GLENDALE, Ariz. — Shohei Ohtani stunned the Los Angeles Dodgers — and many around the world — with his marriage announcement on Thursday, so manager Dave Roberts said any gift the team gives the two-time MVP would be like most of the money in his contract: deferred.

“I’m very happy for him and his bride,” Roberts said, smiling. “As far as wedding gifts, we got surprised and didn’t have much time to think about it. I’m sure it’s en route.”

Ohtani, the two-way Japanese star, revealed on Instagram early Thursday that he was married. Much of the relationship remains shroudded in mystery.

“She is a Japanese woman,” Ohtani said through an interpreter. “I don’t really feel comfortable talking about when I got married exactly, but she’s a normal Japanese woman.”

Ohtani only gave a few more tidbits about the relationship during a short interview on Thursday, saying he had known his new bride for three or four years.

The 29-year-old Ohtani is Japan’s biggest celebrity. There has been curiosity about his personal life, which he has always kept private. His focus and his image has always been 100%-baseball focused and free of scandals and tabloid news.

“I felt like it was good timing because it was before the season,” Ohtani said. “I didn’t really want any distractions once the season started. I would have liked to announce it earlier, but there were some paperwork issues that (delayed) the whole process.”

Ohtani moved from the Los Angeles Angels to the Dodgers in December on a record $700 million, 10-year contract that calls for $680 million to be paid from 2034-43.

Ohtani said his marriage didn’t affect how he treated free agency.

“She has a great understanding of my profession, and she’s willing to be wherever I wanted to play and ultimately it was my decision,” Ohtani said.

The post on Instagram included a photo of his dog “Dekopin,” whom Ohtani also calls “Decoy.”

He wrote: “We hope the two of us — and one animal — will work together.”

The news broke in the middle of the night in North America and late afternoon in Japan where it was immediately the top news item.

Japanese television reports daily on his training in the United States and, because of his unprecedented success in North America, he has become the pride of Japan. The Dodgers have become Japan’s de facto team.

Ohtani is training with the Dodgers as they prepare to open in Seoul, South Korea, on March 20-21 in a two-game series against the San Diego Padres.

Ohtani junderwent surgery on his right elbow last September and will not pitch this season. He will be used as a designated hitter and there is a possibility he could play in the field.

In his spring training debut this week, he hit a two-run home run against the Chicago White Sox.

Ohtani has hit 171 home runs, including 44 last season, and has a .274 career batting average along with a 38-19 pitching record in five seasons. He missed the 2019 season due to elbow surgery and has a 3.01 career ERA.

He was the 2018 AL Rookie of the Year and the 2021 and ’23 AL MVP in 2021, often compared to Babe Ruth for his skill as a two-way player.

But Cooper has a different view of nudity when it comes to the privacy of his own home. In an interview on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, the “Maestro” actor and director said he grew up with a father who was “always nude” in their house, according to the Daily Mail.

So, Cooper said, he has a very relaxed approach when it comes to shedding his clothes behind closed doors, including around his 6-year-old daughter.

When Shepard revealed that he and his wife, actor Kristen Bell, are pretty relaxed about nudity at home, saying he and his family are “naked all the time,” Cooper agreed, “Me too.”

“I was like that. Not with my mom but with my dad,” Cooper told Shepard, according to the Daily Mail. “My dad was always nude, always took showers with him.”

“And you’re quite comfortable nude?” Shepard asked.

“Totally,” Cooper said.

Cooper revealed that he and his daughter Lea — whom he co-parents with ex-girlfriend Irina Shayk — regularly chat while he is on the toilet. For his part, Shepard said that his daughters, Lincoln, 10, and Delta, 9, regularly “file in” to the bathroom to talk during his “poopy time.”

In response, Cooper laughed: “My bedroom — the bathtub and toilet and bed are all in the same room.”

“It’s 24/7, dude! There are no doors,” Cooper said, according to the Daily Mail. “The stairs go up and it’s all one floor.”

When Shepard asked, “Do you find that your daughter doesn’t care at all?’

Cooper replied, “Yeah, no, no. We talk where I’m on the toilet, she’s in the bathtub; that’s sort of the go-to.”

The Swedish actor, who is best known for the “Dune” and “Mission: Impossible” franchises, touched off this internet guessing game when she recently recounted her heated exchange with a co-star during an appearance on the “Reign With Josh Smith” podcast Tuesday, the New York Post and other outlets reported.

