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Actor/director Justin Baldoni, his production company and his current publicity team, are being sued by his former publicist, days after co-star Blake Lively accused them of orchestrating a smear campaign against her. or signup to continue reading Stephanie Jones, who owns PR company Jonesworks, has accused Baldoni of breaching his contract which required him to pay 25,000 dollars ($A40,081) a month after he allegedly left the firm a few months into a year-long contract. Baldoni moved to work with publicist Jennifer Abel, who left Jonesworks to start her own publicity firm, according to the lawsuit. Ms Jones is also suing Ms Abel who she claims "went around" her to arrange for Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer Studios to hire crisis PR manager Melissa Nathan - also named in the lawsuit - "and launch a smear campaign against Lively". It comes after Lively filed a legal complaint accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment and a hostile work environment on the set of It Ends With Us, as well as embarking on a "multi-tiered plan" with his team to damage her reputation. Bryan Freedman, a lawyer representing all defendants, previously described the claims in the Lively complaint as "completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious", adding that the studio "made the decision to proactively hire a crisis manager prior to the marketing campaign of the film". The legal action from Lively featured text messages from Ms Abel in which she and other members of Baldoni's publicity team talk about how to "bury" Lively. The new lawsuit reveals that Ms Jones "forensically preserved" messages on Ms Abel's company-issued Jonesworks phone which were given to Lively's lawyers after they issued a subpoena. A spokesperson for Ms Abel described the lawsuit as "retaliatory behaviour" from Ms Jones after Baldoni and Wayfarer choose to leave with her. Meanwhile, in a statement given to the PA news agency, Ms Jones' lawyer Kristin Tahler said the lawsuit was "a necessary step" for her "to recover the reputation she has worked decades to establish". The lawsuit comes after US actor and director Baldoni had the Voices of Solidarity Award revoked. Baldoni had received the award earlier this month from charity Vital Voices, which honours "remarkable men who have shown courage and compassion in advocating on behalf of women and girls". The charity said the alleged "disturbing" conduct detailed in Lively's legal action was "contrary to the values of Vital Voices and the spirit of the award", adding "we have rescinded this award". It Ends With Us, based on Colleen Hoover's novel, is about a woman's pursuit of a loving and healthy relationship. Lively plays lead character Lily Bloom and Baldoni is her love interest Ryle Kincaid amid a backdrop of domestic violence. A representative for Baldoni has been contacted for comment. DAILY Today's top stories curated by our news team. WEEKDAYS Grab a quick bite of today's latest news from around the region and the nation. WEEKLY The latest news, results & expert analysis. WEEKDAYS Catch up on the news of the day and unwind with great reading for your evening. WEEKLY Get the editor's insights: what's happening & why it matters. WEEKLY Love footy? We've got all the action covered. WEEKLY Every Saturday and Tuesday, explore destinations deals, tips & travel writing to transport you around the globe. WEEKLY Going out or staying in? Find out what's on. WEEKDAYS Sharp. Close to the ground. Digging deep. Your weekday morning newsletter on national affairs, politics and more. TWICE WEEKLY Your essential national news digest: all the big issues on Wednesday and great reading every Saturday. WEEKLY Get news, reviews and expert insights every Thursday from CarExpert, ACM's exclusive motoring partner. TWICE WEEKLY Get real, Australia! Let the ACM network's editors and journalists bring you news and views from all over. AS IT HAPPENS Be the first to know when news breaks. DAILY Your digital replica of Today's Paper. Ready to read from 5am! DAILY Test your skills with interactive crosswords, sudoku & trivia. Fresh daily! Advertisement Advertisement
Brock Purdy will miss Sunday's game for the 49ers with a shoulder injury
RICHMOND, Ky. (AP) — Matt Morrissey threw a 67-yard touchdown pass to Marcus Calwise Jr. that ended the scoring midway through the fourth quarter and Eastern Kentucky beat North Alabama 21-15 on Saturday for its fifth straight win. TJ Smith drove North Alabama to the EKU 45-yard line before he threw an interception to Mike Smith Jr. to end the game. Smith threw a 24-yard touchdown pass to Dakota Warfield to give North Alabama a 15-14 lead with 10:37 to play. Story continues below video Morrissey completed 9 of 15 passes for 154 yards and added 60 yards on the ground with a touchdown run. Brayden Latham added 103 yards rushing on 19 carries that included a 2-yard score for Eastern Kentucky (8-4, 6-2 United Athletic Conference). Smith was 23-of-39 passing for 325 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions for North Alabama (3-9, 2-5). Tanaka Scott had 109 yards receiving and a touchdown catch. ___ Get alerts on the latest AP Top 25 poll throughout the season. Sign up here ___ AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-footballBy ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump promised on Tuesday to “vigorously pursue” capital