Barbie has had many jobs throughout the years like astronaut, chef & fashion designer! Now, she’s going to be add Queen of Christmas to her resume! Mariah Carey is officially getting her own Barbie this year in her classic sparkly red dress! Maybe she’ll sing All I Want For Christmas Is You!!
Image: (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — In a James Bond shakeup that stirred the film industry, Amazon MGM announced Thursday that the studio has taken the creative reins of the 007 franchise after decades of family control. Longtime Bond custodians Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli said they would be stepping back.
Amazon MGM Studios, Wilson and Broccoli formed a new joint venture in which they will co-own James Bond intellectual property rights — but Amazon MGM will have creative control.
Financial terms weren’t disclosed. The deal is expected to close sometime this year.
“With my 007 career spanning nearly 60 incredible years, I am stepping back from producing the James Bond films to focus on art and charitable projects,” Wilson said in a statement. “Therefore, Barbara and I agree, it is time for our trusted partner, Amazon MGM Studios, to lead James Bond into the future.”
Amazon bought MGM Studios in 2022 for $6.1 billion, a purchase that was significantly motivated by the acquisition of one of the movies’ most beloved and long-running franchises. Since the Daniel Craig era of 007 concluded with 2021’s “No Time to Die,” Broccoli and Wilson have reportedly clashed with Amazon MGM over the direction of Bond.
The announcement Thursday means that for the first time in the more than half a century of Bond, a Broccoli won’t be greenlighting the next 007 film, or picking who inherits his tux. Amazon MGM also anticipates expanding the franchise beyond movies.
“We are grateful to the late Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman for bringing James Bond to movie theaters around the world, and to Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli for their unyielding dedication and their role in continuing the legacy of the franchise that is cherished by legions of fans worldwide,” said Mike Hopkins, head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios. “We are honored to continue this treasured heritage, and look forward to ushering in the next phase of the legendary 007 for audiences around the world.”
Bond had been a family business since Albert “Cubby” Broccoli secured the rights to adaptations of Ian Fleming’s novels and kicked off a run of 25 Bond films produced by Eon Productions, beginning with 1962’s “Dr. No.” Those movies have accrued $7.6 billion in box office.
In 1995, the elder Broccoli handed over control of Eon to his daughter, Broccoli, and stepson, Wilson. In recent years, the 64-year-old Broccoli has largely taken the lead as Wilson, 83, has aged into retirement.
“My life has been dedicated to maintaining and building upon the extraordinary legacy that was handed to Michael and me by our father, producer Cubby Broccoli,” Broccoli said in a statement. “I have had the honor of working closely with four of the tremendously talented actors who have played 007 and thousands of wonderful artists within the industry. With the conclusion of ‘No Time to Die’ and Michael retiring from the films, I feel it is time to focus on my other projects.”
Broccoli and Wilson’s previous standoff with Amazon MGM had essentially frozen development on the next Bond movie. No script, director or star has yet been announced for the next installment, an unusually long break for a franchise that has typically spaced films two or three years apart. Broccoli also produced the 2022 film “Till” and the musical “Buena Vista Social Club,” opening next month on Broadway.
A key point for the producers in the Amazon acquisition of MGM was a commitment to theatrically release James Bond films. That Bond’s future is now in the hands of an e-commerce giant with one of the leading streaming services will immediately prompted doubts from some fans about Bond’s new corporate overloads. Other billion-dollar movie franchises, such as the Disney-owned “Star Wars” and Marvel brands, have in recent years struggled with over-saturation.
Even Joe Russo, co-director of four Marvel Cinematic Universe films including “Avengers: Endgame,” pleaded to Amazon MGM: “DON’T cinematic universe James Bond.”
“It is one of our last, great theatrical events,” Russo said on X. “Don’t dilute that with a plethora of streaming spin-offs.”
In an interview last fall ahead of receiving an honorary Oscar alongside her brother, Broccoli told The Associated Press that, in an era of upheaval in the movie industry, boldness was necessary.
“People are playing it very safe,” Broccoli said. “I think in times of crisis like this, you’ve got to be brave.”
Nearly 30,000 people on LI’s North and South Forks lost power Thursday morning when a truck hit a large utility pole in Southold, causing the outages.
PSEG Long Island was able to restore power for all customers later in the day.
NEW YORK (AP) — Gov. Kathy Hochul won’t immediately remove New York City Mayor Eric Adams from office, but will instead push for increased oversight of City Hall as he faces intense scrutiny over his relationship with the Trump administration.