“I did a film with an absolute idiot of a co-star and it doesn’t matter who it was,” Ferguson began.

“I remember there was a moment when this human being was being so insecure and angry because this person couldn’t get the scenes out,” Ferguson shared. “And I think I was so vulnerable and uncomfortable that I got screamed at.

“But because this person was No. 1 on a call sheet, there was no safety net for me,” Ferguson added. “So no one had my back. And I would cry walking off set.”

But Ferguson said she rallied by the next day and stood up for herself. She told her co-star, “You get off my set. You can (expletive) off. I’m gonna work towards a tennis ball. I never want to see you again.” While producers told her, “You can’t do this to No. 1. We have to let this person be on set,’” she replied that “the person can turn around and I can act to the back of the head.”

Ferguson added that this happened “within my last 10 or 12 years.”

Everyone pretty much agrees that it’s wrong that Ferguson had to deal with such a big, raging, fragile ego, though. Hollywood has long been filled with big, raging, fragile egos. But her story still raises the question of who yelled at her.

As Decider writer Liz Kocan wrote, Ferguson provided few clues. She was careful not to use gender pronouns. The only thing she said is that the A-list actor or actress was no. 1 on the call sheet, the project was a movie and that the incident occurred 10 or 12 years ago.

The New York Post and Decider listed many of of Ferguson’s major co-stars. They include Tom Cruise, Hugh Jackman, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Grant, Michael Fassbender, Chris Hemsworth, Ewan McGregor, Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt.

It should be noted that, in her interview, Ferguson clarified that her screaming co-star was not Cruise or Jackman, her co-star in “The Greatest Showman.”

With that, here is a breakdown of the leading contenders to be Ferguson’s unnamed screaming co-star based on reports and social media speculation.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson 

The Hayward native, Ferguson’s co-star in the 2014 film “Hercules,” actually rushed to distance himself from her accusations. In a post on X, Johnson wrote, “Hate seeing this but love seeing her stand up to (expletive). Rebecca was my guardian angel sent from heaven on our set. I love that woman. I’d like to find out who did this.”

Unfortunately, Johnson may not have done himself any favors with this post, as Decider’s Kocan pointed out. On one hand, it’s “great that Johnson was quick to jump in with his support,” Kocan said. On the other hand, Johnson’s post may be an example of a self-serving actor “trying to get ahead of the story,” cynics said. Kocan also said that he’s “had his share of ego moments on movie sets, including his notorious rivalry with Vin Diesel, and the role he played in tanking the success of “Shazam‘s” sequel and his own Black Adam franchise.

Jake Gyllenhaal

For Decider’s Kocan, Gyllenhaal is a top contender, even though Gyllenhaal’s collaboration with Ferguson is more recent than 10 or 12 years ago. They co-starred in the 2017 film “Life” with Ryan Reynolds, who isn’t among the top contenders for the screamer.

Nonetheless, Kocan wrote how Gyllenhaal recently made news for his alleged demanding behavior in pre-production for the film “Suddenly.” That film’s director, Thomas Bidegain, told a French magazine about a “humiliating” situation involving Gyllenhaal, according to Variety. The magazine story also described how Gyllenhaal demanded multiple rewrites and rehearsed scenes in a mocking “Pepe Le Pew-like accent.”

During the press tour for “Life,” Gyllenhaal also made some arrogant comments about the art of acting, which may echo what Ferguson’s screaming co-star said to her: “You call yourself an actor?” Gyllenhaal told The Guardian in 2017 that it “seems to me that anybody feels they can be an actor nowadays.”

Hugh Grant

Ferguson was in the 2016 movie “Florence Foster Jenkins” with both Grant and Meryl Streep. Many social media sleuths are pointing the finger at the “Notting Hill” star who has developed a reputation for being curmudgeonly, the New York Post said.

When another person argued that Streep was the star of the film, still another pointed out that Grant could have been No. 1 on the call sheet the day that he filmed scenes that involved Ferguson.

Someone else wrote: “I’ll bet it was Hugh Grant, I’ve read stuff about him being really rude and hard to work with. He’s even said himself that his female costars probably hate him.”

Michael Fassbender 

Fassbender and Ferguson co-starred in the poorly reviewed 2017 serial killer thriller, “The Snowman.” According to The Post, many movie fans believe that Fassbender, famous for his intense roles, was the screamer.

