Tyla is ready to take over the world: “There's no way to stop me”

ABC/John Argueta

Tyla‘s goal is to become Africa’s first pop star, and she’s well on her way with a Grammy for Best African Music Performance, her global smash “Water” and her self-titled debut album. Though she had to postpone her planned tour due to an injury, she still has plans for world domination.

In addition to music, Tyla tells Billboard that she’d like to branch out into fashion, beauty and acting. “People are going to see me everywhere,” she says. “So if you don’t like me, I’m sorry.”

Even her injury isn’t going stop her from bringing her music to fans. “I’m really confident in what I’ve created. Now’s a time where I can showcase a performance style where I’m not really dancing as much,” she tells Billboard. “Maybe I strip back a little bit more and I’m just serving vocals.”

“But there’s no way to stop me,” she continues. “I’m always going to find a way.”

Right now, you can see Tyla showing off her dance moves in the spring campaign for GAP.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Win Brooke’s Bucks (3/28/24)

Have a knack for trivia? Well, so does Brooke… Try to answer as many questions right as you can in 30 seconds. If you answer more correctly than Brooke, you win 100 bucks! Good luck!

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Keanu Reeves, Fisher Stevens prepping documentary on MMA legend Benny Urquidez

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Keanu Reeves knows his way around a martial arts mat, what with his extensive training for The Matrix and John Wick franchises, and now he’s about to pay tribute to a groundbreaker within the combat sports.

Deadline reports Reeves and Oscar-winning director Fisher Stevens will co-produce a documentary on Benny “The Jet” Urquidez, who is credited with introducing mixed martial arts to the world. 

Now 71, Urquidez was a world champion karate and kickboxing legend who transitioned to training actors and coordinating fight scenes for movies. 

Incidentally, John Cusack was one of his students, and Urquidez takes him on in a famous scene in the actor’s 1997’s hit Grosse Pointe Blank. But Urquidez’s client list reads like a Hollywood’s who’s who: Everyone from Jackie Chan to the late Patrick Swayze to Michelle Pfeiffer trained with him over his long career. 

Emmy-nominated sports documentary editor and filmmaker Jennifer Tiexiera is directing the documentary. She tells the trade, “Benny’s fighting career was born out of his struggles with identity, poverty, and race, but he didn’t let those things define him. The result is a story about how struggle and sacrifice evolved into one about love, spirituality and deeper meaning.”

Keanu recently appeared in and produced another documentary, Brawn: The Impossible Formula 1 Story, which is streaming on Hulu.

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In “Hell Together,” David Archuleta expresses his “joy” at leaving his religion — with his family

Irvin Rivera

David Archuleta, who came out as queer in 2021, announced in 2023 that he was leaving the Mormon church after being unable to reconcile his religion’s view of homosexuality with his own journey. He’s just released a song about it, but specifically, about how his family has supported him through his decision.

“It was a scary place to leave something that was all I knew and that gave me my purpose to live, but it was something I knew I needed to do,” David says in a statement about the song, which is called “Hell Together.” 

A few days after he announced he was leaving, David’s mom told him she was leaving, too. She told him, “If you go to Hell, we’re all going to Hell with you. We’re a family and we’ll always be there for each other, in good or in bad!”

“I was really moved by that,” David notes.

In the song, David sings, “All I want is to make you proud/ If I would run, would I let you down?/ You said
‘If I have to live without you/ I don’t wanna live forever/ in someone else’s heaven … if they don’t like the way you’re made, then they’re not any better/ If Paradise is pressurе, oh/ We’ll go to hell togethеr.'”

David says the song’s gospel vibe is “meant to show the joy and how by leaving my religion is how I found a greater light. And, more importantly, how much it meant to still have a support system of family still there for me.”

“Most people within the church would think you feel dark and lost leaving your faith, but that was not the case for me. I felt like I found myself!”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

TikTok Click Shock (03/28/24)

There’s a mystery going on in high school’s across the nation right now… but one teacher shared what she finally figured out… Plus, and 8 year-old from the Midwest id going viral for what he did at a reccent tractor show… You’ll see why when you hear the audio of it in a brand new TikTok Click Shock!

