Current Events
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Source: FREDERIC J. BROWN / Getty / Halle Bailey
Halle Bailey continues to be booked and busy in Hollywood.
Deadline reports that The Color Purple star and one-half of the music duo Chloe x Halle is joining the cast of the upcoming Universal coming-of-age film directed by director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and producer Pharrell Williams (Hidden Figures).
According to the website, Bailey’s role in the project remains a mystery and will be joining Kelvin Harrison Jr. and The Holdovers Oscar winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph.
The film’s subject, Deadline reports, will be a musical that takes place in 1977 Virginia and draws inspiration from Williams’ childhood at Atlantis Apartments.
Handling the script for the project will be Martin Hynes (Toy Story 4) and Steven Levenson (Tick, Tick…Boom!). Williams and Mimi Valdés are producing under the i am OTHER banner alongside Gil Netter for Gil Netter Productions.
Halle Bailey Continues To Rack Up Movie Roles
Bailey’s involvement in this film comes from her performance in director Blitz Bazawule’s The Color Purple, in which she played Young Nettie in the movie based on the Broadway run of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
She also had snowflakes big mad when she starred in the live-action remake of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, which brought in over $569 million at the worldwide box office.
This is more positive news for Williams, who is currently the subject of a lawsuit from fellow Neptunes cofounder Chad Hugo.
Hugo claims Williams violated their agreement after attempting to secure the trademarks for The Neptunes’ name.
Williams “claims the move was not to ice out Hugo but to ensure no other people can get their slimy hands on The Neptunes name.”
Pusha-T, a longtime collaborator with the Neptunes, believes Hugo’s lawyer is trying to make money.
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Source: frankpeters / Getty
A group of criminals pulled off the biggest heist ever in Los Angeles. Thieves stole almost $30 million in cash from a holding facility on Easter Sunday.
As spotted on Raw Story, the burglars brought the plot from the Ocean’s Eleven to real life. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) say that the crew broke into a money holding facility in the neighborhood of Sylmar. According to a source who spoke to the Los Angeles Times, the unidentified individuals broke into the building’s roof and evaded the security system all together. Once inside, they reportedly accessed the vault without issue and made off with close to $30 million dollars in cash.
The perpetrators were so experienced that the staff at the facility didn’t notice the money missing right away. “It’s just mind blowing that you would never suspect it,” an anonymous employee told ABC News. “$30 million in the Valley, gone. How? Why? I’m still trying to process it. Was it an inside job? Was it just one person? Was it a group? You know, there’s a lot of questions.” The LAPD and FBI have confirmed they are working and “have a joint investigation into an alleged burglary that occurred on Sunday evening, March 31, 2024. No additional information related to the incident is being released,” the agencies confirmed in a joint statement.
You can view reporting live from the scene below.
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Source: Wirestock / Getty / NYC / Earthquake
No, you were not bugging; that was an earthquake you felt this morning.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the East Coast was seriously shaking this morning after a 4.8-magnitude earthquake centered near Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, 40 miles west of New York City.
It was the largest in the area since 1973, local news affiliate ABC7NY reports.
Per CBS News, the earthquake hit around approximately 10:20 a.m.
The website reports there are no signs of damage.
The quake could be felt throughout the entire tri-state area, from Philadelphia and as far as Baltimore. The immediate reactions of buildings shaking began pouring in from New Jersey, New York, and Long Island.
This quake is not the first to rattle the East Coast and New York. However, the last earthquake of that magnitude felt in New York City was in 1887, when a 5.0-magnitude quake rocked the city.
“A 4.8 magnitude earthquake hit west of Manhattan and has been felt throughout New York. My team is assessing impacts and any damage that may have occurred, and we will update the public throughout the day,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“Our preliminary reports do not indicate major life safety or infrastructure issues from the earthquake. We are performing thorough inspections of critical areas,” NYC Mayor Eric Adams said on X, while also giving guidance in case of aftershocks.
New Yorkers Are Shook
As expected, New Yorkers are still reacting to the 4.8 earthquake on social media, which is extremely rare on the East Coast.
As expected, there is plenty of shock from New Yorkers, who are not about the earthquake life like those on the West Coast, but with folks on X, no one takes anything seriously cause there is humor involved.
Lol, we can’t front, that’s very arrucate.
We hope everyone is good. You can see more reactions in the gallery below.
1. This is extremely accurate
2. We are foreign to these types of things B!
3. Listen, we do come together during events like this.
4. Wait a minute…
6. There was nothing “small” about that to us.
7. Here comes the folks on the west coast.
8. We gotta during a natural disaster, just saying.
10. Hey, we get it, they ain’t used to this sh*t either
12. Good question?
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Source: Scott Legato / Getty
It seems Rod Wave might have the fight of his life upon him. He was recently arrested on some serious weapons charges.
