm us.”
She concluded, “We wish Tiffany the best and are glad that we can all put this behind us.”
The statement didn’t mention Spears, who called the suit “extortion” in an Instagram video.
After the suit was filed, Haddish told her fans, “Unfortunately because there is an ongoing legal case, there’s very little that I can say right now. But, clearly, while this sketch was intended to be comedic, it wasn’t funny at all — and I deeply regret having agreed to act in it.”
Haddish’s attorney, Andrew Brettler, insisted to Vanity Fair that the suit was baseless.
He added of the two now-adult accusers, “The two of them will together face the consequences of pursuing this frivolous action.”
Carly Pearce, Kane Brown and Walker Hayes are three of the stars who will be honored at the 2022 CMT Artists of the Year ceremony, an annual event tributing those artists who dominated the country music industry over the course of the last year.
Luke Combs is another of the evening’s honorees, and Cody Johnson rounds out the five acts at the center of the show. Each act has had a banner year in their career: They have all found major success at country radio this year, been at the head of A-List tours and expanded their careers in new and diverse ways within the country format.
Cody, Carly and Walker are all first-time Artists of the Year nominees, while Luke and Kane are both being honored for the third time. A variety of yet-to-be announced performers will be on hand at the show to tribute each artist.
The event will take place at Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center, premiering Friday, October 14 at 9 p.m. ET on CMT.
(LONDON) — Princes George and Louis and Princess Charlotte, three of Queen Elizabeth II’s 12 great-grandchildren, have taken on a new last name in the wake of the late monarch’s death.
George, 9, Charlotte, 7, and Louis, 4, are now using the last name Wales, a change from the name they’ve each used since birth, Cambridge.
The siblings, whose parents are Prince William and Kate, now go by the titles Prince George of Wales, Princess Charlotte of Wales and Prince Louis of Wales.
The children’s new titles were used in the Order of Service released by Buckingham Palace for the queen’s funeral Monday, which George and Charlotte attended alongside William and Kate.
The change comes after their parents received the titles of the Prince and Princess of Wales from William’s father King Charles III.
Charles made the announcement in his first address as king on Sept. 9. With the title change, Kate becomes the first person to use the “Princess of Wales” title since Williams’ late mother Princess Diana. Charles’ wife Camilla, now the Queen Consort, was referred to previously as the Duchess of Cornwall.
With the queen’s death, William is now the heir to the throne and George, Charlotte and Louis are second, third and fourth in the line of succession, respectively.
Additionally, as heir to the throne, William inherited Charles’ prior title of the Duke of Cornwall and now oversees the duchy of Cornwall, the private estate that was established in 1337 to provide financial independence for the heir and their family.
William, Kate and their children were formerly known as the Cambridges, as the couple previously held the titles of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
The new last name for the family of five comes just as George, Charlotte and Louis begin classes at a new school.
The siblings had their first day at Lambrook School in Berkshire the week of Sept. 5, the same week their great-grandmother died.
George, Charlotte and Louis moved to the preparatory school in Southeast England after their family moved this summer from Kensington Palace in London to Adelaide Cottage, a four-bedroom cottage on the grounds of Windsor Castle.
In school, the siblings will be known as George Wales, Charlotte Wales and Louis Wales.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Sep 21, 9:32 AM EDT
White House reacts to Putin’s partial military mobilization
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s partial military mobilization for his ongoing war in neighboring Ukraine is “definitely a sign that he’s struggling,” according to the White House’s National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
“And we know that,” Kirby told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos during an interview Wednesday on Good Morning America.
“[Putin] has suffered tens of thousands of casualties. He has terrible morale, unit cohesion on the battlefield, command and control has still not been solved. He’s got desertion problems and he’s forcing the wounded back into the fight,” Kirby added. “So clearly manpower’s a problem for him, he feels like he’s on his back foot, particularly in that northeast area of the Donbas.”
Some 300,000 Russian reservists are expected to be conscripted, which Kirby noted is “a lot.”
