Chris “Ludacris” Bridges is a proud girl dad. The Atlanta rapper-turned-actor announced on Tuesday that he had welcomed another daughter with his wife, Eudoxie.
“The Movie “Girls, Girls, Girls, Girls” starring Chris Bridges coming soon,” Luda wrote in an Instagram post that showed photos of him and his wife holding their newborn daughter.
In the caption, Ludacris also shared his daughter’s name and birth date: “Chance Oyali Bridges Born 7:57am 7/28/21.”
This is the second child and daughter for the couple, who are parents to six-year-old Cadence. Ludacris has two other daughters — Cai, 7, and Karma, 20 — from previous relationships.
(MIAMI) — Residents given hours to evacuate ‘unsafe’ Miami condoResidents of an eight-story condominium in Miami were given hours to evacuate after city inspectors deemed the building “unsafe,” the latest residential structure in the area cleared out since the deadly collapse of a tower in nearby Surfside in June.
An emergency evacuation order for the 137-unit structure, which according to city records was built in 1973, was taped to the front glass door of the building in Miami’s Flagami neighborhood Sunday night, giving residents just hours to pack up and get out.
“This building or structure is, in the opinion of the building official, unsafe,” read the notice posted on the building, at 5050 Northwest Seventh Street, just east of the city’s Little Havana district.
Residents were still seen packing belongings into vehicles outside the art deco-style, pink and beige building Tuesday morning, according to ABC Miami affiliate WPLG-TV.
The building is about 16 miles from Champlain Towers South, the 12-story oceanfront condominium that partially collapsed before dawn on June 24, killing 98 people. What remained of that building was demolished, and an investigation is underway into what caused the disaster.
City of Miami officials told WPLG that they’re working with nonprofit groups to help displaced residents find temporary housing.
The building on on Northwest Seventh Street was put on notice on July 7 after city inspectors found several violations, including not obtaining a 40-year recertification, according to the Miami Herald.
City building officials met on July 26 with residents “who were concerned about the condition of the building,” an official told the newspaper. A day after the meeting, a city inspector found structural problems in the building’s elevated garage, prompting it to be closed, and informed the property manager about damaged columns on the first floor that “required emergency shoring.”
The city said it never received requests for permits or a plan to fix the problems, but city inspectors found emergency repairs were being done on the structure’s degrading first-floor columns without a permit, officials told the Herald.
During a meeting on Monday with the building’s condo association and engineer, city inspectors “found the columns to be structurally insufficient” and ordered the building to be vacated, the Herald reported.
“We felt the building occupants were not safe,” Miami Building Director Asael “Ace” Marrero told the newspaper.
Following the catastrophic collapse of the Surfside building, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava called for a 30-day audit of residential buildings at least 40 years old and five stories tall.
Several buildings, including a 10-story residential tower in North Miami Beach, were ordered to be evacuated by the city after inspections deemed them unsafe.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s envoy for Afghanistan will meet with the Taliban’s political leadership this week to urge them “to stop their military offensive and to negotiate a political settlement,” the State Department announced.
But as the militant group seized a seventh provincial capital Tuesday, Biden’s administration is making clear that it will not halt the U.S. military withdrawal, even as nearly daily American airstrikes are one of the last things keeping more cities from falling into Taliban hands.
Instead, U.S. officials have been calling on Afghan security forces to step up and “to use those advantages” and “to exert that leadership,” as Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said, that two decades of American training and investment were supposed to have brought to bear.
“We will certainly support from the air where and when feasible, but that’s no substitute for leadership on the ground. It’s no substitute for political leadership in Kabul. It’s no substitute for using the capabilities and capacity that we know they have,” Kirby told reporters Monday.
Instead, with the U.S. withdrawal scheduled to finish in just three weeks, the administration is putting diplomatic efforts to end the Taliban offensive front and center. U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is in Doha, Qatar, where the Taliban leadership is based and where peace negotiations between them and the Afghan government of President Ashraf Ghani began last September.
Those negotiations have yielded nothing but an agenda and repeated commitments to keep talking. Khalilzad himself – who negotiated former President Donald Trump’s withdrawal deal with the Taliban and was retained by Biden – conceded last week that the two sides remain “far apart.”
But he hopes to bring the pressure from the international community on the militant’s leadership, meeting counterparts from Pakistan, China, the United Nations, and more on Tuesday. The State Department said the group will work “to help formulate a joint international response to the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan,” including by reaching an agreement on demanding an urgent reduction in violence and opposing any government “imposed by force.”