punishment after President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of most people on federal death row partly to stop Trump from pushing forward their executions. Related Articles National Politics | Elon Musk’s preschool is the next step in his anti-woke education dreams National Politics | Trump’s picks for top health jobs not just team of rivals but ‘team of opponents’ National Politics | Biden will decide on US Steel acquisition after influential panel fails to reach consensus National Politics | Biden vetoes once-bipartisan effort to add 66 federal judgeships, citing ‘hurried’ House action National Politics | A history of the Panama Canal — and why Trump can’t take it back on his own Trump criticized Biden’s decision on Monday to change the sentences of 37 of the 40 condemned people to life in prison without parole, arguing that it was senseless and insulted the families of their victims. Biden said converting their punishments to life imprisonment was consistent with the moratorium imposed on federal executions in cases other than terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder. “Joe Biden just commuted the Death Sentence on 37 of the worst killers in our Country,” he wrote on his social media site. “When you hear the acts of each, you won’t believe that he did this. Makes no sense. Relatives and friends are further devastated. They can’t believe this is happening!” Presidents historically have no involvement in dictating or recommending the punishments that federal prosecutors seek for defendants in criminal cases, though Trump has long sought more direct control over the Justice Department’s operations. The president-elect wrote that he would direct the department to pursue the death penalty “as soon as I am inaugurated,” but was vague on what specific actions he may take and said they would be in cases of “violent rapists, murderers, and monsters.” He highlighted the cases of two men who were on federal death row for slaying a woman and a girl, had admitted to killing more and had their sentences commuted by Biden. On the campaign trail, Trump often called for expanding the federal death penalty — including for those who kill police officers, those convicted of drug and human trafficking, and migrants who kill U.S. citizens. “Trump has been fairly consistent in wanting to sort of say that he thinks the death penalty is an important tool and he wants to use it,” said Douglas Berman, an expert on sentencing at Ohio State University’s law school. “But whether practically any of that can happen, either under existing law or other laws, is a heavy lift.” Berman said Trump’s statement at this point seems to be just a response to Biden’s commutation. “I’m inclined to think it’s still in sort of more the rhetoric phase. Just, ‘don’t worry. The new sheriff is coming. I like the death penalty,’” he said. Most Americans have historically supported the death penalty for people convicted of murder, according to decades of annual polling by Gallup, but support has declined over the past few decades. About half of Americans were in favor in an October poll, while roughly 7 in 10 Americans backed capital punishment for murderers in 2007. Before Biden’s commutation, there were 40 federal death row inmates compared with more than 2,000 who have been sentenced to death by states. “The reality is all of these crimes are typically handled by the states,” Berman said. A question is whether the Trump administration would try to take over some state murder cases, such as those related to drug trafficking or smuggling. He could also attempt to take cases from states that have abolished the death penalty. Berman said Trump’s statement, along with some recent actions by states, may present an effort to get the Supreme Court to reconsider a precedent that considers the death penalty disproportionate punishment for rape. “That would literally take decades to unfold. It’s not something that is going to happen overnight,” Berman said. Before one of Trump’s rallies on Aug. 20, his prepared remarks released to the media said he would announce he would ask for the death penalty for child rapists and child traffickers. But Trump never delivered the line. One of the men Trump highlighted on Tuesday was ex-Marine Jorge Avila Torrez, who was sentenced to death for killing a sailor in Virginia and later pleaded guilty to the fatal stabbing of an 8-year-old and a 9-year-old girl in a suburban Chicago park several years before. The other man, Thomas Steven Sanders, was sentenced to death for the kidnapping and slaying of a 12-year-old girl in Louisiana, days after shooting the girl’s mother in a wildlife park in Arizona. Court records show he admitted to both killings. Some families of victims expressed anger with Biden’s decision, but the president had faced pressure from advocacy groups urging him to make it more difficult for Trump to increase the use of capital punishment for federal inmates. The ACLU and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops were some of the groups that applauded the decision. Biden left three federal inmates to face execution. They are Dylann Roof, who carried out the 2015 racist slayings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018 , the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S history. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin, Michelle L. Price and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.