Hochul will announce Thursday that she has, for now, decided against removing Adams from office, according to three people familiar with the governor’s plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to disclose its details.
The decision came after she solicited opinions this week from a roster of New York political figures over questions about whether Adams could independently govern following the Justice Department’s move to drop his corruption case so he could help with Republican President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda.
Rather than remove Adams, Hochul plans to propose legislation that would require City Hall to operate within new guardrails.
Two of the sources familiar with the strategy said the proposals include establishing a new deputy inspector general focused on New York City; a fund for the city’s comptroller, public advocate and council speaker to launch lawsuits against the federal government; and more money for the state comptroller to investigate the city’s finances.
At an unrelated news conference Thursday, the mayor declined to answer a question about having his mayoral power diminished. His spokesperson then hastily ended the event.
Adams has remained defiant in the face of growing calls to resign, insisting that New Yorkers are undeterred by the turmoil at City Hall as he makes his reelection pitch to voters.
“I will never surrender, never step down,” he said Wednesday, following his court hearing. “I’m going to step up and fight.”
Hochul — a centrist Democrat, as is Adams — has faced questions about the mayor’s future since his indictment in September on bribery and other charges. He has pleaded not guilty and said at a court hearing Wednesday that he hadn’t committed a crime.
Hochul has been reluctant to oust him, arguing that doing so would be undemocratic, while thrusting the city into a complex, court-like removal process that has never been used before against a sitting mayor of the country’s most populous city.
But after four of Adams’ top deputies quit on Monday, the governor said she had “serious questions about the long-term future of this mayoral administration.”
The deputies resigned after an extraordinary series of developments in Adams’ federal criminal case.
First, Justice Department leaders ordered prosecutors to drop it, saying it was impeding the mayor’s ability to help with the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement push.
Then, some prosecutors and supervisors resigned rather than follow what they saw as an improper order, and the acting top prosecutor in Manhattan said Adams’ lawyers had offered to exchange his cooperation on immigration for a dismissal of his case. The mayor and his lead lawyer said they did no such thing.
Then, after some Justice Department figures finally filed paperwork to get the case dismissed, a judge summoned Adams and everyone else involved to court Wednesday to discuss the matter. The judge hasn’t ruled yet on the government’s request to close out the case.
Adams has been set to go on trial in April on charges of taking illegal campaign contributions and getting breaks on travel in exchange for doing favors for the Turkish government. In one episode, his indictment alleges, Adams pushed fire officials to let a Turkish consular building open without passing a fire inspection.
Adams has said there was nothing improper about his trips. He has characterized any help he provided to Turkish officials in dealing with the diplomatic building as just the routine work of an elected official helping people navigate bureaucracy.
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Aaron Boone and the New York Yankees agreed Thursday to a two-year contract extension through the 2027 season.
Boone is entering his eighth season as manager. The team had exercised his 2025 option in November.
“No other place I want to be. No other team, organization, group of people that I want to be doing this with,” Boone said. “And to get to do it in New York in front of passionate New York Yankee fans, this is the end result that I certainly wanted and glad it was able to work out.”
Boone has led the Yankees to a 603-429 record, three AL East titles and one pennant. New York reached the World Series last year for the first time since 2009, losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers in five games.
Boone became the third Yankees manager to lead the team to the postseason in six of his first seven years after Casey Stengel and Joe Torre but hasn’t delivered a title and understands the criticism, saying “if you can’t handle that, then it ain’t for you” and “I came in eyes wide open.”
“I don’t like that we haven’t won a championship yet, so that bothers me,” Boone said. “But I know what I signed up for when I got into this. We talk about it all the time, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. The fact that it matters as much as it does here and that there’s such a high standard and there’s so much expectations, that so much beats the alternative in my view. I’m confident in what I’m doing. I feel that I’m pretty good at this.”
Boone succeeded Joe Girardi after the 2017 season and was given a three-year contract with a team option for 2021. He agreed in October 2021 to a three-year contract with a team option for 2025.
He was a major league third baseman from 1997 to 2009 and an All-Star in 2003, when New York acquired him from Cincinnati at the trade deadline. His 11th-inning home run off Boston’s Tim Wakefield in Game 7 of the AL Championship Series won the pennant.
Remember the Lady Gaga and Beyoncé hit “Telephone” from 2009?! At the end of the video it says “to be continued…” well it’s 15 years and we are still waiting. Gaga says there will be a sequel. She did the lie detector for “Vanity Fair,” and when asked if Beyoncé will join her on it she said “maybe.” She doesn’t know when the sequel is happening though.