It seems clear that the Taliban will care little for another joint declaration by world powers – and despite commitments to talks from its political leadership, its fighters continue to conquer territory and, according to the U.S. embassy in Kabul, commit atrocities that could amount to war crimes.
Khalilzad said last week that the Taliban want to take the “lion’s share of power” for themselves in any future Afghan government, although he and other State Department officials have also argued there is still hope for diplomacy, especially if the international community stands united against the Taliban offensive.
Have negotiations “achieved the results any of us want? Of course not, not yet. But we’re not ready to throw in the towel on diplomacy,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said last Tuesday.
But critics say the talks are nothing more than political cover for the Taliban, as it consolidates gains on the battlefield with brutal efficiency – intent on taking power by force.
“Supporting negotiations is helpful, but only talking about negotiating while the other side is winning militarily and pushing for surrender is futile,” wrote five retired U.S. ambassadors who served in Afghanistan – James Cunningham, Hugo Llorens, Ronald Neumann, Richard Olson, and Earl Anthony Wayne.
In an op-ed Friday, the group called for sustaining U.S. air support for Afghan forces “to prevent the defeat and collapse of the Afghan state until a stalemate can force serious negotiations and a sustainable settlement.”
The Biden administration, however, is not interested in doing so.
“There are difficult choices every commander-in-chief needs to make on behalf of the American people. President Biden has been clear: After 20 years at war, it’s time for American troops to come home. And as President Biden has said, the status quo was not an option,” a senior administration official told ABC News.
During the last two decades of war, the Taliban made incremental gains on the battlefield, particularly in more rural districts. But before Biden’s withdrawal announcement, fighting was largely stalemated, and the militant group rarely gained control of capital cities in Afghanistan’s 34 provinces or held them for long, according to Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Wilson Center’s Asia Program.
The group had been preparing for this moment, however, developing footholds outside cities, amassing heavy weaponry and an illicit fortune, and capitalizing on weaknesses in Afghan security forces, Kugelman tweeted: “What’s happening now has been alarmingly speedy, but not sudden.”
That speed may have taken some U.S. officials by surprise, and it’s pushing Ghani and his administration to boosting support for local militias and warlords to help fight back. Some analysts fear that raises the risk of all-out civil war, with competing factions, backed by foreign powers, fighting for control.
In the end, it is Afghan civilians that continue to suffer. In the last 72 hours alone, 27 children were killed, and 136 were injured, according to UNICEF, as fighting displaces tens of thousands of people.
“As a mom, I want this war to end,” tweeted Shaharzad Akbar, head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. “I don’t want more children reliving my childhood. War has no winners. It has all been loss.”
ABC News’ Luis Martinez and Molly Nagle contributed to this report.
Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Tuesday he would resign following a New York attorney general investigation that found he sexually harassed 11 women, including his own staff members.
All eyes are now on Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, the woman who will succeed Cuomo on Aug. 24.
Hochul, 62, will be New York’s first female governor in the state’s history.
Hochul, who chaired the governor’s “Enough is Enough” campaign to combat sexual assault on college campuses, tweeted a statement following Cuomo’s announcement, stating his decision to step down was “the right thing to do and in the best interest of New Yorkers.”
“As someone who has served at all levels of government and is next in the line of succession, I am prepared to lead as New York State’s 57th Governor,” she said.
Hochul will serve the remainder of Cuomo’s term, which ends next year. She has not indicated if she will run again. New York faced a similar change in power in 2008 when David Paterson assumed the office following Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s resignation over a prostitution scandal.
Hochul, who has been in her position since 2015, has had a long history with New York state politics.
Born in Buffalo, New York, Hochul earned a B.A. degree from Syracuse University in 1980 and a J.D. from Catholic University four years later.
After graduating from law school, she worked for a private Washington D.C. firm before serving as legal counsel and legislative assistant to U.S. Rep. John LaFalce and later U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, according to her official New York state bio.
In 1994, Hochul was elected to the Hamburg Town Board in Erie County, New York, and served until 2007 when she was appointed the Erie County Clerk.
“She served as liaison to the local economic development agency and worked to attract new businesses and create jobs following the loss of the [Western New York] manufacturing base,” her bio said.
During her time in office, Hochul also worked to help displaced women. In 2006, she, her mother and her aunt established the Kathleen Mary House, a transitional home for victims of domestic violence.