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Say Yes To The Ex: Say Yes To The Trio

We’re doing our best to reunite a listener with one of their previous romances… only if we don’t screw it up first. Catch an all new “Say Yes To The Ex!”

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Schumer says Senate trial for Mayorkas will take place next month

Mike Kline (notkalvin)/Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Mike Johnson announced on Thursday that the impeachment articles for Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will be sent over to the Senate on April 10, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate trial will take place on April 11.

In a new letter, Johnson and the Republican impeachment managers called on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to “schedule a trial of the matter expeditiously.”

The House voted to impeach Mayorkas on Feb. 13 by a vote of 214-213 over what Republicans claimed was his failure to enforce border laws amid a “crisis” of high illegal immigration, allegations the secretary denied as “baseless.” But Johnson waited to send over the articles until the government was fully funded.

“The evidence on both charges is clear, comprehensive, and compelling, and the House’s solemn act to impeach the first sitting Cabinet official in American history demands timely action by the Senate,” the letter to Schumer said.

Asked for a statement, DHS referred ABC News to the statement when Mayorkas was initially impeached.

“Without a shred of evidence or legitimate Constitutional grounds, and despite bipartisan opposition, House Republicans have falsely smeared a dedicated public servant who has spent more than 20 years enforcing our laws and serving our country,” DHS spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg said. “Secretary Mayorkas and the Department of Homeland Security will continue working every day to keep Americans safe.”

Once the articles are sent over, the Senate will be sworn in and seated for a trial. Later Thursday, Schumer’s office said senators will be sworn in as jurors in the Mayorkas impeachment trial on April 11. However, Schumer has indicated Senate Democrats will move to dismiss a trial despite Republican demands for one.

“We call upon you to fulfill your constitutional obligation to hold this trial,” House GOP said in the letter. “The American people demand a secure border, an end to this crisis, and accountability for those responsible. To table articles of impeachment without ever hearing a single argument or reviewing a piece of evidence would be a violation of our constitutional order and an affront to the American people whom we all serve.”

Several Republican senators have called on Schumer to hold a full trial. If Schumer does hold a trial, the charges require a vote by two-thirds of the Senate to convict Mayorkas and remove him from office. There are not enough votes to convict Mayorkas.

The impeachment managers are: Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, Rep. Andy Biggs, Rep. Ben Cline, Rep. Andrew Garbarino, Rep. Michael Guest, Rep. Harriet Hageman, Rep. Clay Higgins, Rep. Laurel Lee, Rep. August Pfluger, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

ABC News’ Luke Barr and Mariam Khan contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Phone Tap: Motel Cheater

One of our listeners asked us to prank his wife who runs the front desk at the motel they own! She hates awkward confrontation so we’re gonna make our personal issues her business in a brand new Phone Tap!

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Could avian flu on cattle farms impact dairy prices?

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(NEW YORK) — The law of supply and demand has shown for centuries that when the amount of a good in high demand dwindles, prices change relative to the availability.

When it comes to the U.S. food supply chain, environmental health impacts on livestock have prompted such price elasticity, most recently with a wave of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), commonly known as bird flu and the result is has had on wholesale egg prices.

“Prices are impacted when there is more demand and less supply for the product. In the instance of egg prices, the avian flu which has been detected in birds since 2022 has impacted around 80 million birds across the country,” retail analyst Hitha Herzog told ABC News. “That type of exposure could severely hamper production which drives the prices up.”

Bird flu hits dairy cattle farms

As cases of bird flu have continued to sweep farms and producers across the U.S., officials have now launched investigations into an illness involving dairy cows.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced Tuesday that dairy cattle in Texas and Kansas have tested positive for HPAI, with symptoms including decreased lactation and low appetite.

“Additional testing was initiated on Friday, March 22, and over the weekend because farms have also reported finding deceased wild birds on their properties,” the agency stated. “Based on findings from Texas, the detections appear to have been introduced by wild birds. Initial testing by the National Veterinary Services Laboratories has not found changes to the virus that would make it more transmissible to humans, which would indicate that the current risk to the public remains low.”

Both federal and state agencies are “moving quickly to conduct additional testing” for the specific bird flu strains associated with the sick cows.