“That’s almost twice as much as [Putin] committed to the war back in February,” he said.
Kirby said Putin’s latest nuclear threats are “typical” but something the United States and its allies still take “seriously.”
“We always have to take this kind of rhetoric seriously,” he added. “It’s irresponsible rhetoric for a nuclear power to talk that way, but it’s not atypical for how he’s been talking the last seven months and we take it seriously. We are monitoring as best we can their strategic posture so that if we have to, we can alter ours. We’ve seen no indication that that’s required right now.”
And if Russia does use nuclear weapons, “there will be severe consequences,” according to Kirby.
While Moscow appears poised to annex Russian-held regions in Ukraine and attempt to politically legitimize it with sham referendums in the coming days and weeks, Kirby said the United States will still consider those areas Ukrainian territory.
“We’re going to continue to support Ukraine with security systems and other financial aid, as the president said, for as long as it takes,” he added. “That is Ukrainian territory. It doesn’t matter what sham referendum they put in place or what vote they hold, it is still Ukrainian territory.”
Sep 21, 7:47 AM EDT
Putin orders partial mobilization, says he won’t ‘bluff’ on nukes
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a partial mobilization of reservists in Russia, in an apparent admission that his war in neighboring Ukraine isn’t going according to plan.
In a seven-minute televised address to the nation that aired on Wednesday morning, Putin announced the start of the mobilization — the first in Russia since World War II. The measure is expected to draft more than 300,000 Russian citizens with military experience, according to Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu.
The move comes as Moscow is poised to annex all the regions it occupies in Ukraine in the coming weeks, with plans to hold sham referendums this weekend to legitimize its actions. By declaring those areas officially Russian territory, Putin is also threatening that any continued efforts by Ukraine to retake them will be seen as a direct attack on Russia. In his speech Wednesday, the Russian leader raised the specter of using nuclear weapons if Ukraine continues to try to liberate the occupied regions.
“In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity to our country, for the protection of Russia and our people, we of course will use all means in our possession,” Putin said. “This is not a bluff.”
“Those who are trying to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the wind can turn in their direction,” he added.
It’s an attempt to regain the initiative after disastrous setbacks in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Russia has been suffering severe manpower shortages in Ukraine after months of heavy losses, mainly because the Kremlin has pretended it is fighting not a war but a “special military operation.” That, in part, allowed Ukraine’s spectacular counteroffensive in the country’s northeast two weeks ago, which led to the collapse of Russia’s frontline there.
Military experts and Russian commentators themselves had acknowledged that without a mobilization, Moscow is not capable of anymore offensive operations in Ukraine and in the longterm might well be unable to even hold the territory it has already taken.
Putin has balked at ordering a mobilization, until now, because of the huge political risks it carries for him at home. Russians have proved relatively supportive of the war while they have not been ordered to fight it, but this carries much bigger risks now of domestic unrest. It will bring up dangerous memories of the Soviet disaster in Afghanistan and Chechnya.
Yet Putin has clearly decided he must take the risk, with losing the war in Ukraine seen as an existential danger to his regime.
The mobilization order has profound implications for not just Russia and Ukraine, but also for Europe and the United States. It means Putin is expanding the war in Ukraine even further, ready to throw hundreds of thousands more people into it — making the fight harder again for Ukraine, while also raising the threat of nuclear strikes on it. And at home, Putin is going to enter uncharted waters.
Sep 20, 3:50 PM EDT
US and Ukraine bolster efforts to prosecute Russia for war crimes
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland met Tuesday with Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin and signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen their investigative partnership in pursuing prosecutions against Russians accused of committing war crimes in Ukraine.
“America and the world have seen the horrific images and the heart-wrenching reports of the brutality and death caused by the unjust Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Garland said following the meeting at the Department of Justice in Washington.
Garland said the DOJ’s War Crimes Accountability Team has provided Ukraine with a “wide variety” of technical assistance on criminal cases, including collecting evidence and forensic analysis.
