Letitia Wright is ready to return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The actress, who starred as Shuri in Black Panther and its sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, teased a return to the character while guesting on Wednesday’s episode of The View.
“There are some new Avenger movies on the horizon, and everyone wants to know if Shuri will be making another appearance in the Marvel universe. We need it,” The View co-host Sunny Hostin said.
“I would like to continue with Shuri. She’s one of my favorite characters, such a blessing, honestly, I kid you not. I’m so grateful for her,” Wright said.
Hostin continued with her questioning, asking if fans could expect a Black Panther 3 film in the future.
“There’s a lot coming up,” Wright said in response, with a big smile on her face.
(NEW YORK) — Pope Francis formally signed off on allowing Catholic priests to bless same-sex couples in December 2023.
But decades before the pope’s historic announcement, a New York City church has embraced the LGBTQ+ community and provided a safe space for worship.
The Church of St. Francis Xavier, in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, provided services for AIDS patients while others refused, including being one of the first to bury a person who died of the virus during the epidemic of the 1980s. More recently, the church became the new home for a decadeslong memorial for people who died from AIDS-related complications when the original host parish was closed as part of the Archdiocese of New York’s reorganization plans.
“We came and we never left,” Roe Sauerzopf told ABC News Live, recalling the first time she and her wife, Paula Acuti, had attended Sunday Mass at St. Francis, and how they immediately felt “safe” to be themselves.
“It’s been a struggle to be a lesbian, and to be a Catholic lesbian has been even more of a struggle,” Acuti, a New York resident, shared with a room full of women who attend a Catholic Lesbian group at the church and can relate to her experience, all nodding in agreement, while eating cheese and crackers and sipping wine on a Friday night.
“I had left the Catholic Church because of the attitude toward gay people,” Sauerzopf added.
“It was on Pride Sunday and the priest said that everybody there should pray for all the sinners who were marching in the city. And I think that’s the last time that we went into a church for a long time,” Acuti told ABC News Live.
It was at least 15 years before the couple found their way back to the Catholic Church. When attending a friend’s wedding in the early 2000s, they shared with a straight couple that they had felt unaccepted to be themselves within their religion.
“We were complaining to them about how there really is no accepting Catholic churches and they were like ‘oh no, there is one,’” Acuti said.
That’s when Acuti and Sauerzopf found St. Francis Xavier.
They soon became involved in the parish’s Catholic Lesbian group, which was founded in 1995, and now has more than 300 participating members.
Pastor Kenneth Boller, who leads the LGBTQ+ friendly groups at the church, said the parish has been welcoming of all people for “many, many years.”
“It’s important for everybody to find groups of people who are ‘like’ instead of ‘other.’ So you can develop friendships, you can share experiences,” Boller said. “What’s important is that people find a place to pray.”
The Catholic Lesbians group meets monthly to pray together and share their own faith experiences. With a wide range of ages, the youngest member is 18 years old and the oldest members are in their 80s.
Acuti and Sauerzopf, who have been together for 45 years, got married at St. Francis Xavier in 2004, when same-sex marriage was still illegal in the United States.
Sauerzopf said the ceremony was for their 25th anniversary, and the priest at the time told them to invite their family and friends.
“He did a whole Mass, he blessed our rings, he just couldn’t sign the papers.”
It was a day the couple said they’d never forget. Wanting other same-sex couples to feel the acceptance they had received, they helped plan a surprise ceremony at a recent Catholic Lesbian retreat for a newlywed couple who joined the group during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“They’re just the most welcoming group we found,” McKenna Coyle, who is in her 20s, said, describing the group as “family.”
It was the last day of the retreat when Coyle and her wife, who were celebrating their one-year anniversary, walked into a room with music playing, a cake and photos from their wedding day displayed.
“They blessed us to celebrate our wedding since we can’t get married in the Catholic Church,” Coyle said.
“It’s a blessing on persons because everyone, every person, is entitled to be blessed. It’s not a blessing or endorsement of their living situation, but a realization that these are people of goodwill,” Boller said, in describing the Vatican policy change.
“The Pope says all are welcome. But then he kind of backtracks a little,” Sauerzopf said. “But this church doesn’t do the backtrack. They keep it up.”
In addition to advocating for equality within the Catholic Church, Sauerzopf also said she would like to see more women in leadership roles within the church. The Church of St. Francis Xavier allows women to perform the homily during Mass, Sauerzopf said, which is rare within the Catholic religion.
“We shouldn’t be the oasis. We should be what it’s all like,” she said, while sitting in a church pew.
(CHICAGO) — Wednesday marks one week since Taylor Casey, 41, went missing while attending a yoga retreat on Paradise Island in the Bahamas.
The Chicago woman’s mother, Colette Seymore, is among a small group traveling to the Bahamas on Wednesday to help in the search, according to a statement from Casey’s family. Seymore spoke to ABC News about the situation.
“You know, a mother’s intuition and answers I was getting just didn’t correlate, just wasn’t what I wanted to hear,” Seymore told ABC News. “A young lady called me and said, ‘have you heard from Taylor?’ And I’m like, I’m looking at the phone because I know she was from the yoga retreat … and then she said ‘Taylor hasn’t showed up for yoga classes.'”
The Royal Bahamas Police Force issued a missing person bulletin on June 21, two days after the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat reported to police that Casey did not show up for morning classes.
The yoga retreat said it also reported the disappearance to the U.S. Embassy and Casey’s family.
