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2 right-wing provocateurs facing election-related charges in Minnesota

2 right-wing provocateurs facing election-related charges in Minnesota


Two right-wing provocateurs, James O’Keefe and Cam Higby, are facing election-related charges in Minnesota after posting videos of an undercover stunt intended to expose alleged deficiencies in election security. 

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said each man faces a count of unlawful voting and identity theft. 

“Elections are the bedrock of democracy and their protection is one of our highest priorities,” Moriarty said in a statement. “Individuals engaging in unlawful conduct related to our elections will be held accountable.” 

O’Keefe, a self-proclaimed “guerilla journalist” infamous for his undercover videos, and Higby, a social media influencer, posted the video at the heart of the charges in August. It shows the two men approaching election judges at multiple voting precincts in Minneapolis wearing burqas, speaking in fake accents, and allegedly misrepresenting their identities, in an effort to expose what O’Keefe and Higby say are gaps in the rules that allow residents to vouch for the identity of other voters. 

The video, which remains pinned on Higby’s X account, is called “I Wore Burqa To EXPOSE Election FRAUD In Minneapolis.” 

No ballots were cast in the course of their efforts.

Prosecutors said Wednesday that O’Keefe and Higby deceived the election judges by using the identities of real Minnesota voters “without those voters’ knowledge or permission” in violation of state law. Each count carries up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. Neither man is in custody, according to charging documents. 

In a statement shared on X, Higby said, “No laws were broken. They want me in PRISON for exposing election vulnerabilities in their state.” O’Keefe did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Steve Simon, the state’s top election official, said in a statement that “any attempt to disrupt or deceive our election workers will not be tolerated.” 

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Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato recreate ‘Princess Protection Program’ in new photos

Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato recreate ‘Princess Protection Program’ in new photos


Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato are the perfect team in a new Rare Beauty campaign.

“Delena” is so back in the new product launch for Gomez’s beauty brand. The former best friends appear in new photos inspired by the 2009 Disney Channel Original Movie they starred in together, Princess Protection Program.

Gomez shared the photos in an Instagram post on Wednesday.

“Once a Princess, always a Princess,” Gomez wrote. “Best friends don’t just have each other’s backs. They make them blush too. @ddlovato @rarebeauty.”

These new photos find Gomez and Lovato dressed as their Princess Protection Program characters Carter Mason and Princess Rosalinda María Montoya Fioré. The first photo in the carousel recreates the film’s poster, with both women wearing the blue and yellow dresses their characters are known for. The second photo shows off the new Rare Beauty products, while the third photo finds Gomez and Lovato, still in costume as their former characters, putting the makeup on.

The new Rare Beauty products are even named after their friendship portmanteau. Called the Delena, it is a set of two Rare Beauty Soft Pinch liquid blushes in the shades Hope and Virtue. A free blush brush is included in the bundle.

A description on Rare Beauty’s website says that “after nearly 25 years of friendship, Selena and Demi prove that true friends don’t just have your back — they make you blush.”

Hope is described as Gomez’s shade, a nude mauve with a dewy finish, while Virtue is Lovato’s, a beige peach shade also with a dewy finish.

Rare Beauty’s account also posted a video with the women vlogging in what appears to be a teen girl’s bedroom. Photos from the set of Princess Protection Program adorn the walls, while the song Gomez and Lovato recorded for the film, “One and the Same,” plays in the background.

“It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?” Lovato asks in the video. The pair lip-synch to their song while jumping on the twin bed and dancing around the room. At the end of the video, Gomez asks, “Who is your best friend?” Lovato looks at her with a huge smile, letting the question linger as the words, “Still making each other blush,” appear on the screen with “#DelenaIsBack.”

Gomez took to her Instagram Story to promote the collaboration, writing, “The most special day,” and tagging Lovato. 

Gomez and Lovato originally met after starring on Barney & Friends in 2002. They remained close friends while both starring on their own respective Disney Channel shows, Wizards of Waverly Place and Sonny With a Chance, before teaming up for Princess Protection Program.

After a reported fallout that lasted for years, the women seem to have mended their relationship. Gomez even attended one of Lovato’s It’s Not That Deep Tour concerts in April. “I am in tears,” Gomez wrote on her Instagram Story at the time. “@ddlovato — this was hands down one of the best shows. Oh and the VOCALS? … blown away.”

It’s been a year of Disney Channel nostalgia for Lovato, who also executive produced and cameoed in Camp Rock 3. That movie reunited her with the Jonas Brothers and premiered on Aug. 13.