The memorandum of understanding, Garland said, will allow the two countries to “work more expeditiously and efficiently” in their investigations of Russian war crimes.
Kostin also delivered somber remarks on war crimes uncovered by Ukrainian investigators since the start of the Russia’s invasion. He said that two hours before his meeting with Garland, a prosecutor in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine informed him of a village “where about 100 graves” were just discovered.
“This place is not safe at the moment since it needs de-mining,” Kostin said. “But this is a new example of mass atrocities by the aggressor. This is a sign that Russia uses not only prohibited means and methods of warfare, but this is a clear and intentional policy of Russia.”
-ABC News’ Alexander Mallin
Sep 20, 2:49 PM EDT
Ukraine conflict could increase food prices, food insecurity: Study
The impact on crop production due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will likely continue to increase global food prices and food insecurity, though not as much as initially feared, according to a new study.
The price of corn and wheat are expected to increase by 4.6% and 7.2%, respectively, and crops such as barley, rice, soybeans and sunflower are also anticipated to rise, according to a study from Indiana University published this week in Nature Food.
Nations with current existing food insecurity will be most impacted by the conflict, according to the study.
Other countries, including Brazil, have stepped up their production to fill the gap left by the lack of exports coming out of the region, offsetting some of the impacts on world food prices and food insecurity, the study found. Clearing more land and vegetation to grow crops could increase deforestation and carbon emissions, the study said.
-ABC News’ Tracy Wholf
Sep 20, 2:35 PM EDT
White House slams referendums in Russia-backed regions of Ukraine
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said referendums planned for this week in Russia-backed areas of eastern and southern Ukraine are a “sham.”
“Russia is throwing together sham referendums on three days notice as they continue to lose ground on the battlefield and as more world leaders have distanced themselves from Russia on the public stage,” Sullivan said in a briefing Tuesday at the White House.
He also slammed legislation being pushed through the Russian parliament to lay the ground for a general mobilization of men aged 17-27 as “scraping for personnel to throw into the fight.”
“These are not the actions of a confident country. These are not acts of strength, quite the opposite,” Sullivan said. “We reject Russia’s actions unequivocally.”
-ABC News’ Ben Gittleson
Sep 20, 12:24 PM EDT
Kremlin says referendums to be held in separatist regions of Ukraine
The Kremlin made a series of dramatic announcements Tuesday, signaling its response to its failing military campaign in Ukraine.
The Kremlin said referendums will be held later this week in Russian-backed regions of eastern and southern Ukraine for people to vote on whether to join Russia.
Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian minister of foreign affairs, called the proposed vote “sham referendums” in a post on Twitter.
“Russia has been and remains an aggressor illegally occupying parts of Ukrainian land,” Kuleba said. “Ukraine has every right to liberate its territories and will keep liberating them whatever Russia has to say.”
Depending on the results of the referendums, which critics say is a foregone conclusion, Russia will suddenly consider territory it has occupied in Ukraine as its own.
Meanwhile, legislation is being rushed through the Russian parliament, laying the ground for a general mobilization of men aged 17-27, an age range that could be expanded.
Russian state media reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his minister of defense will address the nation Tuesday night.
According to a Moscow-based military analyst, even parts of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas, which are not currently controlled by Russian forces, will be considered Russian territory.
After its apparently successful offensive in northeastern Ukraine, the Ukranian military now appears to be pushing further east and is contesting areas of the eastern Donbas region.
In a highly symbolic moment, Ukrainian forces claim they have retaken a village in Luhansk, in the northern part of the Donbas, an area the Kremlin took control of in July.
Sep 18, 4:01 PM EDT
Zelenskyy says preparation underway to liberate all of Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Sunday that he interpreted a lull in fighting after a series of victories by his country’s military forces as preparation for the liberation of all of Ukraine.
“Maybe now it seems to some of you that after a series of victories, we have a certain lull,” Zelenskyy said.
