Three years after they first listed it, Paul Simon and wife Edie Brickell have finally sold their mansion in New Canaan, Connecticut. But the musical couple have taken a big loss on the property.
The real estate website Dirt reports that the 32-acre residence sold for $10.8 million, $5.7 million less than they paid for it about 20 years ago.
According to Dirt, Simon and Brickell initially asked for $13.9 million for the estate when they put it up for sale in 2019, but slashed the price to $11.9 million in 2020.
The 1938 mansion has six bedrooms, eight bathrooms and three powder rooms, a paneled library, a large living room, a tiled sun room and a three-car garage. The three-story home sits on grounds that include “sweeping meadows,” “formal walled gardens,” a swimming pool and a private pond.
There’s also a 2,400-square-foot cottage on the property that Paul and Edie used as a recording studio.
According to Dirt, Simon and his wife still have three at least other residences, among them a duplex in New York City, a 30-acre oceanfront home in New York’s ritzy Hamptons and a 10-acre estate in Allen, Texas, outside of Dallas.
Documentaries about Britney Spears and Janet Jackson are vying for the best broadcast network or cable docuseries at the upcoming Hollywood Critic Association’s TV Awards, reportsBillboard.The New York Times Presents: Controlling Britney Spears and Lifetime’s Janet Jackson have both been nominated. We’ll find out who wins on August 13.
Nick Jonas said of his newborn daughter, Malti, “It is certainly life changing!” He told Entertainment Tonighthis little girl “is amazing” and brings him “a lot of joy.” He notes of her health, “All is good.”
Dua Lipa might have gone too far with her “wedding season” look, and her fans are kindly asking her to put her lace and sequin dress back into the closet. She debuted the dress on Wednesday, but fans aren’t loving it. One commenter said of the Grammy winner’s unique dress, “That’s cringe and low self-esteem.”
Ariana Grande has been turned into a cartoon character: Her life story is featured in the latest issue of the Fame comic book series from Tidal Wave Comics. She’s not the only celebrity who’s gotten the Fame treatment. Past editions were made for Lil Nas X, Selena Gomez, Beyonce, Lady Gaga and more.
Speaking of Lady Gaga, she shouted out Harry Styles by soundtracking her latest TikTok to his song “Music for a Sushi Restaurant.” Gaga shared a video of her at-home and going-out looks, joking in the caption, “Choose your player.” Instead, fans are demanding she jumps into the studio with Harry for a collab.
Charlie Puth announced when we’ll be able to hear his new album Charlie — spoiler: it’s October 7 — but he also revealed what the actual CD will look like. It’s black with white lettering to match the album cover. Charlie revealed on TikTok that his followers “are the reason why this album exists.”
It’s hard to believe Dirty Dancing came out almost 35 years ago. To celebrate its milestone anniversary, fans of the romantic film will soon be able to get their hands on commemorative editions of its best-selling soundtrack.
The iconic album will be reissued next month as a collectible color cassette edition, while a two-LP colored-vinyl set will follow.
The cassette version will come with a new cover and will feature that original album’s 12-song track list.
If you need a refresher, the Dirty Dancing soundtrack was stuffed with hit songs, including the chart-topping “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes, as well star Patrick Swayze‘s “She’s Like the Wind” and Eric Carmen‘s “Hungry Eyes,” which peaked at #3 and #4, respectively, on the Billboard Hot 100.
The album also featured such classic vintage tunes as The Ronettes‘ “Be My Baby,” Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs‘ “Stay,” Mickey & Sylvia‘s “Love Is Strange” and The Five Satins‘ “(I’ll Remember) In the Still of the Night.”
The cassette will be released on August 19 and can be preordered on Amazon.
As for the vinyl collection, it will include the original soundtrack and its 1988 sequel, More Dirty Dancing. The two-LP set will be available to preorder on MondoShop.com starting August 24.
The Dirty Dancing soundtrack topped the Billboard 200 for 18 nonconsecutive weeks, spanning from November 1987 to May 1988. It was recently certified 14-times Platinum by the RIAA — meaning it’s sold over 14 million copies in the U.S. alone. On a global scale, over 32 million copies have flown off the shelves since its July 1987 release, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time.
Here’s the full Dirty Dancing (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) track list:
Side A
“(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” — Bill Medley, Jennifer Warnes
“Be My Baby” — The Ronettes
“She’s Like the Wind” — Patrick Swayze
“Hungry Eyes” — Eric Carmen
“Stay” — Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs
“Yes” — Merry Clayton
Side B
“You Don’t Own Me” — The Blow Monkeys
“Hey! Baby” — Bruce Channel
“Overload” — Alfie Zappacosta
“Love Is Strange” — Mickey & Sylvia
“Where Are You Tonight?” — Tom Johnston
“(I’ll Remember) In the Still of the Night” — The Five Satins
Fans of Denzel Washington were wondering why the two-time Oscar winner was a no-show at the White House Thursday, and as it turns out, it’s because he tested positive for COVID.