In 2011, Hochul was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in a special election for New York’s 26th district. Chris Collins would defeat her in the 2012 election.
During her tenure, she sat on the Armed Services and Homeland Security committees.
Cuomo nominated Hochul to be his lieutenant governor when he successfully ran for his second term in 2014. Cuomo and Hochul won re-election in 2018.
Under the Cuomo administration, Hochul has overseen several state projects and governing groups. She chairs 10 regional economic development councils, which help decide investments for projects in New York and the State Workforce Investment Board.
Cuomo appointed her as co-chair of the Heroin and Opioid Abuse Task Force.
Earlier this year, Milwaukee’s all-genre Summerfest announced its return in September of 2021, featuring a lineup of over 100 performers, including such well-known veteran acts as ZZ Top, Styx, REO Speedwagon, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Guns N’ Roses, Night Ranger, Modern English and John Waite.
Now, the festival has announced new COVID-19 safety protocols in place for attendees. Those coming to the concerts will need to show proof of either COVID-19 vaccination or a current negative COVID-19 test in order to enter the festival grounds and American Family Insurance Amphitheater.
More information is available at the festival’s website. Additionally, those not fully vaccinated can find information on local testing availability before they head to the event.
The new protocol comes on the heels of an announcement from Live Nation, which recently decided that it will allow the touring artists it works with to require proof of vaccination or a negative test from event attendees.
Summerfest 2021 is scheduled to take place September 2-4, 9-11 and 16-18.
It’s a love story straight from the movies as Frozen writer and director Jennifer Lee and Frozen 2 actor Alfred Molina wed in an outdoor ceremony over the weekend, with fellow Frozen star Jonathan Groffserving as the officiant.
“We did. We do,” Jennifer captioned a series of photos from the special day that show the beaming bride and groom standing under a beautiful archway adorned with flowers.
Jennifer and Alfred connected when she was directing the Frozen sequel in which the 68-year-old actor voiced the character of Agnarr, Elsa and Anna’s father and the king of Arendelle. Jonathan also returned to the franchise in the role of Kristoff.
Groff and Molina also appeared together in the 2012 Los Angeles production of the play Red, about painter Mark Rothko. In fact, Jennifer credits Jonathan for bringing the couple together.
“This beautiful, generous soul is the reason Fred and I met. We owe him the world,” Jennifer writes in an Instagram post showing the two friends in a candid moment at the wedding.
Jonathan and Alfred’s Frozen co-star, Josh Gad, also contributed to the love-fest, writing in the comments, “Oh my God!!!! Yes!!!! Congrats!!!!!! Love you both so much!”
(NEW YORK) — After weeks of wrangling, the Senate on Tuesday passed a $1.1 trillion infrastructure bill with Republican support, in a big win for Democrats and President Joe Biden.
The measure passed by a vote of 69-30, with 19 Republicans joining all Senate Democrats to advance the bill out of the Senate chamber.
In a sign of its political significance, Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the final vote.
Republicans Roy Blunt, Richard Burr, Shelley Moore Capito, Susan Collins, Deb Fischer, Lindsey Graham, Rob Portman, Thom Tillis, Chuck Grassley, Mitt Romney, Dan Sullivan, Mike Crapo, Lisa Murkowski, James Risch, Bill Cassidy, Kevin Cramer, Roger Wicker, John Hoeven and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell joined Democrats in voting yes.
The package, with $550 billion in new spending, will address core infrastructure needs. It includes $110 billion in new funds for roads and bridges, $66 billion for rail, $7.5 billion to build out electric vehicle charging stations, $17 billion for ports, $25 billion for airports, $55 billion for clean drinking water, a $65 billion investment in high-speed internet and more.
Passage represents a major victory for senators from both parties who said they were committed to showing Congress could work in a bipartisan way, as well as for President Joe Biden, who campaigned on a promise to work across the aisle.
Biden’s first reaction to the passage came via Twitter and sent a strong signal to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that he does not want the House to delay a vote.
“Big news, folks: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal has officially passed the Senate. I hope Congress will send it to my desk as soon as possible so we can continue our work of building back better,” Biden tweeted.
The package took months to forge, with bipartisan negotiators Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Portman of Ohio, a Republican, leading a group of ten colleagues in discussions that led to the final package.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer praised the package in remarks just before the final vote, saying, “We have persisted and now we have arrived. There were many logs in our path, detours along the way, but the American people will now see the most robust injection of funds into infrastructure in decades.”
