Entertainment
US Congress moves ahead with bill to ban Tik Tok
The US House of Representatives approved a bill on Saturday that would force the wildly popular social media app TikTok to divest from its Chinese parent company ByteDance or be shut out of the American market.
US and other Western officials have voiced alarm over the popularity of TikTok with young people, alleging that it allows Beijing to spy on users. It has 170 million in the United States alone.
These critics also say TikTok is subservient to Beijing and a conduit to spread propaganda. China and the company deny these claims.
The bill, which could trigger the rare step of barring a company from operating in the US market, now goes to the Senate for a vote next week. It passed the House on Saturday with strong bipartisan support, by a margin of 360 to 58.
President Joe Biden has stated he will sign the legislation. He reiterated his concerns about TikTok in a telephone conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping early this month.
The ultimatum to the social media app was included in a broader text that provides aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
TikTok quickly complained Saturday after the vote, saying in a statement “it is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate 7 million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the U.S. economy, annually.”
Under scrutiny
Under the bill, ByteDance would have to sell the app within a year or be excluded from Apple and Google’s app stores in the United States.
The House of Representatives last month approved a similar bill cracking down on TikTok, but the measure got held up in the Senate.
Steven Mnuchin, who served as US treasury secretary under former president Donald Trump, has said he is interested in acquiring TikTok and has assembled a group of investors.
TikTok has been in the crosshairs of US authorities for years, with authorities saying the platform allows Beijing to snoop on users in the United States.
But a law banning it could trigger lawsuits. This bill gives the US president the authority to designate other applications as a threat to national security if they are controlled by a country deemed hostile.
Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, formerly Twitter, came out Friday against banning TikTok, saying it went against freedom of expression.
“TikTok should not be banned in the USA, even though such a ban may benefit the X platform,” Musk said in a post on the social network he acquired in 2022.
“Doing so would be contrary to freedom of speech and expression,” said Musk.
© AFP
CCTV video footage confirmed what many people in the music industry knew was brewing: a moment of reckoning for one of the most influential hip-hop artists in history.
The clips of Sean “Diddy” Combs kicking his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura – as she lay motionless on the floor – cemented his downfall, despite his apology after the leak.
“I don’t see a path for him to come back from this,” said Amy DuBois Barnett, the former editor-in-chief of Ebony magazine, who has written about hip-hop culture.
Combs’ reputation in the industry had been “chequered for some time,” added Barnett. “Many people were aware of his pretty unbridled temper.”
Combs – formerly known as P Diddy, Puff Daddy or Puffy – is one of the best-selling and most acclaimed artists of all time, with three Grammy Awards and millions of record sales to his name.
For years, nothing really affected his rise to icon status as an artist, producer and businessman. There were negative stories in the industry, said Barnett, but much of it stayed out of the public eye.
Last November, Ms Ventura settled a lawsuit against Combs – in which she accused him of rape and sexual trafficking – for an undisclosed sum. But Combs’ lawyer said the settlement was “in no way an admission of wrongdoing”.
Celebrities continued to voice support for him, but that ended with the CCTV video obtained by CNN and published last week.
The assault shown in the footage is brutal. After kicking Ms Ventura like a football, Combs, wearing just a towel, is seen dragging her across the floor.
The video appears to be a compilation of surveillance footage angles dated 5 March 2016, which CNN said was filmed at the InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles. In her lawsuit, Ms Ventura had described a March 2016 incident at that hotel, in which Combs allegedly attacked her.
A string of other lawsuits have since been brought against Combs for abuse, sexual misconduct and rape. The latest was filed on Tuesday by Crystal McKinney, a former model and winner of MTV’s 1998 Model Mission competition.
She claimed she was “drugged and sexually assaulted” in 2003 by Combs following a fashion event in New York. BBC News has contacted Diddy’s representatives for comment on the claims.
When the first lawsuits were filed, the rapper called the accusations “sickening” and said the alleged victims were looking for “a quick pay day”.
But the video of the assault on Ms Ventura undermined those denials.
Combs was silent for two days after its release, before posting an apology to Instagram, admitting it was him in the tape and calling his actions “inexcusable”.
“I was disgusted then when I did it,” he said, “and I’m disgusted now.”
“I went and I sought out professional help,” he continued. “I got into going to therapy, going to rehab. I had to ask God for his mercy and grace. I’m so sorry.”
