When the BET Awards 2024 start on Sunday, fans will be gifted to an opening performance by Megan Thee Stallion. BET announced the news Wednesday via its Instagram.
“Our favorite HOTTIE is back! MEGAN THEE STALLION WILL BE OPENING UP CULTURES BIGGEST NIGHT!” the caption read.
Her performance will come two days after the release of her album MEGAN, which features GloRilla, UGK and Victoria Monét.
“I don’t want to say I’m tapping into other genres. I’m just tapping into other sounds, but it’s still very much Megan Thee Stallion,” Meg previously told L’Officiel of what to expect. “It won’t feel like I went so left. It’ll feel true to me. You’ll almost be like, I wouldn’t have thought she would’ve rapped over that, but this sounds great.”
The BET Awards take place Sunday at 8 p.m. ET. Meg is nominated for four awards, including the BET Her Award for “Hiss” and Best Female Hip Hop Artist.
(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) — The mother of an 11-year-old girl missing since 2022 has been named as a suspect in her daughter’s disappearance for the first time.
Madalina Cojocari was last seen getting off her school bus in Cornelius, North Carolina, on Nov. 21, 2022, according to authorities. The sixth grader’s parents told investigators she had been missing since Nov. 23, but did not report her missing until Dec. 15, according to a police report at the time.
The Cornelius Police Department said for the first time in a Facebook post earlier this week that Diana Cojocari “is considered a suspect” in the girl’s disappearance.
Police did not say what led to the mother being named as a suspect, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
The girl’s mother, Diana Cojocari, was released from jail last month, according to Raleigh ABC station WTVD, after serving nearly a year and a half behind bars for failing to report her missing.
Her husband, Christopher Palmiter, was also convicted for failing to report his stepdaughter missing and was sentenced to 30 months of supervised probation, WTVD reported.
“We want to #FindMadalina,” police said in the post naming Diana Cojocari a suspect. “This has been our priority since we learned she was missing.”
Police asked the public to continue sharing Madalina’s photo on social media and to get in touch with any information that might assist with the investigation.
Shortly after the 11-year-old was first reported missing, police said her mother and stepfather “clearly” knew more than they were telling investigators.
“This is a serious case of a child whose parents are clearly not telling us everything they know,” Capt. Jennifer Thompson said in a video at the time.
Police previously said the girl’s school reached out to Diana Cojocari “several” times between Nov. 23 and Dec. 15, when she first reported the girl missing.
The mother told police she’d last seen her daughter going to bed in her room the night of Nov. 23, and said she and her husband argued that night, according to the arrest sheet, which was dated Dec. 17. The next day, Palmiter drove to his family’s home in Michigan.
She told police she went to check on her daughter at about 11:30 a.m. on Nov. 24, but found the girl was not in her room, according to the arrest sheet. Cojocari told police she waited until Palmiter returned home, at about 7 p.m. on Nov. 26, to ask if he knew where the girl was.
When Palmiter returned from the trip, he told police he asked Cojocari where Madalina was, according to the arrest report.
Police “asked Diana why she did not report Madalina missing until” mid-December, to which she “stated she was worried it might start a ‘conflict’ between her and Christopher,” officials wrote in the arrest sheet.
“Chris stated he spoke with Diana several time[s] about Madalina’s whereabout[s] over the next three weeks,” the arrest sheet said, “and both stated they did not know where she was but they did not contact the police to report Madalina missing.”
Before Madalina went missing, her mother asked a relative if he could help smuggle them away from their home, saying she was in a bad relationship with her husband and wanted a divorce, according to a search warrant obtained by ABC News in March 2023.
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.”
(HIGHLAND PARK, Ill.) — The suspected Highland Park, Illinois, mass shooter declined to change his plea to guilty at a Wednesday hearing, crushing victims’ families who watched on in the courtroom.
Robert Crimo III is accused of killing seven people and injuring dozens of others in the mass shooting at a 2022 Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park.
Crimo was expected to plead guilty to seven counts of murder and 48 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm at the hearing, according to The Associated Press. Instead, the 23-year-old rejected the agreement, which would have sentenced him to life.
Crimo is scheduled for trial in February 2025.
“We came to court today in hopes that we could put this out of our mind,” Leah Sundheim, whose mother, Jacquelyn Sundheim, was killed, said at a news conference Wednesday.
“We have Fourth of July coming up and it will be two years,” she said. “All I wanted was to be able to fully grieve my mom without the looming trial, knowing that he was going to spend the rest of his life in jail. And instead, we were yet again shown [Crimo’s] complete and blatant disregard for humans.”