The USDA assured consumers that “there is no concern about the safety of the commercial milk supply or that this circumstance poses a risk to consumer health.”

“Dairies are required to send only milk from healthy animals into processing for human consumption; milk from impacted animals is being diverted or destroyed so that it does not enter the food supply,” the agency continued.

Plus, pasteurization is a requirement for milk sold in stores, which the agency reminded “has continually proven to inactivate bacteria and viruses, like influenza, in milk.”

Could dairy prices, supply be impacted by bird flu?

At this time in “the rapidly evolving situation,” the USDA said that milk loss from sick cows “is too limited to have a major impact on supply,” with the hope and caveat that there “should be no impact on the price of milk or other dairy products.”

With the latest waves of bird flu wiping out entire flocks of egg-laying chickens, eventually causing shortages and some increased prices, this new impact on dairy cows begs the question, could impact milk and dairy prices eventually be an issue at the consumer leve, if at all?

“The main way this could impact the consumer is through the output of milk being produced. The pasteurization process is so rigorous it would kill the virus if it was present in milk from infected cows, however only 10% of the exposed herds have been infected,” Herzog said. “While there will be some milk loss, the panhandle area accounts for around 625,000 cows and about 1.3B gallons of milk produced annually. The affected milk will be small compared to the bigger picture of production.”

The chief research officer of H Squared Research, explained that at this point, she doesn’t believe the outbreak will impact commercial dairy prices, “because the scale is small.”

“However if more of the herd is infected, or if production slows because the herd has to recover, or worse they have to dump several millions of gallons of milk, that would have an impact on pricing,” Herzog said.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Noah Kahan reflects on “surreal” first show of North American We'll All Be Here Forever Tour

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The North American leg of Noah Kahan‘s We’ll All Be Here Forever Tour kicked off Tuesday, March 26, in Vancouver. In a Facebook post, the “Stick Season” artist reflects on what the show meant to him.

“It is something so surreal to open your eyes and see an arena filled with fans of your music in front of you,” Kahan writes. “It takes your breath away, every single time.”

“Vancouver thank you for stealing my breath and my heart as we opened the tour,” he adds. “I wish I could perform for you every night.”

The We’ll All Be Here Forever Tour comes to the U.S. in May.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Baltimore bridge collapse timeline: Inside the cargo ship collision

Via NTSB

(BALTIMORE) — Just after midnight on Tuesday, the fully loaded container ship Dali lifted anchor and prepared to depart the Port of Baltimore with 23 crew members aboard, destined for Sri Lanka nearly 9,000 miles away.

There was no apparent indication of the catastrophe awaiting the vessel. Authorities said the bridge was undergoing maintenance at the time and that one lane in each direction remained open.

Here is how the incident unfolded:

12:39 a.m. — The 984-foot-long, Singapore-flagged cargo ship pulls out of its berth at a marine terminal southeast of downtown Baltimore, according to ship’s voyage data recorder (VDR) reviewed by the National Transportation Safety Board investigators.

1 a.m. A livestream camera captures light traffic, including a tractor-trailer rig, moving across the 1.6-mile Key Bridge.

1:07 a.m. — The cargo ship enters the Fort McHenry channel and begins to head down the Patapsco River toward the Francis Scott Key Bridge, according to the VDR.

1:24 a.m. — The livestream camera shows the cargo ship’s lights suddenly going off and then coming back on.

1:24:59 a.m. — Numerous audible alarms go off on the bridge of the container ship. The VDR temporarily goes off.

1:26 a.m. — The Dali appears to lose its lights again as it drifts slightly to the right in the direction of one of the bridge’s main center columns supporting the arched steel trusses of the span. At the time, vehicles can still be seen crossing the bridge. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said that about this time a mayday call was made from the vessel, giving transportation officials just enough time to order a halt to traffic approaching both ends of the bridge, likely saving lives.

1:27:39 a.m. — The pilot aboard the ship makes a general VHF radio call for tugboats in the area to assist. At the same time, a Pilot Association dispatcher phones Maryland Transportation Authority duty officers regarding a blackout on the Dali.

1:27:04 a.m. — The pilot aboard the Dali orders the vessel’s port anchor be dropped, according to the VDR.