(Image: AP Newsroom)
J.P. Morgan has new policies to get their employees in the office! Raven and Ashley reflect on the greatest perks they ever had in a job! You will never guess what would come to Ashley’s work!
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Raven, Meteorologist Ashley, Producer Julie, and Producer Justin play Baylor’s Box of Questions! Find out what character they think represents themselves!
Raven’s grandson’s shows have songs that are engraved in his brain. Producer Julie goes around the Office Squad to see what song they have an earworm from!
Raven and Ashley compare the specific things that they require when flying. You will be shocked at one this! What are the things you have to have to do, or bring, when you fly?
Raven and Ashley will get you caught up on the trending news stories including the new gene that could potentially make your dog speak to humans, and a couple that had McDonald’s at their wedding!
Raven reminds Ashley that The Anna and Raven Show is a bright and comedic show! He has a new sound effect when she makes certain remarks!
J.P. Morgan has new policies to get their employees in the office! Raven and Ashley reflect on the greatest perks they ever had in a job! You will never guess what would come to Ashley’s work!
Raven and Ashley will get you caught up on the trending news stories including the trademark issue with Meghan Markle’s brand, the burglars of a few NFL player’s homes have been arrested, Sharon Osbourne prevented Ozzy for playing a role in Pirates of the Caribbean!
Raven and Ashley reflect on the fanciest place they have been to and how shocking the experience was! But was the bill more shocking? And who covered it? Find out!
Their son is a freshman in college and wants to go spring break in Tulum, Mexico next month. Mom and Dad are going to have to pay for it, and he’ll miss his Grandparents’ 60th Wedding Anniversary party. Dad says this is all part of the college experience and he doesn’t have a problem with it. Mom says it’ll break her parents’ hearts, and he can’t be trusted unsupervised in another country with his friends partying. What do you think?
Chris has a chance to win $7600! All he has to do is answer more pop culture questions than Raven in Can’t Beat Raven!
Raven’s grandson’s shows have songs that are engraved in his brain. Producer Julie goes around the Office Squad to see what song they have an earworm from!
Photo Credit: Getty Images
By BRUCE SHIPKOWSKI Associated Press
The historic, aging ocean liner that a Florida county plans to turn into the world’s largest artificial reef departed from south Philadelphia’s Delaware River waterfront on Wednesday, marking the opening segment of its final voyage.
The SS United States, a 1,000-foot vessel that shattered the transatlantic speed record on its maiden voyage in 1952, is being towed to Mobile, Alabama, for planned prep work before officials eventually sink it off Florida’s Gulf Coast.
The move comes about four months after the conservancy that oversees the ship and its landlord resolved a years-old rent dispute. Officials initially planned to move the vessel last November, but that was delayed due to concerns from the U.S. Coast Guard that the ship wasn’t stable enough to make the trip.
Officials in Okaloosa County on Florida’s coastal Panhandle hope it will become a barnacle-encrusted standout among the county’s more than 500 artificial reefs and a signature diving attraction that could generate millions of dollars annually in local tourism spending for scuba shops, charter fishing boats and hotels.
Officials have said the deal to buy the ship could eventually cost more than $10 million. The lengthy process of cleaning, transporting and sinking the vessel is expected to take at least one-and-a-half years.
The SS United States was once considered a beacon of American engineering, doubling as a military vessel that could carry thousands of troops. Its maiden voyage broke the transatlantic speed record in both directions when it reached an average speed of 36 knots, or just over 41 mph (66 kph), The Associated Press reported from aboard the ship. The ship crossed the Atlantic Ocean in three days, 10 hours and 40 minutes, besting the RMS Queen Mary’s time by 10 hours. To this day, the SS United States holds the transatlantic speed record for an ocean liner.
“The ship will forever symbolize our nation’s strength, innovation, and resilience,” said Susan Gibbs, president of the SS United States Conservancy and granddaughter of the naval architect who designed the vessel. “We wish her ‘fair winds and following seas’ on her historic journey to her new home.”
The SS United States became a reserve ship in 1969 and later bounced to various private owners who hoped to redevelop it. But they eventually found their plans too expensive or poorly timed, leaving the vessel looming for years on south Philadelphia’s Delaware River waterfront.
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams told a federal judge Wednesday that he is innocent and doesn’t fear corruption charges could be refiled if a Justice Department request to dismiss them is granted.
Judge Dale E. Ho ended the hearing by saying he wouldn’t “shoot from the hip” and rule immediately but he was aware that “it’s not in anyone’s interest here for this to drag on.”
