Alicia Keys released a seductive new collabo with Swae Lee from Rae Sremmurd, titled “LALA,” on Friday.
“This song is the beginning of a world you’ll never want to leave,” the 15-time Grammy winner commented on Instagram.
Alicia and Swae sing in unison, “I’m ready when you’re ready/Someone watchin’ would be so jealous/I try not to think but you made me/All in my satin sheets, you’re layin’.”
Keys will appear Sunday on the MTV VMAs, and promises “a showstopping performance.”
Following a series of recent freestyles, DaBaby dropped his new single, “Lonely,” featuring Lil Wayne. He calls Weezy the greatest rapper of all time, and he posted an Instagram video of Wayne recording his verse.
On the track, DaBaby reacts to the backlash from his recent homophobic comments that led to him being banned from several events. “People try to, you know, assassinate your character, man, assassinate who you are, man, and everything you put that hard work in for,” he raps. “Sometimes you gotta demonstrate, you know, that’s how I came in. I don’t mind demonstrating. I don’t mind exercising, you dig what I’m saying?”
Chloe Bailey from Chloe x Halle makes her solo debut with “Have Mercy.”
“It feels like a dream. Love you guys, can’t wait to perform it at the VMA,” 23-year old singer posted on Instagram.
Chloe will perform the song live for the first time Sunday on the MTV Video Music Awards. She’s signed to Beyoncé‘s Parkwood Entertainment, and she recruited Queen Bey’s mom, Tina Lawson, for a cameo in the ultra sexy video.
Finally, Ari Lennox dropped her new single, “Pressure,” produced by Jermaine Dupri, with a video she says was “inspired by Diana Ross, Donna Summer, and every fine a** woman in the 2000s.”
The restraining order filed against Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme on behalf of his two sons has been denied, TMZ reports.
According to the site, Homme’s ex-wife, Brody Dalle of The Distillers, brought the request to judges in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, California, and was denied in both cases.
As originally reported by TMZ, and confirmed by Rolling Stone, Homme and Dalle’s sons Orrin, 10, and Wolf, 5, alleged that their father physically and verbally abused them. They claimed that Homme hit and threw things at them, grabbed them inappropriately, and threatened in front of them to kill Dalle’s boyfriend. The kids also allege that Homme drove them while drinking alcohol.
The restraining order request, which was submitted by Dalle, asked that a judge require Homme to stay 100 yards away from Orrin and Wolf.
In a statement to Rolling Stone, Homme’s lawyer called the allegations “categorically false,” adding “In order to protect the children, we will not be making any further statements.”
Rolling Stone notes that the possibility of restraining orders could be discussed at an upcoming court date, taking place September 13.
Both Homme and Dalle have issued restraining orders against each other since divorcing in 2019. Orrin and Wolf also have an older sister, Camille.
For anyone affected by abuse and needing support, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or if you’re unable to speak safely, you can log onto thehotline.org or text LOVEIS to 1-866-331-9474.
(NEW YORK) — Hours before the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, pretrial proceedings in the case against the five accused orchestrators started and ended on Friday with none of them present in the courtroom for the final public session of the week – while multiple defense teams raised formal objections against the judge continuing to preside over the military commission.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks, had been present during public sessions of the proceedings on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, even taking the rare moment out of his detention cell to wave at reporters in the public gallery in the courtroom. But he and his co-defendants surprised reporters Friday by skipping the final public portion of the commission before the world recognizes the solemn commemoration on Saturday.
An assistant staff judge advocate, identified only by a pseudonym “Pa,” testified to their absence and provided signatures acknowledging their “voluntary” decision not to attend. James Connell, defense counsel for Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, aka Ammar al-Baluchi, attempted to have the military witness identify himself, but the government objected, insisting the testimony should proceed anonymously and was within the regulations of the military commission and not a violation of the Sixth Amendment.
Connell’s complaint was less about identifying this particular witness on the record, and more about expressing his continuing objection to the government’s use of unnamed witnesses. The interaction illustrated not only the tedious nature of the pretrial proceedings where nearly every action warrants deliberation, but it also revealed another unusual aspect of this case: the defense does not have access to their own clients — even when the court is in session – unless the accused actually attend the hearings.
The assistant staff judge advocate testified that one 9/11 defendant, Ammar al-Baluchi was sleepy and chose to nap rather than attend Friday’s public session. No explanation was given for the absence of the other four defendants, though Connell was able to extract details that the condition worsened of another Gitmo detainee, Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi – who is charged in another case but shares communal living quarters with some of the 9/11 defendants.
Al-Iraqi now claims that he is paralyzed and has lost the function of his legs, so al-Baluchi apparently aided him throughout the past several nights after the detainees rejected the assistance of a female corpsman. (His lawyers say that her initial offer was an invasive exam as the reason al-Iraqi waved off care.) The assistant staff judge advocate rejected the claim that Al-Iraqi is paralyzed.