1:27:25 a.m. — The pilot aboard the cargo ship issues a VHF radio call reporting the Dali has lost all power and was approaching the bridge. Around the same time, a Maryland Transportation Authority duty officer radios the agency’s units, informing them to hold traffic at the south and north ends of the bridge, saying, “There’s a ship approaching it [that] just lost their steering,” according to a recording of the dispatch from Broadcastify.com. The livestream camera shows the cargo ship lights suddenly going off as the vessel appears to drift to the right in the direction of one of the main center columns supporting the arched steel trusses of the span.

1:28 a.m. — Dark smoke appears to be coming from the cargo ship, which is moving at 7 knots, or 8 mph.

1:29:33 a.m.– The VDR on the cargo ship records sounds consistent with the vessel hitting the bridge. Officials said at the time of the collision no traffic was crossing the bridge, but parked vehicles, apparently belonging to the maintenance crew filling potholes, were still on the span. Two maintenance workers survive, one by running from the bridge and the other by going into the water and swimming to shore. Six other maintenance workers remain unaccounted for. A law enforcement officer makes a desperate radio transmission to dispatch, saying, “The whole bridge just fell down. Start whoever, everybody. The whole bridge just collapsed.”

1:39:39 a.m. — The pilot on the Dali tells the Coast Guard over the VHF radio that the Key Bridge is down.

1:40 a.m. — The Baltimore City Fire Department’s 911 center dispatch receives a call about a water rescue in the Patapsco River near the Key Bridge. As fire crews race to the bridge, they receive numerous calls indicating multiple people in the water.

1:50 a.m. — Fire crews arrive at the scene and report a complete collapse of the Key Bridge and that multiple people were likely on the span when it occurred.

6:26 a.m. — At an early morning news conference Tuesday, Baltimore City Fire Chief James Wallace said sonar detected the presence of vehicles submerged in the water and that an all-out search-and-rescue operation involving police, firefighters and U.S. Coast Guard crews was underway to locate survivors.

FBI officials said agents were immediately sent to the bridge, arriving an hour after the collapse. At the White House, President Joe Biden held an early morning meeting with his advisors and ordered the use of resources to help in the rescue operation.

10 a.m. — At a mid-morning news conference Tuesday, the governor announced that the preliminary investigation showed the incident appeared to be a tragic accident.

“The preliminary investigation points toward an accident,” Moore said. “We haven’t seen any credible evidence of a terrorist attack.”

12:46 p.m. — During a press conference Tuesday afternoon from the White House, Biden addressed the bridge collapse. “We’re going to send all the federal resources they need as we respond to this emergency,” he said, referring to his conversation with Baltimore officials.

“We’re incredibly grateful for the brave rescuers who immediately rushed to the scene. And to the people of Baltimore, we want to say, we’re with you, we’re going to stay with you for as long as it takes,” said Biden.

The president echoed local, state and federal officials who said investigators have found no evidence linking the incident to terrorism. Biden called it a “terrible incident and accident.”

2:30 p.m. — Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, says at a news conference that the agency’s investigators arrived at the scene at 6 a.m. Tuesday and were launching their probe of the bridge collapse.

7:30 p.m. — On Tuesday night, the U.S. Coast Guard said it would be suspending search and rescue efforts and began recovery efforts at 6 a.m. Wednesday.

“Based on the length of time that we’ve gone in the search, the extensive search efforts that we put into it, the water temperature — at this point, we do not believe that we’re going to find any of these individuals still alive,” Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath told reporters.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

'Twilight' vet Kristen Stewart says she would have broken up with Edward “immediately”

Dominique Charriau/WireImage

Kristen Stewart obviously still has some feelings for her Twilight character, Bella — just not her taste in men.

That’s what fans learned on a new installment of the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast, when host Amanda Hirsch asked the actress and activist of Bella, “Do we not like her in retrospect?”

Stewart replied, “‘Do we not like her?’ Whoa. Hey, you better be careful. I don’t know if you can tell who you’re talking to right now,” she joked.

The Love Lies Bleeding star disagreed with Hirsch’s assessment that Bella was “a little desperate” to be with Robert Pattinson‘s vampire, Edward, noting, “Yeah, but he was trying to sort of control whether or not she made choices for herself.”