Variety magazine reports that the St. Petersburg, Florida, native got into some trouble Sunday, March 31. Local badges claim he had involvement in a shooting in Manatee County that left four individuals injured. According to a statement released by the police: “about 11 p.m., officers responded to shots fired in a large group of people gathered outside of 400 49 St. S. At this time it appears a group of men got into a verbal argument and exchanged gunfire outside of the location” the document reads.
Rod Wave was arrested in connection to the incident and charged on weapons charges including possession of the ammunition. His lawyers quickly refuted the claims on an Instagram post. “Rod was arrested and detained with absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing. The police claimed he was a felon in possession of ammunition” the caption read. “Not only was he not in possession of ammunition, a basic check of public records would have easily demonstrated to the police that he was not a convicted felon. The prosecutor and the judge immediately agreed that the evidence did not support the charge and set him free the same day.”
This was not the first time Rod Wave has been in trouble with the law. Back in 2022, he was arrested for allegedly strangling his ex-girlfriend. In an exclusive statement to Rolling Stone magazine his lawyer Bradford Cohen claimed it was a misunderstanding. Rod Wave has yet to publicly comment on the weapons charges.
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Source: Shareif Ziyadat / Getty / Diddy
Surviving Diddy, the documentary? It looks like those docs are coming.
Spotted on TMZ, multiple docs detailing Diddy’s federal probe that has led to the once highly sought-after mogul losing multiple bags and two of his homes being raided by the Feds are reportedly in the works.
According to the celebrity gossip site, it will happen “several times with several companies.”
Per TMZ:
Multiple industry sources with direct knowledge tell TMZ … producers at various production companies in Hollywood and the UK have been scrambling to put together long-form documentary films covering Diddy’s drama — everything from the civil lawsuits to the federal raids.
We’re told the outreach to ramp up production for most of the docs began immediately after the raids in L.A. and Miami — which isn’t surprising, as the feds’ execution of search warrants happened on live TV … making it more of a national spectacle, and prompting folks to pay close attention to all the fallout.
Sources speaking with TMZ claim at least five production companies have been reaching out to anyone close to Diddy who is willing to talk. Those include former dancers, Combs Bad Boy Records execs, and even producers on his iconic competition reality show, Making The Band.
TMZ reports that producers have contacted former Danity Kane member Aubrey O’Day, who has been very public about her dismay for her former mentor on her X account.
The website confirms ABC News Studios for Hulu is working on a documentary, while several UK-based studios are working on their documentaries.
Recent Developments
Things are still developing in the federal probe itself. Recently, footage from the raid has hit social media, and Misa Hylton, the mother of Justin Combs, took to Instagram to call out Homeland Security for using excessive force on her sons, Justin and Christain, during the raid.
Meanwhile, Diddy’s longtime nemesis, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, continues to antagonize Combs on social media, and most recently, his baby mama, Daphne Joy, whose name came up in a federal suit, alleging she is a “sex worker.”
Joy then accused the G-Unit general of rape and being an absent father after he claimed he was going to take her to court for full custody of their son.
The “Candy Shop” rapper has denied those allegations.
Will you be tuning in when the docs arrive? Who are we kidding? We know you will be watching.
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Source: The Washington Post / Getty
On Tuesday (April 2), GOP candidate and current commander-in-criminal-indictments Donald Trump took the xenophobic bigot tour he calls his presidential campaign to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he called brown people who entered the U.S. illegally “animals” and declared that they’re “not human.”
“A 22-year-old nursing student in Georgia was barbarically murdered by an illegal alien animal,” Trump said in reference to the violent death of Laken Riley, a nursing student at Augusta University who was found dead in a wooded area at the University of Georgia campus in Athens on Feb. 22, and who authorities believe was killed by an undocumented migrant from Venezuela.
“The Democrats said please don’t call them animals, they’re humans. I said no, they’re not humans, they’re not humans, they’re animals. And Nancy Pelosi told me that. She said, ‘Please don’t use the word animals, sir, when you’re talking about these people.’ I said, ‘I’ll use the word ‘animal’ because that’s what they are.’”
Since news of Riley’s death broke, MAGA conservatives have been exploiting her story to craft a racist narrative that migrants coming into the U.S. from our southern border are causing violent crime to spiral out of control because they can’t be bothered to do the bare minimum research it would take to know there haven’t been any surges in crimes in the cities most migrants have come to, and, in fact, in many of those cities, crime rates have fallen.
Trump, in his usual bigoted fashion, is taking things a step further and using this single case of a citizen allegedly being murdered by an illegal immigrant as an excuse to completely dehumanize migrants whether they have done anything wrong or not.