Combs did not mention Cassie Ventura in his apology, and her lawyers hit back, saying: “Combs’ recent statement is more about himself than the many people he has hurt.”
The apology was “too little too late,” said Camron Dowlatshahi, an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles. “It shows the short-sightedness of Diddy, thinking he’s not going to be held accountable and that he has enough money to take care of everything.
Barnett, who has written about misogyny in the rap industry, described the statement as “the most ill-advised apology ever”. She suggested it was from the “classic ‘famous man’ playbook: deny, deny, deny. Get caught. Apologise, then talk about going to therapy.”
“No-one’s taking it seriously, particularly because he previously accused Cassie and others of being gold-diggers. That really angered a lot of people in the music industry.”
In April, news helicopters on both the US east and west coasts filmed police raids on mansions linked to the rapper. They were part of an ongoing criminal investigation by law enforcement into sex trafficking.
The man who was idolised as a hip-hop legend has been lying low since then.
Family pictures with his daughters posted to Combs’ Instagram account are in stark contrast to the images of him carrying out a violent assault.
The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office said on Friday that it would not be able to bring charges due to the statute of limitations for assault. So where does the CCTV video, and the ongoing investigation, leave his career?
In his music, Diddy has often relied on collaborations with other A-list stars. His last album featured Mary J Blige, The Weekend, 21 Savage, and John Legend. He is extremely unlikely to be able to recreate such productions now.
But whether there will be an effect on his vast number of listeners is less clear. Fitness company Peloton has banned his music from its workout playlists already, according to TMZ, but other companies are yet to comment.
R Kelly continues to get millions of monthly listeners on Spotify, despite convictions for child sexual abuse.
Meanwhile, Kanye West experienced a peak in his monthly listeners last year, despite being dropped by brands for expressing antisemitic views.
Those who passed by Diddy’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this week reflected on what the video meant to the rapper’s fans.
“It’s career-ending. I don’t know how he’s going to come back from this,” said Mar Anthony, a Los Angeles local. “I was a fan when I was a kid, listening to Every Breath You Take (I’ll Be Missing You). But what he did and the music, they’re two different things.
“It’s the same thing with Michael Jackson,” he said, nodding towards another Walk of Fame star that lies not far away – in an apparent reference to allegations of child abuse made against that star.
Diddy “definitely deserves what is coming to him”, said Prince Laurenz Hamlin, who was visiting LA. “But he still has built a legacy in the music industry. I think people will have to separate the art from the artist.”
One woman, after snapping a photo of Combs’ star, simply muttered “predator” as she walked away.
It is unclear who is currently advising Sean Combs. The law firm that previously issued denials on his behalf has said it no longer represents him.
Despite the civil lawsuits there have been no criminal charges filed against him. But the ongoing police investigation will no doubt be weighing heavily on the rapper.
“The Department of Homeland Security was involved [in the raids],” said Mr Dowlatshahi. “Just that fact alone shows the severity of what’s going on here.”
© BBC News
David Ellison, 41, would not be the first rich guy to arrive in Hollywood with a fat bank account and dreams of making movies, though the son of billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison boasts the rarest of attributes for a budding media mogul: a Silicon Valley pedigree.
In an industry where many get their start fetching coffee or moving props, Ellison spent summers writing computer code for his father’s software company and getting insights on the movie business from Pixar Animation Studios co-founder Steve Jobs. Those geek sensibilities will come in handy if he succeeds in his bid to take over Paramount Global, a storied studio whose fortunes have been upended by technological change.
Ellison is orchestrating a multi-step transaction that would result in the merger of his independent studio, Skydance Media, with Paramount. Skydance entered into a 30-day exclusive negotiation with a special committee of the Paramount board, though as with any talks, a deal is not assured.
If Paramount’s board recommends the merger, it would present an opportunity for Ellison to revitalize the venerable studio, whose library of 1,000 films includes classics like “Star Trek,” “The Godfather” and “Indiana Jones,” and whose television assets include broadcaster CBS and cable networks MTV and Nickelodeon.
Ellison would likely restructure the company to deliver the highest-quality content and recalibrate the Paramount+ streaming service in a way that differentiates it from its rivals, according to one person familiar with Skydance’s strategy.