That said, Stewart offered, “I would have broken up with him immediately.”

In the bestselling books, and the movies starring Stewart, Bella wanted Edward to turn her into a vampire, but he refused. 

Stewart says in real life that would have been a deal-breaker for her. “I mean, if I was like, ‘Hey, I want to try that,’ and he was like, ‘No, this is just for me,’ I would be like, ‘Well, this is also just for me: My whole life. Without you.'”

She added of his motivations, “I get the sort of protection thing, but you gotta let a girl make her own choices.”

 

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Miley Cyrus, Post Malone, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson feature on Beyoncé's new album 'Cowboy Carter'

Parkwood/Columbia

Beyoncé‘s new album, Cowboy Carter, is already out in some parts of the world, so the featured artists on the album have now been revealed.  

Sorry, there are no Taylor Swift or Lady Gaga duets to be found, but Miley Cyrus sings on a song called “II Most Wanted.” Meanwhile, Post Malone is on the track “Levii’s Jeans.” 

The album also includes several interludes, which see additional guest stars serving as DJs on a fictional radio station called KNTRY. Country music icon Dolly Parton is included on an interlude called “Dolly P,” and she introduces Bey’s version of her classic song “Jolene” — for which Beyoncé has changed the lyrics. She also briefly appears in the intro of the song “Tyrant.”

Fellow country music icon Willie Nelson is also featured on two interludes: “Smoke Hour Willie Nelson” and “Smoke Hour II.”

Also of note: Beyoncé has recorded a version of The Beatles‘ 1968 classic “Blackbird,” and in the song “Ya Ya,” she interpolates The Beach Boys‘ classic song “Good Vibrations.” That song is introduced by the voice of Linda Martell, a major Black female country star.

Cowboy Carter, which arrives Thursday at midnight, also includes Bey’s #1 hit “Texas Hold ‘Em.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

ICE singles out 'sanctuary cities' after Laken Riley's killing as they announce separate migrant arrests

Via ICE

(NEW YORK) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 216 noncitizens who faced criminal charges and convictions as part of the agency’s latest nationwide operation, officials said on Thursday as they also singled out what are known as “sanctuary cities” in the wake of a Georgia college student’s killing.

Over a period of 12 days earlier this month, agents across the country moved in on the at-large immigration offenders, ICE officials said at a news conference.

The operation was part of the ICE mission to target those in the country illegally who pose a risk to public safety, officials said.

All 216 arrested migrants have connections to drug crimes, according to ICE’s allegations, and nearly half of those arrested had been previously deported.

“We’re on a mission to protect the American public by containing and removing people who contribute to this horrible drug crisis,” Acting ICE Director Patrick J. Lechleitner told reporters.

The operation also highlighted a divide between the goals of federal and local law enforcement agencies. As a federal agency, ICE is responsible for enforcing the nation’s immigration law — local law enforcement is not.

As a result, ICE officials said, some convicted criminals who are migrants — such as those caught in the operation this month — have previously been set free by local authorities despite being eligible for deportation.

“And to be frank — in some areas — there are laws that affect the ability for state and local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE,” Lechleitner said. “So we’re trying to make progress in areas that are a little less ICE friendly.”

Those municipalities, commonly referred to as “sanctuary cities,” restrict communication between local law enforcement and ICE because of what migrant and some civil liberties’ advocates say is a concern about the abuse of federal deportation and enforcement policies.

The issue came to a head last month when Venezuelan national Jose Antonio Ibarra was arrested on murder charges in the killing of 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley at the University of Georgia. Ibarra has not yet entered a plea.

Ibarra entered the U.S. illegally and had been previously arrested on suspicion of an unrelated crime but was subsequently released before ICE could move to deport him, ICE has said.

“I can’t speak to individual jurisdictions that do this,” Lechleitner said on Thursday, referring to sanctuary cities. “All we want to say is that we want to talk to them and we want to try and work through on any way we can cooperate with our law enforcement partners.”

As part of the agency’s latest investigative work tied to the March operation, officials identified more than 400 noncitizens who are subject to arrest.

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