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Ex-FBI agents fighting charges accusing them of lying about Hunter Biden probe

Ex-FBI agents fighting charges accusing them of lying about Hunter Biden probe


Attorneys for two former FBI agents charged with lying to Congress about past probes of Hunter Biden are back in court Wednesday seeking to convince a magistrate judge to immediately dismiss their case, citing a lack of evidence and alleged prosecutorial misconduct.

In a marathon hearing Tuesday, magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui lambasted the conduct of federal prosecutors, striking from the record a superseding complaint they attempted to file in the case because it lacked proper signoff from a judge.

Faruqui said the growing record of “inappropriate” actions by the government was “throwing enormous amounts of gasoline onto this fire,” which supported arguments from lawyers for former agents Nikki Floris and Brian Benavides that the charges against them were politically motivated.

“And so everything you’re doing just is making me more and more concerned that there’s something to that,” Faruqui told DOJ prosecutors.

The Justice Department on Friday charged Floris and Bradley with allegedly making false statements to Congress stemming from a probe into whether investigators in the lead-up to the 2020 election sought to suppress or discredit the veracity of material on the laptop of former President Joe Biden’s son that included embarrassing photos and videos.

Under cross-examination by attorneys for Floris and Benavides, FBI agent Bryan Witt, who was tasked with investigating their clients, disclosed that the genesis for the entire case was President Donald Trump’s July speech that centered around unverified claims of fraud in past U.S. elections.

Witt said that following the speech, FBI Director Kash Patel personally assigned the investigation of a list of former agents, including Floris and Benavides, to the FBI’s Kansas City field office.

Witt, who conceded that the sequence of events was unusual, further testified that the office received regular check-ins from FBI leadership on the status of their probe.

At the start of Wednesday’s hearing, a DOJ attorney sought to object to a line of questioning related to Trump and Patel’s personal involvement in initiating the investigation.

Faruqui seemed skeptical of the objection, saying that the testimony appeared to be directly relevant to his eventual determination of whether there is sufficient probable cause for the charges.

“It’s not typical that the president of the United States says go investigate people,” Faruqui said. “So that seems to squarely fit within an investigation to the reasonableness of the basis for the charge.”

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Matthew Perry’s sister remembers him 3 years after his death amid new docuseries

Matthew Perry’s sister remembers him 3 years after his death amid new docuseries


Matthew Perry’s sister Mia Perry Bowick is remembering her brother three years after his death.

Bowick, who appears in the new Netflix docuseries The One About Matthew Perry, sat down with ABC News’ Juju Chang and said that who audiences saw on television was who her brother was off screen.

“We all have those celebrities or stars that we really love, and you know, you talk with your friends and go, ‘Do you think he’s just that great in real life?’ And what I want to say to everyone was yes, he was,” Bowick said.

She added, “I think we tried the best that we could to really take care of each other in a lot of ways. So he was my person, I was his person.”

The three-part docuseries marks Bowick’s first time speaking on camera about her brother. She, along with family and friends, remembered fond memories with Perry. For Bowick, that included attending tapings of Friends when she was younger and getting to know the cast.

“They were so sweet,” Bowick recalled. “It was just, ‘Oh, Matty’s little sister is here,’ and I would go sit in the ladies’ dressing room and play with my hair. It’s just very, very little sister vibes. It was lovely and they’re such generous people. All of them are just really, really lovely.”

Bowick also shared how much the Friends cast loved Perry and described a touching moment that happened at Perry’s memorial following his death in October 2023.

“I wasn’t expecting to see them,” she said. “I was in the fog of grief. I don’t know what I was thinking. But as they came in, I was just blown over and it was so wonderful to see them and how much the cast deeply, deeply, deeply loved him.”

Perry died from acute effects of ketamine, according to an autopsy report released in December 2023 after his death. He was 54.

The autopsy listed drowning, coronary artery disease and buprenorphine effects as contributing factors not related to the immediate cause of death. The manner of death was ruled an accident.

In 2024, Kenneth Iwamasa, Perry’s live-in assistant, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine resulting in death. Iwamasa is currently serving a 3-year, 5-month sentence in federal prison.

Leading up to his death the Friends star had been open about his addiction to alcohol and prescription painkillers, which were triggered after a doctor prescribed him Vicodin following a jet ski accident. He wrote about his struggles in his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.

Perry also opened up about his ongoing battles in one of his last interviews with Diane Sawyer.

At his memorial, Bowick recalls a moment when she felt her brother’s presence.

“I just immediately had this sense that he’s standing behind me and just reached over and was like, ‘How effed up is this?'” she said. “Like it’s just exactly how he would say it in real life. And I was just like, ‘Yeah, Matty, this is really messed up!’ And I just started laughing so hard with tears running down my face and feeling a little funny about the fact that I’m laughing hysterically at this moment while he’s being put into the mausoleum.”

