Bradley Cooper — movie star, director and father of five-year-old daughter Lea — is about to get some serious dad cred.
Cooper will be one of the guest stars of the third season of Helpsters, a kids show from the makers of Sesame Street that streams on Apple TV+.
With a photo of Cooper smiling with the show’s fuzzy monster pals, the streaming service announced that Bradly will be a guest this season, along with actress Adrienne Warren, comedians Judy Gold andJo Firestone,and Desus & Mero vet Tessa Claire Hersh, among others.
The series centers on a team of vibrantly colored monsters, who, as the title suggests, love solving problems and lending a hand.
Season 3 of the Emmy-winning show premieres on May 27.
(RALEIGH, N.C.) — Friends and volunteers formed a search party Wednesday and fanned out in Raleigh, North Carolina, looking for clues and raising awareness about a popular nightclub bouncer, who they say went missing a week ago while driving home.
Robert Richardson, 41, was reported missing by friends, who say he disappeared after getting into a minor car accident on the evening of May 4.
“He’s out there somewhere and somebody knows something,” Kensley Perry, a friend of Richardson, told ABC station WTVD in Durham.
Perry works as head of security at The Village Entertainment Complex in Raleigh’s Glenwood South nightlife district, where Richardson is employed as a door bouncer.
The Raleigh Police Department confirmed that Richardson’s friends filed a missing person report, but said they have no solid leads on where he might be.
Richardson was driving home to nearby Sanford on May 4 after meeting friends for dinner and got into a fender bender, Perry said. He said Richardson exchanged insurance information with the driver of the other car.
Perry said Richardson inexplicably walked away, leaving his vehicle behind with his two cell phones and laptop computer inside. Police responded and towed the vehicle away, Perry said.
Perry said he received a report that Richardson was spotted on May 5 walking toward downtown Raleigh, but there have been no sightings since.
Worried that Richardson may have been injured in the crash and has become disoriented, friends have called local hospitals and homeless shelters looking for the man. Friends and volunteers spent Wednesday plastering downtown Raleigh with missing person fliers containing Richardson’s photo.
Richardson is described as 6-foot-2 to 6-foot-3 and around 280 pounds.
“He’s got tattoos so he sticks out,” Perry said.
Asked if Richardson, who moved to North Carolina from Pennsylvania a year ago, had disappeared before or has a history of substance abuse, Perry said, “He’s not that type of guy. No history of that, to our knowledge, whatsoever.”
Perry said Richardson is a “nice, fun-loving social dude.”
“Always got a smile on his face,” Perry said of his friend.
(MIAMI) — A nearly $1 billion settlement in last year’s shocking collapse of a Miami Beach condo building was unexpectedly announced during a routine status conference in a Florida courtroom Wednesday afternoon.
Lawyers involved in the class-action lawsuit representing tenants from the oceanfront building in Surfside announced a $997 million settlement had been worked out.
Upon the news, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman said he was “speechless.”
“That’s incredible news,” the judge said.
“I’m shocked by this result — I think it’s fantastic,” the judge told the courtroom. “This is a recovery that is far in excess of what I had anticipated.”
Litigation stemming from the catastrophic collapse in June 2021, which killed 98 people, had been moving slowly as the first-anniversary approaches.
ABC News’ Jared Kofsky contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Chris Janson and Eric Church share some of the details about filming their music video, “You, Me & the River,” in a new behind-the-scenes clip that’s been posted on Janson’s YouTube channel.
Lee Brice is heading up a Memorial Day radio special that will benefit the Folded Flag Foundation, a nonprofit that helps fund educational scholarships and grants for the families of fallen soldiers. Listeners can hear the special on their local radio stations, and can donate here.
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum has announced a special four-day run of programming during CMA Fest. From a showcase of the CMT Next Women of Country to a songwriter session with Caitlyn Smith and a musician spotlight on Brothers Osborne’s John Osborne, there’s something for everyone at the Hall. Visit the venue’s website for more info.
Andy Cross/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images, FILE
(NEW YORK) — John Eastman, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, urged Pennsylvania lawmakers to sow doubt in the 2020 election and even suggested throwing out absentee ballots so Trump could take the lead in the state, according to emails obtained by ABC News and sent to the Jan. 6 committee by the Colorado Ethics Institute.
“For example, depending on how many ballots were counted that were received after the statutory deadline (say 10,000 for example’s purpose), those 10,000 votes need to be discarded, and you can take the absentee ballot ratio for each candidate in the counties were late-received ballots were illegally counted and deduct the pro-rated amount from each candidate’s total,” Eastman wrote to Pennsylvania Republican state Rep. Russ Diamond on Dec. 4, 2020.