This is, after all, the same orangey-white nationalist who previously likened migrants to Hannibal Lecter and claimed many of them speak languages so foreign (as in “from the planet Mars”) that no linguists in the developed world can translate. And lest we forget, Trump entered the political arena generalizing Mexican immigrants as “rapists” who are “bringing drugs” and “bringing crime.” (Now, he’s out here slanging $60 Bibles and $400 “Air Treasons” because his own alleged crimes appear to have caught up with him financially.)
A vote for Trump is a vote for the normalization of outright bigotry. This much is clear.
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Source: Pacific Press / Getty
A columnist’s criticism of the New York Police Department’s handling of subway crime led to department heads blasting him and Mayor Eric Adams chiming in.
The topic of crime in New York City’s subways has been a heated one, and a new column taking the NYPD to task for not having plans to aid those mentally ill despite the increase in officers present has compelled the department to lash out in posts on social media, with Mayor Eric Adams also chiming in. The column in question was written by columnist Harry Siegel and published in the New York Daily News Saturday (March 30). Siegel criticized department chiefs for making television appearances downplaying the trouble and pointing to the amount of officers, especially after high-profile incidents including a person being shoved off the platform in East Harlem last week.
Siegel was attacked by NYPD Head of Transit Michael Kemper in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “Your readers deserve more accurate reporting. This article is filled with misleading and straight up false information,” Kemper wrote, adding that Siegel incorrectly listed 10 deaths that had occurred in the subway system this year instead of four.
The newspaper would issue a correction afterward, but that didn’t stop NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kay Daughtry from also leveling a personal insult toward Siegel. “We are the police. And you are a gadfly — who should consider revising their definition of madness to: reading a Siegel column expecting a useful takeaway,” Daughtry wrote. NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell would go on to blast Siegel’s column on Sunday, saying it “demonstrates the overall disdain for the NYPD.” He would also call Siegel “anti-cop” in an interview on 1010 WINS Monday. Siegel would admit his error but also fired back at the police brass in a post, calling it “Incredible cop talk.”
Mayor Adams offered his two cents after both police representatives spent three days haranguing Siegel during his weekly press briefing Tuesday (April 2), calling Siegel’s column “distasteful” as it was published on the day of Officer Jonathan Diller’s funeral out on Long Island. “What you saw from Chell and Daughtry, you saw a human reaction,” he said. Adams has been particularly sensitive after coming under fire in an interview with activist and lawyer Olayemi Olurin on The Breakfast Club where she took him to task for “fear-mongering” and the NYPD’s racial profiling.
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Source: L. Cohen / Getty / Chad Hugo / Pusha T / Pharrell
First Hall & Oates, now Chad and Pharrell. After the stunning news of the legendary music-producing duo’s legal beef hit the timelines, Pusha-T is now weighing in on the matter.
Spotted on XXL, Clipse member and our favorite cocaine rap supplier, Pusha-T, shared his thoughts on his favorite collaborator’s legal drama around the Neptunes trademark.
Hugo, 50, claims that Pharrell, 50, violated an agreement between the two in his attempt to secure the trademarks for The Neptunes’ name.
Taking to his Instagram Stories on Tuesday, April 2, Pusha-T touched on the matter, claiming that Hugo’s lawyer, Kenneth D. Freundlich, trying to fatten his pockets is the reason for what is going on.
Per XXL:
“There’s not a dollar involved in this stupidity,” Push commented on an Instagram post resharing the initial article. “Just a lawyer looking to drain Chad’s pocket. Unreal.”
Pusha T then reshared his comments again to his Instagram Story after IG user Artemus Gordon agreed with King Push’s assertions.
“SMH…nothing more nothing less,” Push wrote.
A Breakdown of Hugo’s Lawsuit
The Hip-Hop world collectively sighed when news broke of the two Virginia native’s legal drama. Billboard shared the details of the lawsuit.
“Throughout their over thirty year history, [Hugo] and Williams agreed to, and in fact, have divided all assets,” wrote Hugo’s attorney Kenneth D. Freundlich, a prominent music industry litigator. “By ignoring and excluding [Hugo] from the any and all applications filed by applicant for the mark ‘The Neptunes,’ applicant has committed fraud in securing the trademarks and acted in bad faith.”
In a statement via a representative, Williams claims the move was not to ice out Hugo but to ensure no other people can get their slimy hands on The Neptunes name.
“Pharrell is surprised by this. We have reached out on multiple occasions to share in the ownership and administration of the trademark and will continue to make that offer. The goal here was to make sure a third party doesn’t get a hold of the trademark and to guarantee Chad and Pharrell share in ownership and administration,” the statement says.
In response, Freundlich wrote, “If Pharrell’s intent was to include Chad in the filing, he should have registered it in the name of them jointly or as a partnership and not in his own name.”
