Alice Stewart, CNN political commentator and veteran political adviser, dies at 58
Alice Stewart, a CNN political commentator and veteran political adviser who worked on a number of GOP presidential campaigns, has died at age 58. That’s according to the news network. Police said her body was found outdoors in the Bellevue neighborhood in northern Virginia early Saturday morning. Officers believe she suffered a medical episode. No further information about the cause of her death or survivors was available Saturday. Stewart started at CNN just ahead of the 2016 campaign and has served on the communications team of several Republican presidential candidates including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. Most recently, she was communications director for Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 campaign.
Simone Biles shines in return while Gabby Douglas scratches after a shaky start at the U.S. Classic
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Simone Biles certainly looks ready for Paris with more than two months to go before the Olympic games begin. The gymnastics superstar began her bid for a third Olympic team looking as dominant as ever at the U.S. Classic. The 27-year-old Biles posted an all-around score of 59.500, nearly two points clear of runner-up Shilese Jones. Gabby Douglas, the 2012 Olympic champion, saw her hopes for a career comeback at 28 take a hit. Douglas fell twice on uneven bars in her first event and pulled out of the final three rotations.
CANNES DIARY: Behind the scenes of the 2024 film festival
CANNES, France (AP) — Welcome to Cannes. The annual film festival is always a spectacle, but 2024’s edition may be the most combustible in years. The 77th Cannes red carpet unfurls against a backdrop of war and protest. The #MeToo movement, so slow to take root in France, is now quickly tearing through the country’s film industry. Festival workers have threatened to strike. And yet, the usual cavalcade of celebrities and filmmakers from around the world are descending upon the French Riviera over the course of two weeks. And so is The Associated Press. This year, we’re keeping a running diary of life at — and in — Cannes.
Grand champion crowned the best in pork at barbecue world championship in Memphis
MEMPHIS, Tennessee (AP) — The World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest has crowned a grand prize winner after hundreds of dedicated pitmasters sweated through smoke to be named the best in pork. Brad Orrison and Brooke Lewis, a brother and sister who led a team from Mississippi, won the grand championship on Saturday, the third time they have cooked their way to the big prize. Considered one of the premiere cooking contests in the U.S., teams from around the country and internationally spend days working on huge whole hogs, massive slabs of shoulder and cuts of ribs in the heat and sometimes rain of Memphis, Tennessee. Orrison and Lewis say the “the Super Bowl of Swine” is friendly but fierce.
Armed robbers hit luxury store in Paris reported to be ‘Jeweler to the Stars’
PARIS (AP) — French police are hunting for armed robbers who hit a jewelry store on one of Paris’ poshest streets. Police said the armed robbers arrived and left on motorbikes Saturday, firing a shot outside without causing any casualties. Media reports said the target was the exclusive Harry Winston boutique, self-described “Jeweler to the Stars.” The boutique was cordoned off as police investigators went in and out of it. The Paris prosecutor’s office overseeing the investigation gave the robbery’s location as Avenue Montaigne, where Harry Winston has its dazzling, by-appointment store, but wouldn’t confirm that the jeweler was the target. Prosecutors are not saying if the robbers made off with jewels.
Water, water everywhere … most is now safe to drink in an English village after parasite outbreak
LONDON (AP) — Most residents near a scenic fishing village in southwestern England were told their tap water is safe to drink again after a parasite sickened more than 45 people. South West Water on Saturday said it lifted its boil notice for most of the 17,000 homes and businesses around the Brixham area of Devon that had been affected after cryptosporidium, a microscopic parasite that causes diarrhea, was discovered earlier in the week. The outbreak is the latest example of Britain’s troubled water system. The water company says it lifted the warning after consulting with public health officials.
Dabney Coleman, actor who specialized in curmudgeons, dies at 92
NEW YORK (AP) — Dabney Coleman, the mustachioed character actor who specialized in smarmy villains like the chauvinist boss in “9 to 5” and the nasty TV director in “Tootsie,” has died. He was 92. For two decades Coleman labored in movies and TV shows as a talented but largely unnoticed performer. That changed abruptly in 1976 when he was cast as the incorrigibly corrupt mayor of the hamlet of Fernwood in “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” a satirical soap opera. He won a Golden Globe for “The Slap Maxwell Story” and an Emmy Award for best supporting actor in Peter Levin’s 1987 small screen legal drama “Sworn to Silence.”
Video appears to show Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs beating singer Cassie in hotel hallway in 2016
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Security video appears to show Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs beating singer Cassie in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016. The video obtained by CNN and aired Friday shows Combs punching and kicking Cassie, who was his girlfriend at the time. The video closely resembles the description of a 2016 incident described in a lawsuit filed by Cassie in November that alleged beatings and sexual abuse from Combs. The lawsuit was settled the following day, but several more followed from others along with a criminal sex-trafficking investigation. Representatives for Combs had no immediate comment on the footage, but he has previously denied the allegations in the lawsuits.
An unusual autumn freeze grips parts of South America, giving Chile its coldest May in 74 years
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Chileans are bundling up for their coldest autumn in more than 70 years mere days after sunning in T-shirts. It has been a dramatic change of wardrobe brought about by a sudden cold front gripping portions of South America unaccustomed to bitter wind chills in the Southern Hemisphere’s autumn. Temperatures along the coast of Chile and in Santiago, the capital, dipped near freezing and made this month the coldest May the country has seen since 1950, according to the Chilean meteorological agency. A succession of polar air masses moved over southern swaths of the continent.
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