“Then, having done that math, you’d be left with a significant Trump lead that would bolster the argument for the Legislature adopting a slate of Trump electors — perfectly within your authority to do anyway, but now bolstered by the untainted popular vote,” he continued. “That would help provide some cover.”
The Colorado Ethics Institute obtained the Eastman emails via a Freedom of Information Act request for Eastman’s communications while he was employed by the University of Colorado-Boulder from August 2020 until May 2021.
The Denver Post first reported on the emails, which were later obtained by ABC News.
Eastman is under investigation by the Jan. 6 committee and a judge recently ruled he must turn over some documents to the committee he had been withholding. He drafted a plan for Trump to cling to power by falsely claiming then-Vice President Mike Pence could reject legitimate electors during the 2020 presidential election.
ABC News reported exclusively that Eastman was recently part of a small group of Trump allies who secured a private meeting in March to try and convince the Republican leader of the Wisconsin state Assembly to decertify Biden’s win.
Eastman was subpoenaed in November 2021 by the congressional committee looking into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. He had been rejecting the panel’s request for documents, claiming attorney-client privilege, until a federal judge ordered most of them turned over.
ABC News’ Will Steakin and Laura Romero contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — In the wake of a bombshell leak last week of a Supreme Court draft opinion indicating the court’s conservative majority could soon overturn Roe v. Wade, Senate Democrats on Wednesday forced a vote to advance a bill that would enshrine abortion rights into federal law.
The Women’s Health Protection Act would codify the Roe v. Wade ruling while also banning requirements some states have put into place related to abortion care, such as waiting periods and mandatory doctor visits before the procedure. But without the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP-led filibuster, the legislation failed in the Senate 49-51, sending Democrats scrambling for alternatives.
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia broke from his party and joined every single Republican senator to vote against advancing the bill.
Still, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer argued the vote was worth taking, to put Republicans on the record, calling it “one of the most consequential we will take in decades.”
“All of us will have to answer for this vote for the rest of our time in public office,” Schumer said in floor remarks Wednesday morning. “Before the day is over, every member of this body will make a choice stand with women to protect their freedoms or stand with MAGA Republicans to take our country into a dark and repressive future.”
“This is a cruel repressive dangerous vision for our country, but it is precisely the future that MAGA Republicans are working towards,” he added, portraying a nation without abortion access.
Vice President Harris presided as the afternoon vote began, not to break a tie on the bill, but because she has long fought to protect reproductive rights, the White House said.
Schumer filed cloture on Monday on a motion to start debate on the Women’s Health Protection Act, setting the bill up for a procedural roll call vote on Wednesday. The bill cleared the House last year but already failed once to pass through the upper chamber in February, when Schumer failed to get the entire Democratic caucus on board, in a 46-48 vote. Democrats currently control 50 seats in the Senate with Harris, as president of the Senate, serving as their tie-breaking vote — but 60 votes are needed to end debate on a piece of legislation, under the filibuster rule.
Not only did Democrats lack the 60 votes needed to get past a GOP-led filibuster, but they lacked the full support of their caucus, since Manchin, who voted with Republicans to block the measure earlier this year, said earlier Wednesday he would, again, vote “no.”
“I would vote for a Roe v. Wade codification if it was today. I was hopeful for that, but I found out yesterday in caucus that wasn’t going to be,” he told reporters.
Republicans and Manchin have called the Women’s Health Protection Act too broad, prompting Democrats to draft a modified version. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — the sole Senate Republicans who support abortion rights — told reporters this week the bill still goes too far for them and that they would be voting “no.” For instance, the bill doesn’t protect the right of Catholic hospitals to refuse to perform abortions, which Collins took issue with.
“After today’s vote fails, I plan to continue working with my colleagues on legislation to maintain — not expand or restrict — the current legal framework for abortion rights in this country,” Collins said in a statement Wednesday.
She and Murkowski have their own proposal to codify Roe called the Reproductive Choice Act, which they say would prohibit states from imposing an “undue burden” on the ability of a woman to choose to terminate a pregnancy pre-viability but allow states to keep other restrictions in place. However, at least 17 abortion-rights groups this week said would not protect the right to abortion.
NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju said their legislation, as written, would actually weaken protections found under current law.
“If these senators truly cared about safeguarding reproductive freedom in the face of an unprecedented assault from the Supreme Court, they could vote for the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), a bill that actually secures the right to abortion against medically unnecessary bans and restrictions,” she said in a statement. “Instead, they’re engaging in political theater and making misleading claims about what WHPA is and does.”
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told ABC News’ Trish Turner on Tuesday he’s been negotiating with Collins since last week to try to change the Reproductive Choice Act to find a way in federal law to protect access to abortion and contraception.