Col. Matt McCall, presiding over the proceedings, offered to make a change to the schedule to allow the defendants more time to sleep Friday morning and attend today’s proceedings in the afternoon, but the defense counsel ultimately refused the accommodation – rather than face the prospect that the codefendants would be dragged out of their cells and forced to attend in person.
After discussing the judge’s qualifications at length this week, Mohammed’s lawyer Gary Sowards surprised many in the courtroom by announcing he would seek to disqualify McCall from sitting on the bench, saying there is a reasonable question about the judge’s impartiality, given the “extra-judicial” nature of McCall’s removal from the case after he was initially assigned. (Sowards argues the decision was made without appropriate litigation and at the behest of the Pentagon.)
A second chief counsel argued not for McCall’s removal from the case, but that he needed more time to read in on the case at hand and capital law.
“You’re not familiar with the record,” defense counsel Cheryl T. Bormann told the judge. “You are not familiar with the law as it applies to capital cases. Being a judge in a trial courtroom requires you to rule spontaneously on objections.”
A third lead attorney echoed both Sowards and Bormann. Connell declared he had no objections with McCall and would not seek to disqualify him. The final team deferred for now.
McCall said he would consider the arguments and render a decision on his own position.
The teams then moved into arguing over discovery, one of the most contentious issues in this case. The defense teams argued in favor of a motion demanding the government turn over more detailed evidence from the CIA black sites where KSM and the other detainees were held. After pointing out that the government provided limited assessments of more than 800 interrogation sessions, the defense further pressed the government’s secrecy.
In step with this line of questioning, Connell also revealed to reporters after the session that he could now share that the prosecution had withheld evidence linking an FBI interrogator that was part of the so-called “clean team” that questioning the detainees after they arrived at Guantanamo and the CIA black site program, providing fresh scrutiny surrounding the 2008 testimony from the detainees that the government is expect to build much of its case upon.
This slow drip of information and lack of transparency creates a significant hurdle for each defense team, they argue. “We don’t know what we don’t know,” Corey Krzan, one of Ramzi bin al-Shibh’s lawyers, said before the judge.
After about three and a half hours of public session, the court recessed for lunch and a classified session. The public portion of the proceedings will resume on Monday.
Will a Spice Girls reunion happen on Dancing with the Stars this season? Contestant Mel C — aka Sporty Spice — doesn’t rule it out.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight ahead of the DWTS season 30 premiere on Tuesday, she was asked whether we’ll see her group mates cheering her on in the ballroom.
“It’d be rude not to, right?” she jokes.
The Spice Girls have taken the DWTS stage before — they previously performed on the show in 2007 when Scary Spice Mel B competed on season five. Mel C says she really hopes they’ll be able to do that again this season. “Should we manifest that that is gonna happen?” she says.
Either way, Mel C says the girls are supportive of her.
“They’re all super excited for me, and they’re kinda, like, ‘You’ve gotta win!'” she says. “That’s a bit of pressure, so I was like, ‘I’ll do my best.'”
Dan + Shay are back, and better than ever. The duo, made up of Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney, celebrated the return of their highly-anticipated The (Arena) Tour with a sold-out show at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena, in Greenville, SC.
“Just wanna say thank y’all for the love tonight,” Dan + Shay said after the show. “We needed it more than you know.”
Dan + Shay were one of the first acts last year to announce they were canceling their tour, as cases of COVID-19 began to rise, vowing even then to make their shows better than ever in 2021.
“This tour is so important to us,” Dan said on Twitter at the time. “We’ve worked our entire lives to get to this position … We promise when we come back in 2021, the shows will be even bigger and even better than they were before.”
It’s a big week for Dan + Shay. In addition to resuming life on the road, they also received a CMA Award nomination for Vocal Duo of the Year, a category they share with Brothers Osborne, Florida Georgia Line, Brooks & Dunn and Maddie & Tae.
It’s already well-known that Bennifer 2.0 is in full swing, but Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez finally made it red carpet official on Friday, at the Venice Film Festival.
The couple, walking hand-in-hand, looked stunning: Ben looked fit in a classic black tuxedo, while Lopez wore a low-cut, mermaid-style white gown that showcased her famous curves — and sent the photographers into overdrive.
The pair were on hand at the screening of director Ridley Scott‘s The Last Duel, Affleck’s new film with childhood pal and fellow Good Will Hunting Oscar-winning writer Matt Damon.
The drama, which is based on real events, sees Damon playing a respected warrior called Jean de Carrouges, who faces off against Adam Driver‘s Jacques Le Gris, who is accused of assaulting de Carrouges’ wife, played by Emmy-winner Jodie Comer. Affleck plays the playboy Count Pierre of Alençon, who plays a role the case.