“He feels fine,” a rep for the 67-year-old actor tells People.
The actor was to be feted with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor. This year’s fellow honorees also included gold medalist Simone Biles, who at 25 became the youngest recipient of the Medal of Freedom.
Somewhat ironically, considering Denzel’s absence: One of the other recipients was Sandra Lindsay, an intensive care nurse in New York, who became the first person in the United States to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
According to the White House, all 17 awardees “demonstrate the power of possibilities and embody the soul of the nation – hard work, perseverance, and faith.”
“They have overcome significant obstacles to achieve impressive accomplishments in the arts and sciences, dedicated their lives to advocating for the most vulnerable among us, and acted with bravery to drive change in their communities – and across the world – while blazing trails for generations to come.”
An Atlanta Judge did not grant bond for rapper Gunna on Thursday, marking the second time the rapper’s request for release has been denied, according to ABC affiliate WSB. The decision came down during a virtual court appearance in relation to the sweeping gang indictment that named more than 25 people, including fellow Atlanta rapper Young Thug.
On May 23, Gunna, born Sergio Kitchens, was denied bond after prosecutor Don Geary argued that Gunna is one of the main people in the alleged Young Slime Life gang, also the name of the Young Thug-founded record label. The judge denied bond and sided with the prosecution, expressing concern over the safety of witnesses.
Last month, Gunna posted an open letter from behind bars proclaiming his innocence.
“2022 has been one of the best years of my life, despite this difficult situation,” the note starts.
“For now, I don’t have my freedom. But I am innocent. I am being falsely accused and will never stop fighting to clear my name!”
Gunna also seemingly called out the way his music is being used against him in the case, writing, “As a Black Man in America, it seems as though my art is only acceptable when I’m a source of entertainment for the masses. My art is not allowed to stand alone as entertainment, I’m not allowed that freedom as a Black Man in America.”
Gunna has a scheduled trial date for January 9, 2023, and will remain behind bars until then.
A high-def analog audio disc featuring a new version of Bob Dylan‘s classic folk song “Blowin’ in the Wind,” which Dylan recorded last year, sold Thursday at a Christie’s auction in London for about 1.5 million pounds, or almost $1.8 million.
Dylan recorded his new version of the famous tune with acclaimed producer T Bone Burnett using Burnett’s new ultra-high-definition Ionic Original audio format.
The one-of-a-kind acetate disc, which had been estimated to sell for between $752,000 and $1.2 million, was auctioned as part of Christie’s “Exceptional Sale” event. The sale took place two days before the 60th anniversary of the recording of the original “Blowin’ in the Wind.”
The 10-inch aluminum disc, which resembles and can be played like a vinyl LP, comes packaged in a specially created wooden cabinet and boasts the etched signatures of Dylan, Burnett and mastering engineer Jeff Powell.
The new track was recorded in Los Angeles and Nashville, with Dylan accompanied by Burnett on electric guitar, Greg Leisz on mandolin, Stuart Duncan on violin, and both Dennis Crouch and Don Was on bass.
In a statement posted by Variety following the auction, Burnett says, “With Bob Dylan’s new version of ‘Blowin’ in the Wind,’ our first Ionic Original archival analogue disc, we have entered and aim to help develop a music space in the fine arts market. I trust and hope it will mean as much to whomever acquired it today…as it does to all of us who made it, and that they will consider it and care for it as a painting or any other singular work of art.”
The Ionic Original technology was developed by Burnett’s recently launched company NeoFidelity Inc.
One of the stars of A League of Their Own will be featured in Amazon’s forthcoming series adaptation of the 1992 hit.
Entertainment Weekly posted the first shot of O’Donnell as Vi, a bar owner who has a recurring role in the series. She’s apparently a “warm, gregarious” fan of the Rockford Peaches, the all-female team that takes up the national pastime when players go off to fight in World War II.
Rosie is shown wearing a grey, three-piece, pin-striped business suit in the photo.
Rosie played outspoken third basemen Doris Murphy in the Penny Marshall original, which also starred Oscar winners Geena Davis and Tom Hanks, along with Lori Petty and Madonna.
The new adaptation stars Broad City creator and star Abbi Jacobson, D’Arcy Carden, Kate Berlant and Chanté Adams. Itpromises to take, “a deeper look at race and sexuality, following the journey of a whole new ensemble of characters as they carve their own paths towards the field, both in the league and outside of it.”
(WASHINGTON) — Ever since the mass shooting at a July Fourth parade in Highland Park, Illinois, which left seven people dead and dozens more seriously wounded, questions have been raised about whether the new federal gun safety law could have prevented the tragedy.