“It’s Michael Fassbender y’all,” one person declared.  “This was definitely Fassbender,” another said. 

But others defended Fassbender, based on the way that he and Ferguson appeared to get along well while doing publicity together for “The Snowman.” Still, one person pointed out: “People posting interviews with them together doesn’t prove a damn thing. Publicity tours are part of the job and they’re ACTORS.”

In fact, Harry may believe that he received vindication from the NYPD in December over the widely derided claims that he and his wife Meghan Markle made six months earlier about being involved in a “near catastrophic” two-hour car chase with paparazzi in Manhattan, the Daily Beast reported.

The NYPD  found that the behavior of the paparazzi pursuing Harry, Meghan and her mother, Doria Ragland, was not just “reckless” but also “persistently dangerous,” the Daily Beast had said. Harry and Meghan claimed that the nighttime pursuit through the streets of Manhattan caused “multiple near collisions” with other drivers, pedestrians and police officers.”

In a letter to London’s Metropolitan Police, Dec. 6, 2023, the NYPD’s Chief of Intelligence explained that “certain changes to the security posture” will be provided to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex when they next visit the city, following a “thorough review” of the incident, the Daily Beast reported.

The intelligence chief wrote: “We found the following: reckless disregard of vehicle and traffic laws and persistently dangerous and unacceptable behavior on the part of the paparazzi during the night in question,” the Daily Beast reported. The intelligence chief also said that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office concluded there was sufficient evidence to arrest two individuals for “reckless endangerment,” though no arrests had yet taken place.

This opinion represents a major turnaround for the NYPD, which originally joined Mayor Eric Adams and a cab driver who briefly transported the couple during the incident in suggesting that there was no car chase.

A spokesperson for the police department downplayed the seriousness of the pursuit at the time, saying “The NYPD assisted the private security team protecting the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. There were numerous photographers that made their transport challenging. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrived at their destination and there were no reported collisions, summonses, injuries, or arrests in regard.”

The police in June also said that Sussexes’ claims warranted “no further investigation.” Meanwhile, their car-chase description also was challenged by an extensive report by the New York Times, and “pretty much anyone who has ever sat in a Manhattan traffic jam” mocked the couple or suggested that the couple exaggerated the nature of the pursuit, the Daily Beast said.

On The View, Whoopi Goldberg even cracked jokes about the couple’s claims, saying, “If it was possible to have car chases in New York, we’d all make it to the theatre on time.”

Goldberg continued, “I think their spokesperson referenced something you generally would reference in Los Angeles. That’s where you have chases, that’s where you can move at high speeds.”

The intelligence chief’s briefing was revealed Wednesday in Harry’s court case in the U.K., the Daily Beast reported.

The California-based son of King Charles III filed a lawsuit with the British government over its 2020 decision that he, Meghan and their two children — Prince Archie, 4, and Princess Lilibet, 2 — were no longer entitled to the “same degree” of taxpayer-funded security when visiting Britain because they had stopped working as senior members of the royal family, The Telegraph reported.

Instead, a government committee created a “bespoke” approach that involved assessing each visit on its merits, but Harry said this approach has resulted in him being denied police protection on each subsequent return to the U.K., The Telegraph reported.

A judge in London’s High Court dismissed Harry’s argument that the committee’s decisions on his security weren’t legal or based on sound consideration of the risks to him and his family, reported. Harry has vowed to appeal the ruling.

NEW YORK — Richard Lewis, an acclaimed comedian known for exploring his neuroses in frantic, stream-of-consciousness diatribes while dressed in all-black, leading to his nickname “The Prince of Pain,” has died. He was 76.

Lewis, who revealed he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2023, died at his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday night after suffering a heart attack, according to his publicist Jeff Abraham.

A regular performer in clubs and on late-night TV for decades, Lewis also played Marty Gold, the romantic co-lead opposite Jamie Lee Curtis, in the ABC series “Anything But Love” and the reliably neurotic Prince John in “Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood: Men In Tights.” He re-introduced himself to a new generation opposite Larry David in HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” kvetching regularly.

“Richard and I were born three days apart in the same hospital and for most of my life he’s been like a brother to me,” David said in a statement. “He had that rare combination of being the funniest person and also the sweetest. But today he made me sob and for that I’ll never forgive him.”

Comedy Central named Lewis one of the top 50 stand-up comedians of all time and he earned a berth in GQ magazine’s list of the “20th Century’s Most Influential Humorists.” He lent his humor for charity causes, including Comic Relief and Comedy Gives Back.