The Last Duel debuted at the festival, but hits theaters on these shores on October 15.
(OSHKOSH, Wisc.) — Anissa Weier, one of the two 12-year-old girls who said they attacked a friend to please the fictional character “Slender Man,” will be released from a mental health institution on Monday. Weier is now 19.
In 2014, Weier and Morgan Geyser lured Payton Leutner, also 12, to the woods in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where Geyser stabbed Leutner 19 times while Weier watched. Leutner was rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries but survived.
Judge Michael Bohren on Friday approved the conditions of Weier’s release from Winnebago Mental Health Institute. The full report on those conditions hasn’t been released to the public.
In 2017 Weier was sentenced to up to 25 years in a mental institution.
At a March court hearing, Bohren reviewed several medical reports and a letter written by Weier. “I have exhausted all the resources available to me at the Winnebago Mental Health Institute. If I am to become a productive member of society, I need to be a part of society,” Weier wrote.
Weier said she’s taken the responsibility that comes with “living with a mental illness, by communicating with total transparency to my treatment team members, participating wholeheartedly in all aspects of my treatment, and maintaining 100% medication adherence.”
“I am sorry and deeply regretful for the agony, pain, and fear I have caused,” Weier wrote, adding, “I take full responsibility for my actions.”
“I vowed after my crime that I would never become a weapon again, and I intend to keep that vow,” she said.
Geyser and Weier were charged in adult court with first-degree attempted intentional homicide. Weier pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was found by a jury to be not guilty by mental disease or defect. Geyser pleaded guilty to the first-degree charges, and in 2018, as a part of her plea agreement, Geyser was convicted but found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.
Geyser was sentenced to up to 40 years in a mental institution. Last year a state appeals court upheld her sentence.
Geyser and Weier said they had intended to kill Leutner to appease the fictional character “Slender Man” — often depicted online as a horror figure who stalks children — and prove that he was real.
After Geyser stabbed Leutner, she and Weier left Leutner alone in the woods. Injured and bleeding, Leutner pulled herself out of the woods and into the open where someone could find her.
“If the knife had gone the width of a human hair further, she wouldn’t have lived,” Dr. John Kelemen, who operated on Leutner that day, told ABC News in 2014.
In a 2019 interview, Leutner told ABC News she was doing well and that her hope was to “put everything behind me and live my life normally.”
ABC News’ Jason Volack, Allie Yang and Sean Dooley contributed to this report.
Cliff Lipson/CBS 2021 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Cedric the Entertainer is hosting the Emmy Awards for the first time, and he says he has something special for the viewers and live audience.
“We wanted to do something that reminded viewers of the big shows,” The Neighborhood star tells People.”We didn’t want to go Broadway with it, but we do want to do something similar to that. So we got a big, fun number to open up and show that’s got some sketches.”
The veteran comedian, whose credits also include The Steve Harvey Show, Barbershop and The Last O.G., says TV has been vital to our world as we cope with the pandemic.
“Throughout the roller-coaster of a year that we have all lived through, television has helped us stay connected as a society like never before,” Cedric comments. “It not only entertained us, but as it always has, it helped to open our eyes, educate us, and hopefully brought about a better understanding of who we are as a people.”
There will be a limited live audience for the Emmys, and Cedric admits that it’s a challenge appearing in front of an in-person crowd again after show business has been dominated for over a year by virtual performances.
“I think that had me a little, say, nervous if you will, to think about like, ‘Oh, I’m the guy that’s bringing it back out.’ This is how we set the mark,” he notes. “So I think that that’s the only place where I feel like there’s pressure, but I plan on having a good time.”
The 73rd Emmy Awards will air live on Sunday, September 19, at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS.
(NEW YORK) — Taking his toughest tone yet against those Americans still unvaccinated, President Joe Biden has triggered vows of legal challenges from GOP governors representing some of the very states where he’s trying to use mandates to get more people inoculated.
At least 19 Republican governors have lashed back at Biden’s promise to use OSHA to pressure employers with more than 100 employees to mandate COVID-19 vaccines or have workers submit to weekly testing. The Republican governors called the mandate an overreach that will force Americans to choose between their job and the vaccine.
While Biden said on Friday morning, during a visit to local middle school, that all scientists would agree with his new strategy — that using protecting public health as a justification for mandates makes “considerable sense,” his taking a combative tone may come with new political and public health risks and further polarize Americans, fueling the already bitter political divide around the pandemic.
South Dakota GOP Gov. Kristi Noem, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, tweeted to Biden, “see you in court,” while Mississippi GOP Gov. Tate Reeves compared him to a “tyrant,” and South Carolina GOP Gov. Henry McMaster said he’ll “fight them to the gates of hell” to stop the move. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called Biden’s approach “flat-out un-American.”