Would the enhanced background checks it requires for those under 21 have stopped the suspect, Robert “Bobby” Crimo III, from buying the high-powered rifle authorities said he used — since he’d had two prior run-ins with law enforcement, including both a suicide threat and one to “kill everyone” in his family?
And could the law’s red flag provisions have made a difference given that record and his apparent trail of violent social media posts?
Evidence about the exact circumstances is still being revealed as the investigation gets underway.
But authorities said Crimo, now 21, purchased the high-powered rifle and other guns he had legally, passing numerous background checks. And because he did so in 2020 and 2021 — when he was under 21 — some advocates say the new law, which allows checks of juvenile and psychiatric records, might have made a difference.
At the same time, while Illinois has an existing red flag law, Crimo appears to have slipped past the safeguard.
Advocates say more education and training, provided for in the new federal law, is needed for a red flag law to be used effectively.
“We still need to learn more, but it looks like the shooter exhibited some dangerous warning signs, exactly what Illinois’s red flag law is designed to address,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety., told ABC News in a statement. “But tools are only useful when they are taken out of the toolbox and so far it doesn’t look like anyone filed for an extreme risk protection order in this case. That’s why the federal funding for red flag law implementation and awareness in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, combined with state action like lawmakers in Illinois are considering to prohibit the sale of possession of assault weapons and high capacity magazines, can make a big difference in preventing tragedies like the one in Highland Park.”
What’s in the new federal law
Gun violence experts said the $750 million allocated for red flag laws, also known as extreme risk protection orders, can be a critical tool for curbing these shootings.
“In my opinion, the federal funding that is now available for full implementation is exactly what this country needs to assure that extreme risk protection order laws are used to prevent the kinds of massacres that happened on the Fourth of July,” Dr. Shannon Frattaroli, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy, told ABC News.
That money, Frattaroli explained, can go toward training law enforcement, judges and the community on how to use these laws to improve safety.
Illinois is one of 19 states with such a statute on the books, but Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart said this week that they “must vastly increase awareness and education about this red flag law.”
Enacted in 2019, the measure allows loved ones or law enforcement to intervene by petitioning a court for an order to temporarily prevent someone in crisis from accessing guns.
But Crimo seemingly eluded the law, as no arrests were made in either run-in with law enforcement. Highland Park police did notify Illinois State Police of the 2019 incident in which he allegedly threatened his family members in a “clear and present danger” report, but state police said their involvement in the matter ended because at the time Crimo did not have a FOID card or an application to deny.
Three months later, Crimo did apply for a FOID card — which is required for gun ownership — and had his application sponsored by his father. State police approved the request in 2020, stating at the time “there was insufficient basis to establish a clear and present danger and deny the FOID application.”
New information about Crimo’s personal history is also raising questions about whether the enhanced background check portion of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act could have applied.
Crimo just turned 21 last year, and purchased three guns in 2020 and one in 2021.
Under the new law, potential gun buyers under the age of 21 are placed under an investigative period to review juvenile and mental health records, including checks with state databases and local law enforcement.
Robin Lloyd, the managing director at the gun control group Giffords, said the enhanced background checks are designed to increase communication between different agencies.
“The idea here is that there might be more information about that individual that exists in other places that the background check doesn’t check under current law,” she said, “and it also gives an opportunity to contact local law enforcement.”
But Lloyd said there is more work to be done in order to curb gun violence.
“The holistic picture is that we have very weak federal gun laws,” she told ABC News.
While Illinois has the eighth-strongest gun laws in the nation, according to Giffords, Lloyd noted that neighboring states have less restrictions and firearms can easily move across borders.
“So while the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act is a very significant step forward in terms of federal gun safety policy, it is not the only thing that needs to be done,” Lloyd said. “It is not going to prevent every shooting from happening.”
What lawmakers are proposing next
In the wake of the shooting, some lawmakers are once again calling for stronger legislation that would ban the sale, transfer, manufacture and importation of military-style assault weapons, ban certain high-capacity magazines, and enact universal background checks.
“There are things we can do,” Rep. Brad Schneider, an Illinois Democrat whose district includes Highland Park, told ABC News on “GMA3.”
“The House has passed legislation to require universal background checks. Ninety percent of the country supports that legislation,” Schneider said. “We need to pass it and make it law. We can ban the sale of these assault weapons, make it harder for people to get the large capacity magazines that allow them to fire off 60 rounds in just a matter of seconds.”
Vice President Kamala Harris also made an impassioned plea for an assault weapons ban during a visit to Chicago on Tuesday.
“An assault weapon is designed to kill a lot of human beings quickly. There is no reason that we have weapons of war on the streets of America. We need reasonable gun safety laws,” Harris said as she addressed the National Education Association. After that meeting, Harris visited the Highland Park shooting scene.
But any additional gun restrictions will face an uphill battle in the Senate, where Democrats need 10 Republican votes to clear the filibuster.