“One of the things that people are under-estimating … is his sense of tech, compared to some of the other guys, … maybe with his father’s help or just his upbringing,” said Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel. “What they do with Paramount+ and all that other stuff I think will be refreshing.”
Skydance also is seeking to buy National Amusements, the Redstone family’s holding company, which owns 77% of Paramount’s class-A voting stock. That deal is contingent upon Paramount agreeing to acquire Skydance in an all-stock transaction valued at $5 billion.
Ellison demonstrated an appetite for risk-taking from an early age, learning to fly when he was 13 with his father, who took lessons with him. By the age of 16, David Ellison was flying an Extra 300, a high-performance aerobatic plane.
The studio’s name takes its inspiration from Ellison’s love of stunt flying, also known as “skydancing.”
Ellison and his sister, Megan, were raised by their mother, Barbara Boothe, who instilled in them a strong work ethic (they received a $5 weekly allowance for performing chores) and a love of film. Every weekend, they watched movies, he has told people.
Ellison enrolled in Pepperdine University to study business, but transferred to the University of California’s film school. A GQ magazine profile of Ellison in 2015 noted that sister Megan served as a boom operator on her brother’s senior-thesis movie. In 2011, she founded her own studio, Annapurna Pictures, which backed such Oscar-nominated films as “Zero Dark Thirty” and “American Hustle.”
In 2006, Ellison dropped out of school to finance “Flyboys,” a World War I movie about fighter pilots starring James Franco and Ellison. The film flopped and another project, “Northern Lights,” failed to take flight.
Ellison then sought another tack. Skydance struck a four-year deal with Paramount Pictures that led to Ellison’s first success, the Coen brothers’ 2010 remake of the western “True Grit,” which garnered 10 Oscar nominations. Other box office triumphs have followed, including “World War Z,” “Star Trek,” a trio of “Mission: Impossible” films and “Top Gun: Maverick.”
Bryan Lourd, co-chairman and chief executive of the Creative Artists Agency, said Ellison is detail-oriented and an advocate for projects, both creatively and in terms of deal structure. Because Ellison worked on these big projects early in his career, he had the opportunity to learn from the best.
If Ellison lands the deal, he will be “an owner-operator that actually loves film and television and stories, and that is needed now more than ever,” Lourd said.
Skydance studio has grown with Ellison’s ambitions. The studio now employs 1,300 people and is on track to deliver six live-action feature films, 10 television series and plus two animated movies over the next year.
In 2016, Skydance acquired The Workshop Entertainment to launch a game group, Skydance Interactive. In 2017 Skydance launched an animation division, now led by former Pixar creative chief John Lasseter. It expanded into sports-related scripted series and documentaries in 2021, forming partnerships with the National Football League, Tom Brady’s Religion of Sports and John Skipper’s Meadowlark Media.
Skydance is backed by investments from the Ellison family, RedBird Capital Partners, KKR, Chinese internet giant Tencent, and Korean powerhouse CJ ENM and its entertainment subsidiary, Studio Dragon.
© Reuters
All five members of the Spice Girls have reunited, just perhaps not as you’d expect.
On Saturday night, Victoria Beckham, Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton, Geri Horner and Melanie Chisholm, better known as Posh, Scary, Baby, Ginger and Sporty Spice, came together to celebrate Victoria’s 50th birthday in London.
The bandmates partied like it was 1997, performing their classic song, Stop.
David Beckham shared the moment on Instagram, and was seen singing along.
“I mean come on,” Victoria’s husband, and former England captain, 48, wrote in his caption.
David Beckham was seen carrying Victoria out of the party
Victoria responded in the comments, writing: “Best night ever! Happy Birthday to me! I love you all so much! #SpiceUpYourLife.”
The hashtag relates to a song of the same name, released by the Spice Girls during their 1990s heyday.
The party, which was reported to have taken place at Oswald’s private members club in Mayfair, saw celebrity appearances from the likes of Tom Cruise, Salma Hayek, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Gordon Ramsay.
Eva Longoria added some LA glamour to proceedings
Ahead of the party, Victoria shared a series of photos on Instagram of her family, including her husband and the couple’s four children – Brooklyn, Romeo, Cruz and Harper.
“Can’t wait to celebrate with my family and friends! I love you all so much,”the fashion designer wrote.
Beckham and his three sons were all dressed in tuxedos. Victoria opted for a light green ball gown, while Harper wore a cream floor-length dress.