“[Crimo] is evil and manipulative, and brought us here today probably knowing what he was going to do,” she said. “I think that he has very little control, and he will exercise every bit he has — and does not care who he hurts.”
Tony Romanucci, an attorneys for some of the victims’ relatives, added, “This was a calculated effort on his part to continue the suffering that our clients are going through.”
Also among those killed were Highland Park residents Irina McCarthy, 35, and Kevin McCarthy, 37, who were at the parade with their 2-year-old son.
Lance Northcutt, an attorney for the McCarthy family, said Wednesday’s hearing revictimized the families.
Crimo “came to court today with one goal in mind: to continue the terror that began on July 4, 2022,” Northcutt said.
But Karina Mendez, whose dad, Eduardo Uvaldo, was killed, said she’ll be “patient with the court system,” adding that’s what her father would be telling her to do.
“It’s hard just to come in here and see the person that took my dad,” Mendez said. “I was hoping for closure — that was the goal for today, to be done with this.”
“My dad was somebody who loved his family. And we’ve stuck together through all this — we’re gonna keep sticking together,” she said.
Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart made a brief statement after Wednesday’s hearing. He said prosecutors will continue to support the survivors and the victims’ families, adding, “We will be ready for trial.”
ABC News has reached out to Crimo’s attorneys for comment.
Crimo’s father, Robert Crimo Jr., pleaded guilty last year to reckless conduct, admitting to signing the Firearm Owner’s Identification card for his son to apply for gun ownership.
The younger Crimo was 19 at the time and and too young to get a FOID card on his own. Illinois at the time required people ages 18, 19 or 20 to have parent or guardian authorization.
(NEW YORK) — Columbia University professors Ari Goldman and Gregory Khalil, each with their unique perspectives as individuals of Jewish and Palestinian descent, respectively, co-teach the complexities of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The two professors are embarking on a joint educational mission at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. Their course, which focuses on religion, aims to teach students how to approach conflicts through a lens of empathy and understanding.
Goldman said they try to show how it’s possible to disagree with someone and still be friendly with them. They share that someone can have differing opinions and discuss them with others, and you can coexist without insisting that a person agree with you.
This mission takes on a heightened significance in the aftermath of recent student protests, which began April 17 on Columbia’s campus.
Pro-Palestinian protesters have been calling for the Ivy League school to financially pull out from companies and institutions that “profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide and occupation in Palestine,” according to an online statement from the group Columbia University Apartheid Divest.
However, Columbia’s investments are not public information and remain largely unknown.
Following Columbia University President Minouche Shafik’s congressional hearing on April 17 about antisemitism on campus, the encampment drew a larger group of protesters.
In a statement following the protests, Shafik said that the encampment “violates all of the new policies, severely disrupts campus life and creates a harassing and intimidating environment for many of our students.”
“Students and outside activists breaking Hamilton Hall doors, mistreating our Public Safety officers and maintenance staff, and damaging property are acts of destruction, not political speech,” said Shafik. “Many students have also felt uncomfortable and unwelcome because of the disruption and antisemitic comments made by some individuals, especially in the protests that have persistently mobilized outside our gates.”
ABC News sat down with Goldman and Khalil to talk about the challenging discussions they want people to have in their households.
ABC NEWS LIVE: The Israel-Hamas conflict is complex, layered with religion, race and land disputes, and dates back generations without a peaceful resolution — which is what makes one particular class at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism so unique.
Two professors, Ari Goldman, who is Jewish, and Greg Khalil, who is Palestinian, co-teach covering religion, part of an educational mission to approach conflicts with empathy and understanding, especially in the wake of protests on Columbia’s campus and beyond in recent months.
Both professors kind enough to join us now. Thank you so much. How do you think that Columbia University in particular handled when you talk about things blowing up? I mean, we saw it really happening there — was kind of like an epicenter for a lot of the tumult in what we were seeing all across the country. How do you feel that it was handled within your own campus?
KHALIL: I personally don’t think it was handled well at all, but I think what many viewers missed is that Columbia’s failures extended well before the encampments and the protests. If we can’t have these conversations on campus, is it no wonder so many of our democratic institutions feel like they’re failing?
ABC NEWS LIVE: Has there been any kind of discussion that you feel like more people need to hear this, where we’re coming to some ideas anyway, of possibilities for resolution?
GOLDMAN: Well, I would get back to what Greg said about the behavior or the success of Columbia University. I think he would probably give it a failing grade. I would give it maybe a C, a C-plus. I don’t think we’ve been as bad as, as some people might think. I think the University has made strides, has done some things good.