“Watching his stand-up is like sitting in on a very funny and often dark therapy session,” the Los Angeles Times said in 2014. The Philadelphia’s City Paper called him “the Jimi Hendrix of monologists.” Mel Brooks once said he “may just be the Franz Kafka of modern-day comedy.”

Comedians took to social media Wednesday to share their thoughts, including Albert Books who called Lewis “a brilliantly funny man who will missed by all. The world needed him now more than ever” on X, formerly Twitter. Other tributes came from Bette Midler, Michael McKean and Paul Feig, who called Lewis “one of the funniest people on the planet.”

Following his graduation from The Ohio State University in 1969, the New York-born Lewis began a stand-up career, honing his craft on the circuit with other contemporaries also just starting out like Jay Leno, Freddie Prinze and Billy Crystal.

He recalled Rodney Dangerfield hiring him for $75 to fill in at his New York club, Dangerfield’s. “I had a lot of great friends early on who believed in me, and I met pretty iconic people who really helped me, told me to keep working on my material. And I never looked back,” he told The Gazette of Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2010.

“I’m paranoid about everything in my life. Even at home. On my stationary bike, I have a rear-view mirror, which I’m not thrilled about,” he once joked onstage. To Jimmy Kimmel he said: “This morning, I tried to go to bed. I couldn’t sleep. I counted sheep but I only had six of them and they all had hip replacements.”

Unlike contemporary Robin Williams, Lewis allowed audiences into his world and melancholy, pouring his torment and pain onto the stage. Fans favorably compared him to the ground-breaking comedian Lenny Bruce.

“I take great pains not to be mean-spirited,” Lewis told The Palm Beach Post in 2007. “I don’t like to take real handicaps that people have to overcome with no hope in sight. I steer clear of that. That’s not funny to me. Tragedy is funny to other humorists, but it’s not to me, unless you can make a point that’s helpful.”

Singer Billy Joel has said he was referring to Lewis when he sang in “My Life” of an old friend who “bought a ticket to the West Coast/Now he gives them a stand-up routine in L.A.”

In 1989 at Carnegie Hall, he appeared with six feet of yellow legal sheets filled with material and taped together for a 2½-hour set that led to two standing ovations. The night was “the highlight of my career,” he told The Washington Post in 2020.

Lewis told GQ his signature look came incidentally, saying his obsession with dressing in black came from watching the television Western “Have Gun – Will Travel,” with a cowboy in all-black, when he was a kid. He also popularized the term “from hell” — as in “the date from hell” or “the job from hell.”

“That just came out of my brain one day and I kept repeating it a lot for some reason. Same thing with the black clothes. I just felt really comfortable from the early ’80s on and I never wore anything else. I never looked back.”

After getting sober from drugs and alcohol in 1994, Lewis put out his 2008 memoir, “The Other Great Depression” — a collection of fearless, essay style riffs on his life — and “Reflections from Hell.”

Lewis was the youngest of three siblings — his brother was older than him by six years, and his sister by nine. His father died young and his mother had emotional problems. “She didn’t get me at all. I owe my career to my mother. I should have given her my agent’s commission,” he told The Washington Post in 2020.

Lewis quickly found a new family performing at New York’s Improv. “I was 23, and all sorts of people were coming in and out and watching me, like Steve Allen and Bette Midler. David Brenner certainly took me under his wing. To drive home to my little dump in New Jersey often knowing that Steve Allen said, ‘You got it,’ that validation kept me going in a big, big way.”

He had a cameo in “Leaving Las Vegas,” which led to his first major dramatic role as Jimmy Epstein, an addict fighting for his life in the indie film, “Drunks.” He played Don Rickles’ son on one season of “Daddy Dearest” and a rabbi on “7th Heaven.”

Lewis’ recurring role on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” can be credited directly to his friendship with fellow comedian, producer and series star Larry David. Both native Brooklynites — born in the same Brooklyn hospital — they first met and became friends as rivals while attending the same summer camp at age 13. He was cast from the beginning, bickering with David on unpaid bills and common courtesies.

He is survived by his wife, Joyce Lapinsky.

“Is my hair a mess? Do I look like trash, right?” asked the legendary singer and pop culture icon. At this point, her famous blond hair was bound in school-girl braids. “You can’t always look good when you’re working hard, right?”