Victoria has recently been pictured on crutches, although she wasn’t using them in the pictures she shared on social media.
The Spice Girls – sans Posh – last performed together in 2019
The bandmates did not appear to be using microphones during the birthday performance, but were seen singing along as they performed the Stop dance routine together.
Samuel Zernig, a Spice Girls “superfan” and comedian, told BBC News he “hasn’t stopped smiling” after seeing the video, adding: “Christmas came early.”
The Spice Girls in their 90s heyday
He continued: “It is really wonderful to see that it has been 30 years since they formed, and just this tiny, tiny video generated global headlines.”
Tom Cruise signed autographs for fans on his way out of the party
Fans on social media were overjoyed to see the five Spice Girls back together for the first time in years, with many commenting on Beckham’s post.
“David, you are the best social media manager out there, thank you for giving the people content,” wrote one.
“The moment the entire planet has been waiting for,” wrote another.
“How my daughter feels about Taylor Swift is how I feel about these girls,” a third person said.
Mel B, aka Scary Spice, wore a red dress to the party
Other fans pleaded with the band to go on tour again, with one asking: “Can we have a word about transporting this to Glastonbury please?”
Bookmaker Coral has now slashed the odds on an official Spice Girls reunion in 2024 – and a Glastonbury performance and new album in 2025 – following the birthday bash performance.
The Spice Girls came together in 1994, after they responded to an advert for candidates to form an all-girl group.
After the release of their chart-topping debut single Wannabe in 1996, “Spice mania” swept the planet, with their self-styled “Girl Power” mantra – a brand of female empowerment that made them a global pop culture phenomenon.
Geri Halliwell, aka Ginger Spice, joined in the fun at Posh’s celebrations
In total, they scored nine UK number one hits, which also included Say You’ll Be There, 2 Become 1, Who Do You Think You Are, Spice Up Your Life and Viva Forever.
Geri Halliwell left the Spice Girls in 1998 and the group finally split up in 2001. But they reunited for tours in 2007 and a performance at the London Olympics closing ceremony in 2012. A European tour took place in 2019 but without Victoria.
© BBC News
O.J. Simpson, the American football star and actor who was sensationally acquitted in 1995 of murdering his former wife in what U.S. media dubbed the “trial of the century”, has died at the age of 76.
His family said in a social media post on Thursday that he had died on Wednesday after a battle with cancer.
Simpson was found not guilty in the 1994 stabbing deaths of former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles, although he was found responsible for her death in a civil lawsuit.
Simpson later served nine years in a Nevada prison after being convicted in 2008 on 12 counts of armed robbery and kidnapping two sports memorabilia dealers at gunpoint in a Las Vegas hotel.
Nicknamed “The Juice,” Simpson was one of the best and most popular athletes of the late 1960s and 1970s. He overcame childhood infirmity to become an electrifying running back at the University of Southern California and won the Heisman Trophy as college football’s top player. After a record-setting career in the NFL with the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Simpson parlayed his football stardom into a career as a sportscaster, advertising pitchman and Hollywood actor in films including the “Naked Gun” series.
All that changed after Nicole Brown Simpson and Goldman were found fatally slashed in a bloody scene outside her Los Angeles home on June 12, 1994.
Simpson quickly emerged as a suspect. He was ordered to surrender to police but five days after the killings, he fled in his white Ford Bronco with a former teammate – carrying his passport and a disguise. A slow-speed chase through the Los Angeles area ended at Simpson’s mansion and he was later charged in the murders.
What ensued was one of the most notorious trials in 20th century America and a media circus. It had everything: a rich celebrity defendant; a Black man accused of killing his white former wife out of jealousy; a woman slain after divorcing a man who had beaten her; a “dream team” of pricy and charismatic defense lawyers; and a huge gaffe by prosecutors.
Simpson, who at the outset of the case declared himself “absolutely 100 percent not guilty,” waved at the jurors and mouthed the words “thank you” after the predominately Black panel of 10 women and two men acquitted him on Oct. 3, 1995.
Prosecutors argued that Simpson killed Nicole in a jealous fury, and they presented extensive blood, hair and fiber tests linking Simpson to the murders. The defense countered that the celebrity defendant was framed by racist white police.