When ABC News Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott asked Biden on Friday what his message was to Republicans threatening to challenge his move in court, he responded, “Have at it.”
He continued, “Look, I am so disappointed that particularly some Republican governors have been so cavalier with the health of these kids, so cavalier with the health of their communities. We’re playing for real here — this isn’t a game.”
While Biden has previously said he wouldn’t impose vaccine mandates, he said Friday that vaccine requirements are “nothing new.” However, past vaccines requirements for measles, mumps and rubella, for instance, have historically been implemented at a state and local level — and at times when the country wasn’t already so divided politically
In his address to the nation on Thursday introducing his new six-part approach, a frustrated Biden went after the unvaccinated and elected officials for standing in the way of public health measures and, he said, causing people to die.
“These pandemic politics, as I refer to it, are making people sick, causing unvaccinated people to die. We cannot allow these actions to stand in the way of the large majority of Americans who have done their part and want to get back to life as normal,” Biden said.
“My message to unvaccinated Americans is this: What more is there to wait for? What more do you need to see?” he said. “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us.”
He called out the governors, many of whom are now criticizing his approach, saying, “if these governors won’t help us beat the pandemic, I’ll use my power as president to get them out of the way.”
He added, “Let me be blunt. My plan also takes on elected officials in states that are undermining you and these life-saving actions. Right now, local school officials are trying to keep children safe in a pandemic while their governor picks a fight with them and even threatens their salaries or their jobs,” he said. He promised his administration would to pay back salaries withheld from those opposing mask bans.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked on Friday what caused Biden and the rest of the administration to change its tune on blaming the unvaccinated for the pandemic — after Psaki said in June that she didn’t want to place blame.
She said Biden on Thursday was “channeling the frustration” of millions who are vaccinated as the pandemic rages, while pointing a finger at Republicans.
“We didn’t anticipate, I will say, that when there was a vaccine approved under a Republican president, that the Republican president took, that there would be such hesitation, opposition vehement opposition in some cases from so many people of his own party in this country,” she said.
While 75% of adults have gotten a shot, per data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vaccinations have stalled in recent months despite widespread availability as the hospitals across the country face another surge of the virus timed with the start of a new school year.
Biden’s new approach to getting more shots into arms comes as his approval for handling the pandemic has dropped sharply from 62% in June to 52% now.
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll found also that vaccine hesitancy has subsided in the face of the delta surge, with the share of Americans who are disinclined to get a coronavirus shot now just half what it was last January. Among those unvaccinated adults, about 7 in 10 are skeptical of the vaccines’ safety and effectiveness, 9 in 10 see vaccination as a personal choice rather than a broader responsibility and just 16% have been encouraged by someone close to them to get a shot.
It’s unclear if Biden will break through to that group.
A White House spokesman declined to say whether public polling on why certain people remain unvaccinated informed the decision to institute these new requirements, or otherwise explain how Americans’ attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines impacted the president’s decision.
The spokesman said the decision to enact the new requirements was “not rooted in any political focus, rather on what’s going to work.”
As some GOP governors say they’re preparing lawsuits, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients in defending the mandates on Friday argued that COVID-19 is a “public health issue, not a political issue.”
“We know that vaccination requirements work,” Zients said, pointing to “significant increases in vaccination rates at companies, health care systems, universities, that implement vaccine requirements.”
As Biden did on Thursday, Zients pointed specifically to companies like Fox News — which has provided a platform for vaccine misinformation and has repeatedly railed against Biden’s COVID-19 response — but which is also participating in a version of a vaccination reporting requirement itself.
“The president’s actions will accelerate that number of companies across the board for employers over a hundred, and that includes Fox News, which already has that vaccination requirement in place to keep its own employees safe.”
ABC News’ Ben Gittleson and Sasha Peznik contributed to this report.
BLACKPINK is now officially the most subscribed artist on YouTube, with over 65.5 million subscribers.
The K-pop girl group breaks the record previously held by Justin Bieber. In a statement, the group calls the achievement “unbelievable.”
“It’s a precious moment gifted to us by our BLINKS(Fans),” they say. “We would like to dedicate this honor to all of our fans around the world who have loved and supported us throughout.”
BLACKPINK adds, “Our BLINKS contributed a lot to this achievement, therefore we hope they also enjoy this honor. The YouTube platform was one of the most effective ways of communicating with our fans under the unprecedented situation. We will continue to bring positivity and great energy through our music and videos.”
BLACKPINK also has four of the all-time top 24-hour music video debuts and boasts four entries in YouTube’s Billion Views Club. Over the past year alone, the ladies have racked up more than 9.7 billion views globally and are among the top-10 most-viewed artists in the world.