He went on to say, “this is not a lull. This is preparation for the next series. To the next series of words that are very important to us and must sound. Because Ukraine must be free … all of it.”
Ukrainian troops made good on Zelenskyy’s call to take back lands claimed by Russian forces with an aggressive counteroffensive over the past week in the country’s northeast region.
Ukrainian officials said their forces drove out the Russian in two key areas in the Kharkiv region and are not going to let up.
Sep 18, 1:59 PM EDT
Biden says China not supplying Russia weapons to use in Ukraine
President Joe Biden said in an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes that it does not appear China is sending weapons to Russia to use in Ukraine.
“Thus far there’s no indication that they’ve put forward weapons or other things that Russia has wanted,” Biden said in the clip from the interview released Sunday.
That’s consistent with the message his administration has repeatedly shared for months. But it doesn’t mean China has stopped helping Russia in other ways, including purchasing Russian oil.
Biden recounted how he had previously told China’s President Xi Jinping that if he thought “Americans and others are gonna continue to invest in China based on your violating the sanctions that have been imposed on Russia, I think you’re making a gigantic mistake. But that’s your decision to make.”
Biden also said he does not think there’s currently a “new, more complicated cold war” with China, as the interviewer, Scott Pelley, put it.
-ABC News’ Ben Gittleson
Sep 18, 12:06 PM EDT
‘True face of aggression’: Ukrainian ambassador condemns Russia over mass grave
Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, accused Russia on Sunday of committing “war crimes of massive proportions” after a mass grave was discovered in Ukraine.
“It’s tortures, rapes, killings. War crimes of a massive proportions,” Markarova claimed in an interview with ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl. “That’s why we need to liberate the whole territory of Ukraine as soon as possible because clearly Russians are targeting all Ukrainians. Whole families. Children. So, there is no war logic in all of this. It’s simply terrorizing and committing genocide against Ukrainians.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an address on Thursday that a mass grave was found in the recently recaptured territory of Izyum. Over 400 bodies could be buried in the site, according to Ukrainian officials.
Markarova said the majority of the bodies recovered from the site are Ukrainian, including entire families. She also said most of the remains showed “clear signs of torture.”
She said an investigation of the mass grave is underway and that with the assistance of the United States her country is continuing to prepare national and international criminal cases against Russia.
Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilians, despite evidence otherwise.
“It’s so important for everyone to see the true face of this aggression and terrorist attack Russia is waging,” Markarova said.
Accepting the Nashville Songwriters Association International award for Songwriter/Artist of the Decade Tuesday night in Nashville, Taylor Swift took the opportunity to reveal a songwriting secrets: It’s apparently all about the pen.
After thanking the NSAI and the city of Nashville for inspiring her earliest songwriting endeavors, Taylor talked about how her favorite part of the process is writing lyrics. She then revealed the “dorky” way she thinks about her lyrics: She puts them into three categories, based on the kind of pen she imagines herself using to write them.
According to Taylor, “quill lyrics” are things that sound antiquated or, as she put it, “If my lyrics sound like a letter written by Emily Dickinson’s great grandmother while sewing a lace curtain, that’s me writing in the quill genre.” She gave an example by reciting lyrics from “Ivy,” from her album evermore.
Next, she said, are “fountain pen” lyrics, which have “modern references, but with a poetic twist,” and sound like “confessions scribbled and sealed in an envelope, but too brutally honest to ever send.” She quoted “All Too Well” — which she performed at the ceremony — as an example of that genre.
The third category, Taylor said, is “glitter gel pen,” which she described as “frivolous, carefree, bouncy.” To illustrate that genre, she quoted “Shake It Off.”
Taylor added, “Why did I make these categories, you ask? Because I love doing this thing we are fortunate enough to call a job. Writing songs is my life’s work and my hobby and my never-ending thrill.”
She concluded, “I am moved beyond words that you, my peers, decided to honor me in this way for work I’d still be doing if I had never been recognized for it.”
There’s fan-recorded video of the whole speech on YouTube.
