Angie Stone, the Grammy-nominated US hip hop pioneer whose group The Sequence was one of the first all-female groups to record a rap song, has died in a car crash.
Stone, 63, known for the 2001 hit Wish I Didn’t Miss You, died in a car accident in Montgomery, Alabama, early on Saturday, following a performance, her representative Deborah R Champagne said.
Guy Todd Williams, better known as Rahiem from the Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five, the first rap group inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, said nine other passengers were in a van with Stone during the accident but she was the only fatality.
Image: Angie Stone singing at the Blue Balls Festival in Lucerne, Switzerland in 2004. File pic: AP
Music producer Walter Millsap III told The Associated Press in an email: “Unfortunately, at around 4am while heading back to Atlanta from Alabama, the Sprinter flipped over and was subsequently hit by a big rig. Thankfully, all survived except for Angie.”
Stone, who was nominated for three Grammy Awards, including for best female R&B vocal performance in 2005, was also a songwriter and acted in movies and on Broadway.
Born in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1961, Stone honed her singing talents in church.
She helped form female hip-hop trio The Sequence, whose most popular song, 1979’s Funk You Up, peaked at 15 on Billboard’s Hot Soul Singles.
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The song has been sampled by numerous artists, including Dr Dre.
Image: Angie Stone performs with Dan Aykroyd, second left, and Jim Belushi as the Blues Brothers at a tribute to Aretha Franklin in 2008. File pic: AP
It was the first rap hit performed by women, according to Rolling Stone.
The group were signed to the now defunct Sugar Hill Records, which also represented Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five, among other artists.
Williams said Stone “left her indelible mark on the music industry initially as a member of the legendary rap group Sequence”.
Her success in the UK was modest but her 1999 album Black Diamond and 2001 LP Mahogany Soul went Gold and spawned several chart hits.
She also had a number of successful collaborations with artists such as Guru, Omar, Macy Gray, Moby, Prince and Blue including on the 2003 top 11 chart hit Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours.
She created hits such as No More Rain (In This Cloud) which reached number one for 10 weeks on Billboard’s Adult R&B airplay chart, Baby with soul singer Betty Wright, another number one hit, as well as Wish I Didn’t Miss You and Brotha.
Mahogany Soul also reached number 22 on the Billboard 200, while 2007’s The Art Of Love & War peaked at number 11.
She tried her hand at acting, appearing in The Hot Chick starring Rob Schneider, The Fighting Temptations which starred Cuba Gooding Jr and Beyonce, and Ride Along featuring Ice Cube and Kevin Hart.
Stone also trod the boards on Broadway as Big Mama Morton in the musical Chicago, and appeared in the reality TV shows Celebrity Fit Club and R&B Divas: Atlanta.
Four people are in hospital as police deal with an active shooter on a university campus in Florida.
Videos showed people running through traffic, fleeing the scene, around the time of the shooting at the student union at Florida State University’s campus in Tallahassee.
Local police were “on the scene or on the way”, according to an alert sent out by the school and students have been told to “shelter in place”.
The FBI is also said to be responding to the incident.
Image: Florida State University students wait for news amid an active shooter incident at the school.
Pic: AP/Kate Payne
In a statement, Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare said it was “actively receiving and caring for patients” from the incident.
“At this time, details are still unfolding, and we do not yet have specific information to share. However, we want to assure the community that our teams are fully mobilised and prepared to provide the highest level of care and support to all those affected,” it added.
President Donald Trump said he was fully briefed on the incident and described it as “a shame”.
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He added: “It’s a horrible thing. Horrible that things like this take place.”
Florida governor Ron DeSantis, in a statement posted on X, said: “Our prayers are with our FSU family and state law enforcement is actively responding.”
Ambulances, fire trucks and police vehicles raced to the campus around midday local time (5pm UK time) on Thursday.
As students streamed away from the area of the student union in their hundreds, some were visibly emotional and others were glued to their phones.
Dozens later gathered near the university’s music school, waiting for news.
Florida State University student Daniella Streety told NBC News of the chaos that unfolded at the scene.
She remained on lockdown in a campus building and said: “I did see them carry out one student in what looked like on a stretcher and kept them in the road until an ambulance was able to pick them up.”
Joshua Sirmans, 20, was in the university’s main library when he said alarms began going off warning of an active shooter.
Police escorted him and other students out of the library with their hands over their heads, he said.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
A US federal judge has warned that he could hold the Trump administration in contempt for violating his orders to turn around planes carrying deportees to El Salvador.
US District Judge James E. Boasberg said he had found “probable cause” to hold the administration in criminal contempt and warned he could refer the matter for prosecution if it does not “purge” its contempt.
If the government doesn’t purge the contempt, charges could be brought forward by the Justice Department, NBC News reported.
And if the executive-led Justice Department refused to prosecute the matter, Judge Boasberg said he would appoint another attorney to prosecute the contempt.