“I do my best. I do my best,” she said to the Chase Center crowd.

At Madonna’s behest, the audience held up the lights in their phones to create that starry-night effect so beloved by arena performers. “Remember the light you shine outside of you is also inside of you,” Madonna told her many adoring fans, while they joined her in singing, “Don’t go for second best, baby, Put your love to the test.”

It was perhaps the heartfelt, authentic moment in the 2½-hour concert, which for  the most part was exhilarating but could also be occasionally frustrating and messy, as if the show, or the star herself, were sometimes off her game.

It could be that Madonna was acknowledging that even she can’t always be perfect when she said, “I do my best. I do my best.”

Maybe that line was also a way for the 65-year-old to summarize a life and career marked by resilience and a determination to entertain, engage, push boundaries, make art. The Celebration Tour is Madonna’s first road show devoted to a career retrospective rather than on promoting a new album. That means the seven-part set list is populated with versions of “Into the Groove,” “Holiday,” “Vogue,” “Like a Virgin,” “La Isla Bonita,” and “Nothing Really Matters.”

This retrospective aspect of the show clearly pleased many in the crowd at Chase Center. It got them up and dancing and they didn’t seem to mind her usual hour-and-a-half-late start. These fans appeared to be her contemporaries and probably witnessed, first hand, her ascent to global stardom. A fair number also were women and gay men, who perhaps believe they benefited from Madonna’s many artistic campaigns on behalf of gender and sexuality equality.

But as a retrospective for an artist who is nearing the age to collect her full Social Security benefits (as if multimillionaire Madonna would need them), they also had to feel that the show offered plenty of reminders of the passage of time and of her mortality – and of their own.

For one thing, Madonna is no longer the most famous and influential music artist in the world – having been most recently supplanted by Taylor Swift and Beyonce. Meanwhile, her ability to shock has waned, though that doesn’t mean she didn’t still try to provoke and titillate Tuesday night  — featuring topless female dancers in some dance numbers, one of whom she French kisses a la Britney Spears at the 2003 VMAs. For “Justify My Love,” she also performed with dancers in flesh-colored tights in what’s supposed to evoke an orgy, though this number didn’t come off as sexy as it could have been.

Madonna fares better when she upends religious iconography in the show’s most spectacular number, “Like a Prayer.” She sings the anthemic work on a dramatic spinning carousel that held shirtless dancers striking poses that at times mimicked Christ’s crucifixion

It’s hard to deny that Madonna’s supposedly inexhaustible body shows that she’s a stage veteran who has pushed herself to physical extremes for decades. Sure, she looked amazing in the multiple corsets she donned and performed in almost non-stop for 2½ hours. There also were moments when she was able to skip down the runway, like her ‘80s club kid self.

But in the opening “Into the Groove,” she almost took a tumble over one of her dancers after completing a spin. At other times, she appeared to be slightly behind the beat. Much of the choreography appeared to be built around giving Madonna a break from doing the more athletic, intricate moves she used to be on board for.

Her dancers carried that weight. Madonna also had dancers dress up to perform as iconic younger versions of herself. This tactic was used in full force in the climactic number, “Bitch, I’m Madonna,” when the stage is populated by “Material Girl” and “Blonde Ambition”  Madonnas, and even a Madonna from her film role in “A League of their Own.” “Ozark” star Julia Garner, who reportedly was slated to play Madonna in a long-delayed film biography, also came on stage to portray one of these younger Madonnas versions of the singer in “Vogue.”

When Madonna kicked off the North American leg of her tour in Brooklyn in December, she acknowledged her close call with fate last July, when she contracted a bacterial infection that put her in the ICU and forced her to postpone her tour.

In some ways, the Celebration Tour’s name seems to underline the fact that she’s still here — unlike some of her peers. She devotes several songs and visuals to people who have died. There’s her mother, of course, whom she lost when she was 5. There’s also Prince, as well as the vast community of artists decimated by the AIDS epidemic. Some of these artists nurtured her when she was an ambitious young dancer and musician starting out in New York City in the early 1980s. They and so many others are represented by black-and-white images that flash on screen and grow into the hundreds and even the thousands.

Towards the end of the show, Madonna also offered a curious tribute to Michael Jackson, who died in 2009.  It may have been her way of circling the show back to her musical roots in the early 1980s when both she and Jackson ruled the pop culture universe, and when she reminds us they were friends in a montage of images of them together.