During the hearing, Ho asked the mayor questions to ensure he understood that if the charges were dropped, they could later be reinstated.
“I have not committed a crime,” Adams said. “I’m not afraid of that.”
Deputy U.S. Attorney General Emil Bove said the request to drop the corruption charges against the mayor resulted from “a straightforward exercise in prosecutorial discretion guided” by President Donald Trump’s executive order on weaponization of the justice system and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s memorandum outlining the same.
Bove said he believed the request to drop charges, when tied to Trump’s order and Bondi’s conclusions, made it “virtually unreviewable in this courtroom.”
Bove said he also believed “the continuation of this prosecution is interfering with both national security and immigration enforcement initiatives being carried out by the executive branch.”
Ho ended Wednesday’s hearing by saying he wouldn’t “shoot from the hip” and rule immediately but he was aware that “it’s not in anyone’s interest here for this to drag on.”
Ho scheduled the hearing after three Trump administration lawyers, including Bove, made the dismissal request on Friday. Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor resigned after she refused an order to do so.
The judge indicated that the hearing probably would not settle the matter, writing in an order Tuesday that one subject on the agenda would be a discussion of the “procedure for resolution of the motion.”
An indictment charges the first-term Democrat with accepting more than $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions and lavish travel perks from a Turkish official and business leaders seeking to buy Adams’ influence while he was Brooklyn borough president. Adams has pleaded not guilty. He faces multiple challengers in the Democratic primary in June.
Closely watching the judicial proceedings is Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is considering whether to remove Adams from office amid concerns that he reached a deal to have the case dropped in exchange for the mayor’s political fealty to Trump.
Early last week, Bove told prosecutors in New York to drop the charges because the prosecution “has unduly restricted Mayor Adams’ ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime.” Bove said charges could be reinstated after November’s mayoral election.
Two days later, then-interim U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon told Bondi in a letter that dismissing the charges in return for Adams’ assistance in enforcing federal immigration laws would betray Bondi’s own words that she “will not tolerate abuses of the criminal justice process, coercive behavior, or other forms of misconduct.”
“Dismissal of the indictment for no other reason than to influence Adams’s mayoral decision-making would be all three,” said Sassoon, a Republican. She said it amounted to a “quid pro quo” deal and disclosed that prosecutors were about to bring additional obstruction of justice charges against Adams.
Bove, in accepting Sassoon’s resignation, accused her of “pursuing a politically motivated prosecution despite an express instruction to dismiss the case.” He informed her that two other prosecutors assigned to the case were being suspended with pay and that an investigation would determine if they would keep their jobs.
One prosecutor, Hagan Scotten quit the following day, writing in a resignation letter that he supported Sassoon’s actions. Scotten told Bove that it would take a “fool” or a “coward” to meet Bove’s demand to drop the charges, “but it was never going to be me.”
In all, seven prosecutors, including five high-ranking prosecutors at the Justice Department had resigned by Friday.
Shortly before Wednesday’s hearing, Bondi’s chief of staff, Chad Mizelle, took to social media to defend the department’s dismissal request, citing an argument over a point of law 10 days after Bove said a decision to drop charges was reached “without assessing the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which the case is based.”
In a series of posts on X, Mizelle argued that in the Adams case, prosecutors’ “expansive reading” of the public corruption law was unlikely to fare well before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has overturned the convictions of high-profile, white-collar defendants.
“The case against Mayor Adams was just one in a long history of past DOJ actions that represent grave errors of judgement,” Mizelle wrote.
Sassoon and her colleagues have found support for their stand from a small army of former prosecutors.
On Friday, seven former U.S. attorneys in Manhattan, including James Comey, Geoffrey S. Berman and Mary Jo White, issued a statement lauding Sassoon’s “commitment to integrity and the rule of law.”
On Monday, three former U.S. attorneys from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut submitted papers to Ho suggesting that he appoint a special prosecutor if he finds the Justice Department acted improperly or that he order all evidence be made available to state and local prosecutors.
A former Watergate prosecutor filed papers separately, telling the judge to reject the government’s request and consider assigning a special counsel to explore the legal issues and ultimately consider appointing an independent special prosecutor to try the case.
Also Monday, Justice Connection, an organization advocating for Justice Department employees, released a letter signed by more than 900 former career prosecutors that said they have “watched with alarm” as values “foundational to a fair and justice legal system” have been tested.
On Tuesday, Alex Spiro, a lawyer for Adams, said in a letter to the judge that “there was no quid pro quo. Period.”