We hope these two can settle this dispute amicably.
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Source: Anna Barclay / Getty
Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social took a huge dive on the stock market as more details on its earnings were revealed.
On Monday (April 1), investors got their first look at the financial data of the parent company behind Truth Social, the social media platform of former President Donald Trump. And what they saw led to the values of shares in the company plummeting sharply, leading to a billion dollars shaved off of the value of Trump’s personal stake in the Trump Media and Technology Group.
According to reports, the regulatory finding released by the company to go public on the NASDAQ stock market led to Trump Media stock sinking 25% in value to $46 a share as opposed to $79 a share the week before. The data also revealed that the company made $4.1 million last year in revenue, closing out with a fourth quarter earning of $750,000 but a net loss of $58 million overall. As for Trump’s stake in the company, which is estimated to be 78.5 million shares or 57% of all shares, the value of those shares dropped to $3.64 billion on Tuesday (April 2), from $6.25 billion previously. Trump Media went public after a reverse merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp.
A further report from Forbes states that Truth Social is being viewed as a “meme stock” similar to the rise seen with AMC and GameStop stock in 2021, which surged thanks to the rush of consumers buying up the stock when it was so low. Trump supporters swooped in to buy shares as Truth Social went public, but it couldn’t prevent the value drop. “Trump Media’s 1,470 price-to-sales ratio, which compares a company’s total valuation to its last 12-month sales, is exponentially higher than social media peers Reddit and Snap’s respective 9 and 4 price-to-sales ratios,” the publication wrote.
The news comes as Trump managed to successfully post a $175 million bond late Monday evening in his appeal of a massive civil fraud judgment against him in New York to prevent the seizure of his assets. The bond, lowered from $464 million after Trump’s attorneys stated that bond companies refused to back him for the amount, was secured through the Knight Specialty Insurance Company, a company owned by the Hankey Group, whose owner is an avowed Trump supporter. As for Trump’s potential to sell his shares in Truth Social, he is barred from doing so for six months.
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Source: John Nacion / Getty
Anyone who has seen Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV—a documentary chronicling the abusive, exploitive and egregiously dangerous conditions under which employees and child actors at Nickelodeon worked under the leadership of showrunner Dan Schneider—knows that during a period that began in the late ’90s, Nickelodeon Studios was portrayed as a cesspool of abusive behavior, sexism, child endangerment and child sexualization that allowed multiple convicted pedophiles run wild on and off set.
To say the absolute least, the docuseries served as a cautionary tale to any parents who are thinking of introducing their children to the world of child acting.
Well, accomplished actor and comedian Kenan Thompson, who started in ’90s Nick shows All That and Kenan & Kel, doesn’t appear to think the investigations into what went on at Nickelonean have gone far enough, and he believes authorities should “investigate more” in order to ensure the kids we watch on TV are being kept safe behind the scenes.
“It’s tough. It’s a tough subject, you know?” the Saturday Night Live cast member said during an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “It’s tough for me because I can’t really speak on things that I never witnessed, you know what I’m saying? Because all these things happened after I left, basically.”
In the Docuseries, Schneider is accused of deplorable and abusive behavior towards the people who worked under him, especially the female writers, two of whom he’s accused of illegally making share a single-employee salary, and child actors who starred in shows he ran, and whom he was accused portraying in sexually suggestive ways—and somehow, his offenses weren’t nearly the most horrific.
“Dan wasn’t really on Kenan & Kel like that,” Thomsaon explained while distancing himself from the disgraced producer. “I mean, he got a ‘created by’ credit, but it was a different showrunner, so our worlds wasn’t really overly overlapping like that outside of All That, necessarily. And then all of that negativity kinda started happening outside of our tenure there, you know what I mean? So I wasn’t really aware of a lot of it.”
But regardless of whether or not Thompson was around when Nick Studios ironically proved to be the last place one would want to leave their child unattended, the Good Burger actor said he supports the victims and wants to see more investigating done to ensure their aren’t more out there whose stories have gone ignored.
From EW:
Thompson, who was 15 when All That premiered, also extended sympathy to his fellow former Nickelodeon stars who discussed the toxic work environment they endured in Quiet on Set. “My heart goes out to anybody that’s been victimized, or their families,” he said. “I think it’s a good thing that the doc is out and it’s putting things on display, stories that need to be told for accountability’s sake. But it’s definitely tough to watch because I have fond memories of that place and I have fond memories of my costars and stuff like that. So to hear that they’ve gone through terrible things like that is really tough.”
Later in the interview, Thompson reiterated his support for the doc. “Investigate more,” he said. “It’s supposed to be a safe place for kids. And to hear all about that is just like, ‘How dare you?’”
Exactly.