But it’s one of the more frustrating moments in the show. The number features a screen showing shadow images of dancers emulating Jackson and Madonna, while Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and “Smooth Criminal” plays along with Madonna’s “Like a Virgin.” However, it’s a recorded version of “Like a Virgin,” which was a bit of a letdown. Of course. This devoted crowd would likely have preferred to see Madonna drop the gimmickry to perform one of her biggest hits in person.

Set list 

Act 1
“Nothing Really Matters”
“Everybody”
“Into the Groove”
“Burning Up”
“Open Your Heart”
“Holiday”

Act II

“The Ritual”
“Like a Prayer”

Act III

“Erotica”
“Justify My Love”
“Hung Up”
“Bad Girl”

Act IV

“Vogue”
“Human Nature”
“Crazy for You”

Act V

“Die Another Day”
“Don’t Tell Me”
“Mother and Father”
“Express Yourself”
“La Isla Bonita”
“Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”

Act VI

“Bedtime Story”
“Ray of Light”
“Take a Bow”

Act VII

“Bitch I’m Madonna”
“Celebration”

Vallejo’s Ryan Bourland is a big name around Solano County because of his boxing resume but a relative unknown in the social media world.

Those two worlds collide Saturday in San Juan, Puerto Rico when the two face off in a cruiserweight undercard. Many consider Bourland (17-2, six knockouts) the underdog against the relatively inexperienced but powerful Paul (8-1, five knockouts).

“He’s a strong guy, and I know he’s knocked some people out,” Bourland said by phone earlier this month. “He’s pretty new to boxing. I’m pretty experienced, but I know he’s very dedicated. It should be a good fight. He’s a strong dude.”

The 35-year-old Bourland said the arena in Puerto Rico sits about 18,000 fans and is expected to be a sellout. The bout will begin around 4 p.m. on the West Coast and will be televised on DAZN, a subscription streaming service.

Bourland, nicknamed “Rhino” has been living in North Dakota since 2018 and working long hours on the oil rigs.

“It’s a very physical, tough job,” he said. “It’s long hours and the weather is very extreme. Mentally and physically, it’s very tough work.”

Bourland got married in North Dakota and just bought a house in Dickinson, N.D. area.

“I moved out here for work, but I continued to fight out here,” he said. “I continued to train at the gym. I haven’t had that many fights here, but I had one about a year and a half ago.”

Bourland knocked out Santonio Martin in the fifth round at Four Bears Casino in his last fight in 2022. His last fight in Northern California was in 2018 when he beat Jose Hernandez in a 10-round rematch in a super middleweight bout at Cache Creek Casino.

“I moved out here for work, but I’m always training,” he said. “I’m always in the gym.”

Bourland even ran a 58-mile marathon in June of last year through the mountains.

He had heard that Paul knocked a guy out and planned to fight again in March but didn’t have an opponent. Bourland Googled his manager and found him on social media. After some back and forth, they sent over the contracts, and Bourland signed.

Mario L’Esperance, Bourland’s coach when he trained in Solano County, flew out to North Dakota about 4-5 weeks ago, and the two have been training together.

“I’m still going to do what I do, but I think we have a great game plan for the fight,” he said. “I’m going to keep my same style, but it will be a different game plan than other fights.”

Paul rose to fame when he played the role of Dirk Mann on the Disney Channel series “Bizaardvark” for two seasons. He is known around social media circles because of his own YouTube channel. He dabbled in Mixed Martial Arts before moving to boxing.

Bourland knows that some people were surprised that a relative unknown was picked to fight Paul, but that’s OK with him. He joked with FightsATW that he was going to get some shirts made that said, “Who the f*** is Ryan Bourland?”

Paul is age 27 and Bourland is 35, but “Rhino” doesn’t see that as a disadvantage.

“I don’t feel old,” he said. “I’m in great shape. I’ve always taken care of my body.”

LOS ANGELES — The estate of Donna Summer sued Ye and Ty Dolla $ign on Tuesday for what its attorneys say is the “shamelessly” illegal use of her 1977 song “I Feel Love” in their collaboration “Good (Don’t Die).”

The copyright infringement lawsuit was filed in federal court in Los Angeles by Summer’s husband Bruce Sudano in his capacity as executor of the estate of the singer-songwriter and “Disco Queen,” who died in 2012.

The suit alleges that when representatives of Ye, formerly Kanye West, sought permission for use of the song they were rejected because the Summer estate “wanted no association with West’s controversial history.”