Concerned for her safety, Casey’s family and friends started a Facebook page titled “Find Taylor Casey” to help spread awareness and bring her home.
“Taylor always calls me, keeps in touch. Taylor sent me beautiful pictures from the Bahamas, Taylor in the ocean,” Seymore told ABC News. “We want Taylor home. We need Taylor in our lives. We miss Taylor.”
Seymore says her daughter has been practicing yoga for 15 years. She says that Casey — who she describes as a joyful person always looking to better herself — went to the retreat to fulfill her long-term goal of deepening her practice.
“She was excited about attending this teacher’s training, so that she could learn, get her certification, and then bring yoga back to Chicago, to teach people here,” Emily Williams, a friend of Casey’s, told ABC News.
The U.S. State Department issued a Level 2 travel advisory in January, advising travelers to “exercise increased caution in The Bahamas due to crime.” The advisory remained in effect when Casey went missing.
“We have received sparse updates, but they’ve been sparse, and we want to make sure that they are taking this case as seriously as we are taking it,” Williams said. “And we know that we need to be there face to face so that we can get all the information that we need. And so that we can advocate fully for Taylor.”
Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat told ABC News it is cooperating with authorities on the investigation.
The search for Casey is ongoing, with authorities searching by ground and with drones, the Royal Bahamas Police Force told ABC News on Tuesday.
Police are continuing the search for the missing woman Wednesday, the police force said.
A State Department spokesperson told ABC News the department is aware of reports of a U.S. citizen missing in the Bahamas, but declined further comment due to privacy concerns.
(WASHINGTON) — Federal prosecutors say they’re looking for a Russian civilian who allegedly hacked dozens of Ukrainian government agencies in the lead-up to the 2022 invasion.
Amin Stigal, 22, is wanted for conspiracy to commit computer intrusion and damage, for his alleged role in the cyberattacks, the Department of Justice said after it unsealed the indictment Wednesday.
The DOJ alleged that Stigal supported the Russian GRU’s activities by setting up infrastructure for them to conduct cyberattacks, and is alleged to have used a so-called “WhisperGate” malware to target the government entities that included military units and critical infrastructure systems.
The malware would make it appear to victims as if they were being targeted in a ransomware attack, when their data had actually been deleted and their systems rendered inoperable, according to the indictment.
Prior to installing the malware, prosecutors claim Stigal and his co-conspirators would exfiltrate data from their targets and would post it for sale on the internet, in order to “sow concern” among Ukraine’s citizens regarding the safety of their personal information in advance of Russia’s invasion, the indictment states.
In a January 2022 cyberattack, the hackers compromised computers that hosted information including criminal records, patient health data and motor vehicle insurance information, prosecutors allege.
The hackers then allegedly posted a message on Ukraine’s government website reading, “Ukrainians! All information about you has become public, be afraid and expect the worst. This is for your past, present and future,” according to the indictment.
Prosecutors also accuse the group of hacking into an unnamed central European country’s transportation infrastructure in October 2022 that had supported Ukraine, and claim they also “probed systems” in the United States, including an unnamed government agency in Maryland.
The indictment does not state if the American agency’s systems were infiltrated or otherwise affected by the group’s malware.
A $10 million reward is being offered for information that leads to Stigal’s capture, according to the Justice Department.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday “inadvertently and briefly” uploaded what it said was a “document” about a ruling in a yet-to-be-released, high-profile case over Idaho’s ban on abortions that reportedly indicates the court is poised to require the state allow emergency access — for now.
“The Court’s Publications Unit inadvertently and briefly uploaded a document to the Court’s website,” Supreme Court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe said in a statement.
McCabe said the opinion “has not been released” but would be issued “in due course.”
Bloomberg News was first to report the errant posting and said the document appeared to indicate that the justices had voted to dismiss the Idaho case as “improvidently granted.”
Such an outcome would mean a lower court order requiring access to abortion in emergency situations in Idaho would be reinstated.
Idaho’s Defense of Life Act prohibits nearly all abortions except in reported cases of rape, incest or to prevent the death of the mother. It does not allow an exception when the health of a pregnant woman is at risk.
The Biden administration argued the law is conflict with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, which requires hospitals receiving Medicare funds to provide “necessary stabilizing treatment.”
ABC News did not independently view or obtain the document and it is not clear that what was posted is, in fact, the final ruling. By tradition and under the court’s rules, the justices can change opinions up to the moment of public release.
The premature posting is an embarrassing misstep for the nation’s hight court, which has sought to tighten security measures around the drafting and release of opinions after a 2022 leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s landmark opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health overruling Roe v. Wade.
The rapper recently appeared on the program, tapped as part of its Black Music Month celebration. She took the stage with her background singers, the Floettes, and Atlanta’s Band of Brothas, performing “Conceited,” “Bed Time” and “In the Party” before introducing her viral hit “Beef FloMix.”
“This next song was my first song to ever blow up. I wrote this in my mom’s house [when] I was 18. This is my baby,” she said. Flo then closed out the set with “Weak” and an acoustic version of “Never Lose Me” featuring a new verse.
Flo was part June’s all-female lineup, which also put a spotlight on Tems, Brittney Spencer, Tierra Whack and Chaka Khan.
“So, this sort of occurred to me this time last year like, ‘Wow, it’s too many dudes,’ and I want to really go for it this year, and really honor the women that helped shape Black music to me, which is all music,” producer and host Bobby Carter said. “I knew this was going to be something that we would do last year.”