The trial transfixed America. In the White House, President Bill Clinton left the Oval Office and watched the verdict on his secretary’s TV. Many Black Americans celebrated his acquittal, seeing Simpson as the victim of bigoted police. Many white Americans were appalled by his exoneration.
Simpson’s legal team included prominent criminal defense lawyers Johnnie Cochran, Alan Dershowitz and F. Lee Bailey, who often out-maneuvered the prosecution. Prosecutors committed a memorable blunder when they directed Simpson to try on a pair of blood-stained gloves found at the murder scene, confident they would fit perfectly and show he was the killer.
In a highly theatrical demonstration, Simpson struggled to put on the gloves and indicated to the jury they did not fit.
Delivering the trial’s most famous words, Cochran referred to the gloves in closing arguments to jurors with a rhyme: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” Dershowitz later called the prosecution decision to ask Simpson to try on the gloves “the greatest legal blunder of the 20th century.”
“What this verdict tells you is how fame and money can buy the best defense, can take a case of overwhelming incriminating physical evidence and transform it into a case riddled with reasonable doubt,” Peter Arenella, a UCLA law professor, told the New York Times after the verdict.
O.J. Simpson appears in court during the second day of a preliminary hearing at the Clark County Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, November 9, 2007. Simpson and two co-defendants faced charges relating to an alleged robbery at a Las Vegas hotel. REUTERS
“A predominantly African-American jury was more susceptible to claims of police incompetence and corruption and more willing to impose a higher burden of proof than normally required for proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” Arenella said.
After his acquittal, Simpson said that “I will pursue as my primary goal in life the killer or killers who slayed Nicole and Mr. Goldman… They are out there somewhere… I would not, could not and did not kill anyone.”
The Goldman and Brown families subsequently pursued a wrongful death lawsuit against Simpson in civil court. In 1997, a predominately white jury in Santa Monica, California, found Simpson liable for the two deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million in damages.
“We finally have justice for Ron and Nicole,” Fred Goldman, Ron Goldman’s father, said after the verdict.
Simpson’s “dream team” did not represent him in the civil trial in which the burden of proof was lower than in a criminal trial – a “preponderance of the evidence” rather than “beyond a reasonable doubt.” New evidence also hurt Simpson, including photographs of him wearing the type of shoes that had left bloody footprints at the murder scene.
After the civil case, some of Simpson’s belongings, including memorabilia from his football days, were taken and auctioned off to help pay the damages he owed.
On Oct. 3, 2008, exactly 13 years after his acquittal in the murder trial, he was convicted by a Las Vegas jury on charges including kidnapping and armed robbery. These stemmed from a 2007 incident at a casino hotel in which Simpson and five men, at least two carrying guns, stole sports memorabilia worth thousands of dollars from two dealers.
Simpson said he was just trying to recover his own property but was sentenced to up to 33 years in prison.
“I didn’t want to hurt anybody,” Simpson, donning a blue prison jumpsuit with shackles on his legs and wrists, said at his sentencing. “I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong.”
Simpson was released on parole in 2017 and moved into a gated community in Las Vegas. He was granted early release from parole in 2021 due to good behavior at age 74.
His life saga was recounted in the Oscar-winning 2016 documentary “O.J.: Made in America” as well as various TV dramatizations.
Orenthal James Simpson was born in San Francisco on July 9, 1947. He contracted rickets at age 2 and was forced to wear leg braces until he was 5 but recovered so thoroughly that he became one of the most celebrated football players of all time.
During nine seasons for the Buffalo Bills and two for the San Francisco 49ers, Simpson became one of the greatest ball carriers in NFL history. In 1973, he became the first NFL player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season. He retired in 1979.
Simpson also became an advertising pitchman, best known for years of TV commercials for Hertz rental cars. As an actor, he appeared in movies including “The Towering Inferno” (1974), “Capricorn One” (1977) and the “The Naked Gun” cop spoof films in 1988, 1991 and 1994, playing a witless police detective.
Simpson married his first wife, Marguerite, in 1967 and they had three children, including one who drowned in the family’s swimming pool at age 2 in 1979, the year the couple divorced.
Simpson met future wife Nicole Brown when she was a 17-year-old waitress and he was still married to Marguerite. Simpson and Brown married in 1985 and had two children. She later called police after incidents in which he struck her. Simpson pleaded no contest to spousal abuse charges in 1989.
© Reuters
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