Republicans responded to Monday’s shooting by continuing to blame mental health issues rather than access to assault weapons.
Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, who backed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, said Tuesday that the “problem is mental health and these young men who seem to be inspired to commit these atrocities.”
Democrats are encouraging voters ahead of the 2022 midterm elections to support candidates who back stronger gun control.
“It’s not going to happen tomorrow,” said Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. “It’s going to happen when the American people speak up and elect those who really want to make a change that’ll make America safer.”
(LONDON) — A new dinosaur species was discovered by paleontologists on Thursday, who have now named the giant carnivorous dinosaur species Meraxes gigas.
The new species is similar to the Tyrannosaurus rex, with a large head and tiny arms.
According to the researchers’ findings, published in Current Biology, the creatures’ small forelimbs were no evolutionary accident, but rather gave apex predators of the time certain survival advantages.
The findings were obtained over a four-year period, as researchers conducted field expeditions in the northern Patagonia region of Argentina, starting with unearthing the skull which was found in 2012.
The species name, Meraxes gigas, was named after a dragon in the “Song of Ice and Fire” book series that inspired the TV show, “Game of Thrones.”
The Meraxes remains indicated that the dinosaur died at about 45 years of age and about four metric tons of weight, researchers said in their findings. They believe the dinosaur lived 90 to 100 millions years ago in what is now Argentina.
According to the researchers’ findings, the new species is the most complete carcharodontosaurid yet from the Southern Hemisphere, and it documents peak diversity of carcharodontosauridae just before they went extinct.
Carcharodontosaurid refers to a group of carnivorous theropod dinosaur species.
The anatomy of this group, as well as the T. rex and abelisaurids — other giant carnivorous dinosaurs — is defined by large skulls and feet and tiny arms.
According to the researchers, this kind of anatomy is still weakly understood.
But M. gigas may be putting some of the more pieces of the puzzle together.
The skeletal findings in Argentina produced groundbreaking anatomical information, as they included an almost complete forelimb that allowed the researchers to understand a “remarkable degree of parallelism” between the latest-diverging tyrannosaurids and carcharodontosauridae.
Findings also increased the researchers’ understanding of the species’ skulls.
The findings add that the skeletal discovery of M. gigs shows “that carcharodontosauridae reached peak diversity shortly before their extinction with high rates of trait evolution in facial ornamentation possibly linked to a social signaling role.”
The researchers told Reuters that the short forearms have now become understood to indicate that such dinosaurs relied on their skulls to attack prey.
“Despite their powerful appearance, it’s hard to imagine they were used much as they barely extend beyond the body and could not have reached the huge mouth,” University of Minnesota paleontologist and study co-author Pete Makovicky told Reuters.
Instead, researchers believe that the forearms were used primarily for mating activities.
Whatever the tiny forearms may have done for these gigantic beasts, scientists now can understand how some of the planet’s perhaps most terrifying ancestors came to evolve.
(AKRON, Ohio) — Two relatives of police shooting victims were arrested Wednesday in Akron, Ohio, on rioting charges for allegedly protesting the police shooting of Jayland Walker.
Jacob Blake Sr., the father of Jacob Blake — as well as Bianca Austin, a relative of Breonna Taylor — were arrested on first-degree misdemeanor rioting charges, ABC Affiliate WEWS found.
Wednesday night was the first without a curfew since the body camera footage of Walker’s death was published. Walker, a 25-year-old Black man, was reportedly unarmed when eight Ohio officers opened fire on him on June 27, fatally shooting him after a traffic stop turned into a pursuit.
Akron police allege that Walker shot at them before he exited his car and ran away from police. A gun was recovered in the car, according to officials.
The officers involved in the shooting are on paid administrative leave, pending the outcome of the investigation being led by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
The shooting sparked protests similar to those that erupted after other incidents of police violence that also made national headlines — including Blake’s and Taylor’s.
Blake was shot seven times by a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in an incident that left him partially paralyzed. No police officers were charged in Blake’s shooting, with Kenosha County District Attorney Michael D. Graveley saying that he did not believe “the State could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Officer Sheskey was not acting lawfully in self-defense or defense of others.”
Taylor was fatally gunned down when three Louisville, Kentucky, police officers executed a “no-knock” search warrant on her home. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, said he thought they were intruders and shot at the officers, who returned fire with more than 25 bullets, killing Taylor.
No police officers were charged directly for Taylor’s death after a grand jury declined to charge any officers.
“According to Kentucky law, the use of force by [the officers] was justified to protect themselves,” Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said at the time. “This justification bars us from pursuing criminal charges in Miss Breonna Taylor’s death.”
Both of these incidents prompted protests nationwide as they collided with other incidents of police violence such as the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Blake Sr. and Austin were not together when they were arrested. The two were arraigned Thursday morning and its unclear if they have offered pleas to the charges.