“When the Senate is run with an open hand rather than a closed fist senators can accomplish big things,” he added.
The bill now heads to the House, where it faces a precarious path to Biden’s desk.
Pelosi, who leads a razor-thin majority of Democrats in the House, has made clear she has no intention of bringing the bipartisan bill to a vote until the Senate sends over a second, larger budget bill containing the rest of President Biden’s “American Families Plan” priorities.
The debate of the budget will be far different from the bipartisanship in the debate over infrastructure.
Democrats unveiled their $3.5 trillion budget that includes universal pre-K, free 2-year community college, paid family leave, climate initiatives and a smattering of other social priorities, on Monday morning.
With the bipartisan bill off their plate, Senate Democrats are turning their attention immediately to passing the budget bill, and they’re expected to try to force the massive package through the Senate as early as tomorrow, without a single GOP vote. Budget bills are not subject to the regular 60-vote threshold generally necessary to move legislation forward.
Republicans have vowed to fight the budget resolution at every step, including through what is expected to be a marathon of votes this week on partisan amendments designed to score political points and make centrist Democrats squirm.
McConnell conceded Tuesday morning there will be little Republicans can do to stop the budget from advancing if Democrats keep a united front, but he promised a fight on the Senate floor.
“Republicans do not currently have the vote to spare American families this nightmare,” McConnell said of the $3.5 trillion bill. “But we will debate and we will vote and we will stand up and we will be counted and the people of this country will know exactly which senators fought for them.”
Senate action on the budget this week is just the first in a series of steps before the bill comes to a final vote in the Senate and moves to the House, likely in the fall.
Pelosi said only then, after the full budget process is completed, will she bring both the budget bill and the bipartisan infrastructure bill up for a final vote in the House.
(NEW YORK) — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has announced he will resign from office following accusations of sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct from a number of women, including former staffers and one current staffer.
His resignation will be effective in 14 days, Cuomo said.
After a four-month investigation, New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced in a 168-page report last week that “the governor engaged in conduct constituting sexual harassment under federal and New York State law.”
“Specifically, we find that the Governor sexually harassed a number of current and former New York State employees by, among other things, engaging in unwelcome and nonconsensual touching, as well as making numerous offensive comments of a suggestive and sexual nature that created a hostile work environment for women,” the report said.
In announcing his resignation, Cuomo said his instinct was to fight through the controversy, which he said is politically motivated.
“This is about politics, and our political system today is too often driven by extremes,” Cuomo said.
However, Cuomo said, the situation on its current trajectory would create months of controversy, consume government, and cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
As a result, he said, “the best way I can help now is if I step aside.”
Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul will assume the governor’s seat, becoming the first woman to lead New York state.
Cuomo, the son of legendary former Gov. Mario Cuomo and the heir to his deep political legacy, gained renewed national attention during the pandemic with his daily COVID-19 briefings.
But his image took a hit with the drumbeat of allegations from women surfacing as well as questions about his administration failing to fully disclose the nursing home deaths caused by the virus.
The governor admitted that the state miscategorized the nursing home data but said it was because it had not been verified.
Cuomo, however, has vehemently denied the allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct, including a reported sexual assault. In a March 12 press conference he told reporters, “I did not do what has been alleged,” but defended the right of his accusers to come forward and tell their stories.
At Tuesday’s press conference, employment discrimination attorney Anne Clark, one of the investigators assigned to lead the probe, presented findings from the report, including specific examples of the governor making suggestive comments and engaging in unwanted touching that 11 women found “deeply humiliating and offensive.”
In at least one instance, the investigation determined that the governor sought to retaliate against a woman who leveled accusations against him, identified in a report released by the AG’s office as Lindsey Boylan.
In February, Boylan, a former special adviser to the governor, and Charlotte Bennett, a former health policy adviser, both detailed examples where Cuomo allegedly spoke inappropriately while they were both employed by the governor’s office. Boylan initially made the allegations in a series of tweets in December, and Cuomo denied the accusations.
In an instance involving one of Cuomo’s unnamed executive assistants, the governor was found to have “reached under her blouse and grabbed her breast,” according to the report.
The same woman also recounted a circumstance in which “the governor moved his hand to grab her butt cheek and began to rub it. The rubbing lasted at least five seconds,” the report said.
After allegations were first made against Cuomo, other women began accusing the governor of various forms of inappropriate conduct.
Anna Ruch claimed Cuomo touched her and asked if he could kiss her during a wedding reception in September 2019.