Mr Boasberg said the administration could “purge contempt by returning those who were sent to El Salvador prison, in violation of his order, to the US.
This, he said, “might avail themselves of their right to challenge their removability”.
“The Constitution does not tolerate wilful disobedience of judicial orders – especially by officials of a coordinate branch who have sworn an oath to uphold it,” the judge wrote.
Executive vs judicial
This marks a notable escalation in the ongoing tensions between the judicial and executive branches of the US government during Donald Trump’s second term.
Parts of the US president’s legislative programme have been halted by judges, as the administration strains against the restraints of the separation of powers.
Mr Trump previously called for Judge Boasberg to be impeached while the Justice Department claimed he overstepped his authority – both reflecting the administration’s attempts to overcome perceived obstacles to the implementation of its agenda.
Mr Trump’s administration has also argued it did not violate any orders.
It claimed the judge didn’t include a turnaround directive in his written order and said the planes had already left the US by the time the order came down.
‘Administrative error’
At the heart of the legal wrangling is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was sent to El Salvador by the Trump administration in March despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation.
Washington acknowledged that Mr Garcia was deported due to an “administrative error”.
The US Supreme Court has called on the administration to facilitate his return, upholding a court order by Judge Paula Xinis, but Trump officials have claimed that Mr Garcia has ties to the MS-13 gang.
Image: Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Pic: CASA/AP
Mr Garcia’s lawyers have argued there is no evidence of this.
This all comes after El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele visited the White House earlier this week.
During his time with Mr Trump, Mr Bukele said that he would not return Mr Garcia, likening it to smuggling “a terrorist into the United States.”
Image: The US and El Salvador presidents in the Oval Office.
Pic: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque
Along with Mr Garcia, the Trump administration has deported hundreds of people, mostly Venezuelans, whom it claims are gang members without presenting evidence and without a trial.
Democrat senator travels to El Salvador
Meanwhile, Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen arrived in El Salvador on Wednesday, saying he would seek a meeting with the country’s officials to secure Mr Garcia’s release.
“I just arrived in San Salvador a little while ago and look forward to meeting with the US embassy team to discuss Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release,” Mr Van Hollen said on social media.
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Body camera footage of Gene Hackman’s home has been released by authorities investigating the deaths of the actor and his wife.
The video captured by Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office shows officers inside and outside the property in northern New Mexico, with a German shepherd barking at some points as they carry out their search.
Image: Hackman and Arakawa pictured in 2003. Pic: AP/ Mark J Terrill
The bodies of Hackman, 95, and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, 65, were found in separate rooms of their home on 26 February.
“He’s guarding her,” a male officer can be heard saying, about the dog found alive at the home. “He seems pretty friendly.”
There is another “10-7 dog” – meaning the pet is dead – “round the corner in the kennel”, the officer says.
Rat nests and dead rodents were also discovered in several outbuildings around the property, an environmental assessment by the New Mexico Department of Health revealed.
The inside of the home was clean and showed no evidence of rodent activity.
In March, a medical investigator concluded Arakawa died from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, a rare infectious disease that can be caused by exposure to rodents.
Image: Law enforcement officials pictured outside the property in Santa Fe the day after Hackman and Arakawa’s bodies were found. Pic: AP/Roberto Rosales
According to the records now released by the county sheriff’s office, Arakawa was researching medical conditions related to COVID-19 and flu between 8 February and the morning of 12 February.
In one email to a masseuse, she said Hackman had woken on 11 February with flu or cold-like symptoms and that she wanted to reschedule an appointment “out of an abundance of caution”.
Search history on the morning of 12 February showed she was looking into a medical concierge service in Santa Fe. Investigators said there was a call to the service which lasted under two minutes, and a follow-up call from them later that afternoon was missed.
The police footage shows officers checking the home and finding no signs of forced entry or other suspicious signs.
Image: Pic: Santa Fe County Sheriff via AP
What is hantavirus?
HPS, commonly known as hantavirus disease, is a respiratory disease caused by hantaviruses – which are carried by several types of rodents.
It is a rare condition in the US, with most cases concentrated in the western states of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah. This was the first confirmed case in New Mexico this year.
There has so far been no confirmation about any potential link by authorities between the rodents and the hantavirus disease that claimed Arakawa’s life.
Who was Gene Hackman?
Image: Pic: AP 1993
Hackman was a former Marine whose work on screen began with an uncredited TV role in 1961.
Acting became his career for many years, and he went on to play villains, heroes and antiheroes in more than 80 films spanning a range of genres.
He was best known by many for playing evil genius Lex Luthor in the Superman films in the late 1970s and ’80s, and won Oscars for his performances in The French Connection and Unforgiven.
After roles in The Royal Tenenbaums, Behind Enemy Lines and Runaway Jury in the 2000s, he left acting behind after his final film, Welcome To Mooseport.
He and Arakawa, a pianist, had been together since the mid-1980s.