The suit contends that the album instead “shamelessly” includes re-recorded parts of the song that were “instantly recognizable.”

“In the face of this rejection,” the suit says, “defendants arrogantly and unilaterally decided they would simply steal ‘I Feel Love’ and use it without permission.”

An email seeking comment from representatives for Ye was not immediately returned.

“Good (Don’t Die)” was released February 10 on Ye and Ty Dolla $ign’s collaborative album, “About Vultures 1.” The lawsuit names as defendants both artists and Ye’s record label Yeezy.

The estate first publicly alleged the copyright violation in an Instagram post on the official Summer account on the day of the album’s release.

It seeks a judge’s injunction stopping any further circulation of the song, and money damages to be determined at trial.

The song does not currently appear on the version of the album available on Spotify and other streaming services.

NEW YORK — Two men were convicted of murder Tuesday in the death of Run-DMC star Jam Master Jay, a brazen 2002 shooting in the rap legend’s studio.

An anonymous Brooklyn federal jury found Karl Jordan Jr. and Ronald Washington guilty on charges of murder while engaged in a narcotics trafficking conspiracy and firearm-related murder for killing the pioneering DJ over what prosecutors characterized as revenge for a failed drug deal.

“Y’all just killed two innocent people,” Washington yelled at the jury following the guilty verdict.

Jordan’s supporters also erupted at the verdict, cursing the jury. “I love y’all,” Jordan said to the group who sat in the courtroom pews before they were escorted out by U.S. Marshalls after more yelling.

Jam Master Jay, born Jason Mizell, worked the turntables in Run-DMC as it helped hip-hop break into the pop music mainstream in the 1980s with such hits as “It’s Tricky” and a fresh take on Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way.” Mizell later started a record label, opened a studio in his old Queens neighborhood and helped bring along other talent, including rapper 50 Cent.

Mizell was gunned down in his studio in front of witnesses on Oct. 30, 2002.

Like the slayings of rap icons Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. in the late 1990s, the Mizell case remained open for years. Authorities were deluged with tips, rumors and theories but struggled to get witnesses to open up.

Jordan, 40, was the famous DJ’s godson. Washington, 59, was an old friend who was bunking at the home of the DJ’s sister. Both men were arrested in 2020 and pleaded not guilty.

“Twenty years is a long time to wait for justice,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Artie McConnell had told jurors in a closing argument, urging them: “Don’t let this go on for another minute.”

The men’s names, or at least their nicknames, have been floated for decades in connection to the case. Authorities publicly named Washington as a suspect in 2007. He, meanwhile, told Playboy magazine in 2003 he’d been outside the studio, heard the shots and saw “Little D” — one of Jordan’s monikers — racing out of the building.

Prosecutors contend that the two men turned on the rap star over a cocaine deal.

Mizell had been part of Run-DMC’s anti-drug message, delivered through a public service announcement and such lyrics as “we are not thugs / we don’t use drugs.” But according to prosecutors and trial testimony, he racked up debts after the group’s heyday and moonlighted as a cocaine middleman to cover his bills and habitual generosity to friends.

“He was a man who got involved in the drug game to take care of the people who depended on him,” McConnell said in his summation.

Prosecution witnesses testified that in Mizell’s final months, he had a plan to acquire 10 kilograms of cocaine and sell it through Jordan, Washington and a Baltimore-based dealer. But the Baltimore connection refused to work with Washington, according to testimony.

According to prosecutors, Washington and Jordan went after Mizell for the sake of vengeance, greed and jealousy.

Two eyewitnesses, former studio aide Uriel Rincon and former Mizell business manager Lydia High, testified that Washington blocked the door and ordered High to lie on the floor. She said he brandished a gun.

Rincon identified Jordan as the man who approached Mizell and exchanged a friendly greeting moments before shots rang out and one bullet wounded Rincon himself. Three other people, including a teenage singer who had just stopped by the studio to tout her demo tape, testified that they were in an adjoining room and heard but didn’t see what happened.

Other witnesses testified that Washington and Jordan made incriminating statements about the Mizell killing after it happened.

Neither Washington nor Jordan testified. Their lawyers questioned key prosecution witnesses’ credibility and their memories of the long-ago shooting, noting that some initially denied they could identify the attackers or had heard who they were.

“Virtually every witness changed their testimony 180 degrees,” one of Washington’s lawyers, Susan Kellman, told the judge during legal arguments.