I support the student rights to speak out and to protest and even to demonstrate on campus. But I think when things got intimidating, when things got violent and things got — broke the law — they needed to be stopped.
ABC NEWS LIVE: Were there disagreements, those kinds of disagreements that when in discussions that we were seeing play out, in the encampments, were those happening in the classroom? And how do you all go about resolving them on the spot?
GOLDMAN: I feel that our students were well prepared to cover this big story. This story came to our door. That came, a big international story is suddenly at our doorstep. And as journalists, we took advantage of that.
KHALIL: We very much disagree on the approach of the university. I don’t think the violent approach, the university after the encampments or many months before was warranted. But there were a lot of stories that we didn’t see. I remember the third night of Passover, for example, being next to the encampment at Pulitzer Hall, where we teach and heard the Muslim call for for prayer from the camp and went over.
I saw 20 students holding up bedsheets around Muslim students who were praying an hour and a half before the start of Passover, when the Jewish students there — and there was a sizable minority of students there who were Jewish — held a multifaith meal in honor of Passover. So there were a lot of positive stories that were coming out of that that you didn’t see.
ABC NEWS LIVE: I am curious to know how your opposing viewpoints helped to inform how you teach your students.
GOLDMAN: We try to show how you can disagree with someone and yet be friendly with them. You can disagree with someone and discuss your differences, and you could coexist with them without saying, ‘you have to agree with me. And if you don’t agree with me, you’re out of here. You have nothing to contribute to me.’
ABC NEWS LIVE: One thing people have been talking about a lot lately is Zionism. And I’m curious if you all have the same definition of Zionism.
GOLDMAN: Well, I am a proud Zionist. I declare myself to be such. I’m someone who believes in the promise of, of a Jewish homeland and of the necessity of a Jewish homeland. There is no other country where Jews can go, and feel like like this is their country. There are Muslim countries; there are Christian countries. There’s no other Jewish country. And I believe that it’s essential.
I don’t agree with everything that Israel does, and Zionism doesn’t require me to agree with everything Israel does.
ABC NEWS LIVE: If you think there could be a Palestinian state in there.
GOLDMAN: Absolutely. I think there should be.
KHALIL: And I actually have a very different view of Zionism. I fundamentally believe that there is no good future for any Israeli or Palestinian without a good reality for every Palestinian and Israeli, that security, dignity, safety, freedom, equality, justice for everyone. And I think that Zionism, the motivations behind Zionism are things that completely support and understand the Jewish quest for self-determination, for liberation, which I actually believe is intertwined with Palestinian liberation.
So Zionism in its reality is resulting in sort of this indefinite control over millions of people’s lives. And that’s something that I think is wrong. And we need to find a way out that centers fundamental human rights for everyone.
ABC NEWS LIVE: What’s the way forward?
GOLDMAN: Greg used the word indefinite. It’s not indefinite. It’s gone on too long. And I think there should be a Palestinian state. And I think the proposal that President Biden has on the table is one that I support and I think has the possibility to eventually lead to a Palestinian state and normalize relations between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors.
KHALIL: And I think it’s actually a little bit more complex than that. I think, you know, when you say it’s gone on too long, it’s all the generations of my family, for generations who’ve never known one second of freedom, who’ve lived lives under absolute military control by another state based on who they are. That’s wrong.
We don’t have more time to wait. And, unfortunately, today the path forward is not clear. Gaza is going to take 80 years to rebuild. It’s like the building next door is on fire, their children dying. But the next critical step is to put the fire out, save as many children as possible, release the captives, and we have to do whatever we can before this problem in Gaza, which many around the world are causing, calling an act of genocide, explodes regionally and even globally.
ABC NEWS LIVE: He said that it’s wrong that his family for generations has had to live as he described and kind of not knowing freedom. Would you agree that that’s wrong?
GOLDMAN: I agree, and I want the situation to be better. I want it to change. Our job is not to resolve the Arab-Israel conflict, and we’re not going to. Whatever ideas we have, our job is to teach journalists how to write about this subject in a way that recognizes the other side, that hears his argument and hears my argument, or hears not my argument than the Israeli argument.
ABC NEWS LIVE: We could all benefit from that class.
KHALIL: And on that we are absolutely committed. We may be ideologically opposed in one sense, but we’re good friends. I love Ari like family. That’s not just a saying. And we believe that we as a society need to hold space and build space for people as different as us to enable others to have these conversations, too.
ABC NEWS LIVE: Gentlemen, we hope that we will be able to get the conversation started in households and beyond, all around the world. We thank you so much for this kind of safe space to have this kind of discussion. People need to talk about it more. Professors Ari Goldman and Greg Khalil, we thank you.