Karen Hinton, a former press aide to Cuomo when he was the secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, told The Washington Post that while later working as a consultant, Cuomo had summoned her to his hotel room.
Hinton said she pulled away from Cuomo, but he pulled her back toward his body, holding her before she backed away and left the room.
Another former staffer, Ana Liss, also came forward on March 6 with allegations of inappropriate comments and touching.
Another woman alleged the governor groped her during a visit to the executive mansion in 2020, the Albany Times Union reported March 10.
Sherry Vill, came forward with allegations that the governor inappropriately touched and kissed her in 2017.
Cuomo met with her during a tour of flood damage near her town in Greece, New York, she said. The governor took her by the hand, pulled her in and kissed her on both cheeks, Vill said.
“That’s what Italians do, kiss both cheeks,” the governor allegedly told Vill.
Vill said at the time she was not pressing charges or filing suit for this incident but was planning to meet with the state attorney general to discuss the matter.
“During times of crisis, the governor has frequently sought to comfort New Yorkers with hugs and kisses,” Cuomo’s attorney, Rita Glavin, said. “As I have said before, the governor has greeted both men and women with hugs, a kiss on the cheek, forehead or hand for the past 40 years.”
After a back and forth on Feb. 28 between the governor’s office and the New York attorney general’s office over who would oversee an investigation into the allegations, Cuomo gave James the approval to look at the case.
James deputized two private lawyers to conduct the investigation.
As the number of allegations grew, elected officials on both sides of the aisle called for Cuomo to step down including New York Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and state Senate Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins.
State Assembly Leader Carl Heastie announced on March 11 that he authorized the Assembly Judiciary Committee to begin an impeachment investigation. On Tuesday, in the wake of the attorney general’s report, he said the Democratic majority had lost confidence in the governor.
“After our conference this afternoon to discuss the Attorney General’s report concerning sexual harassment allegations against Governor Cuomo, it is abundantly clear to me that the Governor has lost the confidence of the Assembly Democratic majority and that he can no longer remain in office,” Heastie said in a statement. “Once we receive all relevant documents and evidence from the Attorney General, we will move expeditiously and look to conclude our impeachment investigation as quickly as possible.”
Cuomo initially denied the allegations from the first two victims but acknowledged on March 3 that he “acted in a way that made people feel uncomfortable.”
“It was unintentional, and I truly and deeply apologize for it. I feel awful about it and, frankly, I am embarrassed. And that’s not easy to say,” he said.
After more women came forward, he made similar statements and insisted he was not going to resign during news conferences in March.
Cuomo was elected governor in 2010 after serving as New York’s attorney general for three years. He won re-election in 2014 and 2018 and served the state during many major moments, including Superstorm Sandy.
The governor began his political career working as a campaign manager for his father and also worked under New York City Mayor David Dinkins as the chair of the New York City Homeless Commission.
Cuomo served as the assistant secretary for Community Planning and Development under the Clinton administration and was later appointed as the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development during former President Bill Clinton’s second term.
He first attempted to run for New York governor in 2002 but dropped out before the Democratic primary. Four years later, he won the election for the state’s attorney general.
In a new cover story with Harper’s Bazaar, Beyoncé confirms that new music is indeed on its way.
“With all the isolation and injustice over the past year, I think we are all ready to escape, travel, love, and laugh again,” she tells the mag. “I feel a renaissance emerging, and I want to be part of nurturing that escape in any way possible.”
She adds that she’s been in the studio for a year and a half, meticulously crafting new songs.
“Sometimes it takes a year for me to personally search through thousands of sounds to find just the right kick or snare,” she says. “One chorus can have up to 200 stacked harmonies.”
Beyoncé says making music still feels “just as exciting as it did when I was nine years old” and nothing compares to “the amount of love, passion, and healing that I feel in the recording studio.”
Foo Fighters have announced a pair of Northeast concerts taking place next month.
The shows will be held September 15 in Syracuse, New York, and September 17 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Tickets will go on sale this Friday, August 13, at 10 a.m. ET via FooFighters.com.
Attendees must be either full vaccinated against COVID-19 or receive a negative diagnostic test within 48 hours of entering the venue.
Foo Fighters have been playing concerts this summer while celebrating their 26th anniversary after their 25th anniversary plans for 2020 were scrapped due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The outing will continue August 17 with the band’s first ever show in Alaska.
Meanwhile, you can also catch the Foos at the Bonnaroo and BottleRock Napa Valley festival in September.