Three years after his death, Bowick says that Perry still continues to guide her.

“I would sit on my beautiful porch in Colorado and I would talk to my brother,” she said. “He would sit in the chair next to me and I say, man, this is getting really tough. And he would say things like, ‘It’s gonna be fine.'”

The One About Matthew Perry is available to stream now on Netflix.

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Jury selection set to begin in Los Angeles in Snap, Meta social media addiction case

Jury selection set to begin in Los Angeles in Snap, Meta social media addiction case


Lawyers representing Meta and Snap will be back in court this week in the latest trial over claims their apps were designed to get teens and children hooked.

Jury selection begins Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court in the next potential bellwether case involving two teenage girls who say addictive features like “Snapstreaks,” push notifications and view counts worsened their mental health.

In the complaint, an18-year-old from Mississippi who goes by “K.D.B.” claims her compulsive use of Snapchat and Instagram, which is owned by Meta, contributed to depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidal thoughts.

“To this day, the addictive qualities of Defendants’ products and their harmful algorithms are not fully known or understood by minor users or their parents,” the plantiffs’ lawyers wrote in the complaint.

In a statement to ABC News, a Snap spokesperson said the allegations “misrepresent” the plantiffs’ experiences on the app.

“From the beginning, Snapchat was built differently from traditional social media: it opens to a camera, not a feed, not a ranking of what other people post or other social comparison metrics. We have built safeguards into the platform, introduced safety tools and educational resources, and we believe the evidence will support that we have put our community first, and that these allegations fundamentally misrepresent the plaintiffs’ experiences on Snapchat and how our platform was designed,” the Snap spokesperson said.

Meta has previously pushed back on allegations it does not protect young users on its platforms, pointing to features like Teen Accounts.

A Meta spokesperson responded to the latest lawsuit, telling ABC News: “We disagree with these allegations and will defend ourselves in court. A young person’s mental health is shaped by many factors, as the evidence in this trial will show. The plaintiff used TikTok far more than Instagram or Facebook, and her personal circumstances were a substantial factor in her struggles,” adding, “We’ve spent more than a decade building protections for teens, and our agreement with 52 bipartisan attorneys general goes even further with strict time limits, no access at night, and no notifications during school hours. We hope the rest of our industry joins us in setting this new standard.”

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and Instagram’s top executive Adam Mosseri are expected to testify in November.

A similar landmark trial in the same courtroom against Meta and YouTube in March saw a jury side with the plaintiff “K.G.M.” and award her $6 million in damages. The companies are appealing. Snap and TikTok settled before the trial.

Meta has faced a slew of high-stakes legal battles this year as states, school districts and individuals try to use the courts to force tech companies to pay penalties and make changes to their products.

In a historic settlement with 48 states in August, Meta agreed to pay up to $18 billion and make significant changes to its apps for young users including setting time limits, disabling some filters and hiding like counts. Meta did not admit wrongdoing.

The tech giant is calling for other companies including TikTok, YouTube and Snap to make similar changes to their apps in order to implement a “new industry standard” toward safety.

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Jennifer Lawrence talks playing Katniss again in new ‘Hunger Games’ film

Jennifer Lawrence talks playing Katniss again in new ‘Hunger Games’ film


If you were hoping Katniss Everdeen would return for the new Hunger Games film, the odds are in your favor.

Jennifer Lawrence confirmed on the Call Her Daddy podcast that she has reprised role in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. Josh Hutcherson and Woody Harrelson also return as Peeta Mellark and Haymitch Abernathy, respectively.

Lawrence told host Alex Cooper that it was “unbelievable” stepping back into the role.

“It was so crazy because it was the same crew,” she said. “It was the same camera guys, the same AD who I’ve worked with a million times too ‘cause I love him, and Josh and Woody, and it was so emotional.”

She said she and Josh “didn’t walk to the bathroom without our arms around each other,” calling the experience “so beautiful.”

Lawrence added, “And Woody obviously came through the window of my hotel room uninvited ’cause it wouldn’t be the same if he listened to boundaries and used a door.”

Sunrise on the Reaping follows a teenage Haymitch, played by Joseph Zada, as he faces the arena in the 50th annual Hunger Games. The film also stars Whitney Peak, Mckenna Grace, Jesse Plemons, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Maya Hawke, Ralph Fiennes, Elle Fanning, Glenn Close, Billy Porter and Kieran Culkin.

Lawrence played the role of Katniss in the first four films of the Hunger Games franchise, the first of which was released in 2012. She and Hutcherson were initially rumored to be returning for Sunrise on the Reaping, though it hadn’t been officially confirmed. 

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, based on the Suzanne Collins novel of the same name, arrives in theaters on Nov. 20.

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