“We would like to codify the set of holdings beginning with Griswold up through the Whole Women’s Health case,” Kaine said of the bipartisan effort, referring to the Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut upholding a constitutional marital right of privacy. But that measure, again, would need 60 votes to clear a GOP filibuster.
Anticipating the Senate vote, abortion-rights activists spilled over from outside the Supreme Court to the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday night, calling on lawmakers to protect abortion access nationwide.
“There’ll be no more hiding. There’ll be no more distracting. No more obfuscating where every member in this chamber stands,” Schumer said Tuesday on the Senate floor. “Senate Republicans will face a choice. Either vote to protect the rights of women to exercise freedom over their own bodies, or stand with the Supreme Court as 50 years of women’s rights are reduced to rubble before our very eyes.”
ABC News’ Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.
Dreezy and Coi Leray are getting us ready for summer with their empowering anthem, “Balance My Lows.”
The track is full of layered Autotuned vocals and a swaying beat as the two rap about being validated by the amount of money they’ve made, and looking back at when they had nothing in their bank account.
“Tryna balance look at where my lows/ Yeah goin’ thru some s*** that no one knows/ Every time that I was down I lift my dough, yeah,” Dreezy raps.
The track also calls attention to the “brand new Rollie flood my wrist” that’s “full of diamonds.”
“I used to put this s*** on layaway/ Now we gon’ see better days,” Coi raps,”F*** whoever in the way/ Just pour up let’s get faded.”
“Balance My Lows” is gearing fans up for Dreezy’s debut album HITGIRL, which drops next Friday, May 20. The album is now available for pre-order.
CHVRCHES has announced a run of U.S. headlining dates in continued support of the band’s latest album, Screen Violence.
The newly added shows begin July 26 in New Orleans, and include stops peppered throughout August and September before wrapping up October 3 in Boise, Idaho.
For the full list of dates and all ticket info, visit CHVRCH.es.
Screen Violence, the fourth CHVRCHES album, was released last August. It includes the single “He Said She Said” and the Robert Smith collaboration “How Not to Drown.”
(PHOENIX, Ariz.) — Arizona performed its first execution in nearly eight years, after the U.S. Supreme Court denied an eleventh-hour request from attorneys who said the man had schizophrenia and should not be put to death.
The high court denied a request for a stay of execution early Wednesday, clearing the way for Arizona to move forward with the execution of 66-year-old Clarence Dixon by lethal injection at 10 a.m. local time. The drugs were administered at 10:19 a.m. and he was pronounced dead officially at 10:30 a.m.
Dixon was convicted of murder and sexual assault in connection with the death of 21-year-old Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin in 1978.
The case went unsolved for decades until DNA connected Dixon to the murder in 2001, according to authorities. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2008.
A judge ruled on Friday that he was mentally fit to be put to death.
Dixon gave his last words before a doctor administered the drugs for the lethal injection.
“Maybe I’ll see you on the other side, Deana,” Dixon said in part, according to officials. “I don’t know you and I don’t remember you.”
Bowdoin’s sister, Leslie James, gave a statement to the press following the execution and said that it was her late mother’s wish that her sister’s name be remembered.
“It was way too long. This process was way, way, way too long,” James said of the decadeslong case.
“I don’t know how I’m going to feel,” she said. “The process is final.”
This was Arizona’s first use of the death penalty since the execution of Joseph Wood in 2014. That execution took almost two hours and witnesses reported Wood gasped and snorted, prompting his lawyers to request an emergency halt to the procedure.
Officials said the only time Dixon showed any signs of discomfort was when the IV was put in.
Dixon was the sixth inmate to be put to death in the U.S. so far this year.
Thomas Rhett is one of the biggest stars in country music, but it’s clear that his daughters are his biggest fans.
The hitmaker recently performed a show in Austin, TX that turned into a family affair, as he was joined by wife Lauren and their four daughters Willa, Ada, Lennon and Lillie. And while his kids may have been the smallest fans in the audience, they were the most passionate, Thomas sharing pictures from the event that show his family cheering from their seats, a big smile on Lauren’s face.
Another sweet pic finds Thomas carrying eldest daughter Willa on his back, in addition to four-year-old Ada excitedly holding a lit up phone in the air, while sister Lennon claps while being held in Lauren’s arms.
“Thanks for the memories Austin, TX,” Thomas writes alongside the photos that were taken by Lauren’s brother, Grayson Gregory.
Thomas and Lauren adopted Willa from Uganda in May 2017, soon followed by sister Ada, who was born in August of that same year. Lauren gave birth to Lennon in February 2020, with Lillie joining the family in November 2021.