The witnesses said they had been overwhelmed, loath to pass along secondhand information or scared for their lives.

Washington’s defense also tapped a retired psychology professor, who testified that people’s recollections of any event can become a blend of what they actually experienced and subsequently learned.

The trial shed limited light on a third defendant, Jay Bryant, who was charged last year after prosecutors said his DNA was found on a hat at the scene. They assert that he slipped into the studio building and let Washington and Jordan in through fire door in the back so they could avoid buzzing up.

Bryant has pleaded not guilty and is headed toward a separate trial.

Testimony suggested that he knew someone in common with his co-defendants, but there’s no indication that Bryant was close with Mizell, if indeed they ever met.

McConnell said Bryant was “involved, but he’s not the killer.” Prosecutors’ theory doesn’t even place Bryant in the studio, though that’s where authorities found the hat with DNA from him and other people — but not the other defendants, according to court filings.

Still, McConnell suggested that Jordan or Washington could accidentally have left the hat behind after Bryant came into contact with it. But lawyers for Washington and Jordan portrayed the garment as a key piece of evidence in their clients’ favor.

“Jay Bryant is literally reasonable doubt,” one of Jordan’s lawyers, Michael Hueston, told jurors.

While the case may complicate Mizell’s image, Syracuse University media professor J. Christopher Hamilton says it shouldn’t be blotted out.

If he was indeed involved in dealing drugs, “that doesn’t mean to say his achievements shouldn’t be lauded,” said Hamilton, a former entertainment lawyer and Brooklyn prosecutor who grew up partly in Mizell’s neighborhood. Hamilton argues that acceptance from local underworld figures was a necessity for successful rappers of the ’80s and ’90s.

“You don’t get these individuals without them walking through the gauntlet of the street,” Hamilton said.

Known online for sharing his unique brand of positivity, mental health support and “library joy,” Threets was named a winner of the American Library Association’s “I Love My Librarian” award for 2023 — one of just 10 winners nationwide from a pool of over 1,400 librarians.

“Dear Solano County Library, I just want to say thank you,” Threets said in a Tik-Tok video announcing his resignation. “Thank you for raising me as a homeschool library kid. This is the place where I’ve always felt safe, where I’ve always felt like I belong, where I’ve always felt like I’ve had friends.”

RELATED: Bay Area librarian and TikTok star Mychal Threets works to spread ‘library joy’

Despite an overwhelming outpouring of love and support for his hopeful and encouraging content, Threets has repeatedly faced online bullying and harassment for the videos he makes. He has repeatedly spoken candidly about how the backlash has affected his mental health while remaining kind and positive about those who have hurt him.

“I hope those people have a much better day tomorrow,” he said of the bullying on Tik-Tok. “I hope they experience kindness. I hope they experience joy. I hope they remember that they still belong at the library. I hope better days are ahead of them.”

Threets, whose last day is March 1, says his first job working in a library was in the Solano County Library, and it gave him a chance to follow his dream.

“I went from library kid to being in charge of the library where I grew up in,” Threets said. “It has been the honor of my life.”

Threets apologized to those who would be disappointed in his absence but assured them he would still be around and visiting the library. He said he has made some of his closest friends at the Solano County Library.

“To the library kids, to the library grown-ups, I am so very sorry,” he said.

Threets’ content often focuses on “library kids” and their interactions with him and library resources. While Solano County is considered to be one of the more diverse counties in the nation, Threets says children of color are shocked that there is someone who looks like them and their family working at the library with tattoos and big hair.

Threets says the drive to help people feel like they belong comes from his own experience as a lifelong library visitor.

“I am the truest form of a library kid,” he said, “I first visited the library when I was 3.”

Threets hopes to fight for literacy across the nation and continue to support libraries worldwide as he moves forward. He plans to go before Congress to speak about the importance of library funding and support. Threets said he hopes people in Solano County understand that the library is for everyone, and that mentally ill and unsheltered people should feel safe and welcome there. Often, the library can connect resources to those in need.

“Funding libraries is funding the community, funding our togetherness, our unity,” he said.

The librarian said he would be checking in with those close to him and using this time to focus on his mental health while continuing to search for library joy.

“Your mental health matters and it always will,” the librarian wrote in his farewell post. “Be kind, my friends. This librarian is proud of you for existing. I see you, I see you shining. You’re extraordinary.”