Friedman Industries director Max Reichenthal buys $27,440 in stockPokimane told off critics after her cooking video, where she made a Korean-Moroccan fusion dish, ended up sparking a debate about her race. Imane ‘Pokimane’ Anys is a Moroccan-Canadian Twitch streamer. She emigrated from the North African country to Canada when she was four years old and speaks Arabic, French and English. The topic of Pokimane’s race has come up among viewers from time to time, particularly when she unveiled her naturally curly hair in 2022 after years of wearing it straight on camera. However, her race was once again brought into the spotlight after she uploaded a collaborative video with ChefBoylee on November 21, where the two put a Korean spin on tagine, a traditional Moroccan stew, to create a fusion dish featuring both of their cultures. A post shared by Kevin Lee (@chefboylee) Aside from the comments lamenting that she’d “ruined” the tagine with cheese, Pokimane called out several remarks that seemed to accuse her of race-baiting, such as one that read: “Guys, don’t be fooled, she’s not Asian.” “Some of the comments I’m getting are making me want to rip my hair out,” she admitted in a video on her Instagram stories. “...It’s just so frustrating. You guys know that over the years I have gotten a myriad of comments of people thinking that I’m Asian, which I don’t think is a bad thing. “I don’t feel the need to go out of my way to correct people on my ethnicity or where I’m from, but I also feel like I try very hard to ‘put on’ Morocco because I’m very proud of being from Morocco. So to have people pretend like I’m pretending to not be Moroccan? Like, that’s the whole point of the video!” Related: Poki via Instagram story #2 pic.twitter.com/vlnWo8zCxX Pokimane concluded her thoughts in a third video, where she explained she was fatigued by the sheer amount of remarks “invalidating” her experiences as a Moroccan person. “I get so tired of the kind of energy that people come at me with, or at others, when it comes to our ethnicity, or where we’re from, or our lived experience. I just don’t get it,” she said. Poki via Instagram story #3 pic.twitter.com/1MsCwzOl7y This is far from the first time Pokimane’s race has come up as a hot topic on social media. In fact, German-Filipino streamer Valkyrae said she was baffled by viewers saying the two look alike, exclaiming, “Poki’s not even Asian, she’s Moroccan. I don’t see it.”
Adam McKay says fans of "Wicked" may want to see the movie ASAP ... 'cause he worries politicians may try to ban it for it's message. The Oscar-winning writer and director took to X Monday ... saying the hit film based on the Broadway musical is one of the most radical big budget Hollywood films he's ever seen -- claiming it's "about radicalization in the face of careerism, fascism, propaganda." He likens the film to other progressive movies -- like "The Bridge on the River Kwai," "The Sound of Music," "The Searchers" and "Citizen Kane." Then, McKay makes a bold claim ... saying the way the U.S. is trending politically, he wouldn't be surprised if the movie is banned in three to five years -- given the way American politics is going. Of course, many online were incredulous ... saying there's no chance any film -- especially a musical like "Wicked" -- would ever be banned. But, McKay stayed persistent ... saying people who think there's no chance certain films or books could be banned aren't seeing the full picture. "Wicked" has resonated with audiences since coming out in later November ... grossing nearly $600 million internationally -- and, part 2 of the story is set to come out late next year. Just like the musical, the film deals with themes of racism and discrimination ... with characters prejudiced against Elphaba -- the Wicked Witch of the West -- because of her green skin. Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media. Conservatives online blasted a British film board for the "woke" disclaimer about the movie last month ... so there's already back lash among some. And, Adam seems convinced American audiences soon won't be allowed to watch it at all.NoneGeorge Kresge Jr., who wowed talk show audiences as the The Amazing Kreskin, dies
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